the fact that it was baron von gratzen's wife and daughter whom i had managed to snatch from the clutches of the mob was startling, and might have vital consequences. but whether it would help or harm me, it was difficult to decide.
the first impression was that it was rotten luck. by all accounts lassen was far too great a coward to have faced the mob; and that fact alone was dangerous since it tended to emphasize the difference between us. more than enough had transpired in the interview with the baron to show that he already suspected i was not lassen; and this business might put the finishing touch to his suspicions. my handling of the car, moreover, might be accepted as an additional proof of the impersonation.
there was of course another side. it was his wife and child who had been rescued; and if he hadn't a stone in place of a heart, he was bound to feel some amount of gratitude. but would that be sufficient to cause him to smother his suspicions?
the german official is commonly a two-natured individual; showing one side in his private life and the other in his office. his manner to me that morning had been friendly enough; but that was after his suspicions had been quieted and he had regarded me as lassen. what the effect would be when his suspicions were again roused, it was impossible to say.
if he was like many of those i had known in the old days, he would be quite capable of professing and even feeling the deepest gratitude privately and at home, and the next minute at his office regretting, with tears in his eyes, that his duty compelled him to pack me off to gaol. that's the worst of teutonic sentimentality. it's pretty much like a compass needle in an electric storm; you never know where it will point next.
when we reached the house nothing would satisfy the baroness but that i should go in so that her husband should have an opportunity of thanking me; and in we went. it was a relief to find that he wasn't home; but she would not hear of my leaving until she was satisfied that i was not seriously hurt, and wished to send straight off for a doctor to examine me.
discussion resulted as usual in a compromise, and hans carried me off to the bathroom. there was nothing the matter that soap and water and a clothes-brush couldn't put right. i was very dirty; had a bruise or two, a couple of scratches on my face, and a cut on my hand where one of the men had jabbed at it to make me release my hold of the stick.
the last looked the worst, because of the drop or two of blood smeared about; but it didn't amount to anything, and i was really lucky to have got off so lightly.
while i was removing the traces of the scrap, hans told me a good deal more about nita and the position of affairs in the von gratzen household, together with his impressions of nita's father.
"i think he's a regular bear, you know. he is to me; but then he doesn't like me any more than i do him, worse luck," he said dolefully.
"do you think the best way to get any one to like you is to begin by disliking him?"
"i didn't begin it; but he always scowls when he finds me here, talks to me as if i was a kid of ten, and calls me 'hansikin.' it makes me regularly sick, i can tell you. of course he's awfully decent to his wife and nita, and they both worship him; and so does he them. but he's always trying to make fun of me; and he's such an artful old beggar that i never get a chance of scoring off him. i believe he's as big a humbug as any in berlin. and i'm not the only one who thinks so, too."
"what you've done to-day ought to change his opinion, hans."
"that's just my rotten luck. i came up too late to do anything, and even the little i did do, the baroness couldn't see."
"but nita saw it."
"and a lot he'll care for what she says. he'll just grin and say i was a good boy, or some such rot as that, and forget it."
"we'll see about that. he'll know that no boy could send a grown man headlong into the gutter as you did."
"did i?" he cried excitedly.
the truth was that he did not; but there seemed a chance of doing him a good turn, so i described a little fictional incident of the sort, telling him that he was too excited at the moment to remember anything. "it was the turning point of the whole show, hans, for if the beggar hadn't been downed at that very moment, they'd have got us to a cert."
"do you think nita saw it?" he cried boyishly.
"how could she, when her mother was lying all but fainting on the pavement? she wanted all her eyes for her."
"just my luck!" he exclaimed with a disconsolate toss of the head, as we went downstairs.
nita and her mother had also been using the time to repair, and both of them appeared to have rallied from the shock. i had to go through more of the thanksgiving ceremonial. only the plea of an urgent engagement got me out of a most pressing invitation to remain to supper in order to be thanked over again by the baron; and i had to stem the torrent of gratitude by bringing hans' part into action.
"it's awfully sweet of you to give me all the credit, my dear madam, but you're overlooking my cousin's part; and you owe quite as much to him. i'm afraid there would have been a very different tale to tell, if he had not come up when he did."
"i didn't know that," she exclaimed in great surprise; and i saw hans and nita, who were snugging it together in a corner, prick up their ears.
"i don't want to make him blush," i replied, lowering my voice, and repeated the fable i had told him in the bathroom, garnishing it with one or two more or less artistic touches.
"i didn't see all that."
"unfortunately at the moment you were not able to take notice of anything, i'm afraid."
"nita hasn't told me about it either."
"she could not have had eyes or thoughts for any one but you just then. it's only natural, of course."
"then i've done the boy an injustice, herr lassen."
"boy!" i echoed with a start. "no boy could have done what he did, and no man could have behaved more bravely;" with special emphasis on the "man."
it worked all right. after a moment she called him up, repeated the pith of the story, and showed her gratitude in a way that made him blush like a girl. then she kissed him and declared, to the profound delight and astonishment of them both: "that's a good-bye kiss to the boy, hans. i shall never think of you as one again after this; neither will the baron, i am sure. you must stop to supper and hear what he thinks of it."
he was so overwhelmed by all this that he could scarcely stammer out his acceptance of the invitation, and when i was leaving he came to the door and couldn't say enough to thank me. he had a very hazy idea of all that he had really done, and it wasn't surprising that, being a german, he was ready to accept the story as gospel and rather to preen his feathers over his own prowess.
still he was a decent youngster, and his little harmless swagger was very intelligible. "i say, cousin," he added as he opened the door, "i wish you'd do me a favour and tell rosa. she'll believe it, if you say it."
