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earnestly.

Jakob Altmann was a railway porter, not in one of the passenger stations of Berlin where

there was nice clean luggage to be carried and tips to collect from grateful passengers, but in the

goods yard, where he spent laborious days dragging heavy boxes about and staggering under the

weight of awkward parcels. His wife Gertrud said repeatedly, and usually in the same words, that

it was entirely Jakob’s own fault that he was never raised to the passenger grade; no one could

expect gentlefolk to have any dealings with such a rough, clumsy, loutish, mannerless, loud-

voiced, ham-handed bullock of a man. She knew what was what, having been with the same

family of gracious ladies till she was insane enough to throw up her good place to marry such a

lout, a lump, a baboon—

“I wish you were with them still,” growled Jakob.

“But they’re all dead.”

“That’s what I mean,” he said, and swaggered out laughing.

He drew his wages one Friday evening as usual and returned to the porters’ room to get

his lunch-bag before he went home. Most of the men had lunch-bags alike, the black American-

cloth shopping bag familiar to the poor in most countries; some were shabbier than others but

there was otherwise little difference unless one wrote one’s name on the lining, but why bother?

If they did get mixed up it did not matter much as they never had anything in them at the end of

the day. On this occasion there was something in Jakob’s; for some reason he had not been

hungry at dinner-time and had only eaten half his sausage, so he was naturally taking the rest of

it home again. One does not waste good food. Since his name began with A he was paid among

the first; when he reached the smoke-blackened brick hutch called the porters’ room the space

under the bench was full of black bags, with a basket or two for variety, one tin box and several

cardboard ones. Jakob picked up his own bag, felt the lump inside to make sure it was the right

one, and walked home as usual with his friend Buergers who lived two doors down the street.

They went into a place of refreshment on the way home and had one or two, since it was

pay-day, and then ambled off to their respective wives.

“Late again,” said Gertrud, “as usual. Been gossiping with that mutton-head Buergers, I

suppose. Been fined this week?”

“No,” said Jakob good-naturedly. “Been lucky this week, didn’t bust anything. Here’s the

money.”

“This isn’t all,” said Gertrud, counting it.

“Had a drink on the way home,” explained Jakob. He explained this every Friday, and

every Friday Gertrud received it as though it were a fresh enormity. “Buergers stood me one so I

‘ad to return the compliment as they say in ‘igh social circles, among the toffs you’re so fond

of.”

“Taking to drink, now. If Buergers’ wife is such a soft fool she’ll put up with only getting

‘alf the money as is her lawful due, I’m not, Jakob Altmann.”

“Buergers’ wife is one as ‘as too much sense to nag at a man the minute he comes in,”

said Jakob enviously. “Happy, they are, if she isn’t everlastingly buying things for the ‘ouse as is

no use when they’re got. Antimacassars, bah!”

“If Buergers’ wife is such a slut as to be content with an ‘ome looking as if the brokers

‘ad been in—”

“An” if you call two glasses of beer at the end of a day’s work ‘taking to drink’ you’re

the biggest fool in the street.”

“That’s right!” screamed Gertrud. “Call me names!”

“And Buergers’ wife isn’t a slut, she’s a decent, quiet, clean woman—”

“That’s right! Taking up with another woman! I suppose Buergers—”

“Will you stop!” roared Jakob in a voice which shook the windows.

“
Herrgott
, I can’t stand this, I’m goin’ out. I shall kill you one of these days, then you’ll

be sorry.”

“What’s that in the bag?” asked Gertrud, noticing an unaccustomed bulge in it. “Brought

something ‘ome?”

“Only some of the sausage,” answered Jakob, diving into the bag for the parcel. “Didn’t

eat it all.”

“Wasn’t good enough for Your Lordship, I suppose?”

“Oh, just the same as usual. Only when I was eatin’ it I ‘appened to think of you, my

love, as the song says, an’ it put me right off.” He pulled the packet out.

