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The Mischief Maker, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Book 2 - Chapter 13. Estermen's Death-Warrant |
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_ BOOK TWO CHAPTER XIII. ESTERMEN'S DEATH-WARRANT In the untidy salon of his bachelor apartments in the Boulevard Maupassant Estermen awaited the coming of his master in veritable fear and trembling. In all his experience he had never been compelled to face a crisis such as this. There had been small failures, punished, perhaps, by a sarcastic word or biting sentence. There had been no failure to compare with this one! Herr Freudenberg deliberately, and of his own free choice, was accustomed to take huge risks. When they came he accepted them, but when they were not inevitable he as sedulously avoided them. The wrecking of Julien's apartments in the Rue de Montpelier was by far the most hazardous enterprise which had been attempted since the days of the toymaker's first secret visits to Paris. Half a dozen human beings had been done to death in a manner which invited and even challenged the attentions of the French police. A terrible risk had been run and run in vain. The blow had been struck at the very moment when its object was unattainable! Estermen shivered as he tried to imagine for himself the coming interview. Gone, he feared, was his life of pleasant luxury among the flesh-pots and easy ways of Paris; his bachelor apartments, occupied in name by him but of which the real tenant was his dreaded master. And behind all this apprehension lurked another grisly and terrible fear! For the twentieth time during the last few minutes he peered through the closely drawn Venetian-blind, and his blood ran cold. On the pavement opposite, before the small table of a cafe, a man was sitting--the same man! For two days he had been there--a gaunt and silent person with a wonderful trick of gazing away into space from the columns of his newspaper. But Estermen knew all about that! He knew, even, the man's name! He knew that he was one of the most persistent and successful of French detectives. His name was Jean Charles and he had never known failure. Estermen looked at him through the blind and his pale face was ugly with fear. The moment arrived. The long, gray traveling car, covered with dust, swung around the corner and stopped below. Herr Freudenberg was travel-stained and almost unrecognizable in his motor clothes as he stepped out and passed into the block of apartments. Contrary to his usual custom, he did not at once present himself before the man who awaited him in fear and trembling. Estermen heard him enter his own suite of rooms on the other side of the stairway and give a few brief orders. Then there was a peremptory knock at the door. Herr Freudenberg was announced and entered. To the man who had been waiting for his sentence there was something terrible in the grim impassivity of Prince Falkenberg's features. His face was set and white and sphinx-like. Only his eyes shone with a fierce, unusual fire. "What have you to say, Estermen?" he demanded. "It was a miracle," Estermen faltered. "Sir Julien descended the stairs with the copy in his hand to speak to a caller. For seventeen hours he had been in his rooms, for the following seventeen hours he would probably have been there, too. For the intervening thirty seconds he happened to be upon the pavement. It was a miracle!" This was the end of all the specious story which Estermen had gone over so often to himself! Yet he had done his cause no harm, for the few sentences he spoke were the truth. "You have discovered his present whereabouts?" his master demanded. Estermen hesitated. He feared that this was another blow which he was about to deal. "He is at the house of Madame Christophor in the Rue de St. Paul," he faltered. His news, however, did not discompose Prince Falkenberg. On the contrary, he seemed, if anything, to find the intelligence agreeable. "Have you made any inquiries as to his condition?" Estermen shrugged his shoulders. "The household of Madame Christophor," he replied, "is, as you know, outside my sphere of influence. It is, besides, incorruptible. I myself am personally obnoxious to Madame. I could do nothing but wait for your coming." Prince Falkenberg stood with his hands behind him, thinking. He had relapsed into his former grim and impenetrable silence. And while he waited the sweat stood out in beads upon Estermen's forehead. Greatly he feared that the worst was to come! "Have you anything else to say to me?" his master asked. "Nothing!" Estermen replied, with faltering lips. Prince Falkenberg's eyes were fierce orbs of light and his servant quailed before him. "Have you any reason to believe that the origin of the crime is suspected?" It was the question which above all others he had dreaded! Estermen was a coward and a fluent liar. The latter gift, however, availed him nothing. He felt as though the nerves of his tongue were being controlled by some other agency. Against his will he told the truth. "Jean Charles is watching these apartments!" "Ah!" Prince Falkenberg's single exclamation was the death sentence of his agent. Estermen knew it and his knees knocked one against the other. "For six years," Prince Falkenberg said, after a moment's pause, "you have lived an easy and a comfortable life, Estermen,--a life, I dare say, spent among the gutter vices which would naturally appeal to a person of your temperament; a life, apart from the small services which I have required of you, directed altogether by your own inclinations. Be thankful for those six years. As you well know, but for me they would have been spent either in prison or in the problematical future world--a matter entirely at the discretion of the judge who tried you. It pleased me to rescue you for my own purpose. You were possessed of a certain amount of low cunning and a complete absence of all ordinary human qualities, a combination which made you a useful servant of my will. My one condition has been always before you. The present case demands your fulfillment of it." Estermen began to tremble. "The man may be there by accident," he faltered. "There is no certainty as yet that I am even suspected. I'm--I'm horribly afraid to die!" he added, with an ugly little laugh. "So are most men of your kidney," Prince Falkenberg replied composedly. "Nevertheless, die you must, and to-night. Write your confession. Make it clear that one of the victims was your personal enemy. I'll dictate it, if you like." "I can do it myself," Estermen muttered. "Let me--let me write the confession first and then make an attempt to escape," he pleaded. "If I am taken, the confession shall be found upon me. It will make no difference. Let me have a chance! I know the secret places of the city. I have friends who might help me to escape." Prince Falkenberg watched his agent for a moment in contemptuous curiosity. Estermen was walking restlessly up and down the few feet of carpet, his fingers and the muscles of his face twitching. His words had come with difficulty, as though he had suddenly developed an impediment in his speech. His sallow complexion had become yellow. His carefully waxed moustache was drooping, a speck of saliva was issuing from his lips. "The request which you make to me," Prince Falkenberg replied, "I absolutely refuse. I know you and your cowardly temperament too well to allow you to come alive into the hands of the French police." "You value your own life highly enough!" Estermen snarled. "It is not so," Prince Falkenberg asserted. "If I had ever valued my own life highly, there would have been no Herr Freudenberg; and if the whole history of Herr Freudenberg is discovered, I follow you, my friend, post haste. If I seem to be taking any pains to hold my own, remember that mine is a life which is valuable to the Fatherland. You have been and you are only a feeder at the troughs. One more or less such as you in the world makes just the difference of a speck of dust--that is all." Estermen shrank cowering into his seat. "I'd rather live--in torture--in prison or in chains--anywhere!" he gasped. "I can't think of death!" Prince Falkenberg was becoming impatient. "My dear Estermen," he exclaimed, "what prison do you suppose remains open for the murderer of seven men! You shrink from death. Yet let me assure you that the guillotine, with the certain prospect of it before you day after day through a long trial, is no pleasant outlet from the world for a sybarite. Be a philosopher. Go and die as you have lived. Write your confession, summon your dearest friend by telephone, give a little supper--you'll have plenty of time--but see that the affair is over before midnight! This is my advice to you, Estermen; these are also my orders, my final orders. If I find you alive when I return, or the confession unwritten, I will show you how death may be made more horrible than anything you have yet conceived." Prince Falkenberg turned on his heel and left the apartment. Estermen remained for several moments shrinking back in the chair upon which he had collapsed. Then he rose and with trembling footsteps stole to the window, peering out from behind the blind. The man at the cafe opposite was still there! _ |
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