ir, relaxed to the still warmth of the day. He made to rise
as Herr Haase approached, swelling for an instant to a drilled and
soldierly stature, but, recognizing him, sank back again.

"He's in there," he said languidly. "Knock for yourself."

"Schlapschwanz!" remarked Herr Haase indignantly, and rapped upon the
door. A voice within answered indistinctly. Herr Haase, removing his
hat, opened the door and entered.

The room was a large one, an hotel bedroom converted into a
sitting-room, with tall French windows opening to a little veranda,
and a view across the lime-trees of the garden to the blinding silver
of the lake of Thun and the eternal snow-fields of the Bernese
Oberland. Beside the window and before a little spindle-legged
writing-table a man sat. He turned his head as Herr Haase entered.

"Ach, der gute Haase," he exclaimed.

Herr Haase brought his patent leather heels together with a click and
bowed like a T-square.

"Excellenz!" he said, in a strange, loud voice, rather like a man in
a trance. "Your Excellency's papers, received by the train arriving
from Bern at eleven-thirty-five."

The other smiled, raising to him a pink and elderly face, with a
clipped white moustache and heavy tufted brows under which the faint
blue eyes were steady and ironic. He was a large man, great in the
frame and massive; his movements had a sure, unhurried deliberation;
and authority, the custom and habit of power, clad him like a
garment. Years and the moving forces of life had polished him as
running water polishes a stone. The Baron von Steinlach showed to
Herr Haase a countenance supple as a hand and formidable as a fist.

"Thank you, my good Haase," he said, in his strong deliberate German.
"You look hot. This sun, eh? Poor fellow!"

But he did not bid him sit down. Instead, he turned to the linen
envelope, opened it, and shook out upon the table its freight of
lesser envelopes, typed papers, and newspaper-clippings.
Deliberately, but yet with a certain discrimination and efficiency,
he began to read them. Herr Haase, whose new patent leather boots
felt red-hot to his feet, whose shirt was sticking to his back,
whose collar was melting, watched him expressionlessly.

"There is a cloud of dust coming along the lake road," said the Baron
presently, glancing through the window. "That should be Captain von
Wetten in his automobile. We will see what he has to tell us, Haase."

"At your orders, Excellency," deferred