"Do you still wish to communicate with your consul, or to make any fuss about the mistake these men made?"
"I want to get home and get to bed. All the rest can go hang."
"We can manage that, but you’ll hear about the revolver from us in a day or so. Here are the rest of your things"; and soon afterwards we left the place together.
"Have you taken the advice I gave you yet?" he asked as we walked toward my house.
"You were at the station to-night, you said. Have your friends gone?"
"No," I replied after a pause. "But I can assure you that all that bother is over and done with. I’ve been very anxious, but I’ve won all along the line."
"You’ll hear all about it to-morrow or the next day at latest."
"Well, we’re schooled to patience, you know. I hope you are right. And I’m heartily glad you were not detained to-night; it might not have been so easy to get you out to-morrow, if a singular rumour running round our place has any foundation--about that old Jew’s murder. Fortunately, I don’t know anything officially, or I couldn’t tell you. But I should advise you to be careful. Good-night"; and without waiting for any reply he turned away and left me.
I attached no importance to his words at the time. It was not probable that anything could have leaked out yet about von Felsen or the fact that I had got a confession from him; and having that, I cared not a jot for anything else.
My one anxiety was to get home and assure myself that Althea’s father was still in the house.
Althea met me as I entered, and her looks showed me in a second that something was wrong.
"Thank Heaven, you have come, Paul. I have been tortured with the fear that something must have happened to you."
She threw up her hands. "You have guessed it then?"
"Tell me. I have been haunted by the fear that he heard us speaking about the house being clear of the police."
"He has gone, Paul. What do you think can have happened?"
At the sight of her agitation I blamed myself for having let her see by my eager question how grave a view I took of the matter.
"I was half afraid of something of the sort," I replied in a much lighter tone, as we went into the drawing-room; "but no doubt I can put it all right. Bessie told me at the station that he had been downstairs; and that noise you and I heard when we were talking about the police was probably when he heard what we said. It is unfortunate, of course; but it will be all right."