"I suppose," he remarked, "you know the risk you have been running?"
"Our friends have reminded us," I answered.
An attendant came in, and Staunton handed us over to him.
"Show this lady and these gentlemen into the strangers' room," he ordered. "See that they have food and wine, and anything they require."
We left at once. In the passage we passed a little crowd of hurrying journalists on their way to answer Staunton's summons. In every room the alarm bell had sounded, and the making-up of the paper was stopped!
CHAPTER XXXIX
WORKING THE ORACLE
We had food and wine, plenty of it, and very excellently served. The room in which we were imprisoned was more than comfortable—it was luxurious. There were couches and easy-chairs, magazines and shaded electric lights. Yet we could not rest for one moment. Adèle and I talked for an hour or so, and we had plenty to say, but in time the fever seized us too. The roar of the machinery below thrilled us through and through. It was the warning which, in a very few hours, would electrify the whole country, which was being whirled into type. I thought of Madame, and once I laughed.
Three times Guest was sent for to give some information, mainly with regard to earlier happenings in Berlin, before our fateful meeting at the Hotel Universal. At last my turn came. It was interesting to visit, if only for a moment, the room where Staunton himself was writing this story.
He was sitting at his table, his coat off, an unlighted cigarette in his mouth, an untasted cup of tea by his side. Two shorthand clerks sat opposite to him, a typist was hard at work a few yards away. Staunton called me over to him. His voice was hoarse and raspy, and there were drops of sweat upon his forehead.