"I don't see how you can stay here at all now they've made this into a proscribed area," he said with a touch of pride at being inspector of a place so distinguished.
"Oh, so they have!" Miss Greta smiled. "I _ought_ to have remembered, when Sir William took the trouble to see about a special permit." She opened a bag and took out a paper.
Inspector Adler looked at it with suspicion. Just this kind of case evidently hadn't come his way before.
"Maybe it's regular," he said cautiously as he handed the paper back. "Better take care of it. You'll need it if you do stay and ever want permission to go outside the five-mile radius."
"How does she get such a further permission?" said Napier.
"By applying to the proper authority," said Mr. Adler; "in this case to me." The inspector was dabbing some purple ink on a pad. "Now your finger-print, if you please."
Miss Greta drew back, scarlet. "A German is what I am, not a criminal."
"'Ere's where you go." He pointed downwards with a large, blunt thumb.
Napier in his embarrassment looked away from Miss Greta. His glance fell upon Nan. The girl's eyes had filled. "It's an outrage," she said in a choked voice. "_That_ kind of identification is meant for rogues and murderers."
But Miss Greta had recovered herself. "And _that_ sort of person," she said, "of course must object very much. But, after all, why _should_--people like us?"
Nan pressed close to Greta's side. "Yes, you must finger-print me, too!" she said between pleading and command. "I'm every bit as much an alien as this lady."
"Not if you're an American. _She's_ an enemy alien."
"She's _not_ an enemy. You oughtn't to say such things."
"Maybe you know what I ought to say better than the Gover'ment."
When the ordeal at the police station came to an end, every person there was extremely on edge--except, you'd say, Miss von Schwarzenberg. Her dignity under the ordeal would forever, Napier told himself, count in his mind to Miss Greta's credit. Going home, she soothed the ruffled spirits of Miss Nan; she was tender, reassuring; she smiled.
Before the party had left the dinner table that night, Julian Grant walked in. He had arrived late and put up at the Essex Arms.
"I shall complain to his mother about him when I see her," Lady McIntyre threatened. They all fell to congratulating Julian upon his parents' arrival in London. The fact of their belated and difficult return from Germany had been duly chronicled in the newspapers, together with hints of the unsuitable treatment to which Sir James and Lady Nicholson Grant had been subjected. But if, as was plainly the case, some of the Lamborough party waited eagerly to hear the horrid details, Julian seemed to have no mind to make the most of his opportunities.