“Motive enough,” Von Lindheim returned. “If you knew what we could tell you, you would not be surprised. In this country a whisper, a shrug, a laugh are, any one of them, enough to bring a man to his death. And the innocent have often to suffer for the guilty—to make sure.”
“It is clear enough,” Szalay added, pacing the room. “This affaire Orsova is likely to upset the Chancellor’s plans. If it were to become a scandal, the alliance he has set his heart and the King’s upon would never come to anything.”
Some one was heard below, and Von Lindheim ran to the door.
“It is only Pabst,” he said, coming back with a relieved face. “I had forgotten he was out.”
There was a knock at the door and Pabst came in. He was Von Lindheim’s housekeeper and factotum, a respectable elderly man. He looked perturbed.
“Pardon, meine Herren,” he said. “I did not know Herr Szalay was here. He has doubtless brought you the bad news.”
The two colleagues looked at each other in renewed fear. “What bad news?” Von Lindheim asked.
“You mean the death of the Herr Rittmeister von Orsova,” I suggested.
“Pardon, mein Herr,” Pabst answered, with a grave shake of the head, “it is nearer than that. Herr D’Urban——”
“Ah!” The terror in both men made them cry out simultaneously. But the good Pabst probably read nothing in their faces beyond ignorance, and concern for the fate of a colleague.