Wolf Among Wolves (134 page)

And when the spies came out again, the others would ask: “Is he still there?” And on the reply: “He’s sitting and writing,” then they shook their heads and said: “Why, he is utterly shameless! Isn’t he packing at least?” “Why should he pack?” the spies in turn inquired. “You can be certain he’s got his stuff in safety, going to town as often as he’s done the last few days!”

And they could not agree on what they actually ought to wish for now, whether Pagel should remain and be sent to prison after a gigantic row, or whether he should run away and leave the old gentleman to burst with rage. Both were good!

“You watch, he won’t be here in the morning!” said some.

“Rubbish,” declared the others. “He’s so cunning, even the old gentleman won’t get the better of him. He’s the smartest one we’ve ever had on the farm.”

“Of course. And that’s why he won’t be here in the morning.”

Neither was he.

VII

At seven o’clock that evening Pagel closed his books for the last time, sighing: “It’s no good at all!” He cast a glance round the office, at the safe, the clumsy
pigeonholes, the law volumes, the local newspaper files. The typewriter was covered over. He’d written many letters to his mother on it—for Petra. I’ll be fired tomorrow, he thought, downcast. Not a glorious end, actually—on the whole I liked the work. It would have been nicer to have had someone standing here tomorrow and saying: “Thank you, Herr Pagel, you did your job well.” Instead of that the Geheimrat will be screaming for the police and justice.

He turned the light out, locked up, put the key in his pocket and went through the pitch-dark night over to the Villa. It was influenza weather. The doctor had told him that people were dying like flies, young and old. Undernourished too long, first the war, then this inflation.… Poor devils. Will it really be any better with the new money?

In the Villa Amanda had food ready and a thousand bits of gossip passed on to her by the women. “Just think, Herr Pagel, what they’ve imagined now! They say you were hand in glove with Sophie—as for the forester dying in your room, you only did that so that he shouldn’t talk.”

“Amanda,” said Pagel bored, “all that is so stupid and dirty. Can’t you think of something nice to tell me, say, from your youth?”

“Something nice? From my youth?” The amazed Amanda was on the point of setting to with a will and telling him what sort of a childhood she had had …

Then the doorbell rang—and over their supper the pair looked at one another like detected criminals.

“That can’t be the Geheimrat yet?” she whispered.

“Rot! It’s not yet half-past seven—it’ll be something in the stables. Open the door.” However, growing impatient, he followed her, and arrived just as the violently protesting Amanda was pushed aside by a man, thick-set, with a bowler hat on a head like a bull’s—his glance, icy and unforgettable, met young Pagel’s. “I have a word to say to you,” said the fat detective. “But send this girl away. Hold your tongue, you clacker!” And Amanda was silent at once.

“Wait in the hall, Amanda,” begged Pagel. “Come along, please.” And, with beating heart, he led the way into the dining room.

The man shot a glance at the table laid for two. “Is that your girl outside?” he asked.

“No. That was Bailiff Meier’s girl. But she is a decent girl.”

“Another swine I’d like to catch,” said the fat man, sitting down at the table. “Don’t waste any time laying a place for me; I’m hungry and have to go on immediately. Tell me what’s up here, why Frau Eva is away, why you are staying in the Villa—all. Clear, brief, and to the point.” He ate as was his nature—ruthlessly, greedily. And Pagel talked.

“So she let you down in the end, your employer; I might have known it. Give me a cigar now. Did you notice that it was me who rang you up this afternoon?”

“I thought so. And?”

“And you yourself are now in a tight place, eh? Show me the two statements Frau von Prackwitz scribbled for you.”

Pagel did so.

The fat man read them. “In order,” he said. “You’ve only forgotten to safeguard yourself about selling after her departure as well.”

“Damnation!”

“Doesn’t matter. You can get that later.”

“But the Geheimrat will be here this evening.”

“You won’t see the Geheimrat any more. This evening you will go to Berlin and get Frau von Prackwitz to set down in writing that she’s in agreement with recent sales. This very night. Promise me that! You are flippant about such things!”

“You have news of Fräulein Violet?” cried Pagel.

“Sitting in the taxi below,” said the fat man.

“What!” Pagel jumped up, trembling. “And you let me sit here and her wait there?”

