talking!”
“No need to, Kniebusch. Not a word. Though I don’t think it’s very decent of you when you know that I also am very nationalist and would prefer to march against the Reds today rather than tomorrow.”
“I promised most faithfully,” said the forester obstinately. “Don’t be angry, Meier.”
“Good Lord! Why should I be angry?” Meier laughed. “In fact I’m inviting you to lunch; you know, just as before. Rhine wine, champagne, Turkenblut.… Come along, old chap.” And he put his arm through the forester’s and was dragging him away.
“But, Meier!” cried the other in a panic, “I have my case—”
“Come along, come along,” persisted Meier. “Your case? As for that, there’s nothing to stop you having a drink; all the more because of your case.” He looked at the forester triumphantly. “Yes, you old boozer, you! That’s a surprise, eh? If I was as unfriendly as you are, I’d hold my tongue and think: Let him go on sitting there, the old crow—but I’m different. Come along, Kniebusch, and have one.”
“But, Meier—”
“Your case has been dropped, Kniebusch. It’s vanished. It’s blown up, Kniebusch; your case has bolted!”
“Man! Meier!” The forester was almost sobbing.
“Baumer escaped this morning at nine, Kniebusch!”
“Meier! Young Meier, you’re the best fellow in the world, the only friend I have.” Great tears were rolling down the forester’s cheeks into his beard; he was sobbing so much that Meier clapped him hard on the back. “Is it really true, Meier?”
“I saw it with my own eyes, Kniebusch. He’s a cunning hound, Baumer, always pretending to be at death’s door. They were going to bring him in an ambulance to the court, and as they came out of the hospital with the stretcher—they hadn’t even strapped him up, the poor chap was so ill—he gave one jump and the attendants went down with the stretcher and he went into the hospital garden. Shouts, chasing.… And I joined in the chase as well, but not in the right direction because I thought: Better for my old friend Kniebusch if they don’t get him.…”
“Meier!”
“Obviously it was a put-up job. You know Baumer’s had repeated visits in the hospital. There was a car waiting for him.”
“Meier, I’ll never forget what you’ve done, man. You can ask me anything you like.”
“I don’t want to. You don’t have to tell me anything. Only have lunch with me.”
“I’ll tell you everything. The others leave me in the lurch; you’re the only one to help me. What do you want to know, then?”
“I don’t want to know anything—unless you wish to ask me for advice or if you’re worried about the
He stopped short. With a superior air he addressed the usher. “Look here, what do you think you’re up to? Letting the old gentleman wait here over an hour when you know very well the chief witness for the prosecution has hopped it.”
“Yes, sir,” said the usher, “but we don’t do things in a hurry here. Officially the case comes on today; officially we don’t know yet of the disappearance of this particular witness.…”
“But don’t you know all this?”
“We’ve known about it for quite a while! The judges have disappeared once again as well.”
“Well, listen now, my man,” said Meier, and the forester was quite enchanted with the unceremonious way in which he treated the court official. “Then my friend can go and wet his whistle to celebrate.…”
“Far as we’re concerned,” said the usher. “If I wasn’t on duty I’d come too.”
“Well, you go along later.” Meier spoke like a prince, bringing out of his fur jacket a ball of carelessly crumpled notes, one of which he withdrew and, pressing it into the usher’s hand, said genteelly: “Good appetite! … Come along now, Kniebusch.” And went off with him.
Enraptured, Kniebusch followed his friend, the only person in the world whom he could really trust.
X
“Aren’t you sending the car back?” asked Frau Eva. It stood in the courtyard and the chauffeur was smoking beside it.
The Rittmeister hesitated a moment. Face to face with his wife, it was not easy to confess the purchase. There would be endless discussion.
“I’ll keep it—just for a few days to begin with,” he said, “The day after tomorrow all kinds of things will be decided, and that includes us.” He addressed the chauffeur. “Finger! Drive to the Villa. I don’t exactly know where we’re going to keep the car the next few days, but we’ll manage somehow. You’ll stay with us at first; my man will show you.”
“Very good, Herr Rittmeister,” replied the chauffeur, opening the door.
Frau Eva eyed the brilliantly finished, softly upholstered monster with a mixture of reluctance, fear and anger. “I can’t understand it,” she murmured as she got in. And she did not sit back in a corner, but bolt upright, despite cushions which invited her to relax.
The car roared out and swung, gently as a cradle, between the cottages. Because of the convicts’ escape and the marching away of the gendarmes, everyone was out and about, and thus saw the car, the smiling Rittmeister and his very erect wife. She felt that all the windows in the Manor, too, were occupied—it was insupportable. I ought never to have got in this devilish thing, she thought bitterly. Achim has made a fool of himself again, and my parents will think that I agreed to it.
The weeks of separation and the contact with Studmann had had their effect—Frau von Prackwitz had changed too. Before, whenever her husband acted rashly, she thought, “How can I hush this up?” Now she thought, “Nobody should think I’m in agreement.”
“Do you like the car, Eva?”
“I should like you please to explain to me, Achim,” she said hotly, “what all this means. Is this car …?”
The Rittmeister tapped the chauffeur on the back. “Now straight ahead. Yes, the white house in front on the right.… It’s a Horch. Do you notice how smooth she is? Does twenty-eight to the gallon, no, twenty-five.… I’ve forgotten exactly, but it’s all the same.”
With a hoot the car swept up to the Villa.
“There’ll have to be a drive here,” said the Rittmeister, lost in his thoughts.
“What!” Frau Eva started. “For a few days! I thought you had hired it only for a few days.”
Violet came running from the house.
“Oh, Papa! Papa! You’ve come back?” She embraced her father; he couldn’t get out of the car quickly enough. “Have you bought it? Oh, how smart! What make is it? How fast can it go? Have you also learned to drive? Let me just sit in it, Mamma.”
“There!” said the Rittmeister reproachfully to his wife. “That’s what I call pleasure.… Violet, be so good as to take Herr Finger to Hubert. He’s to have the little spare room in the attic for the moment. The car can stay here for the time being. Eva, please.”
“Now, Achim,” said Frau Eva, really upset. “Please explain to me what all this means.” She sat down.
The worse the Rittmeister’s conscience, the more amiable his manner. He, who could not bear even a hasty word in his presence, was now all softness before his wife’s bad temper. It was precisely this, however, which made things look dubious to her.
“What it means?” he asked, smiling. “Actually we haven’t said good day properly to one another yet, Eva. In the office the schoolmaster was staring at you all the time.”
“Herr von Studmann! Yes, he likes to look at me and he’s never impolite. And he doesn’t shout, either.” Frau Eva’s eyes flashed.
The Rittmeister thought it better not to insist for the moment on a tender welcome. “I myself don’t shout nowadays,” he said with a smile. “For weeks I haven’t shouted. Altogether I have picked up marvelously.”
“Why have you come so suddenly?”
“Well, you see, Eva, I didn’t think I was going to inconvenience you here. It simply occurred to me that October the first is, after all, an important day, and I thought perhaps you would want me here.” It sounded very amiable and modest, and for that reason it displeased her.
“No notification whatever,” she said. “You seem to have remembered this October the first very
