He let it be known that he had absolutely nothing hidden on his person by taking off all of his clothes and going to bed, and would apparently sleep while watching the spies go through them. They seemed to enjoy this little game so much that he would sometimes play it once or twice a day, varying it by taking a bath or having James give him massage.
They never seemed to suspect that he was playing with them, but would stand around and pounce down on his clothes, each time searching them thoroughly as if they had discovered something entirely new, when they had just turned the same things inside out within an hour.
While waiting here, too, he came to learn how intensely bitter was the feeling against Americans among Germans of all classes. They regarded themselves as superior beings, he found, and when they first noted his splendid physique, would not believe but that he must have German blood in his veins. When he convinced them, however, that he was of pure Anglo-Saxon stock, Virginia bred—a thorough-paced “Yankee,” as they called it—even the peasants treated him as the dirt beneath their feet.
But at last word came from the German General Staff. He was “sealed, stamped, and marked, ‘not to be opened until after delivery in Berlin.’” He was shown greater consideration now; but it was a consideration which rather unpleasantly reminded him of that shown by the keeper to a condemned prisoner in presenting him with his new clothes in which to be executed.
He and his men and all his belongings—the latter carefully listed in triplicate—were put into a private car, and locked in, like a rich American with the smallpox whom they were sending out of the country; while, to add to his comfort, he was told that Count von Hemelstein was to act as his escort.
As they started on the journey, Edestone had an opportunity of seeing in his true character for the first time the man whom he had so cleverly outwitted in the telephone booth, and he found it hard work to identify the smart cavalry officer as the grimy London taxi-driver of a few days before.
The Count was a big, splendid-looking fellow, who rather affected an American manner in order to hide the fact that he had been educated both at school and college in England. Without his uniform, he would have been taken anywhere for an Englishman, blond, blue-eyed giant that he was, with as beautiful a moustache and as winning a smile as was ever given to the hero of a love story. He wore the uniform of a Colonel of Uhlans, which well set off his handsome figure. In fact, he was as noble-looking an Uhlan as ever, either before or after marriage, broke the heart of a rich brewer’s daughter.
“Delighted to meet you again, Mr. Edestone,” he grasped the American’s hand, with a hearty laugh. “Ever since our last encounter, I have been wanting the opportunity of asking how you knew that I would keep my word and release you, when you divulged to me the whereabouts of your instrument there in the telephone booth? Didn’t you realize that, by ‘putting you out,’ and then having the switchboard man raise an alarm, I could in the resultant confusion, easily have secured the instrument?”
“But I also realized that I was dealing with a soldier, not a burglar; and I took a chance,” said Edestone with a smile.
“Well,” said the Colonel, “now that you are safe in Germany what difference does it make? We mean to keep you here.”