The doors were slammed and locked. The van moved off at a walking pace. It traversed about a mile; then faintly, its occupants heard shouts. They increased to a roar. The van came to a halt. Pressed against one another inside, the prisoners were seized with a fever of excitement.
It was evident that the plan to transfer them to Spandau in the middle of the night had become known to the insurgents, who had laid an ambush with the intention of rescuing them. Shots were fired. Their hearts sank, as it seemed very doubtful if the mob would be able to overcome the armed escort. The hubbub increased. The captives hammered with their fists on the sides of the van and threw their weight against the doors in an endeavour to burst them open. They yielded a little, but the lock and bolts were too strong to be forced. With cries of desperation, they renewed their efforts, but still the doors could not be opened.
Suddenly there came the crash of steel on iron. The whole van shook. Blow after blow followed. Someone outside was making a mighty effort to smash the doors in with a big axe or crowbar. The wooden panels splintered. Eager hands tore aside jagged pieces regardless of splinters and laceration. Another minute and the captives were tumbling pell-mell out of the van into the cheering crowd that milled about it.
Roger scrambled to his feet. There was a quarter moon, which gave enough light for him to take in the wild scene. Not a soldier was in sight; neither were there any dead or dying students lying in the roadway. Evidently the troops were in sympathy with the would be liberators of their country. They must have fired over the heads of the crowd, then made off to avoid having to use their bayonets. Without waiting to thank his deliverers,
Roger pushed his way through the mob and ran down a side road as fast as his legs could carry him.
He did not pause until he was breathless, then he continued on at a fast walk till he had put well over a mile between himself and the spot where the prison vans had been ambushed. The shouting had died away in the distance. Feeling himself safe now from immediate recapture, he sat down on a grassy bank at the roadside to bless his luck and consider how best he could retain his freedom.
He still had the six gold pieces that he had kept concealed under the soles of his feet during the seventeen miserable weeks he had spent as a prisoner. That would be enough to get him to Hamburg, but nothing like sufficient to bribe a smuggler to run him across the North Sea. Moreover, he felt an overwhelming urge to settle accounts with de Brinevillers before leaving Berlin.
Having rested for a time, he began to walk again, now heading towards the eastern end of the city. When he reached k, dawn was coming up and people were already stirring in the tumbledown shacks and tenements. For an hour he loitered in a deserted alley, then when the shops began to open he furtively made his way along the street until he came to a second-hand-clothes dealer. Peering cautiously in, he saw that the proprietor was an elderly Jew. Well aware that this downtrodden race was always sympathetic toward those in conflict with the authorities, Roger went in.
The suit he was wearing gave away the fact that he was an escaped convict, and he did not seek to conceal the fact. Instead he said that he was a journalist who had been imprisoned for writing an article abusing the Government for its subservient attitude to the hated French, and was desperately anxious to obtain clothes that would enable him to make his way back to his home in Hesse Kassel, He could not have posed as a Berliner, but his hoch-deutch was quite good enough for him to be accepted as a south German; and when he produced one of his pieces of gold, the Jew, displaying his yellowed fangs in a smile, showed that he was quite willing to bargain with him.
The bargain driven was a hard one, as Roger had to part with two of his pieces of gold. But in exchange he got a patched pair of trousers, a padded cotton jacket, a dark cloak ragged at the seams and a felt hat with a floppy brim that would partly conceal his face.
Now confident of avoiding trouble should he run into a patrolling policeman, his next visit was to a shop that, among other things, sold aids for the war wounded. Many poor wretches had lost an eye in the fighting, so a black eyeshade would help to make him more difficult to recognize without making him conspicuous. Having purchased one, in the same shop he bought a long, sharp knife, which he concealed in the upper part of his trousers, and several lengths of thin, but strong cord.
Now hungry, he went to a small general store, at which he obtained a loaf of bread, a pound of ham, some slices of apfel strudel, a slab of chocolate and a bottle of wine. His mouth watering at the thought of consuming these delicacies after several months of prison fare, he hurriedly sought a place where he could lie up for the day. After twenty minutes spent exploring noisome alleys, he came upon a big timber yard. The place seemed to be deserted, so he decided that it would serve and, further exploration having brought him to a shed, he settled himself comfortably in it on a pile of sacks. After gorging himself on the good things he had bought, he stretched himself out and was soon fast asleep.
He did not wake until well on in the afternoon. Hungry again, he had another enjoyable meal, then whiled away the evening hours as well as he could, thinking of Georgina, the joy of being back in England and how he could best get de Brinevillers on his own.
Patiently he waited until he judged it to have been dark for well over two hours; then he started on his long trudge to the other end of the city. When he reached it a clock in a tower told him that it was still much too early to carry out the plan he had formed, so he went into the Tiergarten and sat on a bench there for a long spell. At last the hour of ten chimed from a nearby steeple. Getting up, he stretched himself and, after taking several wrong turnings, found his way to the French Embassy.
As he had spent the best part of a day at the Embassy, he knew the general layout of the big mansion and that it had a fine garden. An ill-lit alley ran along the wall at the end and, after carefully reconnoitering the wall, he found a place where he could scale it. On the spikes at the top he tore his cloak, but it was already so ragged that the additional tear made little difference. He was only apprehensive now that there might be a watch dog loose in the garden. But as he scrambled to the ground, only the crunch of his feet on dead twigs disturbed the stillness.
Advancing cautiously, he surveyed the back of the house. There were lights in the uncurtained windows of two of the ground-floor rooms. Above them was a terrace, from which a broad flight of stone steps led down to the garden. Along the terrace ran the reception rooms. To Roger's relief they were all in darkness, showing that de Brinevillers was not entertaining that night. From all but one room on the second floor, the gentle glow of candles showed through drawn curtains. In all such mansions they were the best bedrooms, and the people who occupied them would be getting ready for bed. He had little doubt which was de Brinevillers' room, because the central room was much larger than the others and had a big bay window. It could be taken as certain that the
Ambassador would have chosen this principal bedroom for himself and, as he was unmarried, sleep alone there.