The Man Without a Memory by Arthur W. Marchmont (good summer reads txt) 📖

"Where did you get it? In Berlin—Johann Lassen?"

"You don't look pretty when you snarl like that, Glocken; and if you believe I'm Johann Lassen, you're a braver man than I think. We're alone here; and if I were that man, do you think I'd let you live to tell the police when a tap from this spanner of mine would silence you for ever?"

That hadn't occurred to him and he jumped away from me as if dreading an instant attack.

"I'm not going to touch you, man; on the contrary I'm going to make it easy for you. I'll give you a lift into Lingen in Fischer's car and we'll stop at the police station, if you like. I saw your game in a second this morning and it suited me to play up to it. I was told you were a treacherous skunk, but I didn't think you were such a gorgeous fool. Come along and we'll have that chat with the police."

He hung back, either because he was afraid to trust himself in the car with me or because my bluff puzzled him. It turned out to be the latter.

"I don't want to do you any harm, Bulich," he muttered.

"You wooden-headed ass, do you think I'd let you, if you could? Come to the police and tell your story; but I warn you beforehand that if you dare to utter a word against me like that, you're a ruined man, lock, stock, and barrel. Behind me in this affair is one of the most powerful men in the whole Empire, whose arm is long enough to reach even cunning Farmer Glocken, squeeze him to a jelly, and leave the remnants to rot in gaol. And he'll do it, Glocken, as sure as my real name isn't Hans Bulich, the instant I tell him the scurvy tricks you've tried with me to-day." I said this with all the concentrated sternness at my command, and it went right home and frightened him through and through.

"What—what is your name, then?" he stammered.

I shoved my face close to his. "Look at me, you clown, look at me well, and then ask it—if you dare."

It was a beautiful bluff. Whether he thought he recognized some one of the innumerable princelings of the Empire or not, I can't say; but he drew back and doffed his hat, with a muttered: "I beg your pardon, sir."

"That's better. Now I'm Hans Bulich again; and don't forget it," I said with a change of manner and tone, as I climbed into the car and beckoned to him to get up beside me. We ran back to Lingen in silence, and I pulled up just before reaching the police station. "Here you are," I suggested.

"I'm going back by train, sir, if you please," he answered with delightful deference; and I took him to the railway and dismissed him with a last sharp caution to hold his tongue.

I was well over that fence and, if the rest could be as easily negotiated, I should soon be after Nessa. Glocken was the only man I feared, because he had seen us so close to Osnabrück. The fright he had had would probably keep him quiet for a day or two, until he had had time to digest the matter; and the interval must be turned to the best account.

Old Fischer was glad to see me, asked about the day's happenings, and was relieved to know that Vandervelt had been able to make the return trip. During the evening we discussed our plans; and after a really refreshing night's sleep, I went off to the shed to continue the work there.

Fischer was so elated by his discovery of a mechanic that he brought several people in during the morning; members of the smuggling ring, I gathered, for they seemed as pleased about it as he was: chatted to each other and to me as they watched me at work, asked all sorts of silly questions about cars and engines and parts; each of them fussing over me like a hen with one chick.

About midday I knocked off to dine with Fischer, and we were smoking a pipe afterwards when the police sergeant, Braun, arrived in a somewhat excited mood and called the old fellow out of the room.

"I'd better be getting back," I said; but Braun stopped me, saying he had come about me.

This gave me a twinge, and I passed a decidedly uncomfortable ten minutes while they were jawing with their heads together in the shop. But there was no cause for alarm, it turned out.

Fischer explained it all. My fame as an aero mechanic had reached the ears of the proprietor of the Halbermond Hotel where an army flying man had arrived, and when he had inquired for a man of the sort, the proprietor had mentioned me, and I was ordered to go to him.

Fischer didn't like the business at all, fearing that it might interfere with his plans; and it was this which he and Braun had been discussing so earnestly.

"You'll have to be very careful, Bulich. If he thinks you're half as good a hand as you are, he's likely to want you for the army."

"I'll be careful. Do you know what the job is?" I asked Braun.

"Pulitz didn't know either," he said, shaking his head.

"Who's Pulitz?"

"The blabber who keeps the Halbermond," replied Fischer irritably. "He must have lost his head to say a word about you. It wouldn't matter if you were twenty years older; but there, he was always a fool and always will be, I suppose."

"Who's the flying man?"

"I don't know. Stranger here; just driven up in his car. If he'd been any one any of us knew, we might have done something."

"Doesn't the Halbermond man, Pulitz, know him?"

"Never set eyes on him before, and there wasn't the least need to tell him a word about you. But that's the fool all over, trying to curry favour and not a thought of the mischief he could do," grumbled Fischer.

