A Cigarette-Maker's Romance Part 9

Akulina's unmistakable step was heard in the pa.s.sage a moment later.

Schmidt would have preferred that Fischelowitz should have come himself, though he managed to live on very good terms with Akulina. Though far from tactful he guessed that in a matter concerning the Count, the tobacconist would prove more obliging than his wife.

"What is the matter?" inquired the mistress of the house, opening the door wide after she had recognised the Cossack in the feeble light of the staircase, by looking through the little hole in the panel.

"Good-evening, Frau Fischelowitz," said Schmidt, trying to appear as calm and collected as possible. "I would like to speak to your husband upon a little matter of business."

"He is not at home yet. I left him in the shop."

Almost before the words were out of her mouth, Schmidt had turned and was running down the stairs, two at a time. Akulina called him back.

"Wait a minute!" she cried, advancing to the hand-rail on the landing.

"What in the world are you in such a hurry about?"

"Oh--nothing--nothing especial," answered the man, suddenly stopping and looking up.

Akulina set her fat hands on her hips and held her head a little on one side. She had plenty of curiosity in her composition.

"Well, I must say," she observed, "for a man who is not in a hurry about anything, you are uncommonly brisk with your feet. If it is only a matter of business, I daresay I will do as well as my husband."

"Oh, I daresay," admitted Schmidt, scratching his head. "But this is rather a personal matter of business, you see."

"And you mean that you want some money, I suppose," suggested Akulina, at a venture.

"No, no, not at all--no money at all. It is not a question of money." He hoped to satisfy her by a statement which was never without charm in her ears. But Akulina was not satisfied; on the contrary, she began to suspect that something serious might be the matter, for she could see Schmidt's face better now, as he looked up to her, facing the gaslight that burned above her own head. Having been violently angry not more than an hour or two earlier, her nerves were not altogether calmed, and the memory of the scene in the shop was still vividly present. There was no knowing what the Count might not have done, in retaliation for the verbal injuries she had heaped upon him, and her quick instinct connected Schmidt's unusually anxious appearance and evident haste to be off, with some new event in which the Count had played a part.

"Have you seen the Count?" she inquired, just as Schmidt was beginning to move again.

"Yes," answered the latter, trying to a.s.sume a doubtful tone of voice. "I believe--in fact, I did see him--for a moment--"

Akulina smiled to herself, proud of her own acuteness.

"I thought so," she said. "And he has made some trouble about that wretched doll--"

"How did you guess that?" asked Schmidt, turning and ascending a few steps. He was very much astonished.

"Oh, I know many things--many interesting things. And now you want to warn my husband of what the Count has done, do you not? It must be something serious, since you are in such a hurry. Come in, Herr Schmidt, and have a gla.s.s of tea. Fischelowitz will be at home in a few minutes, and you see I have guessed half your story, so you may as well tell me the other half and be done with it. It is of no use for you to go to the shop after him.

He has shut up by this time, and you cannot tell which way he will come home, can you? Much better come in and have a gla.s.s of tea. The samovar is lighted and everything is ready, so that you need not stay long."

Schmidt lingered doubtfully a moment on the stairs. The closing hour was certainly past in early-closing Munich, and he might miss the tobacconist in the street. It seemed wiser to wait for him in his house, and so the Cossack reluctantly accepted the invitation, which, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, he would have regarded as a great honour. Akulina ushered him into the little sitting-room and prepared him a large gla.s.s of tea with a slice of lemon in it. She filled another for herself and sat down opposite to him at the table.

"The poor Count!" she exclaimed. "He is sure to get himself into trouble some day. I suppose people cannot help behaving oddly when they are mad, poor things. And the Count is certainly mad, Herr Schmidt."

"Quite mad, poor man. He has had one of his worst attacks to-day."

"Yes," a.s.sented the wily Akulina, "and if you could have seen him and heard him in the shop this evening--" She held up her hands and shook her head.

"What did he do and say?"

"Oh, such things, such things! Poor man, of course I am very sorry for him, and I am glad that my husband finds room to employ him, and keep him from starving. But really, this evening he quite made me lose my temper. I am afraid I was a little rough, considering that he is sensitive. But to hear the man talk about his money, and his t.i.tles, and his dignities, when he is only just able to keep body and soul together! It is enough to irritate the seven archangels, Herr Schmidt, indeed it is! And then at the same time there was that dreadful Gigerl, and my head was splitting--I am sure there will be a thunder-storm to-night--altogether, I could not bear it any longer, and I actually upset the Gigerl out of anger, and it rolled to the floor and was broken. Of course it is very foolish to lose one's temper in that way, but after all, I am only a weak woman, and I confess it was a relief to me when I saw the poor Count take the thing away. I hope I did not really hurt his feelings, for he is an excellent workman, in spite of his madness. What did he say, Herr Schmidt? I would so like to know how he took it. Of course he was very angry. Poor man, so mad, so completely mad on that one point!"

