Читать книгу The Seven Sleepers - Francis Beeding - Страница 6

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I stared at the girl in astonishment and was about to protest when she put a finger to her lips, looking swiftly round, as though she feared to be watched.

“Be careful,” she said. “We’re probably under observation. We can talk in the taxi.

“Quick,” she added, as I still hesitated on the pavement, “or your grandmother will be displeased.”

I had already decided to see my grandmother, so why not take this way as well as another?

I entered the taxi, which, without waiting for instructions, at once moved off, turned the corner, crossed the big square and took the direction of the old town.

There was a moment’s silence, during which I ventured a look at my companion. She was gazing at me in a kind of resentful expectation. Evidently I was not behaving as she had anticipated.

She was decidedly pretty on a nearer view—the prettiness of a china doll, eyes absurdly blue and all surface a fair complexion and flaxen hair. But she lacked depth—a creature who would, I thought, be easily moved by the small emotions, greedy, sentimental, easily spiteful and cruel as a thwarted monkey. You will perceive that I did not take to the pheasant feather.

The resentment grew in her eyes, and at last she said:

“Haven’t you anything to say for yourself?”

“Nothing at all,” I said, very frank and open.

Her eyes fluttered and fell coquettishly.

“Little heart,” she cried (I spare you the German), “that means you want me to forgive you.”

“Why not?” said I.

It is a phrase and a sentiment that has landed me in many scrapes. On this occasion it landed me in the arms of this blue-eyed damsel, her forgiveness taking the form of a sudden collapse on my chest, the flinging of two vigorous arms about my neck, and a succession of warm statements to the effect that I was an all-belovéd and a little treasure.

I forgot all about my grandmother and gave my undivided attention to feeling a perfect fool.

Then I took a firm hold of the arms about my neck.

“Fräulein,” I protested, “there is some mistake.”

“Oh, Karl,” she murmured, “how can you be so cold?”

“Fräulein,” I repeated.

She sat away from me abruptly.

“That is ungenerous,” she said indignantly. “I forgive you and yet you continue the quarrel. It’s hateful. You will break my heart. Why didn’t you answer my letters?”

Some demon prompted me to proceed with the comedy. I always hate leaving things unfinished.

“You ought never to have written them,” I said guardedly.

“I couldn’t help it, Karl,” she unexpectedly pleaded. “I know it was against the regulations, but I missed you so.”

“I never received them,” I declared emphatically.

I’m a plain, blunt man who loves to tell the truth upon a suitable occasion.

“I sent them to the Stahlhelm office in Leipzig,” she said. “I suppose they were intercepted. I’m sorry, Karl.”

The blue eyes fluttered and I became apprehensive of another demonstration.

“I thought you were being unkind just to pay me out for making love to that French spy in Munich. You oughtn’t to be so jealous, my best-of-all-belovèds. You know quite well that I am obliged to do these things. Anyhow, you needn’t trouble about that one any more. It went hard with him.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. He was dealt with by the Professor; you know what that means.”

She shuddered.

“I could never get a word out of that mysterious Frenchman,” she continued. “But the Professor did. They say it took him over three hours.”

I suppose that, if I had been in a mood sufficiently prudent and collected, I should then and there have dismounted from the taxi and communicated with the police. But somehow, in proportion as the complications grew and as the adventure assumed a more threatening aspect, I became increasingly reluctant to forego that visit to my grandmother. Either the whole affair was a gigantic hoax, in which case I should look an utter fool if I took it to the authorities, or I had become seriously involved in some strange network of intrigue which it would be well to unravel even at the expense of a little time and risk. After all, I was a British subject and I still had tremendous faith in that honourable station. There could not possibly be any real need for alarm. I was merely visiting a private house in the middle of the afternoon, and I had a friend in Geneva who knew where I was going and expected to hear from me at six o’clock.

