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Page 22
"You needn't worry about your German mentality," I told myself, "you've
got it all here! You've only got to be a parrot like the rest and you'll
be as good a Hun as Hindenburg!"
A Continental waiter, they say, can get one anything one chooses to ask
for at any hour of the day or night. I was about to put this theory to
the test.
"Waiter," I said (of course, in German), "I want a bag, a handbag. Do
you think you could get me one?"
"Does the gentleman want it now?" the man replied.
"This very minute," I answered.
"About that size?"--indicating Semlin's. "Yes, or smaller if you like: I
am not particular."
"I will see what can be done."
In ten minutes the man was back with a brown leather bag about a size
smaller than Semlin's. It was not new and he charged me thirty gulden
(which is about fifty shillings) for it. I paid with a willing heart and
tipped him generously to boot, for I wanted a bag and could not wait
till the shops opened without missing the train for Germany.
I paid my bill and drove off to the Central Station through the dark
streets with my two bags. The clocks were striking six as I entered
under the great glass dome of the station hall.
I went straight to the booking-office, and bought a first-class ticket,
single, to Berlin. One never knows what may happen and I had several
things to do before the train went.
The bookstall was just opening. I purchased a sovereign's worth of books
and magazines, English, French and German, and crammed them into the bag
I had procured at the caf�. Thus laden I adjourned to the station
buffet.
There I set about executing a scheme I had evolved for leaving the
document which Semlin had brought from England in a place of safety,
whence it could be recovered without difficulty, should anything happen
to me. I knew no one in Holland save Dicky, and I could not send him the
document, for I did not trust the post. For the same reason I would not
post the document home to my bank in England: besides, I knew one could
not register letters until eight o'clock, by which hour I hoped to be
well on my way into Germany.
No, my bag, conveniently weighted with books and deposited at the
station cloak-room, should be my safe. The comparative security of
station cloak-rooms as safe deposits has long been recognized by jewel
thieves and the like and this means of leaving my document behind in
safety seemed to me to be better than any other I could think of.
So I dived into my bag and from the piles of literature it contained
picked up a book at random. It was a German brochure: _Gott strafe
England!_ by Prof. Dr. Hugo Bischoff, of the University of G�ttingen.
The irony of the thing appealed to my sense of humour. "So be it!" I
said. "The worthy Professor's fulminations against my country shall have
the honour of harbouring the document which is, apparently, of such
value to _his_ country!" And I tucked the little canvas case away inside
the pages of the pamphlet, stuck the pamphlet deep down among the books
and shut the bag.
Seeing its harmless appearance the cloak-room receipt--I
calculated--would, unlike Semlin's document, attract no attention if, by
any mischance, it fell into wrong hands _en route._ I therefore did not
scruple to commit it to the post. Before taking my bag of books to the
cloak-room I wrote two letters. Both were to Ashcroft--Ashcroft of the
Foreign Office, who got me my passport and permit to come to Rotterdam.
Herbert Ashcroft and I were old friends. I addressed the envelopes to
his private house in London. The Postal Censor, I knew, keen though he
always is after letters from neutral countries, would leave old
Herbert's correspondence alone.
The first letter was brief. "Dear Herbert," I wrote, "would you mind
looking after the enclosed until you hear from me again? Filthy weather
here. Yours, D.O." This letter was destined to contain the cloak-room
receipt. To conceal the importance of an enclosure, it is always a good
dodge to send the covering letter under separate cover.
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