CHAPTER IV
DESTINY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR
There are two things at least that modern warfare teaches you, one is tokeep cool in an emergency, the other is not to be afraid of a corpse.Therefore I was scarcely surprised to find myself standing there in thedark calmly reviewing the extraordinary situation in which I now foundmyself. That's the curious thing about shell-shock: after it a motorback-firing or a tyre bursting will reduce a man to tears, but in faceof danger he will probably find himself in full possession of his witsas long as there is no sudden and violent noise connected with it.
Brief as the sounds without had been, I was able on reflection toidentify that gasping gurgle, that rapid patter of the hands. Anyone whohas seen a man die quickly knows them. Accordingly I surmised thatsomebody had come to my door at the point of death, probably to seekassistance.
Then I thought of the man next door, his painful breathlessness, hisblueish lips, when I found him wrestling with his key, and I guessedwho was my nocturnal visitor lying prone in the dark at my feet.
Shielding the candle with my hand I rekindled it. Then I grappled withthe flapping curtains and got the windows shut. Then only did I raise mycandle until its beams shone down upon the silent figure lying acrossthe threshold of the room.
It was the man from No. 33. He was quite dead. His face was livid anddistorted, his eyes glassy between the half-closed lids, while hisfingers, still stiffly clutching, showed paint and varnish and dustbeneath the nails where he had pawed door and carpet in his death agony.
One did not need to be a doctor to see that a heart attack had swiftlyand suddenly struck him down.
Now that I knew the worst I acted with decision. I dragged the body bythe shoulders into the room until it lay in the centre of the carpet.Then I locked the door.
The foreboding of evil that had cast its black shadow over my thoughtsfrom the moment I crossed the threshold of this sinister hotel came overme strongly again. Indeed, my position was, to say the least, scarcelyenviable. Here was I, a British officer with British papers of identity,about to be discovered in a German hotel, into which I had introducedmyself under false pretences, at dead of night alone with the corpse ofa German or Austrian (for such the dead man apparently was)!
It was undoubtedly a most awkward fix.
I listened.
Everything in the hotel was silent as the grave.
I turned from my gloomy forebodings to look again at the stranger. Inhis crisp black hair and slightly protuberant cheekbones I traced againthe hint of Jewish ancestry I had remarked before. Now that the man'seyes--his big, thoughtful eyes that had stared at me out of the darknessof the corridor--were closed, he looked far less foreign than before: infact he might almost have passed as an Englishman.
He was a young man--about my own age, I judged--(I shall be twenty-eightnext birthday) and about my own height, which is five feet ten. Therewas something about his appearance and build that struck a chord veryfaintly in my memory.
Had I seen the fellow before?
I remembered now that I had noticed something oddly familiar about himwhen I first saw him for that brief moment in the corridor.
I looked down at him again as he lay on his back on the faded carpet. Ibrought the candle down closer and scanned his features.
He certainly looked less foreign than he did before. He might not be aGerman after all: more likely a Hungarian or a Pole, perhaps even aDutchman. His German had been too flawless for a Frenchman--for aHungarian, either, for that matter.
I leant back on my knees to ease my cramped position. As I did so Icaught a glimpse of the stranger's three-quarters face.
Why! He reminded me of Francis a little!
There certainly was a suggestion of my brother in the man's appearance.Was it the thick black hair, the small dark moustache? Was it thewell-chiselled mouth? It was rather a hint of Francis than a resemblanceto him.
The stranger was fully dressed. The jacket of his blue serge suit hadfallen open and I saw a portfolio in the inner breast pocket. Here, Ithought, might be a clue to the dead man's identity. I fished out theportfolio, then rapidly ran my fingers over the stranger's otherpockets.
I left the portfolio to the last.
The jacket pockets contained nothing else except a white silkhandkerchief unmarked. In the right-hand top pocket of the waistcoat wasa neat silver cigarette case, perfectly plain, containing half a dozencigarettes. I took one out and looked at it. It was a Melania, acigarette I happen to know for they stock them at one of my clubs, theDionysus, and it chances to be the only place in London where you canget the brand.