I believe, on subsequent reflection, that there was a deeper reason for my persistence. I am sure that men often do things from motives that are not altogether clear at the time, but which are fundamental. In this case I am convinced that a hostile curiosity was instinctively active in me from the first. I suspected mischief and divined that it was mischief beyond the resources and outside the experience of the local police. This, of course, may be wisdom after the event. All I can say for certain is that the determination which I had so lightly formed to visit my grandmother, far from being overthrown by the disquieting allusions of the girl in the taxi, was, on the contrary, confirmed and fortified.

My companion was again looking at me with an air of resentful expectation.

“Why don’t you talk to me, Karl?”

“Fräulein——” I began.

She stopped me with a furious gesture.

“Fräulein, indeed!” she cried. “After all I have done for you—to speak to me as though I were a stranger. But you had better be careful, Karl; you will need every friend you’ve got. You’re not very popular at headquarters just now. I can tell you that.”

“It appears,” said I, at a venture, “that I am two days late.”

Her rage had already spent itself and she said anxiously:

“What have you been doing, Karl? They won’t tell me anything about it, but I know it’s something serious.”

“I’m two days late, my dear lady. That is all I can tell you for the moment.”

She put her hand on my wrist—a slender hand, very white, with an exquisite sapphire on the third finger.

“You’re not in trouble?” she asked.

There was something rather appealing about her at that moment. She was evidently fond of Karl—the kind of fellow, I suspected, who systematically snubbed and ill-treated her, as the most likely way of securing her rather slavish affection.

“There’s nothing wrong with me at present,” I assured her.

She surveyed me earnestly.

“But you look so tired and thin. You don’t seem at all like yourself,” she continued.

She hesitated.

“Won’t you make it up, Karl?” she pleaded. “We’ve only a moment now.”

She put her hand on my shoulder, an act which filled me with immediate panic.

“Please,” I protested. “Don’t worry me now. I must have a moment to think things out.”

“Very well,” she answered sullenly. “But it isn’t like you to be so terribly preoccupied.”

She sighed.

“Do you remember that evening at the Indra? I told you then that the Professor wouldn’t like it, but you said, ‘Hang the Professor!’ Now I suppose you’ve learnt to be afraid of him like everybody else.”

By this time the taxi had reached the old town and was climbing a tall, narrow street, which ended in a small square with a fountain in the middle. Turning sharp to the right, it proceeded up a narrow and even steeper street, the name of which I caught sight of as we turned the corner.

It was the rue Etienne Dumont.

Our destination was close at hand. Should I even now explain to the girl who I was? I realised that if I did so my chances of seeing my grandmother would be small, and, more than ever, I wanted to make the old lady’s acquaintance. I maintained an uneasy silence.

I was pondering who Karl might be, and why everybody was afraid of the Professor, when the taxi stopped with a jerk opposite a tall, narrow door.

My companion was first out, and had dismissed the driver before I had had time to do more than descend myself.

She went straight up to the door and tapped on it with the handle of her umbrella, one heavy rap and then a series of light ones, with two short, sharp knocks at the end. A small grille slid open in the door’s face about the height of a man from the ground, and a pair of eyes surveyed us.

“Ephesus,” said the girl.

“They are not dead, but sleep,” replied the person on the other side.

Evidently it was some sort of password, for directly afterwards the door opened inwards, and my companion motioned me to follow her through.

I found myself in a dark, narrow passage, some thirty feet in length, running the whole depth of the house, which fronted the street. The man who had just opened the door closed it immediately behind us and turned to resume his seat in a little recess in the wall.

We went through the passage, which gave on a very small court or air-shaft, round which the house was built, and from which five or six stone steps gave access to another door.

My companion pushed it open. We entered a hall with several doors on either side. The girl opened the first on the left and we entered a room.

“Wait here a moment, Karl,” she said. “I will tell them that you’ve arrived.”

On that she went away, leaving me alone in the room.

I sat down in an armchair and lighted a cigarette to steady my thoughts.

