Chapter 83
The officer did as he was asked, ready, if his prisoner should attempt to shut the door upon him, which opened inwards, to stop it with his outstretched foot. But Philip followed him close, shutting the door behind him.
"My bedroom!" said Philip, waving his right hand, whilst the left still played with the lock, to the magnificent apartment, which, like all they had pa.s.sed through, was brilliantly lighted with wax candles; "furnished in French style, and as if it were for a young lady who had just returned home from school! but these upholsterers are autocrats.
This way, please, Herr Muller--my dressing-room--the last in the row--and dark--but that we can rectify."
Philip held up the branch candlestick, which he had taken from the console under the looking-gla.s.s in the bedroom, and threw the light all round as if to a.s.sure the Inspector that there was no second door in the s.p.a.ce left free by the carved oak wardrobes, and that the one they had come in by was the only entrance and exit. He put the candlestick down on a table, took off his coat, and opened one of the cupboards.
"I will wait in your bedroom while you are dressing; said the officer.
"Pray do," said Philip, as he took off his white waistcoat and undid his tie; "I hope you will find the arm-chairs to your taste----"
The officer returned to the bedroom without quite shutting the door, and took his place on one of the magnificent sofas.
"From Delorme in Paris," said Philip, opening and shutting the cupboards in the dressing-room; "it is supposed to be something quite out of the way, although I cannot see it. Only a few minutes, Herr Muller; I am just as if I had come out of the river. My whole house is ventilated after the newest principles, and yet this awful heat! _a propos_, I suppose I may give notice downstairs that I have been taken suddenly unwell, and so forth."
"I have no objection," said the officer. "I am only afraid that, discreet as I have been, the rumour will have spread; it is generally so at least."
"It can't be helped then," said Philip, who seemed busy with his boots; "will the thing never come out? There, at last! What a pity that it is midnight, and the magistrates cannot be got hold of, or I should certainly be back again in half an hour. I have never asked what it is about. I know without asking; it is some wretched trick of Lubbener's, to drive me out of the board of directors. I knew that he had been for some days in frightful difficulties, and was certain that our preference shares were not safe from him. No respectable bank would advance him a farthing upon the whole four million; but some swindling firm--he knows plenty of them--might advance him six or eight hundred thousand--a mere nothing in his position, but when there is nothing better to be had the devil himself eats flies. So, thought I, they are more secure in my hands than in the safe. In proof that I was right, he has found me out. You must know from experience, my dear Herr Muller, that no one thinks of looking for a man behind the bushes unless he has been in hiding there once or twice himself. It was a bold thing to do, I know, but mine is a daring nature. There! now another pair of boots, and I am ready."
Herr Schmidt, who must have been going about in slippers for the last five minutes, appeared to have gone again to one of the cupboards, in which he was hunting about. "Varnished boots? Impossible! these are the right ones--these," the officer heard him say, as if to himself. The creaking of a chair--he was a heavy man--a smothered oath--the boots apparently did not go on easily--then silence.
Absolute silence for a minute, during which Herr Muller got up from his arm-chair and went to the window to look across the gla.s.s roof of the courtyard, to the illuminated windows of the ball-room, behind which one or two ladies and gentlemen could be seen. The supper had apparently lasted too long for the lovers of dancing, and since the master of the house had vanished, they wanted to set the ball going again of their own will. And indeed the music began again now from beyond, whilst beneath the gla.s.s roof sounded the stamping of horses, and the talking and shouting of the coachmen.
"A terrible business for Herr Schmidt," thought the Inspector; "the affair is certainly not literally as he represents it, but Lubbener is perhaps the biggest swindler of the two. They generally get off free.
He might really be ready now."
Herr Muller stepped from the window back into the room. "Are you ready, Herr Schmidt?"
No answer.
"Are you---- Good G.o.d! the man must have done himself an injury!"
The officer pushed open the half-closed door--the candelabra burnt on the dressing-table--coats and linen were strewed about--the room was empty.
"Don't play any foolish tricks,
But he no longer believed in a joke, as after having hastily glanced into the open cupboard, he threw the light of the candelabra right and left over the hangings, which were leather coloured to represent wood.
No trace of a door! And yet there must be one! There, at last! This scarcely perceptible crack, where the darker stripes of the hangings met the lighter wainscoting--wonderfully done!--and here below, hardly visible, the tiny lock. Herr Muller pushed and kicked against the door, only to discover that it was made of iron and would defy his utmost efforts. He rushed out of the dressing-room into the bedroom--the door into the anteroom was locked! There, close to the handle, was the same lock as that on the concealed door, no bigger than the key-hole in the dial plate of a clock. He was a prisoner!
The infuriated officer threw open the window, and called as loudly as he could to his men, of whom two should be in the courtyard. But on the other side the fiddles squeaked and the violoncellos growled, and below the horses stamped and the coachmen shouted and laughed. No one heard the cries from above, until in his despair he took the first thing that came to hand and flung it through the gla.s.s, so that the fragments fell upon the heads of a pair of fiery horses, which, frightened out of their wits, reared and backed, driving the carriage into another one behind them, which rolling back again made the horses of a third recoil. In the midst of the frightful confusion and the tremendous noise that ensued, the shouts of the officer were overpowered, until at last one of the policemen remarked them, but without being able to understand a word his superior said. Nevertheless, he hurried out of the court into the vaulted pa.s.sage which, running on the right side of the building and round behind the court, connected the latter with the street, and was used for the exit of the carriages, those coming in entering on the opposite side, to tell his comrades who were posted there that something had happened, and that they must be on their guard. He had done so in a few breathless words, and was in the act of running back, when from one or other of the doors opening into the pa.s.sage, two servants rushed out, one an elderly man, who seemed to be trembling from head to foot with excitement, and one younger and very tall who nearly ran into his arms. The policeman connected the hurry of these servants with what had just occurred, and he was confirmed in this opinion by the fact of his remarking at the same moment, that a narrow, steep stone staircase led up from the door which the servants had in their haste left open.
