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After all, I shall have to go back to my farm." Bernadine opened the door and called softly to one of his men. In less than five minutes de Grost was bound hand and foot. Bernadine stepped back and eyed his adversary with an air of ill-disguised triumph. "I trust, Baron de Grost," he said, "that you will be as comfortable as possible under the circumstances." De Grost lay quite still.
The Baron de Grost was taken aback. He had scarcely contemplated refusal. "You must understand," he explained, "that this is not a personal matter. Even if I myself would spare you, those who are more powerful than I will strike. The society to which I belong does not tolerate failure. I am empowered even to offer you their protection, if you will give me the information for which I ask."
"When you leave this house to-night," he proclaimed, "we bid good-by forever to Mr. Peter Ruff. You will find in this envelope the title deeds of a small property which is our gift to you. Henceforth you will be known by the name and title of your estates." Peter Ruff gasped. "You will reappear in London," Sogrange continued, "as the Baron de Grost." Peter Ruff shook his head.
"I was beginning to wonder," he remarked, "whether you would not soon arrive at that decision." "Having arrived at it," Bernadine continued, looking intently at his companion, "the logical sequence naturally occurs to you." "Precisely, my dear Bernadine," De Grost asserted.
"Stop!" the man begged, piteously. "Stop!" De Grost bowed. "I beg your pardon," he said. "Now tell me," the man demanded, "what is your price? I have had money. There is not much left. Sophia is extravagant and traveling costs a great deal. But why do I weary you with these things?" he added. "Let me know what I have to pay for your silence." "I am not a blackmailer," De Grost answered, sternly.
"If a bungling amateur may make such a request of a professor, may I inquire how you escaped from your bonds and reached here before me?" The Baron de Grost smiled. "Really," he said, "you have only to think for yourself for a moment, my dear Bernadine, and you will understand. In the first place, the letter you sent me signed 'Greening' was clearly a forgery.
The trick has been done often enough upon the stage, often in less time, but seldom with more effect. The wonderful wig disappeared, the spectacles, the lines in the face, the make-up of diabolical cleverness. With his back to the wall and his fingers playing with something in his pocket, Peter, Baron de Grost smiled upon his host.
"Since you insist upon knowing the Baron de Grost, at your service!" he announced. Andrea Korust was, for the moment, speechless. One of the women shrieked. The real Mr. Von Tassen looked around him helplessly. "Will some one be good enough to enlighten me as to the meaning of this?" he begged. "Is it a roast? If so, I only want to catch on. Let me get to the joke, if there is one.
Baron de Grost glanced at the card which his butler had brought in to him, carelessly at first, afterwards with that curious rigidity of attention which usually denotes the setting free of a flood of memories. "The gentleman would like to see you, sir," the man announced. "You can show him in at once," Peter replied. The servant withdrew.
Bedra where Friedrich's right wing is; Branderode where the Soubise right is; then Grost; Schevenroda, Zeuchfeld, Pettstadt, Lunstadt, especially Reichartswerben, where Soubise's right will come to be: these the reader may take note of in his Map.
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