CHAPTER V
THE LADY OF THE VOS IN'T TUINTJE
Here was Destiny knocking at the door. In that instant my mind was madeup. For the moment, at any rate, I had every card in my hands. I wouldbluff these stodgy Huns: I would brazen it out: I would be Semlin and gothrough with it to the bitter end, aye, and if it took me to the verygates of Hell.
The knocking was repeated.
"May one come in?" said a woman's voice in German.
I stepped across the corpse and opened the door a foot or so.
There stood a woman with a lamp. She was a middle-aged woman with anegg-shaped face, fat and white and puffy, and pale, crafty eyes. She wasin her outdoor clothes, with an enormous vulgar-looking hat and anold-fashioned sealskin cape with a high collar. The cape which wasglistening with rain was half open, and displayed a vast bosom tightlycompressed into a white silk blouse. In one hand she carried an oillamp.
"Frau Schratt," she said by way of introduction, and raised the lamp tolook more closely at me.
Then I saw her face change. She was looking past me into the room, and Iknew that the lamplight was falling full upon the ghastly thing that layupon the floor.
I realized the woman was about to scream, so I seized her by the wrist.She had disgusting hands, fat and podgy and covered with rings.
"Quiet!" I whispered fiercely in her ear, never relaxing my grip on herwrist. "You will be quiet and come in here, do you understand?"
She sought to shrink from me, but I held her fast and drew her into theroom.
She stood motionless with her lamp, at the head of the corpse. Sheseemed to have regained her self-possession. The woman was no longerfrightened. I felt instinctively that her fears had been all forherself, not for that livid horror sprawling on the floor. When shespoke her manner was almost business-like.
"I was told nothing of this," she said. "Who is it? What do you want meto do?"
Of all the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasantodour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber ofdeath. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seekingin mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation thatmakes my blood run cold whenever I think of her.
Then suddenly her manner, arrogant, insolent, cruel, changed. She becamepolite. She was obsequious. Of the two, the first manner became hervastly better. She looked at me with a curious air, almost withreverence, as it seemed to me. She said, in a purring voice:
"Ach, so! I did not understand. The gentleman must excuse me."
And she purred again:
"So!"
It was then I noticed that her eyes were fastened upon my chest. Ifollowed their direction.
They rested on the silver badge I had stuck in my braces.
I understood and held my peace. Silence was my only trump until I knewhow the land lay. If I left this woman alone, she would tell me all Iwanted to know.
In fact, she began to speak again.
"I expected _you_," she said, "but not... _this_. Who is it this time? AFrenchman, eh?"
I shook my head.
"An Englishman," I said curtly.
Her eyes opened in wonder.
"Ach, nein!" she cried--and you would have said her voice vibrated withpleasure--"An Englishman! Ei, ei!"
If ever a human being licked its chops, that woman did.
She wagged her head and repeated to herself:
"Ei, ei !" adding, as if to explain her surprise, "he is the first wehave had.
"You brought him here, eh! But why up here? Or did der Stelze send him?"
She fired this string of questions at me without pausing for a reply.She continued:
"I was out, but Karl told me. There was another came, too: Franz senthim."
"This is he," I said. "I caught him prying in my room and he died."
"Ach!" she ejaculated ... and in her voice was all the world ofadmiration that a German woman feels for brute man.... "The HerrEnglander came into your room and he died. So, so! But one must speak toFranz. The man drinks too much. He is always drunk. He makes mistakes.It will not do. I will...."
"I wish you to do nothing against Franz," I said. "This Englishman spokeGerman well: Karl will tell you."
"As the gentleman wishes," was the woman's reply in a voice so silky andso servile that I felt my gorge rise.
"She looks like a slug!" I said to myself, as she stood there, fat andsleek and horrible.
"Here are his passport and other papers," I said, bending down andtaking them from the dead man's pocket. "He was an English officer, yousee?" And I unfolded the little black book stamped with the Royal Arms.
She leant forward and I was all but stifled with the stale odour of thepatchouli with which her faded body was drenched.
Then, making a sheaf of passport and permit, I held them in the flame ofthe candle.
"But we always keep them!" expostulated the hotel-keeper.
"This passport must die with the man," I replied firmly. "He must not betraced. I want no awkward enquiries made, you understand. Therefore ..."and I flung the burning mass of papers into the grate.
"Good, good!" said the German and put her lamp down on the table. "Therewas a telephone message for you," she added, "to say that der Stelzewill come at eight in the morning to receive what you have brought."
The deuce! This was getting awkward. Who the devil was Stelze?
"Coming at eight is he?" I said, simply for the sake of sayingsomething.
"Jawohl!" replied Frau Schratt. "He was here already this morning. Hewas nervous, oh! very, and expected you to be here. Already two days heis waiting here to go on."
"So," I said, "he is going to take ... _it_ on with him, is he?" (Iknew where he was "going on" to, well enough: he was going to see thatdocument safe into Germany.)
