The Man Without a Memory Part 36

Rosa's description of the Futtenplatz was well deserved: a squalid, dirty place, with mean shops of the poorest sort. The Jew's second-hand clothes shop was one of the meanest and dirtiest, and Graun himself fitted thoroughly into the picture.

When I entered he was bargaining with a man who wanted to sell him a coat, and while the transaction proceeded--while the old Jew was beating down the price to the last pfennig, that is--I had ample time to observe him.

Red-haired, with red tousled beard and whiskers, p.r.o.nounced Hebraic features, small suspicious eyes, and filthy from the top of his narrow forehead to the tip of his clawlike finger-nails, he was one of the most repulsive specimens one could wish to avoid.

"What do you want?" he asked in a high-pitched rasping voice, squinting at me, when his customer went out, cursing him for the smallness of the amount he had received for the coat.

I told him straight out. The remembrance of Feldmann's tips was one reason, and my desire not to stop one unnecessary moment in such unsavoury surroundings was another.

He shook his head. "You've come to the wrong shop, my man. Given up all that sort of thing long ago. Too risky."

"All right; sorry to have troubled you. Good-day," I replied casually, and turned to leave.

He let me get to the door and then called me back. "Wait a moment. Who sent you here?"

"No one in particular. It's pretty well known, isn't it? Good-day."

"Here, wait. Come here; I know some one who might be able to do it for you."

I didn't go back. "It isn't of the least consequence," I said with an airy wave of the hand. "I told the man he'd better go to the police and just tell them how he lost his card."

"Come in here a minute;" and he shuffled off to a door at the back of the shop.

I hesitated, took a couple of paces toward him, stopped and shook my head. "No. I don't want to have anything to do with it, if there's any risk attached to it, as you say."

This worked all right. "When I said that, I thought you wanted it for yourself," he said slily.

I burst out laughing and turned again as if to go away. "Good-day, my friend. That's rich and no mistake."

"Here, don't be in such a hurry," he said, coming a step toward me. "If your friend's in any trouble, I might----"

"What the devil do you mean by that?" I cried, and cursed him royally for the suggestion.

He came up and laid his filthy claw on my sleeve. I shook it off with another choice epithet or two. "Come into my room a minute and we'll talk it over. Don't lose your temper."

I allowed myself to be pacified: not too quickly, of course; and with a great show of reluctance allowed him to take me into his room, which was, if possible, filthier even than the shop and smelt vilely.

"Now, tell me all about it. Of course most of those who come to me are in trouble of some sort or other and I have to be careful. If the police knew anything, well----" and he gestured to indicate the trouble it would mean for him.

"All right, but don't try that rot with me. Either you can sell me what I've asked for, or you can't. So out with it. I don't care which way it is; and this place of yours stinks so that I don't want to stop in it and be suffocated."

He leered as if this were rather a good joke or a compliment. "I might be able to manage it, but----"

I broke in with an impatient oath. "I don't want any 'might be.' Can you or can't you? Be quick about it, too. If you can, how much?" This was evidently the right line with him and he grinned appreciatively.

"That's the way to talk. Shall we say 150 marks?"

"How much?" I cried with a regular spasm of astonishment. "Say it again, man."

"A hundred and fifty marks."

I sat back and stared at him. "Do you think I want to deal wholesale and set up in the business myself? I only want one, you infernal old humbug;" and I roared with laughter.

He was accustomed to being abused and joined in the laugh, combing his tousled red beard with his filthy fingers. "Well, how much then?"

"Oh, a couple of marks or so."

He threw up his hands, gesticulating violently, as if the offer was an insult, appeared to work himself into a furious rage, and fumed and fussed and stormed, until I got up. Again he tested me; let me leave the room and reach the door of the shop, following with a mixture of lamentations and appeals to Heaven to bear witness to my lunacy.

I did not so much as turn round, remembering Feldmann's caution, and I was all but in the street, before he changed his tone, apparently satisfied that I was sincere.

"It's no use to part like this. Come back and talk it over again." Once more a similar pantomime was played; but this time I was much slower to give way. "It can't be done at the price. Impossible. Think of the risk I should----"

"Then don't do it. I tell you if you mean there's any risk in the thing, I won't touch it with a ten-foot pole. I thought a few marks was all that would be necessary; but if you offered to give it me for nothing and there's any risk I wouldn't take it. Get that into your head."

"Do you think I give things away?"

"Not I, seeing how you cling to the dirt on you."

This was also accepted as a joke and he wagged his head and winked. "It takes too much time to clean things; and time's money," he replied, with one of his repulsive leers. "But I like you. You say what you mean. I'll take a hundred marks from you."

"Will you? You'll be cleverer than I take you for, if you do."

"But there's the----" He was going to repeat about the risk, but checked the word as bad business; and a long chaffering began in which he tried to squeeze me first to seventy-five marks, then to fifty, coming down by tens and fives to twenty-five.

He stuck at that point a long time; and lest he should think even that sum suspicious, I held out at the five marks to which I had increased my offer during the bargaining.

Once more he let me all but leave the shop, and when he again called me back I refused to go and struck out a fresh line.

"I'll tell you why I've stopped so long as it is, Graun," I said. "I've never met any one quite like you before, and you're a very interesting character. I do something at times in theatricals and you're worth studying; but I've had enough of you now. It's been worth a few marks to have such a chance as this, and, while I don't care two straws whether I get what brought me here or not, I'll give you five marks for the fun I've had," and to his consummate astonishment I put the money in his dirty palm. "If I were you, I'd spend it on soap or something that will get rid of some of this beastly stink."

"You give me this?" he cried in amazement.

"Yes, give it you. Good-day."

It was the turning point of the conference. He clawed hold of my arm.

"You can come and study me any time you like at the same price," he said with a grin. "I don't mind how often. And look here, you shall have the card if you'll make it ten marks."

"Another five, do you mean?"

"Oh, no. Oh, no. Another ten," he cried greedily.

I shook my head at first and then smiled. "I tell you what I'll do.

I'll give you the other ten, if you'll throw in another cursing and lamentation scene, like the last. Five for that and five for the card.

You do it so beautifully, Graun; and it's all put on, I know."

He grinned, but shook his head. "It wasn't put on."