“What is the Baron like?” he asked, wondering whether he had seen him. The question was a risk, but he ventured.
“He is small, dark, sharp-featured. He looks more like an Italian than a Budavian, and he is vengeful. He is, too, oh, so shrewd! Six assassinations are at his door, and yet—positively, Herr Arndt, what I say is true—not one of them can be brought home to him.”
“You are quite sure it was he whom you saw?”
“Oh, quite sure, of a certainty. I only trust he did not see us. But his eyes are lynx-like. If he saw us you can be assured we are even now being followed. Will it be too warm, do you think, if I lower the shade? He is not here alone, and they are on the lookout.”
“As you think best,” Grey replied. And Captain Lindenwald pulled down the silk covering of the window.
When at length they alighted at the Hôtel Grammont and entered the courtyard the portier informed the Captain that a gentleman was waiting for him in the reading-room. He went in, with Grey, who wished to look at a newspaper, closely following; and a tall, sallow-faced young man, faultlessly attired, rose and came towards them.
Grey turned aside to a table, but Lindenwald greeted the caller with no little suavity of manner.
“Ah, Monsieur Edson,” he said, affably, “this is indeed an honour. You have not, I hope, been waiting long?”
“I have a favour to ask,” the young diplomat replied, “and I shall take only a moment of your time, Captain. I today received advices from the State Department at Washington that there is an American stopping at this hotel whose name is Grey, though they tell me here there is no one of that name in the house. It seems he cabled to New York yesterday and gave this as his address. He is wanted for embezzlement.”
Grey overheard the words and stood motionless, tense, listening eagerly. His eyes were bent over the table, but it was so dark in the room that the print of the paper before him was but a grey blur.