"I did not kill them, gentlemen. They killed themselves, according to the newspaper reports. And now, may I ask you why you found it necessary to set these spies of yours to watch my every movement night and day? What have I done to bring myself within the four corners of your English law?"
"Nothing, unfortunately, that we can get a warrant for," replied Hendry, trying not to look into his eyes, "and so we have taken the law into our own hands. Come, Mr Amena, the game is up. We know all about your share in the conspiracy to remove Prince Zastrow in order to make room for your patron Prince Oscarovitch. We have copies of his manifesto at Scotland Yard, and we know that you received a telegram in cypher from him to-day."
"Ah!" said Phadrig, in a tone whose smoothness was intensely aggravating, "that is very interesting. May I ask if you have translated the cypher?"
"No, damn you and your Prince!" burst in Von Hamner. "If we had done that we should know even more about you than we do now—and that ought to be enough to hang you."
He had spluttered the words out before Hendry had time to stop him. He expected a tragedy there and then, but it did not happen. Phadrig took the telegram out of his coat pocket, handed it to Von Hamner with a graceful bow, and said:
"Your information is quite correct, gentlemen. That is the telegram, and this is the meaning of it."
Then as they read the unintelligible jumble of words, he repeated the meaning of them as though they formed the most ordinary message, instead of a dispatch that might, as they well knew, shake Europe to its social and political foundations within the next week or so.
"Then this is another of your devilries, I suppose," snarled Von Hamner. "So you have killed the great Professor Marmion, the most gifted genius in the whole world, as you killed the others, to promote your infernal schemes; and you have helped that scoundrel Oscarovitch to abduct his daughter. Well, law or no law, this shall be the end of your doings. You will come with us as our prisoner, or you will not leave this room alive."
"Those are hard words, mein Herr," said Phadrig, still speaking in German. "I your prisoner! Why? What have I done to make this outrage on English law possible?"
"You will do better to come, Mr Amena," said Hendry, in his quiet official tone; "it will save a good deal of trouble both to you and us. It must be the same in the end, you know. We have got you, and we don't mean to let you do any more mischief. You have done quite enough already. Now, will you come quietly, or shall we take you? We shall charge you at Lambeth as a receiver of stolen goods: you will be remanded for a week in custody, and by that time we shall have your Prince in safe keeping in St Petersburg."