"You," I gasped, "you, who by all rights should have paraded through,
from you they take everything while they let me pass."
"Do you mean to say," he exclaimed, "that they didn't take your
letters?"
"Not one," I grinned.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he said.
Locked in the compartment we nervously watched the door, half expecting
that the police spy would come back for us. We could not have been
delayed more than a few minutes, but it seemed hours, before, with
German regard for comfort, the train glided out of the shed. It must
have been trying on my companion's good humor, but the absurdity of
stripping a courier of everything he carried, was irresistible. Perhaps
it was our continued laughter that brought the knock on the door.
Pushing aside the curtains we saw outside--for it was one of the new
German wagons with a passageway running the entire length of one side
of the car--a tall, broad-shouldered, lean man with features and
expression both typical and unmistakable.
"An Englishman!"
We saw him smile and shake his head. I hesitatingly let fall the
curtain and looked at the courier.
"Let him in," he said. "He's got the brand of an English university boy
all over him. We'll have a chat with him. You don't mind, do you?"
"Mind!" In my eagerness I banged back the compartment doors with a
crash that brought down the conductor. I saw my companion hastily
corrupt that official whose murmured "_Bitte schon_" implied an
un-Teutonic disregard for the fact that he had done something
_verboten_ by admitting a second-class passenger into a first-class
coupé; and the stranger entered.
We were gazing upon a strikingly handsome, fair-haired man not yet
thirty. His eyes twinkled when he said that he supposed we were
Americans. His manner and intonation made me stare at him.
"And you?" we finally asked.
"I'm going first to Berlin, then to Petrograd," he said, perhaps
avoiding our question. "Business trip."
We chatted on, the obvious thought obsessing me. Of course the man was
an English spy. But how absurd! If his face did not give him away to
any one who knew--and my word for it, those police spies do know!--he
would be betrayed by his mannerisms. His accent would instantly cry
out the English in him. Of what could Downing Street be thinking? It
was sending this man to certain death. One began to feel sorry for him.
Feeling the intimacy brought by the common experience at Warnemunde, I
presently said:
"You certainly have your nerve with you, traveling in Germany with
_your_ accent."
"Why?" he laughed. "A neutral is safe."
Expecting he would follow this up by saying that he was an American I
looked inquiring and when he sought to turn the subject I asked:
"Neutral? What country?"
"Denmark," he smiled.
"But your accent?" I persisted.
"I do talk a bit English, do I not? I had quite a go at it, though;
lived in London a few years, you know."
Nerve? I marveled at it. Stark foolhardy courage, or did a secret
commission from Downing Street make this the merest commonplace of
duty? Charming company, he hurried along the time with well-told
anecdotes of the Russian capital and Paris, in both of which places he
said he had been since the war began. As we drew near Lübeck, where a
thirty-five minute stop was allowed for dinner in the station, and the
stranger showed no signs of going back to his own compartment, I could
see that the courier was becoming annoyed. Relapsing into silence he
only broke it to reply to the "Dane" in monosyllables; finally, to my
surprise, the courier became downright rude. As the stranger, from the
start, had been extremely courteous, this rudeness surprised me, more
so, as it seemed deliberate. Bludgeoned by obvious hints the stranger
excused himself, and as soon as he was gone my companion leaned towards
me.
"You were surprised at my rudeness," he said, and then in an undertone;
"it was deliberate."
"I saw that. But why?"
"Because," he explained, "seeing we are Americans that fellow wanted to
travel with us all the way through. He must have known that American
company is the best to be seen in over here these days. He might have
made trouble for us."
"Then you think he's English?"
"Think! Why, they must have let him through at Warnemunde for a reason.
He has a Danish passport right enough. I saw it in the inspection
room. But I'll bet you anything there's a police spy in this train,
undoubtedly in the same compartment with him."
One felt uncomfortable. One thought that those police spies must
dislike one even more now.
"That means we may be suspected as being confederates," I gloomily
suggested.
Whether he was getting back for my having guyed him about losing his
papers I do not know, but the courier said we probably were suspected.
Whereupon the book I tried to read became a senseless jumble of words
and our compartment door became vastly more interesting. When would it
open to admit the police spy?... Confound the luck! Everything breaking
wrong.