"Confound the thing!" I exclaimed, jumping up and wringing my fingers as if I"d burnt them with my cigar.
"Here, take another," he said, and by the time I had lit it, I had myself in hand again.
"But if she was caught red-handed like that, she might be shot, and that wouldn"t help you much."
"You leave that to me," he replied with a leer and a wink. "The question is, are you going to help me?"
"I don"t like it, von Erstein, and that"s the truth," I said.
"I didn"t ask you that."
"And if I do help you?"
He put his fat finger to his lips. "Mum about that Hanover business."
"And if I don"t?"
He paused, squinting hard at me. "I think you will."
I affected to consider the proposal. "But why take this roundabout trouble to get her? If you want to marry her, why not ask her?"
That touched his Teutonic sense of humour and he burst into loud and evidently genuine laughter. "Why didn"t you marry Anna Hilden? Because you could get her without, wasn"t it? Same here, of course."
"It comes to this, then," I said after a pause. "You think you know that I played the traitor in that Hanover business in a way that renders me liable to be shot; but that you"re willing to hush it up if I"ll help to put Miss Caldicott into your power. That about it?"
"Put it how you like," he growled, not relishing the bald statement.
"But you"d better toe the line, my friend, and at once. Now, what are you going to do?"
"I"ll toe the line, von Erstein."
He chuckled. "I thought you"d see wisdom," he sneered.
"Not quite as you think, however. What I"m going to do is"--and I paused--"to give you forty-eight hours to clear out of Berlin; and if I find you here then, I"ll not only tell the von Reblings the whole of your confounded scheme, but I"ll tell Baron von Gratz as well. And I"m thundering glad you"ve put that card in my hands."
CHAPTER IX
A BREAD RIOT
It would be difficult for any one to appear more absolutely dumbfounded than von Erstein when I delivered my ultimatum and got up.
That I had scared him, his chalk-white cheeks showed unmistakably, while the quiver of his lips, clenched hands, and the fierce light in his piggish little eyes testified to his rage. He jumped up instantly to stop my going.
"Don"t go, La.s.sen, at all events in that way. Let"s talk it over," he clamoured. "The thing can be explained and we can come to an understanding."
"You swine!" I growled. "Get out of the way or I shall forget I"m in your room and lay my hands on you."
He tried not to wince, but was too much of a cur. "Look here, I"m not going to utter a word about that Hanover business. I swear that," he said as I went to the door.
"You"ve done it already, you lying hypocrite. You know that; and so do I. I"ve heard of it, and I shall hear if you say any more. And by Heaven, if you dare to say another syllable about it, I"ll--well, keep out of my way afterwards, that"s all"; and I left him to judge for himself what I would do.
I had to go. I should have mauled the brute if I"d stopped. I was mad with fury; and I walked off, unable for the time to think of anything but his disgusting cowardice and b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. I"m no saint, and don"t pretend to be one; but this brute"s infernal plan to get Nessa into his power was more than flesh and blood could stand. I believe, anyway I hope, I should have felt just as hot if any other girl had been concerned.
I ramped about the streets, taking little notice where I went, and it was not until some of my fury had cooled that I began to consider what steps I ought to take. I was glad I had lost my temper and gone for him; but after a while it began to dawn on me that I had blundered badly. All I needed was to gain a few days" delay; and it would have been far more diplomatic if I had seemed to fall in with his plans and just made a few excuses to account for any inaction.
But one can"t always be worrying about diplomacy; and anyhow the beggar was thoroughly scared. Probably he"d be just as much put to it to hit on a new offensive as I was to decide what to do next; and whatever happened I wasn"t going to be sorry I"d let myself go. What I was sorry for was that I hadn"t been able to "go" with my hands instead of only words.
It wouldn"t do merely to twiddle my thumbs, however; and after a while it struck me that the best thing would be to get another interview with old Gratz and just tell him the whole pretty story. If it did no good, it would do no harm, and certainly it would prepare him for any other scheme by von Erstein to prove Nessa to be a spy.
At this point some one clapped me on the shoulder. "Hallo, Cousin Johann, whatever are you doing in this out-of-the-way place?"
It was Hans. "If it comes to that, what are you doing, young man?"
