"Of course she is. I thought you knew it."
CHAPTER X
COMPLICATIONS
The fact that it was Baron von Gratzen's wife and daughter whom I had managed to snatch from the clutches of the mob was startling, and might have vital consequences. But whether it would help or harm me, it was difficult to decide.
The first impression was that it was rotten luck. By all accounts Lassen was far too great a coward to have faced the mob; and that fact alone was dangerous since it tended to emphasize the difference between us. More than enough had transpired in the interview with the Baron to show that he already suspected I was not Lassen; and this business might put the finishing touch to his suspicions. My handling of the car, moreover, might be accepted as an additional proof of the impersonation.
There was of course another side. It was his wife and child who had been rescued; and if he hadn't a stone in place of a heart, he was bound to feel some amount of gratitude. But would that be sufficient to cause him to smother his suspicions?
The German official is commonly a two-natured individual; showing one side in his private life and the other in his office. His manner to me that morning had been friendly enough; but that was after his suspicions had been quieted and he had regarded me as Lassen. What the effect would be when his suspicions were again roused, it was impossible to say.
If he was like many of those I had known in the old days, he would be quite capable of professing and even feeling the deepest gratitude privately and at home, and the next minute at his office regretting, with tears in his eyes, that his duty compelled him to pack me off to gaol. That's the worst of Teutonic sentimentality. It's pretty much like a compass needle in an electric storm; you never know where it will point next.
When we reached the house nothing would satisfy the Baroness but that I should go in so that her husband should have an opportunity of thanking me; and in we went. It was a relief to find that he wasn't home; but she would not hear of my leaving until she was satisfied that I was not seriously hurt, and wished to send straight off for a doctor to examine me.