The Treaty of Versailles

7. November 21st, 1914

I was released from the Hospital two days after I was brought in. They had wanted to make sure I had recovered and wouldn't attack anyone before they let me out. I had barely gone out of the front entrance of the Hospital when people started staring at me with terrified faces and walking as quickly as they could away from me. So, I thought, Jörg did spread the word. I decided not to think about it as I walked home, earning glares and horrified faces as I walked down the street. I kept my head down as much as possible, trying to ignore the daggers being shoved into my back. I walked home without saying a word and immediately began to write letters to the friends we would stay with when we left Germany. Eliza took them straight to the post office while I stayed with the baby. We had to get out there as soon as possible.

It was this day, November 21st, when I received a letter back from them. The man who had delivered it was new, I didn't recognise him and he had avoided my eyes when he handed the letter to me and I knew something was immediately wrong. Yes, I had been receiving glares from people, and they had been avoiding my eyes, but the fact that he was new unsettled me, and his manner when he handed over the letter told me it had been searched. I closed the door carefully to show that I was not suspicious and walked to my bedroom so that he wouldn't hear the conversation I had with Eliza as I knew he would be listening outside the door for a while. Waiting to hear anything suspicious.

We spoke in Dutch as I told Eliza what I had seen, and she examined the letter looking for any evidence that it had been opened. She found none. But when I opened the envelope I knew immediately that it had been written by someone else. The real letter had been given to someone else and copied down and placed in a new envelope professionally. The police only allowed that to happen when they suspect someone for something and I had no doubt that they had used their best person to copy out the writing. The training I had had as an assassin had taught me all this and I could guess immediately who had the original letter.

It was so obvious that I nearly smacked myself in the head before Eliza managed to stop me. I had once knocked myself out by hitting myself in the head and it had left me unconscious for two days and I hadn't even hit myself that hard. I'd learnt then what it felt like for my victims when I had hit them, and it made me wonder how Jörg and Harry hadn't been knocked out when I'd hit them. "John? What is it?" She'd never really been good at whispering in Dutch, but she managed to do it this time which was so quiet that I barely heard her.

"Who always talks to us when we get our mail outside the door? Who usually has the letters when we come out the door and the postman is already gone even though we get out to meet him on time? Who Eliza?" Her face went pale as she realised who I was talking about. I had to steady her before she collapsed.

"Jörg." Her voice was a mixture of pain and anger as she sat down.

"He's always been taking our mail for us when we've been busy. He gives us our mail when we're out. All this time I thought he was just being a good friend but now that I think about it, sometimes the envelope has been slightly open or ripped and he's always had some sort of excuse. How did we not notice?" Her eyes stared straight into mine, wondering how this could have happened. I wanted to comfort her, but I knew there was nothing I could do to comfort her.

We'd both thought we'd be safe in Germany, that no one would discover where we'd come from. But clearly someone had, and they'd sent a spy to discover who we were. I glanced at the letter in my hand, still unopened. I didn't know whether I could trust its contents and I had no way of knowing if it was the truth. Jörg was still at work, he couldn't have the letter with him, there would be too many witnesses, so there was only one other place it could be.

I went over to the window and opened it. A cold winter breeze filled the room, matching our emotions. I stuck my head out and I could see Jörg's office window. It wasn't open, but I had been an assassin long enough to know how to break into houses when I needed to. I turned and placed the letter on the bed and told Eliza what I was about to do. Her expression turned to worry as I climbed out of the window and onto the roof, keeping my body low so I wouldn't be seen. I crept carefully across the tiles, avoiding the loose ones that still needed fixing.

When I thought I'd reached his office I slowly lowered myself to rest on my stomach and glance over the gutter. I was definitely above the right window. I just make out the edge of Jörg's desk with a pile of papers on top. It was the one place I had never been into his house and my earlier suspicions were fuelled even more. As I readjusted my position I felt a single roof tile come loose under my foot and I slowly lifted my foot off it to avoid making it crash to the ground. Eventually I hung from my arms in front of the window and swung to the window. A feat which even men in the army would never do with only a couple of inches of wood to hold onto, even if their life depended on it. I was afraid I had swung too hard, but I hit the window at the right amount of speed that it did not break.

Holding on with one hand I tugged out the pocket knife that I always kept in my pocket, it was the gift I had been given when I agreed to stop being an assassin, carefully poked the knife into the edge between the two windows and lifted the lock up. I pushed the window gently with two gloved fingers and grabbed the windowsill with my right arm and pulled myself onto the white ledge. I had made sure I put on clean shoes before I made this attempt so that I would leave no marks behind me when I left or entered. I put my knife back in my pocket and jumped to the floor, landing without making a sound. I looked around the room and wasn't surprised when I saw a curtain spread across a whole wall, I pulled it back and saw that it was covered with pictures of Eliza and me with the places we'd come from and our other names.

In that instant my suspicions had been confirmed. Jörg was a spy. The police or some over task force had set him up here to find out who I was and why I'd never been heard of before. I started looking in his drawers and found some of the letters I had sent to my friends and ones they had sent to me. I looked on each shelf and between books that were stacked on his desk, but I couldn't find the letter. I concluded that if they had left him the letter they would have pushed it under the front door. Fearing he could come back at any moment I carefully opened the door and headed downstairs, keeping low at windows and treading quietly. I spotted the letter instantly. It had been carefully pushed under the door in the far corner so no one else would be able to see it.

The envelope had already been handled, I could see that much when I picked it up. Any other person might have thought that it had been crushed in the bag, but I knew that they had searched the contents. I instantly regretted not bringing the forged letter from the house and wondered if I'd be able to go back and bring it in here in time before Jörg got home. I glanced at the clock in his living room. It was ten past twelve. I had about fifteen minutes before Jörg came home for lunch. I ran up the stairs as quickly and quietly as I could and entered the office. I climbed out of the window and made my way along the gutter, holding on with both hands until I reached the open window of my bedroom. Eliza was still sat on the bed but looked up when I carefully tapped the window with my foot. I showed her the letter in my right hand and pointed at the other one. She gave me a brief nod, grabbed the letter and handed it to me without a single word. I placed it in my mouth and passed her the other one, our hands briefly connecting for a second, but it was long enough for me to tell that she was worried. She put the letter in her draw and took Emily out of her cot, so she could be fed.

I started along the gutter again, barely able to ignore the pain in my arms, and crept back into the house. I rushed down the stairs without making a noise and carefully placed the replica in the exact same place I had found the original letter. As I was nearing the top of the stairs I heard a car pull up to the house. Immediately I rushed to the office door, quietly closing it behind me and climbed onto the windowsill and did one last check of the room, making sure I hadn't disturbed anything and climbed out of the window and closing it behind me and using my knife to push the lock back down. I climbed silently onto the roof and moved slowly back towards my window. I heard the front door open and shut just as I reached my bedroom window. I thought I heard Jörg's footsteps rushing up the stairs and I quickly swung myself back into the room and closed the window behind me.

Eliza was laying on the bed taking in my expression of triumph. She pointed at the letter now open next to her and with a quick glance I saw what it contained. As usual, they had given nothing away in their letter that would provide any suspicion. They had promised to help us get out of Germany and the only words that stood out to me were the ones in code:

Meet us at the bridge at midnight tonight, make sure you are alone. We will send RMJ to meet you there. You are being watched.