University of Virginia Library

CAN A LIFE HIDE ITSELF?

I HAD been reading, as is my wont from
time to time, one of the many volumes of
“The New Pitaval,” that singular record
of human crime and human cunning, and
also of the inevitable fatality which, in every
case, leaves a gate open for detection.
Were it not for the latter fact, indeed, one would turn
with loathing from such endless chronicles of wickedness.
Yet these may be safely contemplated, when one has discovered
the incredible fatuity of crime, the certain weak
mesh in a network of devilish texture; or is it rather the
agency of a power outside of man, a subtile protecting
principle, which allows the operation of the evil element
only that the latter may finally betray itself? Whatever
explanation we may choose, the fact is there, like a tonic
medicine distilled from poisonous plants, to brace our faith
in the ascendancy of Good in the government of the world.

Laying aside the book, I fell into a speculation concerning
the mixture of the two elements in man's nature.
The life of an individual is usually, it seemed to me, a

series of results, the processes leading to which are not
often visible, or observed when they are so. Each act is
the precipitation of a number of mixed influences, more
or less unconsciously felt; the qualities of good and evil
are so blended therein that they defy the keenest moral
analysis; and how shall we, then, pretend to judge of
any one? Perhaps the surest indication of evil (I further
reflected) is that it always tries to conceal itself, and the
strongest incitement to good is that evil cannot be concealed.
The crime, or the vice, or even the self-acknowledged
weakness, becomes a part of the individual consciousness;
it cannot be forgotten or outgrown. It follows a
life through all experiences and to the uttermost ends of
the earth, pressing towards the light with a terrible, demoniac
power. There are noteless lives, of course—lives
that accept obscurity, mechanically run their narrow round
of circumstance, and are lost; but when a life endeavors
to lose itself,—to hide some conscious guilt or failure,—
can it succeed? Is it not thereby lifted above the level
of common experience, compelling attention to itself by
the very endeavor to escape it?

I turned these questions over in my mind, without approaching,
or indeed expecting, any solution,—since I
knew, from habit, the labyrinths into which they would
certainly lead me,—when a visitor was announced. It
was one of the directors of our county almshouse, who
came on an errand to which he attached no great importance.
I owed the visit, apparently, to the circumstance
that my home lay in his way, and he could at once relieve

his conscience of a very trifling pressure and his pocket
of a small package, by calling upon me. His story was
told in a few words; the package was placed upon my
table, and I was again left to my meditations.

Two or three days before, a man who had the appearance
of a “tramp” had been observed by the people of a
small village in the neighborhood. He stopped and looked
at the houses in a vacant way, walked back and forth
once or twice as if uncertain which of the cross-roads to
take, and presently went on without begging or even speaking
to any one. Towards sunset a farmer, on his way to
the village store, found him sitting at the roadside, his
head resting against a fence-post. The man's face was
so worn and exhausted that the farmer kindly stopped
and addressed him; but he gave no other reply than a
shake of the head.

The farmer thereupon lifted him into his light country-wagon,
the man offering no resistance, and drove to the
tavern, where, his exhaustion being so evident, a glass of
whiskey was administered to him. He afterwards spoke
a few words in German, which no one understood. At
the almshouse, to which he was transported the same
evening, he refused to answer the customary questions,
although he appeared to understand them. The physician
was obliged to use a slight degree of force in administering
nourishment and medicine, but neither was of any
avail. The man died within twenty-four hours after being
received. His pockets were empty, but two small
leathern wallets were found under his pillow; and these

formed the package which the director left in my charge.
They were full of papers in a foreign language, he said,
and he supposed I might be able to ascertain the stranger's
name and home from them.

I took up the wallets, which were worn and greasy
from long service, opened them, and saw that they were
filled with scraps, fragments, and folded pieces of paper,
nearly every one of which had been carried for a long
time loose in the pocket. Some were written in pen and
ink, and some in pencil, but all were equally brown, worn,
and unsavory in appearance. In turning them over, however,
my eye was caught by some slips in the Russian
character, and three or four notes in French; the rest
were German. I laid aside “Pitaval” at once, emptied
all the leathern pockets carefully, and set about examining
the pile of material.

