from America to England not for the purposes of trade but to get hold of
that mutilated document now reposing in my pocket. Why he had only got
half the letter and what had happened to the other half was more than I
could say ... it sufficed for me to know that its importance to somebody
was sufficient to warrant a journey on its behalf from one side to the
other of the Atlantic.

As I opened the bag my fingers encountered a hard substance, as of
metal, embedded in the slack of the lining in the joints of the mouth.
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. VII.

Here was Dr. Semlin's real visiting-card.

I held in my hand a badge of the German secret police.

You cannot penetrate far behind the scenes in Germany without coming
across the traces of Section Seven of the Berlin Police Presidency, the
section that is known euphemistically as that of the Political Police.
Ostensibly it attends to the safety of the monarch, and of distinguished
personages generally, and the numerous suite that used to accompany the
Kaiser on his visits to England invariably included two or three
top-hatted representatives of the section.