“Yes.”
“Kalisch lays much stress on his condition. He had all the appearance, he says, of a man who had not slept for several nights and was haunted by presentiments of evil. He even goes so far as to say that he would not have been surprised if the stranger had done something rash.”
“Rash?”
“To himself.”
I stood up impetuously — and sat down again. “Absurd!” I said. “Inconceivable! Ellis was the last man, even if he had not been in a position of responsibility — the very last man to do such a thing!”
The Baron nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I am with you there — absolutely. I think that Kalisch, looking at things by the light of what followed, has exaggerated his impressions. I am sure that we may put that aside, and I proceed. Ellis, on arriving at the Post House supped with one companion in a small room in which were supping two Jew merchants, who were also on their way to Hamburg, and who were still in the house some hours after his absence was discovered.
“About half-past seven the gentleman was observed by a girl, a servant at the Post House, to be examining his pistols, apparently to see if the priming was in order, and from this arose the idea of suicide. A few minutes later, entering the room again, she found him walking up and down, in an excited state, and talking to himself.
“At eight he appears to have suddenly changed his mind as to staying the night — it is possible that it was only then that he learned that there were no sleeping rooms at the Post House and that he would have to remove into the town; at any rate he went to the room used by the postilions and ordered horses to be put to his carriage — he would go on. On that the man who had conducted the party from Kyritz—”
“The Frenchman?”
“Yes, if he was a Frenchman, objected, and angry words followed, but Ellis persisted, and after some to-ing and fro-ing, for it would appear that he changed his mind more than once, final orders were given for a start at nine o’clock. Ellis then went out to the sentries, and giving the men a douceur told them that they were no longer needed. He sent his thanks by them to the Governor and informed him that he was going on that night.”
“Would to God I had been with him!” I exclaimed, deeply moved by the picture of poor Perceval, alone, distraught, and aware of his peril, but unable to see whence it threatened. “ Where was Klatz all this time?”
“After supper? In and out, he says, until about half-past eight. At half-past eight he went into the town on an errand of his own. He says that when he left the Post House, Ellis was walking up and down beside the carriage, which was standing in the road before the Post House, and between it and the ‘Black Cow,’ the tavern on the opposite side of the way.
“The carriage had not been unloaded and after sunset a woman, the wife of the Postmaster, undertook to watch it. Later she was called away and deputed the task to her son August, a young man of a reputation on a par with that of the ‘Black Cow.’ August admits that about a quarter to nine, seeing the traveller in the fur cloak standing beside it, he stepped away and when he returned at five minutes to nine the carriage was unattended.
“At the same moment — or as nearly as can be fixed — Klatz returned from the town and seeing that the horses were not attached went into the yard to learn the reason. He found that the postboy was not there; he had been missing, the ostler said, for twenty minutes. Klatz went into the house to tell his master but could not find him. He looked into the carriage, fancying that he might have seated himself in it and gone to sleep; but he was not there. And from that moment to this, my friend — with one doubtful exception — your friend Perceval has not been seen by living eyes — so far as we can learn.”
“A very strange story,” I said, drawing a long breath. “Yes, yet as far as we can learn, a true story.”
“He was last seen then, standing by the carriage at five minutes to nine — in the dark?”
“Yes, it was dusk at any rate — and we are told a cloudy evening.”
“And August who saw him last is — suspect?”
“A vaurien! A bad character! Beyond doubt. Moreover, when search was made later and the Post House was ransacked, a thing that was at first believed to be Ellis’s, and that certainly was purloined from the party, was discovered hidden under some sacks in an outhouse.”
“No!” I cried. “What was it?”
“A fur cloak.”
“But does not that bring it fairly home to August?”
“To the Post House at any rate? Yes, apparently. But wait a moment. The two Jews were in and about the Post House until fully two hours after Ellis’s disappearance. They are respectable men and we have their evidence, and they are certain that nothing could have happened to Ellis at the Post House without their knowledge. Then the story August tells seems to be probable.
“He says that later in the evening he looked into the carriage and saw the cloak lying on the seat, was tempted by its value, and took it. But he denies strenuously — he is still in custody — that he did anything to Ellis or has any knowledge where he is or what happened to him.
Moreover Klatz and Kaspar both assert that the cloak is not Ellis’s but yours.”
“Ah!”
“But as we believed that you had disappeared with Ellis this did not remove the suspicion. Now, however, as you were not there, it looks still more likely that August is telling the truth.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But, Baron when you said a few minutes ago that August was the last to see Ellis, you added ‘with one doubtful exception.’ What exception? It may shed some light.”
“It does, if we can be sure of the facts. I’ll tell you. The Governor’s landlady has a daughter, a respectable girl. She took in the tea that afternoon and saw Ellis and is able to describe Ellis’s dress. She says that he wore a fur travelling cap and a fur cloak, open, over a short laced grey coat and grey trousers, with a diamond brooch in his shirt or stock. Now she says that at nine that evening — the cathedral clock was striking at the moment — a tall man wearing a cloak with the collar turned up called and asked to see the Governor. She told him that Captain von Kalisch was not at home; he was at a ball given that evening by the provincial nobility at the ‘German Coffee House.’
