Pagel whistled thoughtfully. And considered whether the capture of convicts in a wood was aided by whistling, whether they would sneak off at the sound or make an attack upon him, to get his money, clothes and pistol. In a flash he saw Marofke’s face with its trembling baggy cheeks. But let the fellows come! he thought defiantly. Whistling louder, he grasped the pistol butt in his trouser pocket.
Yes, indeed! It was strange and dangerous, always to think of your sweetheart and compare her to all the others, and only in her favour. Once again Pagel asked himself if the image he now had of Peter was still true. Was she really pure gold? That couldn’t be true either. She must have faults, too, and if he looked for them, he easily found some. For instance, her tendency to silence if something didn’t suit her—if something annoyed her. He would ask her what was wrong? Nothing was wrong. But he could see, something was. He’d done something wrong. No definitely nothing. You had to talk to her for a full quarter of an hour. She could make you furious. Almost drive you insane with her eternal no! It was clear as clear. Well, there was a fault all right. In any case, he’ll help her break this habit. A girl like Peter shouldn’t have any faults. As for himself, it was different. He had so many that it wasn’t even worth beginning to improve.
Pagel, busy with his thoughts, had long passed beyond the potato field into ever stranger and more remote parts of the wood. He had seen nothing of the convicts and nothing of the gendarmes either. Well, he would take a pleasant walk instead of joining in an idiotic hunt; for idiotic it must be, he decided. Woods upon woods, up and down, hour after hour, overgrown thickets, plantations of thousands of small straggling pines, high as a man, half as high again, hundreds and hundreds of acres, glens of fir so gloomy that even on the brightest day one hardly saw a foot in front—and the police were hoping in this wilderness to find five shrewd and desperate men whose intelligence would be concentrated on not letting themselves be found. Absolute nonsense! In the woods one really perceived how impossible the task was. He would go on alone, comfortably, instead of crawling around with the others among thorns and junipers.
But, turning the next corner, he exclaimed “Ah-ha!” and was no longer alone. A little man in a fur jacket was walking toward him, that is, walking was not quite the right word; he had a kind of quavering in his progress, a staccato. He, so to speak, yodeled somewhat with his legs. “Damned roots!” he said far too loudly, though there were none in that spot. And a pace in front of Pagel he stopped with so sudden a start that he almost fell over.
Wolfgang seized him just in time. “Ah-ha! Herr Meier,” he said smiling, “Germans don’t say ‘cognac,’ they say ‘brandy.’ ”
Meier’s small, reddened eyes contemplated his successor on the farm. Suddenly a gleam of recognition shone in them and, with a broad impudent grin, he screeched: “Oh, it’s you. I thought … Doesn’t matter. I’m a bit boozed. Seen my car anywhere?”
“What!” Pagel became suspicious. “Have you got a car, too, Herr Meier? What are you doing in our forest today with a car?”
“So you too say our forest now,” laughed Meier. “That seems to be the fashion here. The forester says my forest, the Rittmeister says my woods, his wife sometimes takes a little walk in her plantations, and the one it really belongs to, the old Geheimrat, he only talks about a few pine trees!”
Out of politeness Pagel laughed also. But the other’s presence here, particularly today, still seemed suspicious. “Where did you leave your car, Herr Meier?” he asked.
“If only I knew, blockhead that I am!” said Meier, thumping himself on the head. “So it’s not up that way, then?” Pagel shook his head. “Well, let’s go up here.” He seemed to take it for granted that Wolfgang would accompany him, and this somewhat removed the suspicion that he might be an associate of the escaped convicts. Cheerful and fairly erect, he sauntered along, apparently glad to have found a listener.
“As a matter of fact, I’m a bit boozed, you know. I’ve been celebrating with a friend. Actually he isn’t a friend, but he thinks he is. Well, let the child have its pacifier. So I found myself here, I don’t know what it’s called, it was somewhere near. But I’ll find it all right. I’ve a marvelous memory for places.”
