Had Ellis really gone to the Coffee House that night? Had he been seen in it? Had he been seen by anyone in the street leading to it? These were the questions to which I wanted answers, and my first attack was made on my landlord; the fat, beaming tun of a man who had received me.
I got him up into my room, and was surprised as well as pleased when I found him as willing to talk as I was to listen. Suspicion had not touched him, and I soon saw that he was one of those who savour a mystery. But when it came to what he knew himself, he could tell me nothing. The nobility ball had filled his house on that fatal evening, there had been many strangers, and much coming and going, much confusion, to which the noise of a band had contributed.
He had questioned all his servants long ago, and traced the man who had admitted the Holstein merchant to see the Governor. But no one could be found who retained any memory of a second foreigner. In fine, the man could not carry the trail a yard farther. At the corner of the Market Place, at the moment when the two dark figures melted into the twilight, it stopped.
We finished our talk on the landing outside my door, and as I turned to re-enter, after dismissing my host, I caught the eye of a chambermaid who was scrubbing the floor. “Was it about the nobility ball the gentleman was asking?” she said, looking up from her work. “Well, there was an odd thing happened next morning — in his room, too, if he would like to hear it.”
I encouraged her. “Come in and tell me,” I said. “ What was that?”
“Well, mein Herr, it was not much,” she said. “Still, it was odd. A gracious, good-to-the-eye-seeming young lady had this room, and an older lady who was with her had the next. Well, when they were leaving — that was early in the morning after the ball, or, indeed, late in the morning, for most of us had been up all night—”
“Had they been to the ball?” I interposed. “The two ladies?’
“Oh, no, they were just travellers like mein Herr, who had come in late the evening before. Well, when they were leaving the Frau had lost something — an ear-drop that was not in all the world to be matched, to listen to her — and lost it in the Fraulein’s room, she thought.
“Such a rumpus as there was then! Nothing would do but every corner must be searched, and all the young lady’s baggage that had been strapped must be opened and even the flounces of the frock the Fraulein was wearing must be tried, lest it be caught in them, and what not and what not! There was no end to it, seeking and searching!”
“Did she suppose, then,” I asked, “that the young lady had —— —”
“Had taken it? Not according to her,” the chambermaid smiled. “Oh, no, the Frau, to begin, was all milk and sugar — if she might search! But it wasn’t hard to see what she thought.”
“And the young lady?”
“Scared out of her wits, I promise you, mein Herr. And seeing her all of a tremble and the colour of a bleached napkin, I said I’d call up my mistress; and at that my lady that had been getting sharper and sharper, lowered her tone, I can tell you! And they went downstairs, and I thought them gone. But in a moment up comes my lady again, and gives me a whole thaler, and to it again, looking behind the drawers and turning over the bed and raking out the ashes in the stove, and even feeling the quilt.
“If a flea to be found there was, she’d have had it! But nothing came of it; at any rate, I saw her find nothing. And when she gave it up and went down her face was black as thunder, and I was glad to think that the young lady was going no farther with her.”
“They parted here then?”
“Yes, mein Herr. They had shared a landschute, I heard, but I fancy that the young lady did not like her company. She was going to Altona to see her sick father — so she told me.”
“What?” I cried. I sprang to my feet. Hitherto I had been listening but idly. “Say that again.”
Surprised by my manner, the woman repeated the statement. “Why?” she added. “Did the Herr know her?”
“I’ve met her,” I said. “ Had the elder woman — who searched — a small dog with her?”
“So! To be sure she had. Your honour is right. A dog with bells.”
And then for the first time I saw a little light falling into a dark place. It broke on me that it was on the strength of some false charge such as this, some hold such as the story suggested, that the woman had taken possession of the lonely terrified girl, and had enslaved her body and soul. By heaven, it looked like it! It looked like it!—” And she seemed to be frightened, did she?” I continued eagerly; “the young Fraulein?”
