“That’s not pretty, but it’s nothing to what you’ll feel like saying before you are through with me. One of you took me for a spy, or a conspirator, and the other for a thief or a murderer. It was brilliant.”
“Who are you, then?” growled the Warsaw man. They were both sleepy and ill-tempered, and thus very easy to bait.
“If I had been either spy or murderer, I suppose even you can see that I should have shot you just now instead of going on contentedly to explain things.” The train ran through a station then, and I caught sight of the name Tischnov. I knew the place to be some twenty miles from Warsaw. I began to chuckle, and presently burst into a loud laugh.
“What is it now?”
“I am thinking of your promotion,” I grinned. “They tell me that the man who makes the biggest mistakes gets promoted instantly for fear the blunder should be known and police prestige suffer. I expect you’ll be heads of departments by to-morrow, you two, with decorations.”
“We’ve had enough of your insolence.”
“You asked me why I smiled. Why, when your Minister of the Interior hears from my dear old friend, General von Eckerstein—he used to represent Germany at Petersburg, you know—how you’ve treated me, you’ll get such a sweet message from him.”
The Schirmskad man swore, but his companion looked serious. I continued to chaff them with much enjoyment for ten miles; and the Warsaw agent grew more and more uneasy at every word I dropped relative to my having well-known friends.
“What do you know about General von Eckerstein?” he asked at length.
“That he doesn’t like his friends to wear this kind of ornament;” and I held up my handcuffs.