DESTINY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR
There are two at least that modern teaches you, one is to keep in an emergency, the other is not to be of a corpse. Therefore I was to myself there in the dark the in which I now myself. That's the thing about shell-shock: after it a back-firing or a will a man to tears, but in of he will himself in full of his as long as there is no and noise with it.
Brief as the without had been, I was able on to identify that gurgle, that of the hands. Anyone who has a man die them. Accordingly I that somebody had come to my door at the point of death, to assistance.
Then I of the man next door, his painful breathlessness, his lips, when I him with his key, and I who was my visitor in the dark at my feet.
Shielding the with my hand I it. Then I with the and got the shut. Then only did I my until its upon the across the of the room.
It was the man from No. 33. He was dead. His was and distorted, his the half-closed lids, while his fingers, still clutching, paint and and the where he had door and in his death agony.
One did not need to be a doctor to see that a attack had and him down.
Now that I the I with decision. I the by the into the room until it in the centre of the carpet. Then I locked the door.
The of that had its black over my from the moment I the of this hotel came over me again. Indeed, my position was, to say the least, enviable. Here was I, a British officer with British papers of identity, about to be in a German hotel, into which I had myself under false pretences, at of night alone with the of a German or Austrian (for such the man was)!
It was a most fix.
I listened.
Everything in the hotel was as the grave.
I from my to look again at the stranger. In his black and I again the hint of Jewish I had before. Now that the man's eyes—his big, that had at me out of the of the corridor—were closed, he looked less than before: in he might almost have passed as an Englishman.
He was a man—about my own age, I judged—(I shall be twenty-eight next birthday) and about my own height, which is five ten. There was something about his and that a very in my memory.
Had I the before?
I now that I had noticed something familiar about him when I saw him for that moment in the corridor.
I looked at him again as he on his on the carpet. I the closer and his features.
He looked less than he did before. He might not be a German after all: more likely a Hungarian or a Pole, a Dutchman. His German had been too for a Frenchman—for a Hungarian, either, for that matter.
I on my to my position. As I did so I a of the stranger's three-quarters face.
Why! He me of Francis a little!
There was a of my in the man's appearance. Was it the thick black hair, the small dark moustache? Was it the well-chiselled mouth? It was a hint of Francis than a to him.
The was dressed. The jacket of his had open and I saw a portfolio in the pocket. Here, I thought, might be a to the man's identity. I out the portfolio, then ran my over the stranger's other pockets.
I left the portfolio to the last.
The jacket pockets nothing else a white unmarked. In the right-hand top pocket of the was a cigarette case, perfectly plain, a dozen cigarettes. I took one out and looked at it. It was a Melania, a cigarette I to know for they stock them at one of my clubs, the Dionysus, and it to be the only place in London where you can the brand.
It looked as if my unknown friend had come from London.
There was also a plain watch of Swiss make.
In the pocket was some change, a little English and coppers, some Dutch and paper money. In the right-hand pocket was a of keys.
That was all.
I put the different articles on the me. Then I got up, put the on the table, the chair up to it and opened the portfolio.
In a little pocket of the were visiting cards. Some were with the name in small letters:
Dr. Semlin
Others were more detailed:
Dr. Semlin, Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Halewright Mfg. Co., Ltd.
There were also a dozen private cards:
Dr. Semlin, 333 E. 73rd St., New York.
Rivington Park House.
In the packet of cards was a one, larger than the rest, an on thick, millboard, in the name:
Otto Steinhardt.
On this card was in pencil, above the name:
"Hotel Sixt, Vos in't Tuintje," and in brackets, thus: "(Mme. Anna Schratt.)"
In another pocket of the portfolio was an American by a and sealed with a red seal, sending to all and on of Henry Semlin, a United States citizen, to Europe. Details in the of the document set that Henry Semlin was at Brooklyn on 31st March, 1886, that his was Black, nose Aquiline, Firm, and that of special marks he had None. The was good to me that it was the of Henry Semlin that at my feet.
The had been at Washington three months earlier. The only it was that of the American Embassy in London, two days previously. With it was a British permit, to Henry Semlin, Manufacturer, him authority to the United Kingdom for the purpose of to Rotterdam, a bill for on the Dutch Royal Koningin Regentes on yesterday's date.
In the long and that on that night in the Hotel of the Vos in't Tuintje, I have often to what promptings, to what impulse, I the idea that in my brain as I sat the man's letter-case in that room. The into my brain like a and like a I on it, though I can I meant to it to its logical until I once more the door of my room.
The of the man's papers had me that he was an American man, who had just come from London, having but to England from the United States.
What puzzled me was why an American manufacturer, of some and dressed, should go to a German hotel on the of a German, from his name, and the of his visiting card, a man of good family.
Semlin might, of course, have been, like myself, a in Rotterdam, his to the hotel to a German in the city. Still, Americans are and I it that this American man should himself into this evil-looking house with a large of money on his person—he had hundred of money in Dutch notes in a thick in his portfolio.
I that the British discouraged, as as they could, to and England and Germany in war-time. Possibly Semlin wanted to do in Germany on his European as well as in England. Knowing the of the British authorities, he may well have his in Holland for into Germany the British police should wind of his purpose and stop him to Rotterdam.
But his German was so flawless, with no of Americanism in voice or accent. And I what good use the German Intelligence had of in the past. Therefore I to go next door and have a look at Dr. Semlin's luggage. In the of my mind was that resolve, half-formed as yet but none the less in my head.
Taking up my again, I out of the room. As I in the and to lock the door me, the at the end of the passage the of my candle.
I looked and saw myself in the glass, a white, face.
