I've found a man investigating my trunk--a foreigner,
a German." An exclamation from the manager, and from the listening
telephone-girl a shriek! "Yes; I have him. Yes; of course I can hold
him. Send up your house detective and be quick! My dinner is spoiling--"
The receiver dropped from my hand and clattered against the wall. The
little German, suddenly galvanized, had leaped away from the trunk, not
toward me and the door beyond me, but toward the electric switch. His
fingers found and turned it, plunging the room into the darkness of the
grave. Taken unaware, I barred his path to the hall, only to hear him
fling up the window across the room. Against the faint square of light
thus revealed, I saw him hang poised a moment. Then with a desperate
noise, a moan of mixed resolve and terror, he disappeared.
CHAPTER II
DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES
Standing there staring after him, I felt like a murderer of the deepest
dye. It is one thing to hand over to the police their natural prey, a
thief taken red-handed, but quite another, and a much more harrowing
one, to have him slip through your fingers, precipitate himself into
mid-air, and drop four stories to the pavement, scattering his brains
far and wide.
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