“Surely.”
“Let’s take this path on the left. I’ve forgotten your name for the moment, one gets acquainted with too many people in life, particularly the last few weeks; one’s got to work his way in first. But my memory for names is good, the Colonel’s always saying so.”
“What colonel? You’re not with the Army now, are you?” Pagel encountered a glance which was wary, suspicious, and not in the least drunken. He’s not so tipsy as he seems, he thought. Take care!
But Meier was laughing again. “Well, are you with the Army because you say Rittmeister to your boss?” he asked adroitly. “He’s bought himself a fine car, the old sod. Saw him today in Frankfurt scorching on a trial run—the world’s got to collapse nobly. What’s little Vi doing now?”
“Well, your car doesn’t seem to be here either.”
“Don’t pull a face or I’ll laugh. So I suppose you’ve been dropped, too? Is the Lieutenant still the only one? Lordie, what a girl! Love must be wonderful. Well”—in quite a different, a threatening, tone—“soon the Lieutenant will be dropped; he’s going to feel sick soon. He’d better wash his chest, he’ll be shot.”
“Perhaps you are rather jealous, Herr Meier?” inquired Pagel amiably. “That time you screamed in the night—I suppose that was because of him? Incidentally, I found the copy you made of the letter, inside the District Gazette.”
“Oh, that stupid thing! Far as I’m concerned, you can blow your nose on it. Haven’t got any time nowadays for flea bites like that. We’ve got other things on tap. But there, a young chap from the country won’t understand about that. You’ve no idea what I’m earning now.”
“Oh, I can see it, Herr Meier.”
“Isn’t it so? Look at the rings, all real good stones. I have a pal who gets ’em for me at half price. And since I always pay only in foreign money …” Once again he stopped short, with the same intensely suspicious side-glance. But Pagel had not heard the treasonable word; he was following up another clue.
“Isn’t that a little dangerous, Herr Meier? To go walking about here alone in the forest with so much jewelry and money? Something might easily happen to you.”
“Don’t you believe it!” laughed Meier contemptuously. “What could happen then? Nothing’s ever happened to me before. You haven’t the least idea, man, of all I’ve been through—and nothing’s happened to me yet. Here,” he said, stamping with his foot on the earth, “here in this wood someone once walked behind me, for a quarter of an hour, with his revolver all the time on my nut—and was going to shoot me dead. Well, did he shoot me?”
“Funny things happen to you,” laughed Pagel, somewhat uncomfortably. “One would never have thought it. No doubt he was not really in earnest …”
“Him? He meant it all right.… The thing was loaded, and he only let me keep on walking because he wanted to get to a place a bit more secluded. So that they wouldn’t find my body straight away, of course.”
In these words there was something sinister and horrible. Pagel looked at the little man askance. What he said need not be true, but the fellow believed it was.… Threats were forming themselves on his lips.
“I’ll get the swine, though. If I was frightened, he’s going to be a hundred times as frightened. I escaped, but he won’t.…”
“Well, Herr Meier,” said Pagel coldly, “if the Lieutenant is ever found dead somewhere you can be quite certain the police will be told at once by me.”
Meier turned with a vicious stare. Of a sudden, however, his expression changed, his heavy blubber lips curled, his owl-like eyes smiled scornfully. “You think I’m such a fool as to shoot at the fellow? Shoot off the mark, most likely, and be done to death by the swine? That’d be a fine revenge! No, man! Trust old Meier! He’s got to be afraid, the s
wine. I’ll hound him down, rob him of his honor, everyone shall spit at him—and then, when there’s no way out for him anymore—then he can shoot himself, the swine! That and no other way!”
Triumphantly he stood before Pagel. There was no more intoxication to be seen, except that possibly the alcohol had inflamed his revengefulness and made him blab of things he otherwise carried locked within him. Pagel, watchful, was taking care not to let his disgust for the fellow become visible; he felt certain that behind all the threats much was hidden which it would be good to know. One must be clever and pump him, this Meier! But he could not hold back his youthfulness, the abhorrence of the young for whatever is sick, impure and criminal.
