"General, could I see you for one moment alone?" said Warner.
The General moved out from the seated circle of officers, joined Warner, and moved with unhurried step beside him through the house toward the billiard room.
When they had reached the billiard room, Warner had told him all he knew concerning Wildresse, concluding with the appearance of the man escorted by Uhlans on Vineyard Hill.
Then he drew the papers from his pocket and gave them to the silent officer, who stood quite motionless, looking him through and through.
It was evident that General Delisle had no hesitation about breaking the big, sprawling seals of grey wax; he ripped both packets open so that the documents fell all over the scarf covering the billiard table; then, rapidly, he picked up, opened, scanned, and cast aside paper after paper.
There was not the slightest change in the expression of his face when he came to the "Schnaeble-Incident"; he scanned it, laid it aside, and said quietly as he picked up the next paper:
"That document is sufficient to settle the affair of this man Wildresse. If we catch him, ceremony will be superfluous.... The nearest wall or tree, you understand—unless he cares to make a statement first.... I always have time to listen to statements. Only one out of a hundred proves to be of any value at all, Mr. Warner, but that one is worth all the time I waste on the others——"
And all the while he was opening, scanning, and casting aside document after document.
"Oh, almost any one of these is enough," remarked the General. "Here's a villainous center of ramifications, leading God knows where——"
He checked himself abruptly; a dull color mounted to his bronzed cheekbones. Warner glanced at the caption of the document. It read: "Dossier of Count Cassilis and the Battenberg Affair."