"That is incredible"; and I gave my reasons, adding that Hagar had been much too agitated to understand what had passed.
"You know that he was associated with the Polish party of independence. She says so. Will you tell me all you know about that? Have you any reason to believe that he contemplated betraying them in any way?"
"None whatever. I knew that he was associated with them. I learnt that some time ago when I was on newspaper work here in Berlin."
"I will be frank with you. It has been suggested to us, before this I mean, that you were associated with him in some such way, and that that was the cause of your recent visits to him. What do you say to that?"
This was getting near home with a vengeance. "The only foundation for such a statement lies in the fact that he had asked me as a newspaper man, if I could make use of political information of importance if he obtained it for me. That is of course my business--provided of course that the information is authentic."
"How was he to obtain it?"
"That I can't say." I used the equivocation intentionally. "I know I was to pay for it, and to judge of its worth when I knew it."
"How were you to receive it?"
"He was to tell me the time and place and means and everything. I should of course have used my own discretion in handling it."
"That lends itself to the fact that he did meditate some sort of betrayal. I presume the information related to his political associations."