Karstens succumbed to his wounds, and again the public imagination busied itself with the death of a second victim. Wenk found himself in a difficulty and decided one day to make a final appeal to the dancer. He went to her cell.
“I am not going to speak to you,” said Cara when she perceived him.
Wenk took no notice, and said in a troubled tone, his hopes disappearing: “Do you know that the beautiful lady who was always looking on at the play at Schramm’s has disappeared?”
“Not the one you sent to me in prison?” answered the dancer instantly.
“Yes,” said Wenk, and it was not till he had uttered the word that he perceived the significance of this admission. It was all very mysterious. Had the Countess revealed her errand to Cara, and was she in league with the gamblers? It seemed incredible, but yet how strange it was that Cara, who would not at first speak to him, at once gave him her attention when he mentioned the Countess. Wenk did not want Cara to think that he was astonished at this, and went on talking, while he was trying to consider how he could best arrive at the secret; but he did not stop to reflect upon the ideas that came uppermost. In the course of the conversation he hazarded a conjecture that had often occurred to him when he thought of Cara’s connection with the criminal, but which he had never mentioned till now. He said, “You are sacrificing yourself for this criminal because you could not make up your mind to part from him.”
Then Cara sprang up, staring at Wenk as if convulsed. He looked her right in the eyes, and noticed that an expression of overwhelming horror stood in them, and was clearly written upon her distorted features.
“Well?” he asked, encouraged and hopeful.
But Cara remained as if frozen in her stony attitude.
Then he ventured further. “If we came to some agreement, I could make proposals that would be to your advantage.”
Slowly the dancer recovered from the horror that had seized upon her. For the last three years, ever since Mabuse had repulsed her, her life had been a story of self-sacrificing martyrdom and devoted adherence to the man who had wrought her ruin and driven her to crime. Not for a single instant had she thought of betraying him, of refusing her allegiance. Indelibly stamped upon her whole nature like the brand of a slave was the feeling that mastery and might such as his could never be contested. And now, through Wenk’s words, she beheld this man whom she adored threatened with danger. What did the State Attorney know, and how had he obtained his knowledge? Had the Countess betrayed her after all? Slowly she evolved a plan by which to discover how much the lawyer knew. She might possibly convey a warning to Dr. Mabuse, and at the thought her blood was fired and the delicious sensation of feeling herself his deliverer, and perhaps, too, regaining the ascendancy she had lost, stole over her. No, it could not be, she dared not even conceive of it; to save him from danger would be enough for her, to know him secure would be bliss. Finally she said, “Since you seem to be better informed than I imagined, I will speak, but you must give me two days to think it over.”
The dancer had learnt from the warder that someone had been inquiring about her, and from the description given she believed it to be Spoerri. She would therefore have an opportunity of telling him about her interview with Wenk and warning him of what might occur.
“Very well,” said Wenk, relieved. Then he thought he would clinch the matter, and as his previous supposition seemed to have hit the mark, he imagined it a favourable opportunity to inflame her imagination still further, so he said, “I am trying to get on the track of the Countess; she seems to be in hiding with your friend.”
He was so ashamed of these words, however, that he blushed as he uttered them, recalling with painful intensity his few meetings with the missing lady—meetings which had bound him so closely to her. But the effect of his words on the dancer was wholly unexpected. She fell back on her pallet, sobbed aloud, tried to speak, but could utter no word, and then she clenched her fists and raised them despairingly to her brow.
Wenk went off quickly, thinking it best not to disturb this attitude of mind but to let her yield wholly to its influence. As he opened the door a man stumbled against it, but it was only the warder, who had come, as he said, to look at the prisoner as his duty was just at this time. “All right,” said Wenk, and he made his way out.
Shortly afterwards the following things occurred. Near Hengnau, on the borders of Würtemberg, a man was detained and arrested as he was about to drive cattle to Würtemberg. At first he pretended to be dumb, but afterwards he raged furiously at his capture. The examining counsel, in order to intimidate him, said one day, “You had better confess before the new law is passed. If you are tried before then you may get off lightly, but later on it may cost you your head.”
“What new law is that?” asked the man.
“The crime of endangering the food distribution is punishable with death.”
“What sort of death?”
“Probably hanging!”
“And if I am convicted before that is passed?”
“You won’t get more than a
