The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
pulpit beside the desk, was a clerk. The guard ushered me in, bleary, unshaven, blood-stained, and in the fiend’s own temper.
“I demand to be allowed to communicate with my ambassador this instant,” I began, “to protest at the outrageous manner in which—”
“Be quiet,” says the official. “Sit down.” And he indicated a stool before the desk.
I wasn’t having this. “Don’t dare to order me about, you cabbage-eating bastard,” says I. “I am a British officer, and unless you wish to have a most serious international incident to answer for, you will—”
“I will certainly have you whipped and returned to your cell if you do not curb your foul tongue,” says he coldly. “Sit.”
I was staring, flabbergasted at this, when a cheerful voice behind me said:
“Better sit down, old fellow; he can do it, you know,” and I wheeled round to find Rudi Starnberg lolling against a table by the door, which had hidden him from me when I came in. He was fresh and jaunty, with his undress cap tilted forward rakishly over one eye, smoking a cheroot in a holder.
“You!” cried I, and got no further. He shushed me with a gesture and pointed to the stool; at the same time the official rapped smartly on his table, so I decided to sit. My head was aching so much I doubt if I could have stood much longer anyway.
“This is Doctor Karjuss,” says Rudi. “He is a magistrate and legal authority; he has something to say to you.”
“Then he can start by telling me the meaning of this dastardly ill-treatment,” cries I. “I’ve been set upon, my skull cracked, thrown into a filthy cell, denied the right to see my ambassador, and God knows what else. Yes, by the lord, I’ve been threatened with flogging, too!”
“You were placed under arrest last night,” says Karjuss, who spoke tolerable French. “You resisted the officers. They restrained you; that is all.”
“Restrained me? They bloody well half-killed me! And what is this damned nonsense about arrest? What’s the charge, hey?”
“As yet, none has been laid,” says Karjuss. “I repeat, as yet. But I can indicate what they may be.” He sat very prim and precise, his cold eyes regarding me with distaste. “First, obscene and indecent conduct; second, corruption of public morals; third, disorderly behaviour; fourth, resisting the police; fifth—”
“You’re mad!” I shouted. “This is ridiculous! D’you imagine any court in the world would convict me of any of this, on the strength of what happened last night? Good God, there is such a thing as justice in Bavaria, I suppose—”
“There is indeed,” snaps he. “And I can tell you, sir, that I do not merely imagine that a court could convict you—I know it could. And it will.”
My head was reeling with all this. “Oh, to the devil! I’ll not listen to this! I want to see my ambassador. I know my rights, and—”
“Your ambassador would be of no help to you. I have not yet mentioned the most serious complaint. It is possible that a charge of criminal assault on a female may be brought against you.”
At this I staggered to my feet in horror. “That’s a lie! A damned lie! My God, she practically raped me. Why, she—”
“That would not be the evidence she would give before a judge and jury.” His voice was stone cold. “Baroness Pechman is known as a lady of irreproachable character. Her husband is a former Commissioner of Police for Munich. I can hardly imagine a more respectable witness.”
“But … but …” I was at a loss for words, but a horrible thought was forming in my brain. “This is a plot! That’s it! It’s a deliberate attempt to discredit me!” I wheeled on Starnberg, who was negligently regarding his nails. “You’re in this, you rascal! You’ve given false witness!”
“Don’t be an ass,” says he. “Listen to the magistrate, can’t you?”
Stunned and terrified, I sank on to the stool. Karjuss leaned forward, a thin hand tapping the table before him. I had the impression he was enjoying himself.
“You begin to see the seriousness of your position, sir. I have indicated the charges which could be brought—and without doubt, proved—against you. I speak not as an examining magistrate, but as a legal adviser, if you like. These are certainties. No doubt you would persist in denial; against you there would be at least four witnesses of high character—the two police officers who apprehended you, Baroness Pechman, and the Freiherr von Starnberg here. Your word—the word of a known duellist over women, a man who was expelled for drunken behaviour from his school in England—”
“How the devil did you know that?”
“Our gathering of information is thorough. Is it not so? You can guess what your word would count for in the circumstances.”
“I don’t care!” I cried. “You can’t hope to do this! I’m a friend of the Gräfin Landsfeld! She’ll speak for me! By God, when she hears of this, the boot will be on the other foot …”
I went no further. Another horrid thought had struck me. Why hadn’t the all-powerful Lola, whose lightest word was law in Bavaria, intervened by now? She must know all about it; why, the ghastly affair had happened in her own palace! She had been with me not five minutes before … And then, in spite of my aching, reeling head, the full truth of it was plain. Lola knew all about it, yes; hadn’t she lured me to Munich in the first place? And here I was, within twenty-four hours of meeting her again, trapped in what was obviously a damnable, deliberate plot against me. God! Was this her way of punishing me for what had happened years before, when I had laughed at her humiliation in London? Could any woman be so fiendishly cruel, hating so long and bitterly that she would go to such lengths? I couldn’t believe it.
And then Karjuss spoke to confirm my worst fears.
“You can hope for no assistance whatever from the Gräfin Landsfeld,” says he. “She has already disclaimed you.”
I took my aching head in my hands. This was a nightmare; I couldn’t believe it was happening.
“But I’ve done nothing!” I burst out, almost sobbing. “Oh, I galloped that fat trot, yes, but where’s the crime in that? Don’t Germans do it, for Christ’s sake? By God, I’ll fight this! My ambassador—”
“A moment.” Karjuss was impatient. “It seems I have talked to no purpose. Can I not convince you that, legally, you are without hope? And, on conviction, I assure you, you could be imprisoned for life. Even on the minor charges, it would be possible to ensure a maximum sentence of some years. Is that clear? This, inevitably, is what will happen if, by insisting on seeing your ambassador, and enlisting his interest, you cause the whole scandal to become public. At the moment, I would remind you, no charges have been formulated.”
“And they needn’t be,” says Rudi from behind me. “Unless you insist, of course.”
This was too much for me; it made no sense whatever.
“No one wants to be unpleasant,” says Rudi, all silky. “But we have to show you where you stand, don’t you see? To let you see what might happen—if you were obstinate.”
“You’re blackmailing me, then!” I stared from the thin-lipped Karjuss to the debonair stripling. “In God’s name, why? What have I done? What d’ye want me to do?”
“Ah!” says he. “That’s better.” He tapped me twice smartly on the shoulder with his riding-switch. “Much better. Do you know, Doctor,” he went on, turning to Karjuss, “I believe there is no need to trouble you any longer. I’m sure the Rittmeister Flashman has at least realised the—er, gravity of his situation, and will be as eager as we all are to find a mutually satisfactory way out of it. I’m deeply obliged to you, Doctor.”
Even in my scared and bewildered state, I noticed that Karjuss took his dismissal