An attempt to ascend the stairway behind a couple of other visitors whereby I could gain my apartment unobserved was frustrated by the stout lady before mentioned. She, by an extraordinary coincidence, started to come downstairs just as my foot had gained the last step of the ascent. In her haste she jostled first one and then the other of the gentlemen meeting her, for which she apologised most profusely and in a loud, jovial, bantering manner.
I leaned against the wall and laughed. It was my custom to take everything as it came, never to meet trouble half-way by worrying, and even to attempt the credit of gaining happiness under almost impossible conditions.
In the present instance the fortune of war favoured me, although conditions were adverse. A large mirror hung upon the landing, the reflection field of which embraced wide angles. I, happening to glance upwards and beyond the little pleasantries going on above, observed a shadow darken the surface of the glass, but the noise made by the merry-makers on the stairhead prevented any slighter sounds from being heard.
Later on, when I had entered and was alone within the privacy of my own apartment, examining the test traps at my leisure, all possible doubt of an interest having been taken in my belongings was removed.
What would happen next?
The veiled secret warning that had been given me portended mischief. It was hardly reasonable to suppose one's natural enemy would take a knock-down blow without reprisals. They were more than hinted at in the urgent message I had received. I was not deceived for one moment. I felt myself within the claws of the pincers and it was up to me to wriggle out before they could be closed. There must be no hesitation, no delay, and no "wait and see" about my decisions. I must quit, and that at once, or the worst might befall.
Having supped in the restaurant common to all guests of the hostelry, I retired early, but instead of undressing I lay upon the outside of the bed and smoked and read until the early hours of the morning, between whiles turning over many matters of more or less moment in my mind.
I remembered that the latest ejected one from that hospitable country was by no means the only one who had unceremoniously been pushed out by reason of information which had reached the authorities in a roundabout untraceable way. The origin had never come to light, but the inmates of Koenigergratzerstrasse No. 70 probably had a shrewd suspicion whom they could credit for the attention. S—— was another very active German agent who had recently been expelled the country; he returned almost immediately under another name and disguise. He successfully crossed the frontier and would in all probability have escaped identification had not certain strings been pulled whereby he was located and ejected again, within forty-eight hours of his arrival. Most annoying to him, of course, but then these small matters had of necessity to be attended to.
It was unpleasant to remember that the number of wrecks along the coast was abnormal. The majority of these unfortunate vessels were or had been cargo carriers to Germany. Perhaps it was a just retribution that they should sink or encounter disaster preventing their further assistance to direct acts of barbarism by the mad dogs of Europe. Be that as it may, Germans in that particular neighbourhood would hardly have agreed with any such sentiments; nor were they sympathetic towards the invective which was raised by the local police and others interested—although breathed sub rosa—against fellow-countrymen of theirs who were suspected of having fired several vast timber-stacks supposed to have been sold to England.
Taking one consideration with another no love was lost between travellers from England and Germany.