It was not difficult to find Herr Petermann's timber-yard, for many Englishmen found their way there and many a ship's captain from Dantzig had business with the merry old fellow whom Alban now sought out at Lois' bidding. The yard itself might have covered an acre of ground perhaps, bordering the river by a handsome quay and showing mighty stacks of good wood all ready for the barges or seasoning against next year's shipment. Two gates of considerable size admitted the lorries that went in from the town, and by them stood the wooden hut at whose window inquiries must be made. Here Alban presented himself ten minutes after Lois had left him.
"I wish to see Herr Petermann," he said in English.
A young Jew clerk took up a scrap of paper and thrust it forward.
"To write your name, please, mein Herr."
Alban wrote his name without any hesitation whatever. The clerk called a boy, who had been playing by a timber stack, and dispatched him in quest of his chief.
"From Dantzig, mein Herr?" he asked.
"No," said Alban civilly, "from London."
"Ah," said the clerk, "I think it would be Dantzig. Lot of Englishes from Dantzig--you have not much of the woods in Engerland, mein Herr."
He did not expect a reply and immediately applied himself to the useful occupation of killing a blue-bottle with the point of his pen. Two or three lorries rolled in and out while Alban waited. He could see ships passing upon the river and hear the scream of a steam-saw from a shed upon his left hand. A soldier passed the gate, but hardly cast a glance at the yard. Five minutes must have elapsed before Herr Petermann appeared. He held the paper in a thin cadaverous hand as though quite unacquainted with his visitor's name and not at all curious to be enlightened.
"You are Mr. Kennedy," he said in excellent English.
"Yes," said Alban, "a friend of mine told me to come here."
"It would be upon the business of the English ship--ah, I should have remembered it. Please come to my office. I am sorry to have kept you waiting."
He was a short man and very fat, clean shaven and a thorough German in appearance. Dressed in a very dirty white canvas suit, he shuffled rather than walked across the yard, never once looking to the right hand or to the left and apparently oblivious of the presence of a stranger. This manner had befriended him through all the stormy days Warsaw had lately known. Even the police had no suspicion of him. Old fat Petermann, who hobnobbed with sailors--what had revolution to do with him!