But the pretext for the arrest was now so flimsy that in making it he would have many difficulties to face—especially when I brought General von Erlanger on to the scene of action. But before I did that, I had some very pointed things to say.
I was perfectly easy in mind now as to the result of the trouble. I was going to win. I felt it. I could afford to be confident; and I took great care that he should see this for himself.
I knew presently that he was watching me closely, so I began to sing light-heartedly. I flitted about from bush to bush and gathered a little bouquet of flowers; and spent some minutes in arranging them, holding them at a distance and viewing them critically with my head on one side—for all the world as though their arrangement were just the one thing that fully engrossed my thoughts.
Then I carried them into the room and touched the bell, telling the woman who answered it to bring me some water; and as I placed them in a vase I said, as if to myself, and with a nonchalant laugh: "They will brighten up my cell wonderfully."
The little prick of the words irritated him and he scowled.
"I am surprised people call you Gustav of the laughing eyes," I bantered. "You are very handsome, of course, but I have never heard you laugh really gaily."
He forgot sufficiently to swear; and I pretended to be greatly shocked. "I hope you are not going to be violent; but I thought it just as well you should know there is a woman in the house, and that she should see you. Have you got over your disappointment yet—or do you think the body is in the sofa pillow?"
It was aggravating of course; the truth, flippantly suggested, frequently is; and he was in that mood when small jibes galled.
"You are right in the suggestion—I am thinking what may have been done with my brother's body."
He thought this would scare and frighten me but I only laughed. "No you are not. You are thinking only how you can connect me with what didn't occur?"