“That morning? I believe you,” the wench replied. “Frightened in the highest degree, she was, and her face like paper, though she’d come in the evening before as easy as you please. But with the other it was pretty much a word and a blow! For her, I’d judge her” — with a scornful toss of the head—” to be like the eardrop she said she had lost — for she showed me the fellow to it — more gaudy than good.”
“But did not the young lady defend herself?”
“No, she was that terrified that she just sat with her hands before her and looked as if she was going to swoon. Not a bit of spirit in her! If it had been me — but then, you see, the other did not right down accuse her. She was too clever for that. And for my part I never believed the young lady took a pin. Her only fault was that she was too good for her company. Oh, I know. Do you imagine” — with a toss of her head—” that I’ve made beds for the gentry for seven years and don’t know black from white?’
Someone called her then, and she went out, and you may be sure that she left me to thoughts that in a trice carried me back to a day before all these troubles had fallen upon me; to the day of that ever-to-be-regretted departure from Wittenberg, when, stepping out into the early freshness of the August morning, I had seen a landschute standing before the inn, and in it these two women.
Well might I call that morning, which had opened so brightly, unfortunate, for it had led poor Perceval to his death, to me it had brought lasting remorse, and to this girl, who seemed to have nothing in common with us, God only knew what pain and humiliation.
But was I right? The woman and the girl had parted here, according to the chambermaid; and the girl I knew, from what I had learned at Zerbst, had gone on to Altona, had stayed there many weeks, had nursed her father back to health, had started on her return journey. Her arrival had been expected on the day before my own flight from Zerbst.
Here, then, was a long interval, and the question pressed on me — how had the young lady and Frau Waechter come again into contact? Why, after parting in these circumstances, had they come together again? The Fraulein was gentle, timid, easily swayed, perhaps; but she was not unversed in the world; she had mixed in society, she had enjoyed at Zerbst a privileged position.
What had induced her, then — what, I asked myself, could have induced her — to let this woman, violent, vulgar, common, an adventuress, take possession of her anew, browbeat, terrify, annex her?
What, indeed? There lay the riddle, and a riddle for me without an answer. And in my mind it gave rise to another. A thousand thalers was, in a poverty-stricken Germany, a large sum. It was for small people — for people living by their wits — a fortune. Why, then, had the Waechters refused such a bribe? A big bribe? Why had it failed to persuade them to release their hold over the girl?
That seemed more remarkable the longer I dwelt on it. The man had been tempted. He had wavered. But the woman had seen farther. She had valued their possession of the girl at more than a thousand thalers. Why? On what basis, I asked myself.
I feared to think. And, alas, of what use was thought — at this time of day? They were gone! Gone beyond seeking, gone, through Grussbaum’s treachery, beyond help! I could only — and it was a poor alternative — resolve to tell the Governor the whole story when I supped with him that evening.
He had the air of a humane man and he might be able to do something, though the odds were that the party were by this time across the Danish border.<
br />
All day I had this and the poor girl’s fate at the back of my mind, while apparently I was busied de coeur et d’áme in the other matter. In the hope of alighting on some one able to testify to Ellis’s passage through the street, I devoted the morning and a part of the afternoon to visiting every house between the Market Place and the German Coffee House. The landlord of the latter offered to accompany me, and I could not have done my work under more favourable auspices.
Mouths that the presence of the Governor or the police would have closed were opened in the sunshine of his vast and beaming countenance; neighbour passed me on to neighbour; householders interrogated their children; in every dwelling the story was told and canvassed; even the fact that it was market-day and the town pretty full, was not allowed to stand in my way.
But little came of it, and nothing that was definite. Strangers had been seen that evening, alone or in company; I had plenty of evidence of that. But then it was the night of the nobility ball, and the presence of strangers was to be expected. Whether, of these strangers, Ellis had been one, no one could say.