There was a malicious ring in the woman's voice when she spoke ofStelze. I thought I might profit by this. So I drew her out.
"So Stelze called to-day and gave you his orders, did he?" I said,"and ... and took charge of things generally, eh?"
Her little eyes snapped viciously.
"Ach!" she said, "der Stelze is der Stelze. He has power; he hasauthority; he can make and unmake men. But I ... I in my time havebroken a dozen better men than he and yet he dares to tell Anna Schrattthat ... that ..."
She raised her voice hysterically, but broke off before she could finishthe sentence. I saw she thought she had said too much.
"He won't play that game with me," I said. Strength is the quality thatevery German, man, woman and child, respects, and strength alone. Mysafety depended on my showing this ignoble creature that I receivedorders from no one. "You know what he is. One runs the risk, one takestrouble, one is successful. Then he steps in and gathers the laurels.No, I am not going to wait for him."
The hotel-keeper sprang to her feet, her faded face all ravaged by theshadow of a great fear.
"You wouldn't dare!" she said.
"I would," I retorted. "I've done my work and I'll report tohead-quarters and to no one else!"
My eyes fell upon the body.
"Now, what are we going to do with this?" I said. "You must help me,Frau Schratt. This is serious. This must not be found here."
She looked up at me in surprise.
"That?" she said, and she kicked the body with her foot. "Oh, that willbe all right with die Schratt! 'It must not be found here'" (shemimicked my grave tone). "It will not be found here, young man!"
And she chuckled with all the full-bodied good humour of a fat person.
"You mean?"
"I mean what I mean, young man, and what you mean," she replied. "Whenthey are in a difficulty, when there are complications, when there isany unpleasantness.. like _this_ ... they remember die Schratt, 'diefesche Anna,' as they called me once, and it is 'gnadige Frau' here and'gnadige Frau' there and a diamond bracelet or a pearl ring, if only Iwill do the little conjuring trick that will smooth everything over. Butwhen all goes well, then I am 'old Schrat
t,' 'old hag,' 'old woman,' andI must take my orders and beg nicely and ... bah!"
Her words ended in a gulp, which in any other woman would have been asob.
Then she added in her hard harlot's voice:
"You needn't worry your head about _him,_ there! Leave him to me! It'smy trade!"
At those words, which covered God only knows what horrors of midnightdisappearances, of ghoulish rites with packing-case and sack, in thedark cellars of that evil house, I felt that, could I but draw back fromthe enterprise to which I had so rashly committed myself, I would do sogladly. Only then did I begin to realize something of the utterruthlessness, the cold, calculating ferocity, of the most bitter andmost powerful enemy which the British Empire has ever had.
But it was too late to withdraw now. The die was cast. Destiny, knockingat my door, had found me ready to follow, and I was committed towhatever might befall me in my new personality.
The German woman turned to go.
"Der Stelze will be here at eight, then," she said. "I suppose thegentleman will take his early morning coffee before."
"I shan't be here," I said. "You can tell your friend I've gone."
She turned on me like a flash.
She was hard as flint again.
"Nein!" she cried. "You stay here!"
"No," I answered with equal force, "not I ..."
"... Orders are orders and you and I must obey!"
"But who is Stelze that he should give orders to me?" I cried.
"Who is...?" She spoke aghast.
"... And you yourself," I continued, "were saying ..."
"When an order has been given, what you or I think or say is of noaccount," the woman said. "It is an order: you and I know _whose_ order.Let that suffice. You stay here! Good night!"
With that she was gone. She closed the door behind her; the key rattledin the lock and I realized that I was a prisoner. I heard the woman'sfootfalls die away down the corridor.
That distant clock cleaved the silence of the night with twelveponderous strokes. Then the chimes played a pretty jingling little tunethat rang out clearly in the still, rain-washed air.
I stood petrified and reflected on my next move.
Twelve o'clock! I had eight hours' grace before Stelze, the man ofmystery and might, arrived to unmask me and hand me over to the tendermercies of Madame and of Karl. Before eight o'clock arrived I must--so Isummed up my position--be clear of the hotel and in the train for theGerman frontier--if I could get a train--else I must be out ofRotterdam, by that hour.
But I must _act_ and act without delay. There was no knowing when thatdead man lying on the floor might procure me another visit from Madameand her myrmidons. The sooner I was out of that house of death thebetter.
The door was solid; the lock was strong. That I discovered without anytrouble. In any case, I reflected, the front-door of the hotel would bebarred and bolted at this hour of the night, and I could scarcely darehope to escape by the front without detection, even if Karl were notactually in the entrance hall. There must be a back entrance to thehotel, I thought, for I had seen that the windows of my room opened onto the narrow street lining the canal which ran at the back of thehouse.
Escape by the windows was impossible. The front of the house droppedsheer down and there was nothing to give one a foothold. But Iremembered the window in the _cabinet de toilette_ giving on to thelittle air-shaft. That seemed to offer a slender chance of escape.
