There were couches and easy-chairs, magazines and shaded electric lights.
Yet we could not rest for one moment. Adele and I talked for an hour or
so, and we had plenty to say, but in time the fever seized us too. The
roar of the machinery below thrilled us through and through. It was the
warning which, in a very few hours, would electrify the whole country,
which was being whirled into type. I thought of Madame, and once I
laughed.
Three times Guest was sent for to give some information, mainly with
regard to earlier happenings in Berlin, before our fateful meeting at the
Hotel Universal. At last my turn came. It was interesting to visit, if
only for a moment, the room where Staunton himself was writing this
story.
He was sitting at his table, his coat off, an unlighted cigarette in his
mouth, an untasted cup of tea by his side. Two shorthand clerks sat
opposite to him, a typist was hard at work a few yards away. Staunton
called me over to him. His voice was hoarse and raspy, and there were
drops of sweat upon his forehead.
"Is it true, Mr.
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