“You’re a fine lump of turd!” he said contemptuously, and turned to go.
“And what about it?” challenged Meier. “What’s that to do with you? Have I made myself? Have you made yourself? I should like to know what you’d look like if you’d always been treated as dirt, as I’ve been treated! You’re a precious mother’s pet, anyone can see that; a fine school and everything else that goes with it.…” He quieted down a little.
“You believe that a good education drives all the swinishness out of one?” asked Pagel. “Some people feel quite happy even in filth.”
Meier looked evilly at him for a minute. Then he laughed. “Look here, why quarrel about that? I always think it’s a short life and a long death, so let’s see that we too have a decent time. And since money’s necessary for that, and a poor devil will never get any by being honest …”
“You get it by being dishonest. Only I don’t understand, Herr Meier, why you have it in for the Lieutenant so much. You won’t get any money, will you, if he’s done for?”
Now, however innocently Pagel had said this, immediately there was that same suspicious glance. But this time Meier didn’t reply. Growling, he turned into a fresh path. “Damn and blast it, where the devil’s the bloody car! I must be quite crazy. Aren’t we going round and round in a circle really?” Again he looked viciously at Pagel and murmured: “You needn’t worry about letting me go on by myself. You’re not a help to me, anyway.”
“I am afraid something might happen to you,” said Pagel politely. “Your fine rings, all that money …”
“I’ve already told you, nothing can happen. Who’s going to pinch rings in a forest?”
“Convicts,” said Pagel calmly, with a sharp eye on his man.
Meier did not turn a hair. “Convicts? What convicts?”
“Ours, from the harvest crew,” replied Pagel, convinced that his suspicion had been unjust. (But what was little Meier doing in the forest?) “In fact, five of them ran away this morning.”
“Damn and blast!” shouted Meier, and his fright was genuine. “They’re hiding here in the forest? You—you’re trying to be funny. Why, you yourself are walking about just the same.”
“Not at all!” said Pagel, half pulling the pistol from his trousers. “Besides that, I’m looking for the gendarmes. There are fifty of them, you know, ransacking the forest.”
“That beats everything,” said Meier, coming to a stop. “Five lags and fifty frogs—and me right in it with my bone-shaker! That can be painful. Lord, man, I must get my car right away. What was it called now? I’ve got it. The Black Dale! Do you know it?”
Pagel felt that the little man had known this name all along, had he wished to come out with it. Meier was looking at him suspiciously, too. Why? It was only a forest name, like any other. “I’ve never been there,” he said. “But I’ve seen it on the map. It’s very near Birnbaum and we’re going the whole time toward Neulohe.”
“Fool that I am.” Meier hit himself on the head with his fist. “Onwards then, man—what do you call yourself?”
“Pagel.”
“Keep your eyes open. In this sand even a worm could find a wheel mark. This way? Good. But is it the right way?”
“Oh, yes,” said Pagel. “But why are you so enormously upset all of a sudden? I thought that nothing could happen to you?”
“Yes, I’d like to see you in my place. Suppose everything’s messed up! Damnation! This is always my luck. That cursed drunk …”
“What’ll be messed up?”
“What’s that to do with you?”
“Well, I’d really like to know.”
“Then write to Aunt Dolly in Advice to the Lovelorn.”
“As a matter of fact, it’s not yet been settled that we’re really going to the Black Dale now.”
Meier, coming to a stop, fixed young Pagel with a look of hatred. He would certainly very much have liked to do something to him, but he thought better of it, and snarled: “What do you want to know, then?”
“Why are you in a hurry so suddenly?”
Meier reflected. “I’ve business in Frankfurt,” he said in a surly voice.
“So you had five minutes ago, and you weren’t in any hurry then.”
“Would you let a new car be pinched by convicts? Even if it’s not a tiptop Horch like your Rittmeister’s—only a baby Opel.”
