“Your appeal involves an accusation which I utterly repudiate. You are a foreigner, Herr Tyrrell, and therefore I have heard you with an indulgence which your suggestion scarcely deserves. To ask me to give a pledge against a chimerical danger is more than absurd. I do not wish to make use of strong language, or I might point out in such that the object of your visit might easily be construed into a flagrant insult to his Majesty whose humble adviser I have the honour to be. If I might offer you a word of advice, it would be that so long as you choose to avail yourself of the hospitality of this country you should devote your time to sport or pleasure, and avoid mixing yourself up in affairs which do not concern you. Even were this monstrous suggestion of yours in any way true, the interference of an outsider could serve no tangible end. You will do well to consider your position in the light of that common sense which is, I believe, the birthright of most Englishmen. That is all.”
I rose. “I have then no comforting assurance to take Herr von Lindheim, Excellency?”
“Herr von Lindheim’s life is in no more danger than your own.”
A Delphic pronouncement truly! “I have no fear of that,” I laughed.
“And yet,” he rejoined, fox-like, “if your veiled accusations were correct, you might stand in some danger yourself.”
The speech was tentative. I saw that, and determined not to be led into any admission.
“I have no fear,” I said, “and can take care of myself.”
“You are a bold man.”
“To have come here?”
He laughed. And I understood better than ever why he was called the Jaguar. Though the flesh of the lower part of his face was loose and mobile, the skin over his forehead was drawn tight, his eyes were feline, and the lines of his mouth cruel. But when it suited him to put on a pleasant expression the stealthy cruelty of the face in a measure disappeared. Now there was the look it had worn glaring through the window at that fatal marriage, the look that had bent over the murdered bridegroom’s face. But I maintained my dogged resolve not to be overawed by the man or the devil within him.