"It is immaterial to me where you found it."
"Even if I found it in a cellar by the side of a half barrel of gunpowder to which a lighted fuse had been attached?"
"Hadn't you better make your case—if you can make it at all—in the courts?" asked the prisoner.
Ned took the state department seal, the sealing wax, and the bits of parchment from his pocket.
"Who met you in the library at the house you attempted to destroy?" he asked.
There was no reply.
"Were these men present?" with a sweep of the hand toward the other prisoners.
"What has this to do with my case?"
"This," Ned replied. "You were still conspiring to fix upon my government the crime of interfering in the private affairs of another nation—with the crime of providing, by a treacherous and despicable route, the money needed by the revolutionary party of China. You were doing business in that house with the representatives of another nation. Who were they? What nations did they represent, or pretend to represent?"
"I have nothing to say to that."