I Was Jack Mortimer (Pushkin Collection)

by Alexander Lernet-Holenia

  “And what was it that he wanted you to bring him?” the blond detective asked.

  “Money,” she answered. “But for Heaven’s sake, tell me what he has…”

  “What does he need money for? Is he planning to escape?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He just wanted it. But if you don’t want to tell me…”

  “Where is the money?” the other one asked.

  They didn’t disclose what had happened. She looked at Haintl, but he only shrugged his shoulders.

  “Where is the money?” the stocky one repeated.

  “In the drawer,” she said after a moment’s pause. The blond one removed the cover from the desk, but couldn’t pull the drawer out.

  “You’ve got the key,” she suddenly added, “It’s with the other ones.”

  The stocky detective gave the blond one the key.

  “It’s on the left at the back,” she said.

  They took out the envelope.

  “Is this it?” the stocky one asked.

  “Yes.”

  They looked inside. All the others also stared with curiosity. The envelope contained just a few notes. “Is that all?” the stocky one asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  They had evidently expected to find more, obviously all the money that Sponer had taken from the murdered person, whoever he was. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they also wanted to investigate the robbery, they wouldn’t have remained there a moment longer, but would have left immediately to apprehend Sponer. Now, however, they were disappointed to find only Sponer’s meagre savings. The stocky one threw the envelope on the table.

  “And where,” he asked, “is the rest of the money?”

  It had not yet dawned on the two detectives why it was that Marie was suddenly so willing to answer their questions. Now that the main object of her mission was lying there on the table, she could take it to Sponer.

  Quick as a flash she grabbed the money, made a dash for the door, ran out and slammed the door of the flat. Before the amazed company had realized what was happening, she had slammed the door behind her and was standing in the dark; then she ran not down the stairs, but up without a moment’s hesitation. A woman almost always does the right thing instinctively.

  She was already on the landing and round the bend before the others stormed out of the flat. They naturally all ran down the stairs, continually stumbling, cursing and striking matches. The detectives were more astute, however; instead of running, they slid down the banister. They were also the first to reach the front door, which they tore open, and ran out into the street. A few moments later the others were also at the bottom of the stairs and likewise ran out into the street.

  9

  AS SOON AS THE COAST WAS CLEAR, Marie also ran down. The front door was open; she carefully peered out into the street and saw that it was deserted. However, at the very moment when she stepped out of the house, one of the detectives—the tall one—and Haintl, were already on their way back. Finding the neighbouring streets deserted, they had no doubt surmised that Marie was probably still in the house. That it hadn’t occurred to them why they hadn’t heard her running down the stairs when they were following her could probably be best explained by the fact that they themselves were making so much noise in the pursuit.

  As soon as they turned the corner, the two of them immediately saw Marie and broke into a run. She started in the other direction, towards Mariahilfer Strasse. At that very moment the Oxenbauers, the housekeeper and the second detective came round the corner ahead of her. The first lot shouted to the second to stop Marie. She therefore ran as quickly as she could diagonally across the street, ducking and weaving to evade the first two, and ran on with all six of them in hot pursuit.

  She didn’t run towards her house, but in the opposite direction. She thought that in this way she’d be able to prevent them finding Sponer, for as long as she managed to keep running, the detectives would be much too preoccupied with catching her to bother about Sponer.

  The detectives and Haintl ran in front, while the Oxenbauers and the housekeeper brought up the rear. Everyone, including those who in actual fact were not at all involved in the matter, seemed hell-bent on not letting Marie and Sponer get away with it. All through the chase the detectives would issue shrill whistling sounds.

  Marie, of course, immediately realized that very soon she’d be out of breath and wouldn’t be able to maintain the pace, and that they’d catch up with her even if she ran like mad. Also, a policeman on the beat, attracted by the detectives’ whistles, dived out in front of her.

  The pursuers shouted to him to stop Marie, but he failed to grasp their meaning simply because she threw herself straight in his arms and gasped, “They’re chasing me!” Thereupon she staggered behind him and stood there panting for a second.

  “Stop!” the policeman shouted at the officials who, being in plain clothes, he failed to identify as fellow guardians of the law, bearing down upon him at full pelt. They, of course, took no notice of his command. “Stop!” he shouted once more, and as they were by now very close and were clearly intent on grabbing hold of Marie, without any hesitation he socked them over the head with his rubber truncheon. One of them went down instantly, while the other began to reel; Haintl, too, ran up now, helped one of the injured detectives to his feet, and while confusion reigned and the ill-treated detective took pains to explain to the policeman that he was an idiot, Marie was once more able to continue her getaway.

  Now, however, the pursuers were no longer able to keep up the pace and, in addition, Haintl had his work cut out helping the seriously hurt detective to stay in the chase. The Oxenbauers were far behind by now, and when Marie reached the corner of the street and looked round, she could no longer see any of them.

