Niels Heinrich became aware of the terrible meaning of this silence, and words came from him raspingly: “Well, what’s wanted?”
Christian leaned with both hands upon the back of the chair, and looked at Niels Heinrich. He was pale, and struggled for expression. “It would be important to determine where Michael was hidden in the time during which he was gone,” he began. He spoke differently now—more gropingly and searchingly, quiveringly and uncertainly, as though, during his very speaking, he were constantly addressing questions to himself. “It would be extremely important. Michael is Ruth’s brother. Perhaps you have heard that for six days he could not be found anywhere. Whenever the commissary of police or the investigating judge try to question him, he has an attack of hysterics. So they have determined to let him be for a while, merely keeping a strict watch over him; but he will not move from the room, and utters no sound. The medical experts shake their heads and are at a loss. And everything depends on his being persuaded to speak at last. Surely it would throw some light on the mystery. But much would be gained if only we discovered where he was hidden.”
Niels Heinrich stared in dark consternation. This man grew more and more terrible. The thought of flight quivered in his eyes. “How d’you expect me to know?” he grunted. “What the bloody hell do I care? How should I know? I told you before—what the——” He lapsed back into his Berlinese jargon, as though it were a refuge.
“I merely thought that rumours might have come your way, that perhaps people who live near the Heinzens noticed or heard something. Do you recall any such thing?”
The question was so earnest, so full of monition and almost of beseeching, that Niels Heinrich, instead of yielding to an impulse of anger, listened, listened to that voice, and had the appearance of one who was bound in fetters. And gradually he really recalled a rumour of that kind which had come to him. There was among his acquaintances a woman of the streets called Molly Gutkind. On account of her plump body and white skin she was known as the Little Maggot. She was quite young, barely seventeen. A few days ago he had been told that the Little Maggot had given shelter to a boy for quite a while, that she had carefully hidden him from everyone, and that, since then, a complete change had come over her. Before that, she had been cheerful and careless; now she was melancholy, and haunted the streets no more.
He had been told this as he was told all the news of the lower world, but he had paid no attention to the anecdote, and it had slipped from his memory. Now it emerged in his mind and fitted the case in question. An instinct told him that it fitted; but that very perception increased his feeling of defencelessness before this man who seemed now to be gazing into him and tearing from him things silent and hidden and even forgotten. He must follow up the rumour, and very secretively get to the bottom of it and test it. In order to say something and tear himself away at last, he murmured that he’d see what could be done, but the gentleman mustn’t count on him, because spying was not his kind of business. He dragged himself shiftily to the door with a wavering, withered expression. He rubbed his moist fingers together and lit a cigarette, shivered in the coolness that met him from the outer hall, and turned up the collar of his yellow overcoat.
Christian courteously accompanied him to the door, and said softly: “I hope to see you soon. I shall expect you.”
On the landing of the second storey Niels Heinrich stopped and laughed his goat-like laugh senselessly into the void.
XIII
Prince Wiguniewski wrote to Cornelius Ermelang at Vaucluse in the South of France: