was impossible that he should carry papers of the sort found in
his dispatch case, or that such papers should exist--yet I am
sending them to you with this letter. It is impossible that Baron
von Stein should sign a paper of the sort he did, or that it
should be sealed by the Chancellery--yet it bears both Stein's
signature and my seal.

You will also find in the dispatch case other credentials,
ostensibly originating with the British Foreign Office, of the
same character, being signed by persons having no connection with
the Foreign Office, or even with the government, but being sealed
with apparently authentic seals. If you send these papers to
London, I fancy you will find that they will there create the same
situation as that caused here by this letter of safe-conduct.

I am also sending you a charcoal sketch of the person who calls
himself Benjamin Bathurst. This portrait was taken without its
subject's knowledge. Baron von Krutz's nephew, Lieutenant von
Tarlburg, who is the son of our mutual friend Count von Tarlburg,
has a little friend, a very clever young lady who is, as you will
see, an expert at this sort of work: she was introduced into a
room at the Ministry of Police and placed behind a screen, where
she could sketch our prisoner's face. If you should send this
picture to London, I think that there is a good chance that it
might be recognized. I can vouch that it is an excellent likeness.

To tell the truth, we are at our wits' end about this affair.
I cannot understand how such excellent imitations of these
various seals could be made, and the signature of the Baron von
Stein is the most expert forgery that I have ever seen, in thirty