With a hand gripping either arm and another on my throat, I could do no more than choke with rage as they ran out the poor man, vainly protesting and screaming for mercy. The door closed on the struggling group, and—” Now it’s your turn,” the tyrant said, slapping the table and fixing his sharp cruel eyes on me. “Well see if you’ll be so quick to speak now. I doubt it, but never fear, we’ll get the truth out of you! Oh, yes, we’ll get the truth out of you, Master Englishman, or you’ll go the same way. Who are you, do you hear? Or, who do you say you are? Out with it, or mind you a rope cravat is bad, but the stick is the sharper. Who are you?”
“You had better see my papers,” I said, raging. And I plunged my hand into the pocket of my cloak. I might yet be in time to save the poor fellow.
“Ay! Your papers!” with a sneer, but in a tone a little more reasonable, for my coolness, I think — and I was very cool, indeed, now, having passed into the cold stage of fury — checked him. “Let’s see them for what they are worth.” He held out his hand for them. “Forged, I’ll be bound, if you have any.”
But the card was not in the pocket in which I had placed it, and I had to feel for it in a second pocket — and a third. It was in none, and I dare say that my face betrayed my surprise, for the blusterer’s tone rose again. “Well, the papers? Your papers?” he repeated, malice in his eyes. “Let’s see them, Mister Englishman. They must be something worth seeing, I am sure.”
The card was gone! I felt and felt again, while the officer and the Frenchmen gloated over every movement. I felt in all my pockets. No, it was in none; the card was gone! And no doubt my face fell. “It has been taken from me,” I said. “I had it last night. I’ve been robbed.”
“Robbed?” the man answered in spiteful glee. “ Robbed, eh? That flea won’t stick in the wall! The truth is, Master Spy, you have no papers! You have no papers! But you have the impudence of the devil, and we’ll see if we can’t lower that a peg! Search him! Search him!” truculently. “ Strip him to the skin, the rogue, and—” he broke off, turning his head. “What is it?” harshly. “Has he spoken?”
One of the men who had hustled Grussbaum out had returned. He stooped and spoke a few words in the great man’s ear: “See me alone?” the latter burst forth. “And he’ll tell me all? Thousand devils, does he think that I am at his beck and call? No! Lay on, man, lay on! And then I’ll see him — when you have brought him to his senses.”
But this appeared to be too much for the Frenchmen’s stomachs, or it may be that they thought it wiser to take the servant’s evidence before the master was heard. At any rate, one of them dropped from the table on which they were perched, and stepping to the Offizier said something to him, which I could not catch. The man snorted, and seemed for a time inclined to stand by his order, but after a rapid interchange of words he yielded. “Very well,” he said sulkily, “I’ll hear the rogue first. I’ll hear him. And then,” with a malevolent glance at me, “ we shall know better, Herr Englander, how to deal with you.”
He rose with an air and swaggered out with the man who had brought the message, and to avoid the indignity of a search, which I saw was otherwise inevitable, I unbuttoned my coat and vest, and with some wriggling drew from a pocket within my shirt, where I had secreted it, Davout’s passport.
I had not resorted to it at once, in part because I had determined to use it only in the last extremity, but a little also because I could only get at it by undressing myself, and I had been unwilling to do this under the Frenchmen’s eyes. However, here it was — it at least had not been stolen from me, and thankful, indeed, I was that in this emergency I possessed it.
I had just succeeded in extracting it, a good deal to the amusement of the lookers-on, and I was anticipating with some zest the effect which it would produce, when the Oberst Offizier returned. But I saw with surprise that he did not return the same man he had gone out. A change, an inexplicable change, had in the short time that he had been absent, come over him.
Something or someone had cut his comb during his absence, and never did beaten cock look more small or more sullen than he, as he resumed his seat and took up his pen. That he was still bursting with spite I had no doubt: but it was equally plain that he now knew his spite to be impotent. And he looked scared. He barely raised his eyes to me, and his hand shook as he waved away the paper that I offered him.
