"I will have obedience!" he stormed. "Let no one misunderstand my status here: I am come direct from His Majesty the Emperor with full power and authority to command and direct affairs which you have, individually, collectively, proved yourselves either unfit or unable to cope with. What I do, I do in my absolute discretion, with the full sanction and confidence of the Kaiser. He who questions my judgment or my actions, questions the wisdom of the All-Highest. Let it be clearly understood I am answerable to no one under God but myself and my Imperial master. Henceforth be good enough to hold your tongues or take the consequences—and be damned to you all!"
Briefly he stood glowering down at their upturned faces, then sneered, and turned away.
"Come along, O'Reilly," he said. "Fetch the woman, and give no more heed to swine-dogs!"
His hand slipped up the rail to the first floor, vanished.
If O'Reilly followed with the woman mentioned, both kept back from the rail and so out of Lanyard's field of vision.
The group at the foot of the stairs moved away, grumbling profanely.
At once Lanyard began to descend, rapidly and without care to avoid detection.
One flight down he met face to face a manservant, evidently a footman, with an armful of clothing which he was conveying from one chamber to another. The fellow stopped short, jaw dropping, eyes popping; whereupon Lanyard paused and addressed him in German with a manner of overbearing contempt, that is to say, in character.
"You're wanted upstairs in the radio room," he said—"at once!"
The servant bleated one word of protest: "But—!"