During this conversation they had walked on, and had passed Frederick's hotel without noticing it. They were now very near Colonel Clery's rooms, in St. James.
“Have you got any—any papers about you which could convince me of my mistake and prove your identity?” inquired Clery, somewhat hesitatingly.
“Well, I have my passport, which is attached to my pocket-book, and some cards and letters besides, if that will suffice,” replied Frederick with a sneer; “but I do not suppose that you wish me to sit down here on the curbstone in the rain and let you examine them by the light of the street lamps.”
“Certainly not. Come up to my room—that is, if you don't object. It will be best for both of us to have this matter settled once and for all.”
“All right; show the way. But I must acknowledge that you English are an infernally queer lot, and well deserve to be called ‘originals.’”
Colonel Clery, taking a latch-key from his pocket, opened the house door and preceded Frederick up a broad flight of steps. Opening another door on the first floor he ushered him into a large but cozy-looking sitting-room. The heavy Turkish curtains were drawn before the windows, and a reading lamp, shaded by a crimson silk screen, was burning on a low side table, leaving part of the room in semi-darkness. Here and there on the tapestried walls were trophies of remarkably fine Damascened Indian swords and inlaid matchlocks. A few good water-colors hung over the sofa, and on the chimney was a large photograph of Lady Alice, in a splendid enameled frame, standing between two old Satsuma vases filled with cut flowers.
Colonel Clery mechanically motioned Frederick to the sofa, but the latter, taking from his pocket a small portefeuille and three or four letters, handed them to him, saying:
“Look at these first, colonel, so as to convince yourself before anything else that you are not now harboring a thief and assassin under your roof.”
Colonel Clery, throwing his hat and overcoat on a chair, and taking the documents from Frederick, sat down on a low arm-chair in front of the table for the purpose of examining them by the light of the lamp.
Had he been able to glance behind his chair he would scarcely have been reassured by the expression which came over Frederick's features as soon as he felt that he was no longer observed. But the colonel was so absorbed in the perusal of one of the letters handed to him that he did not even notice that Frederick had softly approached and was bending over him as if to read over his shoulder.