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One, which gave more trouble than any of the others, was to Siegfried Meyer, Number One, Unter den Linden; it was long before the Baron and Von Wetten could smooth its phrases to a suavity and deference which satisfied them.
"My orders, Your Excellency," answered Captain von Wetten formally, "were to agree to his price, but not to attempt negotiations in the event of difficulty over the terms. That was reserved for Your Excellency." "H'm!" The Baron nodded. "Quite right," he approved. "Quite right; there is something in this. Men have their price, but sometimes they have to be paid in a curious currency.
Why, man, I've been expecting you and getting ready for you ever since your blundering, swaggering spy there" with a jerk of a rigid thumb towards Von Wetten "and this fat slave" Herr Haase was indicated here "first came sniffing round my premises. I knew they'd be sending you along, with your blank cheques and your tongue; and here you are!"
He had screwed his monocle into his eye; it gave to his unconscious arrogance the barb of impertinence. "You!" The Baron cried out at him. "You thank God, do you? and neither your thanks nor your God is worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier! Do you know what has happened, fool?" Captain von Wetten bent towards him, smiling slightly. "You are speaking to Haase, of course, Excellency?"
And then we'd go over to what was left of them, and it would be finished." He stopped abruptly as the vision grew clearer. "Aber," he began excitedly. The old Baron lifted a hand and quelled him. "The machine you saw this morning, which you tested, will do all this?" he insisted. Von Wetten was staring at the Baron. Upon the question he let his monocle fall and seemed to consider.
Wooden steps led down to it from the balcony; Herr Haase, descending them last with the suit-case, paused an instant to shift his burden from one hand to the other, and had time to survey the place the ruins of a lawn, pitted like the face of a small-pox patient with small holes, where the raw clay showed through the unkempt grass the "craters" of which Captain von Wetten had spoken.
What was his name, now?" "Never heard of him," said Von Wetten. From the background where Herr Haase stood among the other furniture came a cough. "Oliver," suggested Herr Haase mildly. The Baron jerked a look at him. "No, not Oliver," he said. "Ulivi that was it; Ulivi! I remember at the time we were interested, because, if the fellow could do what he claimed." He broke off.
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.
Then: "My friend and associate, Herr Wetten here, has asked me to look into this matter," said the Baron. His voice was silk, the silk "that holds fast where a steel chain snaps."
Von Wetten was standing by the door, hat and cane in hand. His face, with its vacant comeliness, wore a formality that was almost austere. "Zu Befehl, Excellenz," he replied. "But has your Excellency considered that, after all, there may be other means? I beg your Excellency's pardon, but it occurs to me that we have not tried alternative offers. For instance, we are not limited as to money."
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