The girl who had addressed me as Karl and who, to put it mildly, had shown herself of so friendly a disposition towards me, was one more factor in the mystery in which I had become involved since I had set foot in the grey city of Geneva. For the last time I wondered whether it was really wise for me to go on with the affair; but I found on reflection that my decision to do so successfully survived this eleventh hour. I can’t accuse destiny of having hurried or entrapped me. I had received warnings enough to have sufficed for any sensible man. I wilfully disregarded everything that should have set me on my guard, and, on mature consideration, I must place this story to the account of my incorrigible curiosity and my impatience of routine. In brief, I had only myself to blame. I remember that almost my last feeling while waiting alone in that little room was a devout hope that my grandmother would prove less affectionate than the pheasant feather. You will judge from this the incurable levity of my disposition.

I presently rose from the armchair and began to examine the room in which I found myself. It was oblong in shape and very high for its length, obviously part of a much larger room, for one wall was merely a partition constructed some time previously in order to divide up into several pieces a single large room, a ballroom probably, or something of that kind. In its way, it was a beautiful room, white-panelled, and with a long, narrow window draped with heavy curtains, so hermetically sealed that there were cobwebs spun across the fastenings. I remembered that Beatrice had told me at lunch of the Swiss custom, observed by all classes in Geneva, to lock, bolt, and bar the windows on the first of October until the following first of May.

Opposite the window, in the partitioned wall, was a second door, presumably leading to another room. The room in which I was waiting was furnished partly as an office and partly as a sitting-room. Beside the window was a heavy oak desk on which several card board files were lying, in addition to the usual writing materials. A bookshelf stood in one corner, and I strolled over to examine the books. They were mostly on trade and economics, and amongst them I noticed Keynes’ “Economic Consequences of the Peace Treaty,” and Meneschkowsky’s “Reign of Antichrist,” that brilliant exposure of the theory of impersonality which is at the root of the Bolshevist system.

Then it struck me that I might learn something of the inmates of the house before meeting them in the flesh by examining the contents of the files lying on the desk. It will be seen that even at this early stage the instinct of the detective had already blunted the finer scruples.

I picked up a file and went rapidly through the contents, but it did not seem to contain anything of great interest. I took another, but that too only appeared to contain the records of various commercial transactions with different firms, most of them foreign, and related to the purchase of all kinds of goods, amongst which I noticed several large orders for Belfast linen, and six separate consignments of unfinished cotton goods from Manchester. There were also large orders to Dunlop and Goodrich, chiefly for tyres, and for consignments of rubber from the Dutch East Indies. The third file at which I looked seemed to be similar to the other two, but, glancing down the transactions chronicled, I came upon the words “Svenska Kullagar Fabriken.”

I skimmed the relevant correspondence rapidly, and found several letters concerning the purchase of a large quantity of Swedish ball bearings. I was particularly struck by a letter requesting the Swedish firm to send a representative to Geneva to conclude the final arrangements, and I thought of my Swedish friend in the train.

The letters, being only carbon copies of the original, were simply initialled, so that I could not discover the name of the person who had made the purchase. This discovery set me wondering whether I could find any trace of the Swiss aluminium saucepans, and I searched through the rest of the file and through several others, until, finally, I came across a letter directed to Neuhausen, where, I remembered, the headquarters of the Swiss hardware firm were situated.

I was about to examine it, when I heard a movement outside the door in the hall, and, hastily abandoning the files, I moved across the room till I was opposite a large mirror, which was let into the wall above the mantelshelf and surrounded by delicate eighteenth-century moulding. There I made a pretence of adjusting my tie, and, as I was engaged upon this operation, I received the shock of my life.

While I was gazing into the mirror, replacing the gold pin which held my collar in place, my own face appeared in duplicate suddenly over my right shoulder.

I stared at it in astonishment. There it was, exact in every detail.

I thought at first that it must be some trick of reflection, and I grimaced into the mirror, to see whether the other face would register the contortion. But the face over my right shoulder remained solemn and unmoved, while I saw my own reflection by the side of it grimacing back at me with an expression of vacuous astonishment.

