"Then do you not think it somewhat strange that a man like you should be travelling to Berlin, on the way to Warsaw, on the very day when war was declared against Russia? Is it not strange also that you should be here after Great Britain has declared war?"
"When I set out for Berlin war had not been declared between Germany and Russia. On Monday when I was arrested war had not been declared against Germany by Great Britain. I was arrested on the flimsiest pretext and upon the word of a deliberately lying youth before war had been declared with my country!"
"Ah! we shall see. You do not think it strange to be travelling through Germany at such a perilous time with so much photographic apparatus?"
"No! I was not using it!"
"So you took no photographs in Germany?"
"No!" And the lie flew out in spite of myself. But I felt perfectly secure because I knew exactly where the film, which I had exposed, was. It was beyond their reach!
"Then what is this?" And to my surprise he held up somewhat triumphantly the length of photographic film from the camera with which I had taken the two farewell pictures of my family.
Up to this point I had successfully maintained a stiff upper lip and perfect composure. But at the sight of the film carrying the parting pictures, my thoughts flew to home and its associations. I broke down.
The court was jubilant. My spontaneous outburst of weakness at memories of home was misconstrued into a recognition of the fact that I had been trapped.
Amid a silence which was soul-burning and which caused my voice, quivering at first but rapidly regaining strength and its natural ring, to echo strangely through the room, I narrated the history of that film. As I had expected it provoked a fearful wrangle. The fight was sharp and hot while it lasted, but I thanked my lucky stars that I was not only well skilled in the technics of photography but the chemistry side as well. The film in question was sufficient for six exposures. Three had been made. In addition to the two pictures of my family's farewell which corresponded to exposures two and three there was another picture, of archæological interest, concerning a Sussex church, which was exposure number one. The rest of the film, which would have corresponded to pictures 4, 5 and 6, had never been exposed.