"Where do you live. Answer."
I replied that I had been a newspaper correspondent and gave him the name of the paper, adding that both Dormund and Feldermann were my friends.
"Where do you live?" he repeated.
"They know me perfectly well, and I desire to communicate with them."
"Address refused," he murmured as if to himself, and wrote that down. It was the preface to just such a list of questions as I had anticipated. What I was doing in the streets at that time of night; where I had been; where I was going; why I carried a revolver; why I had fired the shot; what I had done all the evening, and so on.
I returned much the same answer to all the questions--that I wished to be allowed to communicate with either Dormund or Feldermann; and we reached a deadlock, and he was ordering me to the cells, when it occurred to me to play the "British subject" card.
"Wait a moment, please. You have ignored my statement and are going to charge me with a serious, offence. I am a British subject and demand to be allowed to communicate with the British consul."
I knew he dared not refuse, and was pleased to see his shaggy brows knit more closely than ever as he thought it over.
"How do I know that?" he asked after a pause.
"Both Herr Dormund and Herr Feldermann know it." I was resolved to rub their names into him at every available chance. "Let me assure you that I have told you the absolute truth in regard to that shot. The mistake which your men made was quite intelligible under the circumstances, but it was a mistake. The shot was fired by a man whom I think I could identify; it was fired at me; and I was pursuing him when I was arrested."