The Man with the Clubfoot

by Valentine Williams

  CHAPTER XV

  THE WAITER AT THE CAFE REGINA

  I calculated that I had at least two hours, at most three, in which toget clear of Berlin. However swiftly Clubfoot might act, it would takehim certainly an hour and a half, I reckoned, from the discovery of myflight from Haase's to warn the police at the railway stations to detainme. If I could lay a false trail I might at the worst prolong thisperiod of grace; at the best I might mislead him altogether as to myultimate destination, which was, of course, Duesseldorf. The unknownquantity in my reckonings was the time it would take Clubfoot to sendout a warning all over Germany to detain Julius Zimmermann, waiter anddeserter, wherever and whenever apprehended.

  At the first turning I came to after leaving Haase's, tram-lines ranacross the street. A tram was waiting, bound in a southerly direction,where the centre of the city lay. I jumped on to the front platformbeside the woman driver. It is fairly dark in front and the conductorcannot see your face as you pay your fare through a trap in the doorleading to the interior of the tram. I left the tram at Unter den Lindenand walked down some side streets until I came across a quiet-lookingcafe. There I got a railway guide and set about reviewing my plans.

  It was ten minutes to twelve. A man in my position would in allprobability make for the frontier. So, I judged, Clubfoot mustcalculate, though, I fancied, he must have wondered why I had not longsince attempted to escape back to England. Duesseldorf was on the mainroad to Holland, and it would certainly be the more prudent course, say,to make for the Rhine and travel on to my destination by a Rhinesteamer. But time was the paramount factor in my case. By leavingimmediately--that very night--for Duesseldorf I might possibly reachthere before the local authorities had had time to receive the warningto be on the look-out for a man answering to my description. If I couldleave behind in Berlin a really good false clue, it was just possiblethat Clubfoot might follow it up _before_ taking general dispositions tosecure my arrest if that clue failed. I decided I must gamble on thishypothesis.

  The railway guide showed that a train left for Duesseldorf from thePotsdamer Bahnhof--the great railway terminus in the very centre ofBerlin--at 12.45 a.m. That left me roughly three-quarters of an hour tolay my false trail and catch my train. My false trail should leadClubfoot in a totally unexpected direction, I determined, for it is theunexpected that first engages the notice of the alert, detective type ofmind. I would also have to select another terminus.

  Why not Munich? A large city on the high road to a foreignfrontier--Switzerland--with authorities whose easy-going ways areproverbial in Germany. You leave Berlin for Munich from the AnhalterBahnhof, a terminus which was well suited for my purpose, as it is onlya few minutes' drive from the Potsdamer station.

  The railway guide showed there was a train leaving for Munich at 12.30a.m.--an express. That would do admirably. Munich it should be then.

  Fortunately I had plenty of money. I had taken the precaution ofgetting Kore to change my money into German notes before we left In denZelten ... at a preposterous rate of exchange, be it said. How lost Ishould have been without Semlin's wad of notes!

  I paid for my coffee and set forth again. It was 12.15 as I walked intothe hall of the Anhalt station.

  Remembering the ruse which the friendly guide at Rotterdam had taughtme, I began by purchasing a platform ticket. Then I looked about for anofficial upon whom I could suitably impress my identity. Presently Iespied a pompous-looking fellow in a bright blue uniform and scarletcap, some kind of junior stationmaster, I thought.

  I approached him and, raising my hat, politely asked him if he couldtell me when there was a train leaving for Munich.

  "The express goes at 12.30," he said, "but only first and second class,and you'll have to pay the supplementary charge. The slow train is nottill 5.49."

  I assumed an expression of vexation.

  "I suppose I must go by the express," I said. "Can you tell me where thebooking-office is?"

  The official pointed to a pigeon-hole and I took care to speak loudenough for him to hear me ask for a second-class ticket, single, toMunich.

  I walked upstairs and presented my Munich ticket to the collector at thebarrier. Then I hurried past the main-line platforms over the suburbanside, where I gave up my platform ticket and descended again to thestreet.