I whipped round and, standing behind me, I saw a man of my own height, wearing a light brown overcoat. The moment he caught sight of me, his face betrayed a similar astonishment to mine, and we both stood there for some seconds, dumb with amazement, so extraordinary was the likeness. Yet, even then, at the first encounter, I noticed differences between us. His hair was clipped very short over his head, in the German fashion, and his face was slightly rounder and had more colour in it than mine.

We must have stood gazing stonily at one another for an appreciable time, when the man’s expression changed from mere astonishment to suspicion and from suspicion to blind rage.

Then, in a flash, without a word of warning or explanation, he sprang at me and seized me by the throat.

I was utterly unprepared for his attack and fell heavily backwards against the mantelshelf. Taken thus by surprise, I was at a serious disadvantage. I tore and struck at his hands and wrists, but his fingers would not loose their hold, and presently I felt my strength beginning to ebb. All the time we were swaying desperately up and down. We slithered along the edge of the mantelshelf till we came to the end, when a heavy kick on my shin felled me to the ground, and we rolled on the hearthrug.

Up to that moment I had been more amazed than frightened or angry, but, as I lay there on the floor, the breath being rapidly choked out of me, black rage took hold of me.

I stretched out a hand, with the object of trying to place a swinging blow at his head, and my knuckles came in contact with the hearth, in which I had deposited the butt of my cigarette, just before he had entered the room. Although I was fast losing consciousness, I was alive enough to act on the thought which came into my head as my knuckles touched the hearth, and, picking up the cigarette end, which was fortunately still alight, for my fingers touched the glowing end of it, I applied it to the nape of his neck.

It was a good fat stump, the remains of one of those big Virginian cigarettes, the “Greys,” I think they call them, and it must have burnt him properly, for, with a yell, he loosed one hand and clapped it to the back of his neck. The same instant I knocked his other hand away and staggered to my feet, gasping, everything swimming before me in a mist of red.

He was up a moment later, and, as he rose to his feet, I hit him with all the force I could muster on the point of the jaw—I hadn’t delivered such a punch as that since the day when I had knocked out the Ashingford middleweight, when I was fighting as captain of my school boxing team—and he fell with a thud. I had knocked all the consciousness out of him.

I stood leaning on the mantelshelf breathing heavily, and feeling slightly sick. My rage had departed, and I was trembling a little at the knees. My first coherent thought was, “I wonder whether anyone heard us fighting?”; my next, “Why did he attack me?”

I listened, but could hear nothing but my own breathing. The hearthrug, which was a good thick one, had deadened the sound of our fall.

I had now sufficiently recovered to examine my late opponent. There was no doubt about it. I had knocked him clean out, and the blow which he had received in falling against the corner of the hearth had completed his discomfiture. I thought rapidly what I should do.

The gentleman on the hearthrug was evidently Karl, who was clearly some kind of agent of the gang into whose house I had so wilfully penetrated. The little Jew. in handing me the pocket-book, had mistaken me for Karl, and so had the lady with the pheasant feather. The consequences of that mistake were so undoubtedly serious that Karl had attacked me at sight.

I looked down at the fellow. He was an ugly brute (though I say it who shouldn’t) and I hoped that, in spite of the resemblance of feature between us, the likeness was not really fundamental. He was certainly not the kind of man for whom anyone would substitute himself without considerable misgiving.

Meanwhile, grandmother was presumably preparing to receive me, and I realised that she was likely to be annoyed if she found me there in studied contemplation of the inert figure of her dearest grandson. I remembered also that Uncle Fritz and Uncle Ulric were likely to be there, and I had no reason to believe that they would be less sudden or less resourceful than Karl on realising the mistake which had been made.

My blood was up and my throat hurt me abominably, so that I doubt whether I should have left the house even if I had been given the chance to do so. Anyhow, it was impossible. Already I heard steps and voices in the room adjoining.

