“Positively, I’d be ashamed to employ such carrion,” he remarked. “I don’t understand Lotzen; he is an aesthete, even in his crimes.”
The Archduke stepped carefully into the hall, and laid his rapier on the table.
“Let us be off,” he said; “there is nothing more to do.” He turned toward the door—then stopped and reached for the sword.
“Others are coming,” he said;—“we’ll fight it out right here.”
There was the quick tramp of feet on the porch, and a sergeant and two police entered. Their looks of bewildered surprise, as they recognized the Archduke and his Aide, were so comical that even Bernheim smiled, though his words were curt enough.
“Salute, men!” he said, “don’t you know His Royal Highness?”
“Your pardon, sir,” he stammered, “but we heard shots—and this house is supposed to be unoccupied. I am sorry——”
“There is nothing to pardon, sergeant,” he said; “you are doing your duty very properly, and you come in good time. You will search this place thoroughly, including the grounds; remove the dead and wounded immediately; see that all knowledge of the affair is suppressed, and report to me at noon to-morrow.”
The officer saluted again. “Yes, Your Highness.”
“In the library—I’ll get them.”... He dropped the Archduke’s about his shoulders, and the sergeant did the same for him.
As they gained the Avenue, the cathedral bell struck three.
“A nice hour for an old man like you, Bernheim, to be going home,” said the Archduke.
A quizzical smile came into the Aide’s stern face.
Ferida Palace, the residence of His Royal Highness the Duke of Lotzen, on the Alta Avenue half a mile or so beyond the Epsau, is a great, rambling pile of gray stone, of varying height and diverse architecture, set in the midst of grounds that occupy two entire squares, and are surrounded by a high, embattled wall, pierced with four wide entrances, whose bronze gates are famous in their craftsmanship.
Here the Duke lived in a splendor and munificence almost rivaling the King himself, and with a callous indifference to certain laws of society, that would have scandalized the Capital had it become public knowledge. But in his household, the servant who babbled, never babbled twice; he left Dornlitz quite too suddenly; and those who were wise learned quickly that they lost nothing in wage nor perquisite by being blind and dumb. For Lotzen did not skimp his steward—all he required was skillful service, and that what occurred within the Palace must not go beyond the walls. Nevertheless, in conduct, he was not the habitual libertine and roué,—the contrary was, in truth, the fact—but he proposed to have the opportunity to do as he liked when the fancy moved him—and to have no carping moralist praying over him and then retailing his misdeeds with unctuous smirks of pious horror. Not that he cared a centime for their horrors or their prayers, but because it were not well to irritate unduly the King, by doings which he might not countenance, if brought formally to his attention—though the Duke was well aware that Frederick troubled himself not at all how he went to the devil, nor when, save that the quicker he went the better.