"Bessie probably," suggested Althea.

"Of course. I forgot; but I have been a bit strung up by the night's business. I was going to say that you had better not tell your father the police have been removed. If he will not leave the city, he is safest here." I hurried away then to put von Felsen's confessions and the keys I had taken from him in safe hiding, and soon after that Bessie came down and we started for the station.

After what Dormund had told me that day at the station about the pa.s.sports, I had some doubt whether some demur might be raised about Bessie's departure; but no questions were asked, and she was soon seated in the ladies' compartment with two other Englishwomen who, I was glad to hear, were going through to Brussels. In the bustle of the preparations and in giving her full instructions about the packet she was carrying, I had thought no more of the little incident while I was with Althea; but at the last moment I remembered it.

"By the way, Bess, did you come out of your room and go back again while I was talking to Althea?"

"No. Why?"

"I thought I heard some one run upstairs and shut a door."

"It must have been Baron von Ringheim. He pa.s.sed my room while I was secreting the papers, and went into his own room. I wondered at the time what had taken him downstairs."

"By Jove, I hope he didn't hear any thing about the police having left the house. I must get back. Wire me the instant you arrive, Bess.

Good-bye."

The train was signalled out then, and with a last wave of the hand to her I left the station. I was eager to be home again. If the Baron had been anxious to leave the house and had really heard me tell Althea the road was clear, it was quite likely he might take advantage of my absence to carry out his purpose.

Anxious as this thought made me, I was not too preoccupied to keep my eyes about me; and it was not without a start of concern that I observed one of the men whom I had seen a short while before at my house. It was the man in plain clothes who joined his uniformed companion to read the letter.

He was apparently absorbed in reading a timetable, but I saw that he followed me as I went out.

I got into a cab therefore and promised a liberal fare for a quick journey. But the night horses of Berlin are not more brilliant than those of London, and we had gone a very short distance before the horse fell.

I jumped out, and found myself in a by thoroughfare which the man had taken for a short cut.

I knew my way well enough, however, and set off homewards at a brisk pace; but as I turned into a narrow street I tripped and fell, just as a man rushed round the corner after me and fired a pistol at very short range, and then bolted like a rabbit.

My fall probably saved my life; and I jumped up and rushed after him, like a fool, instead of resting content with my narrow escape. But he disappeared round a corner and, as I darted after him, I ran into a couple of policemen who had heard the shot fired. As no one else was to be seen, they thought I had fired the shot and was running away; and despite all I could say, they insisted upon arresting me.

Fortune could not have served me a more scurvy trick at such a moment.

CHAPTER XXII

IN SEARCH OF THE BARON

Anyone who has ever lived in the capital of the German Empire, or indeed in any German town of size, knows the absolute futility of arguing with the police. Definite regulations are laid down for them, as the sand of the sea in number and an auctioneer's catalogue in precision of detail; and unless you are a person of infinite leisure and unruffled temper, you will do what they tell you and do it without remonstrance.

When they insisted upon detaining me upon suspicion of having fired the shot which had attracted their notice, I could not restrain a heated protest or two; but I soon ceased to remonstrate.

I chafed and fretted at the detention; and all the more so, because while one of them took charge of me, his companion made a long search for my a.s.sailant. He must have been an extremely conscientious fellow, for he showed more than German thoroughness in the search. They are very rarely quick in their methods, but they claim to be sure; and when he returned after nearly an hour, he had quite convinced himself that the man was not hidden anywhere near us.

"You must have fired the shot," he said, with an air of satisfied conviction, "or I should have found the man. There was no one else about." He then ran his hands down outside my coat, felt my revolver and drew it out. "Ah, I knew it," he exclaimed triumphantly.

"Do let us go to the station," I said impatiently.

"You'll have enough of that before this is settled. Who are you, and where do you live?"

I said I would explain everything at the police quarters, and to my relief we set off for them then.

As a matter of fact, I was not a little bothered how to reply to the questions. If I gave my address, I knew that it was quite in accordance with the regulation methods for some one to be sent to search my house; and apart altogether from the alarm which such a proceeding would cause Althea following upon the news of my arrest, there was the awkward fact of the Baron's presence there.

Again, the ordinary process of interrogation would be directed to extracting from me a detailed account of my movements during the hours prior to the act with which I was to be charged. Police inquiries under such circ.u.mstances are inspired with as much minuteness as the average Teutonic biblical criticism.

The inquisitor at such times always presses his questions under the belief that at the bottom of the charge there is some heinous crime which he will be able to unearth if only he is clever enough.

The moment I was inside the building, therefore, I made haste to get out my version of the affair, and ended with a request for a communication to be made at once to Dormund or Feldermann.

The officer in charge listened with a frown of impatience, and then turned to the men who had taken me in charge. He was a surly individual; and when my revolver was produced, he gathered it in with a sort of cluck, such as a broody hen might give on discovering a t.i.tbit for her chicks.

"You will see that it is loaded in every barrel," I said.

He did not even take the trouble to look. The fact that a shot had been fired, and that I had been found running away and in the possession of a weapon, was obviously proof enough for him. "Well, your name and address?" he grunted as he took up his pen very deliberately.

"Paul Bastable."

"Where do you live. Answer."

I replied that I had been a newspaper correspondent and gave him the name of the paper, adding that both Dormund and Feldermann were my friends.

"Where do you live?" he repeated.

"They know me perfectly well, and I desire to communicate with them."

"Address refused," he murmured as if to himself, and wrote that down.

It was the preface to just such a list of questions as I had antic.i.p.ated. What I was doing in the streets at that time of night; where I had been; where I was going; why I carried a revolver; why I had fired the shot; what I had done all the evening, and so on.

I returned much the same answer to all the questions--that I wished to be allowed to communicate with either Dormund or Feldermann; and we reached a deadlock, and he was ordering me to the cells, when it occurred to me to play the "British subject" card.

"Wait a moment, please. You have ignored my statement and are going to charge me with a serious, offence. I am a British subject and demand to be allowed to communicate with the British consul."

I knew he dared not refuse, and was pleased to see his s.h.a.ggy brows knit more closely than ever as he thought it over.

"How do I know that?" he asked after a pause.

"Both Herr Dormund and Herr Feldermann know it." I was resolved to rub their names into him at every available chance. "Let me a.s.sure you that I have told you the absolute truth in regard to that shot. The mistake which your men made was quite intelligible under the circ.u.mstances, but it was a mistake. The shot was fired by a man whom I think I could identify; it was fired at me; and I was pursuing him when I was arrested."

His face might have been a barber's dummy for all the effect this appeared to produce. A long pause followed while he thought over the position, and then he told the others to take me off to the cells.

"You will enter the fact that I have demanded to see my consul, please,"

I said as I was led away; but like the rest, this elicited no notice.

I was left to cool my heels there for about an hour. I did not care two straws about the charge which had been preferred against me; but the delay fretted me almost into a fever, and had I been left much longer I believe I should have even ventured to make some attempt to escape.

But to my intense relief when the cell door was opened, Dormund was there. He favoured me with one of his driest smiles as he held out his hand. "You have a rare capacity for getting into trouble, Herr Bastable. Surely you know that revolver practice in the streets of Berlin is illegal."