have no objection to doing that," said Baron de Hermansthal urbanely, "as I am anxious to prove to his Eminence how willing I am to serve him."
"Your Excellency will allow me to accompany the police?" asked Volenski eagerly.
"To identify the candlesticks," he added, seeing that Baron de Hermansthal shook his head in emphatic refusal; "there may be others there."
"On one condition, then, that you do not interfere with our men in the discharge of their duty, merely pointing out the articles you claim as your property, and that you allow the officer on duty to bring them here, to my office, without opposition.
"To your office?" said Iván.
"Yes! I shall have to insist that the candlesticks remain in my charge until I hear definitely from you or Madame Demidoff herself that she wishes them handed over to you."
"And in the meanwhile?"
"I promise you faithfully that no one shall even touch them; you shall yourself see the parcel locked in my desk, and I shall be delighted to give them up to you, as soon as I am satisfied that Madame Demidoff has no objection to my doing so."
Iván reflected a moment. In his mind there at once arose the idea that chance would certainly favour him, once he actually had the candlesticks in his hands; he had but to press the spring while the police were searching another part of the room, and he could, he felt sure, extract the papers unperceived. There were so many eventualities that might happen, between the time when the candlesticks were found and the moment when Baron de Hermansthal would finally turn the key of his desk on them; so many opportunities, any one of which would find him on the alert. His hesitation, therefore, lasted but a moment; the next, he had assured the amiable baron that he would strictly adhere to his instructions, and was quite willing to wait for Madame Demidoff's decision, once his fears that the candlesticks might be too much tampered with had been allayed.
"In the name of his Eminence," he added diplomatically, "I thank your Excellency for your courtesy in the matter."
"Pray say no more," replied Baron de Hermansthal, as he touched the bell in order to give the necessary instructions.
"Tell Serjeant Meyer I wish to speak to him," he said to his valet.
"It is very late," he added, looking at his watch; "nearly eight o'clock, but that is no matter, as no doubt you will find the woman has gone out on her nightly errands and left you the coast clear."
A discreet rap at the door and the serjeant appeared, saluting his chief.
"Meyer," said His Excellency, "do I understand that the woman Grete Ottlinger has, so far, not been caught trying to sell the stolen property?"
"No, your Excellency; she has not left her rooms since this morning, when she arrived from Oderberg. Two of my men have been stationed outside her doors all day, and she has not gone out. Her concierge thinks she has been in bed all day. She drove this morning direct from the station to her room, and had then a large-sized box with her."
"Very good! I wish you now to take one other man with you and go to the woman's room, with this warrant to search all her premises. You will seize all the suspicious property you can find. If the woman is there you may arrest her, if not, your men will be having an eye on her, and she can be arrested when she comes home. Monsieur here has my permission to accompany you and to identify certain articles that belong to him, and which you must then bring back here to my office. Do you understand?"
"Yes, your Excellency!"
"Au revoir, then, my dear Volenski," said Baron de Hermansthal, turning to Iván; "I shall expect you here with the candlesticks according to your promise, on which I rely."
And His Excellency, rising from his seat and dismissing the serjeant with a nod, thereby intimated to Volenski that he had done all his duty allowed him to do, and that the audience was at an end.
Iván once more was profuse in his thanks. Fate indeed favoured him; it was now for him to seize the splendid opportunity with skill and promptitude. He felt in his pocket-book that he was well provided with money; a douceur to the serjeant, should he chance to see what Volenski did not intend, might be necessary.
Five minutes afterwards he was in a fiaker with Serjeant Meyer and another member of the corps, and in his heart of hearts he hoped that the next half-hour would see his precious papers transferred once more to the inner pocket of his coat.
Chapter X
It was in a narrow street, in one of the most squalid quarters of Vienna, that the fiaker stopped, after some ten minutes' rattle over the cobbled streets of the city.
Serjeant Meyer jumped out, followed by Iván and the other police officer, and casting a quick, searching glance along the apparently deserted street, he walked unhesitatingly under one of the wide porticoes in front of him. The house was one of a row of tall buildings, ugly, square, and straight, with a balcony running along outside the first-floor fronts the whole length of the street, and a wide, open porte cochère, leading, through a square courtyard, to the lodgings at the back of the buildings. There was a lodge for the concierge on the right, at the foot of the wide stone staircase that leads up to the front of the house, but no one guarded the apartments that overlooked the courtyard; there was nothing there worth guarding, the inhabitants belonging mostly to the very poorest classes of Vienna, who had nothing worth stealing.
A group of women, with untidy hair and dirty aprons, stopped their chatter and nudged each other significantly with great, coarse, bare elbows, as they caught sight of the police uniform; and one or two heads appeared at some of the windows, as the heavy steps of Serjeant Meyer and his followers echoed on the stone pavement of the courtyard.
Having reached the dark and narrow staircase leading to the floors above, Serjeant Meyer turned to Iván.
"I do not see either of our fellows anywhere about, so I conclude the woman has gone out."
"So much the better," said Volenski; "we need have no disturbance, then; I suppose the people of the house are used to this sort of thing, for they took very little heed of your uniform or our presence."
The serjeant shrugged his shoulders, intimating that he cared little for any disturbance that might arise, and he added:
"This house is one of the worst famed in this part of Vienna; it is almost entirely tenanted by women of Grete Ottlinger's class. A police inspection of their premises is a very frequent occurence, and the inhabitants have, I think, one and all, spent some time in prison or hospital."
The three men now began cautiously ascending the dark stone stairs, guiding themselves by the narrow, iron hand-rail, and feeling their way with utmost care. Serjeant Meyer, who was in front, seemed to be very sure of where he was going, for it was without any hesitation that he stopped somewhere about the fifth floor, and, crossing a dark passage, tried the handle of one of the doors that opened thereon.
The door, however, seemed to be locked, and after one or two repeated loud knocks, the serjeant applied his broad shoulders to the feebly resisting timber, and broke it open without any difficulty.
The room, in which the three men
