A SCENT
George Senf was leonine. Aroused suddenly from his bed, the disorder of his long white hair and beard gave him a singularly wild and ferocious aspect. But he got out a long-stemmed pipe and after lighting it, settled down with a steady eye to listen to the story that Liederman and Rowland told him. He heard them through to the end, putting in keen questions or incisive remarks here and there which did much to reassure Rowland that their case was in capable hands. This was a leader of men, a thinker and a man of action, and his comprehension of all aspects of the situation and the definite manner of his decisions, left no room to doubt that he believed a crisis to be impending between the forces he represented and the powers of the government which stood behind Khodkine. When Liederman and Rowland had finished he sat for a long while on his bed smoking, his brows frowning, staring at the opposite wall. At last he waved them away.
"Go," he said shortly. "You will need your sleep. My work begins now—at once. Tomorrow we will have a report from Fraulein Korasov. We need her. The meeting of the Committee is tomorrow night. Come here when you have slept and we will plan further. Good night."
And so the two men returned to the Russischer Hof and found the sleep of which they were both much in need. But it was with some mental reservations that Rowland went to bed, for he had vowed that until Tanya was found he would never rest in peace. He had seen something of the double nature of this Gregory Hochwald, and the possible dangers to which she might be subjected filled him constantly with vague alarms. But he realized that he must rest to be effective upon the morrow. If his conscience troubled him, he had no chance to be aware of it, for he was sound asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.
Liederman was hammering upon the door of the adjoining room which he occupied before Rowland awoke and sat up in his bed, blinking at the light of broad day, and after a hurried bath and breakfast they called upon Zoya Rochal and hastened to the house of Georg Senf.
They found the Socialist leader in his bedroom, which was blue with the tobacco smoke of a secret conference of several men, three of them leaders, as Rowland afterward discovered, in labor organizations allied to the Socialist-Democratic and Socialist-Revolutionary parties. As the new comers entered there was a silence except for the words of greeting of Georg Senf and they all rose and made place. One of them wore a workman's blouse, and the others were shabbily dressed but in all three Rowland noted the same characteristics--the broad brows of intelligence, the firm lips of resolution, the clear penetrating gaze of men accustomed to think for themselves.
"This is Herr Rowland," said Georg Senf briefly, "the new President of the Order of Nemi, who has come from Switzerland on this sudden mission."
The men bowed and shook the hand of the American gravely.
"You will not find Munich lacking in ardor, Herr Rowland. Our followers are many and we are strong," said one, named Conrad Weiss, who was chief telegrapher of the Munich Post Office.
"You will need to be strong," said Rowland, "for there is every sign that a test of your power is coming soon."