Gradually the room grew empty. One o’clock was approaching. Three steady topers still stood by the bar. The nightwatchman had just looked in on his rounds and drunk a nip of kümmel. The innkeeper regarded his late guests morosely, sat down, and nodded. Niels Heinrich said to the simpleton that he would give him five talers to clear out. “If you don’t fade away you’ll catch hell, my boy,” he said. His reddish beard rose and fell. About his neck he had wound a yellow shawl so many times that his head seemed to be resting on a cushion. His sallow, freckled face seemed a mere mass of bone. Joachim’s limbs trembled. Outside the women of the streets were passing by, and their laughter sounded like the clatter of crockery. “Five talers,” said the imbecile and grinned. “That’s all right.” But he was still trembling. He had trembled just so the whole day, and the day before, and the day before that. “I’d like to buy a black-haired wench,” he murmured. “For money you can see the very devil dance,” Niels Heinrich replied. Now even those at the bar got ready to leave. “Closing time, gentlemen,” the innkeeper called out. He repeated his warning three times. A clock rattled. “I’ll get what I want,” said the simpleton. “I want one like a merry-go-round. Merry. Around and around.” “All right, boy! Go ahead! But don’t you let no balloon run you down,” Niels Heinrich jeered, and stared at his own fingers as though they had spoken to him. “Go ahead!” “And I want one like a parrot,” said the simpleton, “all dressed up and fine.” And in a broken voice he sang a stave of a vulgar song. Niels Heinrich’s silence was grim. “And I want one that’s like what a lady is, elegant and handsome,” Joachim continued, and emptied the lees in his glass. “That’s what! Give me the five talers. Give ’em to me.” But suddenly he shuddered, his eyes seemed to protrude from their hollows, and he uttered a sound that had a strange and horrible kinship with a whine. Niels Heinrich arose, and jerked his companion upward by the collar. He threw the money to pay his reckoning on the table, and pulled the simpleton out into the street. He grasped his arm, and drew the reeling, horribly whimpering creature along with him. He did not speak. He had pulled his blue cap over his eyes. His face was full of brooding thoughts. He paid no attention to snow or mud. The fog swallowed up the two figures. XXIII David Hofmann had written a last message of farewell to his children from Bremerhaven. The postman had stuck the card halfway under the door, and Christian read it. So Ruth could not be with her father. Here was a certainty that terrified him. Where was she then? And where was Michael? He informed the house agent of the disappearance of the two, and the police were notified.