Stealthy terror

Front matter

Book.

Gojpglrt N°

I_

Chapter I

IF you leave the Friedrichstrasse at the first street beyond the Cafe Bauer, which is the Danzigerstrasse, and then, near the far end, take the third to the right you come on the Cafe Rosenkrantz. It was a queer place, queer not so much, perhaps, in itself as in the uncommon people one met there. It had an atmosphere. The casual customer who chanced to enter would not find that the saffron-faced waiter, who would ultimately approach him and take his order, while manipulating a toothpick, differed from his many thousand confreres in Berlin; and yet that stranger would be singularly insensible if he did not gather the impression that the cafe had a character of its own, a queer subtle flavour, an individuality that would infallibly make him think of himself as a stranger there, as if his entrance had in it something of the nature of an intrusion.

I remember the strength of that impression 9

IO when I first chanced on the place. It interested me, and I was a fairly frequent visitor afterwards; but I cannot say I ever really fathomed the cafe or its habitues. Obviously some of us were merely in the place while others were of it. There was a queer undercurrent to its surface which one might feel but never see. And frequently, sitting in my corner, I have watched such a chance visitor enter, settle down with all the outward manifestations of a man who proposed a pleasant evening for himself, and then I have seen the successive symptoms appear, a mental perturbation pass into a physical discomfort that grew, in some cases, so strong that the man could not sit still, and which often resulted in an abrupt departure.

Sometimes I felt tempted to follow one of these men and beg him to tell me what his sensations exactly were. But I never did. I knew that I would be put off with some such excuse as that they found the seats uncomfortable, or the beer indifferent.

But here it dawns on me that I am beginning this strange tale in rather clumsy fashion. Possibly a closer acquaintance with literary art, if I had it, would tell me that instead of explaining the cafe I ought first to explain myself. If this, indeed, be the right craftsmanship I can only say I have a confident hope that such a mistake here, as well doubtless as many others to come, will be overlooked by the reader, in consideration of ii the queer story I have to tell. In any case I think I can set matters straight in a few w’ords.

After I had graduated in medicine at Aberdeen I had, on the advice of Professor Munro, gone to Paris for a year’s study at the famous Saltpetriere with a view to specialising in mental disease. Actually I spent two years at that great institution, and six months before the date on which this narrative opens had gone on to Berlin. Not that I expected the medical schools there to teach me what the Saltpetriere could not — that would be indeed an absurdity — but rather to apply what I had learned of the connection of mental science and therapeutics to patients so different in temperament as is the stolid Teuton from the volatile Latin.

Well, I had been going with more or less regularity for two months, or more, to the Cafe Rosenkrantz, and had got to know by sight most of its frequenters, and they to know me, when, quite suddenly, one night, I slipped into the whirlpool of its dark waters. It is rather odd to look back on it now and realise that on that July evening I was, little as I thought so then, entering its painted marble portals for the last time.

It was on the stroke of ten, a little later than usual, when I settled down in my accustomed corner with my pipe and lager, and drew from my pocket a little old book of Westphalian folksongs I had that day picked up at the secondhand bookshop that stands at the corner of the Wundtstrasse, and which I had reserved unexamined for this quiet hour. It was a fascinating book, adorned with naif woodcuts of domestic and rural life, and, though printed in Gothic characters which made it to me rather troublesome reading, the old-world love of home and children and simple things, the unsophisticated ways, the sorrows of hopeless lovers, of which the artless verses told, had for me a charm independent of their psychological interest as records of an old Germany that had passed for ever away.

Thus engaged, it was not for some time that it dawned on me that there was something untoward afoot in the cafe. Vaguely I had been aware that there was a good deal of coming and going. The swing door that separated the outer chamber in which I was from the larger inner hall was always on the move. I sat and kept a quiet eye on things for a while. Now no one was entering. Evidently the audience was complete. Putting away my little volume and finishing off my beer, I crossed the floor, with, I hope, a not exaggerated air of nonchalance, and passed through the green baize swing doors into the inner room. Heaven knows what I expected to find there! What I did find was a gathering of some twenty men, seated in twos and threes round the little tables. Some of them were known to me by sight; with a few I had even exchanged a word or two from time to time, for I fancy that at first they were somewhat curious about me. The talking ceased abruptly on my entry and all their faces turned and looked at me in the silence. It sent a queer thrill of eeriness through me, and I stopped irresolutely, as the door swung back behind me.

