“I forced myself to rise, and then found I was not so badly wounded after all, though I couldn’t open my eyes. They had thrown pepper at them. I groped my way round the corner, but I could not see anything. It was the noise that guided me to the spot. I heard someone speaking, and a woman’s voice answering. ‘What is the matter?’ I said, and a voice answered, ‘He said we were to take the female into custody.’ ‘Who are you?’ I asked the woman, and she answered, ‘I am an actress, the friend of Herr Hull. What do you want with me?’ I said, ‘If the gentleman said so, arrest her!’ She protested, and said she wanted to speak to Dr. Wenk, the State agent, at once, but the constable said she could do that later. Then she tried to run away, and there was a good deal of confusion and bother, and finally the constable had to handcuff her, she was so defiant, and I heard her call out ‘George.’ So I told them to arrest her, and I don’t know what happened after that, for I fainted, and when I came to again I was in the ambulance. I am badly wounded. Will your honour please tell me the truth: am I going to die?”
Then the doctor laughed in his face.
“No, please, I want his honour to tell me. It’s the doctor’s job to tell people they are not going to die.”
“But, my good Voss, how can you imagine you are going to die? You have some flesh wounds and some nasty bumps, but a man like you doesn’t die of those things!”
“Indeed, your honour, I have done my duty!” said the injured man. His voice began to falter; then the tension relaxed and he began to weep quietly and unrestrainedly. “I know … no more. … I have … done … my duty!” he stammered.
“You don’t need to tell me that,” said Wenk reassuringly. “He who stakes his life upon it certainly does his duty, for no one can offer anything he values more! But now, Voss, I want you to promise me something, and shake hands upon it. You won’t tell anyone else what you have seen or gone through this night … and I beg the same thing of you, doctor. A great deal depends upon it, for the public at large. I beg you to lay this very much to heart. It is not the pursuit of one crime, but of a generation of crime.”
From the constable who had been first on the spot Wenk learnt that he had seen several figures near the wall of the park, but darkness prevented his counting their number, nor could he describe them. He was stopped by one of the gentlemen, who tried to stand up and then clutched hold of him, saying two or three times over, “Arrest the woman—arrest the woman.”
“Then at last he fell back and let me go,” went on the man. “Then I could run a few steps and I saw those figures close to the wall going round the park, but when I reached it, there was no one there. They must have had accomplices on the other side of the wall. I wanted to go after them, but I couldn’t manage it; it was far too high to climb, so I came back to the spot.”
“And the woman?” asked Wenk. “What about her?”
“I had the impression. …”
“Now, Stamm, I don’t want to hear your impressions—I only want to know what you saw with your eyes and heard with your ears. You will be scrupulously exact, won’t you?”
“Yes, indeed, your honour. When I came back, one of our men was holding the woman fast. I said to him, ‘Arrest her; the gentleman there said so. Arrest her at all costs! Hold her fast, don’t let her escape!’ We were all a bit excited, and she shouted out that she wanted to see Herr von Wenk, and no one was going to arrest her. She made a good deal of resistance, sir, and finally we had to tie her hands. There were only two of us, and we had to help the wounded and our own colleague. We did not know in the least what had happened, for we had only just. …”
“We? Tell me only what you yourself have seen.”
“Then I began to try and find out what had happened. There was a man lying on the ground bathed in blood. He seemed to be dead, for he was quite still. The other was groaning. Then a third constable came up, and we sent him to telephone for the ambulance and make a report to the Criminal Division and let your honour know. That was what Voss had told us to do first of all.”
“What was the woman doing all this time?”
“The second of our men took her to the guardroom.”
“Don’t go on with your story, Stamm, till I have spoken to him. What is his name? Keep yourself in readiness to report again; do you hear? And remember, not a word of this outside the official circle—not even to your wife. Give me your word of honour!”
“Yes, indeed, sir. The other man’s name is Wasserschmidt.”
Wasserschmidt duly appeared.
“You arrested a woman tonight who was present when the two gentlemen were attacked,” said Wenk. “Why did you do that?”
“I did it because constable Stamm said that one of the gentlemen, before he became insensible, called out to him to do so, and my colleague Voss gave me the order too.”
At this moment the telephone rang in the bureau of the Criminal Investigation Department, where Wenk was conducting these inquiries.
“Who is speaking?” he asked.
“This is the night editor’s office of the Central News Agency. We have just been informed of a murder. …”
“One moment, please,” said Wenk angrily. “Who gave you that information?”
“I can tell you that without betraying any editorial secrets,