“You can go,” he said sulkily. “To the devil for all I care!” And to the Frenchmen, towards whom a portion of his ill-humour seemed now to be directed: “A mare’s nest,” he growled. “A cursed mare’s nest from beginning to end! I wash my hands of it.”
But naturally they were not prepared to accept this without explanation. The shift was as amazing to them as to me, and the one who had spoken before spoke up now and protested. “But Herr Oberst,” he said, “if you let this man go in this way—”
“I am going to let him go.”
“Then I shall report the matter,” haughtily. “ He is an Englishman, and whatever his business here —— —”
“I know his business,” and the officer slapped his table with something of his old arrogance, “and that is enough. That is enough. After all, I am in charge here.”
“But—”
“I am in charge here, and I have said,” curtly, “ all that I am going to say. If you are not satisfied, sir, you had better look at that,” contemptuously. He flipped his fingers towards the paper that I still held in my hand. “It has naught to do with me. It is not directed to me, and I don’t want to see it. I am satisfied.”
“Well, I am not satisfied,” the Frenchman replied firmly. “And I do want to see it.” He held out his hand for it.
But I plunged the precious paper deep into my cloak pocket. “No,” I said with equal bluntness. “That is just what you will not do. It is not directed to you, monsieur, and I do not intend to produce it to you. The police, whose conduct,” with a withering glance at my enemy, “I shall report in the proper quarter, are satisfied. I have to do with no one else, and I acknowledge no other authority. I will trouble you,” I continued, addressing myself to the Oberst, “ to release my companion at once. If he has suffered—”
“He has not been touched,” the Oberst muttered sullenly.
“That is a good thing for you, sir,” I retorted. “ Then let him be released if you please. And at once.”
“He has gone.”
“Very good. Then I take it I am free to go also.”
“To the devil, if you please,” he rejoined.
I took no notice of his rudeness, but buttoning up my cloak looked hardily round, with a special glare for the Frenchmen, who, completely nonplussed, did not know how to return the look. “ Good morning, then, gentlemen,” I said. “The matter will be reported in the proper quarter.” And, turning my back on them, I plunged into the dark vaulted staircase, blundered down the steps, and pushed my way through the inquisitive crowd about the door. I crossed the tiny market-place and strode down the narrow street. I felt some exaltation. I was free. I had triumphed.
But why? Why free? I asked myself presently. How had it come about? That puzzled me, and for the time monopolized my thoughts. Whence this sudden, this unlooked-for deliverance? Had I shown Davout’s safe conduct, as in another moment I should have shown it, this would have accounted for all. Triumph and freedom would no doubt have followed. But I had not shown it.
I had done nothing except protest, and I could not understand the result. Apparently — and this was all I could say — Grussbaum had spoken and this had followed. But Grussbaum was a stranger to me; he knew nothing, and for that reason he could have divulged nothing. For certain he knew nothing of Davout’s passport, for it had never left the pocket next my skin in which I had placed it; and, the Marshal excepted, no one knew of it save the Baron and Gruner.
Ah, Gruner! I stood arrested under the old pyramidal gateway. I saw light! It must be Grussbaum — Grussbaum and no other, who had stolen the card, which Gruner had countersigne
d for me — had stolen it, and under the stress of the stick had produced it to the Oberst, owning at the same time how he had come by it. That, to be sure, would account for all.
It was, too, the only reasonable explanation, and I walked on at a slower pace, considering what I should do. To travel forward with such a man was not to be contemplated — I had suffered enough from Klatzes and their like! So, by the time I stood again within sight of the inn, I had made up my mind to dispense with my gentleman’s company.
And to this day I don’t know why I did not, and can attribute my failure only to weakness. But the truth was he was useful; and when I joined him he proved himself so plausible and so full of excuses that I doubted my own reasoning. When I approached the door and found the carriage waiting, and Grussbaum in attendance, obsequiously meeting me with this and that, and in one breath assuring me that he was none the worse and regretting the inconvenience I had suffered, and in the next informing me that all was packed and ready — I put off the moment.