The silence lasted no more than an instant. It was broken by a high-pitched voice of feminine quality, and immediately the talk of the room was again in full swing. I looked to see who it was that had been so alert and ready, and found my man in one with whose face I was familiar, but whom I had missed from the place for the last few weeks. He was of lithe, slender build, rather Jewish in features, dark, with brilliant eyes and black-pointed beard, which enhanced the whiteness of his teeth when he showed them in a smile. And as he was a most goodhumoured fellow, with a smile for every one, he often showed his teeth. It seemed to me he liked doing it — a touch of vanity perhaps. They were good teeth. Later on he lost some of them.

Settling myself in a corner, I took up a newspaper, feeling that I was nearer than I ever had been to the cafe’s hidden things. The atmosphere was somehow vibrant. That sudden turning of the heads, and the hush and stillness when I entered, were sufficient indication. They had expected some one very different; and they had all expected him. They were all waiting for him; they all knew who it was for whom they waited. I did not; but I could wait also and see. As time passed, however, I became sensitive to the fact that my presence was a source of extreme discomfort to them. They were fidgety. Heads went together across the little round marble-topped tables. There was a good deal of whispering beneath the ordinary babel of commingling voices that is the note of any normal cafe. Over the edge of my paper I caught numerous glances directed my way, which I could not attribute to anything unusual or attractive in my personal appearance. And those glances from the pale blues and steely greys of Prussian eyes were not kind.

However, I sat tight. Every item in the newspaper was not only read but digested. I fancy I could give a good summary of that paper’s contents even now, from the telegraphic news as to the political clubs in Belgrade to the editorial comments on a speech recently made, at an English by-election, on armaments, wherein the candidate called for a reversal of the Dreadnought programme initiated by Herr Balfour. To build more ships was, he alleged, an insult to Germany, and imperilled the cordial relations hitherto existing between the two countries. In spite of editorial approval of this statement I disagreed, for all my experience in Germany seemed to show that the only cordial relations were those of cordial dislike, which could hardly be “imperilled” by more shipbuilding; and, I suspected, the foundation of Germany’s grudge against us was not that we built ships but that we existed — an offence for which there seemed to be no amicable remedy.

The thought brought a smile. Then the big green baize doors opened quietly and some one stepped into the room. All faces turned simultaneously and all talk ceased, as if by some miracle every speaker had come to the end of his sentence at the same moment. In the unnatural stillness I heard the sharp indrawn breath of the new-comer, and saw his gaze pass from face to face. They might have expected him; he, it was clear, had not expected them. I saw him turn white as he looked, his eyes grew sharp, the pupils contracted to mere pin points.

“Dewinski!” he said.

“Yais,” a voice answered.

There was a world of complacent amusement, and God knows what else, in that single uttered syllable. Looking for the speaker I found him to be the little Jew. His red mouth was wreathed in smiles, his teeth gleaming.

Not another word was said. The man at the door stood rigid for a full minute. Then he came forward, sat down at the table next to mine, beside the man he had called Dewinski, and the queer scene ended.

Relighting my pipe, I took up the newspaper

1 6 again and ruminated awhile — ruminated is a good word that fits the situation as I now see it — as to why the Jew had answered to his name in English, or at least what he took to be English. It was fated, however, that I was not to know the reason till a soldier told it me, on the road between Dover and Folkestone, by the Royal Oak Inn, as I remember, at the top of the hill.

Meanwhile, my neighbours at the next table were talking among themselves, but too quietly and guardedly for my comprehension. Besides Dewinski and the new-comer there were two others, an obese creature whose back, like the gable of a house, was all I could see of him, and, on his right, a man of perhaps forty years with a pitted face, adorned with the national moustache, the two ends of which pointed into the hardest pair of eyes that ever tried to stare me down. Dewinski was on the fat man’s left, and between these two the face of the man they had waited for fronted me. He was a young, clean-shaven fellow, but clad in ill-fitting sloppy clothes.

