Frau Kupfer started and looked embarrassed.
"I feel as if we had known one another for years; you can trust me," she added, appealingly.
But the swindler did not speak, and the countess proceeded:
"I am sure you need capital. Why not let me help?"
"You are right, countess," she said, with a charming blush. "It would be selfish of me to deny my friends a share of the profits. I will take your money, and you shall have ten per cent on it every month. I am making that and more.
"Do you know that I can import bacon, for which the people of Berlin pay eight shillings a pound for less than a shilling a pound? The profits on flour are bigger, and I can get a hundred per cent on soap and candles, and practically everything of which the English are trying to deprive us. I have a contract to supply three palaces of the Kaiser's with provisions for a year. You see, I am protected in high quarters. Of course, His Majesty is paying the highest price for the very best, and on that contract alone I shall make thirty shillings profit on every pound I spend. I liked you countess, from the moment we met. You shall have a share. It is a pity you have not more money saved, because that would mean a bigger return. However, you can reinvest your dividends."
Within forty-eight hours the twenty thousand pounds which the Countess von Hohn had received by the sale of her British and French securities was in the hands of Frau Kupfer.
I should mention that six weeks before the war started the German Foreign Minister notified all those who could be trusted to keep the secret that they had better realize their investments in Great Britain, France and Russia. As the countess' husband was one of the inner set, he got the information early, and was able to save his own and his wife's fortune.
This unexpected windfall delighted Frau Kupfer and Gertrude. The first thing they did was to send fifty pounds' "interest" to the doctor's widow at Leipzig, and the second to take a larger and better flat, retaining their original residence, however, and using it mainly as a hiding-place for the choicest provisions.
Frau Kupfer paid her two maids lavishly and fed them luxuriously, and they were hers body and soul in a city where famine threatened to stalk abroad. It was easy, therefore, to stock the flat with preserves, bacon, ham, wines, cigars, cigarettes and soap, besides a huge amount of clothing.