Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/358

 quiet. I forthwith went to Brune's rooms. I found him there, evidently expecting me. The little cigar box stood on the table.

“That was cursed ill-luck last night,” he said, “but it was not my fault. Everything was in the best of order, but as I opened the locker in the Revier room I could not find the keys to the cell. I searched and searched for them, but they were not there. This morning I learned that Inspector Semmler had accidentally, instead of placing them in the locker, put them into his pocket and carried them with him to his home.”

For a moment he was silent. “There is the money,” he continued, pointing to the cigar box; “take it; count it first; no thaler is missing.”

I could not refrain from shaking the man's hand and in my heart asking his pardon for my doubts.

“What comes from you,” I answered, repeating his words of yesterday, “will not be counted. But what now? I do not give up. Must we wait until you have the night watch again?”

“We might wait,” he replied, “and in the meantime duplicate all the keys that we need so that this difficulty may not arise again; but,” he added, “I have thought over the matter to-day. It is a disgrace that that man should sit in the convict's cell a day longer—I will try to help him this very night, if he has courage enough for a break-neck feat.”

“What, this night?”

“Yes, this night. Now listen.” Then Brune told me that the officer who during the coming night should have the watch on the upper stories, had been taken ill, and he, Brune, had offered to take his place. Thereupon he had thought he might without much difficulty take Kinkel into the loft under the roof and let him down with a rope from out of one of the dormer windows on the street. To this end he would of course