midnight
He had served in the Belgian Congo , in the French Foreign Legion in Algiers , and spoke all the European languages . In Rome , where as a wireless operator he was serving a commercial company , in selling Marie copies of messages he had memorized , Marie had found him useful , and when war came she obtained for him , from the Wilhelmstrasse , the number 292 . From Laon , in one of the automobiles of the General Staff , the three spies were driven first to Soissons , and then along the road to Meaux and Paris , to the village of Neufchelles . They arrived at midnight , and in a château of one of the champagne princes , found the colonel commanding the Intelligence Bureau . He accepted their credentials , destroyed them , and replaced them with a _ laisser-passer _ signed by the mayor of Laon . That dignitary , the colonel explained , to citizens of Laon fleeing to Paris and the coast had issued many passes . But as now between Laon and Paris there were three German armies , the refugees had been turned back and their passes confiscated .