“I protest in the strongest manner, Prince Kalkov, against my forcible detention here. I demand, as a citizen of the United States, to have an opportunity of communicating with our Embassy here.”
“That course is open to you naturally, and if you press it I cannot and shall not oppose it. You may indeed find it necessary—in your own defence.”
“Then I am free to go to them?”
“Not exactly that, but you will have the usual opportunities,” he answered with one of his infernal implied threats.
“What do you mean by usual opportunities?”
“Our legal procedure in regard to foreigners is not perhaps very swift, but it is very just; and if you prefer an open investigation into this man Vastic’s death to the course I indicated before, I cannot of course object. And as an American accused of murder you would be fully entitled to all the help of the American embassy.”
“But you know the truth as to that,” I cried.
“And personally have not a doubt that your act was committed in self-defence. Still it was committed, and——” He finished with a shrug of the shoulders and a lifting of the hands.
“Do you mean that you accuse me of murder?”
“I? God forbid I should do you such an injustice,” he said, as if in indignant repudiation of the idea. “It is others who do it.”