CHAPTER XXII

IN SEARCH OF THE BARON

Anyone who has ever lived in the capital of the German Empire, or indeed in any German town of size, knows the absolute futility of arguing with the police. Definite regulations are laid down for them, as the sand of the sea in number and an auctioneer's catalogue in precision of detail; and unless you are a person of infinite leisure and unruffled temper, you will do what they tell you and do it without remonstrance.

When they insisted upon detaining me upon suspicion of having fired the shot which had attracted their notice, I could not restrain a heated protest or two; but I soon ceased to remonstrate.

I chafed and fretted at the detention; and all the more so, because while one of them took charge of me, his companion made a long search for my assailant. He must have been an extremely conscientious fellow, for he showed more than German thoroughness in the search. They are very rarely quick in their methods, but they claim to be sure; and when he returned after nearly an hour, he had quite convinced himself that the man was not hidden anywhere near us.

"You must have fired the shot," he said, with an air of satisfied conviction, "or I should have found the man. There was no one else about." He then ran his hands down outside my coat, felt my revolver and drew it out. "Ah, I knew it," he exclaimed triumphantly.

"Do let us go to the station," I said impatiently.

"You'll have enough of that before this is settled. Who are you, and where do you live?"

I said I would explain everything at the police quarters, and to my relief we set off for them then.

As a matter of fact, I was not a little bothered how to reply to the questions. If I gave my address, I knew that it was quite in accordance with the regulation methods for some one to be sent to search my house; and apart altogether from the alarm which such a proceeding would cause Althea following upon the news of my arrest, there was the awkward fact of the Baron's presence there.

Again, the ordinary process of interrogation would be directed to extracting from me a detailed account of my movements during the hours prior to the act with which I was to be charged. Police inquiries under such circumstances are inspired with as much minuteness as the average Teutonic biblical criticism.

The inquisitor at such times always presses his questions under the belief that at the bottom of the charge there is some heinous crime which he will be able to unearth if only he is clever enough.

The moment I was inside the building, therefore, I made haste to get out my version of the affair, and ended with a request for a communication to be made at once to Dormund or Feldermann.

The officer in charge listened with a frown of impatience, and then turned to the men who had taken me in charge. He was a surly individual; and when my revolver was produced, he gathered it in with a sort of cluck, such as a broody hen might give on discovering a titbit for her chicks.

"You will see that it is loaded in every barrel," I said.

He did not even take the trouble to look. The fact that a shot had been fired, and that I had been found running away and in the possession of a weapon, was obviously proof enough for him. "Well, your name and address?" he grunted as he took up his pen very deliberately.

"Paul Bastable."

"Where do you live. Answer."

I replied that I had been a newspaper correspondent and gave him the name of the paper, adding that both Dormund and Feldermann were my friends.

"Where do you live?" he repeated.

"They know me perfectly well, and I desire to communicate with them."

"Address refused," he murmured as if to himself, and wrote that down. It was the preface to just such a list of questions as I had anticipated. What I was doing in the streets at that time of night; where I had been; where I was going; why I carried a revolver; why I had fired the shot; what I had done all the evening, and so on.

I returned much the same answer to all the questions--that I wished to be allowed to communicate with either Dormund or Feldermann; and we reached a deadlock, and he was ordering me to the cells, when it occurred to me to play the "British subject" card.

"Wait a moment, please. You have ignored my statement and are going to charge me with a serious, offence. I am a British subject and demand to be allowed to communicate with the British consul."

I knew he dared not refuse, and was pleased to see his shaggy brows knit more closely than ever as he thought it over.

"How do I know that?" he asked after a pause.

"Both Herr Dormund and Herr Feldermann know it." I was resolved to rub their names into him at every available chance. "Let me assure you that I have told you the absolute truth in regard to that shot. The mistake which your men made was quite intelligible under the circumstances, but it was a mistake. The shot was fired by a man whom I think I could identify; it was fired at me; and I was pursuing him when I was arrested."

His face might have been a barber's dummy for all the effect this appeared to produce. A long pause followed while he thought over the position, and then he told the others to take me off to the cells.

"You will enter the fact that I have demanded to see my consul, please," I said as I was led away; but like the rest, this elicited no notice.

I was left to cool my heels there for about an hour. I did not care two straws about the charge which had been preferred against me; but the delay fretted me almost into a fever, and had I been left much longer I believe I should have even ventured to make some attempt to escape.

