looking on a
courtyard. Long policemen's coats and caps were hanging from some pegs.
The Inspector told me to take off my cap. I took it off, wig and all. He
asked me who I was, but I refused to answer. Just then there was a loud
sound of voices in the room we had come from. The Inspector told the
policeman to look after me, and went to see what it was. I could hear
him talking. He called out: 'Come here, Becker!' I stood very quiet,
and Becker went towards the door. I heard the Inspector say: 'Go and
find Schwartz, I will see after this fellow.' The policeman went, and
the Inspector stood with his back to me in the half-open door, and began
again to talk to the man in the other room. Once or twice he looked
round at me, but I stood quiet all the time. They began to disagree, and
their voices got angry. The Inspector moved a little into the other
room. 'Now!' I thought, and slipped off my cloak. I hooked off a
policeman's coat and cap, and put them on. My heart beat till I felt
sick. I went on tiptoe to the window. There was no one outside, but at
the entrance a man was holding some horses. I opened the window a little
and held my breath. I heard the Inspector say: 'I will report you for
impertinence!' and slipped through the window. The coat came down nearly
to my heels, and the cap over my eyes. I walked up to the man with the
horses, and said: 'Good-evening.' One of the horses had begun to kick,
and he only grunted at me. I got into a passing tram; it was five
minutes to the West Bahnhof; I got out there. There was a train starting;
they were shouting 'Einsteigen!' I ran. The collector tried to stop me.
I shouted: 'Business--important!' He let me by. I jumped into a
carriage. The train started."

He paused, and Christian heaved a sigh.

Harz went on, twisting a twig of ivy in his hands: "There was another man
in the carriage reading a paper. Presently I said to him, 'Where do we
stop first?' 'St. Polten.' Then I knew it was the Munich express--St.
Polten, Amstetten, Linz, and Salzburg--four stops before the frontier.
The man put down his paper and looked at me; he had a big fair moustache
and rather shabby clothes. His looking at me disturbed me, for I thought
every minute he would say: 'You're no policeman!' And suddenly it came
into my mind that if they looked for me in this train, it would be as a
policeman!--they would know, of course, at the station that a policeman
had run past