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If any of you who read this tale should one day notice a ganger on the railway between Rotterdam and Dordrecht wearing the famous colours of a famous regiment round his neck you will understand how they got there. Then, wearied out with the fatigues of my sleepless night, I fell into a deep slumber, my verdant waterproof swathed round me, Semlin's overcoat about my knees.
"Why not?" he said suddenly, reached out for his cigar-case, beside him on the table, and produced three slips of paper highly glazed and covered with that unforgettable, sprawling hand, a portion of a gilded crest at the top in short, the missing half of the document I had found in Semlin's bag.
A Continental waiter, they say, can get one anything one chooses to ask for at any hour of the day or night. I was about to put this theory to the test. Do you think you could get me one?" "Does the gentleman want it now?" the man replied. "This very minute," I answered. "About that size?" indicating Semlin's. "Yes, or smaller if you like: I am not particular." "I will see what can be done."
In any case, I was quite determined in my own mind that the only way to get out of the place with Semlin's document without considerable unpleasantness, if not grave danger, would be to transfer his identity and effects to myself and vice versa. When I saw the way a little clearer I could decide whether to take the supreme risk and adventure myself into the enemy's country.
And I tucked the little canvas case away inside the pages of the pamphlet, stuck the pamphlet deep down among the books and shut the bag. Seeing its harmless appearance the cloak-room receipt I calculated would, unlike Semlin's document, attract no attention if, by any mischance, it fell into wrong hands en route. I therefore did not scruple to commit it to the post.
In ten minutes the man was back with a brown leather bag about a size smaller than Semlin's. I paid with a willing heart and tipped him generously to boot, for I wanted a bag and could not wait till the shops opened without missing the train for Germany. I paid my bill and drove off to the Central Station through the dark streets with my two bags.
I had taken the precaution of getting Kore to change my money into German notes before we left In den Zelten ... at a preposterous rate of exchange, be it said. How lost I should have been without Semlin's wad of notes! I paid for my coffee and set forth again. It was 12.15 as I walked into the hall of the Anhalt station.
At first I thought it was a coin, then I felt some kind of clasp or fastening behind it and it seemed to be a brooch. Out came my pocket knife again and there lay a small silver star, about as big as a regimental cap badge, embedded in the thin canvas. It bore an inscription. In stencilled letters I read: O2 G Abt. Here was Dr. Semlin's real visiting-card.
Here, to my hand, lay the key of that locked land which held the secret of my lost brother. The question I had been asking myself, ever since I had first discovered the dead man's American papers of identity, was this. Had I the nerve to avail myself of Semlin's American passport to get into Germany? The answer to that question lay in the little silver badge.
One thing was certain: the waiter had let the question of Semlin's papers stand over until the morning, as he had done in my case, for Semlin still had his passport in his possession. After all, if Semlin was unknown at the hotel, the waiter had only seen him for the same brief moment as he had seen me. Thus I reasoned and argued with myself, but in the meantime I acted.
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