  In two or three minutes she came to Mariahilfer Strasse, the section that runs from Westbahnhof to Schönbrunn Palace. She ran directly towards the city centre, but after a few steps realized this was a mistake. It would have been better to have run in the opposite direction, since there among the houses and in the dim side streets she stood more of a chance to shake them off her track. However, it was too late to turn back. Moreover, some of the passers-by who were still about even at that late hour would notice the chase, for the pursuers were shouting and whistling, though Marie still had such a good lead over them that she would always be somewhat ahead of them before the passers-by took any notice. She finally decided to jump into a taxi and headed for a line of three or four waiting cabs, but then ran past the astonished drivers after she realized she couldn’t in the time available tell any of the drivers to drive off just like that, immediately; and besides, the engine might well not start straight away, or the driver himself would have noticed the pursuers in the meantime and simply refused to drive off. After she had run past the taxis, however, it struck her that she no longer heard the whistling and shouting of her pursuers; she stopped, gasping for breath, and saw that they had commandeered one of the taxis in order to drive after her.

  For a moment she thought that her luck had run out. Then she staggered towards an approaching tram.

  It was, of course, not a regular tram at this time of night, but a service vehicle with a high superstructure, used nightly to inspect and maintain the overhead electric cables. A second car, a type of trailer carrying the necessary equipment, was coupled to the first. The two tramcars were travelling quite fast. The headlights dazzled her; she tried to grab hold of the first car and jump on board, but was plunged into darkness after the lights had passed, and she missed her chance. The second tramcar then followed, but she soon saw there was no way she could jump on; only when the rear end of the car came up level did she see a pair of handles, or rather a type of iron clamps forming some steps. She grabbed hold of one of them and, due to the speed of the car, was immediately thrown off balance since, in her confused and exhausted state, she had not thought of running in the same direction as the car after she had grabbed hold of the step.
Nevertheless, being dragged along, holding on for dear life, she managed to reach the handle with her second hand and pull herself up, whereupon she then felt herself being carried along. What’s more, she finally managed to find a foothold. For a second or two she just hung on, completely exhausted.

  In the meantime the motorcar was in hard pursuit and catching up. They had seen Marie’s manoeuvre and were calling to the driver of the tram to stop. However, this tram wasn’t stopping anywhere, except for maintenance, and moreover the driver had no idea what was going on, perhaps he didn’t even hear anything. In any case, he just let them carry on shouting and drove on.

  Marie in the meantime had clambered up the iron steps and tumbled over the railing into the trailer. There was no one there, for the crew were all in the front car. For a few seconds she lay panting on the floor, then she stood up and looked over the top of the railing.

  The car with her pursuers was closing the gap fast, but at this point the tram turned left into the ring road. Before the tram turned, the pursuers had tried to come up level, they had opened the car door, and the blond detective was standing on the running board, ready to jump onto the trailer. The car was already alongside when the tram veered left. The gap between the tram rails and the boarding step narrowed so quickly that the car was forced to brake suddenly. It was too late, however. The off-side front wheel caught the edge of the boarding step and was jerked sideways; the car went out of control, and the detective on the running board was thrown onto the road.

  He lay there, apparently injured. The others ignored him, however, jumped out of the car, and ran after the tram.

  The tram gathered speed along the ring road. Haintl and the remaining detective, realizing they could no longer keep up, screamed and bellowed at the top of their voices. Meanwhile, in the front tramcar they were by now aware of what had happened, but the driver, because he either still hadn’t noticed anything, or else had a guilty conscience, as maybe he thought he was responsible for the accident, drove on regardless. The others, however, drew his attention to the pursuers. There was a brief exchange of words, the tram finally came to a halt, and Marie, who had still not been noticed by the people in the front tramcar, jumped down from the trailer.

  In front of her was a narrow side road flanked by trees and some bushes. She ran into the cover it afforded. In the meantime the detective and Haintl came running up, completely out of breath. They must have noticed Marie leap from the trailer, and without bothering to explain anything to the people on the tram also dashed into the cover of the side road.

  On the far side stood a large sprawling building, still brightly lit. Between the side road and the building was a lane on either side of which there was a long line of parked taxis and private cars.

  The building was a suburban hotel, the ground floor accommodating a coffee house and a large, popular entertainment complex.

  Marie ran across the road and along the line of parked cabs. However, as she approached the entrance to the complex, she became increasingly conspicuous on account of all the bright lights, and on the spur of the moment she jumped into one of the cabs.

  Its driver, like the majority of the drivers, was not standing by his cab. However, Marie’s pursuers hadn’t overlooked the possibility that she might jump into one of the cabs and drive off, and they wanted to forestall her manoeuvre. What they evidently didn’t know was which car she had got into. So they began to search the nearest cars by opening the doors and looking inside. They could no longer summon the strength to shout and draw attention, for they were completely out of breath.

  They simply opened and closed the cab doors, with the result that one of the drivers approached them and asked them where they wanted to go. Needless to say, they didn’t reply.