But to my intense relief when the cell door was opened, Dormund was there. He favoured me with one of his driest smiles as he held out his hand. "You have a rare capacity for getting into trouble, Herr Bastable. Surely you know that revolver practice in the streets of Berlin is illegal."

"You have some really sharp fellows under you," I retorted with a grin. "Last time they accused me of having murdered myself, and now they think I tried to do it again."

He led me off to a room where we were alone. "Now tell me all about it."

I told him succinctly what had occurred. He accepted my story at once and together we smiled at the mistake of the others. "But you had no right to have this thing with you at all," he said, referring to the pistol. "You know the law. We shall have to keep it, and I'm afraid you must be prepared to answer for its possession."

"Anyhow, you can see that it hasn't been fired since it was cleaned. Get that quite clear, and I don't mind admitting that I often carry such a thing for my own protection."

"Do you still wish to communicate with your consul, or to make any fuss about the mistake these men made?"

"I want to get home and get to bed. All the rest can go hang."

"We can manage that, but you'll hear about the revolver from us in a day or so. Here are the rest of your things"; and soon afterwards we left the place together.

"Have you taken the advice I gave you yet?" he asked as we walked toward my house.

"What was that?"

"You were at the station to-night, you said. Have your friends gone?"

"No," I replied after a pause. "But I can assure you that all that bother is over and done with. I've been very anxious, but I've won all along the line."

"I am very glad to hear it. How?"

"You'll hear all about it to-morrow or the next day at latest."

"Well, we're schooled to patience, you know. I hope you are right. And I'm heartily glad you were not detained to-night; it might not have been so easy to get you out to-morrow, if a singular rumour running round our place has any foundation--about that old Jew's murder. Fortunately, I don't know anything officially, or I couldn't tell you. But I should advise you to be careful. Good-night"; and without waiting for any reply he turned away and left me.

I attached no importance to his words at the time. It was not probable that anything could have leaked out yet about von Felsen or the fact that I had got a confession from him; and having that, I cared not a jot for anything else.

My one anxiety was to get home and assure myself that Althea's father was still in the house.

Althea met me as I entered, and her looks showed me in a second that something was wrong.

"Thank Heaven, you have come, Paul. I have been tortured with the fear that something must have happened to you."

"Your father?" I asked.

She threw up her hands. "You have guessed it then?"

"Tell me. I have been haunted by the fear that he heard us speaking about the house being clear of the police."

"He has gone, Paul. What do you think can have happened?"

At the sight of her agitation I blamed myself for having let her see by my eager question how grave a view I took of the matter.

"I was half afraid of something of the sort," I replied in a much lighter tone, as we went into the drawing-room; "but no doubt I can put it all right. Bessie told me at the station that he had been downstairs; and that noise you and I heard when we were talking about the police was probably when he heard what we said. It is unfortunate, of course; but it will be all right."

"You are only saying that to ease my mind, Paul."

"No, on my word. I am quite sure of being able to secure his pardon, and no trouble can come of this unless he meets with it from any other source. No police trouble, I mean. As for the rest I believe I know where to look for him, and of course I must be off at once. But tell me first all what led up to his going."

She described his conduct during the day. He had been possessed by the thought that there had been some treachery to the cause; our story of the failure of the scheme had intensely excited him, and in this respect he suspected me of treachery; he had been fretting to get away to consult with others, and had only been kept in the house through fear of the police surrounding it.

"I went straight up to my room the moment you left with Bessie," she concluded, "and not finding him there went to his room. He was not there either. I called to him, but he did not reply; and thinking he might have been taken ill again, I made a thorough search of the house. He must have hidden somewhere and slipped out without my knowledge."

While she was telling me this the thought of the bomb I had given to him flashed across my thoughts, and only with the greatest difficulty could I repress the consternation it caused. Had he taken it with him? Was he mad enough to make the attempt to wreck the cruiser alone? If so, and he were found with that in his possession, or if he made any such mad attempt, the discovery of my part in the affair was all but certain.

"I'll go and have a look at his room, Althea," I said quietly when she had told me all she knew, and we went upstairs together. "Thank the Lord he has left his bag here," I cried with a sigh of satisfaction as I saw it. I had never felt such a flush of infinite relief in my life before.

But it was only for a moment, until I had forced the bag open.

The bomb was gone!

Althea saw then how the discovery affected me. The sudden rush from fear to relief, and back to fear.

"Paul!" Her face was white and strained.

