After a little the Count crossed to a table on which stood lighted candelabra, and taking out his watch glanced at it with some show of impatience. Almost at the same moment a bell jangled, and very soon after a portière was raised by a servant wearing the Court mourning livery.
“Herr Captain Lindenwald, your Excellency!” he announced. And the Captain entered, saluting.
He was flushed and somewhat ill at ease, and the Chancellor’s icy manner as he bade him be seated was not altogether reassuring.
“I am very much distressed over the news conveyed by your telegram,” began the older man, when he had taken a chair at a little distance from his visitor. “Any delay at this juncture, you must understand, is only calculated to result in complications. Was His Royal Highness so violent that to bring him with you was impracticable?”
Lindenwald hesitated for just the shade of a second, his fingers playing nervously with the arm of his chair.
“I regarded the risk as too great,” he ventured.
“That is no answer,” the Count returned, irritably. “I asked you if he was violent.”
“Yes, Count, he was,” replied the Captain, with sudden assurance. “He was very violent at intervals. It would have been impossible to get him here without his causing a scene at some stage of the journey and probably revealing his identity. Besides, it was most dangerous. He was liable to evade his watchers and throw himself from the train.”
The annoyance of the Chancellor increased.
“You have never heard, Captain,” he said with a sneer, “that there are such things as handcuffs and strait-jackets.”