then that I see the blood in his palm.”
“You are afraid of him?”
“Oh, very much so. I understand that he has the most complete power over me. I weep, and at last I throw myself at his feet—with my head under the table, if you can credit it, crying like an infant.
“Then he stands and pulls me erect, and says, ‘You would never be able to pay all you owe, and you are a false and dishonest servant. But your debt is forgiven, forever.’ And as I watch, he tears a leaf from his account book and hands it to me.”
“Your dream has a happy conclusion, then.”
“No. It is not yet over. I thrust the paper into the front of my shirt and go out, wiping my face on my sleeve. I am conscious that if any of the other servants should see me, they will know at once what has happened. I hurry to reach my own counting room; there is a brazier there, and I wish to burn the page from the owner’s book.”
“I see.”
“But just outside the door of my own room, I meet another servant—an upper servant like myself, I think, since he is well dressed. As it happens, this man owes me a considerable sum of money, and to conceal from him what I have just endured, I demand that he pay at once.” Herr R——rose from his chair and began to pace the room, looking sometimes at the painted scenes on the walls, sometimes at the Turkish carpet at his feet. “I have had reason to demand money like that often, you understand. Here in this room.
“The man falls to his knees, weeping and begging for additional time, but I reach down, like this, and seize him by the throat.”
“And then?”
“And then the door of my counting room opens. But it is not my counting room with my desk and the charcoal brazier, but the owner’s own room. He is standing in the doorway, and behind him I can see the open window, and the blossoms of the cherry tree.”
“What does he say to you?”
“Nothing. He says nothing to me. I release the other man’s throat, and he slinks away.”
“You awaken then?”
“How can I explain it? Yes, I wake up. But first we stand there, and while we do I am conscious of . . . certain sounds.”
“If it is too painful for you, you need not say more.”
Herr R——drew a silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. “How can I explain?” he said again. “When I hear those sounds, I am aware that the owner possesses certain other servants, who have never been under my direction. It is as though I have always known this, but had no reason to think of it before.”
“I understand.”
“They are quartered in another part of the house—in the vaults beneath the wine cellar, I think sometimes. I have never seen them, but I know—then—that they are hideous, vile, and cruel; I know too that he thinks me but little better than they, and that as he permits me to serve him, so he allows them to serve him also. I stand—we stand—and listen to them coming through the house. At last a door at the end of the hall begins to swing open. There is a hand like the paw of some filthy reptile on the latch.”
“Is that the end of the dream?”
“Yes.” Herr R——threw himself into his chair again, mopping his face. “You have this experience each night?”
“It differs,” he said slowly, “in some details.”
“You have told me that the orders you give the underservants vary.”
“There is another difference. When the dreams began, I woke when the hinges of the door at the passage end creaked. Each night now the dream endures a moment longer. Perhaps a tenth of a second. Now I see the arm of the creature who opens that door, nearly to the elbow.”
I took the address of his home, which he was glad enough to give me, and leaving the bank made my way to my hotel.
W
hen I had eaten my roll and drunk my coffee the next morning, I went to the place indicated by the card given me by Baron H——, and in a few minutes was sitting with him in a room as bare as those tents from which armies in the field are cast into battle. “You are ready to begin the case this morning?” he asked.
“On the contrary. I have already begun; indeed, I am about to enter a new phase of my investigation. You would not have come to me if your Dream-Master were not torturing someone other than the people whose names you gave me. I wish to know the identity of that person, and to interrogate him.”
“I told you that there were many other reports. I—”
“Provided me with a list. They are all of the petite bourgeoisie, when they are not persons still less important. I believed at first that it might be because of the urgings of Herr R——that you engaged me, but when I had time to reflect on what I know of your methods, I realized that you would have demanded that he provide my fee had that been the case. So you are sheltering someone of greater importance, and I wish to speak to him.”
“The countess—,” Baron H——began.
“Ah!”
“The countess herself has expressed some desire that you should be presented to her. The count opposes it.”
“We are speaking, I take it, of the governor of this province?”
The baron nodded. “Of Count von V——. He is responsible, you understand, only to the queen regent herself.”