I shook myself together and forced a smile. "Thank goodness he can do no harm with it at any rate. And he might have taken this too." He had left the revolver behind, and I slipped it into my pocket. "He cannot get into any very serious trouble before I find him. I'll go at once."

I went first to my own room to get some cartridges for the revolver in place of the blank ones with which I had before loaded it, and as we were going downstairs Althea asked me what had kept me so long away.

"I was arrested, but had no difficulty in explaining matters." I did not say anything about the attempt on my life, not wishing to alarm her.

"I was sure there was trouble," she cried in distress. "I have brought so much to you already."

"To-morrow we shall just smile at it all. I am absolutely confident, Althea."

"I cannot smile yet, Paul, nor be confident either. I could almost wish----"

I gathered her in my arms. "You must never harbour that thought again, dearest. Never if you love me."

"You would at least be safe; and the thought of your danger chills me with dread every minute you are away."

"But the mere fact that I have been in the hands of the police within the last hour and am here now at your side may tell you there is no such danger as you fear. You do but frighten yourself with shadows. If there had been any real trouble such as you fear, they would have detained me."

"I cannot help it, Paul. If it were only myself I should not care," she said with a heavy sigh.

"Keep this in your thoughts then. Bessie has taken with her something which would cut the knot of our difficulties were it twenty times worse than it is. But now what of yourself? Will you stay here alone, or go to Chalice?"

"Stay here. My father may return. I shall wait up all night for him."

"I shall bring him back in an hour or so. You will see," I said cheerfully.

"I pray with all my heart you will. But where are you going?"

"I think I know where to find him; but I must not stay to tell you any more. Keep a stout heart for that hour or so, and all will be well."

I put all the cheering confidence I could into my tone and manner, but it was of little avail. "I wish I could go with you," she cried wistfully. "If you do not return soon I shall be fit to do something desperate. I cannot tell you how this suspense tortures me. It was all I could do to prevent myself from coming after you just now."

"You cannot do anything but wait, dearest. Wait and trust. It will all come right."

But although I had spoken so confidently to Althea, I was very far from feeling so; and as I hurried through the deserted streets I wished the Baron had been at Jerusalem and all his mad-brained schemes and cause and associates with him before he had come to plunge us all into this unsavoury mess.

There was, of course, only one place in the whole city where I could go in search of him--the wharf of W. Mischen; and it was no more than a bare possibility that he or any one else would be there at that time of night.

Moreover, if I did succeed in finding him there it was anything but clear how I could get him away. Already he entertained the gravest suspicions of me; and the moment he spoke to any of his infernal associates, all the fairy tales I had told him would be exposed.

He would show the bomb which I had given to him; and it needed no gift of prophecy to understand the feeling which would be aroused against me. Every man in the crowd would be itching to slit my throat or put a bullet into me.

There was just one chance in a million in my favour--that he had set out to blow up the "warship" by himself. But even that would not help me; as I should most certainly be unable to trace his movements.

If it had not been for the sham bomb which I had given him with its compromising history connecting me closely and certainly with it, I should have given up the quest altogether and left him to find his way back to the house. But I dared not leave that broad trail without at least a desperate effort to efface it. If it were discovered and my purchase of it proved, it would taint the whole story I had to tell of my possession of the paper I had secured from von Felsen. It would all be set down to my connexion with these infernal Poles.

In a word I was just at the end of my wits; and when I turned into the lane leading down to the wharf, I did not know whether to hope that I should find it empty or not.

I went very warily as I neared the place, pausing many a time to look about me. If any one was in the building, it was almost a certainty that spies would be somewhere in hiding to give warning to those within of the approach of any unwelcome strangers.

I scanned every possible hiding spot, therefore; and satisfied myself that no one was about; and so far as I could judge, the building itself was empty. It was shut up and in total darkness.

I pressed my ear against the door, and listened intently for any sound within. It was as still as the grave. I think I was relieved to find it so.

I was turning away to think what I could do next, when I heard a faint sound of cautious footsteps in the lane above.

Whoever might be coming, I had no mind to be caught in that equivocal position, so I crept away stealthily, keeping close in the shadows, and hid myself behind a heap of rubbish which stood against the adjoining warehouse, as two men came cautiously down the narrow street.

I was soon satisfied that the newcomers were not the regular police patrol; but they might be detectives. I should be in a pretty mess if they were; and I held my breath as they came near, watching them the while with straining eyes and quickened pulse. And then I saw that they themselves were being shadowed.