Menschenwee

Summary

Unaware of its contents, Beets, a kind-hearted merchant captain, delivers to Balthazar, the far from honest owner of a dance-hall in Amsterdam, a packet containing smuggled diamonds that he has been asked to bring from Riga. To avoid paying Beets the reward he has been promised and to double his profit, Balthazar, who is rightly called "The Tiger", shoots the captain in cold blood and, when the body is discovered in the cellar, makes it appear as if Beets has committed suicide. The young author Willy Vermeer, who is visiting the dance-hall, cries out that this suicide will form an excellent ending for the story he is writing, but is shocked when he recognizes the dead man as the father of his sweetheart Eva. However, a young waif who has sought shelter in the cellar has witnessed the murder and makes this known. The captain's daughters will know no rest until the criminal is punished for his deed. Eventually Balthazar is tricked into confessing that it was he who shot a bullet through the captain's chest.