The Man with the Clubfoot. Valentine Williams
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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 lock the door.
CHAPTER V
THE LADY OF THE VOS IN'T TUINTJE
Here was Destiny knocking at the door. In that instant my mind was made up. For the moment, at any rate, I had every card in my hands. I would bluff these stodgy Huns: I would brazen it out: I would be Semlin and go through with it to the bitter end, aye, and if it took me to the very gates 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 an egg-shaped face, fat and white and puffy, and pale, crafty eyes. She was in her outdoor clothes, with an enormous vulgar-looking hat and an old-fashioned sealskin cape with a high collar. The cape which was glistening with rain was half open, and displayed a vast bosom tightly compressed into a white silk blouse. In one hand she carried an oil lamp.
"Frau Schratt," she said by way of introduction, and raised the lamp to look more closely at me.
Then I saw her face change. She was looking past me into the room, and I knew that the lamplight was falling full upon the ghastly thing that lay upon 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 her wrist. "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 the room.
She stood motionless with her lamp, at the head of the corpse. She seemed to have regained her self-possession. The woman was no longer frightened. I felt instinctively that her fears had been all for herself, not for that livid horror sprawling on the floor. When she spoke her manner was almost business-like.
"I was told nothing of this," she said. "Who is it? What do you want me to do?"
Of all the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of death. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that makes my blood run cold whenever I think of her.
Then suddenly her manner, arrogant, insolent, cruel, changed. She became polite. She was obsequious. Of the two, the first manner became her vastly better. She looked at me with a curious air, almost with reverence, 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. I followed 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 knew how the land lay. If I left this woman alone, she would tell me all I wanted to know.
In fact, she began to speak again.
"I expected you," she said, "but not … this. Who is it this time? A Frenchman, 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 with pleasure—"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 we have 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 sent him."
"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 of admiration that a German woman feels for brute man. … "The Herr Englander came into your room and he died. So, so! But one must speak to Franz. 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 spoke German well: Karl will tell you."
"As the gentleman wishes," was the woman's reply in a voice so silky and so servile that I felt my gorge rise.
"She looks like a slug!" I said to myself, as she stood there, fat and sleek and horrible.
"Here are his passport and other papers," I said, bending down and taking them from the dead man's pocket. "He was an English officer, you see?" 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 the patchouli with which her faded body was drenched.
Then, making a sheaf of passport and permit, I held them in the flame of the candle.
"But we always keep them!" expostulated the hotel-keeper.
"This passport must die with the man," I replied firmly. "He must not be traced. 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. "There was a telephone message for you," she added, "to say that der Stelze will 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 saying something.
"Jawohl!" replied Frau Schratt. "He was here already this morning. He was nervous, oh! very, and expected you to be here. Already two days he is waiting here to go on."
"So," I said, "he is going to take … it on with him, is he?" (I knew where he was "going on" to, well enough: he was going to see that document safe into Germany.)
There was a malicious ring in the woman's voice when she spoke of Stelze. 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 has authority; he can make and unmake men. But I … I in my time have broken a dozen better men than he and yet he dares to tell Anna Schratt that … that … "
She raised her voice hysterically, but broke off before she could finish the sentence. I saw she thought she had said too much.
"He won't play that game with me," I said. Strength is the quality that every German, man, woman and child, respects, and