"To tell the truth," said Schmidt, who had listened attentively, "he did not like what you said to him at all."

"Well, really, was it my fault, Herr Schmidt? I am only a woman, and I suppose I may be excused if I lose my temper once in a year or so. It is very wearing on the nerves. Every Tuesday evening begins the same old song about the fortune and letters, and the journey to Russia. One gets very tired of it in the long-run. At first it used to amuse me."

"Do you think that Herr Fischelowitz can have gone anywhere else instead of coming home?" asked the Cossack, finis.h.i.+ng the gla.s.s of tea, which he had swallowed burning hot out of sheer anxiety to get away.

"Oh no, indeed," cried Akulina in a tone of the most sincere conviction.

"He always tells me where he is going. You have no idea what a good husband he is, and what a good man--though I daresay you know that after being with us so many years. Now, I am sure that if he had the least idea that anything had happened to the poor Count, he would run all the way home in order to hear it as soon as possible."

"No more tea, thank you, Frau Fischelowitz," said Schmidt, but she took his gla.s.s with a quiet smile and shredded a fresh piece of lemon into it and filled it up again, quite heedless of his protest. Schmidt resigned himself, and thanked her civilly.

"Of course," she said, presently, as she busied herself with the arrangements of the samovar, "of course it is nothing so very serious, is it? I daresay the Count has told you that he would not work any more for us, and you are anxious to arrange the matter? In that case, you need have no fear. I am always ready to forgive and forget, as they say, though I am only a weak woman."

"That is very kind of you," observed Schmidt, with a glitter in his eyes which Akulina did not observe.

"I guessed the truth, did I not?"

"Not exactly. The trouble is rather more serious than that. The fact is, as we were at supper, a man at another table saw the Gigerl in our hands and swore that it had been stolen from him some months ago."

"And what happened then?" asked Akulina with sudden interest.

"I suppose you may as well know," said Schmidt, regretfully. "There was a row, and the man made a great deal of trouble and at last the police were called in, and I came to get Herr Fischelowitz himself to come and prove that the Gigerl was his. You see why I am in such a hurry."

"Do you think they have arrested the Count?"

"I imagine that every one concerned would be taken to the police-station."

"And then?"

"And then, unless the affair is cleared up, they will be kept there all night."

"All night!" exclaimed Akulina, holding up her hands in real or affected horror. "Poor Count! He will be quite crazy, now, I fear--especially as this is Tuesday evening."

"But he must be got out at once!" cried Schmidt in a tone of decision.

"Herr Fischelowitz will surely not allow--"

"No indeed! You have only to wait until he comes home, and then you can go together. Or better still, if he does not come back in a quarter of an hour, and if he has really shut up the shop as usual, you might look for him at the Cafe Luitpold, and if he is not there, it is just possible that he may have looked in at the Gartner Platz Theatre, for which he often has free tickets, and if the performance is over--I fancy it is, by this time--he may be in the Cafe Maximilian, or he may have gone to drink a gla.s.s of beer in the Platzl, for he often goes there, and--well, if you do not find him in any of those places--"

"But, good Heavens, Frau Fischelowitz, you said you were quite sure he was coming home at once! Now I have lost all this time!"

Schmidt had risen quickly to his feet, in considerable anxiety and haste.

Akulina smiled good-humouredly.

"You see," she said, "it is just possible that to-night, as he was a little annoyed with me for being sharp with the Count, he may have gone somewhere without telling me. But I really could not foresee it, because he is such a very good--"

"I know," interrupted the Cossack. "If I miss him, you will tell him, will you not? Thank you, and good-night, Frau Fischelowitz, I cannot afford to wait a moment longer."

So saying Johann Schmidt made for the door and got out of the house this time without any attempt on the part of his amiable hostess to detain him further. She had indeed omitted to tell him that her last speech was not merely founded on a supposition, since Fischelowitz had really been very much annoyed and had declared that he would not come home but would spend the evening with a friend of his who lived in the direction of Schwabing, one of the suburbs of Munich farthest removed from the places in which she advised Schmidt to make search.