  It was just on the half-hour as I came out of the station. Not a cab tobe seen! I hastened as fast as my legs would carry me until, breathlessand panting, I reached the Potsdam terminus. The clock over the stationpointed to 12.39.

  A long queue, composed mostly of soldiers returning to Belgium and thefront, stood in front of the booking-office. The military were gettingtheir warrants changed for tickets. I chafed at the delay, but it wasactually this circumstance which afforded me the chance of getting myticket for Duesseldorf without leaving any clue behind.

  A big, bearded Landsturm man with a kind face was at the pigeon-hole.

  "I am very late for my train, my friend," I said, "would you get me athird-class single for Duesseldorf?" I handed him a twenty-mark note.

  "Right you are," he answered readily.

  "There," he said, handing me my ticket and a handful of change, "andlucky you are to be going to the Rhine. I'm from the Rhine myself andnow I'm going back to guarding the bridges in Belgium!"

  I thanked him and wished him luck. Here at least was a witness who wasnot likely to trouble me. And with a thankful heart I bolted on to theplatform and caught the train.

  Third-class travel in Germany is not a hobby to be cultivated if yourmeans allow the luxury of better accommodation. The travelling Germanhas a habit of taking off his boots when he journeys in the train bynight--and a carriageful of lower middle-class Huns, thus unshod, inthe temperature at which railway compartments are habitually kept inGermany, is an environment which makes neither for comfort nor forsleep.

  The atmosphere, indeed, was so unbearable that I spent most of the nightin the corridor. Here I was able to destroy the papers of JuliusZimmermann, waiter ... I felt I was in greater danger whilst I had themon me ... and to assure myself that my precious document was in itsusual place--in my portfolio. It was then I made the discovery,annihilating at the first shock, that my silver badge had disappeared. Icould not remember what I had done with it in the excitement of myescape from Haase's. I remembered having it in my hand and showing it tothe police at the top of the stairs, but after that my mind was a blank.I could only imagine I must have carried it unconsciously in my hand andthen dropped it unwittingly. I looked at the place where it had beenclasped on my braces: it was not there and I searched all my pockets forit in vain.

  I had relied upon it as a stand-by in case there were trouble at thestation in Duesseldorf. Now I found myself defenceless if I werechallenged. It was a hard knock, but I consoled myself by the reflectionthat, by now, Clubfoot knew I had this badge ... it would doubtlessfigure in any description circulated about me.

  It was a most unpleasant journey. There was some kind of choral societyon the train, occupying seven or eight compartments of the third-classcoach in which I was travelling. For the first few hours they made nighthideous with part-songs, catches and glees chanted with a volume ofsound that in that confined place was simply deafening. Then the noiseabated as one by one the singers dropped off to sleep. Presently silencefell, while the train rushed forward in the darkness bearing me towardsfresh perils, fresh adventures.

  * * * * *

  A gust of fresh air in my face, the trample of feet, loud greetings inguttural German, awoke me with a start. It was broad daylight andthrough my compartment, to which I had crept in the night, weary withstanding, filed the jovial members of the choral society, with bags intheir hands and huge cockades in their buttonholes. There was a band onthe platform and a huge choir of men who bawled a stentorian-voiced hymnof greeting. "Duesseldorf" was the name printed on the station lamps.

  All the passengers, save the members of the choral society, had left thetrain, apparently,
for every carriage door stood open. I sprang to myfeet and let myself go with the stream of men. Thus I swept out of thetrain and right into the midst of the jostling crowd of bandsmen,singers and spectators on the platform. I stood with the new arrivalsuntil the hymn was ended and thus solidly _encadres_ by theDuesseldorfers, we drifted out through the barrier into the stationcourtyard. There brakes were waiting into which the jolly choristers,guests and hosts, clambered noisily. But I walked straight on into thestreets, scarcely able to realize that no one had questioned me, that atlast, unhindered, I stood before my goal.