It was to this group that I gave a good deal of unostentatious attention, even when my glance wandered to the others beyond. By and by it dawned on me that the man with the pale face was paying me the same compliment, in much the same manner. Once or twice for an instant our eyes met, and at first I was quick to avert my glance, not wishing to appear as a watcher. After a little of this cross play, however, it seemed to

1.7 me that he was trying to hold my look, trying almost to say something to me : there was a sort of question in his eyes.

Over the green baize double door there was a clock. It was one of those common German clocks in shape like a coffin, a child’s coffin, with the white face at the top, and a glass front that showed the pendulum swinging like a grotesque pair of human legs. After a while this clock began to take a share in the attention received from the company. It was clear that an hour was approaching at which they desired to be rid of me. I wondered why one of them did not come and tap me on the shoulder and point to the door. Certainly as I yawned over that newspaper I expected some such hint, sooner or later. There was an angry hum in the room that reminded me of the last time I had disturbed a wasps’ nest by plugging up the hole, and laying my ear to the ground to listen. At last a man on the far side got up, and, stepping on to the little dais, sat down at the piano. He had, however, got no further with his playing than the preliminary roulade of rippling notes when Dewinski interrupted:

“Frederick, my friend, no music I pray you.” They all looked at Dewinski, wondering. “There is this Englishman among us,” he explained.

I wondered what was coming and, I dare say, showed it. Voices rose in protest. Who cared for the Englishman? He had been too long i8 there; and other things were said that were undistinguishable in the guttural babel.

“He does not like music,” continued the little Jew suavely. “No Englishman likes music.”

There was quietness now. I felt, and they, I suspect, knew that something venomous was coming.

“The good gentleman will depart, deprive us of his company, if that pig Frederick will continue.”

One or two began to laugh, but most showed mere bewilderment. Dewinski banged a fist on the table.

“You do not believe me! Lieber Gott, I know! The British when they have to meet any business that is very unpleasant, from which there is no escape at all, they call it ‘facing the music5 !”

And while the room rocked with laughter at this sally, and they all had something to jabber to each other about it, I was looking at the man who looked at me, the man who did not join in the merriment. I am not quite sure as to the power man has for sweeping from his mind memories that are unwelcome. I believe that impressions, even deeply lodged in the brain’s convolutions, can be obliterated much more completely than is generally supposed. Of course the brain itself retains every impression that has ever been made on its texture; and in the strictest sense no man i9 ever forgets anything. But his power of recalling is faulty; and this power may be left unexercised in certain cases, if a man so choose. We need not put out a finger to open that door! True, but every life has some memory that can open the door for itself; and, at some time or other, in the silence of a wakeful night, perhaps, the door of that memory swings on noiseless hinges, and, whether we will it or no, we are face to face with some spectre of the far-off years.

It is his eyes that haunt me! Not the sharp, suspicious aspect they had when he stood with his back to the door, the pupils small, full of fear, but as they were when we looked at each other so often, when the pupils were enlarged and relaxed, when he had no fear, but only despair.

There is only one other ghost that has an equal power of presenting himself whether I will it or not — an old collie dog, who looks up at me and wags his tail while he shakes the water from his dripping body. It is curious he should choose me, for I had no hand in his death, and indeed never saw him till the time they drowned him. Still, even so, that rather strengthens my contention that there are memories over which we have no control. The memory of that dog came back to me then, as I sat in the Cafe Rosenkrantz. I had been wandering in the woods, a small boy of ten or so, and, coming on the deep pool they call Lady Drummond’s bath, saw on the brink two or three men with a dog. One man, the dog’s master, was tying a heavy stone to the collie’s neck, for he had become too old to be worth his keep. To me it seemed that the dog knew. To the bystanders he wagged his tail while the preparations went on, as if they had attended out of respect, and not for the sport of it; and when his master knelt down the better to fasten the stone to a rope — the collar being removed as a thing of some value — he licked the man’s face. “Silly brute,” the man mumbled, “he little kens what’s what.” But I think he did know. I think he was merely pretending to them he did not; for the look in his eyes belied the wagging tail, the look that was so like that of the man over there. For now I knew I stood on the brink of tragedy, and that here, once again, was one with a rope and a stone round his neck, and whose last moments were fast running out.

“Do you see the clock?”

The voice that thus burst in among my thoughts was so rasping and formidable that it made me glance at the clock before I looked at the speaker.

