"Mr. Bastable. I am at Ziegler's house and have heard I am charged with having murdered him. Can you come at once? I have a----"
"Charged with what?" The tone was one of intense astonishment.
"Murder. I want you here at once."
"Are you out of your mind? There's no such charge----"
I heard no more, for the door was flung open, and two men in police uniform rushed in and dragged me violently away from the telephone, as Hagar followed.
"That is the man. I charge him with the murder of my father," she cried.
Too late I saw the trap into which I had walked. "These are not the police," I protested to her. "I have telephoned to Herr Feldermann. This is a trap. They are von Felsen's----"
"We'll show you if we're not the police," cried one of them as he slipped a pair of handcuffs on my wrists. "No more talking here"; and he whipped out a revolver and ordered me to hold my tongue and go with them. "Bring her on to the station to make the charge there," he added to a third man who had entered.
I shouted a last protest to Hagar, but a hand was clapped over my mouth and I was hurried out of the house toward a carriage which was waiting at a few yards' distance.
At that moment a motor car came slowly along the street and passed me as I walked between the two men in uniform.