He took it from me, and as we walked side by side towards the house he said—
"Permit me, Mr Belke, to give you one little word of caution. While you are here, forget that you can talk German! Think in English, if you can. We are walking on a tight-rope, not on the pavement. No precaution is excessive!"
"I understand," I said briefly.
There was in his voice, perfectly courteous though it was, a note of command which made one instinctively reply briefly—and obediently. I felt disposed to be favourably impressed with my ally.
He left me standing for a moment in the drive while he led my motor-cycle round to some shed at the back, and then we entered the house by the front door.
"My servant doesn't spend the night here," he explained, "so we are safe enough after dark, as long as we make no sound that can be heard outside."
It was pitch-dark inside, and only when he had closed and bolted the front door behind us, did Tiel flash his electric torch. Then I saw that we stood in a small porch which opened into a little hall, with a staircase facing us, and a passage opening beside it into the back of the house. At either side was a door, and Tiel opened that on the right and led me into a pleasant, low, lamp-lit room with a bright peat fire blazing and a table laid for supper. I learned afterwards that the clergyman who had just vacated the parish had left hurriedly, and that his books and furniture had not yet followed him. Hence the room, and indeed the whole house, looked habitable and comfortable.
"This is the place I have been looking for for a long time!" I cried cheerfully, for indeed it made a pleasant contrast to a ruinous farm or the interior of a submarine.
Tiel smiled. He had a pleasant smile, but it generally passed from his face very swiftly, and left his expression cool, alert, composed, and a trifle dominating.
"You had better take off your overalls and begin," he said. "There is an English warning against conversation between a full man and a fasting. I have had supper already."