myself and my business. Curiosity about your neighhour's affairs is a
cardinal German failing, yet the Count manifested not the slightest
desire to learn anything about me or my mission to Berlin. You may be
sure that I, for my part, did nothing to enlighten him. It was not,
indeed, in my power to do so. Yet the young man's reserve was so marked
that I was convinced he had his orders to avoid the topic.

As the train rushed through Westphalia, through busy stations with
glimpses of sidings full of trucks loaded to the brim, past towns whose
very outlines were blurred by the mirk of smoke from a hundred factory
chimneys, my thoughts were busy with that swarthy cripple. I had broken
away from him with one portion of a highly prized document, yet he had
made no attempt to have me arrested at the frontier. Clearly, then, he
must still look upon me as an ally and must therefore be yet in
ignorance of the identity of the dead man lying in my chamber at the
Hotel Sixt. The friendly guide had told me that the party "combing out"
the station at Rotterdam for me did not appear to know what I looked
like.

_Was it possible, then, that Clubfoot did not know Semlin by sight?_

The fact that Semlin had only recently crossed the Atlantic seemed to
confirm this supposition.

Then the document. Semlin had half. Who had the other half? Surely
Clubfoot.... Clubfoot who was to have called at the hotel that morning
to receive what I had brought from England. Perhaps, after all, my
random declaration to the hotel-keeper had not been so far wrong;
Clubfoot wanted to take the whole document to Berlin and reap all the
laurels at the cost of half the danger and labour. That would explain