City of Endless Night, Milo Hastings [books to get back into reading .TXT] 📗

state again, please, the time that you say the Karl Armstadt you knew disappeared?"

Katrina quite accurately named the date at which the man whose identity I had assumed had been called to the potash mines.

"Very well," said the official, taking up the sheet of paper, "here we have the list of missing men for four years compiled from the weighers' records. There is not recorded here the disappearance of a single chemist during the whole period. If another man than a chemist should try to step into a chemist's shoes, he would have a rather difficult time of it." The official laughed as if he thought himself very clever.

"But that man is not Karl Armstadt," cried Katrina in a wavering voice. "Do you think I would not know him when every night for--"

"Shut up," said the official, "and get out of here, and if I hear anything more of this matter I shall subtract your credit."

Katrina, now whimpering, was led from the room. The official beamed upon Capt. Grauble and myself. "Do you see," he said, "how perfectly our records take care of these crazy accusations? The black haired one is evidently touched in the head with jealousy, and now that she has chanced upon you, she makes up this preposterous story, which might cause you no end of annoyance, but here we have the absolute refutation of the charge. Before a man can step into another's shoes, he must step out of his own. Murdered bodies can be destroyed, although that is difficult, but one man cannot be two men!"

We left the official chuckling over his cleverness.

"The Keeper of Records was wise after his kind," mused Grauble, "but it never occurred to him that there might be chemists in the world who are not registered in the card files of Berlin."

Grauble's voice sounded a note of aloofness and suspicion. Had he penetrated my secret? Did I dare make full confession? Had Grauble given me the least encouragement I should have done so, but he seemed to wish to avoid further discussion and I feared to risk it.

My hope of a fuller understanding with Grauble seemed destroyed, and we soon separated without further confidences.

~2~

When I returned home from my offices one evening some days later, my secretary announced that a visitor was awaiting me.

I entered the reception-room and found Holknecht, who had been my chemical assistant in the early days of my work in Berlin. Holknecht had seemed to me a servile fawning fellow and when I received my first promotion I had deserted him quite brutally for the very excellent reason that he had known the other Armstadt and I feared that his dulled intelligence might at any time be aroused to penetrate my disguise. That he should look me up in my advancement and prosperity, doubtless to beg some favour, seemed plausible enough, and therefore with an air of condescending patronage, I asked what I could do for him.

"It is about Katrina," he said haltingly, as he eyed me curiously.

"Well, what about her?"

"She wants me to bring you to her."

"But suppose I do not choose to go?"

"Then there may be trouble."

"She has already tried to make trouble," I said, "but nothing came of it."

"But that," said Holknecht, "was before she saw me."

"And what have you told her?"

"I told her about Armstadt's going to the mines and you coming back to the hospital wearing his clothes and possessed of his folder and of your being out of your memory."

"You mean," I replied, determined not to acknowledge his assumption of my other identity, "that you explained to her how the illness had changed me; and did that not make clear to her why she did not recognize me at first?"

"There is no use," insisted Holknecht, "of your talking like that. I never could quite make up my mind about you, though I always knew there was something wrong. At first I believed the doctor's story, and that you were really Armstadt, though it did seem like a sort of magic, the way you were changed. But when you came to the laboratory and I saw you work, I decided that you were somebody else and that the Chemical Staff was working on some great secret and had a reason for putting some one else in Armstadt's place. And now, of course, I know very well that that was so, for the other Karl Armstadt would never have become a von of the Royal Level. He didn't have that much brains."

As Holknecht was speaking I had been thinking rapidly. The thing I feared was that the affair of the mine and hospital should be investigated by some one with intelligence and authority. Since Katrina had learned of that, and this Holknecht was also aware that I was a man of unknown identity, it was very evident that they might set some serious investigation going. But the man's own remarks suggested a way out.

"You are quite right, Holknecht," I said; "I am not Karl Armstadt; and, just as you have surmised, there were grave reasons why I should have been put into his place under those peculiar circumstances. But this matter is a state secret of the Chemical Staff and you will do well to say nothing about it. Now is there anything I can do for you? A promotion, perhaps, to a good position in the Protium Works?"

"No," said Holknecht, "I would rather stay where I am, but I could use a little extra money."

"Of course; a check, perhaps; a little gift from an old friend who has risen to power; there would be no difficulty in that, would there?"

"I think it would go through all right."

"I will make it now; say five thousand marks, and if nothing more is said of this matter by you or Katrina, there will be another one like it a year later."

The young man's eyes gloated as I wrote the check, which he pocketed with greedy satisfaction. "Now," I said, "will this end the affair for the present?"

"This makes it all right with me," replied Holknecht, "but what about Katrina?"

"But you are to take care of her. She can only accept two hundred marks a month and I have given you enough for that four times over."

"But she doesn't want money; she already has a full list."

"Then what does she want?"

