On the third day Wenk was called up early by his man. The Criminal Investigation Department had some important information for him. Something had happened during the night at a gaming-den. Would he like an official to bring him a report? Yes, he replied, but the detective should come in some sort of uniform.
Half an hour later the detective, got up as a telephone repairer, appeared and told his story. Last night a young man had come to the guardroom and said that he and others had been playing baccarat in a secret gaming-house. An old gentleman, who seemed to be partially paralysed, was playing too, and he always lost his money. When it was just upon three o’clock in the morning, the old gentleman had a sudden fit of rage, shouted out something, and immediately three men, who had also been playing, leaped on the table. They drew out revolvers, shouting “Hands up!” Then a fourth man went from one visitor to another, searching their pockets and taking all their money away, as well as that lying on the table. They had taken twelve thousand marks from the man who was telling the story. When they came to the old gentleman they left him alone, and he suddenly stood up and walked out as if there was nothing the matter with him. Two of the thieves accompanied him, and the others protected him from behind, and outside there were two cars waiting.
This story excited Wenk greatly. It did not interfere with his scheme, but, on the contrary, it showed that Mabuse felt himself secure. Yet while Wenk was here in a strange house behind a curtain like a sleepy bat, the criminal was going his accustomed way, calmly, boldly, as if he had nothing and nobody to fear. After all, it was quite natural. Why should he not go free when the man who had sworn to bring him to justice was in hiding here behind a window curtain!
Taking a sudden resolve, Wenk left his post, and did not return till evening. He had given an order to extinguish the streetlamp in front of Mabuse’s house by breaking the glass and damaging the electric light bulb. It was a dark night, and as soon as Mabuse’s windows showed no light Wenk entered the garden. He was carrying a canister filled with fine meal, and he clambered over the fence into Mabuse’s grounds and went cautiously along the garden path, scattering the meal in a thin layer over part of the short walk between the garden gate and the house. Then he hurried back over the fence to his own garden and into No. 26 again.
Half an hour later someone left Mabuse’s house, but Wenk could not see who. After an hour and a half, he heard steps in the street passing beneath his window. He saw a man wearing military dress, who went quickly to Mabuse’s door and disappeared within the house.
Wenk went downstairs again and hid behind a shrub in the garden. After a long time he heard Mabuse’s front door open, and in the starlight he could see that a stout, elderly lady was leaving the house. She went into the street, where a car seemed to spring up from nowhere. She got into it and drove rapidly away.
Wenk clambered over the hedge between his and Mabuse’s garden, crept on all fours over the grass to the garden path, and examined the ground by the help of his electric torch. Then he saw that the footsteps of all three persons were exactly the same. Therefore, whoever it was who came out first, and the soldier, and the elderly lady, were one and the same person. And then it occurred to him that yesterday and the day before yesterday the chimney-sweep, the paralytic, the messenger with his parcel, were the same person, and this person was—Mabuse. Wenk carefully removed the traces of the meal.
Tonight must lead to some conclusion or other. In both the nearest guardrooms special police were ready, fully armed, prepared to break in at any moment. When Wenk knew Mabuse to be safe at home, he would hasten to No. 26, send a telephone call, and three minutes later Mabuse’s house would be surrounded by police. To burst the door would be the work of thirty seconds. Six men would remain outside and surround the house. The other six would join him in a rush on the place. When Mabuse was secured, the order to Schachen would go through.
Wenk stole rapidly back to his own garden, stretched himself flat on the ground and waited. The earth radiated the warmth of this day of late spring, and he felt the power that lay in the soil. And in an attitude of tense expectancy, two hours, one hour, perhaps even minutes only before his work would be crowned with success, it seemed to Wenk as if music, a music betraying the secrets of all hearts, stole over his senses. Tears filled his eyes, and his bare fingers caressed the fragrant ground. He felt as if it were the very essence of manhood laid bare, the manhood for which he was risking his life.
He had decided to lie here waiting until Mabuse, in some disguise or other, should return to the house. Nothing could go wrong now. When the other was once more inside, like a mouse caught in a trap, Wenk would hasten back and breathe his order into the telephone.
But before this could happen he was to undergo a strange experience, something which made his heart stand still and a cry by which he had almost betrayed himself pass his lips. A car came up the street, and stopped with a noisy shriek in front of the house. But no one got out. No, it was Mabuse’s door which opened, and in the person descending the steps, and pausing in the glow of the headlights, Wenk recognized the Countess.
If he had not pressed his lips