It looked as if my unknown friend had come from London.
There was also a plain silver watch of Swiss make.
In the trousers pocket was some change, a little English silver andcoppers, some Dutch silver and paper money. In the right-hand trouserpocket was a bunch of keys.
That was all.
I put the different articles on the floor beside me. Then I got up, putthe candle on the table, drew the chair up to it and opened theportfolio.
In a little pocket of the inner flap were visiting cards. Some weresimply engraved with the name in small letters:
Dr. Semlin
Others were more detailed:
Dr. Semlin, Brooklyn, N.Y.The Halewright Mfg. Co., Ltd.
There were also half a dozen private cards:
Dr. Semlin, 333 E. 73rd St., New York.Rivington Park House.
In the packet of cards was a solitary one, larger than the rest, anexpensive affair on thick, highly glazed millboard, bearing in gothiccharacters the name:
Otto von Steinhardt.
On this card was written in pencil, above the name:
"Hotel Sixt, Vos in't Tuintje," and in brackets, thus: "(Mme. AnnaSchratt.)"
In another pocket of the portfolio was an American passport surmountedby a flaming eagle and sealed with a vast red seal, sending greetings toall and sundry on behalf of Henry Semlin, a United States citizen,travelling to Europe. Details in the body of the document set forth thatHenry Semlin was born at Brooklyn on 31st March, 1886, that his hair wasBlack, nose Aquiline, chin Firm, and that of special marks he had None.The description was good enough to show me that it was undoubtedly thebody of Henry Semlin that lay at my feet.
The passport had been issued at Washington three months earlier. Theonly _visa_ it bore was that of the American Embassy in London, datedtwo days previously. With it was a British permit, issued to HenrySemlin, Manufacturer, granting him authority to leave the United Kingdomfor the purpose of travelling to Rotterdam, further a bill for luncheonserved on board the Dutch Royal mail steamer _Koningin Regentes_ onyesterday's date.
In the long and anguishing weeks that followed on that anxious night inthe Hotel of the Vos in't Tuintje, I have often wondered to whatmalicious promptings, to what insane impulse, I owed the idea thatsuddenly germinated in my brain as I sat fingering the dead man'sletter-case in that squalid room. The impulse sprang into my brain likea flash and like a flash I acted on it, though I can hardly believe Imeant to pursue it to its logical conclusion until I stood once moreoutside the door of my room.
The examination of the dead man's papers had shown me that he was anAmerican business man, who had just come from London, having butrecently proceeded to England from the United States.
What puzzled me was why an American manufacturer, seemingly of somesubstance and decently dressed, should go to a German hotel on therecommendation of a German, from his name, and the style of his visitingcard, a man of good family.
Semlin might, of course, have been, like myself, a traveller benightedin Rotterdam, owing his recommendation to the hotel to a Germanacquaintance in the city. Still, Americans are cautious folk and I foundit rather improbable that this American business man should adventurehimself into this evil-looking house with a large sum of money on hisperson--he had several hundred pounds of money in Dutch currency notesin a thick wad in his portfolio.
I kne
w that the British authorities discouraged, as far as they could,neutrals travelling to and fro between England and Germany in war-time.Possibly Semlin wanted to do business in Germany on his European trip aswell as in England. Knowing the attitude of the British authorities, hemay well have made his arrangements in Holland for getting into Germanylest the British police should get wind of his purpose and stop himcrossing to Rotterdam.
But his German was so flawless, with no trace of Americanism in voice oraccent. And I knew what good use the German Intelligence had made ofneutral passports in the past. Therefore I determined to go next doorand have a look at Dr. Semlin's luggage. In the back of my mind was everthat harebrain resolve, half-formed as yet but none the less firmlyrooted in my head.
Taking up my candle again, I stole out of the room. As I stood in thecorridor and turned to lock the bedroom door behind me, the mirror atthe end of the passage caught the reflection of my candle.
I looked and saw myself in the glass, a white, staring face.
I looked again. Then I fathomed the riddle that had puzzled me in thedead face of the stranger in my room.
It was not the face of Francis that his features suggested.
It was mine!