“Stop!” The fat man laid his hand, like a shackle not to be thrown off, on Pagel’s shoulder. “Stop, young man!” Pagel tried to free himself, furious. “What I just told you is not quite correct. She who is sitting in the car is not the Fräulein Violet you remember. Don’t forget that for two whole months she has been systematically terrified out of her mind. Out of her mind! You understand? I don’t know,” he said darkly, “if I’m doing her mother a service in bringing her back. But I haven’t gone out of my way to seek her—don’t you think that. If you travel round as much as I do, however, you hear a lot; old colleagues still count me in with them, even if the bigwigs have lopped me off. I just ran into her. What am I to do with the girl? As it is, I don’t even know whether you can take her to the mother; you must decide that for yourself. Only she mustn’t remain here with the old people. Get her away in a car within an hour.… Any place which is quiet and safe. Why let yourself be snapped at here by that old clodhopper? Get away!”

“Yes,” said Pagel thoughtfully.

“Take that fat wench in the hall, if only to have a woman’s help during the journey and not give people something else to say about you.”

“Good.”

“Don’t speak kindly or strictly to the girl. Say only what is essential. ‘Sit down. Eat. Go to sleep.’ She does everything like a lamb. Not a trace of her own will. And don’t call her Violet—otherwise she’ll be frightened. He never called her anything but whore.”

“And he?” asked Pagel in a low voice.

“He? Who? Who do you mean?” said the fat man and clapped Pagel on the shoulder so that he swayed. “That’s all,” said he more calmly. “Pack your things; you can go in the taxi outside. I will come as far as Frankfurt. And one other thing, young man; have you money?”

“Yes.” It was some time since Pagel had admitted that willingly.

“My expenses have been eighty-two marks. Give me them back now.… Thanks. I won’t give you a receipt; I haven’t a name which I care to sign any longer. But if the mother asks, say I had to dress her out—she was pretty tattered—and then a little money for fares and traveling expenses. And now off with you! Hurry up that fat girl—in half an hour I shall stop with the taxi between here and the wood. We don’t want people to notice.”

“But can’t I see Fräulein Violet now?”

“Young fellow, don’t be in such a hurry. That won’t be a very cheerful meeting. It’ll come soon enough. March! I give you half an hour.”

And he went.

VIII

Of the thirty minutes granted Pagel, eight were lost in letting Amanda Backs know what had happened and in convincing her that for Violet’s sake she would have to abandon her poultry to a completely uncertain future. Going to the staff-house took another five minutes. And since the same time must be allowed to get to the car, only twelve minutes remained for the packing. Thus there could only be two suitcases, one for Amanda, one for himself. Wolfgang Pagel, who had arrived in Neulohe with a monster of a trunk, went away with almost nothing. Should he leave behind a few explanatory lines for the Geheimrat? He very much disliked to think that next morning he would be torn to pieces by every tongue as an unfaithful employee and miserable coward. He consulted Amanda.

“Write? Why do you want to write to him? He won’t believe a word when he sees the mess here. No, you leave that to madam to settle later.… But, Herr Pagel,” she said tearfully, “for you to ask me to leave my best things lying around, and then some wench like Black Minna comes and turns everything over and very likely puts my clean linen on her filthy body …”

“Oh, don’t worry yourself about your things, Amanda,” said Pagel abstractedly. “One can always buy some more.”

“Oh!” Amanda was indignant. “Perhaps you can go on buying new clothes, but not me! And how pleased one is to have an extra pair of silk stockings in the cupboard for special occasions, you have absolutely no idea! And let me tell you that if the old grumbler doesn’t pay to have my things sent on at once, then I shall come here myself and tell him off.”

“Amanda, only three minutes more!”

“Oh, only three minutes more! And you tell me that so casually! What about my wages? Yes, Herr Pagel, you’ve thought of everyone, but these last months you’ve completely forgotten that I too would like to get something for my work. We don’t suffer from the same disease, however, Herr Pagel. If you’re silly in money matters there’s no need for me to be, and I want my wages for the last three months, with a receipt, all done properly—and you enter it in your cash book too! I like everything done fairly.”

“Oh, dear, Amanda,” sighed Pagel. But he did what she wanted.

Then for the last time he locked his office door and threw the key into the small tin letter box. And now they hurried away, suitcases in their hands, through the pitch-dark night, though in the village there were lights in almost all the houses—it must be pretty close to nine o’clock now. Neulohe was tensely awaiting the Geheimrat’s arrival.

