I looked at my watch.  It was twenty past eleven:  too late to begin my search that night.  Then I suddenly realized how utterly exhausted I was.  I had been two nights out of bed without sleep, for I had sat up on deck crossing over to Holland, and the succession of adventures that had befallen me since I left London had driven all thought of weariness from my mind.  But now came the reaction and I felt myself yearning for a hot bath and for a nice comfortable bed.  To go to an hotel at that hour of night, without luggage and with an American passport not in order, would be to court disaster.  It looked as though I should have to hang about the cafes and night restaurants until morning, investigate the clue of the street called In den Zelten, and then get away from Berlin as fast as ever I could.

But my head was nodding with drowsiness.  I must pull myself together.  I decided I would have some black coffee, and I raised my eyes to find the waiter.  They fell upon the pale face and elegant figure of the one-armed officer I had met at the Casino at Goch ... the young lieutenant they had called Schmalz.

He had just entered the cafe and was standing at the door, looking about him.  I felt a sudden pang of uneasiness at the sight of him, for I remembered his cross-examination of me at Goch.  But I could not escape without paying my bill; besides, he blocked the way.

He settled my doubts and fears by walking straight over to my table.

“Good evening, Herr Doktor,” he said in German, with his pleasant smile.  “This indeed is an unexpected pleasure!  So you are seeing how we poor Germans are amusing ourselves in war-time.  You must admit that we do not take our pleasures sadly.  You permit me?”

Without waiting for my reply, he sat down at my table and ordered a glass of beer.

“I wish you had appeared sooner,” I exclaimed in as friendly a tone as I could muster, “for I am just going.  I have had a long and tiring journey and am anxious to go to an hotel.”

Directly I had spoken I realized my blunder.

“You have not got an hotel yet?” said Schmalz.  “Why, how curious!  Nor have I?  As you are a stranger in Berlin, you must allow me to appoint myself your guide.  Let us go to an hotel together, shall we?”

I wanted to demur, difficult as it was to find any acceptable excuse, but his manner was so friendly, his offer seemed so sincere, that I felt my resolution wavering.  He had a winning personality, this frank, handsome boy.  And I was so dog-tired!

He perceived my reluctance but also my indecision.

“We’ll go to any hotel you like,” he said brightly.  “But you Americans are spoilt in the matter of luxurious hotels, I know.  Still, I tell you we have not much to learn in that line in Berlin.  Suppose we go to the Esplanade.  It’s a fine hotel ... the Hamburg American line run it, you know.  I am very well known there, quite the Hauskind ... my uncle was a captain of one of their liners.  They will make us very comfortable:  they always give me a little suite, bedroom, sitting-room and bath, very reasonably:  I’ll make them do the same for you.”