"Well, are you going to have another cigar, or would you like to go to bed?"
"With your permission I shall go to bed," I said.
He conducted me through the hall and down the passage that led to the back premises. At the end rose a steep and narrow stair. We ascended this, and at the top found a narrow landing with a door at either end of it.
"This is your private flat," he explained in a low voice. "The old house, you will see, has been built in two separate instalments, which have separate stairs and no communication with one another on the upper landing. These two rooms are supposed to be locked up and not in use at present, but I have secured their keys."
He unlocked one of the doors, and we entered the room. It was square, and of quite a fair size. On two sides the walls sloped attic-wise, in a third was a fireplace and a window, and in the fourth two doors—the second opening into a large cupboard. This room had simple bedroom furniture, and also a small table and a basket chair. When we entered, it was lit only by a good fire, and pervaded by a pleasant aroma of peat smoke. Tiel lighted a paraffin lamp and remarked—
"You ought to be quite comfortable here."
Personally, I confess that my breath was fairly taken away. I had anticipated sleeping under the roof in some dark and chilly garret, or perhaps in the straw of an outhouse.
"Comfortable!" I exclaimed. "Mein Gott, who would not be on secret service! But are you sure all this is safe? This fire, for instance—the smoke surely will be seen."
"I have promised to keep the bedrooms aired while I am staying here," smiled Tiel.
He then explained in detail the arrangements of our remarkable household. He himself slept in the front part of the house, up the other staircase. The room opposite mine was empty, and so was the room underneath; but below the other was the kitchen, and I was warned to be very quiet in my movements. The single servant arrived early in the morning, and left about nine o'clock at night: she lived, it seemed, at a neighbouring farm; and Tiel assured me there was nothing to be feared from her provided I was reasonably careful.