Little comrade: a tale of the great war

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

“I see you recognize me,” he said. “Yes—I was in your compartment coming from Cologne. We will speak of that later. Are your bags locked?”

“No,” said Stewart.

He watched with affected listlessness as the officer undid the straps and raised the lids. But his mind was very busy. Had he said anything during that ride from Cologne which he would now have reason to regret? Had he intimated that he was unmarried? He struggled to recall the conversation, sentence by sentence, but could remember nothing that was actually incriminating. And yet, in mentioning his intended stop at Aix-la-Chapelle, he had not added that he was to meet his wife there, and he had made a tentative arrangement to see Miss Field again in Brussels. The talk, in other words, had been carried on from the angle of a bachelor with no one to think of but himself, and not from that of a married man with a wife to consider.

It was certainly unfortunate that the man who had happened to overhear that conversation should be the one detailed here to examine his luggage. How well did he know English? Was he acute enough to catch the implications of the conversation, or would a disregard of one’s wife seem natural to his Teutonic mind? Stewart glanced at him covertly; and then his attention was suddenly caught and held by the extreme care with which the man examined the contents of the bags.

He shook out each garment, put his hand in every pocket, examined the linings with his finger-tips, ripped open one where he detected some unusual thickness only to discover a strip of reënforcement, opened and read carefully every letter and paper, turned the Baedeker page by page to be sure that nothing lay between them. He paused over the satin shoes and stockings, but put them down finally without comment. At last the bags were empty, and, taking up his knife, he proceeded to rip open the linen linings and look under them. Then, with equal care, he returned each article to its place, examining it a second time with the same intent scrutiny.

All this took time, and long before it was over, Stewart and his companion had dropped upon a bench which ran along the wall opposite the table. Stewart was so weary that he began to feel that nothing mattered very much, and he could see that the girl also was deadly tired. But at last the search was finished and the bags closed and strapped.

“I should like to see the small bag which Madame carries on her arm,” said the officer, and, without a word, the girl held it out to him.

He examined its contents with a minuteness almost microscopic. Nothing was too small, too unimportant, to escape the closest attention. Stewart, marveling at this exhibition of German thoroughness, watched him through half-closed eyes, his heart beating a little faster. Would he find some clew, some evidence of treachery?

There were some handkerchiefs in the bag, and some small toilet articles; a cake of soap in a case, a box of powder, a small purse containing some gold and silver, a postcard, two or three letters, and some trivial odds and ends such as every woman carries about with her. The searcher unfolded each of the handkerchiefs and held it against the light, he cut the cake of soap into minute fragments; he emptied the box of powder and ran an inquiring finger through its contents; he turned out the purse and looked at every coin it contained; then he sat down and read slowly and gravely the postcard and each of the letters and examined their postmarks, and finally he took one of the closely-written sheets, mounted on his chair, and held the sheet close against the chimney of the lamp until it was smoking with the heat, examining it with minute attention as though he rather expected to make some interesting discovery. As a finish to his researches, he ripped open the lining of the bag and turned it inside out.

“Where did you buy this bag, madame?” he asked.