I bent down hastily, seized my late opponent by the ankles and dragged him between the desk and the window, where his head and feet were covered by the falling curtains.

No sooner had I done this than the second door, which I had remarked when examining the room, opened, and the girl in brown appeared.

“This way, Karl,” she said. “They’re waiting for you.” I passed my handkerchief once or twice across my forehead, gave a rapid glance into the mirror, which showed that I was less dishevelled from my late encounter than I had feared, and passed through the open door.

I entered a larger room than the previous one, and my eye instinctively noted that it was decorated in the same way, that is to say, its walls were covered with white painted panelling, and there were two tall windows. I had no time, however, to note further details, for my attention became immediately engaged with the person, or rather persons, who were awaiting me.

They were three in number and were seated behind a table covered with a red cloth.

Two of them I instantly recognised. The man in the centre was the dark-eyed man with the silky beard, who had favoured me with such a penetrating glance at luncheon in the grill-room of the Hôtel du Lac. The man on the left was his companion, the bullet-headed Prussian type, with the Mensur scars on his face. The man on the right was tall and thin, bald as an egg and wearing an eyeglass. I remembered at once my neutral friends in the train. This was evidently Herr Schreckermann, who had bought the aluminium saucepans and the ball bearings.

I walked up to the table and came to a standstill opposite the man in the centre. Meanwhile the girl in brown had slipped out behind them and vanished through another door, giving me an encouraging smile as she did so.

It was the man in the centre with the silky beard who spoke. I had already made up my mind that he was the most important member of the tribunal. He looked at me a moment with that same disconcerting stare which had so strangely affected me at the restaurant. I find it difficult to describe its precise quality. It was as though he were cautiously groping in the recesses of my mind, cutting painlessly at secret tissues of the brain with a velvet knife.

His voice when he spoke had the same quality, musical, but with a latent rasp. Every syllable of his utterance fell distinct and yet no note of it was forced. It reminded me of the taste of olives—oily, with a tang.

He fell upon me, softly as a cat.

“Why did you find it necessary to kill the chauffeur?” he demanded.

The three men all had their eyes fixed upon me inexorably—the man of the Mensur marks with the glassy stare of a commanding officer, the bald-headed man with the awe which deeds of violence inevitably inspire in the sedentary, and the man in the centre with that gradual, soft regard which I had already begun so greatly to dislike.

“Let me explain,” I began.

“You will do no such thing,” said the man with the silky beard. “We haven’t any time for explanations. My question was intended to inform you that we already know precisely what has happened.”

“If you will allow me——” I began again.

The man with the beard held up his hand in a gentle movement of arrest.

“Your action was careless and unnecessary,” he continued; “you will do well in future to be less impulsive. You appear to be, I regret to say, much too liable to be moved by the primitive instincts. You were right in assuming that the man was a spy, but he was not really dangerous, and you had received strict orders to report to us here on the ninth of the month and not to allow yourself to be delayed by any circumstances whatever. Your behaviour in that affair was altogether contrary to the spirit of your instructions. To aggravate the offence, you left behind you a sufficient number of clues to convict you ten times over——”

“There’s been a mistake,” I protested. “If you’d only allow me to explain——”

“You are not here to explain,” he said with an air of tranquil authority. “You’re here to receive orders. You are already two days late, and, what is worse, it will take the whole of our organisation to get you safely away from Geneva. It is solely due to our vigilance that the complete description of your personal appearance and the warrant for your arrest, which have been forwarded to Geneva by the Zürich police, have not yet reached their destination.”

He paused for the fraction of a second.

“One moment,” I interrupted; “may I be permitted to know who is addressing me?”

“Our names do not immediately concern you,” replied the man with the beard. “For the moment I have the honour to be your grandmother, and this gentleman,” he continued, indicating the man with the Mensur scars, “is your Uncle Fritz, while on my right sits your Uncle Ulric.

