"Good. Very good indeed. If she can prove it, of course. But you wouldn't relish the job, eh?"
"That goes without saying."
"Well, we'll hope she can't. We shall soon know all about her. In the meantime what are you going to do?"
"I can only wait and see."
He laughed and rubbed his hands. "Wait and see, eh? That's the English Premier's phrase, isn't it? So you've picked that up, it seems."
His comment made me wish I'd used a different one. "There isn't anything else to do, sir."
"Quite so. Wait and see. Exactly. And as an honourable man you'd prefer to get the question settled before leaving Berlin?"
The shrewd old beggar was a positive expert in sticking one in a hole. I didn't know what answer to make, so I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled vacuously.
"It's rather a pity, too," he continued after a pause. "I've arranged that matter of your leaving; in fact I intended you to go to-day. I have all the necessary papers, even tickets for you and Miss Caldicott;" and he took them out of his desk and laid them in front of me, giving me one of those wily smiles of his.
I could have cursed the luck. The sight of them, the knowledge that Nessa and I could have been out of the infernal country within a few hours but for this rotten thing coming in the way, so exasperated me that it was scarcely possible to conceal my bitter chagrin. I tried to hide it from him by taking the papers and looking them over.