This unexpected windfall delighted Frau Kupfer and Gertrude. The first thing they did was to send fifty pounds' "interest" to the doctor's widow at Leipzig, and the second to take a larger and better flat, retaining their original residence, however, and using it mainly as a hiding-place for the choicest provisions.
Frau Kupfer paid her two maids lavishly and fed them luxuriously, and they were hers body and soul in a city where famine threatened to stalk abroad. It was easy, therefore, to stock the flat with preserves, bacon, ham, wines, cigars, cigarettes and soap, besides a huge amount of clothing.
The stock was replenished from time to time, while now that their headquarters were at one of the finest flats in Berlin, Frau Kupfer and Gertrude were able to proceed from financial triumph to social triumph.
Countess von Hohn was promptly paid her first dividend of two thousand pounds a month after she had invested her money, but she promptly sent the cheque back with a request that it might be added to her capital.
Frau Kupfer must have screamed with laughter when she read this proof of how complete was her power over her first great dupe. She was, indeed, succeeding beyond her wildest dreams.
The widow at Leipzig also helped considerably, for she wrote to a rich and highly placed friend in Berlin about her luck, and that friend promptly called on Frau Kupfer, and begged to be permitted to invest in the great food trust. She found the woman entertaining half a dozen ladies, all of whom bore names that were household words in the country, and when she rather pettishly complained of being bothered she did not resent her manner, but became more supplicating than ever, and eventually went away poorer by a thousand pounds, which she had "invested."
Frau Kupfer was now fairly launched on a career of gigantic swindling. It was no longer necessary to pretend that she had tens of thousands of pounds at her bankers. It was a fact. The money simply poured in upon her every day.
All sorts and conditions of people clamoured to be allowed to join the secret food trust. They quite understood that everything had to be done quietly. The common people, who had no inkling of the tremendous profits that were being made by speculators in food, must be kept in ignorance lest they should complain, and the horrible Socialist papers make trouble for the profiteers.
Besides, as Frau Kupfer said, they must not forget that they were all partners in a scheme that was daily contravening the Government regulations as to maximum prices.
Thus the times were in her favour. The war dominated everybody's thoughts, and food was so scarce that it ceased to be a question of prices. All were willing to pay provided they obtained the provisions, and so with the necessity for secrecy and the blind, unquestioning obedience and trustfulness of her clients, Frau Kupfer's position seemed impregnable.