CHAPTER XIII

IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH

As soon as I had shaken off the first stunning effect of the news of the murder, I did what I could to calm Hagar, and then asked her to return with me to the house. But this induced a fresh paroxysm of alarm.

"No, no. They will take my life," she cried. "I dare not. I dare not."

"I will see that no one harms you," I assured her. "I am armed, and by this time they will have fled. There is no danger."

I prevailed in the end, and together we went back to the house. She shuddered violently as we entered, and clung to my arm, shrinking and shaking and glancing about her in terror at every step.

I knew where her father had kept his liquors, so I got her some brandy and made her drink a fairly stiff dose.

"Where are your servants?" I asked.

"One is ill, and the other has been away all the afternoon." Her lips trembled and her voice quivered as she replied.

"You must make an effort," I said sharply. "Tell me everything."

"I cannot think. I cannot think," she moaned distractedly, and laid her head on the table in an agony of wild grief.

I gave her some more of the spirit, and as soon as she had drunk it I said as impressively as I could: "If you would revenge your father's death, you must let me know everything at once. Revenge is still in your power, remember. Your father would have had you think of that."

The appeal had an immediate effect. She raised her head and her eyes flashed with a new light. "You are right," she cried in a strong vibrating tone. "I will never rest until he is revenged and his murderers are punished. That I swear to my God!"

She rose then and led me into the room where the body lay, just as it had fallen, huddled up on the floor close to the table at which most of the old man's life had been spent.

"You have had no doctor yet," I exclaimed, turning to the telephone.

"I ran for my life the instant I discovered what had occurred."

"What is your doctor's name?" I asked as I tried the telephone. She told me; but I could get no reply to my call. And then I discovered that the communication had been cut. A sinister and suggestive circumstance.

I knelt down by the body and made a rapid examination. He had been stabbed from behind, and was long past all human help. The eyes were fast glazing and the body beginning to stiffen.

As I was feeling the pulse a ring dropped from the hand, and intent on the work of examination, I put it without thinking into my pocket.

"When did it occur?"

"I do not know. I was in my room upstairs and came down to speak to him about--about my marriage to-morrow----" She paused and closed her eyes and clenched her hands for a moment, and then forced herself to continue. "I found him as you see. That was just before I ran out of the house in my panic and you met me. I remembered his warning to me and fled. I was mad for the time, I think."

"What was his warning?"

"It was after you left him this afternoon. Something you said made him speak to me. He had had a letter threatening his life, and charging him with treachery; and I was threatened also."

I had been kneeling all this time by the body and now rose. "You have no idea who can have done this?"

"None. He told me he had an important interview to-night, and must not be disturbed. That was why I did not come down earlier."

"We must find out with whom," I replied. "And now we must have the police. Have you nerve enough to fetch them or shall we go together?"

"Don't leave me."

At that instant as we turned to leave, I heard a sound somewhere in the house. Hagar heard it also, and clutched my arm shaking like a leaf.

"You say we are alone in the house?" I asked in a low tone.

She nodded, her eyes strained in the direction of the sound.

We stood listening intently.

"They have come back in search of me," she whispered.

"Then we shall find out who they are. Courage."

I glanced round the room and motioned to her to hide behind the curtains which covered the deep window recess, and stood there with her.

Two or three minutes of tense silence followed. Then we heard footsteps stealthily approaching the room. A pause, and then three men entered. One a grey-haired, distinguished-looking man well on in years; the other two younger and of a commoner type, swarthy, determined-looking men.

From where they stood they could not see the body of the Jew, and judging by their start at finding the room empty, I judged that they had expected to see Ziegler at his desk.

Their words confirmed this.

"Not here, the old fox," growled one.

"Come away. Come away," said the elder man, laying his hand nervously on the arm of one of the others.

"Not till this thing is settled," he replied, shaking off the other's hand impatiently. "I mean to have the truth out of the old rat, or his life."

"And the girl's too," added the other. "You know what we were told about them both. I shall wait for him."

"No, no. No bloodshed, no bloodshed, for Heaven's sake," cried the old man with a gesture of protest and dismay.