“You have received a certain document,” he resumed, before I could utter a word. “You will now deliver it to a person whose name for the present we are instructed to withhold. I should prefer to send it by a safer messenger. Unfortunately, however, the person to whom you are going is suspicious of strangers. He has been told to expect Karl von Emmerich, whom he trusts, and he is not likely to welcome a substitute. Luckily, some of our best men are at present in Geneva, and it should not be very difficult to baffle the local police.”

He paused, but, before I could take advantage of the fact, the man with the Mensur marks abruptly intervened.

“Most deplorable,” he said, in a voice that had evidently done excellent service on parade. “Like a lot of nursemaids. Finest organisation in Europe wasted in looking after a young blockhead who goes and commits a murder under the very eyes of the police.”

“It’s true,” stuttered the bald-headed man, “that Karl, is a b-blockhead, but they trust him in Hanover, and he has g-gifts. When you s-send Karl, you may be sure he’ll g-get there.”

“Better give the young fool his instructions and get rid of him,” growled the man with the Mensur marks. “I don’t want him on our hands for another twenty-four hours. I’ve got picked men on every bridge in Geneva and on most of the main roads. But I can’t keep up this sort of thing indefinitely.”

“Evidently not,” said the man with the silky beard. There was a world of unpleasant insinuation in his voice, and his military friend, plethoric by constitution, flushed a dull red, the slack veins swelling visibly on his temples.

“You demand impossibilities, Herr Professor,” he said. “The whole organisation has been strained to the utmost, and this murder on the top of everything else was the last straw. I admit that the arrangements broke down yesterday evening—but only for a moment.”

He regarded with his glassy stare the man whom he had addressed as Herr Professor (presumably the professor to whom the pheasant feather had alluded), but his eyes fell almost immediately before the mild scrutiny which they encountered.

“My estimable Fritz,” the Professor kindly expostulated, “it is not a function of organisations to break down—even for a moment. During that moment our friend Adolf contrived to disappear completely. Perhaps Karl can tell us something about that most unfortunate occurrence.”

“I know nothing whatever about it,” I said shortly. “And I don’t suppose you’d let me tell you if I did. Several times already I’ve tried to explain to you——”

“A bad habit, Karl,” sighed the Professor. “If you do not know the whereabouts of Adolf, there is nothing you can usefully say. Adolf in any case is a side issue. He carried out his instructions in handing a certain document to you, and the fact will be noted to his credit. You will now please endeavour to emulate his example. To begin with, your Uncle Fritz, as chief of staff, will give you some good advice.”

The man with the Mensur marks cleared his throat in a manner that reminded me painfully of certain disagreeable interviews in the orderly room, which, in common with most young men of my generation, I had not altogether succeeded in avoiding.

“No more monkey tricks, young feller. You’ve done quite enough harm as it is. You come late. You cause us endless trouble. You disobey instructions. You put up at the wrong hotel under an unknown alias, you talk to unknown men and lunch with unknown women; you interview the police; in fact, you’re a—er—confounded nuisance. Now listen to me.”

He took up a sheet of paper which was lying in front of him on the table, and looked it over.

“These are your instructions. I’ll read them to you, and you’ll obey them to the letter.”

“The person to whom the document is to be delivered left Basle last night and has gone back to Hanover. We couldn’t persuade him to stop. Well, you’ll have to go after him, and it’ll be difficult, very difficult. You’ll travel to Munich by air, starting at nine o’clock to-morrow. Until then you’ll remain here. The Professor,” and he looked at the man with the silky beard, “will give you fresh papers and see that you’re properly disguised.

“Meanwhile,” he concluded, “as a simple matter of form, you will please show me the document you had last night from Adolf, and sign a receipt to the effect that it has been formally entrusted to you by Section Q.”

There was a slight pause as he ended, and the three men looked at me expectantly. The moment had at last arrived when I was to be allowed to speak.

I seized the occasion the more readily as I thought I now saw a way of escape.

