“And that’s exactly what I mean to do! Spoerri, from this day forward the State Attorney’s life stands under my protection. You are to revoke my earlier orders to the Removal Committee at once.” “You are going in for a remarkable friendship, Doctor,” tittered Spoerri. “He is to remain absolutely under my protection!” repeated Mabuse, and they drove through the flat marsh-land back to the peasant’s hut. The Countess got into the car, and they were soon hastening to the Austrian frontier. “What sort of passports have you for us?” asked Mabuse. “Swiss ones: please take them,” answered Spoerri, handing over documents with many visas, calculated to arouse a confidence which was constantly abused yet remained unconscious of the fact. Three hours later the car was driving along the highroad leading from Bregenz to Kempten. It drove past a house from which, the night before, a message had been flashed through to Munich telling of its passing, and went towards Würtemberg. The travellers spent the night in a village south of Stuttgart. In the evening Mabuse went to Spoerri’s room, and said to him: “There is just one thing left for me to do in Germany, in Europe ... and that is to get hold of that lawyer, the State Attorney, Wenk, alive. I want him _alive_, mark you! as much alive as a fly under a glass. The Countess and I are staying here to-morrow. You will go to Stuttgart and buy, whatever the price may be, a two-seater aeroplane. We are quite safe here. The landlord did not even register us, so if the police appear he is bound to hold his tongue, or else he will be fined. Have you any brandy?” Spoerri shrank back in dismay; his martyrdom was about to begin again. Nevertheless, he had smuggled three bottles out of Switzerland. “Of course you have some brandy!” said Mabuse, before he could even answer. Mabuse drank from the travelling cup which he always carried in his pocket, and Spoerri had to fill the toothglass on the washhandstand. Mabuse was longing for a carouse, a really heavy carouse which should seize him by the throat and press him under the water, as if he were being given a millstone for a swimming belt. When he had emptied the second bottle, he saw that he was not likely to get his wish. “Haven’t you any more?” he asked. “That’s all there is. I couldn’t venture to bring any more across the frontier.” Mabuse laughed satirically. “That’s fine. Here is Spoerri, who has brought three railway vans full of salvarsan, two of cocaine, enough prostitutes to fill three brothels across the frontier, yet he hasn’t enough courage to bring more than three bottles of brandy! Empty your glass into mine. Don’t your wages include the getting of brandy?”