“You are mistaken, Herr Doktor Husten,” I said quite coldly. “Everything there, the business, the bank account, the outstanding bills, the house, all belong to me, and to me alone. Not to my wife. I’m not in any asylum yet, I’m not put away yet …”
“Of course, of course,” said the lawyer soothingly, “that is absolutely correct. Unfortunately I expressed myself wrongly. I shouldn’t have said ‘without means’. Let us put it this way: that you are at present somewhat impeded in the disposal of your assets, while your wife, as your faithful trustee …”
“I’m going to see to it, Herr Doktor Husten,” I said finally, “that my wife does not continue for much longer in the position of trustee. Then perhaps her interest in getting me shut up for life in a lunatic asylum may diminish a little more rapidly. I shall tell my wife that your visit has absolutely convinced me of the necessity for an immediate divorce.”
“My dear friend,” said the lawyer sonorously, shaking his great actor’s head. “How young you are for your forty years! (You are forty, aren’t you?) Always beating your head against the wall! Always throwing out the baby with the bath-water! Well, well, you’ll be calmer once you come under the appropriate medical care!”
Now there was something unspeakably sarcastic about his sickening friendly grin.
“Apart from all that, I am probably not incorrect in assuming that I am not to regard myself as your confidential lawyer?”
“Quite right, Herr Doktor Husten.”
“I am truly sorry. I am not sorry for my sake (yours is only a small case for me, Herr Sommer, a very small case), I am sorry for you and your wife. You are running blindly into trouble, Herr Sommer, and by the time your eyes are opened, it will be too late. A pity.”
He quickly took my hand and shook it.
“But let us not part as enemies, Herr Sommer. We have met, we have talked, now we part. ‘Ships that pass in the night.’ You know that excellent book of the Baroness? I wish you all good luck, Herr Sommer!”
With that, Herr Doktor Husten left my cell with his head in the air; I only followed some distance behind, and returned to my sawing in the wood-yard. There I reported our discussion to Mordhorst down to the smallest detail, was praised by him for the first time, and was strengthened in my determination to hurry on my divorce from Magda as much as possible, and to deprive her of the management of my property.
33
But I was unable to get on with any of this for the time being. Other things intervened, which seemed to me more important. On the morning after Dr Husten’s visit, when the warder unlocked our cell and I hurried towards the latrine with my full bucket, I suddenly stopped short in amazement. I could not trust my own ears, and yet there was no deception: from a cell which had just been opened, came a soft, insinuating, whispering voice, a voice that was inextricably bound up with my drunkenness, a voice that I destested from the bottom of my heart—Lobedanz’s voice!
I hazarded a quick glance. Yes, there he stood with his gentle, sallow face, with the dark beard and dark slashed-back hair with its red-gold sheen, there he stood, talking softly to his cell-mate, and pulling at his fingers till they cracked. He was trying to get something out of the other fellow, for sure, the poor honest working-man!
I hurried past the cell as quickly as I could, emptied and cleaned out my bucket, and crept back into my own cell, taking care not to be seen. That morning Duftermann had to do the “outside work” of cell-cleaning; however much he grumbled, he had to fetch the broom and cloth and the clean water; I had no desire to be seen by Lobedanz.
But inwardly I was filled with triumph and malicious joy. They had caught the sly hypocritical Lobedanz, they had put him in gaol, and only one thought still bothered me; whether they had managed to recover the loot, or a substantial part of it, from Lobedanz. But I was not to remain long in uncertainty about that. As usual we went out into the wood-yard, but without Lobedanz, either because he had not volunteered for work, or because the governor knew that we were mixed up in the same affair. In such cases, care is taken not to allow the accomplices to come into contact with each other.
Mordhorst and I placed ourselves at our saw-bench and began our day’s work, this time of a most agreeable kind—soft smooth pine-logs, child’s play for such practised men as we were. The first log was sawn up, and while I was putting the second one into position on one bench, I asked my workmate the question that was repeated every morning: “What’s new about the place?”
“Mhm!” murmured Mordhorst, and set the saw on. Then: “A new arrival. A con man, it seems.”
We began to saw. Then I stopped again. “What has he done?”
“Who? Done what?” asked Mordhorst, whose thoughts were miles away, probably still revolving around that bitter fate by which he had been caught in such a mud-hole, and over such an undignified little job.
“Who? Done what?”
“The new man!” I reminded him.
“Oh, him. What do those fellows have the nerve to do?”
And he tried to start sawing again, but I held tight to the saw-handle. “No, tell me, Mordhorst, it really interests me. I think I saw the fellow this morning.”
“That may be. He’s in your block. What has he done? Robbed a stiff of course, what else would a geezer like that have the pluck for? Just lifted some stuff from some drunken old soak, you know.”
“I know,” answered the drunken old soak, “and had he managed to put his loot away safely?”
“No idea. I suppose so—even he is not so daft!”
“Find out, Mordhorst. I’m very interested to know.”
“Why are you so interested? It seems funny.”
“Not to me. Because I was the drunken old soak the fellow robbed. You remember, Mordhorst, he’s that landlord who did me down when I was drunk. I told you about him.”
“Ah, that’s him,” said Mordhorst, grinning with delight. “There’ll be a fine old rumpus when he finds you’re here, seeing it’s you who got him in chokey.”
“Well, find out, Mordhorst, whether he managed to put the stuff away. He’s got two gold rings and a gold watch of mine, table-silver for twelve people, a cowhide suitcase with some things in it, a leather brief-case, and four thousand marks.”
“Not bad,” grinned Mordhorst. “Far too much for such a lousy rogue. Well, I’ll let you know.” And we went on sawing, silently now—the warder was looking at us.
It was some days before I got to see Lobedanz or heard his voice again. In the mornings, when I went bucketing, his cell-door was always shut, and was only opened after we had finished, a sign that they knew we were concerned with the same case. I heard nothing more from Mordhorst either. Whenever I insisted, he only answered, “Wait a bit, mate, I’ve got to spy around a bit first. Mordhorst never cracks a safe until he has spied around a bit.”
However, at last he was ready.
“He had over six thousand marks on him when the coppers nabbed him,” said Mordhorst. “And that’s straight up. Not only because he says so himself, but I got it from the orderly who cleans the office. They’ve got the money in there.”
“Then he must have sold all my things and I’ll never see them again,” I said, and suddenly I was very sad about the loss of all my gold and silver things. “He only took four thousand in cash from me, no more.”
“He might have had some money of his own,” replied Mordhorst. “It’s not sure that he flogged your stuff. He may have parked it somewhere.”
“That’s possible,” I admitted, “but I can’t quite believe it.”
For a long time we sawed in silence, one beech log after another.
Then Mordhorst suddenly said: “What would you give, mate, if I found out where that fellow has hidden the boodle?”
“Boodle—what’s that?”
“Your stuff, of course. What would you give?”
“What
“You have outside.”