"Jewels, of course; they all want them; jewels from the Royal Level, and she knows you can get them for her."

"Oh, I see. Well, what would please her?"

"A necklace of rubies, the best they have, one that will cost at least twenty thousand marks."

"That's rather expensive, is it not?"

"But her favourite lover disappeared," fenced Holknecht, "and his death was never entered on the records. It may be the Chemical Staff knows what became of him and maybe they do not; whatever happened, you seem to want it kept still, so you had best get the necklace."

After a little further arguing that revealed nothing, I went to the Royal Level, and searching out a jewelry shop, I purchased a necklace of very beautiful synthetic rubies, for which I gave my check for twenty thousand marks.

Returning to my apartment, I found Holknecht still waiting. He insisted on taking the necklace to Katrina, but I feared to trust a man who accepted bribes so shamelessly, and decided to go with him and deliver it in person.

Sullenly, Holknecht led the way to her apartment.

Katrina sensuously gowned in flaming red was awaiting the outcome of her blackmailing venture. She motioned me to a chair near her, while Holknecht, utterly ignored, sank obscurely into a corner.

"So you came," said the lady of black and scarlet, leaning back among her pillows and gazing at me through half closed eyes.

"Yes," I said, "since you have looked up Holknecht and he has explained to you the reason for the disappearance of the man you knew, I thought best to see you and have an understanding."

"But that dumb fellow explained nothing," declared Katrina, "except that he told me that Armstadt went to the mines and you came back and took his place. He wasn't even sure you were not the other Karl Armstadt until I convinced him, and then he claimed that he had known it all the time; and yet he had never told it. Some men are as dull as books."

"On the contrary, Holknecht is very sensible," I replied. "It is a grave affair of state and one that it is best not to probe into."

"And just what did become of the other Armstadt?" asked Katrina, and in her voice was only a curiosity, with no real concern.

"To tell you the truth, your lover was killed in the mine explosion," I replied, for I thought it unwise to state that he was still alive lest she pursue her inquiries for him and so make further trouble.

"That is too bad," said Katrina. "You see, when I knew him he was only a chemical captain. And when he deserted me I didn't really care much. But when the Royal Captain Grauble asked me to meet a Karl von Armstadt of the Chemical Staff, at first I could not believe that it was the same man I had known, but I made inquiries and learned of your rapid rise and traced it back and I thought you really were my old Karl. And when I saw you, you seemed to be he, but when I looked again I knew that you were another and I was so disappointed and angry that I lost control of my temper. I am sorry I made a scene, and that official was so stupid--as if I would not know one man from another! How I should like to tell him that I knew more than his stupid records."

"But that is not best," I said; "your former lover is dead and there are grave reasons why that death should not be investigated further--" The argument was becoming a little difficult for me and I hastened to add: "Since you were so discourteously treated by the official, I feel that I owe you some little token of reparation."

I now drew out the necklace and held it out to the girl.

Her black eyes gleamed with triumph at the sight of the bauble. Greedily she grasped it and held it up between her and the light, turning it about and watching the red rays gleaming through the stones. "And now," she gloated, "that faded Elsa will cease to lord it over me--and to think that another Karl Armstadt has brought me this--why that stingy fellow would never have bought me a blue-stone ring, if he had been made the Emperor's Minister."

Katrina now rose and preened before her mirror. "Won't you place it round my neck?" she asked, holding out the necklace.

Nor daring to give offence, I took the chain of rubies and attempted to fasten it round her neck. The mechanism of the fastening was strange to me and I was some time in getting the thing adjusted. Just as I had succeeded in hooking the clasp, I heard a curdled oath and the neglected Holknecht hurled himself upon us, striking me on the temple with one fist and clutching at the throat of the girl with the other hand.

The blow sent me reeling to the floor but in another instant I was up and had collared him and dragged him away.

"Damn you both," he whimpered; "where do I come in?"

"Put him out," said Katrina, with a glance of disdain at the cowering man.

"I will go," snarled Holknecht, and he wrenched from my grasp and darted toward the door. I followed, but he was fairly running down the passage and pursuit was too undignified a thing to consider.

"You should have paid him," said Katrina, "for delivering my message."

"I have paid him," I replied. "I paid him very well."

"I wonder if he thought," she laughed, "that I would pay any attention to a man of his petty rank. Why, I snubbed him unmercifully years ago when the other Armstadt had the audacity to introduce me."

"Of course," I replied, "he does not understand."

And now, as I resumed my seat, I began puzzling my brain as to how I could get away without giving offence to the second member of my pair of blackmailers. But a little later I managed it, as it has been managed for centuries, by looking suddenly at my watch and recalling a forgotten appointment.

"You will come again?" purred Katrina.

"Of course," I said, "I must come again, for you are very charming, but I am afraid it will not be for some time as I have very important duties and just at present my leisure is exceedingly limited."

And so I made my escape, and hastened home. After debating the question pro and