The Price He Paid — page 231: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

222 A VACATION IN THE CAPITAL. unimportant incidents which had occurred the pre- ceding day. Now he went on tosay: “But I have a communication to make which will surprise your excellency. You take an interest in young Dr. Brunnow ?” Raven grew attentive. “Certainly. What of him?” “Nothing personally, though I am sorry to say the matter in question touches him very nearly. You remember the gentleman who was introduced to us the other evening by Councilor Moser as Dr. Franz? You had even, I think, some lengthened conversation with him afterward. Did nothing in his manner strike you as peculiar?” The baron drew himself up quickly. The allusion sufficed to show him that his suspicion had been well founded, and that danger to Burnnow was im- pending. It was imperatively necessary to show a calm front, in order, if it were yet possible, to avert a catastrophe. Raven summoned up all his self- possession, and answered with a cold, imperturable “No.” “Well, my attention was attracted to him at once,” said the superintendent. “Even during those few minutes doubts occurred to me, doubts which were subsequently strengthened by some re- marks the councilor inadvertently let fall. So I thought it advisable to set some inquiries on foot. Now that there are so few strangers in the town, it was no difficult matter to find out where the pre- tended Dr. Franz had putup. He had arrived a couple of hours before at an inn in the suburbs, had displayed great solicitude in speaking of the young | doctor, asking many questions about him in an agitated manner, and had then hurried off to see him. The trunk, which had been imprudently left at the inn, bore the ticket Z—— as the station of de- parture. ‘There were other very suspicious circum- stances in support of the evidence—in short, no doubt now exits that we have to do with Rudolph Brunnow, the father of the wounded man.” All these statements were delivered in a cool, business-like tone used by the superintendent Comicbooksco