“During this last night an acquaintance known to both of us, Edgar von Hull, has been murdered. His friend Karstens is severely wounded, and I only escaped because I had happened to leave, two hours earlier, the locality into which we had been enticed. I believe I know the instigator of this crime. It is once more the sandy-bearded man and the old Professor. Its actual perpetrators have escaped, but we have made one arrest, of a person who is also known to you. I mean Cara Carozza, the dancer, whose liaison with Hull you are aware of. At present I have hardly more than a profound conviction that she has had some share in the crime, but I have thought of a way by which we might loosen her tongue. If you, Countess, would undertake the unpleasant enterprise of allowing yourself to be arrested, I would take care to arrange for your being put into the same cell as Carozza. She does not know you as Countess Told, but as a lady who frequents her own circles. Represent your offence as a very trifling one, and say that you will soon be set free, even if you are found guilty of taking part in an illicit game. … Promise to help her, perhaps by flight … and you must previously have informed her that her situation is a very serious one, and one never can tell what may happen to persons arrested in such circumstances as hers. … She will then probably tell you who would be able to arrange for her escape, and you understand the rest, Countess. Are you willing to play the part?”
“I will carry out your wishes,” said the Countess, without stopping an instant for reflection, and her voice sounded eager.
Wenk was sensibly touched by the haste, the ready zeal with which this gracious and beautiful woman accepted his suggestion.
“Up to now,” she said lightly, “there has never been a chance for me to do anything really useful, to engage in a bold enterprise with life at stake, to study life at first hand.”
“And that is what you have been seeking in the gambling-dens?” he asked.
“I do not rightly know. I felt at home in those places, because there seemed to be no barriers. In my own circle I could perceive the horizon everywhere, and I could not endure that. I feel I owe you much. …”
There was a smarting in Wenk’s eyes. He was overcome with a sensation of longing; it took possession of him and tormented him, and he asked, almost roughly, “And your husband?”
She answered calmly, “In every marriage, although you cannot know it by experience, there is something of what the heart has sought left unfulfilled. I rob my husband of nothing, if I try to find what I am seeking without him.”
“I honour and esteem you,” cried Wenk, his voice trembling slightly.
“It is nothing but the natural law,” she countered; “and now tell me what I am to do.”
“On a certain day, which you shall appoint, I will take you in my car to the governor of the prison and we will arrange everything with him. When would it suit you?”
“Next Saturday at this time.” She rose.
“The grey prison walls will begin to shine!” said Wenk.
“Because of such odd proceedings,” laughed she.
“No, Countess, your beauty will light them up,” and Wenk suddenly felt as if he loved her with a passion which must be shining in his eyes. He bent so low over her hand in adieu that he concealed his face from her, and she yielded it to him in a gracious gesture that was almost like the confession of a mutual understanding between them, then hastened away.
Out in the street the blood mounted to her cheeks, and half unconsciously she murmured the word she had suppressed, “love … love,” while in Wenk’s room there remained a scent of her which he eagerly inhaled. Then pressing both hands to his face, and indulging his secret and mysterious presentiments, he whispered ardently into the darkness that concealed his vision, “Death and love … death and love!”
In the course of the day the report of the murder ran through the city. It arose from the dark quarter where Hull had yielded up his useless and trivial existence. A dark patch remained there, and the pavement was coloured with the blood that had been shed. The thaw had made the gutters moist and muddy, and they had sucked in the dark evidences of the crime, till from a mere patch it became a monster, reaching from its own narrow corner to spread throughout the town. Folks came to seek its source, drinking in on the spot the full horrors of the deed. They saw the monster rear its head, rush towards them and through them, leaving disorder, abuse and dread in its wake. Like a dragon it wound itself through the alleys to the broad Ludwigstrasse, crept through the squares to the very heart of the city, and began to overflow all quarters, to escape from the streets to the houses. Like an underground drain it ran all day long, its gloomy current and dismal stench striking terror into men’s hearts or drawing thence a force which could but find its outlet in evil.
Three days later a woman of the streets was murdered in the night, and the assassin was caught the very next day. He was an “out-of-work,” one of those relics of wartime, who had fallen into a state approaching savagery. He confessed that he did not know what he was doing when he pressed his fingers deep into the girl’s throat. Something seemed to seize upon him in the dark when he came round that corner by the Jägerstrasse, and drove him to do it.
The town was enveloped as in