It was the monstrously fat man whose back had been before me all the evening. Now he was standing over the young fellow, a huge hand laid on his shoulder. No one gave the slightest heed to me, and I watched with tense interest, wondering what significance attached to the words, and what would happen next. But nothing more was said. No one got up except Dewinski, and the man with the pitted face. Then the young man rose, and I saw that they were about to leave. He did not look towards me again. I got up myself and made my way to the door with an affectation of leisureliness. But I am sure it was lost on them. No one regarded me.

Outside I lingered on the steps to light my cigarette. There had been some rain, leaving the pavements wet so that the reflected lights of the street lamps lay on the road like a row of fallen stars. After the hot, spent atmosphere of the cafe the night air came fresh and bracing to the lungs. There seemed to be very few people abroad, probably the recent rain had helped to empty the streets somewhat sooner than usual, and as I stood the sound of merry bells began to fill the air. The clocks of the great city were striking, some near at hand loud and reverberant, others thin and silvery, coming from afar over the roofs in the still night.

They had not ended before I heard the shuffle of feet behind me, and Dewinski with the young man in the ill-fitting clothes and two others stepped on to the street. It amazed me that there were only four. Somehow I had expected the whole rabble. They evidently did not desire to draw attention, and when that obvious inference from their numbers had been made the thought of playing an impudent and bold part came to me suddenly. It was impossible to leave unanswered that dumb call for help I So, without any clear plan of action, I slipped along the street after them. The only thing I could think of was to join the group with some casual remark, such as, “Ah, I see you are going my way. A pleasant evening, isn’t it? Though the wind is rising, certainly.”

But though I had exchanged greetings in the past with Dewinski I felt that it would be rather forcing the note, so to speak, to cut in like that. And I had to slacken my pace, as I came up behind them, so that I might get a hold of something a little more plausible. This seemed a desperately hard thing to do. They were only a dozen paces ahead of me now, the fat monster in front with his arm linked affectionately in the victim’s, Dewinski and the other close on his heels. I was fearful that one of them might look behind and see me; but this did not happen. No doubt the two behind were fully engaged in keeping an eye on their prisoner; and from this I judged he must be a slippery customer.

In this fashion we had traversed the length of several streets. I have already remarked on the quietness of that night. What little traffic there was abroad was almost all vehicular, and the rapid footsteps of the rare pedestrian could be heard a long way off, as he hurried homewards. I took care that my own should not be heard. Indeed I was slipping round the comer of a square, the name of which was unknown to me, when I ran straight into them, as they stood up against the railing, under the overhanging trees. It was a horrible moment, and I must have looked a fool, coming round with every manifestation of stealthy caution. They just stood there looking at me. It was enough! I felt hot all over with shame. There was no chance to carry it off, one way or another, my tiptoe pursuit was too plain evidence of my spying purpose.

Dewinski, who had been smiling, began to whistle some tune, and I could see the branches of the shrubbery behind him tapping on the iron railings, as if beating time to his flute-like notes. Then I began to laugh. His companion with a snarl of rage stepped towards me lifting his stick. But Dewinski pushing him back stepped in front of me, lifting his forefinger.

“Sir,” he said, “there haf been much spoken in English newspapers of German spies in England. And I haf never seen von leedle bit in ze German about English spies in Germany. So! and yet all ze evening you haf spied on us, four gentlemen vat go home. You haf all the suspicion that come from stupidity. You haf discover a mare’s nest, whatever zat is, and you, mein Herr, are ze cuckoo in ze nest. Well, if you do not want to fall into deep waters, dat is also hot water, as you say, go home and” — here he smiled genially — “schleep well in your beds.”

He took his companion’s arm and passed on to where the others were waiting under a lamp. His words of protest left me shaken for the moment. Had I indeed been making an ass of myself? I stood rooted to the spot in indecision, looking after them doubtfully, watching their backs as they passed under the light of the lamp at the corner. And I think I would have turned away homewards, then and there, had it not been for a little thing, a mere pin-prick, in the way of an insult, which, it seemed, the impish Jew could not deny himself. He was behind the others. Just beyond the lamp, he turned towards me, stood for a moment with the light streaming from above in a theatrical effect that no doubt was much to his taste, and with a graceful sweep of his arm blew me a kiss I Then the darkness enveloped him, and I could hear their footsteps gradually die away.