I first ran rapidly through the papers to ascertain the
dead man's name, but it was nowhere to be found. There
were half a dozen letters, written on sheets folded and
addressed in the fashion which prevailed before envelopes
were invented; but the name was cut out of the address
in every case. There was an official permit to embark
on board a Bremen steamer, mutilated in the same way;
there was a card photograph, from which the face had
been scratched by a penknife. There were Latin sentences;
accounts of expenses; a list of New York addresses,
covering eight pages; and a number of notes, written
either in Warsaw or Breslau. A more incongruous collection
I never saw, and I am sure that had it not been for

the train of thought I was pursuing when the director
called upon me, I should have returned the papers to him
without troubling my head with any attempt to unravel
the man's story.

The evidence, however, that he had endeavored to
hide his life, had been revealed by my first superficial examination;
and here, I reflected, was a singular opportunity
to test both his degree of success and my own power
of constructing a coherent history out of the detached
fragments. Unpromising as is the matter, said I, let me
see whether he can conceal his secret from even such unpractised
eyes as mine.

I went through the papers again, read each one rapidly,
and arranged them in separate files, according to the
character of their contents. Then I rearranged these
latter in the order of time, so far as it was indicated; and
afterwards commenced the work of picking out and threading
together whatever facts might be noted. The first
thing I ascertained, or rather conjectured, was that the
man's life might be divided into three very distinct
phases, the first ending in Breslau, the second in Poland,
and the third and final one in America. Thereupon I
once again rearranged the material, and attacked that
which related to the first phase.

It consisted of the following papers: Three letters, in
a female hand, commencing “My dear brother,” and terminating
with “Thy loving sister, Elise;” part of a diploma
from a gymnasium, or high school, certifying that
[here the name was cut out] had successfully passed his

examination, and was competent to teach,—and here
again, whether by accident or design, the paper was torn
off; a note, apparently to a jeweller, ordering a certain
gold ring to be delivered to “Otto,” and signed “B. v.
H.;” a receipt from the package-post for a box forwarded
to Warsaw, to the address of Count Ladislas Kasincsky;
and finally a washing-list, at the bottom of which was
written, in pencil, in a trembling hand: “May God protect
thee! But do not stay away so very long.”

In the second collection, relating to Poland, I found
the following: Six orders in Russian and three in French,
requesting somebody to send by “Jean” sums of money,
varying from two to eight hundred rubles. These orders
were in the same hand, and all signed “Y.” A charming
letter in French, addressed “cher ami,” and declining, in
the most delicate and tender way, an offer of marriage
made to the sister of the writer, of whose signature only
“Amélie de” remained, the family name having been
torn off. A few memoranda of expenses, one of which
was curious: “Dinner with Jean, 58 rubles;” and immediately
after it: “Doctor, 10 rubles.” There were, moreover,
a leaf torn out of a journal, and half of a note which
had been torn down the middle, both implicating “Jean”
in some way with the fortunes of the dead man.

The papers belonging to the American phase, so far
as they were to be identified by dates, or by some internal
evidence, were fewer, but even more enigmatical in
character. The principal one was a list of addresses in
New York, divided into sections, the street boundaries of

which were given. There were no names, but some of the
addresses were marked +, and others?, and a few had
been crossed out with a pencil. Then there were some
leaves of a journal of diet and bodily symptoms, of a very
singular character; three fragments of drafts of letters, in
pencil, one of them commencing, “Dog and villain!” and
a single note of “Began work, September 10th, 1865.”
This was about a year before his death.

The date of the diploma given by the gymnasium at
Breslau was June 27, 1855, and the first date in Poland
was May 3, 1861. Belonging to the time between these
two periods there were only the order for the ring (1858),
and a little memorandum in pencil, dated “Posen, Dec.,
1859.” The last date in Poland was March 18, 1863, and
the permit to embark at Bremen was dated in October of
that year. Here, at least, was a slight chronological
framework. The physician who attended the county
almshouse had estimated the man's age at thirty, which,
supposing him to have been nineteen at the time of
receiving the diploma, confirmed the dates to that extent.

I assumed, at the start, that the name which had been
so carefully cut out of all the documents was the man's
own. The “Elise” of the letters was therefore his sister.
The first two letters related merely to “mother's health,”
and similar details, from which it was impossible to extract
any thing, except that the sister was in some kind of
service. The second letter closed with: “I have enough
work to do, but I keep well. Forget thy disappointment

so far as I am concerned, for I never expected any thing;
I don't know why, but I never did.”