“The visitor turned away without replying, and she fancied went round the corner in the direction of that inn, and she thinks that he was joined a few paces from the door by a man who came out of the darkness about the Roland statue. But she is not certain that the caller was the Englishman who had been to see Kalisch earlier in the evening and had taken tea. There was no light in the passage, the only lights were two oil lamps in the market place and they were behind the visitor. Consequently his face was in deep shadow, and she can only say that he wore a cloak and appeared to be about Ellis’s height.”
“Still that is evidence,” I said.
“Yes, and I think with the girl that it was your friend. Indeed, we concluded that the person who joined him was no other than yourself. It was not; but any way if it was Ellis who called at the door, that was positively the last that was seen of him.”
“Turning as if to enter the street in which is the ‘German Coffee House’?”
“Precisely.”
“There is nothing to be learned about him at the ‘ Coffee House’?”
“Nothing! Absolutely nothing. No Englishman called there that night. But there was a ball going forward at the inn, a band was playing, there were many strangers in every part of the house, and much confusion.”
“Well,” I said, after thinking it over for a minute, “I was certainly not the person who joined him in the Market Place. And to be frank, Baron, as there seems to be an entire want of evidence of my presence in Perleberg, I am more astonished than ever that you assumed it. Especially as Klatz and Kaspar were in one story that I was not there.”
“You forget the strength of the parti pris, my friend. We started with the assumption that Ellis and you were together. You as well as Ellis were missing: hence we belie
ved that the same fate had overtaken both. As a fact, at Perleberg the party were never together except, perhaps, at supper-time: one in, one out — you might ave been on some errand in the town. Then the man Kaspar was a stupid, frightened witness, and when he corroborated Klatz, we, knowing something about Klatz, doubted him also.”
“It was probably Klatz who joined Ellis in the Market Place?”
“No. We have the Jews’ evidence that from nine onwards Klatz was searching for Ellis at the Post House. Klatz could not therefore have been in the Market Place at nine, or moving in the direction of the ‘German Coffee House.’ Moreover” — and Bronberg once more bent forward and significantly tapped me on the knee—” we hold Klatz, my friend. We know all about Klatz.”
“You think so, but—”
“Oh, but we do. We know all about him. He did sell you! He did sell you! You were right there, Cartwright, you were right all along. Klatz did sell you, or rather the despatches you carried — to the French for five hundred pounds.”
“No!” I cried, really surprised at last.
“Yes! For five hundred pounds — English sterling!”
“The villain! The d — d villain!” I exclaimed.
“He was a villain. Your suspicions were right. He sold you. But he failed to carry out his bargain. You were to be waylaid in a lonely part of the road and robbed of the despatches. Of course the French wished to do the thing as quietly as possible, and accordingly the first trap was laid for you in a wood near Elsterwerde. But you diverged from the Berlin road and made instead for Wittenberg, and so baffled them for that time. Klatz could not arrange another snare in a moment; your change of route had put him out of touch with his employers, and not all places were suited to so delicate a business.
“However, another rendezvous was arranged, at a quiet spot on the farther side of Kyritz. But again Klatz’s plan was dislocated. Ellis’s illness deferred his departure from Kyritz by twenty-four hours — you will remember that Klatz remonstrated — and when the party arrived at the place, the trap was not set. Justus Gruner has got to the bottom of all that, and the French, confronted with Klatz’s confession, have admitted as much and have cynically reclaimed the five-hundred-pound bill which was found on him, and which guided Justus to the truth.”
“Well, I am d — d!”
“The French, indeed, think nothing too bad for Klatz, for it is their theory — and it is one of the three which cover the ground — that he was a double traitor; that he had another client, and having touched the French money, sold the despatches and his master to a third party.”
“The Judas! But do you believe that, Baron?”
“No, I don’t. I do not think that the man could have been rash enough to entertain the idea. And — for a second and weightier reason — if he sold the despatches to a third party, where are the despatches? Where are they?”
“Ah!”
“Where are they, my friend?” The Baron nodded twice, his face pregnant with meaning.
“Yes, I see,” I said.
“That is the real point. That is the index finger to the mystery. Where are they? Who has them? For—” his eyes beginning to twinkle—” I suppose without trespassing on your confidence, Mr. Secretary, I may presume that they were important?”
“Important! I should think so, Baron!” I exclaimed.
“And secret?”
“Most secret.”
“Valuable therefore to the French, of course? We know it.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I am quite sure that they have not got them. If they had—”
“There would have been trouble before this,” I admitted. “Yes, that is so, Baron. I allow it. That certainly seems to be proof that the French have not got them.”
“It is. Well, then, to whom besides would they be of value?”
“To our own Foreign Office, of course.”
“Of course. Well, we know that they have not got them! They have bleated loudly enough about them! To any third party?”
“No, I should think not.”
“Ah, but think! Think again, my friend.” He looked at me with a queer smile. “What of the — what of the Ball-Platz, eh?”
I stared at him, and thought hard, while I waited for him to go on.
