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Updated: May 14, 2025
Another glass like that, Estermen! Drink till you feel it bubbling in your veins. Look at him now!" Falkenberg leaned back in his place and pressed his companion's arm. Indeed, the wine was working its magic. The terror was passing from Estermen's face. Already he was becoming more natural. "Leave them alone," Falkenberg said softly. "He will have no relapse. The wine is in his blood.
He had relapsed into his former grim and impenetrable silence. And while he waited the sweat stood out in beads upon Estermen's forehead. Greatly he feared that the worst was to come! "Have you anything else to say to me?" his master asked. "Nothing!" Estermen replied, with faltering lips. Prince Falkenberg's eyes were fierce orbs of light and his servant quailed before him.
On the pavement opposite, before the small table of a cafe, a man was sitting the same man! For two days he had been there a gaunt and silent person with a wonderful trick of gazing away into space from the columns of his newspaper. But Estermen knew all about that! He knew, even, the man's name! He knew that he was one of the most persistent and successful of French detectives.
To the man who had been waiting for his sentence there was something terrible in the grim impassivity of Prince Falkenberg's features. His face was set and white and sphinx-like. Only his eyes shone with a fierce, unusual fire. "What have you to say, Estermen?" he demanded. "It was a miracle," Estermen faltered. "Sir Julien descended the stairs with the copy in his hand to speak to a caller.
Talk to me of other things." Estermen came in to them presently. Herr Freudenberg insisted upon his taking a chair. Once more he dismissed the waiters. "All goes well," Estermen announced. "There is not an idea at headquarters as to the source of the explosion. I have been round with the newspaper men." "How is Kendricks?" Herr Freudenberg asked. "Alive, but barely conscious."
Mademoiselle who dances there looks towards you. Why not? You see, she waves her hand. You have waltzed with her before. Ask her to sit down with us. I have ordered supper. See, mademoiselle approaches, Estermen. More glasses, waiter. Open more wine. There is champagne here for everybody. Mademoiselle does us great honor. Permit me!" The little dancing girl obeyed his invitation.
Estermen shrugged his shoulders. "It is true, and yet we have a great start. Public opinion is thoroughly unsettled. Even those who accepted the entente as the most brilliant piece of diplomacy of the generation, are beginning to wonder what really has been gained by it. If I were at Berlin," Estermen continued, with a covert glance up at his master, "now is the time I should choose.
For the present, join us, dear Julien. You permit that I call you by your first name? It is after midnight, and after midnight in Paris one permits everything. Now we drink together, we three, for Estermen must leave us, I know. We drink together to the making of toys, the building of toy palaces, and the love of one another.
She has told him a little story about me I am sure of it. He has refused to make my acquaintance." "And you were content?" Estermen spread out his pudgy hands. "What can one do?" he muttered. "The man is quick-tempered. He dined tonight in the country at the Maison Leon d'Or with madame. It was there that I sought an introduction with him. It was impossible for me to force myself."
"There are many ladies, without a doubt, who live in the Avenue de St. Paul." "The name of this one," Estermen continued slowly, "is Madame Christophor." Herr Freudenberg sat quite still in his place. His eyes seemed fixed upon a cluster of the roses which hung down from the other side of the sweet-smelling barrier by which they were surrounded.
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