't let us hesitate any longer. If the stranger has not come,
it is because he is waiting for us elsewhere--I know where--let us go
to meet him--at Metz!"

"'At Metz!' I cried. 'But we should have to cross the frontier, and I
have not.'...

"Alfred interrupted me, laughing. He opened a press and brought out
civilian clothes, then he took wigs from a drawer, and a false beard.
At the end of half-an-hour we were disguised; an hour later we were in
Lorraine. We left the train there. It was there that, for the first
time, I began to be afraid, for it seemed to me that when leaving the
station at Metz, Alfred exchanged a quick glance with the policeman
on duty. Ah, Monsieur Fandor, how I have regretted this journey!
Directly we were in a foreign country, Alfred's attitude towards me
changed: he was no longer the friend, he was the master. He had got
me, the rogue, and jolly tight too!

"'Where are we going?' I asked.

"Alfred chuckled.

"'By jove! can't you guess?' he replied. 'Why, we are going to the
Wornerstrasse, to visit Major Schwartz of the Intelligence
Department.'

"'I shall not go!' I declared.

"Alfred's look was a menace.

"'You will come,' said he, in a low voice. 'Consider! If you refuse,
at the end of five minutes the police will have unmasked you!'...

"There was nothing else to be done. I knew this Intelligence
Department already, by reputation. Alfred had spoken to me about it.
It was a vast suite of rooms on the first floor of a middle-class
house, where a number of men in civilian clothes were at work. They
all bore the military stamp. We had to wait in a large room filled
with draughtsmen and typewriters, and on the wall hung a map, on a
huge scale, of the frontier of the Vosges.

"Alfred sent in his name.

"A few minutes afterwards we were ushered into an office. A big man,
seated behind a table heaped with bundles of papers, scrutinised us
over his spectacles: he was bald, and wore a thick square-cut fair
beard. He examined the photographs without a word, threw them
carelessly on a set of shelves, and took from his drawer ten louis in
French money, which he counted out to me. Of any document in exchange
there was, of course, no question! I thought everything was finished,
and I was preparing to leave this abominable place when the big man
put his hand on my arm. It was Major Schwartz himself, the chief of
the spy system there--I learned that later. He said to me in very
correct French, w