Zuggstein, as one used to write three or four years ago, “intrigued” me. He was such an efficient rogue: a rogue working, as it appeared, most openly, most flagrantly, but in reality working with an abundance of prepared camouflage.
I waited most patiently and, in the course of time, when he again issued from his private sanctum, he queried me with his right eyebrow, beckoned me almost imperceptibly with his left elbow and, preceding me, made a gangway to his room. I followed him with an air, recognising, as I did so, that I was in for a bit of an adventure, and resolved to lie like poor Beelzebub himself.
“Good-morning,” said he in English when the door was closed upon us. “Will you take a chair and also a cigar?” Mysteriously, he produced a box from the region of his knees and looked hard at me. “And a whisky?” he added, with a smile. “I never drink myself,” he apologised, “but you English!”
I accepted all three invitations.
“I have come,” said I, when I had lit my cigar and savoured it, “I have come to see you about half-a-dozen recitals, piano recitals, that a Norwegian friend of mine wishes to give here in Berlin next January.”
“To whom,” asked he—and a little chill descended [221] ]upon him as he asked the question—“to whom have I the honour of speaking?”
I smiled deprecatingly, and produced from my card-case a card bearing the name “Gerald Cumberland.”
“I am staying at the Fürstenhof. Room 4001.”
Disarmed, but still cautious, he wrote the number of my room on the pasteboard.
“I am, I think it is obvious, from England. This is my first visit to your great city. I am interested in art, in music.” I used a careless, all-embracing gesture. “And my Norwegian friend, Mr Sigurd Falk, knowing that I was about to set out for Berlin, asked me to try to arrange certain matters with you. He got your name from a compatriot of his.”