Tiel paused to knock the ashes out of his pipe, and I remarked—
“At first sight I confess that seems to me to complicate the problem. You would have to wait till Burnett had left Edinburgh, wouldn’t you?”
Tiel smiled and shook his head.
“That is what we thought ourselves at first,” said he, “but our second thoughts were better. What do you think of a wire to Burnett from his friend in Edinburgh telling him that a Mr. Taylor would call for him in his motorcar: plus a wire to the friend in Edinburgh from Mr. Burnett regretting that his visit must be postponed?”
“Excellent!” I laughed.
“Each wire, I may add, contained careful injunctions not to reply. And I may also add that the late Mr. Burnett was simplicity itself.”
I started involuntarily.
“The ‘late’ Mr. Burnett! Do you mean—”
“What else could one do with him?” asked Tiel calmly. “Both Schumann and I believe in being thorough.”
Of course this worthy pair were but doing their duty. Still I was glad to think they had done their dirty work without my assistance, It was with a conscious effort that I was able to ask calmly—
“How did you manage it?”
“Mr. Taylor, with his car and his chauffeur, called at the manse. The chauffeur remained in the car, keeping his face unostentatiously concealed. Mr. Taylor enjoyed the minister’s hospitality till the evening had sufficiently fallen. Then we took him to Edinburgh by the coast road.”
Tiel paused and looked at me, as though to see how I was enjoying the gruesome tale. I am afraid I made it pretty clear that I was not enjoying it in the least. The idea of first partaking of the wretched man’s hospitality, and then coolly murdering him, was a little too much for my stomach. Tiel, however, seemed rather amused than otherwise with my attitude.
“We knocked him on the head at a quiet part of the road, stripped him of every stitch of clothing, tied a large stone to his feet, and pitched him over the cliff,” he said calmly.
“And his clothes—,” I began, shrinking back a little in my chair.
“Are these,” said Tiel, indicating his respectable-looking suit of black.
Curiously enough this was the only time I heard the man tell a tale of this sort, and in this diabolical, deliberate, almost flippant way. It was in marked contrast to his usually brief, concise manner of speaking. Possibly it was my reception of his story that discouraged him from exhibiting this side of his nature again. I certainly made no effort to conceal my distaste now.
“Thank God, I am not in the secret service!” I said devoutly.
“I understand you are in the submarine service,” said Tiel in a dry voice.
“I am—and I am proud of it!”
“Have you never fired a torpedo at an inoffensive merchant ship?”
“That is very different!” I replied hotly.
“It is certainly more wholesale,” said he.
I sprang up.
“Mr. Tiel,” I said, “kindly understand that a German naval officer is not in the habit of enduring affronts to his service!”
“But you think a German secret-service agent should have no such pride?” he inquired.
“I decline to discuss the question any further,” I said stiffly.
For a moment he seemed exceedingly amused. Then he saw that I was in no humour for jesting on the subject, and he ceased to smile.
“Have another cigar?” he said, in a quiet matter-of-fact voice, just as though nothing had happened to ruffle the harmony of the evening.
“You quite understand what I said?” I demanded in an icy voice.
“I thought the subject was closed,” he replied with a smile, and then jumping up he laid his hand on my arm in the friendliest fashion. “My dear Belke,” said he, “we are going to be shut up together in this house for several days, and if we begin with a quarrel we shall certainly end in murder. Let us respect one another’s point of view, and say no more about it.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘one another’s point of view,’ ” I answered politely but coldly. “So far as I am aware there is only one point of view, and I have just stated it. If we both respect that, there will be no danger of our quarrelling.”
He glanced at me for a moment in an odd way, and then said merely—
“Well, are you going to have another cigar, or would you like to go to bed?”
“With your permission I shall go to bed,” I said.
He conducted me through the hall and down the passage that led to the back premises. At the end rose a steep and narrow stair. We ascended this, and at the top found a narrow landing with a door at either end of it.
“This is your private flat,” he explained in a low voice. “The old house, you will see, has been built in two separate instalments, which have separate stairs and no communication with one another on the upper landing. These two rooms are supposed to be locked up and not in use at present, but I have secured their keys.”
He unlocked one of the doors, and we entered the room. It was square, and of quite a fair size. On two sides the walls sloped attic-wise, in a third was a fireplace and a window, and in the fourth two doors—the second opening into a large cupboard. This room had simple bedroom furniture, and also a small table and a basket chair. When we entered, it was lit only by a good fire, and pervaded by a pleasant aroma of peat smoke. Tiel lighted a paraffin lamp and remarked—
“You ought to be quite comfortable here.”
Personally, I confess
