That night at eleven o'clock a slow train bore Wilhelm away from
Berlin.
At the station he caught sight of the face of his old friend Patke,
whom he had come across more than once during that day. The former
non-commissioned officer had apparently reached the goal of his
ambitions and become a private detective.
Schrotter had stood on the step of the carriage till the very last
moment, holding his friend's hand. Now Wilhelm leaned back in his
corner and closed his eyes, and while the train rattled along over
the snow-covered plain, he asked himself for the first time whether
after all Dorfling had been quite such a fool as most of them
considered him to have been?
CHAPTER IX.
RESULTS.
On alighting next morning at the station in Hamburg, Wilhelm found
himself clasped in a pair of strong arms and pressed to a
magnificent fur coat. Inside this warm garment there beat a still
warmer heart, that of Paul Haber, who had received a letter from
Wilhelm the day before, telling him of his dismissal from Berlin,
and that he was leaving for Hamburg by the last train before
midnight, and whom neither the cold and darkness nor the extreme
earliness of the hour could restrain from meeting his friend at the
station.
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