I looked again. Then I the that had puzzled me in the of the in my room.
It was not the of Francis that his suggested.
It was mine!
The next moment I myself in No. 33. I see no of the key of the room; Semlin must have it in his fall, so it me to make for of any interruption. I had not yet eleven on the clock.
The stranger's and overcoat on a chair. The was from Scott's: there was nothing a pair of leather in the overcoat pockets.
A bag, in size something a small kit-bag and a large handbag, open on the table. It a necessaries, a pair of pyjamas, a clean shirt, a pair of slippers, ... nothing of and not a of paper of any kind.
I through again, looked in the bag, opened the safety case, out the shirt, and took out of the and the on the table.
At the of the I a discovery. The of the was with that thin yellow canvas-like material with which nearly all bags, like this one was, are lined. At the of the an piece of the had been clean out. The leather of the through the slit. Yet the the of the no fraying, no of usage. On the contrary, the were on the leather.
I the and it. As I did so I saw on the table it an of yellow canvas. I it up and the under with paste and the of the leather.
It was the missing piece of and it was with something that it.
I the piece of up one with my penknife. It three long of paper, a thick, expensive, paper. Top, and left-hand of each was and glossy: the fourth a as though it had been cut with a knife. The three of paper were the of three of writing, in two, lengthways, from top to bottom.
At the top of each was part of some of in gold, what, it was not possible to determine, for the had been in the centre of the and the cut had gone right through it.
The was in English but the name of the as also the date was on the missing half.
Somewhere in the of the night I a door bang. I the of paper in their into my pocket. I must not be in that room. With hands I started to put the in the bag. Those of paper, I as I worked, at least rent the of the that in the next room. This, at any rate, was certain: German or American or hyphenate, Henry Semlin, and spy, had from America to England not for the purposes of but to of that document now in my pocket. Why he had only got the and what had to the other was more than I say ... it for me to know that its to somebody was to a on its from one to the other of the Atlantic.
As I opened the my a hard substance, as of metal, in the of the in the joints of the mouth. At I it was a coin, then I some of or it and it to be a brooch. Out came my pocket knife again and there a small star, about as big as a cap badge, in the thin canvas. It an inscription. In I read:
O2 G
Abt. VII.
Here was Dr. Semlin's visiting-card.
I in my hand a of the German police.
You cannot the in Germany without across the of Section Seven of the Berlin Police Presidency, the that is as that of the Political Police. Ostensibly it to the safety of the monarch, and of generally, and the that used to the Kaiser on his visits to England two or three top-hatted of the section.
The of Abteilung Sieben are, in reality, much wider. It such work in with the newspapers as is too dirty for the German Foreign Office to touch, from the of personal in against politicians to the of to the frontier. It is the of the Intelligence Department of War Office and Admiralty in Germany, and service to the which is on officials, politicians, the and the public in that land of organisation.
Section Seven is a department. Always in the dark, its political is a for and more activities. It is with of which it would be for official Germany to have and of which, accordingly, official Germany can always safely when occasion demands.
I the pin of the into my and it there, the of the man's into his bag, his upon my and his overcoat on my arm, up his and away. In another minute I was in my room, my brain with the fire of a great enterprise.
Here, to my hand, the key of that locked land which the of my brother. The question I had been myself, since I had the man's American papers of identity, was this. Had I the nerve to myself of Semlin's American to into Germany? The answer to that question in the little badge. I that no German official, his standing, his orders, would passage to the star of Section Seven. It need only be used, too, as a last resource, for I had my papers as a neutral. Could I but once set in Germany, I was to on my to see me through. One advantage, I knew, I must forgo. That was the half-letter in its case.
If that document was of to Section Seven of the German Police, then it was of equal, nay, of to my country. If I went, that should in safe keeping. On that I was determined.
"Never before, since the began," I told myself, "can any Englishman have had such an opportunity to him for easily and safely into that land as you have now! You have of money, what with your own and this ..." and I Semlin's of notes, "and provided you can keep your to always that you are a German, once over the you should be able to give the Huns the and try and up the of Francis.
"And maybe," I (so easily is one's when one is and set on a thing), "maybe in German surroundings, you may some into that you got from Dicky Allerton as the to the of Francis."
Nevertheless, I wavered. The were awful. I had to out of that hotel in the of Dr. Semlin, with, as the safeguard against exposure, should I in with the man's or friends, that and possibly him and me: I had to take such as would prevent the from being when the was in the hotel: above all, I had to ascertain, I definitely to push on into Germany, Semlin was already to the people at the hotel or whether—as I to be the case—this was also his visit to the house in the Vos in't Tuintje.
In any case, I was in my own mind that the only way to out of the place with Semlin's document without unpleasantness, if not danger, would be to transfer his identity and to myself and versa. When I saw the way a little I decide to take the and myself into the enemy's country.
Whatever I was going to do, there were not many hours of the night left in which to act, and I was to be out of that house of day dawned. If I clear of the hotel and at the same time that Semlin was as much a there as myself, I decide on my of action in the of the of Rotterdam. One thing was certain: the waiter had let the question of Semlin's papers over until the morning, as he had done in my case, for Semlin still had his in his possession.
After all, if Semlin was unknown at the hotel, the waiter had only him for the same moment as he had me.
Thus I and with myself, but in the meantime I acted. I had nothing in my suit-case, so that no difficulty. My British and permit and anything any relation to my personality, such as my watch and cigarette case, of which were with my initials, I transferred to the man's pockets. As I over the stiff, cold with its and fingers, I a which I had itself into the of my mind.
What was I going to do about the body?
At that moment came a low knocking.
With a at the I I had to lock the door.