Here was a disappointment, at least, to begin with. I
made a note of it opposite the date, on my blank programme,
and took up the next letter. It was written in
November, 1861, and contained a passage which keenly
excited my curiosity. It ran thus: “Do, pray, be more
careful of thy money. It may be all as thou sayest, and
inevitable, but I dare not mention the thing to mother,
and five thalers is all I can spare out of my own wages.
As for thy other request, I have granted it, as thou seest,
but it makes me a little anxious. What is the joke?
And how can it serve thee? That is what I do not
understand, and I have plagued myself not a little to
guess.”

Among the Polish memoranda was this: “Sept. 1 to
Dec. 1, 200 rubles,” which I assumed to represent a salary.
This would give him eight hundred a year, at least
twelve times the amount which his sister—who must
either have been cook or housekeeper, since she spoke
of going to market for the family—could have received.
His application to her for money, and the manner of her
reference to it, indicated some imprudence or irregularity
on his part. What the “other request” was, I could not
guess; but as I was turning and twisting the worn leaf in
some perplexity, I made a sudden discovery. One side
of the bottom edge had been very slightly doubled over
in folding, and as I smoothed it out, I noticed some diminutive
letters in the crease. The paper had been worn

nearly through, but I made out the words: “Write very
soon, dear Otto!”

This was the name in the order for the gold ring,
signed “B. v. H.”—a link, indeed, but a fresh puzzle.
Knowing the stubborn prejudices of caste in Germany,
and above all in Eastern Prussia and Silesia, I should
have been compelled to accept “Otto,” whose sister was
in service, as himself the servant of “B. v. H.,” but for
the tenderly respectful letter of “Amélie de—,” declining
the marriage offer for her sister. I re-read this letter
very carefully, to determine whether it was really intended
for “Otto.” It ran thus:

The more light I seemed to obtain, the more inexplicable
the circumstances became. The diploma and the
note of salary were grounds for supposing that “Otto”
occupied the position of tutor in a noble Polish family.
There was the receipt for a box addressed to Count Ladislas
Kasincsky, and I temporarily added his family name
to the writer of the French letter, assuming her to be his
wife. “Jean” appeared to be a servant, and “Henri” I
set down as the son whom Otto was instructing in the castle
or family seat in the country, while the parents were
in Warsaw. Plausible, so far; but the letter was not such
a one as a countess would have written to her son's tutor,
under similar circumstances. It was addressed to a social
equal, apparently to a man younger than herself, and for
whom—supposing him to have been a tutor, secretary, or
something of the kind—she must have felt a special sympathy.
Her mention of “the papers” and “your secret”
must refer to circumstances which would explain the mystery.
“So long as you choose to wear it,” she had written:
then it was certainly a secret connected with his
personal history.

Further, it appeared that “Jean” was sent to him with

“an order.” What could this be, but one of the nine orders
for money which lay before my eyes? I examined
the dates of the latter, and lo! there was one written
upon the same day as the lady's letter. The sums drawn
by these orders amounted in all to four thousand two hundred
rubles. But how should a tutor or secretary be in
possession of his employer's money? Still, this might be
accounted for; it would imply great trust on the part of
the latter, but no more than one man frequently reposes
in another. Yet, if it were so, one of the memoranda
confronted me with a conflicting fact: “Dinner with Jean,
58 rubles.” The unusual amount—nearly fifty dollars—
indicated an act of the most reckless dissipation, and in
company with a servant, if “Jean,” as I could scarcely
doubt, acted in that character. I finally decided to assume
both these conjectures as true, and apply them to the
remaining testimony.

I first took up the leaf which had been torn out of a
small journal or pocket note-book, as was manifested by
the red edge on three sides. It was scribbled over with
brief notes in pencil, written at different times. Many of
them were merely mnemonic signs; but the recurrence
of the letters J and Y seemed to point to transactions with
“Jean,” and the drawer of the various sums of money.
The letter Y reminded me that I had been too hasty in
giving the name of Kasincsky to the noble family; indeed,
the name upon the post-office receipt might have no
connection with the matter I was trying to investigate.
Suddenly I noticed a “Ky” among the mnemonic signs,

and the suspicion flashed across my mind that Count Kasincsky
had signed the order with the last letter of his
family name! To assume this, however, suggested a secret
reason for doing so; and I began to think that I had
already secrets enough on hand.

