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But when all goes well, then I am 'old Schratt, 'old hag, 'old woman, and I must take my orders and beg nicely and ... bah!" Her words ended in a gulp, which in any other woman would have been a sob. Then she added in her hard harlot's voice: "You needn't worry your head about him, there! Leave him to me! It's my trade!"
Like some nightmare film, the crowded hours of the past few weeks flashed past my eyes, a jostling procession of figures Semlin with his blue lips and livid face, Schratt with her bejewelled hands, the Jew Kore, Haase with his bullet head, Francis, sadly musing on the café verandah ... and Monica, all in white, as I saw her that night at the Esplanade ... my thoughts always came back to her, a white and pitiful figure in some dusty courtyard at lamplight facing a row of levelled rifles....
"Good, good!" said the German and put her lamp down on the table. "There was a telephone message for you," she added, "to say that der Stelze will come at eight in the morning to receive what you have brought." The deuce! This was getting awkward. Who the devil was Stelze? "Coming at eight is he?" I said, simply for the sake of saying something. "Jawohl!" replied Frau Schratt.
"Now, what are we going to do with this?" I said. "You must help me, Frau Schratt. This is serious. This must not be found here." She looked up at me in surprise. "That?" she said, and she kicked the body with her foot. "Oh, that will be all right with die Schratt! "It will not be found here, young man!" And she chuckled with all the full-bodied good humour of a fat person. "You mean?"
This is shown by the fact that on two separate occasions she honored Frau Schratt with a visit at the actress's villa near Ischl.
"Shall I tell you what was in that telegram they just brought me? It was from Schratt, our faithful Schratt, who shall have a bangle for this night's work, to say that the corpse at the hotel has a chain round its neck with an identity disc in the name of Semlin. Ha! you didn't know that either, did you? "And you would bargain and chaffer with me! You would dictate your terms, you scum!
The proprietress is a good German, jawohl ... Frau Anna Schratt her name is. The gentleman need only say he comes from Franz at the Bopparder Hof." I gave the man a gulden and bade him get me a cab. It was still pouring. As we rattled away over the glistening cobble-stones, my mind travelled back over the startling events of the day.
I said, "and ... and took charge of things generally, eh?" Her little eyes snapped viciously. "Ach!" she said, "der Stelze is der Stelze. He has power; he has authority; he can make and unmake men. But I ... I in my time have broken a dozen better men than he and yet he dares to tell Anna Schratt that ... that ..."
The cape which was glistening with rain was half open, and displayed a vast bosom tightly compressed into a white silk blouse. In one hand she carried an oil lamp. "Frau Schratt," she said by way of introduction, and raised the lamp to look more closely at me. Then I saw her face change.
"When they are in a difficulty, when there are complications, when there is any unpleasantness.. like this ... they remember die Schratt, 'die fesche Anna, as they called me once, and it is 'gnadige Frau' here and 'gnadige Frau' there and a diamond bracelet or a pearl ring, if only I will do the little conjuring trick that will smooth everything over.
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