“You do not know which is the number? No? Thank you. I am sorry to have troubled you.”
Next moment the door was shut with a slam and I was walking away down the street. At the second lamp I stopped, then took out the fan to read the words more carefully. They were these, scribbled as though in haste:
“I am in danger of my life. Help me. Asta von Winterstein.”
CHAPTER XX
THE LIVING DEAD
Asta von Winterstein!
I wondered for a moment whether I was not dreaming. I read the words over twice again, searched the fan for others, and finding none, thrust it into my pocket. Then I went back to the house, crossing the road the better to survey it from the other side of the street.
Asta von Winterstein! But she was dead, killed in that premeditated accident on the Salenberg road. Or, perhaps, was this another trick of the Chancellor’s, and was she alive after all? Or had the attempt failed, and in place of the merciful swiftness of that rush into eternity had she escaped to endure the longer agony of the fear of a death sure, yet uncertain as to its time and manner? I knew well enough from Szalay’s and Lindheim’s cases what that meant. I could believe anything of Rallenstein the Jaguar, anything. Nothing could surprise me, nothing seemed improbable.
I walked quickly along the street till I came to the portico of a great house at the end. Here, sheltered from observation, I took out the fan and re-read the fateful sentence. It fascinated me. I could not keep my eyes from it. The poor girl’s face and form came back to my mind, vividly, now, as I had seen her at the dance. I hardly dared to think of the unspeakable agony that house might enclose. What could I do? I was worse than helpless; a stranger, in a country where the government was a law unto itself. I went back to the house, looking eagerly for a sign that I might act upon. No one was to be seen at any of the windows, though the piano still sounded. Ugh! it set my teeth on edge. A waltz was being played softly; a dance of death, indeed! I walked up and down the street, not knowing what to do; realizing my utter helplessness, yet without being able to leave the spot. Since that night I have often thought how foolish it was of me thus to court suspicion, but at the time the horror I felt made me too reckless to care for that.