For the second time that night I opened the casement and inhaled thefetid odours arising from the narrow court. All the windows looking,like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a lightstill burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair tothe little yard. What was at the foot of the stair I could not descry,but I thought I could recognize the outline of a door.
From the window of the _cabinet de toilette_ to the yard the sides ofthe house, cased in stained and dirty stucco, fell sheer away. Measuredwith the eye the drop from window to the pavement was about fifty feet.With a rope and something to break one's fall, it might, I fancied, bemanaged....
From that on, things moved swiftly. First with my penknife I ripped thetailor's tab with my name from the inside pocket of my coat and burnt itin the candle; nothing else I had on was marked, for I had had to buy alot of new garments when I came out of hospital. I took Semlin'sovercoat, hat and bag into the _cabinet de toilette_ and stood them inreadiness by the window. As a precaution against surprise I pushed themassive mahogany bedstead right across the doorway and thus barricadedthe entrance to the room.
From either side of the fireplace hung two bell-ropes, twisted silkcords of faded crimson with dusty tassels. Mounting on the mantelpiece Icut the bell-ropes off short where they joined the wire. Testing them Ifound them apparently solid--at any rate they must serve. I knotted themtogether.
Back to the _cabinet de toilette_ I went to find a suitable object towhich to fasten my rope. There was nothing in the little room save thewashstand, and that was fragile and quite unsuited for the purpose. Inoticed that the window was fitted with shutters on the outsidefastened back against the wall. They had not been touched for years, Ishould say, for the iron peg holding them back was heavy with rust andthe shutters were covered with dust. I closed the left-hand shutter andfound that it fastened solidly to the window-frame by means of massiveiron bolts, top and bottom.
Here was the required support for my rope. The poker thrust though thewooden slips of the shutter held the rope quite solidly. I attached myrope to the poker with an expert knot that I had picked up at a coursein tying knots during a preposterously dull week I had spent at the basein France. Then I dragged from the bed the gigantic eiderdown pincushionand the two massive pillows, stripping off the pillow-slips lest theirwhiteness might attract attention whilst they were fulfilling theunusual mission for which I destined them.
At the window of the _cabinet de toilette_ I listened a moment. All wassilent as the grave. Resolutely I pitched out the eiderdown into thedark and dirty air shaft. It sailed gracefully earthwards and settledwith a gentle plop on the stones of the tiny yard. The pillows followed.The heavier thud they would have made was deadened by the billowy massof the _edredon_. Semlin's bag went next, and made no sound to speak of;then his overcoat and hat followed suit.
I noticed, with a grateful heart, that the eiderdown and pillowscovered practically the whole of the flags of the yard.
I went back once more to the room and blew out the candle. Then, takinga short hold on my silken rope, I clambered out over the window ledgeand started to let myself down, hand over hand, into the depths.
My two bell-ropes, knotted together, were about twenty feet long, so Ihad to reckon on a clear drop of something over thirty feet. The pokerand shutter held splendidly firm, and I found little difficulty inlowering myself, though I barked my knuckles most unpleasantly on therough stucco of the wall. As I reached the extremity of my rope Iglanced downward. The red splash of the eiderdown, just visible in thelight from the adjoining window, seemed to be a horrible distance belowme. My spirit failed me. My determination began to ebb. I could neverrisk it.
The rope settled the question for me. It snapped without warning--how ithad supported my weight up to then I don't know--and I fell in a heap(and, as it seemed to me at the time, with a most reverberating crash)on to the soft divan I had prepared for my reception.
I came down hard, very hard, but old Madame's plump eiderdown andpillows certainly helped to break my fall. I dropped square on top ofthe eiderdown with one knee on a pillow and, though shaken and jarred, Ifound I had broken no bones.
Nor did my sense leave me. In a minute I was up on my feet again. Ilistened. All was still silent. I cast a glance upwards. The window fromwhich I had descended was still dark. I could see the broken bell-ropesdangling from the shutter, and I noted, with a glow of professionalpride, that my expert join between the two ropes had not given. Thelower rope had parted in the middle ....
I crammed Semli
n's hat on my head, retrieved his bag and overcoat fromthe corner of the court where they had fallen and the next moment wastiptoeing down the ladder.
The iron stair ran down beside the window in which I had seen the lightburning. The lower part of the window was screened off by a dirty muslincurtain. Through the upper part I caught a glimpse of a sort of scullerywith a paraffin lamp standing on a wooden table. The room was empty.From top to bottom the window was protected by heavy iron bars.
At the foot of the iron stair stood, as I had anticipated, a door. Itwas my last chance of escape. It stood a dozen yards from the bottom ofthe ladder across a dank, little paved area where tins of refuse werestanding--a small door with a brass handle.
I ducked low as I clambered down the iron ladder so as not to be seenfrom the window should anyone enter the scullery as I passed. Treadingvery softly I crept across the little area and, as quietly as I could,turned the handle of the door.
It turned round easily in my hand, but nothing happened.
The door was locked.