“Yes. I fear his brain is affected. He is painfully nervous, and is under the impression that he has been maliciously poisoned. He rambles about enemies who are seeking his life, and all my reasoning cannot persuade him of his fallacy.”
Again Herr Beckmeister looked sharply at me, so sharply that I wondered how much of the business he knew. Then he rose, and, pulling out just the watch I should have imagined him to carry, a showy monstrosity, with a gaudily enamelled device on each side of the case, suggested, as he wished to catch a certain train back, he should see the patient. As this was inevitable, I led the way with a great show of alacrity, even thankfulness, and showing him Von Lindheim’s room, left them together.
We had planned that Von Lindheim should very vaguely, yet with a mad insistence, take the Doctor into his confidence, and by a long recital of supposed danger keep him from a too searching examination. Whether it succeeded or not we never knew. When, after a twenty minutes’ interview, Beckmeister came out of the room, he would give nothing away.
“Your friend,” he said to me, “seems in surprisingly good bodily health after what we have heard of his attack. You will understand, however, that my report is for His Majesty’s ear, and that etiquette forbids me to forecast it even to you.”
So with another flourish of his abominable watch, and some vague expressions of sympathy, he bowed himself into the carriage and drove off.
CHAPTER XII
A MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE
Nothing more happened for a day or two, except that Von Lindheim received a letter asking him to send word as soon as possible when he would be able to resume his duties, the Hof-Artzt having reported his opinion that the indisposition was only temporary. The letter concluded with a compliment to Von Lindheim’s ability, and an expression of regret that the bureau should be deprived of his valued services at a time when their loss was being particularly felt.
“They want to entice me back,” he said. “So much for their fair words. That is a stroke of the Jaguar’s soft paw with the claws ready to spring out. I know him.”