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Herr Bettermann shrugged those sharp shoulders of his; he was shifting the tripod legs of his machine. "Blow him up if you like," he said. "He's your man." Von Wetten and the Baron laughed at that, the Baron civilly and perfunctorily, as one laughs at the minor jests of one's host, and Von Wetten as though the joke were a good one.
Well, Herr Bettermann, I think I know your terms now. You want to see the Graf von Specht again here? I am right, am I not?" Bettermann's eyes narrowed at him. "Yes," he said. "You're right. Only this time it is he that must bring the whip!" Herr Haase's intelligence, following like a shorthand-writer's pencil, ten words behind the speaker, gave a leap at this.
Herr Haase saw the girl on the balcony lean forward as though to hear the word, its pride and its bitterness, and draw back again as though to hear it had been all that she desired. "Von Wetten!" The Baron spoke briskly. "You hear what Herr Bettermann tells me? Such things happen in the army do they?" Von Wetten shrugged. "They are strictly illegal, sir," he replied, formally.
The waves they raised slapped loudly at the wall below the parapet, and there were suddenly dead fish floating pale-bellied on the surface. "Mines!" It was a whisper behind Herr Haase's large shoulder. "English mines!" Herr Bettermann straightened himself upright behind the tripod. "There's a fine for killing fish like that," he remarked bitterly. "And the window besides, curse it!"
He turned; he had not seen the lady in the deep basket-chair just within the door, but now, as she rose and came towards him, he recognized her. It was the wife of Bettermann, the inventor, the shape upon the balcony of the chalet who had overlooked their experiments and overheard the bargain they had made. Herr Haase bowed. "Gnadige Frau?"
He tried to look respectfully sympathetic. "Very good, your Excellency," said Von Wetten, at length. "The Emperor, of course, will be informed." He turned and stalked away to his former place. The Baron, watching him, smiled briefly. "Well, Herr Bettermann," said the Baron, rising stiffly, "it will not help us to have this arrangement of ours in writing. I think we'll have to trust one another.
The Baron looked round at him absently. "Too bad!" he agreed. "Too bad!" He moved Herr Haase out of his way with a touch of his hand and walked to the parapet. He stood there, seeming for some moments to be absorbed in watching the dead fish as they rocked in the diminishing eddies. Herr Bettermann picked up the black cloth and draped it again over his apparatus. There was a space of silence.
"Just one cut across the face, me with my heels glued together and my hands nailed to my sides," went on Bettermann. "Then 'Dismiss! he ordered, and I saluted and turned about and marched away with my smashed face. And then you ask me if I am a Swiss!" He laughed again. "But," demanded the Baron, "what had you done? Why did he do that to you?"
The Baron was at his little table, seated sideways in his chair, toying with an ivory paper-knife, large against the light. Von Wetten stood beside him, tall and very stiff, withdrawn into himself behind his mask of Prussian officer and aristocrat; and in a low chair, back to the door and facing the other two, Bettermann sat.
The Baron shook his head. "No," he said, "I don't think that. But it has struck me I may not need my cheque-book. You see, for all I can tell, Herr Bettermann, the window may be insured; and the police may not hear of the fish; and as for the machine well, the machine may be for sale; but you have less the manner of a salesman, Herr Bettermann, than any man I have ever seen."
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