"It is true, excellency, myself and the night-porter, but he has gone to sleep again."
"And you?"
"From the Chief, excellency, with this letter."
He held out a great square document, grotesquely sealed and carefully folded. A small man with a pockmarked face, he wore the uniform of an ordinary gendarme and aped that rôle to perfection. Saluting gravely, he permitted the letter to pass from his hands. Then he closed the door and leaned his back against it.
"I am to take an answer to the bureau, excellency."
The Count read a few lines of the document and looked up uneasily.
"You say that you were commanded to wake me up—for this?"
"Those are my orders."
"Zaniloff must have lost his wits—there was nothing else?"
The man took one stride forward.