"What do you say, Miss Caldicott?"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous. Rosa doesn't understand such stupid jokes. Good-night, Herr Lassen." She spoke indifferently, but there was a little pressure of the hand which sent me off home feeling mighty pleased with myself and thinking a lot more about her than the new complications, and so nearly brought me to grief.
It was a dark night, the streets were deserted, and I was plunging along castle-building on the foundation of that hand-pressure when, as I was taking a short cut through a square, a drunken man ran up behind, and lurched into me. He cursed me for getting in his way, and tried to close with me and, before I could shake him off, two others appeared, and one of them aimed a blow at my head with his stick.
Luckily there was just time for me to wriggle out of the way and let the first man have the benefit of the blow. It caught him full on the head, and down he went in a heap. The other two were so astounded by this that they hesitated long enough to give me a chance to attack in my turn. I went for the ruffian who had struck at me, bashed him under the chin hard enough to send him staggering back tripping into the gutter, and was ready for number three. But there was no fight left in him, and he bolted.
His companion in the gutter scrambled to his feet, but his stick had flown out of his hand in the fall, and the moment he found he had to deal with me alone without it, he also thought discretion safer and ran off after the other.
I turned to have a look at the drunken brute who had started the row, or rather the robbery, for that seemed to be the meaning of the affair. The blow had seemed hard enough to crack his skull; but when I examined him I saw that it had not hurt him seriously. I also discovered something which told me I had not appreciated the true purpose of the attack.
I recognized him at once. He was the fellow who had called on me that morning in the name of Rudolff.
He was able to get up and walk; shakily, it is true, for he was a good deal dazed, and I had to hold him up on the way to my rooms, which were close by. The stairs were a difficulty, but we got up somehow, and a drink of spirits and a rest soon brought him round sufficiently to talk.
"I suppose you were coming to warn me again, Rudolff, eh?" I said.
He stared stupidly at me.