After luncheon they lighted cigars and sat in the bow window looking down on the busy Königstrasse, the principal thoroughfare of the city. The old Minister’s casual comments on the details of the moving, thronging life beneath them were shrewd and amusing, and the idle half-hour passed agreeably enough.
“Do you see this man riding up the street towards us on the roan horse?” Gersdorff asked, suddenly breaking off from the general to the particular. “Now there is a fellow who is rather a puzzle to our intelligence department.”
“In what way?” Galabin asked, looking curiously at the object of the remark as he drew nearer.
The rider was a dark, well set-up man about thirty-five or forty with something of a Greek cast of countenance. Certainly at a casual glance an undeniably handsome fellow, with a lithe figure and a perfect seat on horseback.
“He is a Count Zarka,” Gersdorff answered. “He lives right away on the eastern borders of the country among the mountains, but he is often here, staying sometimes for several weeks together and living in expensive style. Now the curious thing about him is that he seems suddenly and strangely to have become rich—no one knows how. His father, the last Count, was poor, living in a half-ruined castle among the mountains; this man has, we hear, turned the dilapidated old place into an almost palatial residence where he keeps a certain state. He appeared suddenly a year or two back in society here with a great flourish and all the surroundings of large wealth. Whence does it come? Report says he has been singularly lucky at the gaming-tables; but that would hardly account for more than a temporary state of affluence. Yes,” he continued musingly, “I shall have to find out the real source of the Herr Count’s wealth as soon as we have discovered Prince Roel. Another mission waiting for you, my adventurous young friend. Ah! here he comes back again.”
The sharp ring of the horse’s hoofs sounded on the stones below them; then abruptly ceased. “He is coming in,” Gersdorff exclaimed in some surprise, not unmingled, however, with a certain astute satisfaction. “Now I wonder what he can want here with us.”
Galabin had glanced round in time to see the Count dismount and saunter up the broad steps of the Chancellerie. Presently one of the secretaries came in and told his chief that Count Zarka was anxious to see him for a few moments on an urgent private matter.
“To see me?” Gersdorff repeated.
“No one else, Excellency. The communication the Herr Graf has to make is for your private ear. If your Excellency is engaged——”
“No, no. I will see the Count—in my room. Now,” he observed to Galabin as the secretary left them, “I may, perhaps, be able to find out something of this matter. I have my suspicions of the Herr Graf, and should not be surprised if he comes to hoodwink me. Do me the favour to smoke another cigar here till I can rejoin you. I may be able to set an explicit plan before you.”