“My professional life here has extended to ever-widening circles, and I could live a good deal longer under the protection of the State and in well-ordered society. Today, however, I had proof that folks are on my track, and henceforth I must act cautiously. A ship is being built for me in Genoa. I do not travel by strange ships, but sail under my own flag. The ship is to be ready on the 1st of June, and on that night we will embark. Between this and then, however, there is nearly two months to pass. I cannot rest, and until the very night of our departure I shall still be a robber chief.
“We will be wary. You must go to another house. It is quite as well guarded as this one, but if they should discover this one, they will catch you. I am probably about to leave the place, and at midnight tomorrow you will depart. Spoerri will take you to the new home.”
As incapable of resistance as of mental participation in his schemes, consumed in the devouring flames of this man’s all-powerful domination, the Countess endured his conversation and took his orders. Her fate lay in his hands.
XVI
At nine o’clock next morning Mabuse was at Count Told’s villa. As he was now endeavouring to hold himself ready for flight at any moment, he wanted to bring this matter of the Count to an end.
He had desired him to drink, and for some days now Told had been drinking, in passionate abandonment. Mabuse looked at him in silence. When Told was intoxicated he said to him, “You are a person without the slightest power of resistance. Where is your razor?”
In a thick voice Told answered that it was on the washstand.
“Is it sharp?” said Mabuse with a peculiar intonation. “Sharp enough?” he repeated with an emphasis so marked that it seemed as if he wanted to hammer an idea into the Count’s head.
Mabuse took it up, seized a sheet of paper and made a sharp clean cut in it. Then he said threateningly, “Yes, it is sharp enough.” Thereupon he laid the razor aside, but did not return it to its case. He called the servant in, saying to him, “The Count’s condition is not so good as it was. He is drinking brandy with his Tokay. I have no objection to a little light Burgundy, but these strong spirits are not to be allowed. You must take away what is left in the bottle. Your master will … now … go … to sleep!” He uttered the last words in a long-drawn-out, menacing tone. Then he went out of the room in front of the footman, and left the house.
Half an hour later, Count Told, not knowing what he was doing, cut his throat from ear to ear. He had a feeling as if something in his throat were preventing him from enjoying some great happiness, and he wanted to remove the hindrance.
At two o’clock a message came from Mabuse to ask how the Count was getting on. The footman said he was asleep, but he would go and look at him to make sure. Then he found him bathed in blood, where he had fallen from his armchair to the ground, his body now cold in death. The doctor’s messenger came into the room, looked at the corpse, and went back to report to his master.
The manservant did not know what to do. Since none of the Count’s relatives were in the neighbourhood and he did not know the Countess’s address, he felt he must inform the police first of all. But then, again, he was not sure which was the right office to go to to give such information, and it occurred to him that the State Attorney, Herr von Wenk, was an acquaintance of his master’s and had asked after him recently, so he drove to Munich, sought out the lawyer, and told his story.
“Was the Count at home then all the time?” asked Wenk.
“Yes, sir, all the time.”
“Then why did you tell me on the telephone that the Count had gone on a journey?”
“The doctor told me that on account of my master’s state no one was to be allowed to see him, and I must tell anybody who inquired that he had gone away. My master saw nobody but his doctor.”
“What was the doctor’s name?”
“I never heard his name, sir. I don’t know it.”
Then Wenk remembered that Privy Councillor Wendel had given him a letter to Dr. Mabuse, and that the Count had used Wenk’s own telephone to make an appointment with this doctor.
Wenk trembled as, struck by the horror of a strange suspicion, he described to the footman the figure of Dr. Mabuse as he had seen it recently at the Four Seasons Hall. He spoke of him as a tall man, stooping slightly, without beard or moustache, with a broad face and big nose and large grey eyes. When the man said, “Yes, he looked exactly like that,” Wenk grew pale as death. In a moment all the disconnected impressions, hazy ideas, vague recollections, half-defined thoughts and images which had been partially obliterated, but not altogether lost, gathered together in his mind. When Wenk
