It is necessary unfortunately to follow this man Stieber to the close of his career and for the reason that the modern system of espionage in Germany, in regard to both its home and foreign relations, is based wholly on the methods which he laid down after the Franco-German War of 1870. He returned to Berlin a more important man than ever, with several more decorations to add to his already heavily bestarred chest. At this period he possessed a house in the neighbourhood of the Hallesches Thor and was credited with the possession of about 1,000,000 marks or £50,000 sterling. His womenfolk proved a source of some anxiety to him in a social sense, and not even the patronage of the omnipotent Chancellor von Bismarck could induce the exclusive classes of Berlin to look upon them with favour. Prussian vulgarity possesses a brand entirely its own, and the House of Stieber appeared to be afflicted with all its worst symptoms, including the inability to realise that position, even supported by wealth, which owed its existence to a talent for exploiting the basest characteristics of human nature, must ever, except among the most servile and venal, remain isolated and practically ostracised during at least the life of its founders. We are therefore not surprised to learn that in order to maintain some outward semblance of an important rôle in society for his family, Stieber was forced to resort to a kind of blackmail, in which he threatened persons of high social worth, who consistently refused to meet his relatives, with the revelation of domestic secrets of the most intimate nature. In this way, he effected some progress, though it is also well known that he became instrumental in driving several notable personages permanently back to their country estates. Stieber himself made no secret of his philosophy in such matters. "To hold a certain power over men who are my superiors, is the sweetest power I have known, and accounts in many ways for my success," is a remark attributed to the sleuth. Like many another well-known _nouveau riche_ of modern days, whose rise to vast wealth has served only to emphasise an elemental ineptitude for the wielding of public power, Stieber feared the Theatre as a potential flagellant of his ignoble self, and to this end exercised, through subsidiary agents, a veritable censorship upon the German drama. In order to provide against this possibility of seeing himself burlesqued upon the stage by some rising Molière, he was at great pains to procure the position of censors for members of his personal acquaintance, and even in the literary world his secret influence was always at work. His ambition to possess the "particle of nobility," _von_, the old Emperor William firmly withstood, nor could the Chancellor move his master to include Stieber in any list promoting the sleuth to Adelstand, as the Germans term the condition of noble rank.