arn the police at the railway stations to detain
me. If I could lay a false trail I might at the worst prolong this
period of grace; at the best I might mislead him altogether as to my
ultimate destination, which was, of course, Duesseldorf. The unknown
quantity in my reckonings was the time it would take Clubfoot to send
out a warning all over Germany to detain Julius Zimmermann, waiter and
deserter, wherever and whenever apprehended.

At the first turning I came to after leaving Haase's, tram-lines ran
across the street. A tram was waiting, bound in a southerly direction,
where the centre of the city lay. I jumped on to the front platform
beside the woman driver. It is fairly dark in front and the conductor
cannot see your face as you pay your fare through a trap in the door
leading to the interior of the tram. I left the tram at Unter den Linden
and walked down some side streets until I came across a quiet-looking
cafe. There I got a railway guide and set about reviewing my plans.

It was ten minutes to twelve. A man in my position would in all
probability make for the frontier. So, I judged, Clubfoot must
calculate, though, I fancied, he must have wondered why I had not long
since attempted to escape back to England. Duesseldorf was on the main
road to Holland, and it would certainly be the more prudent course, say,
to make for the Rhine and travel on to my destination by a Rhine
steamer. But time was the paramount factor in my case. By leaving
immediately--that very night--for Duesseldorf I might possibly reach
there before the local authorities had had time to receive the warning
to be on the look-out for a man answering to my description. If I could
leave behind in Berlin a really good false clue, it was just possible
that Clubfoot might follow it up _before_ taking general dispositions to
secure my arrest if that clue failed. I decided I must gamble on this
hypothesis.

The railway guide showed that a train left for Duesseldorf from the
Potsdamer Bahnhof--the great railway terminus in the very centre of
Berlin--at 12.45 a.m. That left me roughly three-quarters of an hour to
lay my false trail and catch my train. My false trail should lead
Clubfoot in a totally unexpected direction, I determined, for it is the
unexpected that first engages the notice of the alert, detective type of
mind. I would also have to select another terminus.

Why not Munich? A large city on the high road to a foreign
frontier--Switzer