With a shrug I rose, and he walked me off to the police station, the railway official accompanying us. I concealed my bitter irritation as best I could, and tried to think of the best story to tell. The railwayman said what he knew, and the officer in charge of the station questioned me. "Who are you?"
"There has been a great mistake made by this gentleman. I am an Englishman, Paul Bastable, 78, Miedenstrasse, Berlin, a newspaper correspondent. I have been away in search of information about some events I cannot tell you, and must return to Berlin at once."
"Where have you come from?"
"I am not at liberty to tell you; but you can send some one with me to Berlin if you wish, and I can satisfy him of the truth about me."
"Have you searched him?" he asked the man who had taken me there.
He did it at once without any ceremony, and together they examined the contents of my pockets. When they looked next at me, it was with obvious suspicion, and the constable turned back the collar of the reefer jacket at the back and then nodded to his superior.
"Paul Bastable, English, are you? Then how come you to have the papers of Johann Spackmann, engineer, with you, and to be wearing his coat?"
What a stroke of ill luck! I had seen the man take a paper from the inside pocket of the jacket I had annexed from the launch. I hesitated and then forced a laugh. "I suppose you know that newspaper men have to be somebody else at times. I have told you the truth. Send some one with me to Berlin."
"I knew there was something wrong about him," put in the railwayman. "But I must be off, the Berlin train is due."
"For Heaven's sake don't let me miss that train," I cried earnestly.