“Ah! there you are, Carter!” she said.  “Gute Nacht, Herr Baron!  Auf wiedersehen, Durchlaucht!”

The two officers kissed her hand whilst I helped her into her wrap.  Then I marched straight out of the swing-doors in front of her, looking neither to right nor to left, past the detective and the two policemen.  The detective may have looked at me:  if so, I didn’t perceive it.  I had made up my mind not to see him.

Outside Monica took the lead and brought me over to a chocolate-coloured limousine drawn up at the pavement.  I noted with dismay that the engine was stopped.  That might mean further delay whilst I cranked up.  But a friendly chauffeur standing by seized the handle and started the engine whilst I assisted Monica into the car, and the next moment we were gliding smoothly over the asphalt under the twinkling arc-lamps.

The Bendler-Strasse is off the Tiergarten, not far from the Esplanade, and I found my way there without much difficulty.  I flatter myself that both Monica and I played our parts well, and I am sure nothing could have been more professional than the way I helped her to alight.  It was an apartment house and she had the key of the front door, so, after seeing her safely within doors, I returned to the car and drove it round to the garage by a carriage-way leading to the rear of the premises.

As I unlocked the double doors of the garage, a man came down a ladder outside the place leading to the upper room.

“Did it work all right, sir?” he asked.

“Is that Carter?” I said.

“Sure that’s me,” came the cheery response.  “Stand by now and we’ll run her in.  Then I’ll show you where you are to sleep!”

We stowed the car away and he took me upstairs to his quarters, a bright little room with electric light, a table with a red cloth, a cheerful open fire and two beds.  The walls were ornamented with pictures cut from the American Sunday supplements, mostly feminine and horsy studies.

“It’s a bit rough, mister,” said Carter, “but it’s the best I can do.  Gee! but you look that dawg-gorn tired I guess you could sleep anywheres!”

He was a friendly fellow, pleasant-looking in an ugly way, with a button nose and honest eyes.

“Say, but I like to think of the way we fooled them Deutschers,” he chuckled.  He kept on chuckling to himself whilst I took off my boots and began to undress.

“That there is your bed,” he said, pointing; “the footman used to sleep there but they grabbed him for the army.  There’s a pair of Mr. Gerry’s pyjamas for you and you’ll find a cup of cocoa down warming by the fire.  It’s all a bit rough, but it’s the best we can do.  I guess you want to go to sleep mortal bad, so I’ll be going down.  The bed’s clean... there are clean sheets on it....”

“But I won’t turn you out of your room,” I said.  “There are two beds.  You must take yours.”

“Don’t you fret yourself about me,” he answered.  “I’ll make myself comfortable down in the garage.  I don’t often see a gentleman in this dawg-gorn country, and when I do I know how to treat him.”