"My God! Look here!" This was from one of the two who had moved forward and was pointing at the dead body.

The old man gave a cry of horror and sank into a chair covering his face in his clasped hands.

"What can this mean?"

His companions were standing by the body gazing at one another in blank wonderment and surprise. Then one of them stooped down and examined the corpse.

"Dead, sure enough; and murdered, too," he announced.

He rose and they both looked round at the elder man. "Do you know anything of this?" asked one.

Without a word the man they addressed sprang up and rushed out of the room.

The two stared at one another again in silence.

Then one of them laughed sneeringly.

His companion winced. His nerves were not so tough.

"What shall we do?" he asked rather huskily. He was beginning to shake.

"Do? Why, what we came to do, of course. Find the old rat's daughter and finish the thing," he said brutally, and with an oath.

Hagar was trembling like an aspen and her breath was so laboured and heavy that I made sure they would hear it.

I pressed her arm to try and reassure her.

"I think we'd better go," said the weaker fellow.

A muttered oath at his cowardice was the response. "I'm going to search the house," declared his companion, and he began to glance round the room.

But the other went toward the door. "I'm going."

At this moment Hagar could restrain her terror no longer, and a heavy half-sigh half-groan burst from her.

Both men turned at once toward the curtains, and the bolder one put his hand to draw a weapon, knife or pistol; but before he could get it out, I stepped forward and covered him with my revolver.

"The Englishman!" they both cried in a breath, and the man by the door darted out of the room.

His companion stood his ground and met my look steadily.

"So it's your work, eh?"

"Take your hand from that weapon of yours," I cried sternly.

"What quarrel have you with me?"

"Do as I say," I thundered.

He took his hand from his pocket, shrugged his shoulders, and deliberately turned his back on me and walked toward the door.

His consummate coolness placed me in a dilemma. Shoot him down in cold blood I could not.

Hagar's courage returned the instant she perceived that the advantage was on my side. "Don't let him go," she said, and stepped forward.

The fellow started at the sound of her voice and looked at her with an expression of the bitterest malignity.

"Stop, you," I cried.

He faced me, laughed again with his former deliberate coolness and paused as if about to return. "Very well," he said slowly, with a shrug of indifference; and then, before I could guess his purpose, he sprang backwards to the door and rushed out.

As a matter of fact I was much relieved by his departure; but Hagar flew into a passion and reproached me bitterly for having allowed him to escape. "He murdered my father and will kill me," she cried. "You should have shot him."

It was clear from this that her agitation had been too great to admit of her understanding the purport of what had passed while the three men were together in the room.

I did not stay to explain matters and let her reproaches pass without reply. "We must have the police here at once," I said. "You had better come with me."

We went out to the front door, and seeing a police officer at a little distance, I called him and told him what had occurred.

He came in with us and made a rapid examination of the dead man. "He has been dead some time. When did it occur?"

I told him all I knew of the affair: that Hagar had found her father dead; had fled from the house in fear; had taken me back; and the cause of our delay in telling the police, adding such a description as I could of the men.

Of course I quite expected him to suspect us of the deed, and was not therefore in the least surprised when he replied that we should be detained.

"You had better go for one of your superior officers," I told him. "We will remain in the next room."

"I'm not so sure of that," he replied knowingly.

"Then send for some one. You can easily get a messenger in the street."

I led Hagar into the next room, and he went out and did as I suggested. Then he came to us, and we waited for the arrival of the others. Hagar spoke to the officer, but I took no part in the conversation.

I was completely mystified by the affair. I recalled all the events of the afternoon. Ziegler's singular hints of treachery; the others' suspicion of me; the fact of the threatening letter of which Hagar had told me: and all these things pointed clearly to the conclusion that the murder had been done by some one who suspected the Jew, and that it was in revenge we should look for the motive.

But the arrival of the three men, obviously bent upon doing that which had already been down, negatived any such conclusion absolutely, or appeared to do so.

That they had expected to find the Jew still alive, there was not the shadow of a doubt. Their actions had shown this as plainly as their words had expressed it. They had come to obtain an explanation of the facts which they held to justify their suspicions; and in default of that explanation being satisfactory, they were resolved to take his life.

