"How can we arrange anything in a ten minutes' conversation?" inquired Axel indignantly.
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot neglect all my other business."
"I do not remember your having been so pressed for time formerly. I shall expect you again this afternoon."
"An impossibility."
"Then to-morrow the first thing. That is, if I am still here."
The lawyer grinned. "It is not so easy to get out of these places as it is to get in," he said, drawing on his gloves. "By the way, my fees in such cases are payable beforehand."
Axel flushed. He could hardly believe the evidence of his senses that this was the obsequious person who had for so long managed his affairs. "My brother Gustav will arrange all that," he said stiffly. "You know I can do nothing here. He is coming this afternoon."
"Oh, is he?" said the lawyer sceptically. "Is he indeed, now? That will be a remarkable instance of brotherly devotion. I am truly glad to hear that. Good-afternoon," he nodded; and went out, leaving Axel in a fury.
The one good result of his visit was that some time later Axel was provided with writing materials. He immediately fell to writing letters and telegrams; urgent letters and telegrams, of a desperate importance to himself. When his coffee was brought he gave them to the warder, and begged him to see that they were despatched at once; then he paced up and down again, relieved at least by feeling that he could now communicate with the outer world.
"They have gone?" he asked anxiously, next time he saw the warder. "Jawohl," was the reply. And gone they had, but only by slow stages to the office of the Examining Judge Schultz, where they lay in a heap waiting till he should have leisure and inclination to read them, and, if he approved of their contents, order them to be posted. There they lay for three days, and most of them were not passed after all, because the Examining Judge disliked the tone of the assurances in them that the writer was innocent. He knew that trick; every prisoner invariably protested the same thing. But these protestations were unusually strong. They were of such strength that they actually produced in his own hardened and experienced mind a passing doubt, absurd of course, and not for one moment to be considered, whether the Stralsund authorities might not have blundered. It was a dangerous notion to put into people's heads, that the Stralsund authorities, of whom he was one, could blunder. Blunders meant a reproof from headquarters and a retarded career; their possibility, therefore, was not to be entertained for a moment. Even should they have been made, it must not get about that they had been made. He accordingly suppressed nearly all the letters.