She fetched a case out of her bag, brusquely demanded a light, and then said: “How do you think I’m going to pay your friend out?”
“He’s not my friend,” said von Studmann mechanically.
“I’ll give him something to remember me by, that lad! Sauce the chap’s got, hitting a lady. How does he come to have so much cash this evening? He usually hasn’t got any, the little squirt!”
“I really don’t know,” said von Studmann wearily.
“All right! If he doesn’t have his money taken off him in the club, I’ll see that he gets rid of it. You can be sure of that. When I’m through with him he won’t have a penny left.”
“My dear Fraulein!” pleaded von Studmann. “Won’t you let me smoke my cigarette in peace? I’ve already told you the gentleman is not my friend.”
“Yes, you and your friends!” she said angrily. “Hitting a lady! But I’ll peach on him—your friend!”
Von Studmann remained silent.
“Don’t you hear? I’ll peach on your friend!”
Silence.
Scornfully: “Don’t you know what peaching means? I’m going to squeal on your friend.”
Through the open glass partition came the driver’s voice: “Hit her one on the jaw. Right on the jaw. That’s what she deserves. Your friend was quite right; he’s a right ‘un, he knows what to do! Keep hitting it till she shuts up. Here are you running up all this expense with the taxi, and then she comes out with a lot of common talk about squealing!”
The quarrel between the two sprang into life once more. The glass partition was repeatedly wrenched open and again slammed shut, the taxi echoed with the screaming and shouting.
He ought to pay a little more attention to his steering, thought von Studmann. But what does it matter? If we hit something, at least this noise will stop.
However, they arrived safely at Alexanderplatz. Still cursing, the girl clambered out of the taxi, stumbling over von Studmann’s legs. “And a man like that thinks he’s a gentleman,” she shouted back into the car, and dashed off across the square toward a large building where only a few windows were lit up.
“There she goes!” said the driver. “And she’ll do a whole lot of talking if the cop lets her in; she’s really going to do what she said. And she’s done some pretty shady things herself. If they ask her whether she dopes she’ll be in the soup at once. Perhaps they’ll pinch her on the spot. Well, I shan’t be sorry.”
“What’s that?” von Studmann asked pensively, looking at the large building under whose gateway the girl had just whispered.
“Well, I say!” The driver was very astonished. “You must be a stranger here. Why, that’s Police Headquarters! Where she’s going to squeal on your friend.”
“What’s she going to do?” Von Studmann suddenly woke up.
“Squeal on your friend!”
“Why?”
“I think you must have been asleep during the row. Because he socked her! Even I understood that much.”
“No?” said Studmann very excited. “What for? One doesn’t go running to Police Headquarters because of a box on the ears.”
“How should I know? Do I know what your friend’s been getting up to? Anyway, you’ve been asking some funny questions yourself about gambling clubs and such-like. I suppose she’s going to blow the gaff to the cops!”
“Here!” Von Studmann jumped out of the taxi. Resolved as he had been a moment ago to denounce the gambling club, he was now equally convinced that this malicious girl’s denunciation must be prevented.
“Here!” also shouted the taxi driver, seeing his fare money, and a lot of fare money indeed, running away. And there came for the impatient feverish Studmann an endless arguing, a reckoning-up that went on and on. “Taxi comes to so much.” Reckoned out in pencil, and reckoned out in three different ways. “And then the extras …”
At last Studmann was able to run across the square, and then again he had to argue with the policeman on duty, who couldn’t understand what he wanted; whether he was looking for a lady or the gambling squad, whether he wanted to lay information or prevent its being laid.…
Ah, the placid, the cool, the calm, the collected ex-lieutenant and ex-hotel manager von Studmann! He had completely lost his head at the thought that someone wanted to report his friend Prackwitz and young Pagel for illegal gambling. Yet he had had the same idea himself only half an hour ago.
In the end, however, he obtained permission to enter, and the policeman told him how to get to the Night Division, for that seemed to be his objective and not the gambling squad, as he had hitherto believed. Nevertheless, not having paid attention to these directions, he soon lost himself in the huge, badly lit building. Through passages and up stairs he trotted, the hollow echo of his footsteps with him. He knocked at doors from behind which no answer came, and at others from which he was gruffly or sleepily sent on. In his weariness it seemed to him as if he were in a dream that would never end. Until at last he stood outside the right door and heard the sharp voice of the girl inside.
And at the same moment it occurred to him how senseless was his errand, for he could say no word to refute the denunciation; no, he would even have to confirm it. For it
He retraced his footsteps, slunk guiltily past the policeman on duty. He would have to hurry in order to get there before the police; happily he remembered that here he was right next to the subway, and that he could get to the West End more quickly that way than by taxi. He ran over to the station and wandered around among the closed booking offices until it dawned on him that there were no more trains at this time of night. He would have to take a taxi after all. And at last he found one, and sank down in its cushions with relief.
Immediately he sat up again. Hadn’t he heard a police car just then?
Suddenly he became conscious of the stupidity of his actions the whole evening. Am I the same Studmann who never lost his head in battle? he thought with horror. And he felt as if he were no longer himself, but a hateful, fidgety, senseless person. “Cursed times!” he said, beating himself on the breast. “Damnable times, which steal people from themselves. But I shall get out of it all—I’m going to the country, and shall become myself again, as truly as I’m Studmann! But I must get there first—I can’t let them be caught.”
IX
Certain of victory, Wolfgang Pagel stepped into the gambling room with the Rittmeister beside him. In his closed hand he loosely held the seventeen counters from the first game, shaking them with a saucy gay, rattle. He knew that this time he was going to the game in a different spirit. Always before he had played wrongly, devised idiotic systems which were bound to fail. But now he must do it as he had today; wait for an inspiration and then stake. Then wait until another inspiration came—perhaps endless waiting. But he must have patience.
“Yes, very nice. Very,” he said in smiling reply to the Rittmeister, who had asked something. Prackwitz looked at him in astonishment. Probably he had made some ridiculous reply, but it didn’t matter, he was really near the gambling table now.
At this time the table was more densely besieged than ever. It was the last hour; at three, or half-past three at the latest, they closed down here. All the players who, exhausted, had stood against the wall and smoked, all who had sat undecided in armchairs and on settees—all now thronged round the table. Time was escaping, but once again offering the prospect of great winnings. Take your chance! When the city awakes in a few hours, you’ll either be rich or poor. Wouldn’t you prefer rich? The incident with Pagel had long been forgotten; no one took any notice of him. Seeing no possibility of getting close to the table, he went right round it and with his shoulder he forced himself between croupier and assistants. Curly Willi, the thick-set bruiser from Wedding, was on the point of making an angry protest against this irregularity when a quiet word from the croupier stopped him.
Wolfgang Pagel shook his seventeen counters lightly in his hand. He wanted to make a bet. With a mocking smile under his moustache, the croupier reminded the old gambler that he couldn’t make a bet while the ball was rolling.
Wolfgang had to wait, and it was as if time stood still. Finally the ball came to a halt. A number was called out. The other players raked in their profits, ridiculous, paltry, insignificant profits.
