“How strange!” said Cara, after a pause for reflection. “My husband’s name was George. Could I, in my excitement, have called. …”
“Ah, now everything is perfectly clear. That is quite comprehensible, but, of course, nobody knew you had been married?”
“I am married!”
“You still are; oh, that’s something different. Shall I send word to your husband? But perhaps you no longer hold any intercourse with him?”
“Indeed I do! His address is 234, Eschenheimerstrasse, Frankfurt-am-Main. … His name is George Strümpfli.”
“This will be painful news for him. Are you not afraid that there may be some difficulty when he hears your name connected with the circumstance of Hull’s murder?”
Then Cara spoke at last, falling back on her chair. “Hull murdered! …” she exclaimed, and she sank fainting from the chair to the ground.
For the moment Wenk was taken aback; then he decided that this fainting-fit was assumed. He raised her on to the couch, then went away without attending to her further. Going out, he ordered the constables to keep a sharp eye on the lady, and not let anyone at all go into the anteroom. They were to keep their weapons fixed.
He drove back to the central police-station and informed the divisional surgeon, requesting him to drive to the guardroom, and to search the girl’s clothing without exciting suspicion. He then wrote out the order for her arrest, and handed it over. He gave orders at the Police Information Bureau that any journalist who came seeking for news was to be sent to him direct.
By this time it was daylight. Wenk had a bath and then drove to the office of the Central News Agency, the editor-in-chief of which had rung him up on the telephone.
When Wenk had told him all that had occurred, he said: “The reason that emboldened me to lay claim to some of your time, was this. If it were an isolated murder I would, although unwillingly, let the reporting of it proceed in the usual manner. But behind this assault we are confronted by a gang having at their head a man of apparently enormous and comprehensive powers. He must have secured to himself an organized set of followers whose only aim is to guard him while he carries out his crimes. The letter, which he himself may have handed into your office, discloses the fact that he desires the affair to be made known in the way that suits his ends. He means it as a warning. The victim himself told me not long ago that he had come across him in very peculiar circumstances, and this he knew. It is his aim to surround his dark deeds by a wall of dread; folks are to realize that no one who makes any attempt against him can escape with his life. You can readily see how great a danger such a man is; at a time when the war has left folks weak and emotional on the one hand and more readily incited to evil on the other. We cannot altogether suppress such an occurrence as this, but I desire that it should be announced apart from the connecting circumstances known to me, so that the imagination may not make popular heroes out of murderers. In this I am counting on the assistance of yourself and your colleagues. May I beg you most earnestly not to make known anything concerning the Hull affair which has not first been seen by me? We are living in an age of mental and spiritual epidemics, and those who would help to bring healing must be prepared to sacrifice themselves.”
“I will certainly act as you desire,” said the editor-in-chief.
“At the same time,” Wenk went on, “I wouldn’t on any account allow the impression to get about that such a course is due to more complete knowledge of the circumstances, or the exercise of authority on the part of the law, you understand.”
“I quite follow you there,” said the sympathetic editor.
“Then I am grateful to you, and can only hope for good results from our combined efforts. Our nation is in evil case.”
When he got home Wenk was anxious to go to bed and enjoy a few hours of much-needed rest. It was already ten o’clock, but just then his chauffeur, who acted as his personal attendant, brought him a visiting-card bearing the name of Countess Told.
“I am quite disengaged,” said Wenk immediately, and the Countess was ushered in.
“Is there any possibility of our being interrupted here by an anxious wife who is not au courant of the matter which is engaging our attention?” she asked, as she gave Wenk her slender hand cordially.
“The happiness of possessing a partner for life has never been mine!” answered Wenk, feeling a delicious sweetness in the proximity of this woman. And yet she stood before him as something dreamlike, connected with a life which he seemed to have led not long before. Between this hour and that lay the mysterious occurrences of the night, and he was unable to conceive that these feelings of love and longing could be actually real.
She stood before him, and he found no word to say to her, while she herself, insensibly influenced by the man’s force of character and lofty aims, felt embarrassed by this silence, because it seemed to be a confirmation of her own sensations. “Yes,” she confessed to herself, “the feeling I have for him is … ,” but she would not utter the word “love.” She blushed at the thought, a blush which Wenk saw. A tremor passed through him, and he struggled with himself as he bent low over her hand.
Then suddenly the vision of the murdered man rose before him, and he no longer felt bold enough to betray by word or gesture the infatuation which possessed him. He offered the Countess a chair, and while he fetched another for himself his imagination was fired by an idea which afforded a solution of the conflict waging within him. This woman,
