If he is what he claims to be and I hold him here, I
will get in trouble."
Finally, he told the others that their charge was too thin and they
hurriedly left his office. I never saw them again. The station
master escorted me to my compartment and I noticed that from Cologne
to the French Frontier I had no other traveling companions. My
arrival and what I accomplished in Paris is commonplace. Arriving in
the Gare du Norde, I took a taxi to the German Embassy on the Rue de
Lille, where an under-secretary signed for my dispatches and handed me
two letters addressed to the Embassy in Madrid. I immediately posted
his receipt to the Wilhelmstrasse, something German secret agents
always must do--mail the Foreign Office signatures for documents as
soon as they are delivered. Without further adventure I reached
Madrid. As the train was four hours late I did not present myself at
the Embassy. I was met by a commissaire at the station, delivered him
the paper, received his signature, posted it to the Wilhelmstrasse,
and made connections for Barcelona. Somewhere off the city, on the
open sea, the _Panther_ was waiting.
With the utmost difficulty I chartered a tug and in the twilight set
off to find the _Panther_. It was coming night when we finally saw
her dark trim hull lying against the horizon. Well named the
_Panther_, for in this case a false spring by her meant war.
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