And at the same moment Karl, the Magyar servant, in his brown velvet dress and big buttons of silver filigree, helped him to a succulent dish of paprika lamb, which followed the halaszle, that famous fish soup which is served nightly in all the wealthier houses in Hungary.
“Have the engines and all the other plant arrived?” Geoffrey inquired.
“Everything. Twenty-eight packages in all,” answered the brown-bearded man, while Françoise, with her bare elbows on the table, glanced across at the young Marconi engineer, and remarked in French:
“I suppose you will be horribly busy now—eh, M’sieur Falconer?”
“Yes, mademoiselle,” he replied. “I have lost more than a fortnight already. But it has, I confess, been most enjoyable.” Then turning to the Baron, he asked:
“Have you engaged any operators to work the set?”
The question, put so suddenly to De Pelzel, nonplussed him. He was compelled to hesitate for a few seconds—a fact which did not escape the alert Geoffrey.
“Oh! how very foolish of me!” the Baron exclaimed in his suave, easy manner. “I have been so terribly busy of late, and also rectifying the blunder of sending the boxes to Arad, that I quite forgot the necessity of a staff to work the installation when it is complete. I will at once see about getting some ex-radio military men from Vienna.”
For half an hour after dinner a gipsy orchestra, four swarthy-faced men in brown velvet, with dark, piercing eyes, and lank black hair, gave some wonderful music with their violins. Then, when near midnight, the man-servant Karl showed Geoffrey to his room—a big, gloomy, dispiriting place, lit only by two candles in ancient silver holders.
When Karl had shut the door, Geoffrey instantly experienced a curious feeling of impending evil. Why, he knew not. He was there upon business for his company in that remote, out-of-the-world place, and his host, the Baron, was most kind and affable, while his niece was quite charming. Yet somehow as he lay awake the greater part of the night he became consumed by a strange apprehension.