I shook my head. “I must keep the word I gave, M. Volheno.”
“Would you keep your word to a murderer who spared your life on condition that you kept secret a murder you had seen him commit?”
“That case has not arisen and I would prefer not to discuss questions of casuistry.”
“But these men are assassins and worse. They are enemies of the State ripe for any evil work. I must press you to tell me all you know.”
“My lips are sealed. And to that fact I owe my escape from worse trouble last night.”
“Well, tell me that then,” he said, with a deep frown of vexation.
“The letter you received in my name was really intended to fix on me a charge of having broken my pledge;” and I went on to give him a short and carefully worded account of what had passed, laying particular stress upon my treatment by the police.
He put the last point aside with a short promise that the matter should be sifted, and then questioned me at great length and with all the pressure he could exert to get me to give the names of the men I had seen, or a description of them.
I resisted all his pressure and then he tried argument. He explained the position of the Government, and their difficulties; the urgent necessity that they should know who were their friends and who their enemies, declaring that my information might be of positively vital importance.
In reply I uttered one or two home truths, telling him that in my opinion they were trying their hands at repression in a very amateurish fashion; employing enough force to render many classes of the people dissatisfied and violent, but not enough to keep them in subjection.