In the evening, when the twilight was descending, they drove to Constance. Mabuse was sober, silent and morose. His imagination was already busy and his nerves reacting to his stern resolves, as he thought of the crowds of young men in the town, which seemed but a mere speck on his horizon—men who had been working for him since the Armistice. From this very town he himself had made a new start when the war had driven him from his own vast plantations in the Solomon Isles back into the European vortex, and he could find nothing better to do than work for medical examinations and exchange his career in the Pacific for that of a doctor in a town of Southern Germany.
VI
Wenk was awakened by a feeling of chilliness, which set him shivering. He pulled his cloak round him, under the impression that the coverlet had slipped off his bed, but he soon became aware of his error. He sat up, feeling giddy and at first unable to recall anything. He came slowly to himself and then he perceived where he was and saw the castle buildings gleaming through the darkness.
He rose hastily and moved away, but he was still dazed, and had to jump about to get any warmth into his body. What could the time be? He felt for his watch, but it was not there, and then he went hastily through his pockets. His purse was missing; so, too, were his pocketbook and his official notebook. He had fallen into the hands of thieves. The strange thing was how it could have happened that he had escaped with his life?
Then sudden dread seized upon him. He held his head in his hands, setting his jaws firmly, striving to subdue his feeling of despair. His notebook was missing, and in this were to be found addresses, reports, information, data, plans of all kinds. … The very first thing he recalled about it was the opening page, on which the Hull affair was fully set forth. … Wenk now hurried straight forward. If only he could recover his notebook! He rushed on till he was out of breath, then stopped and asked himself, “What shall I do? Go to the nearest railway-station? But what is the time? It may be one o’clock, it may be five. How am I to tell? And when would the first train start? It might mean waiting in front of a closed railway-station for four, even five hours!” Then he reflected that if he were to wake anybody in the castle he would have to submit to questioning. No; that would do no good. Should he make a fuss about it? It was clear that the chauffeur had acted in obedience to the blond stranger’s orders. Had the latter really penetrated his disguise and laid his plans so cautiously and cleverly beforehand, or was it the usual thing that anyone who appeared in any way suspicious should at once be put to the test in this way? Could it be merely theft, and the book have been taken from him by accident? He realized that when he seated himself on the cushions he must have set the gas-current free, for there was no gas in the car when he got in. That had been arranged, then. No, it wasn’t that way either. It was something both simpler and safer. The driver could open the gas valve from his seat. Of course that was the way of it.
Thinking thus, Wenk reached the highroad, only half-conscious of his resolve to proceed to Munich on foot. He went as fast as he could, but every now and then he had to stop and wait till a feeling of giddiness had passed. That must be the effect of the gas. What sort of gas could it be that operated so rapidly and yet did so little harm? His foes might just as easily have used a deadly gas, then they would have got rid of him altogether. Why did they use a stupefying gas merely? Was it meant for a warning to him?
Now, at any rate, his notebook was in their hands, and perhaps they wanted nothing more of him than that. It was but an attack on his little notebook. Whose names were to be found there? Karstens’, for one … and an account of all the occurrences in the gaming-houses with the sandy-bearded man and the old Professor, and in the Palace Hotel likewise. All the places where gambling was carried on were noted there too. It was clearly only his notebook that they wanted, and that they had succeeded in getting, but the book he had lost had meant a good deal to him.
He went faster and faster by the sleeping houses, past the peaceful suburbs and into the quiet approaches of the town. The byways, in which traces of snow still lay, seemed like dragons creeping through the night, bent on spying in the ghostly light on those who went by, and Wenk shuddered at the thought. But when a tramcar drew near he felt more at ease. He soon recognized where he was and hastened to his own chambers. He was thoroughly exhausted when he reached home, threw himself fully dressed upon his bed and became unconscious once more, not awakening until the evening.
The first idea which occurred to him then was that henceforth his life was at stake. He accepted it calmly, for since he was combating evil, it was natural that it should be so. The conflict would be played out on the borderland between existence and annihilation, and for one moment he wondered whether it were worth while to go on. But only for a moment. He immediately told himself that there could be no question of hesitation here. Such men are like beasts escaped from a menagerie, and it was his task, his duty, the justification for his existence, to help to