The leaf was much rubbed and worn, and it was not
without considerable trouble that I deciphered the following
(omitting the unintelligible signs):

These broken words warmed my imagination powerfully.
Looking at them in the light of my conjecture, I
was satisfied that “Otto” was involved in some crime, or
dangerous secret, of which “Jean” was either the instigator
or the accomplice. “Y.,” or Count Kasincsky,—and
I was more than ever inclined to connect the two,—also
had his mystery, which might, or might not, be identical
with the first. By comparing dates, I found that the entry
made December 27 was three days later than the date
of the letter of “Amélie de —”; and the exclamation

“All for naught!” certainly referred to the disappointment
it contained. I now guessed the “H.” in the second
entry to mean “Helmine.” The two last suggested
a removal to Warsaw from the country. Here was a little
more ground to stand on; but how should I ever get
at the secret?

I took up the torn half of a note, which, after the first
inspection, I had laid aside as a hopeless puzzle. A closer
examination revealed several things which failed to impress
me at the outset. It was written in a strong and rather
awkward masculine hand; several words were underscored,
two misspelled, and I felt—I scarcely knew why—
that it was written in a spirit of mingled contempt and
defiance. Let me give the fragment just as it lay before
me:

Here, I felt sure, was the clue to much of the mystery.
The first thing that struck me was the appearance of a new
name. I looked at it again, ran through in my mind all possible
German names, and found that it could only be “Johann,”—and
in the same instant I recalled the frequent
habit of the Prussian and Polish nobility of calling their
German valets by French names. This, then, was
“Jean!” The address was certainly “Baron,” and why
thrice underscored, unless in contemptuous satire? Light
began to break upon the matter at last. “Otto” had
been playing the part, perhaps assuming the name, of a
nobleman, seduced to the deception by his passion for the
Countess' sister, Helmine. This explained the reference
to “the papers,” and “the secret,” and would account for
the respectful and sympathetic tone of the Countess' letter.
But behind this there was certainly another secret,
in which “Y.” (whoever he might be) was concerned, and
which related to money. The close of the note, which I
filled out to read, “Your friend or not, as you may decide,”
conveyed a threat, and, to judge from the halves of
lines immediately preceding it, the threat referred to the
money, as well as to the betrayal of an assumed character.

Here, just as the story began to appear in faint outline,
my discoveries stopped for a while. I ascertained the

breadth of the original note by a part of the middle-crease
which remained, filled out the torn part with blank paper,
completed the divided words in the same character of manuscript,
and endeavored to guess the remainder, but no
clairvoyant power of divination came to my aid. I turned
over the letters again, remarking the neatness with
which the addresses had been cut off, and wondering why
the man had not destroyed the letters and other memoranda
entirely, if he wished to hide a possible crime. The
fact that they were not destroyed showed the hold which
his past life had had upon him even to his dying hour.
Weak and vain, as I had already suspected him to be,—
wanting in all manly fibre, and of the very material which
a keen, energetic villain would mould to his needs, — I felt
that his love for his sister and for “Helmine,” and other
associations connected with his life in Germany and Poland,
had made him cling to these worn records.

I know not what gave me the suspicion that he had
not even found the heart to destroy the exscinded names;
perhaps the care with which they had been removed; perhaps,
in two instances, the circumstance of their taking
words out of the body of the letters with them. But the
suspicion came, and led to a re-examination of the leathern
wallets. I could scarcely believe my eyes, when feeling
something rustle faintly as I pressed the thin lining of
an inner pocket, I drew forth three or four small pellets
of paper, and unrolling them, found the lost addresses!
I fitted them to the vacant places, and found that the first
letters of the sister in Breslau had been forwarded to

“Otto Lindenschmidt,” while the letter to Poland was
addressed “Otto von Herisau.”

I warmed with this success, which exactly tallied with
the previous discoveries, and returned again to the Polish
memoranda. The words “[Rus]sian officers” in “Jean's”
note led me to notice that it had been written towards the
close of the last insurrection in Poland—a circumstance
which I immediately coupled with some things in the note
and on the leaf of the journal. “No tidings of Y” might
indicate that Count Kasincsky had been concerned in the
rebellion, and had fled, or been taken prisoner. Had he
left a large amount of funds in the hands of the supposed
Otto von Herisau, which were drawn from time to time by
orders, the form of which had been previously agreed
upon? Then, when he had disappeared, might it not have
been the remaining funds which Jean urged Otto to divide
with him, while the latter, misled and entangled in deception
rather than naturally dishonest, held back from such
a step? I could hardly doubt so much, and it now required
but a slight effort of the imagination to complete
the torn note.