* * * * *
The next moment I found myself in No. 33. I could see no sign of the keyof the room; Semlin must have dropped it in his fall, so it behoved meto make haste for fear of any untoward interruption. I had not yet heardeleven strike on the clock.
The stranger's hat and overcoat lay on a chair. The hat was fromScott's: there was nothing except a pair of leather gloves in theovercoat pockets.
A bag, in size something between a small kit-bag and a large handbag,stood open on the table. It contained a few toilet necessaries, a pairof pyjamas, a clean shirt, a pair of slippers, ... nothing of importanceand not a scrap of paper of any kind.
I went through everything again, looked in the sponge bag, opened thesafety razor case, shook out the shirt, and finally took everything outof the bag and stacked the things on the table.
At the bottom of the bag I made a strange discovery. The interior ofthe bag was fitted with that thin yellow canvas-like material with whichnearly all cheap bags, like this one was, are lined. At the bottom ofthe bag an oblong piece of the lining had apparently been torn cleanout. The leather of the bag showed through the slit. Yet the lininground the edges of the gap showed no fraying, no trace of rough usage.On the contrary, the edges were pasted neatly down on the leather.
I lifted the bag and examined it. As I did so I saw lying on the tablebeside it an oblong of yellow canvas. I picked it up and found the underside stained with paste and the brown of the leather.
It was the missing piece of lining and it was stiff with something thatcrackled inside it.
I slit the piece of canvas up one side with my penknife. It containedthree long fragments of paper, a thick, expensive, highly glazed paper.Top, bottom and left-hand side of each was trim and glossy: the fourthside showed a broken edge as though it had been roughly cut with aknife. The three slips of paper were the halves of three quarto sheetsof writing, torn in two, lengthways, from top to bottom.
At the top of each slip was part of some kind of crest in gold, what, itwas not possible to determine, for the crest had been in the centre ofthe sheet and the cut had gone right through it.
The letter was written in English but the name of the recipient as alsothe date was on the missing half.
Somewhere in the silence of the night I heard a door bang. I thrust theslips of paper in their canvas covering into my trousers pocket. I mustnot be found in that room. With trembling hands I started to put thethings back in the bag. Those slips of paper, I reflected as I worked,at least rent the veil of mystery enveloping the corpse that laystiffening in the next room. This, at any rate, was certain: German orAmerican or hyphenate, Henry Semlin, manufacturer and spy, had voyagedfrom America to England not for the purposes of trade but to get hold ofthat mutilated document now reposing in my pocket. Why he had only gothalf the letter and what had happened to the other half was more than Icould say ... it sufficed for me to know that its importance to somebodywas sufficient to warrant a journey on its behalf from one side to theother of the Atlantic.
As I opened the bag my fingers encountered a hard substance, as ofmetal, embedded in the slack of the lining in the joints of the mouth.At first I thought it was a coin, then I felt some kind of clasp orfastening behind it and it seemed to be a brooch. Out came my pocketknife again and there lay a small silver star, about as big as aregimental cap badge, embedded in the thin canvas. It bore aninscription. In stencilled letters I read:
O2 GAbt. VII.
Here was Dr. Semlin's real visiting-card.
I held in my hand a badge of the German secret police.
You cannot penetrate far behind the scenes in Germany without comingacross the traces of Section Seven of the Berlin Police Presidency, thesection that is known euphemistically as that of the Political Police.Ostensibly it attends to the safety of the monarch, and of distinguishedpersonages generally, and the numerous suite that used to accompany theKaiser on his visits to England invariably included two or threetop-hatted representatives of the section.
The ramifications of _Abteilung Sieben_ are, in reality, much wider. Itdoes such work in connection with the newspapers as is even too dirtyfor the German Foreign Office to touch, comprising everything from thelaunching of personal attacks in obscure blackmailing sheets againstinconvenient politicians to the escorting of unpleasantly truthfulforeign correspondents to the frontier. It is the obedient handmaiden ofthe Intelligence Department of both War Office and Admiralty in Germany,and renders faithful service to the espionage which is constantlymaintained on officials, politicians, the clergy and the general publicin that land of careful organisation.
