DIGNITY in a nightshirt is impossible; so I rolled off the bed and dressed myself quickly.
Why I should be arrested I could not imagine, unless it was in some way the outcome of that row in the streets. Even if that were so, the thing could not be serious. I had been mistaken for one of the mob and nearly clubbed by a policeman; but it was scarcely likely I should be punished because he had missed his aim. Probably some fool or other had blundered, and the whole thing was just a mistake.
I was disposed to smile at it, therefore. I might lose half a night’s sleep; but that was no great matter; and as a recompense I should have an experience at first hand of police methods under a dictator.
“What am I supposed to have done?” I asked the man who had awakened me.
“Wait and see.” He jerked the words out with scowling gruffness.
“In England when a man is arrested like this it’s usual to tell him the reason.”
“This isn’t England.”
“There’s no need to make the affair more unpleasant than necessary by talking in that tone. The whole thing’s a mistake; but I don’t blame you. Why growl at me, therefore?”
“Orders.”
“Well, who ordered this?”
“Hurry.” And he accompanied the word with an emphatic gesture.
“Thank you,” I said with a grin; and as it was evident I should not get anything out of him, I finished dressing in silence. In the meanwhile the two men finished their search of the drawers and wardrobe and my luggage; and we went to my sitting-room.
This had also been ransacked; and the work must have been done before they roused me. “Your men certainly understand their work,” I said; for the search had been very thorough; “but you might have put some of the things back in their places. If you’ll give me a couple of minutes, I’ll do it myself, however.”
“No.” Short, sharp, and peremptory this, from the fellow who had spoken before.
“Then wake my servant—his room is through the kitchen at the end of the hall and up a short flight of stairs.”
“No.” Same tone from the same speaker.
“All right. Then I’ll leave a line here for him to let him know what has happened.”
“No.”
“But he’ll think I’ve gone mad, or bolted, or——”
“Come.” He was quite a master of monosyllabic dialogue.
“I’ll be hanged if I will,” I flung back at him angrily.
But as he pulled out a revolver and made me understand—without even a monosyllable this time—that I should be shot if I didn’t, I decided not to be obstinate.
As we left the door of the house a vehicle drove up and I was bundled into it, none too gently.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Silence.” The word was so fiercely uttered that I saw no use in arguing the point. I sat still therefore wondering to which prison we were going and what steps I should be allowed to take to get the matter explained. The simplest course would be to send a line to Volheno; but the arrest was really an outrage, and in the interests of other Englishmen in the city, a row ought to be made about it by the British authorities.
I was hesitating to which of the two quarters I would send, when the carriage stopped before a large private house, the door of which was instantly opened and I was hurried inside. Obviously I was expected.
The three men took me up a broad flight of stairs and halted on the landing. The man of monosyllables went into a room at the back of the house, taking with him some papers which I concluded he had brought from my rooms; and after perhaps a couple of minutes he reopened the door and signed to us to enter.
Seated at a large official-looking table was a man in evening dress reading the letter from Volheno, the receipt of which had so puzzled me on my return from the Stella. To my intense surprise he rose and offered me his hand.
“I am sorry to have had to disturb you, Mr. Donnington, and am extremely obliged to you for having come so promptly,” he said with a courteous smile and an appearance of great cordiality.
This was too much for my gravity. I looked at him in bewilderment, and then laughed. “As a matter of fact your men didn’t give me any alternative.”
“I do not understand,” he replied glancing from me to the police, who looked rather sheepish.
“Well, I was arrested. These men got into my rooms—I don’t know how—hauled me out of bed, would tell me nothing, except that I was under arrest; and dragged me here. That’s why I came so promptly,” I said drily.
“What does this mean, you?” he thundered at the police, his eyes flaming his anger.
“I was only ordered to bring him here, and I brought him,” answered the man of few words, in a hang-dog, surly tone.
“By Heaven, it is infamous. Do you mean to tell me that you never delivered M. Volheno’s letter to this gentleman?”
“I had no letter.”
“You blockhead, you fool, you thing of wood, get out of the room. You’ll hear of this again, all of you. A set of clumsy mules without the brains of an idiot amongst you;” and he stormed away at them furiously.
I chuckled at their discomfiture while admiring at the same time the excellent variety of abusive epithet possessed by their angry superior.
