“You mean that it was you who was here last night in Sir William Laureston’s place?” he almost shrieked.
“Most certainly,” Peter admitted, “but you must remember that, after all, my performances have been no more difficult than those of your shy but accomplished brother. Whenever I took to myself a strange personality I found him there, equally good as to detail, and with his subject always at his finger tips. We settled that little matter of the canal, didn’t we?” Peter remarked, cheerfully, laying his hand upon the shoulder of the young man.
They stared at him, those two white-faced brothers, like tiger-cats about to spring. Mr. Von Tassen was getting impatient.
“Look here,” he protested, “you may be clearing matters up so far as regards Mr. Andrea Korust and his brother, but I’m as much in the fog as ever. Where do I come in?”
“Your pardon, sir,” Peter replied. “I am getting nearer things now. These two young men—we will not call them hard names—are suffering from an excess of patriotic zeal. They didn’t come and sit down on a camp stool and sketch obsolete forts, as those others of their countrymen do when they want to pose as the bland and really exceedingly ignorant foreigner. They went about the matter with some skill. It occurred to them that it might be interesting to their country to know what Sir William Laureston thought about the strength of the Imperial Navy, and to what extent his country was willing to go in maintaining their allegiance to Great Britain. Then there was the Duke of Rosshire. They thought they’d like to know his views as to the development of the Navy during the next ten years. There was that little matter, too, of the French guns. It would certainly be interesting to them to know what Monsieur le Marquis de Beau Kunel had to say about them. These people were all invited to sit at the hospitable board of our host here. I, however, had an inkling on the first night of what was going on, and I was easily able to persuade those in authority to let me play their several parts. You, sir,” Peter added, turning to Mr. Von Tassen, “you, sir, floored me. You were not an Englishman, and there was no appeal which I could make. I simply had to risk you. I counted upon your not turning up. Unfortunately, you did. Fortunately, you are the last guest. This is the seventh supper.”
Mr. Von Tassen glanced around at the three men and made up his mind.
“What do you call yourself?” he asked Peter.
“The Baron de Grost,” Peter replied.
“Then, my friend the Baron de Grost,” Von Tassen said, “I think that you and I had better get out of this. So I was to talk about Germany with Mr. Van Jool, eh?”
“I have already explained your views,” Peter declared, with twinkling eyes. “Mr. Van Jool was delighted.”