“You were frightened when I talked about the gendarmes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“All right. I haven’t got a driving license. And anyway, I like to steer clear of the police.”
“Because of your business?”
“If you like. I don’t mind—I do a bit of business on the sly.”
Pagel scrutinized the ugly little fellow. It might be the truth, but it was much more likely that he was lying. “And what are you doing here today in our wood?”
Meier, however, was cunning. Cursing his drunken revengeful rigmarole about the Lieutenant, he had seen this question coming a long time. But once he had noticed that Pagel did not move a muscle at the words “Black Dale”—once he was sure he knew nothing—he felt certain of victory. “What am I doing here in your wood? Actually you ought not to know, but you’ll keep your mouth shut. I’ve brought back your forester, your Kniebusch. He’s fast asleep in my car, drunk as a fiddler.”
“Wasn’t the forester in Frankfurt for his case?”
“That’s right. You’ve got it.” Meier had quite recovered. “And now let’s get on—the proper way to the Black Dale. The forester was there for his case about Bäumer, and your Rittmeister, who is a great man, was going to back him up, but cleared off, the great man, so as to buy a car.…”
“And the case?”
“Fallen through! In default of interest in it. Because Bäumer ran away this morning. Everyone seems to be running away today. Me, too. At once. Hurrah! Here’s the tracks of the car. Didn’t I say so? It’s hardly a step now; so come along and take a peep at your Kniebusch, so that you’ll know I’m not fooling you.”
“But why did you motor over here into the wood if you wanted to take Kniebusch home? How did your car come to be lost?”
“You’ve got a funny idea of being drunk, man! I suppose you’ve never been boozed? Well, we couldn’t drive into the village soaked—we weren’t quite soaked enough for that. So we drove about a bit. Well, when we got here in the forest I felt a natural urge and had to get out. Kniebusch was fast asleep. I tumbled out of the car, into the ditch, behind a bush—and I must have dozed off. Well, when I woke up, I didn’t at first know what was what.… I just went off looking aimlessly, and then I met you. Hello, here’s my car!”
It was certainly not so magnificent as the Rittmeister’s. It was a genuine baby Opel, a Tin Lizzie.… But that didn’t interest Pagel much at the moment. It was a very small, low car, with not much space between the ground and its floor. All the same, it was a very uncomfortable position in which the forester was asleep, his head in the wood and his feet in the car.
Pagel actually ought to have put a few more suspicious questions to Herr Meier. But Meier would always have an answer to everything, either true or invented. The very man was a tangled web of truth and lies. What he had said would be approximately true, even if not completely, because the secretive lieute
nant was totally missing in the story, and Pagel felt he definitely belonged there. To drag the truth out of that fellow would take too long. The first thing to be done now was to take the forester home and put him to bed. The whole situation could not be good for a nearly-seventy-year-old. His face was purple.
“In with him! In!” ordered Pagel, seeing that Meier wanted to drag the old man away from the car.
“What do you mean—in? I’m clearing! I’m in a hurry. Out with him!”
“In, I say! No doubt you made Kniebusch drunk, and you can drive him home as well.”
“Not likely! I’m in a hurry. I don’t want to be seen in Neulohe, either.”
“No need to. You can drive up to the forester’s house through the wood. No one will see you.”
“And supposing I’m grabbed on the way? By the gendarmes or the convicts? Nix, I’m clearing off.”
“Herr Meier!” warned Pagel. “Don’t be silly. Rather than let you go off I’d shoot your tires to pieces.”
Furiously Meier looked at the hand with the pistol.
“Well, get hold of him!” he said sullenly. “But put that thing away. Up with you, into the corner! Oh, it’s all the same how he sits, he’ll fall over again immediately. The main thing is to get the door shut. I don’t know,” he cursed again, “but Neulohe brings me only bad luck. Whatever I start here always turns to dirt. But I’ll get my revenge sometime. I’ll make you people sick about me yet!”