Section Seven is a vast subterranean department. Always working in thedark, its political complexion is a handy cloak for blacker and moresinister activities. It is frequently entrusted with commissions ofwhich it would be inexpedient for official Germany to have cognizanceand of which, accordingly, official Germany can always safely repudiatewhen occasion demands.
I thrust the pin of the badge into my braces and fastened it there,crammed the rest of the dead man's effects into his bag, stuck his hatupon my head and threw his overcoat on my arm, picked up his bag andcrept away. In another minute I was back in my room, my brain aflamewith the fire of a great enterprise.
Here, to my hand, lay the key of that locked land which held the secretof my lost brother. The question I had been asking myself, ever since Ihad first discovered the dead man's American papers of identity, wasthis. Had I the nerve to avail myself of Semlin's American passport toget into Germany? The answer to that question lay in the little silverbadge. I knew that no German official, whatever his standing, whateverhis orders, would refuse passage to the silver star of Section Seven. Itneed only be used, too, as a last resource, for I had my papers as aneutral. Could I but once set foot in Germany, I was quite ready todepend on my wits to see me through. One advantage, I knew, I mustforgo. That was the half-letter in its canvas case.
If that document was of importance to Section Seven of the GermanPolice, then it was of equal, nay, of greater importance to my country.If I went, that should remain behind in safe keeping. On that I wasdetermined.
"Never before, since the war began," I told myself, "can any Englishmanhave had such an opportunity vouchsafed to him for getting easily andsafely into that jealously guarded land as you have now! You have plentyof money, what with your own and this ..." and I fingered Semlin's wadof notes, "and provided you can keep your head sufficiently to rememberalways that you are a German, once over the frontier you should be ableto give the Huns the slip and try and follow up the trail of poorFrancis.
"And maybe," I argued further (so easily is one's better judgmentdefeated when one is young and set on a thing), "maybe in Germansurroundings, you may get some sense into that myster
ious jingle you gotfrom Dicky Allerton as the sole existing clue to the disappearance ofFrancis."
Nevertheless, I wavered. The risks were awful. I had to get out of thatevil hotel in the guise of Dr. Semlin, with, as the sole safeguardagainst exposure, should I fall in with the dead man's employers orfriends, that slight and possibly imaginative resemblance between himand me: I had to take such measures as would prevent the fraud frombeing detected when the body was discovered in the hotel: above all, Ihad to ascertain, before I could definitely resolve to push on intoGermany, whether Semlin was already known to the people at the hotel orwhether--as I surmised to be the case--this was also his first visit tothe house in the Vos in't Tuintje.
In any case, I was quite determined in my own mind that the only way toget out of the place with Semlin's document without considerableunpleasantness, if not grave danger, would be to transfer his identityand effects to myself and vice versa. When I saw the way a littleclearer I could decide whether to take the supreme risk and adventuremyself into the enemy's country.
Whatever I was going to do, there were not many hours of the night leftin which to act, and I was determined to be out of that house of illomen before day dawned. If I could get clear of the hotel and at thesame time ascertain that Semlin was as much a stranger there as myself,I could decide on my further course of action in the greater freedom ofthe streets of Rotterdam. One thing was certain: the waiter had let thequestion of Semlin's papers stand over until the morning, as he had donein my case, for Semlin still had his passport in his possession.
After all, if Semlin was unknown at the hotel, the waiter had only seenhim for the same brief moment as he had seen me.
Thus I reasoned and argued with myself, but in the meantime I acted. Ihad nothing compromising in my suit-case, so that caused no difficulty.My British passport and permit and anything bearing any relation to mypersonality, such as my watch and cigarette case, both of which wereengraved with my initials, I transferred to the dead man's pockets. As Ibent over the stiff, cold figure with its livid face and clutchingfingers, I felt a difficulty which I had hitherto resolutely shirkedforcing itself squarely into the forefront of my mind.
What was I going to do about the body?
At that moment came a low knocking.
With a sudden sinking at the heart I remembered I had forgotten to lockthe door.
The Man with the Clubfoot Page 4