I could drop the man at any stage; I could rid myself of him when I stopped to eat. In a word, I got in, overcome by his fussiness and in part to save time; and he got in, and the postboys cracked their whips and we rolled away. The devil was in it if I knew what to do; the man was so useful and so plausible. But I would think. I should have plenty of time to turn the matter over.
Plenty of time? But that was just what I had not. As my thoughts reverted to the poor girl, and to the wretches who held her in their power and who had given me the slip so cleverly, I saw this! I looked at my watch. They had won a two hours’ start; it was halfpast nine. I thrust out my head.
We had trundled through the narrow streets of the town, and passed the swollen ford, and were now climbing the farther bank, a pack of men who had done nothing to help us running alongside and clamouring for alms. “Whip up!” I cried to the postboys, as I flung down some coppers. “Whip up and a double fee for this stage!”
They complied, or did their best to comply, for the road was infamous. And now, with the girl on my mind, I was in a fever to get on; in a fever and full of suspicion. The delay that had so favoured the Waechters’ escape — had it been their work? I had seen Grussbaum speaking to them. Was it at their instance that he had picked my pocket of my credentials? And had they then, satisfied that I was disarmed, betrayed my nationality to the Frenchmen and left me tied by the heels?
It looked like it; so like it that with every mile my suspicions, and with them my anger, increased. When we came to the end of the stage I bounced out, summoned Master Grussbaum aside, and in a voice that he had not heard from me before, I bade him make a clean breast of it.
“Ay, a clean breast of it, you rascal!” I repeated, anger getting the better of me. I threatened him with my cane. “Confess, or I’ll beat in your face, you rogue!” And as he recoiled in amazement before my sudden attack, “Who told you to steal that card from my pocket last night? Who? Who, you rogue? Speak out!”
He gaped at me. “Der liebe Gott!” he stammered. “As I live, I don’t understand. I have done nothing!” And if he was not innocent he played the innocent well. “The card, your Excellency? I steal a card? Your Honour’s card? As heaven sees me I don’t know what the Wohlgeborener Herr is speaking of. What card?”
“You took my card — last night! “I retorted. “ Don’t deny it! Don’t deny it, for I know you did. You pretended to be putting a log on the fire, you rogue!”
“As heaven sees me,” he pleaded, holding out his hands, “I took no card! Did your Honour lose a card?”
“I did, and you know it. A card that was my passport!” But I spoke less violently than before, for I began to doubt. The man’s surprise seemed to be genuine. “If you did not, who did?” I continued. “Who did, knave? But I know it was you. How else did you escape the stick just now? — and bring that brute of a policeman to his senses? How did you work that miracle if you had not my card?”
“Ah!” In a moment his face and, indeed, his whole demeanour underwent a change. He looked at me, humble still, but with a sly smile. “I see. I see why his Honour suspects me. But I can explain that. I can explain that, and then he will see that I am innocent, quite innocent. The Oberst was of Hamburg also, and though he did not know me, I knew him, and knew, mein Herr, a little thing of him; a little thing, see you, but a thing which he would not wish to be known here. I said a word in his ear, and hocus-pocus — it was over. As you see!” Then to himself, and with a secret kind of grin, “it was d — d lucky for me that I did know,” he added, “that little thing. Or my back would have suffered!”
I could not tell whether to believe him or not, and “Oh,” I said, “so that is your story, is it?”
“That is what happened, mein Herr,” simply. “ But as for your card, as I live, I know nothing about it.”
“Yet someone took it. Someone took it from my cloak last night! If it was not you, it must have been that man — Waechter.”
“Waechter? That man?” He looked at me in a puzzled fashion.
“Yes,” sternly, “Waechter. And gave information to the police in order that I might not overtake him.”
He looked more at sea than ever. “The Highborn wishes to overtake him?” he said.
“I do,” I replied. “And I am going to overtake him.” He fingered his small chin — it had an odd perpendicular cleft in it — in an uncertain wavering way. Then, glancing up at me with a shrewder look than I had seen on his face before: “Why, honoured sir, if I may presume to ask? Why follow him? He is — of no consequence.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing.”
