“And I suppose also that it has but one door. I believe you told me that your asylum was built on the cell system.”
“Yes, there is but one door to the room.”
“Let the four other attendants stand outside this door. Gyuri will be inside with us. Tell the men outside that they are to seize and hold whomever I shall designate to them. I will call them in by a whistle. You can trust your people?”
“Yes, I think I can.”
“Well, I have my revolver,” said Muller calmly, “and now we can go.”
They left the room together, and found Gyuri waiting for them a little further along the corridor. “Aren’t you well, sir?” the attendant asked the doctor, with an anxious note in his voice.
The man’s anxiety was not feigned. He was really a faithful servant in his devotion to the old doctor, although Muller had not misjudged him when he decided that this young giant was capable of anything. Good and evil often lie so close together in the human heart.
The doctor’s emotion prevented him from speaking, and the detective answered in his place. “It is a sudden indisposition,” he said. “Lead me to No. 302, who is waiting for us, I suppose. The doctor wants to lie down a moment in his own room.”
Gyuri glanced distrustfully at this man whom he had met for the first time to-day, but who was no stranger to him—for he had already learned the identity of the guest in the rectory. Then he turned his eyes on his master. The latter nodded and said: “Take the gentleman to Varna’s room. I will follow shortly.”
The cell to which they went was the first one at the head of the staircase. “Extremely convenient,” thought Muller to himself. It was a large room, comfortably furnished and filled now with the red glow of the setting sun. A turning-lathe stood by the window and an elderly man was at work at it. Gyuri called to him and he turned and rose when he saw a stranger.
Lajos Varna was a tall, loose-jointed man with sallow skin and tired eyes. He gave only a hasty glance at his visitor, then looked at Gyuri. The expression in his eyes as he turned them on those of the warder was like the
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