“What of Vienna? What of our excellent friends, the late Stadion, and the present Metternich, and the nimble-witted but enthusiastic Gentz? Your friends? What if they came to feel that in their desire to maintain a link with your delightful money-bags, and your so powerful ships of war — which, alas for poor Copenhagen, cannot admit are always well used — what if it struck them that they had put their hands to a little more than on cooler reflection, with the French Army undeniably masters, they deemed wise? Or safe? Or safe, my friend? Might they not in that case conceive the idea of regaining possession — of those so important signatures?” I smiled. “It does not arise,” I said. “No, Baron. There was nothing in the despatches—”
“Though so important? Though so secret?” His face wore a benevolent smile, but his eyes twinkled. “Nothing in them that might render Vienna anxious — to recover them or destroy them?”
I shook my head, smiling. It would not do for me to admit that. “No,” I said, “ there was nothing in them as bad — or as good — as that, Baron.” I did not suppose that he would believe me, and certainly his suggestion fell in with the facts; it accounted not only for the loss of the despatches but for the non-effect of that loss.
But I considered it a most unlikely solution, and I was not prepared to give it weight by debating it. “No,” I repeated, “there is no way out there, I am sure. I can think of no third party with an interest strong enough to lead them to bribe Klatz — or to murder poor Ellis.”
“Then we will rule that out — for the moment,” he agreed. “ There remain but two theories then. The first is the one which is firmly maintained by Kalisch and the police at Perleberg. It is that Ellis fell a victim to a common robbery, that he was lured from the side of the carriage — possibly in the darkness no more than thirty or forty yards — and was murdered by vulgar cut-throats who, finding the papers upon him, destroyed them in ignorance of their value.
“The suspicions of the local people fixed themselves on the tavern opposite the Post House. They searched it most closely and with some success, for they found buried under the cellar floor a skeleton. But it was certainly not Ellis’s, as it was plain that it had lain there for some years; and for the rest no trace of anything belonging to him could be found there. But a stream runs near, and there are pinewoods within ten minutes’ walk.
“The stream was dragged, and the woods were beaten without result. But such a search must be perfunctory; the ‘Black Cow’ is not the only suspicious house in the town, and the failure to find the body has not convinced the local police that they are wrong.”
“I see.”
“But on the whole I prefer the third and last alternative — the one held by Gruner and the Berlin police, and incessantly and vociferously proclaimed by Klatz.”
“And that is?’
“That Klatz was not the only one in pursuit of the despatches; that there were others hunting á la meme piste, who had the advantage over him that they were aware of his operations while he was in ignorance of theirs; that the warnings given at Grossenhayn and Kyritz were given by them, with a view to spoiling his game, and that at Perleberg Ellis fell into their hands.”
I paused to consider the suggestion. Someone tapped at the door. The messenger who had introduced me put in his head. “In five minutes,” the Baron said.
“Yes, I allow, Baron,” I said, “that that would account for many of the facts. But it is open to the objection you stated before. If Ellis fell a victim to a scheme, the object of which was to obtain the despatches, and to sell them to the highest bidder — where are they?”
“Just so,” he said. “And that was why I—” he looked blandly at me—” suggested the Ball Platz. If Vienna recovered them it wou
ld only be to destroy them.”
“But don’t you see, Baron,” I remonstrated, “ that you are accusing Metternch of a monstrous thing? Of the murder of an envoy accredited to his own Court. Of an infamy in fact! An unspeakable treachery!”
“No, no!” protesting with arms flung wide. “No, no, my friend, do not put that on me. Because, do you see, he might be only the purchaser — after the event.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said positively. And I meant it. “I’ll never believe it, Baron. We are not, really we are not as bad as that.”
“Well, perhaps not,” he answered, but I could see with some doubt. “Perhaps not. Only you see the hypothesis meets the facts as far as we know them. And putting it aside there remains only the local theory — that Ellis was the victim of a casual crime.”
“Then whence the warnings at Grossenhayn and Kyritz?”
Bronberg shrugged his shoulders. “I give it up,” he said. “It is a puzzle, a great puzzle, my friend. But do you meet Gruner here at three. I’ll send for him, and we’ll see what he says about it.”
CHAPTER XII
THE CHIEF OF POLICE
As I walked away from the Mission, I might, no doubt, if I had used my eyes, have seen more than I had already remarked of the change for the worse which had come over Berlin. But my thoughts were not of Berlin, nor of our French friends whose door I passed blindly, nor even of Bronberg whose door I had just left. Nor did they as yet range among the several theories that the Baron had propounded.
They were of Ellis. And they were, God knows, very bitter and very sad thoughts. For it is true that the faults of the dead fall from them, their virtues remain in our minds, and Perceval had been my Chief, and with all his trifling affectations an honourable English gentleman.
And it was a picture of him, pacing to and fro in the darkness beside the lonely carriage, with a fate more obscure than the night already enveloping him — a picture of him, alone, deserted, distracted, trusting no one and with no one to trust, aware of his danger yet ignorant of the quarter whence it threatened him — this picture it was, and the gloomy and remorseful reflections which it called up, that gripped and tormented my mind, as I walked through the unseen streets.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 690