"It is as I thought—there is no Baroness von Valverden. Baron Ernst von Schön-Valverden is a minor and a bachelor, private in the —th Regiment of Potsdam Infantry of the Guard. This must be the Frenchwoman I have heard of as mixed up in the scandal connected with the death of Baron Maximilian at Schönfeld in the Altenwald some years ago. He left Madame a lapful of thalers—I suppose she has played skat with the money. Not that that matters if the hook-nosed, long-haired Slav she has got with her upstairs has the cash to settle with us! But if not——"
The manager's tone was ominous. The clerk scratched his nose with the feather-end of his pen, and said admiringly:
"If not, the Herr Bureau-Director will give orders to detain their valises and trunks?"
The bureau-manager smiled, and said, jerking his chin at another envelope reposing in the numbered pigeon-hole:
"Send that up at once and let them know we will stand no nonsense. Keep Müller and Stettig's back for the present. Understand?"
And the clerk nodded again, and whistled down a tube, and evoked from regions below a brass-buttoned, gilt-braided functionary, to whom he entrusted the missive indicated, which bore the monogram of the hotel-company, and indeed contained their bill.
It was handed to Madame by the brass-buttoned functionary just as she reached the ante-room of her second-floor suite of apartments. She took it from the salver, and said without looking at it:
"Presently!"
The functionary gave a peremptory verbal message. She repeated:
"Presently, sir, presently.... At this moment I am exceedingly fatigued!"