The next letter of the sister was addressed to Bremen.
After having established so many particulars, I found it
easily intelligible. “I have done what I can,” she wrote.
“I put it in this letter; it is all I have. But do not ask
me for money again; mother is ailing most of the time,
and I have not yet dared to tell her all. I shall suffer
great anxiety until I hear that the vessel has sailed. My
mistress is very good; she has given me an advance on my

wages, or I could not have sent thee any thing. Mother
thinks thou art still in Leipzig: why didst thou stay there
so long? but no difference; thy money would have gone
anyhow.”

It was nevertheless singular that Otto should be without
money, so soon after the appropriation of Count
Kasincsky's funds. If the “20” in the first memorandum
on the leaf meant “twenty thousand rubles,” as I conjectured,
and but four thousand two hundred were drawn by
the Count previous to his flight or imprisonment, Otto's
half of the remainder would amount to nearly eight thousand
rubles; and it was, therefore, not easy to account for
his delay in Leipzig, and his destitute condition.

Before examining the fragments relating to the American
phase of his life,—which illustrated his previous history
only by occasional revelations of his moods and feelings,—I
made one more effort to guess the cause of his
having assumed the name of “Von Herisau.” The initials
signed to the order for the ring (“B. v. H.”) certainly
stood for the same family name; and the possession of
papers belonging to one of the family was an additional
evidence that Otto had either been in the service of, or
was related to, some Von Herisau. Perhaps a sentence
in one of the sister's letters—“Forget thy disappointment
so far as I am concerned, for I never expected any thing”
—referred to something of the kind. On the whole, service
seemed more likely than kinship; but in that case
the papers must have been stolen.

I had endeavored, from the start, to keep my sympathies

out of the investigation, lest they should lead me to
misinterpret the broken evidence, and thus defeat my object.
It must have been the Countess' letter, and the
brief, almost stenographic, signs of anxiety and unhappiness
on the leaf of the journal, that first beguiled me into
a commiseration, which the simple devotion and self-sacrifice
of the poor, toiling sister failed to neutralize. However,
I detected the feeling at this stage of the examination,
and turned to the American records, in order to get
rid of it.

The principal paper was the list of addresses of which
I have spoken. I looked over it in vain, to find some indication
of its purpose; yet it had been carefully made out
and much used. There was no name of a person upon it,
—only numbers and streets, one hundred and thirty-eight
in all. Finally, I took these, one by one, to ascertain if
any of the houses were known to me, and found three, out
of the whole number, to be the residences of persons whom
I knew. One was a German gentleman, and the other
two were Americans who had visited Germany. The riddle
was read! During a former residence in New York,
I had for a time been quite overrun by destitute Germans,
—men, apparently, of some culture, who represented themselves
as theological students, political refugees, or unfortunate
clerks and secretaries,—soliciting assistance. I
found that, when I gave to one, a dozen others came within
the next fortnight; when I refused, the persecution
ceased for about the same length of time. I became convinced,
at last, that these persons were members of an organized

society of beggars, and the result proved it; for
when I made it an inviolable rule to give to no one who
could not bring me an indorsement of his need by some
person whom I knew, the annoyance ceased altogether.

The meaning of the list of addresses was now plain.
My nascent commiseration for the man was not only
checked, but I was in danger of changing my rôle from
that of culprit's counsel to that of prosecuting attorney.

When I took up again the fragment of the first draught
of a letter commencing, “Dog and villain!” and applied
it to the words “Jean” or “Johann Helm,” the few lines
which could be deciphered became full of meaning. “Don't
think,” it began, “that I have forgotten you, or the trick
you played me! If I was drunk or drugged the last night,
I know how it happened, for all that. I left, but I shall
go back. And if you make use of” (here some words
were entirely obliterated).... “is true. He gave me
the ring, and meant”.... This was all I could make
out. The other papers showed only scattered memoranda,
of money, or appointments, or addresses, with the exception
of the diary in pencil.

I read the letter attentively, and at first with very little
idea of its meaning. Many of the words were abbreviated,
and there were some arbitrary signs. It ran over
a period of about four months, terminating six weeks before
the man's death. He had been wandering about
the country during this period, sleeping in woods and
barns, and living principally upon milk. The condition
of his pulse and other physical functions was scrupulously

set down, with an occasional remark of “good” or “bad.”
The conclusion was at last forced upon me that he had
been endeavoring to commit suicide by a slow course of
starvation and exposure. Either as the cause or the result
of this attempt, I read, in the final notes, signs of an
aberration of mind. This also explained the singular demeanor
of the man when found, and his refusal to take
medicine or nourishment. He had selected a long way
to accomplish his purpose,but had reached the end at last.

