The police sergeant answered:
"I must ask you to give us some highly necessary information and explanations.... Do you know anything about the priest and the soldier who hired your car and you?"
There was a questioning pause. The chauffeur broke it.
"I have already told you that I do not know them.... If I did, things would not have happened as they have!... Now, why have you asked me that question?"
The policeman's reply was another question: his tone was stern.
"Then you declare you had no idea of what they were taking with them in your car?"
"What they were taking with them in my car?" repeated the chauffeur in a tone of bewildered interrogation.
The police sergeant marched up to him.
"Look here, now! It is incredible that you do not know what is in that corded-up package you carried in your car! And now your masters have disappeared; we are to believe that you know nothing about that either!... And now you return!... What is the reason of that?... And is it to be supposed that I am going to allow you to make off again without asking you to explain yourself and this extraordinary situation?"
The chauffeur saw that the hotel-keeper sided with the police sergeant: there was no support to be got in that quarter.