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Page 32
My companion was, indeed, the model of discretion in everything touching
myself and my business. Curiosity about your neighhour's affairs is a
cardinal German failing, yet the Count manifested not the slightest
desire to learn anything about me or my mission to Berlin. You may be
sure that I, for my part, did nothing to enlighten him. It was not,
indeed, in my power to do so. Yet the young man's reserve was so marked
that I was convinced he had his orders to avoid the topic.
As the train rushed through Westphalia, through busy stations with
glimpses of sidings full of trucks loaded to the brim, past towns whose
very outlines were blurred by the mirk of smoke from a hundred factory
chimneys, my thoughts were busy with that swarthy cripple. I had broken
away from him with one portion of a highly prized document, yet he had
made no attempt to have me arrested at the frontier. Clearly, then, he
must still look upon me as an ally and must therefore be yet in
ignorance of the identity of the dead man lying in my chamber at the
Hotel Sixt. The friendly guide had told me that the party "combing out"
the station at Rotterdam for me did not appear to know what I looked
like.
_Was it possible, then, that Clubfoot did not know Semlin by sight?_
The fact that Semlin had only recently crossed the Atlantic seemed to
confirm this supposition.
Then the document. Semlin had half. Who had the other half? Surely
Clubfoot.... Clubfoot who was to have called at the hotel that morning
to receive what I had brought from England. Perhaps, after all, my
random declaration to the hotel-keeper had not been so far wrong;
Clubfoot wanted to take the whole document to Berlin and reap all the
laurels at the cost of half the danger and labour. That would explain
his present silence. He suspected Semlin of treachery, not to the common
cause, but to him!
It looked as if I might have a free run until Clubfoot could reach
Berlin. That, unless he also took a special, could not be until the
next evening at earliest. But, more redoubtable than a meeting with
the man of power and authority, hung over me, an ever-present nightmare,
the interview which I felt awaited me at the end of my present
journey ... the interview at which I must render an account of my
mission.
Evening was falling as we ran through the inhospitable region of sand
and water and pine that engirdles Berlin. We glided at diminished speed
through the trim suburbs, skirted the city, on whose tall buildings the
electric sky-signs were already beginning to twinkle, crashed heavily
over a vast network of metals at some great terminus, then tore off
again into the gathering darkness. In a little, we slowed down again. We
were running through wooded country. From the darkness ahead a lantern
waved at us and the train stopped with a jerk at a little wayside
station, a tiny box of an affair. A tall, solid figure, wearing a spiked
helmet and grey military great-coat, stood in solitary grandeur in the
centre of the little platform, the wavering rays of a flickering gas
lamp reflected in his brilliantly polished top-boots.
"Here we are at last!" said my companion.
I stepped out to meet my fate.
* * * * *
The young lieutenant was rigid at the salute before the figure on the
platform.
I heard the end of a sentence as I alighted "... the gentleman I was to
meet, Excellency!"
The other looked at me. He was a big man with a crimson face. He made no
attempt at greeting, but said in a hoarse voice: "Have the goodness to
come with me. The orderlies will attend to your things." And, with
clinking spurs, he strode out through some big kind of anteroom, swathed
in wrappings, into a yard beyond, where a big limousine was throbbing
gently.
He stood aside to let me get in, then mounted himself, followed, rather
to my surprise, by the young Count, whose responsibility for myself had
ended, I imagined, on "delivering the goods." My surprise was of short
duration, for once in the car the young Uhlan dropped all the formality
he had displayed on the platform and addressed the elder officer as
"papa." This, then, was old General von Boden, of whom the Major had
spoken, Aide-de-Camp to the Kaiser and formerly tutor to the Crown
Prince.
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