“I wouldn’t ring. Or call out. I’ve thought it over, Studmann.” And Pagel was astonished to find that he had done so without knowing it. “Outside your window there’s the tarred roof, and from there you can get without difficulty onto the veranda of the Manor. That will take you practically round the house, on the first floor, and you can look in all the windows without being seen.… Yes, that’s the way I’d do it,” he concluded with a certain emphasis.
Studmann gazed at him. “For Heaven’s sake, why? What’s your idea there? What do you think I shall see?”
“Listen, Studmann.” Pagel was suddenly very serious. “I can’t tell you. I know nothing. But that’s what I’d do.”
“This sort of spying round at night …” protested Studmann.
“Do you remember that night we met at Lutter and Wegner’s? Then also I had the feeling that it was a very special night, a night of destiny, if I may say so. Why shouldn’t there be something like that, after all? A night during which everything is decided? Now I have this feeling again. A bad night, a wicked …” He peered into the darkness as though he could somehow discover its face, its evilly lurking face. But that, of course, was absurd. He perceived only a gently rustling, dripping darkness.
“Well then, Herr von Studmann,” Pagel ended suddenly, “so long now. I must get back to my Rittmeister. Good night.”
“Good night.” Studmann stared after Pagel, for such mystical fits meant nothing to him. He could hear the door being shut and locked; then the outside light was turned off and he was in darkness. With a little sigh he picked up his heavy bag and set out for the office, determined to scout round the Manor first and keep both his ears open before taking Pagel’s advice. Climbing by night over someone else’s property struck him as more than questionable.
In the hall young Pagel was standing, listening to the quiet house. He couldn’t shake off the strange mood which had been his since the doze by the sickbed. A glance at the clock showed that he had not been with Studmann more than five minutes. It was a quarter to one. Nothing could have happened; he had kept his eye on the front door all the time and stood quite near it. No one could have slipped in there. The house was quiet.
Yet he had the feeling that something had happened.
Slowly, soundlessly—as slowly and soundlessly as in a dream—he went up the stairs. At the door of Violet’s room appeared Frau Eva’s pale, worried face. He nodded to her and said softly: “Everything is all right.”
He went into the Rittmeister’s room.
His first glance showed him that the bed was empty. Empty!
He came to a stop, searching the room with his eyes. Nobody there, and the windows shut. What would Marofke do in such a case? The reply to this question was only negative, however. Marofke wouldn’t do anything rash.
Catching sight of the bathroom door, he pushed it open and turned on the light; the bathroom, too, was empty. He went back into the passage.
Violet’s door was wide open now, and Frau Eva walking to and fro restlessly. She saw him at once and came to him, possessed by feverish agitation. “What’s the matter, Herr Pagel? Something’s happened, I can see it.”
“I’m going to make myself a coffee, madam,” lied Pagel. “I’m tired out.”
“And my husband?”
“Everything in order, madam.”
“I’m so frightened,” she said agitatedly. “Dear Herr Pagel, according to the doctor she ought to have waked up now; and she is awake, I feel it. But she doesn’t stir, whatever I say to her. She’s pretending to sleep. Oh, Herr Pagel, what shall I do? I’m so frightened. As never before.” Her pale face twitched; she was gripping his hand without knowing it. “Have a look at Violet, Herr Pagel,” she begged. “Just say a word to her. Perhaps she’ll take notice of you.”
Young Pagel was going hot and cold. He had to find the Rittmeister—Heaven knew what he would be up to in the meantime! But he let himself be taken to the bed. Doubtfully he looked down on the still face. “She seems to be sleeping,” he said uncertainly.
“You are wrong. You are certainly wrong. Speak to her! Violet, our little Vi, here is Herr Pagel. He’d like to say good morning to you.… You see, her eyelid moved!”
Pagel almost thought so, too, and the idea occurred to him of shouting: “The Lieutenant’s here!”—an idea immediately rejected. Did one do that sort of thing? And did one do it in front of the mother? After all, why shouldn’t she be left in peace if that was what she wanted? And he had to look for the Rittmeister.
“No, she’s certainly sleeping, madam,” he said again. “And I should let her sleep. Now I’ll make some coffee for us.” He smiled encouragement at Frau Eva.
It was a somewhat unhappy role he played in returning under her eyes into the Rittmeister’s empty bedroom, coming out again and nodding: “In order.” Then he went downstairs—her gaze following him—to the ground floor. Instinct guided him correctly. There were six doors in the hall. Of these he chose the one into the study where, that evening in cleaning up, he had seen the two things which, in the Rittmeister’s state, were likely to come into question—the rifle cupboard and the liquor cabinet.
At the sound of the opening door, the Rittmeister spun round with the air of a surprised thief. He leaned against the table, one hand holding on to the back of a large leather chair, the other gripping the bottle of brandy so greatly desired.
Pagel gently closed the door. Since it was the bottle and not the revolver, he thought himself able to be jocular. “Hello, Herr Rittmeister,” he called out cheerfully. “Leave some for me. I’m done up and could do with a little stimulation myself.”
But the cheerful tone was unsuccessful. The Rittmeister, like many drunken persons under no illusions about the shabbiness of their conduct, laid great value on his dignity. In the young man’s tone he felt only an impudent familiarity. “What are you doing here?” he shouted angrily. “Why are you creeping after me? I won’t put up with it. Get to hell out of this at once.” His voice was very loud and very indistinct; his tongue, almost crippled by schnapps and veronal, refused to articulate the words evenly; his swollen voice spoke as if from behind a muffler. And all this only increased his rage. With bloodshot eyes and twitching face he looked viciously at his tormentor, the young fellow he had picked up out of the morass of the great city, and who now wanted to order him about.
Pagel did not recognize his peril or that he had to do with a man almost out of his mind and capable of anything. Unsuspecting, he went up to the Rittmeister and said in friendly persuasion: “Come along, Herr Rittmeister, you must go back to bed. You know that your wife doesn’t want you to drink anything more. Be nice and give me the bottle.”
All things which the Rittmeister did not wish to hear and which deeply insulted him. Hesitatingly he held the bottle out. But in the moment when Pagel was about to take it, the bottle was raised and fell upon his skull with a crash in which the whole world seemed to be shattered.
“There you are, my little fellow!” roared the Rittmeister triumphantly. “I’ll teach you to obey.”
Pagel, his hands raised to his head, had fallen back. In that second he understood, in spite of a numbness and pain which rendered him almost unconscious, the magnitude of the disaster that had befallen this house. He understood what the woman upstairs had already known for some hours—that they had to do not with a drunken, but with a mentally deranged man. As for the young girl …
“Bear yourself properly, second lieutenant!” ordered the Rittmeister in a scream. “Don’t stand so slackly before your superior.”
Despite the maddening pain, and although he could hardly lift his head, Pagel forced himself to adopt a stiff military bearing. The woman upstairs must not be disturbed for anything. It could only be a matter of a few minutes before the schnapps and the veronal would have done their work on his employer. He would quiet down; Pagel mustn’t let it get to fighting. His limbs were trembling—and the noise …
“Attention!” screamed the Rittmeister. Once more he might command and be himself. In his mouth had been put the word of ruthless power, to be obeyed without the flicker of an eyelash. More deeply than alcohol, power intoxicated him a last time.
“Attention, Lieutenant Pagel! Two paces—forward! About—turn. Attention! Attention, I say! Why are you wobbling, man?”
“What’s this?” said the woman’s voice from the door. “Achim, won’t you give us any peace? How you torment me!”
