d in the baggage car all the routine mail for the
State Department in Washington, amounting to some two hundred and
fifty pounds in two big leather mail-sacks.) Although I replied that I
thought it better to change at Loehne anyway, the conductor insisted
upon my following his plan. He was backed up by the detective, who,
except for various goings out and in, had remained facing me. They
informed me that in any event my mail-bags in the baggage car would go
through to Essen. As by this time the train was already slowing up for
the station at Loehne, I accepted the inevitable.

Essen is not on the most direct route to Goch where one crosses the
German border into Holland, and in consequence I arrived in Goch via
Essen much too late to catch the last train from there to Flushing.
Since boats leave Flushing only once a day, early in the morning, I
had to lose one whole day and was compelled to remain another night on
German soil.

I do not pretend to offer any explanation for these strange
happenings. I was followed constantly thereafter, as previously, the
men being cleverly changed at every opportunity. My every step was
dogged. At Wesel a detective sat at the same table in the station
restaurant while I ate dinner. Such being the case I was, to say the
least, a bit annoyed.

At Essen during a fifteen-minute wait for a change of trains, I
withdrew to one end of the platform after having rechecked the two big
mail-sacks. I was standing alone, with a detective, as usual, off in
the background, when a man who looked a typical raw-boned Englishman
drew near and hung around, staring at me. I looked him up and down and
then turned my back thinking, "Another detective!" It was impossible
to believe that an Englishman could be, of all places, in Essen. He
finally approached me, saying in English of a most perfect and
pronounced British accent, "Are you an American?" I replied, "Yes, are
you a police officer? If so, please show me your card." He replied,
"No, I am in a delicate position. I am trying to go to England this
evening. I have American papers. You must see me through. I am ----."
I cut him short by saying that I regretted, etc., and deliberately
walked away. From that time on this man dogged me everywhere, trying
to pass through gates with me and to get into the same compartments,
even following me to the same hotels and restaurants, and trying to
make anything he could out of my presence. I never lost sight of him