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I wouldn't take a hand in it; only, if anything happened to me; if, for instance, I disappeared some night, well, you'd find the machine and the formula in the hands of the English, that's all!" He turned and led the way up the wooden steps. It seemed to tired Herr Haase, lugging the suit-case, that Captain von Wetten was swearing under his breath.
Our chemists, then, can come to you for the formula as soon as you have finished with Colonel von Specht? That is agreed yes? Good! And you see, I was right from the beginning; I did not need my cheque-book after all." He began to move towards the house, beckoning Captain von Wetten and Herr Haase to follow him.
It was ten minutes after this that the column of dust on the lake road delivered its core and cause in the shape of a tall man, who knocked once at the door and strode in without waiting for an answer. "Ah, my dear Von Wetten," said the Baron pleasantly. "It is hot, eh?" "An oven," replied Von Wetten curtly. "This place is an oven. And the dust, ach!" The elder man made a gesture of sympathy.
You see, Herr Baron, it's not the matter of the machine I've seen that all right; it's the man." "So!" The explanation, which explained nothing to Herr Haase, seemed to satisfy the Baron. "The man, eh? But you say you have seen the machine. It works?" "It worked all right this morning," replied Von Wetten.
Von Wetten broke the silence. "German?" he said, in that infuriating tone of peremptory incredulity which his kind in all countries commands. "You, a German?" The lean youth turned on him with a movement like a swoop. "Yes me!" he spat. "And a deserter from my military service, too! Make the best of that, you Prussian Schweinhund!" "Was!"
Till now, the matter had been for him a play without a plot; suddenly understanding, he cast a startled glance at Von Wetten. The captain sat up alert. "Certainly!" The old baron was replying to young Bettermann. "And stand to attention! And salute! I told you that I would agree to your terms, and I agree accordingly.
But what was most noticeable about him, when he lifted his face to the light, was the scar of which Von Wetten had spoken a red and jagged trace of some ugly wound, running from the inner corner of the right eye to the edge of the jaw. He murmured some inaudible acknowledgment of Herr Haase's scrupulously correct greeting. Then, as actually as though an arm of flesh and blood had thrust him back.
"You'd have cut the dirty traitor down where he stood!" The Baron did not move. "No," he said. "I should have accepted those terms also, Von Wetten." The Baron's hand rested on the edge of the table in front of Herr Haase; he sat, staring at it, a piece of human furniture on the stage of a tragedy. The other two confronted each other above his patient and useful head.
The big car slid to a standstill beside it with a scrape of tires in the dust. "A moment," said the old baron, as Herr Haase lifted his hand to the iron bell-pull that hung beside the gate. "Who are we? What names have you given, Von Wetten? Schmidt and Meyer or something more fanciful?" "Much more fanciful, Excellenz." Von Wetten allowed himself a smile.
The plan that was to give us victory has failed us; we find ourselves, with a strength which must diminish, fighting an enemy whose strength increases. We must not stop at anything now; what is at stake is too tremendous." "But ." The Baron hushed him. "Listen, Von Wetten," he said. "I will be patient with you.
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