“That’s right! Be rude! There’s the fire goin’ out now,” said Gertrud, diving at the stove

and producing a frightful clatter with the poker. “Go out to the shed an’ bring me another bucket

of briquettes, quick.”

But Jakob neither moved nor spoke.

“Did you ‘ear me?” said Gertrud, pushing a few tired-looking twigs into the stove.

“Suppose I’m goin’ to slave for you all day long when you’re out an’ then carry ‘eavy buckets in

while you sit in an armchair an’ twiddle your thumbs? This wood won’t catch, now.”

Still no answer, and Gertrud lost her temper completely. “
Will
you do as I say?” she

screamed, and hit the top of the iron stove a terrific welt with the poker, which bent. “Now that’s

gone, I wish it had been your head, you—” she said, turning round, and suddenly her voice

changed. “What’s that you’ve got there?”

“Money,” said Jakob in a shaking voice, “lots of money.”

“Give it to me,” said Gertrud, diving at the table, but he caught her by the wrists and

whirled her across the room, casually, without looking what he was doing, with an easy strength.

“I must have picked up the wrong bag,” said Jakob in a puzzled voice.

“How much is there there?”

“Shan’t tell you. Here’s some for you,” said Jakob, counting out ten-mark notes. “Go an’

buy some more antimacassars if they make you ‘appy, and for ‘eaven’s sake get drunk on the

rest, maybe you’d be pleasanter company than you are sober.”

Gertrud watched him as he shuffled up the other notes, a fat wad of them, and replaced

them between the cardboard covers he found them in, squares of cardboard with elastic bands

round them.

“Where are you going?”

“Out. I told you that before.”

“Not with all that money,” said Gertrud, and made a lightning snatch at the packet. Jakob

did not attempt to evade her, he held firmly to the money with one hand and with the other dealt

her a stinging slap on the side of her head which sent her spinning to the floor, almost too

astonished to cry, because in spite of incessant provocation he had never hit her before. Jakob did

not even look to see if she were hurt, he put the money carefully in an inner pocket and walked

out of the house.

He started the evening by taking Buergers and his wife to a restaurant where they got

good food, appetizingly cooked and cleanly served, after which Frau Buergers, who was an

understanding woman, went home and left the men to enjoy themselves after their own fashion.

Unfortunately, their tastes in pleasure were limited and unrefined, and by ten o’clock they were

hopelessly drunk. They staggered, arm in arm, along a dignified street which was new to them,

since they had lost their way, singing the German equivalent of “Dear old pals—jolly old pals—”

in anything but harmony. They came to the entrance of a short cul-de-sac leading only to the

door of a church, dark, silent and deserted at that hour of the night, and turned into it, not

intentionally but because their feet happened to go that way. Half-way along it they tripped over

something and fell down.

“What’s that?” asked Jakob. “You fall over something, too?”

Buergers felt about in the obscurity. “Not something,” he announced. “Somebody.”

Jakob also investigated. “Qui’ right. Somebody. I say, he’s had some, had lots. Lots more

than us. We’re bit tiddley, he’s blind. Corpsed.”

“Poor ole corpse,” said Buergers affably. “Wake up, catch cold.”

“Qui’ right. Wake up, corpse.”

They shook him, but Reinhardt took no notice.

“Can’t leave ‘m here, die of cold,” said Jakob. “Not Clish—Christian.”

“Pick up,” suggested Buergers. “Take ‘m home.”

“Not my home,” said Jakob firmly. “Gertrud—wouldn’t like ‘m. Very respectable

woman, Gertrud. Too ‘spectable. Don’t like her.”

“Well, take ‘m somewhere,” urged Buergers, and they hoisted him up, holding him under

each arm, and carried him along without effort though his feet were trailing, for the two porters

even when drunk were stronger than most men when they are sober.

“ ‘Minds me,” said Jakob, “carrying ole Hoffenberg.”

“Yes,” agreed Buergers. “Jus’ like funeral. Sing!”

So they emerged into the very dignified street again, proceeding in zigzags and dismally

chanting that dirge of German funerals, “I had a comrade, A better none could be,” and met the

constable completing the circuit of his beat.

