For the next few days it fell to my lot to watch Barker. I followed him on Saturday afternoon to Tynemouth, where it seemed his hobby was to snap-shot incoming and outgoing ships at the estuary, at the same time asking of seafaring men in the vicinity how far the boat would be from the shore where he was standing.
Both part of that afternoon and part of Sunday he was engaged in taking some measurements near the Ridges Reservoir, North Shields, afterwards going on to Tynemouth again, and snap-shotting the castle from various positions, the railway and its tunnels, the various slips, the jetty, the fish quay, the harbour, and the Narrows. Indeed, he seemed to be making a most careful photographic survey of the whole town.
He carried with him a memorandum book, in which he made many notes. All this he did openly, in full presence of passers-by, and even of the police, for who suspects German spies in Tynemouth?
About six o'clock on Sunday afternoon he entered the Royal Station Hotel, took off his light overcoat, and, hanging it in the hall, went into the coffee-room to order tea.
I had followed him in order to have tea myself, and I took off my own overcoat and hung it up next to his.
But I did not enter the coffee-room; instead, I went into the smoking-room. There I called for a drink, and, having swallowed it, returned to the pegs where our coats were hanging.
Swiftly I placed my hand in the breast pocket of his coat, and there felt some papers which, in a second, I had seized and transferred to my own pocket. Then I put on my coat leisurely, and strolled across to the station.
A train was fortunately just about to leave for Newcastle, and I jumped in. Then when we had moved away from the platform I eagerly examined what I had secured.