The ramifications of _Abteilung Sieben_ are, in reality, much wider. It
does such work in connection with the newspapers as is even too dirty
for the German Foreign Office to touch, comprising everything from the
launching of personal attacks in obscure blackmailing sheets against
inconvenient politicians to the escorting of unpleasantly truthful
foreign correspondents to the frontier. It is the obedient handmaiden of
the Intelligence Department of both War Office and Admiralty in Germany,
and renders faithful service to the espionage which is constantly
maintained on officials, politicians, the clergy and the general public
in that land of careful organisation.

Section Seven is a vast subterranean department. Always working in the
dark, its political complexion is a handy cloak for blacker and more
sinister activities. It is frequently entrusted with commissions of
which it would be inexpedient for official Germany to have cognizance
and of which, accordingly, official Germany can always safely repudiate
when occasion demands.

I thrust the pin of the badge into my braces and fastened it there,
crammed the rest of the dead man's effects into his bag, stuck his hat
upon my head and threw his overcoat on my arm, picked up his bag and
crept away. In another minute I was back in my room, my brain aflame
with the fire of a great enterprise.

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. I knew that no German official, whatever his standing, whatever