“Impossible!”
“Now, if you had discovered where one of those packages was concealed—in making use of the pronoun, I refer not alone to yourself in person, but to every other member of the official household of the ambassador—would it have advantaged you or any other person within that household to have abstracted one of those packages?”
“I cannot conceive how it would have done so, Mr. Carter.”
“I do not mean that papers so taken would necessarily be used, or passed on to other persons; but would it have been to the interest of any person of your knowledge to repress those papers?”
“The question, Mr. Carter, is beyond me. Remember, I am utterly ignorant of their contents.”
“But knowing the country besides your own that they concern, you, being in the diplomatic service, could make a shrewd guess regarding the purport of them, could you not?”
“No. Really, Mr. Carter, I could not. I have known enough about what has been going on, to have drawn conclusions several times; conclusions which I thought at the time were quite satisfactory, but which inevitably have proven to be entirely and utterly erroneous.”
“How long a time have those papers been in preparation?”