“WHERE am I?”
About him were bare, white-washed walls; the light came by grudgingly through a small barred window that gave on rock and shrub. He struggled to a sitting position on the pallet bed on which he lay. The place reeled round and round. He groaned, and put his hand to his head. It was bandaged. It ached atrociously. What had happened? He tried to think, but thinking was painful. Memory returned in gleams and dashes. Bit by bit the evening before came back to him. But how to account for his present position? He gave up the effort and lay down again.
A man entered, a rather grim, brown man in a kind of uniform.
“Monsieur has awakened?”
“Yes, what place is this?”
“It is the detention room of the Monaco Police Station.”
“But why am I here?”
“Monsieur was arrested only this morning.”
“Arrested! Good Heavens! Why?”
“Ah! that is not for me to say. Monsieur will be brought before the examining magistrate in an hour. Will monsieur take petit déjeuner?”