“ ‘Ere!” he said sharply. “What’s all this? Stop that noise.”

“This feller’s corpsed,” explained Jakob. “Take ‘m away. I’ll give ‘m to you.”

They let go of Reinhardt, who immediately collapsed like a sack in the road, face

downwards, and the constable, seeing that this was more than a one-man job, blew his whistle

for reinforcements, and waited. Jakob and Buergers sat down on each side of Reinhardt and went

on singing till the constable hushed them again, whereupon Buergers said he was unkind and

burst into tears, while Jakob went to sleep.

Another constable and a sergeant arrived and the first policeman explained the

circumstances.

“Know who they are?” asked the sergeant.

“No, sir. Don’t belong round here, that is, I haven’t seen the middle man’s face, but they

were all together.”

“Let’s look,” said the sergeant, so they turned Reinhardt over and shone a torch on his

face. In spite of the mud smears on it the constables recognized him at once.

“
Herrgott
! It’s Reinhardt, night caretaker at the Record House.”

“He’ll lose his job for this,” said the sergeant ominously.

“He can’t be drunk, sir, I saw him an hour ago stone sober, and just after that Herr

Lehmann and Herr Gerhardt went in; he wouldn’t get drunk with them there.”

“Besides,” said the other constable, “he never does.”

“There’s something very odd here,” said the sergeant. “Get an ambulance, Georg, and

have him taken to hospital. Handcuff these two to the railings, can’t bother with them now.

Johann, come to the Record House with me.”

When they looked through the letter-box of the Record House they saw the end of the

passage a mass of flames, and two men walking towards them.

After the shooting had ceased, the fire-brigade arrived and took control of proceedings at

the Record House, and the constables remembered their charges whom they had left handcuffed

to the railings. They were still there, with the crowd surging round and tripping over their legs,

but nothing troubled them nor made them afraid, for they were sound asleep. Efforts to awaken

them having failed completely, they were lifted on to wheeled stretchers and taken to the police

station.

Here in the morning came the Chief of Police in person, pursuant upon his promise to

Goebbels that he would look into the affair himself. Here were two men who had been in

company with the damaged Reinhardt; very well, he would start with them.

It was quite easy to start, but quite impossible to go on. The police stated that they had

found a large number of ten-mark notes, eleven hundred and eighty-two to be exact, upon the

person of the prisoner Altmann, who could give no satisfactory explanation as to how he came

by them. There were also two squares of cardboard which, with two rubber bands, had held the

money together; one of the pieces of card had notes scribbled on it in pencil. The cards and the

money were handed over to the Chief of Police.

Interrogated, Jakob Altmann deposed that he found the money in his bag when he got

home. That he had no idea whose it was or how it got there, and suggested, in a flight of fancy

for which the police rebuked him, Santa Claus. That he had noticed a lump in the bag but thought

it was sausage. That he had gone home, had a row with his wife, given her some of the money to

keep her quiet, and then gone out with the rest of it and taken his friends the Buergerses out to

supper. That after supper Frau Buergers had gone home to mind the kids while Buergers and he

went on the binge. No, he could not recall where they went, just to one place and another. No, he

didn’t know how they came to fetch up in that quarter of Berlin, supposed they must have lost

their way. No, he didn’t remember meeting Reinhardt, didn’t know anybody of that name,

though, of course, they’d met and talked to a lot of people they didn’t know in the course of the

evening, and who was this Reinhardt, anyway?

Buergers, a gentler and less truculent man than Altmann, but also of a lower mental

grade, remembered even less of the evening than his friend, but what he did remember

corroborated Altmann’s statements. No, he didn’t know where the money came from. Old Jakob

said he’d found it in his bag and Buergers had simply believed him. Why not? It was no business

of his, it wasn’t his money.

Recalled, Altmann said that the only explanation he could suggest was that he had

inadvertently exchanged bags with someone who had got his sausage in exchange for the notes,

he explained how much alike most of the bags were.