“I cannot show you the document,” I said.

The man called Fritz glared at me angrily.

“Insolent puppy!” he exclaimed. “My authority isn’t good enough for you, I suppose. Only Karl von Emmerich, with friends in Hanover, may be allowed to see such writings.”

“I cannot show you the document because I don’t happen to possess it—not at this moment,” I responded coolly.

“What?”

Fritz, the man with the Mensur marks, bounded in his seat. Schreckermann, the bald-headed man, had a stricken look.

The Professor leaned gently forward.

“Do I understand,” he asked, “that you have seen fit to come here this afternoon without the document?”

“That is so.”

“Is not that rather extraordinary?”

“It is all rather extraordinary,” I answered wearily. “And since you don’t appear to need any explanation from me, I suggest that, if Uncle Fritz really wishes to see the document I received last night, you would do well to let me go and fetch it. I shall be with you again in twenty minutes.

“With all the largest policemen I can find”—I added silently, for my own information.

The Professor was looking at me intently; so I stared defiantly at Fritz, whose glassy eye was much more easily met.

“This begins to be interesting,” the Professor meditated aloud. “Do you know, Karl, I am almost beginning to have a doubt as to your good faith—nothing much, only the merest small suspicion.

“What do you say, Major Adler?” he concluded, turning to the man with the Mensur scars.

“He hasn’t t-told us yet where he has p-put the d-document,” observed Schreckermann.

“He’s coming to that,” said the Professor. “I feel sure that sooner or later he will tell us everything we wish to know.”

“It’s perfectly simple,” I assured him. “The document is now at my hotel. I can fetch it for you in less than a quarter of an hour.”

Fritz thumped the table.

“Then be off with you at once,” he shouted. “And next time perhaps you’ll attend to your instructions. I don’t like your behaviour, sir. It’s damned irregular.”

I turned to go—perhaps a little too eagerly.

“One moment!” It was the silken voice of the Professor, but it conveyed infinitely more authority in its casual and quiet tones than the blustering of Adler.

I turned and found myself looking straight in his eyes.

“You left the document at your hotel?”

“Yes.”

“For greater safety?”

“Yes.”

“Is it, I wonder, possible to be so foolish?”

He said this in the manner of one carefully weighing an unlikely hypothesis.

“I was a marked man,” I pointed out. “At any moment I might be arrested and searched. What more natural than to hide the paper in my rooms before venturing into the streets?”

“I wonder,” murmured the Professor.

He continued to look at me, and I collected all my powers to withstand his penetration. In less than ten seconds I could feel the perspiration starting on my forehead as the result of the mental strain of meeting those persuasive eyes. I knew he was asking himself whether I, Karl von Emmerich, was blundering but honest and whether I might be trusted to go and fetch a certain document. I did my best to keep my eyes utterly candid and fearless, and tried to look the biggest fool in the universe.

Apparently I succeeded, for the Professor turned suddenly to Fritz.

“Very well,” he said. “Send him off at once to the hotel, but have him closely watched.”

I did not repeat my former mistake of seeming to be in too great a hurry.

I stood motionless for an appreciable moment, and then said:

“Well, gentlemen, am I dismissed?”

Fritz nodded, and I turned without undue haste. In another moment I should be free, with the knowledge that I had stumbled by an extraordinary chance on what appeared to be a formidable but mysterious conspiracy.

I had almost reached the door when the Professor held up a slim forefinger.

“One moment,” he said.

Again I stopped, though every nerve in my body tingled to put a closed door between me and those three men at the red-covered table.

There was dead silence, and I became aware of a sound in the adjoining room, a shuffling sound as of a heavy body dragging itself across the floor in the way of a caterpillar. This was followed by stertorous breathing and a faint scratching on the lower panels of the door.

Fritz leaped to his feet, and in three strides was across the room. He seized the handle, tore open the door, and there, on all fours, vainly trying to rise to his feet, his face uplifted, bulked the veritable Karl.