By half-past two I was as well known up and down the quaint, quiet street as my host himself. Smiles met me on every side. I was a centre of interest; I was exhibited to country people. And for my part there was hardly a house-block and hardly a sign — from the huge pair of spectacles that bridged the way before the watchmaker’s to the gigantic coffee-pot that hung before Speiser, the grocer’s — with which I was not familiar.
The children ran to me with messages, the dogs thrust their noses into my hand, even the sun shone with a warmth beyond that of November. As I looked up and down the narrow vista, I could not believe that Ellis had come to harm either here or hereabouts. Tragedy seemed so far — so very far off. I could not associate this gay, friendly, smiling street with it.
It was hard upon three when we gave up the inquiry, and I do not know which was the more disappointed — my good host or I. “But it is this way, mein Herr,” he said. “Take to-day. It is market-day. Many people come into my house. Do you think you could get evidence of them all? No! And that reminds me — you had your cloak on when we started?”
“I left it in the hall after dinner,” I explained. “ I found it too hot.”
“Now, there! And suppose someone took it from the hall — do you think we could bring it home to him? Doubtful, very doubtful. Let us hope, therefore, it is safe. A thing as valuable as that!” He shook his head reproachfully over it. “It should not have been left, mein Herr.”
However, we found it safe enough, hanging where I had left it, and on this point we had no need of evidence.
But I could quite understand that had any one taken it, he could have done so unperceived in the market crowd; and I took care to put on the cloak when I went out towards evening.
I thought that I would make some inquiries in the other street, in which the Golden Crown stood, and for more than an hour I strolled about, now questioning stolid tradesmen at their doors, now surveying from all points the grass-grown market-place which, even on this, the market-day, looked all too large.
Standing first in one place and then in another, I tried to call up the scene; tried to imagine how, and by what lane or alley, Perceval might, on that ill-fated night, have been lured out of the better parts of the town.
But again the peace and quietness about me were too much for me. Though the Governor had shaken his head and said that there were vauriens enough in Perleberg, I could find no room in this dull German town for so stark and grisly a thing as murder.
“It must have been the French, after all,” I concluded at last. “With everything to the contrary it still must have been the French who did it.” And I stood staring at the great dark couchant lion of a cathedral that flanked the Market Place and was the only object in the town that even approached it in size. Old, very old, I judged; almost as old as the crumbling statue of Roland that I had the curiosity to approach and touch.
I killed a few moments in that way, and then, dusk coming on, “I’m simply wasting my time,” I muttered despondently. “I’m doing no good here! Not a bit!”
But beyond what I had done, what could I do? That was the question, and it meant, what should I do — next day? I was debating it with my hand still resting on the Rolands-Saule, when a little girl, leaping over the shafts of a cart — one of a long line, laden and unladen, standing in the Place — ran up to me, thrust a scrap of paper into my hand, and with a merry laugh dived under the next cart and was gone!
Had I been prepared for her, I could hardly have detained her, and, as it was, I was left at gaze, staring at the paper that she had placed in my hand. It was a mere scrap, of coarse make, twisted into the form of a chapeau á comes, but without address. Though night was beginning to darken the narrow streets, there was still light enough in the middle of the open Place to enable me to read, and the roughly scrawled message was short.
“If you still wish” — it ran—” to make the bargain you offered two days ago, follow the man in the brown cloak, who is standing at the corner of the Rathhaus. Do not communicate with anyone, or the deal is off. You are watched.”
“So!” I exclaimed. “So! They have thought better of it then!” And I slapped my hand on the cold stone beside me, though the action was but a poor token of the relief — relief amounting to triumph — that I felt. For all day I had had the girl on my mind. All day, going out and coming in, visiting one house after another, I had been haunted by her woebegone face, her sad eyes. And now — now I could save her! The bribe had worked, the offer was to be accepted; the thalers had done their duty after all.