The confused material had now taken shape; the dead
man, despite his will, had confessed to me his name and
the chief events of his life. It now remained—looking at
each event as the result of a long chain of causes—to
deduce from them the elements of his individual character,
and then fill up the inevitable gaps in the story from
the probabilities of the operation of those elements. This
was not so much a mere venture as the reader may suppose,
because the two actions of the mind test each other.
If they cannot, thus working towards a point and back
again, actually discover what was, they may at least fix
upon a very probable might have been.

A person accustomed to detective work would have
obtained my little stock of facts with much less trouble,
and would, almost instinctively, have filled the blanks as
he went along. Being an apprentice in such matters, I
had handled the materials awkwardly. I will not here
retrace my own mental zigzags between character and
act, but simply repeat the story as I finally settled and
accepted it.

Otto Lindenschmidt was the child of poor parents in
or near Breslau. His father died when he was young;
his mother earned a scanty subsistence as a washerwoman;
his sister went into service. Being a bright, handsome
boy, he attracted the attention of a Baron von Herisau,
an old, childless, eccentric gentleman, who took him
first as page or attendant, intending to make him a superior
valet de chambre. Gradually, however, the Baron
fancied that he detected in the boy a capacity for better
things; his condescending feeling of protection had grown
into an attachment for the handsome, amiable, grateful
young fellow, and he placed him in the gymnasium at
Breslau, perhaps with the idea, now, of educating him to
be an intelligent companion.

The boy and his humble relatives, dazzled by this opportunity,
began secretly to consider the favor as almost
equivalent to his adoption as a son. (The Baron had
once been married, but his wife and only child had long
been dead.) The old man, of course, came to look upon
the growing intelligence of the youth as his own work:
vanity and affection became inextricably blended in his
heart, and when the cursus was over, he took him home
as the companion of his lonely life. After two or three
years, during which the young man was acquiring habits
of idleness and indulgence, supposing his future secure,
the Baron died,—perhaps too suddenly to make full
provision for him, perhaps after having kept up the appearance
of wealth on a life-annuity, but, in any case,
leaving very little, if any, property to Otto. In his disappointment,

the latter retained certain family papers
which the Baron had intrusted to his keeping. The ring
was a gift, and he wore it in remembrance of his benefactor.

Wandering about, Micawber-like, in hopes that something
might turn up, he reached Posen, and there either
met or heard of the Polish Count, Ladislas Kasincsky,
who was seeking a tutor for his only son. His accomplishments,
and perhaps, also, a certain aristocratic grace
of manner unconsciously caught from the Baron von
Herisau, speedily won for him the favor of the Count and
Countess Kasincsky, and emboldened him to hope for
the hand of the Countess' sister, Helmine —, to whom
he was no doubt sincerely attached. Here Johann Helm,
or “Jean,” a confidential servant of the Count, who looked
upon the new tutor as a rival, yet adroitly flattered his
vanity for the purpose of misleading and displacing him,
appears upon the stage. “Jean” first detected Otto's
passion; “Jean,” at an epicurean dinner, wormed out of
Otto the secret of the Herisau documents, and perhaps
suggested the part which the latter afterwards played.

This “Jean” seemed to me to have been the evil
agency in the miserable history which followed. After
Helmine's rejection of Otto's suit, and the flight or captivity
of Count Kasincsky, leaving a large sum of money
in Otto's hands, it would be easy for “Jean,” by mingled
persuasions and threats, to move the latter to flight, after
dividing the money still remaining in his hands. After
the theft, and the partition, which took place beyond the

Polish frontier, “Jean” in turn, stole his accomplice's
share, together with the Von Herisau documents.

Exile and a year's experience of organized mendicancy
did the rest. Otto Lindenschmidt was one of those
natures which possess no moral elasticity—which have
neither the power nor the comprehension of atonement.
The first real, unmitigated guilt—whether great or small
—breaks them down hopelessly. He expected no chance
of self-redemption, and he found none. His life in America
was so utterly dark and hopeless that the brightest
moment in it must have been that which showed him the
approach of death.

