Not long afterward, in an angular street near by, I saw a person who reminded me of the young man I had met shortly before. His pants seemed to be made of the same kind of woolen goods, but his hat and coat appeared different.
The following day I met the same person and took the liberty to speak to him. In the course of time I learned that he was a secret service man and had been detailed to watch a number of strangers who were sojourning in the city. Those who were under surveillance, I learned soon after, included me as well as several guests at Hotel Rom.
This young man had a coat with two sides suitable for outside wear. When one was exposed, he looked like a student, and in the other he had the appearance of a newspaper seller. He was one of many secret service men in civilian clothes who were doing police duty and detective work.
XI—STORY OF THE DAINTY SPY AT BERLIN
When I returned to Berlin from the east, I engaged quarters at Pension Stern, a pleasant place on Unter den Linden. The outlook from the front window enabled me to see all that famous thoroughfare, from the statue of Frederick the Great to the Brandenburger Tor. The panorama included the vacant French embassy, the Cafe Victoria, the main building of the University of Berlin and the Dom Kirche in the distance.
I had returned to the capital city to visit the museums, art galleries and palaces of Berlin as well as the suburbs of Spandau, Charlottenburg and Potsdam. It was my purpose to study life at the capital as well as to see the military side of the war in the German metropolis, including the great prison camp at Döberitz.
At the reading rooms of the Chicago Daily News, on Unter den Linden, I found many American and English periodicals and went there frequently to peruse them. Several times I met at this place a dainty lady who spoke German like a Bavarian and English with the (ze) accent of a Parisian. This lady I learned to know as Miss Julia Bross and I put her on my list of possible spies.
She accepted pleasantly my invitation to take dinner at Cafe Victoria, where she drank coffee and smoked a cigarette while I labored over a cup of tea as a final course in a long list of eatables. Her home was in Denmark, which was evidenced by numerous letters which she carried, and she was in the city to teach French and study German.
The story of the dainty dame was well planned, but I doubted her. She was a spy and was on dangerous footing. With apologies to Bret Harte, I wrote in my diary:
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain
The female spy is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.