  Duesseldorf is a bright, clean town with a touch of good taste in itspublic buildings to remind one that this busy, industrial city has foundtime even while making money to have called into being a school of artof its own. It was a delightful morning with dazzling sunshine and aneager nip in the air that spoke of the swift, deep river that bathes thecity walls. I revelled in the clear, cold atmosphere after the foulnessof the drinking-den and the stifling heat of the journey. I exulted inthe sense of liberty I experienced at having once more eluded the grimclutches of Clubfoot. Above all, my heart sang within me at the thoughtof an early meeting with Francis. In the mood I was in, I would admit nopossibility of disappointment now. Francis and I would come together atlast.

  I came upon a public square presently and there facing me was a great,big cafe, white and new and dazzling, with large plate-glass windowsand rows of tables on a covered verandah outside. It was undoubtedly a"_kolossal_" establishment after the best Berlin style. So that theremight be no mistake about the name it was placarded all over the frontof the place in gilt letters three feet high on glass panels--CafeRegina.

  It was about nine o'clock in the morning and at that early hour I hadthe place to myself. I felt very small, sitting at a tiny table, withtables on every side of me, stretching away as it were into the_Ewigkeit_, in a vast white room with mural paintings of the crassestschool of impressionism.

  I ordered a good, substantial breakfast and whiled away the time whileit was coming by glancing at the morning paper which the waiter broughtme.

  My eyes ran down the columns without my heeding what I read, for mythoughts were busy with Francis. When did he come to the cafe? How washe living at Duesseldorf?

  Suddenly, I found myself looking at a name I knew ... it was in thepersonal paragraphs.

  "Lieut.-General Count von Boden," the paragraph ran, "Aide-de-Camp toH.M. the Emperor, has been placed on the retired list owing toill-health. General von Boden has left for Abbazia, where he will takeup his permanent residence." There followed the usual biographicalnotes.

  Of a truth, Clubfoot was a power in the land.

  I ate my breakfast at a table by the open door, and surveyed the busylife of the square where the pigeons circled in the sunshine. A waiterstood on the verandah idly watching the birds as they pecked at thestones. I was struck with the profound melancholy depicted in his face.His cheeks were sunken and he had a pinched look which I had observed inthe features of most of the customers at Haase's. I set it down to theinsufficient feeding which is general among the lower classes in Germanyto-day.

  But in addition to this man's wasted appearance, his eyes were hollow,there were deep lines about his mouth and he wore a haggard look thathad something strangely pathetic about it. His air of brooding sadnessseemed to attract me, and I found my eyes continually wandering back tohis face.

  And then, without warning, through some mysterious whispering of theblood, the truth came to me that this was my brother. I don't knowwhether it was a passing mood reflected in his face or the shiftinglights and shadows in his eyes that lifted the veil. I only know thatthrough those features ravaged by care and suffering and in spite ofthem I caught a glimpse of the brother I had come to seek.

  I rattled a spoon on the table and called softly out to the verandah.

  "_Kellner!_"

  The man turned.

  I beckoned to him. He came over to my table. He never recognized me, sodull was he with disappointment ... me with my unshaven, unkemptappearance and in my mean German shoddy ... but stood silently, awaitingmy bidding.

  "Francis," I said softly ... and I spoke in German ... "Francis, don'tyou know me?"

  He was magnificent, strong and resourceful in his joy at our meeting ashe had been in his months of weary waiting.

  Only his mouth quivered a little as instantly his hands busiedthemselves with clearing away my breakfast.

  "Jawohl!" he answered in a perfectly emotionless voice.

  And then he smiled and in a flash the old Francis stood before me.

  "Not a word now," he said in German as he cleared away the breakfast."I am off this afternoon. Meet me on the river promenade by the Schillerstatue at a quarter past two and we'll go for a walk. Don't stay herenow but come back and lunch in the restaurant ... it's always crowdedand pretty safe!"

  Then he called out into the void:

  "Twenty-six wants to pay!"

  Such was my meeting with my brother.