"There"s a shindy on in the Unterga.s.se, and I"ve been watching it. A lot of women kicking up a row about food, or something. It looked like getting warm, so I thought it time to go home."
"Let"s go and look at it," I said directly. I had heard rumours in England about bread riots and rather liked the idea of seeing one for myself, and I recalled what the tailor had said about it.
The place was close at hand; and sure enough there was a big crowd and a noisy one, too. Quite a couple of hundred women with a sprinkling of men, and as much noise as at an Irish faction fight. We stood a minute or two at the corner of the street when Hans caught sight of a friend, and asking me to wait for him, ran off.
I observed that although there were police about, the tailor was right in saying they were not taking the usual steps to stop the row; and I noticed also that the crowd was growing in numbers and moving in my direction.
Then came the sound of smashing gla.s.s, with loud shouts from the women who cl.u.s.tered round the spot where the smash had been, and I went down the street far enough to see that a baker"s shop had been forced.
The police interfered then; but it was too late, and there were too few of them. Moreover, the mob had tasted blood, or rather smelt food; and soon afterwards there was another smash; this time a provision shop.
The crowd had been allowed to get out of hand; and I saw some of the police rush away, presumably to telephone for more men.
I was standing in the road at that moment and had to skip aside to avoid an open car which came rattling down the street toward the mob.
An old lady and a girl were in the car, and as they pa.s.sed me, the latter stood up and called excitedly to the chauffeur to stop.
If it hadn"t been a German he would never have been fool enough to have attempted to enter the street at all; but I suppose he had been told to take that route, and his instinct of slavish obedience to orders did the rest. The result was what any one might have foreseen.
He was too late to turn back, and his one chance to get through was to have driven bang into the crowd and trusted to luck to clear a way. As it was, he came to a halt on the very verge of the crowd; and in less time than it takes to tell it, the car was the centre of a yelping, hungry mob of viragos to whom the sight of rich people in a costly car was like a good meal spread before a lot of famished wild beasts.
Worse than this, moreover, was the fact that some ruffians who had been hanging back began to push their way toward the car, whose occupants were calling for the police. They might as well have cried for the moon; and every cry was greeted with jeers and yells of anger from the women around. The trouble soon thickened.
One woman more reckless than the rest started a shout to have the two out of the car, and herself jumped on the step, grabbed the chauffeur, who seemed about paralyzed with fright, lugged him off his seat, and the crowd hustled and jabbed and cuffed him, till he was lost in the throng. Then some one opened the door of the car, and made a s.n.a.t.c.h at the dress of the girl, who set up screaming.
This was too much; so I shoved and shouldered my way through, pushed aside the woman who had tried to grab the girl, and urged the two panic-stricken ladies to come out. They hesitated, however, and a filthy hooligan with a long iron-shod bludgeon barked curses at me for a Junker and aimed a vicious blow at my head. I managed to dodge it, and jabbed him one in return on the mouth which sent him staggering back and enabled me to s.n.a.t.c.h his stick away.
Armed with this, I soon cleared a s.p.a.ce about the car and again urged the two frightened occupants to leave it. The girl jumped out at once and had to help her mother, while I kept the mob at bay, and then fought a sort of rearguard action in miniature.
But we hadn"t a dog"s chance of escape. The mother was half an invalid, and could only move very slowly, while the women round, furious at being baulked of their prey and led by the brute I had hit and a couple of his cronies who had come up meanwhile, surged round us like a lot of devils gone mad.
We reached the pavement, however, and as I spied a deepish doorway, I changed my tactics and made for it, treating some of those who stood in the way pretty roughly. We were able to gain the doorway all right, and I hustled my two charges into momentary safety behind me and told the girl to keep hammering at the door till some one opened it, while I tried to keep the crowd back.
It was no picnic; but I reckoned on being able to stem the rush for the minute or so until some one came in reply to the girl"s knocking. It was in our favour that the fight we had already put up had rendered some of those in the front of the crowd a little chary about coming too close; and as the doorway was very narrow and the stick I had captured a long one, I put it across the outside, thus forming a useful barrier, and was able to hold it in position by standing back at arm"s length, and thus almost out of reach of both the hands and feet of those in front.