"What has happened upstairs?" cried the policeman.
"Herr Schmidt has had a fit of apoplexy," answered the tall servant. "I am going for the doctor, do not detain me. Here is the Inspector's card."
"All right!" said the policeman, throwing a glance at the card. "Let him pa.s.s. He is going for the doctor. How can I get upstairs?"
"Straight up these steps," was the breathless reply.
"Then be off with you!"
The man rushed breathlessly to the exit past the policeman, who willingly made way for him, ran to the string of cabs which stood before the house, only carriages being allowed inside the courtyard, and sprang into the end one, calling to the driver to go as quickly as possible; he should be well paid. It was a matter of life and death!
In the supper-room the confusion increased as the absence of the host continued.
Amongst the few who still kept their place was Baroness Kniebreche, although Herr von Wallbach urgently pressed her departure.
"Only a few minutes more," cried the Baroness, without taking her gla.s.s from her eye; "it is so interesting. In spite of my eighty-two years, I have never seen anything like it. Only just look, my dear Wallbach, at that table where the little bald-headed man is sitting who a little while ago proposed that man Lasker's health; tell me--I did not hear a word of it for my part. The man with the long fair hair is positively kissing his neighbour--an artist too of course--enviable people! Who is the handsome young man with the black hair and fiery eyes; at the same table? I have noticed him already this evening--a foreigner, we do not grow such plants. He, moreover, never takes his eyes off Ottomar's table. He seems to be struck by the pretty ballet-dancer. I cannot understand how Ottomar can go on flirting with Ferdinanda, when he has such a choice before him. But it is no use disputing about taste; it is a wonderful thing. That faded Agnes Holzweg and Prince Wladimir. Well, he cannot be very particular, and it seems to be going off too, as he has not even been here for a few minutes. Take care of the old lady!
Pooh! She can hear me? I can hardly hear myself speak. That old woman is a tremendous chatterer. She was talking just now for ever so long to young Grieben of the Hussars, who I think is somehow related to her, and has also paid attentions to Agues in his time, before the Prince began to do so. There he is talking to Ottomar. If the old lady has been chattering, Grieben will take the greatest satisfaction in boring Ottomar with it, as he knows of his dislike to Agnes, whom Grieben, I hear, in spite of all, still adores."
"But, my dear lady," cried the horrified Wallbach, "you have not told that notorious gossip--"
"Look! look!" cried the Baroness, giving Wallbach a sharp blow with her closed fan, "there, at the first--second--fourth table! The men are coming to blows! it is really splendid! I never saw anything like it in my life."
"It really is high time for us to go," said Herr von Wallbach; "it is getting too bad. Allow me to send a servant for my carriage--"
"Well, if you really are determined," said the Baroness, "but I am still amusing myself immensely."
Herr von Wallbach had stood up, but the servants who were hurrying about with wine and ices seemed little inclined to do his errand, and he was forced to look elsewhere through the room for some one more accommodating.
Whilst he was still talking to the Baroness, Ottomar went up to Justus, who was talking to his friend Bunzel as quietly as if the storm which he had raised, and which increased in fury every minute, was not of the slightest consequence to him.
"A word with you, Herr Anders,"
"Ten, if you like," rejoined Justus, jumping up; "but for heaven's sake, Herr Von Werben----"
"What?"
"Pardon me! you did not look very cheerful before, but now--has anything unpleasant happened to you?"
"Indeed there has. Tell me, Herr Anders, I am in a great hurry, and cannot stop to explain--I know that you are very intimate with Captain Schmidt, and I have just heard that there exists, some understanding between him and--my sister. Do you know anything of this?"
Justus did not know what this meant. Ottomar's eyes, blazing with fury and an excitement which rose above the fumes of wine, boded no good; but no evasion was possible.
"Yes, Herr Von Werben; and I am convinced that only the lack of any friendly advance on your part has made my friend hold back, and caused him to leave you in ignorance of his understanding with your sister, whilst, so far as I know, your father has long been acquainted with it."
"Very likely, very likely," said Ottomar; "my family and I have long been--but no matter! And in any case--I deeply regret that I did not cultivate Captain Schmidt's friends.h.i.+p--however, I admire and esteem him highly, very highly--I should always have considered it an honour--everything might have been so totally different----"
He pa.s.sed his hand over his brow.
"Is there still no possibility?" asked Justus quickly.
A melancholy smile pa.s.sed over the handsome face.
"How I wish there were," he said. "I thought myself--but it is too late, too late! I have found that out--this evening--just now--a man in my position cannot allow his name to be in every one's mouth; and that fact is used with great skill--the greatest skill--confounded skill!"
His teeth were gnawing hard at his lip, his angry eyes looked beyond Justus into the room as if seeking some one, and they kept their direction as he asked, even more hastily and abruptly than before:
"Perhaps you are also acquainted with Car--with Fraulein von Wallbach's relations with--with--I see by your eyes that you know what I mean. And you--but the others, who are talking of it all round, and reckoning that for well-known reasons I must keep quiet about it; but I'll be hanged if I do!"