After an expensive supper at a small place near the Rosenthal Thor, where two scantily-clad girls danced while the patrons ate, we retraced our steps to the Neustadische-strasse.
On re-entering the hotel the hall-porter gave me a message asking me to ring up Herr Weghinger at No. 2862, Potsdam.
This I did from our sitting-room, asking for Herr Weghinger.
"Yes," came the voice. "Are you Herr Koster?"
I replied in the affirmative, recognising the voice of Baron von Hausen, who said:
"Will you please tell your friend that I have arranged for your visit here, and that you will be welcomed. Be outside the French Embassy at three o'clock, when a yellow car will drive up. Enter it, and you will be brought here. I shall await you." And then he wished me good night.
The wire over which I had spoken was, I knew, one of the private ones to the Neues Palais at Potsdam.
Rasputin had again triumphed. When I told him he laughed coarsely, remarking:
"People are too apt to regard this Kaiser fellow as lord of the world. He will never work his will upon Gregory. Nicholas tried, and failed. Let William try, and he will discover that at least one man is his equal—and more!"
On the following day at three o'clock we both stood upon the kerb in the Pariser Platz, opposite the closed French Embassy, when suddenly from the Sommerstrasse a big yellow car approached us and drew up. The driver, who had evidently been given our descriptions, got down, saluted, and opened the door for us. Then a minute later we were on our way out of Berlin on the Potsdam road. The papers that day had reported that the Emperor was in Brussels, but such misleading statements are permissible in war.