As I went downstairs I was about to tear up the letter, when it occurred to me as a possibility that it might be of use in any future case of emergency, so I put it carefully away.
Then I set to work to think out some means of inducing the Baron to leave Berlin, by using my supposed influence in the party. If I could tell him a plausible story to the effect that the attempt had had to be postponed for a few weeks and that the authorities had got wind of it, he might go. And for Althea's sake, as well as for our own, I was intensely anxious to get him away.
As I sat planning this a letter was brought to me from Herr Borsen.
"MY DEAR BASTABLE,--
"Can you come and see me? I understand that you have another visitor in your house, and it is about that I should like a few words with you. I wish to be able to contradict a strange report which has reached me concerning him; since, if uncontradictcd, it might be a somewhat serious matter for you. Any time to-morrow will do, but not later.
"Yours as ever."
If I had been wishful for the Baron to go before, the letter turned the wish into a strenuous anxiety.
It looked very much like the beginning of the end.
CHAPTER XVII
"W. MISCHEN'S" WAREHOUSE