Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/204

secret—for Japan. And Japan would need it. For, passing the newspaper kiosk at the corner of the Wilhelmstrasse, he had glanced at the headlines of the evening edition of the "Vossische Zeitung":

"Japan Stands by England. Sends Ultimatum. War Inevitable!"

War inevitable—and he was a samurai, a man entitled to wield the two-handed sword, though his body was too weak to carry the burden of it.

What of it? The professor had told him that poison gas, too, was a weapon, the most modern, most effective weapon in the world; and he had its formula tucked snugly away in his brain.

The poison gas! It was his sword! But first he must get out of the country. He hailed a taxicab and drove straight to the Presidency of Police. A crowd of foreigners of all nationalities—anxious, nervous, shouting, gesticulating—was surging in the lower entrance hall of the square, baroque building. But the baron's card proved a talisman, and in less than half an hour Takagawa had seen Police Captain von Wilmowitz, had had his passport viséed and had received permission for himself and his servant Kaguchi to leave Berlin for Lake Constance on the following day.

Captain von Wilmowitz repeated the baron's warning: "Take nothing written out of Germany. Neither yourself nor your servant. They'll examine you both thoroughly at the Swiss frontier. Be careful," and Takagawa had hidden a smile.

Let them search his person, his clothes, his baggage. They would not be able to search his brain. He started figuring rapidly. He would go to Switzerland, thence via Paris to London. The Japanese ambassador