My task was done. I had tracked this weak, vain,
erring, hunted soul to its last refuge, and the knowledge
bequeathed to me but a single duty. His sins were balanced
by his temptations; his vanity and weakness had
revenged themselves; and there only remained to tell
the simple, faithful sister that her sacrifices were no longer
required. I burned the evidences of guilt, despair and
suicide, and sent the other papers, with a letter relating
the time and circumstances of Otto Lindenschmidt's
death, to the civil authorities of Breslau, requesting that
they might be placed in the hands of his sister Elise.

This, I supposed, was the end of the history, so far as
my connection with it was concerned. But one cannot
track a secret with impunity; the fatality connected with
the act and the actor clings even to the knowledge of the
act. I had opened my door a little, in order to look out
upon the life of another, but in doing so a ghost had entered

in, and was not to be dislodged until I had done its
service.

In the summer of 1867 I was in Germany, and during
a brief journey of idlesse and enjoyment came to the
lovely little watering-place of Liebenstein, on the southern
slope of the Thüringian Forest. I had no expectation or
even desire of making new acquaintances among the gay
company who took their afternoon coffee under the noble
linden trees on the terrace; but, within the first hour of
my after-dinner leisure, I was greeted by an old friend,
an author, from Coburg, and carried away, in my own despite,
to a group of his associates. My friend and his
friends had already been at the place a fortnight, and knew
the very tint and texture of its gossip. While I sipped
my coffee, I listened to them with one ear, and to Wagner's
overture to “Lohengrin” with the other; and I
should soon have been wholly occupied with the fine orchestra
had I not been caught and startled by an unexpected
name.

“Have you noticed,” some one asked, “how much attention
the Baron von Herisau is paying her?”

I whirled round and exclaimed, in a breath, “The
Baron von Herisau!”

“Yes,” said my friend; “do you know him?”

I was glad that three crashing, tremendous chords
came from the orchestra just then, giving me time to collect
myself before I replied: “I am not sure whether it
is the same person: I knew a Baron von Herisau long
ago: how old is the gentleman here?”

“About thirty-five, I should think,” my friend answered.

“Ah, then it can't be the same person,” said I: “still,
if he should happen to pass near us, will you point him
out to me?”

It was an hour later, and we were all hotly discussing
the question of Lessing's obligations to English literature,
when one of the gentlemen at the table said: “There
goes the Baron von Herisau: is it perhaps your friend,
sir?”

I turned and saw a tall man, with prominent nose,
opaque black eyes, and black mustache, walking beside
a pretty, insipid girl. Behind the pair went an elderly
couple, overdressed and snobbish in appearance. A carriage,
with servants in livery, waited in the open space
below the terrace, and having received the two couples,
whirled swiftly away towards Altenstein.

Had I been more of a philosopher I should have
wasted no second thought on the Baron von Herisau.
But the Nemesis of the knowledge which I had throttled
poor Otto Lindenschmidt's ghost to obtain had come
upon me at last, and there was no rest for me until I had
discovered who and what was the Baron. The list of
guests which the landlord gave me whetted my curiosity
to a painful degree; for on it I found the entry: “Aug.
15.—Otto v. Herisau, Rentier, East Prussia.”

It was quite dark when the carriage returned. I
watched the company into the supper-room, and then,
whisking in behind them, secured a place at the nearest

table. I had an hour of quiet, stealthy observation before
my Coburg friend discovered me, and by that time I was
glad of his company and had need of his confidence.
But, before making use of him in the second capacity, I
desired to make the acquaintance of the adjoining partie
carrée. He had bowed to them familiarly in passing, and
when the old gentleman said, “Will you not join us, Herr
—?” I answered my friend's interrogative glance with
a decided affirmative, and we moved to the other table.

My seat was beside the Baron von Herisau, with whom
I exchanged the usual commonplaces after an introduction.
His manner was cold and taciturn, I thought, and there
was something forced in the smile which accompanied his
replies to the remarks of the coarse old lady, who continually
referred to the “Herr Baron” as authority upon
every possible subject. I noticed, however, that he cast
a sudden, sharp glance at me, when I was presented to
the company as an American.

The man's neighborhood disturbed me. I was obliged
to let the conversation run in the channels already selected,
and stupid enough I found them. I was considering
whether I should not give a signal to my friend and
withdraw, when the Baron stretched his hand across the
table for a bottle of Affenthaler, and I caught sight of a
massive gold ring on his middle finger. Instantly I remembered
the ring which “B. v. H.” had given to Otto
Lindenschmidt, and I said to myself, “That is it!” The
inference followed like lightning that it was “Johann
Helm” who sat beside me, and not a Baron von Herisau!

