Erik Dorn Part 36

"Diversion," he murmured, "the little drug. But what is there to drugs?

No, come; we are lovers now."

"We will go to Munich together."

"Yes."

"And will you carry the money for Levine? They would never search you and they might recognize and search me. And besides, von Stinnes would not dare interfere if it was you, even if he is a spy, because he likes you too well."

Her voice had become eager and vibrant. Dorn smiled ruefully, the faint mist of a sigh in his thought. The girl had worked adroitly. Of course, he was someone to carry the money to the Munich radicals.

"It is just an ordinary-looking package. The station will be under a guard and all the roads coming in, too. They are expecting the revolution and ..." She paused and grew red. Dorn's eyes were looking at her banteringly. "You are thinking I have tricked you," she cried, "and that it was only to use you as a ... as a carrier that I ... Well, perhaps it is true. I do not know myself. I told you you could have me.

Yes, I give myself to you now ... now.... Do you hear?"

She laughed with bitterness.

"I have never given myself before. I would rather you smiled and were kind. But if you wish to laugh ... and call it a bargain ... it does not matter."

She had stepped away from him and stood with kindled eyes, waiting.

"One can be chivalrous in the absence of all other impulses, Mathilde.

And all other impulses have expired in me. So I will take the package.

We will start to-morrow early. And as for the rest ... I will spare you the tedium of martyrdom."

He moved toward the door. "Come, we'll go downstairs. Von Stinnes will be getting impatient."

Mathilde came to him swiftly. He caught a glimpse of her face lighted, and her arms circled his neck. She was looking at him without words. A coldness dropped into his heart. There had been three of them before--he, Mathilde, and a phantom. Now there were only Mathilde and himself.

"She was not tricking," he thought, and felt pleased. "At least not consciously."

Her arms fell from him and she stared frightenedly.

"Forgive me, Erik. I thought you loved me. And I would have liked to make you happy...."

He nodded and opened the door.

CHAPTER VI

They sat in the compartment of the train crawling into Munich. The Baron drooped with sleep. Dorn stared wearily out of the window. Springtime. A beginning of green in the fields and over the roll of hills. Formal sunlight upon factories with an empty holiday frown in their windows.

"I hear shooting," he smiled at Mathilde. "We're probably in time."

The girl nodded. Despite the sleepless night sitting upright in the compartment, her eyes were fresh and alive. The desultory crack of a rifle drifting out of the town as if to greet them brought an impatience into her manner. The train was moving slowly.

"Yes, we're in time," she murmured. "See, the white guards are still in possession."

A group of soldiers with white sleeve-bands over the gray-green of their uniforms pa.s.sed in an empty street.

"There will be white guards at the station, too," she went on. "The attack will come to-night. It must."

She looked intently at von Stinnes who, opening his eyes suddenly, whispered, "Ah, Mathilde ... there was once another Munchen...."

An uproar in the station. A scurry of guards and soldiers. White sleeve-bands. Machine-guns behind heaped bags of sand. A halloo of orders across the arc of the s.p.a.cious shed. Pa.s.sengers pouring out of the newly arrived train, smiling, weeping, staring indifferently.

The officer desired the pa.s.sengers to line themselves up against the train. A suggestive order, and confusion. Whispers in the crowd....

"Personally, I prefer the guillotine.... No, no, madame. There is no danger. These are good boys. Soldiers of the government. You can tell by the sleeve-bands. White. Merely baggage inspection."

Dorn waited his turn. A group of soldiers approached slowly, delving into pockets for weapons, peering into opened pieces of baggage. Babble, expostulation, eager politeness of innocent travelers, and outside the long crack of rifles, an occasional rip of a machine-gun. The group of soldiers paused before him.

"I am an American," he spoke in English, "with the American commission."

The announcement produced its usual effect. Bows, salutes, smiles. He pulled out his pa.s.sport and foreign-office credentials. An officer stepped forward and glanced at them.

"Very good," in courteous English, "you will pardon for the delay. We are having a little trouble here."

He indicated the city with a nod of his head and smiled wryly. In German he continued sharply, "Gottlieb, Neuman, you will escort this gentleman and his friends to whatever place they wish to go. Take my car at post 10."

Two soldiers saluted. The officer bowed with a smile. The travelers moved off with their escort toward the street. Mathilde kept her eyes on von Stinnes as they entered a gray automobile.

"Von Stinnes and I will sit in the back," she whispered to Dorn.

The Baron nodded.

"Careful of your Leugger," he whispered, "the soldiers will see it. You can shoot me just as easily if you keep it hidden. I have frequently fired through my pocket."

In a hotel room a half-hour later, Mathilde, grown jubilant as a child, was clapping her hands and laughing.

"It was too simple!" she cried.

Dorn drew a small suitcase from under the bed and opened it.

"Here it is," he laughed. He removed an oblong package. His eyes sought von Stinnes, standing near the window leisurely smoking a cigarette.

"You will find Levine in the Gambrinus Keller," von Stinnes spoke without turning around. "I advise you to go at once, Matty, before the streets crowd up."

He wheeled and held an envelope toward the girl.

"Take this. It will make it easier for you to get in. They are very careful right now. It's a letter of credentials from Dr. Kasnilov."

Mathilde opened the envelope mechanically, her eyes seeking the thought under the Baron's smile.

"Thanks," she spoke in German. "I will go now. I will see you after. At dinner to-night. Here."

She walked quickly from the room, the oblong package under her arm.