And then the luck of it! Actually to be sent back to England with official credentials! I could have whooped for joy! But as it was already passed the time I was to lunch with von Erstein, I rushed back to the Falkenplatz, made sure of the little flat, and then cabbed it to von Erstein's address.
What a rotter the brute was, I reflected as I thought of the story he had already spread about me. He meant to make things hot for me and no mistake, and had lost no time in setting to work. And what a brick the old Count, to have given me that warning. If I had been going to stop in Berlin, I might have taken von Erstein's enmity seriously; but as it was I could afford to laugh at him, for a few days at the most would see both Nessa and me out of the country, if the luck only held.
I was so late in reaching the Gallenstrasse, where von Erstein had his sumptuous flat, that he had already begun lunch. "I'd given you up, Lassen," he said as I entered. "Thought something might have happened with old Gratz to detain you. He's a downy old bird. Sit there, will you. Everything all right?"
"Why shouldn't it be?" I knew what he meant.
He turned the question off and we talked about nothing in particular until lunch was over, except that every now and then he shot in a question which might have committed me if I had not been on my guard. But I had been through the mill so thoroughly that morning that the part I was playing had grown into my bones, so to speak.
"Now we can chat at our ease," he said as we settled into easy chairs. "Is it still your habit to smoke a cigarette before a cigar?" he asked, grinning, as he held the box toward me.
"Was that one of my habits, then?" I countered, declining the little trap.
"All right, you do it very well. Ought to be on the stage, on my word you ought," he said with a broader leer. "But now, let's get to grips. How do we two stand?"
"About what?"
"Don't fool about in that way. You know what I mean."