“That is my business,” I answered. “ It is enough that I do. And now take warning, my man,” I continued. “I have treated you handsomely — and all the same I doubt you. I doubt you. I am not sure even now that you have not played me false with these Waechters. But understand, at the first sign of it, I drop you in the road, and if I have the chance I will break every bone in your body besides. Now, you understand?”
He avoided my eyes, and in his abject way, scraping his foot to and fro, he protested that he was innocent — innocent as the babe unborn. “And for this man, Waechter, I know nothing of him. Your Honour knows him?” I caught another upward look — a sharp look.
“I know him for a d — d villain,” I said.
“And wish to overtake him?” That seemed to stick in his gizzard — to puzzle him.
“I have said so,” I retorted. “But there, the horses are in. And now it will be your business to keep the lads moving. See you do, my man, and honestly! Honestly, for if there is any breakdown I shall know whom to blame for it.”
With that I bundled him in, and we took the road again — I for my part still in doubt. But I must do the man this justice — he did keep the carriage moving and the postboys awake, and we made good progress. We drove into Kyritz an hour before noon, but found that the quarry had left a full hour before, after breaking their fast — not at the Black Eagle, but at another inn.
And here I had to come to a decision. I had to choose which of two things I would do. My inquiry into Perceval’s disappearance was due to start here. I had a hundred questions that I wished to put to the people at the Black Eagle. The postboys, the ostlers, the serving maid, I had meant to put them all through a fine mesh. For here at Kyritz the trail began; here poor Ellis had embarked on his last and fatal stage.
Here he had taken the French postilion who had so completely vanished. Here he had betrayed the first, or, at any rate, the first plain symptoms of that alarm, that consciousness that his life was in danger which had been so terribly justified a few hours later at Perleberg.
But these inquiries would take up some time, and if I stayed, if I halted to make them, I lost the chance — ail chance — of overtaking the Waechters; I abandoned the victim whom they held in their hands, I deserted the hapless girl who in her despair had made to me the only appeal that lay in her power. And I had not the heart to do this.
I could not bear to do
it, though to follow her was to stray from my purpose, and perhaps from my duty. I could return to Kyritz — the loss of time would not be very great; it should at least not be fatal. But if I once let the Waechters’ scent grow cold, if I allowed their party to gain some hours on me, it was unlikely that I should ever see or ever hear of their victim again.
No, I could not bear to do it; I could not bear to desert her. For the moment I put out of my mind even the despatches, on the recovery of which so much hung — for myself and for others. I could not abandon the girl. I snatched a hasty dinner at the Black Eagle, and pushed on for Perleberg.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE INN IN THE FOREST
BUT no doubt the feeling that the Waechters’ business was not the only one on my hands, and that when I had accomplished that I must turn without the loss of an hour to a more important task, added to my impatience. I was in a fever to get forward, and the carriage seemed to crawl. Everything was an obstacle; everything detained us.
Where the ruts were deep we fell to a snail’s pace; again we trotted, but how slowly! While every delay — and there were many delays — and every halt, necessary as it might be, set me on tenterhooks! I pictured the party in front of us travelling without let or pause. I pictured the girl’s belief that I had deserted her, and her despair; and a hundred times I despaired myself, making sure that with their two hours’ start they must outpace and escape me.
When Grussbaum brought us to a standstill that he might ask some postboy if the party had passed that way, I could have cursed his officiousness; and when he repeated the act I could no longer restrain myself. “Of course they are before us!” I cried, thrusting out my head. “They are going to Hamburg, stupid! Is there another road? Push on! Push on!”
At the first post-house where we changed horses, we learned that the party still held their start. We left with a new team, the postboys bribed to a spasm of activity, and we rattled away for a while, but the ruts and the sand quickly quenched this, and it was at little more than a walk that, about three o’clock, we completed the second stage. By that time I had resigned myself to the worst, and depression had closed about me like a fog.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 697