“Careful!” said Pagel and pulled Amanda into a dark corner.

Someone came down Dorfstrasse and they stood anxiously in the dark like real criminals, and only walked on after hearing a front door close behind the nocturnal wanderer. Then they passed by the Villa—dark standing in the darkness.

The taxi was standing with dimmed lights by the forest. “Eight minutes late!” growled the fat man. “If I’d had any idea what to do with her I should have cleared off! … You, girl, sit beside her, and let me tell you you’ll get something on the snout if you start jabbering.”

With this he opened the door. The moment had come—and nothing happened. Something dark stirred in the corner, but the fat man merely said: “Don’t move. Go on sleeping.” And the darkness did not stir again. “Off!” he shouted to the driver. “As fast as you can to Frankfurt. If we’re there by eleven the young man will give you a tip.”

The car shot into the night. The Villa glided by again. Then came the lights of the apartment blocks. Pagel strained to make out the office building, but it wasn’t recognizable in the dark. Now came the castle.…

“That’s a light,” cried Amanda, excited. “Black Minna is waiting for me. How she’s going to set things right alone with the Geheimrat”—“Schnabel,” said the fat man, but it didn’t sound nasty.

“You may smoke without worry, young man. It won’t disturb her. I’m going to smoke, too.”

Not far from the local town they came very near to having an accident, almost running into a coach. That, however, was because the coachman Hartig had given the horses the rein while he kept his head turned round to his employer, telling him something of the lively events which had taken place at home.

“That was the Geheimrat,” explained Pagel as the raging abuse of coachman and master died away behind them.

“Well, well,” said the fat man, pondering, “I wouldn’t like to be that man’s bed tonight!”

After the Kreisstadt they entered Staatstrasse. After the bumps and stops and starts of the minor roads, the car went easily and ever faster over the smooth metal road—farther and farther. Troubled, Pagel thought what an odd crew they were—each completely for himself. He was wondering what he was to do with the girl, that night.…

The fat man spoke. “You will hardly get to Berlin before two. Have you decided where you will take her? To the mother?”

The dark form in the corner did not stir.

“I don’t know,” Pagel whispered. “The mother’s in a hotel. Ought I to go there in the middle of the night with a—an invalid? Or to my mother? It will be upsetting enough for her as it is, my blowing in without warning.”

The fat man said nothing.

“I also thought of a sanatorium. I have an old acquaintance who is employed in one. But tonight I should never get so far.”

“Sanatoriums cost a lot of money. And money’s scarce with you people.”

“Well, where shall I take her?”

“To madam,” said Amanda. “To her mother.”

“Yes,” said the fat man. “What you said about hotels and midnight is complete nonsense. She’s the mother after all. And even if she is clapped out and has acted like a slattern, she is a mother, and now she won’t be a slattern.”

“Good,” said Pagel. But he began to think once more what answers he should give to all Frau von Prackwitz’s questions, because he knew absolutely nothing, and the fat man would certainly not give him any more information.

The detective tapped on the glass in front, on which the street lamps of Frankfurt shone. “I’m getting out here,” he said. “Listen, driver. The young man here will pay all the fare. You get eighty pfennigs a kilometer—a lot, young man, but that includes the return empty. When we started your meter was at 43,750. Make a note of that, lad.”

“All correct,” said the driver. “And you will have enough money, sir? It’ll come to over three hundred marks.”

“Got enough,” said Pagel.

“Then it’s all right,” said the driver. “I was a bit leery, though.”

“Get her a cup of coffee here in Frankfurt and something to eat, but not in an inn. Fetch it out to her in the car. Good night.” And with this the fat man turned away.…

Strangely excited, Pagel shouted after him. The other made a sign with his hand, and turned a corner—never to be seen again.

“Driver,” said Pagel, “once we’re more or less through the town, stop at some little public-house. We want to eat something.”

It was now lighter in the taxi but the dark figure, its face pressed in the cushions, did not stir.

“Fräulein—Fräulein Violet, would you like to eat something?” said Pagel, oppressed. He had forgotten about it—no, he hadn’t forgotten about it, but he hadn’t wanted to talk to her as one talks to a stupid child or a simple dog.