"No. He does not know you are coming. You must tell him that you haf come here on some business.... And also, he will be at hiss work by now—he goes very early in the morning."
"He's well enough to go to work, then?"
She shrugged her shoulders, and answered: "That iss what I thought you would say. I am sure you will be very angry with me.... But wait—wait till I haf explained...."
II
The car turned into the Laudon Gasse, but it was not the familiar apartment-house that confronted me when, a moment later, I stepped out on to the pavement. It was the "Hotel London," with a frontage of eighty feet, and an electric sign over the entrance. And also there was an uniformed porter to attend to my luggage, a bureau, an Aufzug fur Personen, a Gastzimmer, and a notice declaring "English Spoken Here: On Parle Français; Si Parla Italiano...." Mizzi could see my astonishment as I penetrated further into such colossal metamorphosis; and I could see her pride. She said, almost apologetically: "It iss a very good hotel. Ass good ass the Bristol, but not so expensif.... My mother—did you know?—died two years ago, and the last thing she said wass to warn me not to do all this because it would not pay.... But—I do it—all the same—and it does pay...."
Five minutes later we were sitting together in her comfortably furnished sitting-room, with an English breakfast of ham-and-eggs before us. And she was trying to tell me why she had sent me that telegram.
He was ill, she said, whether I thought so or not. His going to work really proved that he was ill, because the hours he spent at the laboratories were absurd. He practically lived there. He went very early in the mornings and came back very late at nights, and he had grown very quiet and silent, hardly speaking a word even when he met her, which wasn't very often. He had been overworking for years, but lately he had been more than overworking. She was sure he was on the verge of a breakdown. There had been a doctor staying at the hotel—a German nerve specialist—and his opinion, formed merely from observation of Terry during the few seconds of a lift-journey, had been sufficiently disquieting. "And then once—but that wass many weeks ago—he wass ill when he came in at night, and he began to say things to himself in a very strange way. I would think he wass drunken, but he does not drink.... He talked about hiss work, and you, and somebody named Helen.... Who iss this Helen? Do you know?"
I wonder if the shock of that sent me pale suddenly. She seemed to notice something in my face, anyway, for she went on, gazing at me intently: "I wondered if this Helen wass a lady in England whom he had known a long time ago...."
She paused, and then, as if accepting the fact that there were things I could tell her, but wouldn't, went on: "So you see why I sent for you. I am afraid for him—I am afraid of what will happen. You must take him away—to England—anywhere—anywhere where he cannot work.... Otherwise—I do not like to think of what will happen."
"When can I see him?" I asked.