It is not really strange that one should arrive at convictions more often by seeing something done than by hearing something said. That act of Dewinski’s, the simian-like mockery and malice of it, with his teeth showing, and his half-shut eyes, scattered my innate Scotch dubiety and hesitation for interfering in other people’s affairs. It put my back up and set me aflame. But, above all, it gave me the conviction that they were up to some devilry with the man they had in their clutches. Go home and sleep well? There was one man they intended should sleep well that night; but not in his bed! It was at this point that thought died in me, and I became a living mechanism for action.

When I had removed my boots and placed them carefully inside the garden railings — for they were a good pair, and I had no mind to lose them — I crossed to the other side of the road down which the gang had gone and ran like the wind after them. Along almost the entire length I went like a flying shadow. Then, when it was clear I must have overshot the party, I crossed the street and doubled back on the other side, listening for any sounds at the top of all the side streets. The quarter of the city in which I found myself was strange to me, long parallel lines of deserted streets, houses that presented no distinctive features, and none that gave any outward indication of interior life. The clouds overhead had broken up into smaller fragments as the night wore on, and a faint moonlight began to show fitfully through the edges.

The street in which I now stopped to listen ran north and south, with its east side in shadow. I was about to pass on to the next when a faint, far away sound struck my ear, and, as chances were few now, I seized on that chance and sped down the shadowed side of the street. Very soon I was close enough to hear voices in altercation, and to see a group of men on the opposite side, confronted by a policeman. He was a big fellow, and I could see the light glint on the metal

2 6 ornaments on his helmet. Cautiously I crept along, flattening myself against the wall, and in a doorway opposite drew up to await a favourable chance for intervention. At first it looked afc if the officer was about to march the whole party off to the police station. They had in some way offended him — not a very difficult matter in Berlin — and his big voice boomed at the Jew’s low expostulations. I imagine, from what afterwards happened, that it was something their prisoner had said or done, and I judged that things must be getting rather desperate from his point of view.

Finally, however, Dewinski’s suave manners seemed to prevail. The policeman’s voice dropped into a low rumble that showed me the crisis was over; his helmet nodded final admonitions, and he was passing on his way when there was a sudden scuffle in the group — some one burst from them, and struck the policeman a resounding smack on the face. It must have been done with the open palm, from the noise it made; but, according to British ideas on the subject, it was no sort of crack to give a policeman, combining, as it did, the maximum of insult with the minimum of damage. When I saw it was the little man, their prisoner, who had struck the blow I thought things were getting even more queer than ever. They were on him like a flash, dragging him back. The big policeman, after staring like an astonished bull in stupid surprise, gave a roar of anger and dashed for his man, tearing him like a rag from their grasp.

When Dewinski and the others came round in front, and the policeman drew his sword and waved them off threateningly, I began to see daylight : the little chap had intended his blow to insult but not to injure! He wanted to get himself arrested; therefore he had less to fear from the police, at all events that night, than from the others. At first it looked as if his ruse would be crowned with success. The officer snapped a handcuff on his prisoner, and set off for the station as soon as the others had fallen back from his sword’s point. And, since the prisoner gave no trouble, the pace was quite brisk. The others followed, Dewinski icursing softly, and the fat man soon showing symptoms that the pace was too hot for him.

We were in another street now, and from behind I could see that the trio were much alarmed at this unexpected turn the affair had taken. They pulled up and their heads went together in consultation. Then the third man, the fellow with the pitted face, detached himself and went speeding along the street on the right. The Jew and the fat man hurried along again after their quarry, and I made sure as I quickened my own pace that something nasty was brewing. It was wonderful how that mountain of flesh moved so swiftly and noiselessly. There was something weirdly ominous in it, more ominous even than the stealthy cat-like progress of the Jew, who ran with little steps by his side. I am sure the other two heard nothing as they came up behind. They were in the middle of the road, in the full moonlight, for now the moon had emerged from the welter of clouds, and the street lay a long sharply cut contrast of light and shadow.

Dewinski was on the policeman’s back with the agility of a panther, arms locked round the neck, and his knee driving into the small of the man’s back. He came down like a stricken ox under the butcher’s pole-axe, and the small sword spun out of his grasp and fell clanging on the hard road. The moment he was down the fat man, with a run and a jump, landed on the man’s prostrate body. There was no cry, not even a groan.