"of course i will. i'm taking the karlstrasse on my way," i promised readily. i wanted to hear if there was any news about the progress of our "conspiracy." the afternoon's affair wasn't all honey, for there was the question of its effect on the baron; and the sooner my back was turned on berlin the better.
it was old gretchen's job to attend to the front door, and when she answered my ring, she told me no one was at home, and that rosa had left a parcel for me. a glance showed that the paper wrapper was torn and that the packet had been put up clumsily as if in a great hurry by unskilled fingers. gretchen had evidently been curious about the contents.
i opened it in her presence, therefore, as there could be no harm in her having a second look at it, and found a quaint card-case inside, with some cards printed, "johann lassen," and a line saying she thought i should understand and find them useful. it was rather neat of her, and clearly was intended as an assurance that she meant to keep our secret.
she came in soon afterwards and i thanked her for it. she was pleased that she had succeeded in making her intention clear; but she wasn't so pleased when she heard that old gretchen had had a peep at the card-case. nor was she at all overjoyed at the story of the afternoon's doings in the untergasse. she looked mighty grave about it, indeed.
"i'm not going to say i'm pleased about it, johann," she declared. we had agreed that it would be better practice for us to use the christian names even when alone. "it wants thinking over."
"your reason?"
"von gratzen. you saw him this morning, didn't you?"
i nodded and gave her a very brief report of what had occurred and that he had been quite friendly.
she shook her head. "you'll have to be awfully careful with him. he knows, as well as i do, that my cousin is an arrant coward, and that no man in all berlin would be less likely to do what you did this afternoon; or could have done it, in fact. the baron's a man i could never understand. no one can. he does the most extraordinary things; he's horribly keen and shrewd; quixotic at one time and abominably harsh at another; although from his manner you'd think he wouldn't hurt a fly."
"well, let's hope he'll show his quixotic side over this, for it's too late to alter things;" and we were still discussing it when feldmann arrived, and she asked him eagerly for news.
"there's a hitch, i'm sorry to say. about hans," he reported with a worried look. "his permit to travel has been refused. they won't release him from his training even for twenty-four hours. i did all i could, i assure you, rosa."
"and about the other?"
"oh, that's all right, of course. a mere matter of form; and it will be ready to-morrow, i expect. but one's not much use without the other."
"johann could use yours, oscar," suggested rosa.
"not on any account," i protested. "herr feldmann might get into no end of a mess."
"it isn't that, lassen. i'm so well known all along the line that it would be hopeless. you'd be spotted in a moment. i'd run the risk like a shot otherwise; i know how rosa feels about it."
"what can we do?" she exclaimed, turning to me.
"make the best of it. nessa must go without me, if i can't get off; and there's no chance of that tomorrow. will the papers have a definite date for the journey?"
"i gave the date we agreed, but i dare say i could get that altered to allow us a margin of a day or two, perhaps a week; but then this wedding is the excuse; and of course that date can't be altered. but i could see miss caldicott into holland all right."
"what, with a false passport! it's awfully good of you to offer, but i'm sure she wouldn't hear of it for a second. no; we must try the other way."
"what's that?" he asked.
he shook his head ominously at the mention of von gratzen. "i know a lot about him, and i wouldn't put a pfennig's reliance on any hope from that quarter," he said emphatically. "i don't say he won't do anything, mind you, because one never knows what he will do next. he's one of the sharpest and ablest men in the country; we all admit that; but——" and he gestured and shrugged his shoulders.
"unreliable?" he nodded. "in a shifty unscrupulous way, you mean?"
"oh dear, no; not that at all," he said vigorously. "individual. that is the best word. if he thinks a thing should be done, he does it whether it is according to official rules or not. that is not german. he is not thorough, as we understand the word."
there remained only the other plan—that nessa and i should get away in some disguise, and at a tentative suggestion about false papers, feldmann laughed.
"you will easily understand that when a people are subject to so many rules and regulations as we are, plenty of men set their wits to work to break them. false identification cards are as common as false coins, and if you knew where to go, a few marks would buy one, or a genuine one either, for that matter," he declared; but he made no offer to get them, and it was better not to press the thing farther then.
i left soon afterwards. the failure to get hans' permit and all that had passed about von gratzen served to make the position more and more difficult and complicated. the man seemed to be an enigma even to those who were in constant touch with him, and it was ridiculous to imagine, therefore, that any one who had only seen him once should understand him. a close and careful review of the interview with him threw no light on the matter. he had been exceedingly kind and friendly; but there had been a moment of startling contrast. that one keen look of his; so sharp, intent and piercing that it had seemed almost to change him into a different man; and it might well be accepted as the one instant in which the mask had been allowed to drop.
in the morning there was another incident. a curt formal summons arrived summoning me to his office at noon. this, after the previous day's job in the untergasse! he might at least have had the decency to write a private note; and naturally enough the thing increased my uneasiness.
and then, if you please, it turned out that he had named that time as it was the hour when he went home to lunch and wished to take me with him! how could one judge such a man?
i put the note before him, with a word to the effect that i had thought it was on official business, and he laughed it away, saying he had told his secretary just to ask me to call.
he couldn't make enough of me; kept speaking to me as "my boy," and "my dear boy"; smothered me with protestations of gratitude; and capped it all by asking me to make his house my home while i was in berlin.
that didn't appeal to me in the least. "wouldn't it be very invidious, sir, if i was to go to you when i've only just left my aunt's?"
"i've a good mind to use my official power to compel you, my boy," he returned laughingly; "but the wife shall talk to you about it. in any case you must promise to let us see as much of you as possible."
that was easy to promise; and after a few moments we went out together.
if he wasn't sincere, then he was one of the best actors in the world either on or off the stage.
which was he?
i could find no answer to the question. yet everything probably depended upon it—nessa's fate and my freedom, and possibly even my life.
