She sought to shrink from me, but I held her fast and drew her into the room.

She stood motionless with her lamp, at the head of the corpse.  She seemed to have regained her self-possession.  The woman was no longer frightened.  I felt instinctively that her fears had been all for herself, not for that livid horror sprawling on the floor.  When she spoke her manner was almost business-like.

“I was told nothing of this,” she said.  “Who is it?  What do you want me to do?”

Of all the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of death.  Her voice was incredibly hard.  Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that makes my blood run cold whenever I think of her.

Then suddenly her manner, arrogant, insolent, cruel, changed.  She became polite.  She was obsequious.  Of the two, the first manner became her vastly better.  She looked at me with a curious air, almost with reverence, as it seemed to me.  She said, in a purring voice: 

“Ach, so!  I did not understand.  The gentleman must excuse me.”

And she purred again: 

“So!”

It was then I noticed that her eyes were fastened upon my chest.  I followed their direction.

They rested on the silver badge I had stuck in my braces.

I understood and held my peace.  Silence was my only trump until I knew how the land lay.  If I left this woman alone, she would tell me all I wanted to know.

In fact, she began to speak again.

“I expected you,” she said, “but not... this.  Who is it this time?  A Frenchman, eh?”

I shook my head.

“An Englishman,” I said curtly.

Her eyes opened in wonder.

“Ach, nein!” she cried—­and you would have said her voice vibrated with pleasure—­“An Englishman!  Ei, ei!”

If ever a human being licked its chops, that woman did.

She wagged her head and repeated to herself: 

“Ei, ei !” adding, as if to explain her surprise, “he is the first we have had.

“You brought him here, eh!  But why up here?  Or did der Stelze send him?”

She fired this string of questions at me without pausing for a reply.  She continued: 

“I was out, but Karl told me.  There was another came, too:  Franz sent him.”

“This is he,” I said.  “I caught him prying in my room and he died.”

“Ach!” she ejaculated ... and in her voice was all the world of admiration that a German woman feels for brute man....  “The Herr Englander came into your room and he died.  So, so!  But one must speak to Franz.  The man drinks too much.  He is always drunk.  He makes mistakes.  It will not do.  I will....”

“I wish you to do nothing against Franz,” I said.  “This Englishman spoke German well:  Karl will tell you.”