CHAPTER VI1
Superintendent Macdonald, on what might justly be described as “his lawful occasions,” had made many entries into many houses, from mansions to hovels, but he had seldom had the feeling that he had got himself involved in a stage-set. As he walked up the wide red-carpeted stairway in Trauttmansdorffgasse, one side of his mind admired the architectural grace of a stylised interior, the other half asked, “Am I a super on an occasion of state, or in a performance of ‘der Graf von Luxembourg’? Is this the ambassadorial or mere Franz Lehar?”
Perhaps it was because he was neither on duty nor yet on a purely social occasion that he was conscious of a sense of incongruity—as though he were making an entrance while still uncertain what part he was cast for.
It was a long stairway and
