CHAPTER SEVEN Christmastide––––––––
Everything depended on whether the servant was in the hall. I had put Stumm to sleep for a bit, but I couldn't flatter myself he would long be quiet, and when he came to he would kick the locked door to matchwood. I must get out of the house without a minute's delay, and if the door was shut and the old man gone to bed I was done.
I met him at the foot of the stairs, carrying a candle.
'Your master wants me to send off an important telegram. Where is the nearest office? There's one in the village, isn't there?' I spoke in my best German, the first time I had used the tongue since I crossed the frontier.
'The village is five minutes off at the foot of the avenue,' he said. 'Will you be long, sir?'
'I'll be back in a quarter of an hour,' I said. 'Don'
