I saw that this fact was set down as another black mark of suspicion against me, and they then began another long discussion upon the ikon. I began to be so bored and tired that I sat down on my trunk, lit a cigarette, and attempted to preserve a certain amount of outward calm, whilst mentally I raged furiously within.
I noticed that a messenger had been sent out of the room, but could not catch the object of his errand. When all chattering and gesticulating together, they abandoned ordinary German, and fell into a dialect of their own which I could not understand.
In a few moments the messenger returned with two more officials, and a waiter from the station restaurant. The waiter was given a chapter of my novel—each chapter had an ordinary exercise book to itself—and told to translate my English into German.
I presume he honestly tried to do his best, but the translation bore no resemblance to the original. Even the officials soon wearied of the fumbled nonsense, and the waiter was sent away.
Then the head official informed me that I might continue my journey by the next train, but I must consider myself under arrest, till further information concerning my business and identity was obtained. He informed me, finally, that I was a Russian spy.
I retaliated by informing him that I was a British subject. That my husband was at that moment in Bavaria, and directly I could communicate with him he would obtain my release through our Embassy at Vienna. Never did I regret anything more than my own stupidity in having left my much-viséd passport behind me in England.
The typewriter was then closed down, tied with string and heavily sealed. I was ordered to carry it myself, and place it in the very center of an empty luggage wagon.
As I complied it flashed upon me that they had never seen a typewriter before, and suspected it to be a sort of infernal machine. My dispatch box disappeared altogether, and I got into a first-class carriage, accompanied by two very smart attendants. They wore cocked hats, much gold braid, and many gold buttons, and they each carried a sword and a revolver, with which to shoot me, I presume, if I tried to run away.
We three were not alone in the carriage. In a corner sat a dark man with a small black mustache, and smoking a very long cigar. He was neatly dressed in a long dust coat, and on his smooth black hair he wore a brown Homburg hat. In one dark eye was a single monocle, through which he regarded me with a mild surprise.
I saw at once that if I was to be burdened with the constant society of my two officials for several days, the only thing to do was to make friends with them. The circumstances had not arisen through any fault of theirs, and they had to obey the orders of their superiors. Both were men who looked between the age of thirty to forty, and they had quite pleasant faces. I began by offering them cigarettes from my case—no Customs officials object to enough tobacco being carried to last out a journey—and they accepted my civility with profuse thanks.