With the note in my hand I looked across the open space in search of the brown man. I could not distinguish him, but the distance was considerable, and below the Rathhaus, in the jaws of the narrow street that flanked it, the dusk was thick. An early light twinkled at the barber’s, the oil-shop was lighting up, but as I passed from the open I seemed to pass in a moment from the clear sky of evening to the dusk of night.
I don’t know whether it was this change, or the sight of the muffled figure awaiting me at the comer, that made me drop a hand into the pocket of my cloak, to make sure that I had my pistols with me.
They were there safe enough, and reassured by the feel of their roughened handles, I followed the short ungainly figure that at my nearer approach detached itself from the Rathhaus and, without look or sign, moved sluggishly down the street. Disguised as my guide was, in a cloak and flapped hat, I had little doubt that he was Karl, the half-witted lad.
I detested the dwarf, for I found something unnatural in him, in his brutishness and his animal nature; and for a moment it crossed my mind to raise an alarm and seize him. But to do it might expose the girl to instant vengeance, and, after all, I had nothing to fear; I had my pistols. If treachery were intended, I had little doubt that so armed I could deal with it.
Slouching through the dusk about ten paces before me, the lad passed the Golden Crown, keeping, I noticed, on the farther side of the way and as far as possible from the lamp which a servant was suspending at the door.
Presently he reached the end of the street, and I was not one whit surprised when he turned into the lane that I had followed the evening before — the lane that led, I knew, to the Shoe Market. I do not know in the least why I expected this, but it seemed to me as if I had anticipated it from the beginning.
There were few passers here — the byway was dark, solitary, winding, a place of dead walls and blind houses — and had I not been armed I would not have followed the dwarf a yard. Even as it was, I moved warily; took the outer side of every curve, gave dark comers a wide berth, and where, as happened in one or two places, trees hung over the walls, I kept a sharp look-out.
I was not sorry when, from the bottom of this black trough, I caught sight of a star or two shining serenely in the evening sky — stars that, I daresay, were not yet visible in the open.
I had made up my mind — again I do n
ot know why — that we were bound for the deserted brewery, and so it turned out. My guide stopped at a low door in the wall of the building and drew a key from his pocket.
In this narrow slit at the bottom of which we stood it was too dark, though the lights of the Shoe Market were hardly twenty paces from us, to see what the door was like, but I pictured it mouldering, begrimed, and cobwebbed — the door of a long unused building. However, the key turned silently enough and the door opened.
I hesitated — at the last moment, I own, I hesitated before I entered. Then I asked myself why I had come if I was not prepared to go through with the matter, and ashamed to betray fear, I stepped across the threshold. As I did so: “You are to see the Fraulein first,” the lad grumbled. Then: “Wait till I get a light.”
I was only too ready to do so, for the passage in which I found myself was dark as the pit, and the sound made by the dwarf locking the door behind us did not tend to hearten me. I pressed my back against the wall and waited, a hand on a pistol, all my senses on guard. However, my caution was uncalled for.
The lad blundered by me and opened a second door, which disclosed a lighted lanthorn standing forlornly on the bottom step of a worm-eaten staircase; a narrow staircase which showed here and there grains of rye and barley trodden into the cracks between the shrunken boards. It turned on itself, and was such a stairway as we see in English stables leading from saddle room to loft.
The dwarf took up the lanthorn and signed to me to ascend. But I did not like the look of things. If fair play was intended, why such a rendezvous as this? I declined to run risks, and dryly I bade him go first. He shrugged his shoulders, but taking the lead began to climb, and I followed, and having twice turned round the newel, we emerged on the first-floor.
Here I had an impression of a vast bare chamber more like the empty hold of a big ship than anything else, stretching to infinity and broken only by rows of thick props. Our light was here but as a taper in a church, held by one who peered in from the porch; and all of particularity that I carried away, in addition to the size and the emptiness of the chamber, was the fact that a gap yawned in the floor about midway across it. I guessed that this was a hatchway used, no doubt, for lowering grain when the building was tenanted.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 703