That evening my friend and I had a long, absorbing
conversation in my room. I told him the whole story,
which came back vividly to memory, and learned, in return,
that the reputed Baron was supposed to be wealthy,
that the old gentleman was a Bremen merchant or banker,
known to be rich, that neither was considered by those
who had met them to be particularly intelligent or refined,
and that the wooing of the daughter had already become
so marked as to be a general subject of gossip. My
friend was inclined to think my conjecture correct, and
willingly co-operated with me in a plan to test the matter.
We had no considerable sympathy with the snobbish parents,
whose servility to a title was so apparent; but the
daughter seemed to be an innocent and amiable creature,
however silly, and we determined to spare her the shame
of an open scandal.

If our scheme should seem a little melodramatic, it
must not be forgotten that my friend was an author. The
next morning, as the Baron came up the terrace after his
visit to the spring, I stepped forward and greeted him politely,
after which I said: “I see by the strangers' list that
you are from East Prussia, Baron; have you ever been in
Poland?” At that moment, a voice behind him called
out rather sharply, “Jean!” The Baron started, turned
round and then back to me, and all his art could not prevent
the blood from rushing to his face. I made, as if by
accident, a gesture with my hand, indicating success, and
went a step further.

“Because,” said I, “I am thinking of making a visit

to Cracow and Warsaw, and should be glad of any information—”

“Certainly!” he interrupted me, “and I should be
very glad to give it, if I had ever visited Poland.”

“At least,” I continued, “you can advise me upon
one point; but excuse me, shall we not sit down a moment
yonder? As my question relates to money, I should
not wish to be overheard.”

I pointed out a retired spot, just before reaching
which we were joined by my friend, who suddenly stepped
out from behind a clump of lilacs. The Baron and he
saluted each other.

“Now,” said I to the former, “I can ask your advice,
Mr. Johann Helm!”

He was not an adept, after all. His astonishment
and confusion were brief, to be sure, but they betrayed
him so completely that his after-impulse to assume a
laughty offensive air only made us smile.

“If I had a message to you from Otto Lindenschmidt,
what then?” I asked.

He turned pale, and presently stammered out, “He—
he is dead!”

“Now,” said my friend, “it is quite time to drop the
mask before us. You see we know you, and we know
your history. Not from Otto Lindenschmidt alone;
Count Ladislas Kasincsky—”

“What! Has he come back from Siberia?” exclaimed
Johann Helm. His face expressed abject terror;
I think he would have fallen upon his knees before

us if he had not somehow felt, by a rascal's instinct,
that we had no personal wrongs to redress in unmasking
him.

Our object, however, was to ascertain through him the
complete facts of Otto Lindenschmidt's history, and then
to banish him from Liebenstein. We allowed him to
suppose for awhile that we were acting under the authority
of persons concerned, in order to make the best possible
use of his demoralized mood, for we knew it would
not last long.

My guesses were very nearly correct. Otto Lindenschmidt
had been educated by an old Baron, Bernhard
von Herisau, on account of his resemblance in person to
a dead son, whose name had also been Otto. He could
not have adopted the plebeian youth, at least to the extent
of giving him an old and haughty name, but this the
latter nevertheless expected, up to the time of the Baron's
death. He had inherited a little property from his benefactor,
but soon ran through it. “He was a light-headed
fellow,” said Johann Helm, “but he knew how to get the
confidence of the old Junkers. If he hadn't been so
cowardly and fidgety, he might have made himself a
career.”

The Polish episode differed so little from my interpretation
that I need not repeat Helm's version. He
denied having stolen Otto's share of the money, but could
not help admitting his possession of the Von Herisau
papers, among which were the certificates of birth and
baptism of the old Baron's son, Otto. It seems that he

had been fearful of Lindenschmidt's return from America,
for he managed to communicate with his sister in Breslau,
and in this way learned the former's death. Not until
then had he dared to assume his present disguise.

We let him go, after exacting a solemn pledge that he
would betake himself at once to Hamburg, and there
ship for Australia. (I judged that America was already amply
supplied with individuals of his class.) The sudden departure
of the Baron von Herisau was a two days' wonder
at Liebenstein; but besides ourselves, only the Bremen
banker knew the secret. He also left, two days afterwards,
with his wife and daughter—their cases, it was reported,
requiring Kissingen.

Otto Lindenschmidt's life, therefore, could not hide
itself. Can any life?