"Let me go," he cried in a dickens of a stew.
"You wanted to stop, and stop you shall."
To my intense joy he came for me and thus saved me from the unpleasant job of knocking him out in cold blood. I did it quite satisfactorily, and as he fell he struck his head against the corner of a writing desk and saved me the trouble of hitting him again.
Then I collared my suit case, clambered out of the bathroom window down by the fire escape, and got away by a passage into a side street. A single glance satisfied me that none of his "friends" saw me, and I rushed off to the station.
I reached it with only a few minutes in hand, and Nessa was waiting for me in the door of the waiting-room.
"I was afraid you'd be late and that something had happened," she said nervously.
"It's all right. We've plenty of time. Don't be nervy and not too friendly yet. There may be eyes about. We'll find a carriage at once."
It was all right enough to tell her not to be nervy, but I was on pins and needles, wondering if my theft of the tickets had been discovered, whether at the last moment we should be stopped, and a hundred other wonderings.
My eyes were all over the place as we walked to the train; and to my infinite dismay I caught sight of the old Jew planted close to the barrier through which we had to pass. That was not the worst, moreover, by any means. He was talking to a man who had policeman written all over him.
And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, on the platform just beyond von Welten was strolling up and down smoking.