So in the meantime, I was at the mercy of Freiherr Rudolf von Starnberg, and if I’d known him then as I knew him later I’d have been even more nervous than I was. For this gay, devil-may-care youngster, with his curly head and winning smile, was one of the hardest cases I’ve ever encountered—a thoroughly bad, unscrupulous and fatally dangerous ruffian—and, as you can imagine, I have known a few. Not many of them, scoundrels that they were, delighted in wickedness for its own sake, but Rudi did. He enjoyed killing, for example, and would kill laughing; he was without shame where women were concerned, and without pity, too. I dare say there may have been crimes he didn’t commit, but it can only have been for want of opportunity. He was an evil, vicious, cruel rascal.

We got on very well, really, I suppose, all things considered. This was not just because I shared most of his vices, but because he believed erroneously that I shared his only virtue, which was courage. He was too young to know what fear was, and he imagined that I was as big a daredevil as he was himself—my Afghan reputation was pretty glorious, after all. But in addition I must admit that he could be a good companion when he chose—he had a great fund of amiable conversation and a filthy mind, and loved the good things of life—so it was not difficult to get along with him.

He was all consideration that first day. At the house he took me to there was a most competent French valet who dressed and bathed my head, provided me with a bath and a suit of my own clothes—for they had brought my baggage from my hotel—and later cooked us both a most splendid omelette before we set off for the station. Rudi was in haste to catch the train: we were bound for Berlin, he told me, but beyond that I could get nothing out of him.

“Wait and see,” says he. “And while you’re waiting, I’d be obliged if you would stop talking French and practise your German—you’re going to need it.”

With that mysterious instruction I had to be content—and I had to be obedient, too, for devil a word of French would he say or listen to from then on. However, with a bottle of hock inside me, the unknown future looked a little less bleak, and when we boarded the evening train I was at least momentarily resigned to my situation. Time enough to start fretting again when we reached Berlin.

*    *    *