The words and acts of the eldest of the men had proved that.

The next question was whether their own thought was right--that some one of their number had anticipated them. It was a plausible supposition.

But there was another possible theory. The Jew was a man with many enemies. He had been a hard man, and had been threatened more than once by those who laid their ruin at his door. He carried many secrets, too; and it was easy to conceive that there were hundreds in Berlin who would welcome his death.

Had some such enemy dealt this secret stroke? It was a question which could only be answered after a strict search into the hidden undercurrents of his life and business.

To me his death was little short of a calamity. It threatened to overthrow my whole plans. The suspicions of his good faith entertained by his companions were almost sure to fall upon me; and in that case I should assuredly find myself shut out from the scheme on which I had built so much.

It was this aspect of the affair which concerned me chiefly as we sat waiting for the arrival of the police, and I racked my wits in vain for a solution to the problems which it raised.

When they arrived, Hagar and I were subjected to a searching cross-examination at their hands: she in one room, I in another. I was questioned very closely as to my relations with Ziegler; and except that I did not say a word as to the Polish intrigue, I gave as full and complete an account as possible. I had indeed nothing to conceal.

I perceived that the questions were directed to elicit any possible motive on my part which could in any way connect me with the crime. My replies appeared to satisfy them, and I noticed that they were compared with the statements which had been obtained from Hagar.

After the comparison had been made, the manner of the men questioning me underwent a considerable change. Not a little to my relief.

"We accept your statement, Herr Bastable; but of course you will understand that we were compelled to interrogate you closely as you were found upon the scene of the murder. Now, I invite you to tell me frankly of any circumstance which you think will tend to throw light on the matter."

"I am utterly baffled," I replied. "The only guess I can make is that it may have been the work of some one whose hatred he has incurred as a money-lender. He must have had many enemies."

"His daughter believes it was the work of the men who came here afterwards when you were here."

"That is incredible"; and I gave my reasons, adding that Hagar had been much too agitated to understand what had passed.

"You know that he was associated with the Polish party of independence. She says so. Will you tell me all you know about that? Have you any reason to believe that he contemplated betraying them in any way?"

"None whatever. I knew that he was associated with them. I learnt that some time ago when I was on newspaper work here in Berlin."

"I will be frank with you. It has been suggested to us, before this I mean, that you were associated with him in some such way, and that that was the cause of your recent visits to him. What do you say to that?"

This was getting near home with a vengeance. "The only foundation for such a statement lies in the fact that he had asked me as a newspaper man, if I could make use of political information of importance if he obtained it for me. That is of course my business--provided of course that the information is authentic."

"How was he to obtain it?"

"That I can't say." I used the equivocation intentionally. "I know I was to pay for it, and to judge of its worth when I knew it."

"How were you to receive it?"

"He was to tell me the time and place and means and everything. I should of course have used my own discretion in handling it."

"That lends itself to the fact that he did meditate some sort of betrayal. I presume the information related to his political associations."

"I scarcely think so in the sense you imply. More probably something that would have helped his party. I do not know, as I have told you, the exact nature of the news, but I gathered of course that it must affect my own country, seeing that it was as an English newspaper man he approached me."

"You have taken no other part in these Polish intrigues?"

I smiled. "I am an Englishman, not a Pole; and have no other feeling in their affairs beyond the natural English attitude toward any movement which has the liberty of the subject as its motive. But this was business, you understand."

"One other question. You owed him no money?"

"Not a mark. I never have. I am now a man of considerable means indeed."

He bowed and lifted his hands to signify that he had finished with me. "I can go?" I asked.

"Certainly."

"And Fraeulein Ziegler? She is in need of a friend and I should like to help her if she wishes? It is the more terrible for her as she was to have been married to-morrow."

"Indeed? To whom?" he asked quickly.

I regretted my indiscretion, but it was too late. "To Herr Hugo von Felsen."

"Ah. That explains. She asked to see him."

"Can I see her?" I asked, and received a ready assent.

I went to her with the mere intention of offering assistance, the last thing in my thoughts being that a momentous discovery was to be the result of the interview.