She had never, hitherto, paid the slightest attention to the problem of waitresses. Now she travelled to Koenigsberg and hired the handsomest women to be found in the employment bureaus. They came, one after another, a feline Polish girl, a smiling, radiantly blond child of Sweden--a Venus, a Germania--this time a genuine one. Next came a pretended Circa.s.sian princess. And they all wandered off again, and Weigand had no glance for them but that of the master.
Antonie was discouraged and dropped her plan.
What now?
She had recoiled from no baseness. She had sacrificed to her love honour, self-respect, truth, righteousness and pride. But she had avoided hitherto the possibility of a conflict with the law.
Occasional small thefts in the house did not count.
But the day had come when crime itself, crime that threatened remorse and the sword of judgment, entered her life. For otherwise she could not get rid of her husband.
The regions that lie about the eastern boundary of the empire are haunted by Jewish peddlers who carry in their sacks Russian drops, candied fruits, gay ribands, toys made of bark, and other pleasant things which make them welcome to young people. But they also supply sterner needs. In the bottom of their sacks are hidden love philtres and strange electuaries. And if you press them very determinedly, you will find some among them who have the little white powders that can be poured into beer ... or the small, round discs which the common folk call "crow"s eyes" and which the greedy apothecaries will not sell you merely for the reason that they prepare the costlier strychnine from them.
You will often see these beneficent men in the twilight in secret colloquy with female figures by garden-gates and the edges of woods.
The female figures slip away if you happen to appear on the road....
Often, too, these men are asked into the house and intimate council is held with them--especially when husband and servants are busy in the fields....
One evening in the beginning of May, Toni brought home with her from a harmless walk a little box of a.r.s.enic and a couple of small, hard discs that rattled merrily in one"s pocket.... Cold sweat ran down her throat and her legs trembled so that she had to sit down on a case of soap before entering the house.
Her husband asked her what was wrong.
"Ah, it"s the spring," she answered and laughed.
Soon her adorers noticed, and not these only, that her loveliness increased from day to day. Her eyes which, under their depressed brows, had a.s.sumed a sharp and peering gaze, once more glowed with their primal fire, and a warm rosiness suffused her cheeks that spread marvelously to her forehead and throat.
Her appearance made so striking an impression that many a one who had not seen her for a s.p.a.ce stared at her and asked, full of admiration: "What have you done to yourself?"
"It is the spring," she answered and laughed.
As a matter of fact she had taken to eating a.r.s.enic.
She had been told that any one who becomes accustomed to the use of this poison can increase the doses to such an extent that he can take without harm a quant.i.ty that will necessarily kill another. And she had made up her mind to partake of the soup which she meant, some day, to prepare for her husband. That much she held to be due a faultless claim of innocence.
But she was unfortunate enough to make a grievous mistake one day, and lay writhing on the floor in uncontrollable agony.
The old physician at once recognized the symptoms of a.r.s.enic poisoning, prescribed the necessary antidotes and carefully dragged her back into life. The quant.i.ty she had taken, he declared, shaking his head, was enough to slay a strong man. He transmitted the information of the incident as demanded by law.
Detectives and court-messengers visited the house. The entire building was searched, doc.u.ments had to be signed and all reports were carefully followed up.
The dear romantic public refused to be robbed of its opinion that one of Toni"s rejected admirers had thus sought to avenge himself. The suspicion of the authorities, however, fastened itself upon a waitress, a plump, red-haired wanton who had taken the place of the imported beauties and whose insolent ugliness the men of the town, relieved of n.o.bler delights, enjoyed thoroughly. The insight of the investigating judge had found in the girl"s serving in the house and her apparent intimacy with its master a scent which he would by no means abandon. Only, because a few confirmatory details were still to seek, the suspicion was hidden not only from the public but even from its object.
Antonie, however, ailed continually. She grew thin, her digestion was delicate. If the blow was to be struck--and many circ.u.mstances urged it--she would no longer be able to share the poison with her victim.
But it seemed fairly certain that suspicion would very definitely fall not upon her but upon the other woman. The latter would have to be sacrificed, so much was clear.
But that was the difficulty. The wounded conscience might recover, the crime might be conquered into forgetfulness, if only that is slain which burdens the earth, which should never have been. But Toni felt that her soul could not drag itself to any bourne of peace if, for her own advantage, she cast one who was innocent to lasting and irremediable destruction.
The simplest thing would have been to dismiss the woman. In that case, however, it was possible that the courts would direct their investigations to her admirers. One of them had spoken hasty and careless words. He might not be able to clear himself, were the accusation directed against him.
There remained but one hope: to ascribe the unavertible death of her husband to some accident, some heedlessness. And so she directed her unwavering purpose to this end.
The Polish peddler had slipped into Toni"s hand not only the a.r.s.enic but also the deadly little discs called "crow"s eyes." These must help her, if used with proper care and circ.u.mspection.
One day while little Amanda was playing in the yard with other girls, she found among the empty kerosene barrels a few delightful, silvery discs, no larger then a ten pfennig piece. With great delight she brought them to her mother who, attending to her knitting, had ceased for a moment to watch the children.
"What"s that, Mama?"
"I don"t know, my darling."
"May we play with them?"
"What would you like to play?"
"We want to throw them."
"No, don"t do that. But I"ll make you a new doll-carriage and these will be lovely wheels."
The children a.s.sented and Amanda brought a pair of scissors in order to make holes in the little wheels. But they were too hard and the points of the blades slipped.
"Ask father to use his small gimlet."
Amanda ran to the open window behind which he for whom all this was prepared was quietly making out his monthly bills.
Toni"s breath failed. If he recognised the poisonous fruits, it was all over with her plan. But the risk was not to be avoided.
He looked at the discs for a moment. And yet for another. No, he did not know their nature but was rather pleased with them. It did not even occur to him to warn the little girl to beware of the unknown fruit.
He called into the shop ordering an apprentice to bring him a tool-case. The boy in his blue ap.r.o.n came and Toni observed that his eyes rested upon the fruits for a perceptible interval. Thus there was, in addition to the children, another witness and one who would be admitted to oath.
Weigand bored holes into four of the discs and threw them, jesting kindly, into the children"s ap.r.o.n. The others he kept. "He has p.r.o.nounced his own condemnation," Toni thought as with trembling fingers she mended an old toy to fit the new wheels.
Nothing remained but to grind the proper dose with cinnamon, to sweeten it--according to instructions--and spice a rice-pudding therewith.
But fate which, in this delicate matter, had been hostile to her from the beginning, ordained it otherwise.
For that very evening came the apothecary, not, as a rule, a timid person. He was pale and showed Weigand the fruits. He had, by the merest hair-breadth, prevented his little girl Marie from nibbling one of them.
The rest followed as a matter of course. The new wheels were taken from the doll-carriage, all fragments were carefully sought out and all the discs were given to the apothecary who locked them into his safe.
"The red-headed girl must be sacrificed after all," Toni thought.
She planned and schemed, but she could think of no way by which the waitress could be saved from that destruction which hung over her.
There was no room for further hesitation. The path had to be trodden to its goal. Whether she left corpses on the way-side, whether she herself broke down dead at the goal--it did not matter. That plan of her life which rivetted her fate to her beloved"s forever demanded that she proceed.
The old physician came hurrying to the inn next morning. He was utterly confounded by the scarcely escaped horrors.
"You really look," he said to Toni, "as if you had swallowed some of the stuff, too."
"Oh, I suppose my fate will overtake me in the end," she answered with a weary smile. "I feel it in my bones: there will be some misfortune in our house."