"Well, shall I chance it, and not go?"

"That won't do," cried Braun. "He'd report me and have the whole town hunting for you. You must go, right enough."

"Do the best you can to get out of it," chimed in Fischer. "Let him think you're no better than a clumsy fool."

"All right, I'll do my best," I replied, laughing, and set out for the hotel.

I was in two minds about the thing. It would never do to be called up as an ordinary ranker; but it might be another matter to go as an air mechanic. Enrolled in the name of Hans Bulich, I should be safe from the trouble which was waiting for Johann Lassen. There were other possibilities, moreover. If I could get hold of some valuable information about the German aero service and their types of new planes, it would go a long way with the people at home to condone any breakage of my leave. I had no wish to turn spy, but to be driven into it was a very different proposition.

More than that, it was not at all improbable that when they found I did really know something worth knowing about a bus, I might be told off to take one up; and in that case, well, they wouldn't see it again, if I was within flying distance of the frontier.

It was best to be careful, however, as Fischer had urged, and not say too much until I could learn what the flying man really wanted. So I turned into the shed before going to him, mucked myself up a bit with black grease, paying particular attention to my face, to avoid the remote but possible chance of recognition, shoved my hands in my pockets and slouched along to the interview.

The luck was with me at the start. The porter was just going out, told me hurriedly where to find the officer's private room, and then ran off, saying he had to catch a train. He was thus the only person to see me enter the hotel: the importance of which fact I realized later. The officer was alone and had been lunching, and the array of drinks testified to his having done himself remarkably well. Next I recognized him; but he had drunk too much to remember me. He was a coarse-tongued bully named Vibach, who had been at Göttingen in my day, and had a well-deserved reputation as a blustering coward.

"What the devil do you mean by keeping me like this?" he said angrily. "Do you suppose I've nothing to do but kick my heels waiting for scum like you?"

"I'm very sorry, sir, but I only just heard you wished to see me," I replied, with appropriate servile nervousness.

"I've a good mind to put you under arrest. And are you the man these Lingen fools think a good mechanic? You look more like a dirty street sweeper, coming into my presence in that filthy state."

"I thought it best——"

"Who the devil wants to know what you think?" he burst in, pouring out another bumper of wine and draining it at a draught. "Answer my question, can't you? Not stand there gibbering like a lunatic." There was scarcely a sentence without an oath to punctuate it.

"I came at once without stopping to clean myself, sir."

"Then some other fool must have bungled my message. I said you were to come immediately, and when I say a thing I mean it." Another oath for garnishment. "What's your clownish name, confound you?"

"Hans Bulich, sir."

"Do you know a plough from an aeroplane?"

"Yes, sir," I answered with Teutonic stolidity.

"Ever been in one?"

"Not in a plough, sir."

He roared an expletive at me. "Are you a fool, or trying to joke with me? That won't pay you, you clod."

"I never joke with my betters, sir. I've been up in an aeroplane, sir."

"Where?"

"Schipphasen, sir."

"Oh, you've been there, have you? How long were you there?" It was a well-known training school and he began to change his opinion of me.

"About a year. I have my certificates and——" I searched in my pockets as if to find them, and said: "I've left them at my lodging, sir."

"Why the devil didn't you tell me that at first?"

"You didn't ask me, sir."

"What are you doing in this hole, then?"

"I was going to Ellendorf, but they asked me to stay here a week or so to do some repairs and things."

"Did they? Like their infernal insolence at a time like this. I'm on my way to Ellendorf now to fetch a new machine, and my fool of a mechanic has got drunk, or lost himself, or something. Can you take his place?"

Could I not? Up with him in the bus, what couldn't I do? But I shook my head doubtfully. "I don't know that I could pilot——"

"You wooden-headed idiot, do you suppose I want you to pilot it?" he roared, with a shout of laughter. "I want you as a mechanic, you fool."

"I didn't know, sir. Of course I could test the plane and see that she's all right for you. That was part of my job at Schipphasen, sir; that and trial flights."

"If that's the case, you ought to be in the army. Have you served?"

"No, sir."

"Why not? You've been in the ranks, I can see that."

Up to that point I had done very well, indeed; but then I tripped. "I was a one-year man, sir." The one-year men were a comparatively limited number drawn from the better class; served for only one year instead of three, and had either passed an examination or been at one of the Universities, and mixed freely with the officers.

"What regiment?" was the next question.

I named one at random; I think it was the 54th Hanoverians. My luck was clean out, for it chanced to be the same in which he himself had served.

"That's devilish funny. Let's have a look at you;" and he straightened up a bit and