“Don’t talk, woman,” said Mr. Neuburg’s voice. “He is here, in this hotel.”
“He ... who?” gasped a female voice. It was a little fainter than Mr. Neuburg’s, who, Clement was delighted to hear, was in that masculine condition of rage when he must “take it out” on some one.
“Don’t be a dense fool,” the big man snapped. “He ...! Who ...! The Englishman, ninny. Is there another?”
“It is impossible. He has been arrested.”
“Pah! Do I have to keep on saying it? He is here. He has not been arrested. He is somewhere in this hotel now. The Englishman, Clement Seadon, is here. He is free. Do you begin to gather ... just a glimmer, woman?”
“But”—the woman’s voice was almost scandalized—“but he was to have been arrested. Molke was to see to it that he was arrested.”
“And he is not arrested. It is Molke who has been arrested.”
Clement heard the creak of a chair. The news had been too much for the amiable Méduse. She had had to sit down—and sit down hard. He would have liked to chuckle. He dare not. The snarling voice of the mountainous Mr. Neuburg said with bitter passion, “Ah, you begin to see. Something active begins to stir in your head. And you are shocked. Well, I did not thrill with joy myself.... No, I do not know how it happened. I only know I set Molke to effect this Englishman’s arrest, and it doesn’t happen; it is Molke who is arrested instead.”
“Yes; but that—that Englishman,” protested an incredulous female voice.
“Yes—that Englishman. Only, my dear Méduse, say ‘that Englishman’ with more respect. I assure you, he is like that. He does not look like intelligence at all. He looks a mere decoration. He looks a mere easy-going, meaningless, drawing-room young man without any wits of his own.... And—and it is Molke who is arrested after all. Just appreciate the fact, my dear. That is the Anglo-Saxon. He does not look like anything in particular, and you find him sitting firmly on top of you just at that moment when you are beginning to rub your hands over the clever way you have knocked him down?”