His manner changed. He became quite paternal. He wasn’t a bad chap. Anyway, he knew he couldn’t screw anything out of us by turning rough. “Now, come! Don’t try to hoodwink me. We know well enough it was S. who had the key.”
“Well, if you know, why do you ask me?”
“Come on, tell me. It won’t be to your disadvantage! quite the reverse. Just say it was S.”
But of course I did nothing of the sort, and he gave it up.
“We’ll give you a hard time of it, this journey,” he threatened, rather mournfully. “Nothing but the prison food for you, no light of an evening.
“I thought you had shaved off your beard,” he remarked, before turning away. “I notified the police accordingly within the hour of your escape. We had all the stations watched. However did you slip out of Berlin?”
“Oh, rather casually,” I grinned. “Goodnight, Major!”
I felt by no means sprightly and unconcerned just then. I do not like solitary confinement. The stretch in front of me bade fair to exceed in discomfort the first one I had had. Still, we were lucky to be in the Stadtvogtei, near our friends, where, apparently, we were going to stay. With this consolatory reflection I rolled myself into my blankets without undressing. The next day we were going to be de-loused.
S. was arrested in Berlin on the morning following our arrival in prison, and lodged in a cell next to Wallace’s before we went into the yard for our exercise that afternoon. If I am not mistaken, a telephone conversation, during which he had made an appointment with a “friend,” had been listened to. Instead of a friend, a detective met S.