  In the meantime Marie tried to make herself inconspicuous in the back of the cab she had jumped into. She couldn’t ask the driver to take her anywhere for the simple reason that there was no driver about. However, presently the driver appeared with a group of people who were prepared to get into the taxi and gave him an address.

  Five people were about to get in and soon noticed there was already someone crouching in the back. Normally one would, of course, have assumed that the taxi had already been taken, but Marie remained silent for so long, cowering in a corner, that it was not until someone had sat on her lap—the driver had switched on the light in the back only a couple of seconds after he had got into his seat—that it suddenly dawned on those getting into the taxi that something was not in order, and they immediately asked what the person was doing in the back. There was therefore nothing left for Marie but to jump out of the taxi onto the road, skirt round the vehicle and dash through the gates of the entertainment complex.

  Her pursuers, who were by now quite close as they went through the cars, saw what she’d done and ran after her.

  It must have been a private function, or rather the tail end of one—this was no longer the season for public ones. In the cloakroom, as Marie dashed through, people were already in the process of collecting their overcoats. Tickets at the entrance to the reception rooms were no longer being checked with the result that she was able to enter unchallenged. Here there was still a fairly large crowd of people among whom she could disappear. She tore off her coat and dived into the crowd. There were hundreds of women there, all looking much like one another and, indeed, no better dressed than she was.

  Having burst into the hotel, it was while Haintl and the detective began accosting all the womenfolk in search of Marie, which naturally created the impression that both of them were drunk, and the staff were about to apprehend and eject them, that Marie managed to dash across the floor of the next reception room and reach the passageway between the private rooms and the coffee house, for she was familiar with the general layout, having already been there two or three times previously with Sponer. She hurried through the coffee house, back into the street and, half-running, half-walking, and set off in the direction of her house. She unlocked the front door, rushed up the stairs and entered her flat, completely exhausted.

  However, Sponer was no longer there.

  He had waited in the living room, nervously smoking and staring vacantly before him, and at first had thought for a few moments about Marie, but then his thoughts drifted to Mortimer and Mortimer’s murderer, and to the underworld from which they had both emerged and to which they had both returned—one living, the other dead.

  Since the beginning of the world there was the upper world and the nether world—the underworld. Not just one, but two worlds—that then was the world. Since the beginning of mankind there were the obermenschen and the untermenschen, not just one mankind as such, but two—that then was mankind. As a consequence there were the high and the low, the noble and the ignoble, the saints and the sinners, the gods and the demons—that was mankind. But also, since the beginning of mankind it was not a question of noble or ignoble, upper or lower, evil or good; but rather noble, ignoble, upper, lower, evil and good, all rolled into one—that then was man.

  Since time immemorial there were gods and demons, virtue and vice, saints and sinners, angels and beasts, lords and knaves. Oft were the lords the knaves, and the knaves the lords. Never were the lords and the knaves one and the same. But each had a touch of the lord and a touch of the knave in him, a touch of the reigning and a touch of the slaving, the conscientious and the ruthless, the animal and the spiritual, the loving and the hating, the shining and the darkening in him.

  The underworld had again and again broken through the Earth’s ridiculously thin crust, and since time immemorial the demon would rear up in men’s hearts.

  One believed it was possible to drive crime under the asphalt and the concrete of cities, under multi-storey buildings, roadways and churches. It could be confined, so it was thought, in canals, under bridges, in abandoned cellars… But that was not true at all. It rose, it penetrated into houses, stations, offices. It penetrated into Mortimer’s bank, settled at his writing desk; it
travelled with him to Europe, followed him invisibly, like Satan followed Judas Iscariot, and dragged him down again into the underworld, without a sound, without a trace, without leaving a single clue. He had sat there dead, as dead as a doornail, in the taxi, with three bullet holes in him—that was all. No sound, no shadow, no sign of the murderer; the dead man had just sat there as though not dead at all, his eyes fixed in a sidelong indifferent stare, and it was only when Sponer shook him that he slumped forward and lay between the suitcase and the seat, and Sponer then realized that the man was in cahoots with the Devil, and that Mortimer was now trying to drag him, too, down into hell. How was he allowed to do so, who gave him the right, why had the guilty one gone free, why hadn’t Mortimer clung to the real murderer?…

  Sponer looked up with a start. Fiala had entered from the adjoining room.

  “Marie isn’t back yet?” he asked.

  “No,” said Sponer, and he looked at him blankly.

  “It’s already a quarter past three,” Fiala said.

  “A quarter past three?”

  “Where on earth have you sent her?”

  “Who? Marie?”

  “Yes. She’s been gone more than half an hour.”

  It wouldn’t have taken her more than a few minutes to reach Sponer’s place, then another ten minutes at most to collect his things—for she knew, of course, where they were—and then another couple of minutes to return home. He had told her to come back, that it was urgent; she herself must, of course, have realized that. Why then wasn’t she back yet? Perhaps, he thought, perhaps…

  “Well?” Fiala asked.

  “What?” Sponer shouted nervously.