The only reply was a shrug.
“My only offence was that I happened to be a better swordsman than the man who attacked me.”
The Chancellor took up a pen and beat it carelessly on his hand. “I do not propose to try the merits of the case,” he said with cutting indifference to the other’s protest. “That is for the judge. You have a communication to make to me. I have no time to waste in listening to anything else.”
For a moment, so stinging was the old man’s tone, Ompertz looked as though he would meet it by a hot refusal. But the irritation was put aside as he replied with a laugh, “I thought it as well to justify the condition I am going to make.”
Rollmar raised his eyebrows. “Condition?”
“Naturally,” the prisoner returned boldly. “I am not going to throw a chance away. A secret of state importance has come to me in extraordinary fashion. I want my liberty; not much to ask, since my only crime was to prevent myself being run through by a moustachioed booby who was the real brawler.”
“His Highness,” said Rollmar, “has declared to me within the hour that he will show no mercy towards disturbers of the peace.”
“Then my secret will go to the gallows with me. And to the woeful disturbance, I fear, of his Highness’s peace.”
The inscrutable old man was probably anxious, certainly curious, but he did not show it. “I can but lay your case before the Duke,” he said with a shrug. “It all depends upon the nature of this secret of yours. It may be nothing; it may be known to us.”
“It is neither, Excellency.”