.

I looked at them for a moment, unable to credit my eyes, and
then I spoke to them in German, saying, "Where the devil's my
coach-and-four?"

They both straightened, startled: the one who was holding the wheel
almost dropped it.

"Pardon, excellency," he said, "there's been no coach-and-four here,
all the time we've been here."

"Yes," said his mate, "and we've been here since just after noon."

I did not attempt to argue with them. It occurred to me--and
it is still my opinion--that I was the victim of some plot; that
my wine had been drugged, that I had been unconscious for some
time, during which my coach had been removed and this wagon
substituted for it, and that these peasants had been put to work
on it and instructed what to say if questioned. If my arrival at
the inn had been anticipated, and everything put in readiness,
the whole business would not have taken ten minutes.

I therefore entered the inn, determined to have it out with
this rascally innkeeper, but when I returned to the common room,
he was nowhere to be seen, and this other fellow, who has given
his name as Christian Hauck, claimed to be the innkeeper and
denied knowledge of any of the things I have just stated.
Furthermore, there were four cavalrymen, Uhlans, drinking beer
and playing cards at the table where Jardine and I had had our
wine, and they claimed to have been there for several hours.

I have no idea why such an elaborate prank, involving the
participation of many people, should be played on me, except at
the instigation of the French. In that case, I cannot understand
why Prussian soldiers should lend themselves to it.

Benjamin Bathurst

(Statement of Christian Hauck, innkeeper, taken at the police
station at Perleburg, 25 November, 1809.)

May it please your honor, my name is Christian Hauck, and I keep
an inn at the sign of the Sword & Scepter, and have these past
fifteen years, and my father, and his father, before me, for the
past fifty years, and never has there been a complaint like this
against my inn. Your honor, it is a hard thing for a man who
keeps a decent house, and pays his taxes, and obeys the laws,
to be accused of crimes of this sort.

I know nothing of this gentleman, nor of his coach, nor his
secretary, nor his servants; I never set eyes on him before he
came bursting into the inn from the yard, shouting and raving
like a madman, and crying out, "Where the devil's that rogue of
an innkeeper?"