“Bring me some strong coffee. It may buck me up.”
The coffee cleared his head wonderfully and helped him to realize his position. He had been arrested last night by those two men in the dark entry. They certainly had used him roughly enough. He would make a deuce of a row about that. The whole thing was outrageous, an error or else a dastardly plot. Then he became uneasy. Anything might happen here. He was at the mercy of the powers that be. They might throw him into one of the dungeons of the Castle. Sinister forebodings invaded him.
Presently two policemen came for him, and he walked between them to a large room where three men were sitting at a curving desk. Their backs were to a double window but he was placed in the glare of the strong light.
The three men were dusky Monegascans. They wore black frock coats and black bow ties. The centre one was severe and stout, the one on the right severe and thin, the third was young, intelligent and amiable looking. It was evident they were important personages in the judiciary system of the Principality, probably the examining magistrate, the state attorney and the chief of police. The stout one addressed him curtly.
“Your name is Hugh Kildair?”
“Yes.”
“You inhabit a room on the third floor of the Villa Lorenza?”
“Yes.”
The magistrate consulted his notes. There was a silence. Hugh saw six piercing eyes fixed on his face.
“Can you account for your movements from ten o’clock until midnight yesterday evening?”