We now went on inward to the second court, a party thenceforth of five (including the bear), and were shown the granary, storehouses, electric set. "Do you keep a large staff of retainers?" I asked at the offices. "A mere handful now," was the answer; and Herr Tschudi added with a laugh: "but they are all trusty to the backbone, in case you ever think of storming the castle!" This was the hard nut whom I had had the fantastic thought of bribing to tell the truth as to Dees! He was full of pride in his baron and castle, and such a hero-worshipper that I even fancied that he tried to ape the baron's manner and speech. "Certainly, the baron keeps some excellent horses," said I at the stables: "is he fond of riding?" "Ach, not now," was the answer; "but he has been a dashing bear and boar huntsman in his time, for whatever he attempts he does with a more magnificent success than others; the mother of the good Ami here (meaning the bear) was slain by him. As for the horses, the alp is noted for them." "So, since the baron no longer rides," said I, "how does he amuse himself now when in residence?" "Mainly in the laboratory, which I will show you presently in the keep," he answered. "Indeed?" said I, "is the baron a chemist?" "What, you did not know that?" said he: "everyone knows that he is even a specially profound chemist, for chemistry has been his life-study." "The baron is always found to be more than one had thought him," said I; "I wonder if my friend and I will have the honour of seeing him before we leave the alp?" "His lordship's comings and goings," answered Herr Tschudi, "are always very uncertain." "Strange to say," said I, "there is a rumour in the alp that the baron is actually in residence; at least one woman told me that she knows it for a fact." "Thundery weather!" cried the man with a flush, "what is the woman's name?" "I don't know her name," I answered, not wishing to get my good sennerin into any trouble.
A move was now made towards the keep with its square tower at each corner. By an outside flight of steps we went up to the first floor—there was no ingress to the ground floor—and were shown the old hall (ritter-saal). The quality of this place was most quaint somehow, with some feeling of ancient forests, damsels and nixen, and knights of Lyones, yet all was quite plain, even shabby, save some rather portentous portieres which shut off his lordship's private quarters. I, for the most part, strolled with Herr Tschudi, while Langler, with Herr Court-painter, bent over everything in his connoisseur way: there were paintings by old abbots in tempera whose secret is lost, there were cressets, gobelins, tables of pierced bone, painted hoch-Deutsch MSS. Langler said hardly anything, and only once spoke to Herr Tschudi, when he called out: "Is this pieta ancient?" to which Herr Tschudi answered: "fifteenth-century, sir." "But," said Langler, "Herr Court-painter says sixteenth-century," at which Herr Court-painter blushed all over his broad face. "No, sir, fifteenth-century," repeated Herr Tschudi. "I thought it modern," said Langler; "but what is this inscription on its base?" We all now went to look at the pieta, a Virgin and dead Christ in wax; but Herr Tschudi could make nothing of the inscription, for he said, "it is some pious motto, but I do not know that language—do you, perhaps, Herr Court-painter?" Herr Court-painter of the star-gazing spectacles shook his ringlets, with the answer: "I do not know what it says." "Does—the baron read Hebrew?" asked Langler suddenly. "Ach, not now any more, I think," answered Herr Tschudi; "but he has been a master of several old languages in his time." I noticed Langler's brow twitch, but did not imagine that the matter was of any importance; I saw, indeed, that the letters on the pieta were Greek, but all in capitals, with the sigmas like C's, and much effaced, so my mind shirked the bore of reading, and I turned away with the others from it.
After this we were shown the baron's laboratory, the upper rooms, one of the four towers, and were now escorted by Herr Tschudi, Herr Court-painter, and the bear back to the gate, where Herr Tschudi parted from us with profound reverences.
"It is a fabulous place," Aubrey wrote of it, "imbued with an old forlornness, and a waving of woods, and the pining of an alto wawl in the windpipe of its airs," but certainly I felt rather foolish when I left it, for I had learned nothing, and what we were now to do I had no notion. At the entrance to the forest we met our old Lossow with his pipe, and he climbed with me back to the guest-court, Langler meanwhile striding well ahead of us, wrapped in silence.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FACE OF DEES
On going into my sitting-room at the guest-court I beheld Langler already there, with a busy pen in his hand and his hat still on his head; he said nothing, nor could I guess what he was at, till, getting up sharply, he handed me to read a note to Herr Tschudi in something like the following words:—"Sir, you have, to my certain knowledge, one Father Max Dees unlawfully confined in Schweinstein Castle, of which you are the governor, his dungeon being the cell at the bottom of the north-west tower. For such an act of flagrant unrighteousness there can be no excuse whatever, and I have to address to you, in the pretended absence of the castle-lord, the warning that, if within the next twenty-four hours your prisoner is not released, then my friend, Mr Templeton, and I will know how to coerce and duly punish you...."
I was never more surprised!—every word of it was surprising! My first words were: "but by what means are we to coerce and duly punish him?"
"Oh, we shall find a way," said Langler: "I intend to be no longer tentative and tolerant; Dees must now be set at liberty, or I shall act with a certain rigour."