“Why not take—ah’m—preventive measures against him, Baron?” said the Duke, brightening with a plausible argument.
“Your Highness may rest assured that we are doing so,” Rollmar answered a little testily.
“You are a long time about it,” rejoined the Duke with a suggestion of malicious satisfaction at the idea of his infallible minister’s discomfiture. “Surely, Baron, you are not withheld by any scruples on account of the transgressor being a foreigner and a guest?”
There was a very obvious and cheap sneer in this, since it was notorious that Chancellor Rollmar was the last man in Europe to be influenced by such considerations.
But a weak man does not as a rule gain much satisfaction from sneering at a strong one. It would have taken a more masterly brain and a sharper tongue than Duke Theodor’s to put Rollmar out of countenance. He simply replied—
“I am quite confident that in such a case any act of punishment which it might be expedient to inflict would be covered by the cloak of your Highness’s gracious approval. But, to return to facts, I regret to say I am unable to inform you, sir, at this moment with absolute certainty that my orders have been duly executed.”
The Duke raised his eyebrows, still hugging the idea of his master-servant’s failure. “How is that, Baron? You have as a rule, I understand, but to point your finger.”
The Baron greatly resented the way in which he was being cross-examined about his discomfiture; it was bad enough to realise it, without being worried into confessing it. He had expected the Duke to fall in with his views without opposition or even protest, but as he did not seem inclined to do so, the wily old diplomatist told himself that he must weight his proposal with the story which would force it through as imperative.
“Your Highness knows my aversion to a blunder,” he replied impressively. “It was necessary to make quite certain that the finger could point to the right man. It was only last night that I became sure of that. The agent whom I employed to—to put any further scandal out of the question executed his orders to the satisfaction of certain witnesses. But it was with as much astonishment as regret that I learnt this morning that the culprit’s body had mysteriously disappeared.”
“Indeed!” There was enough sensation in the story to interest the shallow mind of the royal pococurante.