“These blunders are the curse and despair of public men,” he exclaimed as he slammed the door after them and returned to his seat. “Of course the whole thing is an egregious blunder, Mr. Donnington, and I tender you at once a most profound apology.”
I considered it judicious to mount the high horse. “It is a very disgraceful affair, sir, and naturally I shall report the matter to the representatives of my country here and demand satisfaction.”
“Oh, I hope you will not find it necessary to do that,” he replied in a tone of great concern. “I would not have had it occur for any consideration in the world.”
“A man in my position is not likely to submit tamely to such an infamous outrage; and I cannot see my way to have such a thing hushed up,” I declared with a very grandiose air. “It might have occurred to any countryman of mine whose lack of influence might render him unable to protect himself.”
“Let us talk it over;” he urged; and we did at some length until I allowed myself to be mollified by his apologies, and agreed not to take any step without first seeing Volheno.
“And now perhaps you will have the goodness to explain why I was asked so courteously”—I dwelt on the phrase and he winced—“to come here at this time of night.”
“It was really M. Volheno’s suggestion, Mr. Donnington. You see I am in evening dress and I was fetched home hurriedly from a social gathering as the result of some discoveries the police have made. I may explain I am the magistrate—d’Olliveira is my name: you may perhaps have heard it.”
“I have not. I never discuss public matters here,” I said.
“Well, as I was saying, some important discoveries have been made and a number of arrests——”
“Of the same nature as mine?” I interjected.
“Oh, please,” he replied with a deprecatory smile and wave of the hand. “A number of genuine arrests have been made and I am going to interrogate the prisoners. M. Volheno thinks it very probable that you can identify——”
“Do what?” I exclaimed.
“We believe that they are some of the men who frequented the revolutionary headquarters in the Rua Catania about which you gave him information.”
“Wait a moment. I never gave M. Volheno any information of any sort whatever, sir.”
He gave me a very shrewd glance and his eyes were hard and piercing. “Surely—I don’t understand, then.”
“I am beginning to, I think. I had a letter from him to-night—I think your clever police brought it away with them—in which he thanked me for having done something of the sort. But he is under a complete delusion. I am going to see him in the morning and tell him so.”
“Is this the letter?” I nodded as he held it up. “With your permission I’ll read it again.”
“I don’t care what you do with it,” I said.
“It is certainly very strange,” he muttered to himself when he finished. “He clearly has had a letter from you and this is the reply to it.”
“Nothing of the sort is clear, sir, and I’ll beg you to be so good as not to imply that I should lie about it either to you or to him,” I rapped out hotly. “I have had as much from your people as I can stand for one night. I tell you point-blank that I did not write any letter either to M. Volheno or any one else giving any such information as he and you appear to think; nor did I tell any one anything of the sort. I declare that on my word of honour.”
His look was very stern. “This is an official matter, of course, Mr. Donnington, and you must not regard anything I say as reflecting in any way upon your word. But I am taken entirely by surprise, of course, and equally of course the matter cannot rest here.”
“What does that mean?”
He made a little gesture of protest and sat thinking. “Do you say that you had no such information about the house in the Rua Catania?” he asked after the pause.
“What I know and what I don’t know concerns no one but myself, sir,” I replied firmly. “I decline to answer your question.”
He shrugged his shoulders significantly. “This may be more serious than I thought. You will see that. I think, perhaps, I had better send for M. Volheno.”
“You can send for the Dictator himself if you like. It makes no sort of difference to me.”
He was much perplexed what to do and at length took a paper from one of the pigeon holes of the table, folded it very carefully and then held it out to me. “Is that your signature, Mr. Donnington?” He put the question in his severest magisterial manner.
“It’s uncommonly like it, I admit.”
“Ah,” he grunted with evident satisfaction. “Have you any objection to write a few lines in my presence and at my dictation.”
“None whatever, provided you undertake to destroy what I write in my presence afterwards.”
He smiled grimly and then rose and waved me to sit at the desk.
“Well?” I asked, looking up pen in hand at the desk.
“Write as follows, please.”
“It may influence your Government in granting the Beira concessions which I seek,” I wrote as he dictated, “if I give you some information which I have learnt. Let your men raid at once the house 237, Rua da Catania. It is one of the headquarters of the revolutionary party. I shall be in a position to tell you much more in a few days. Of course you will keep the fact of my writing thus absolutely secret.”
“That will do,” he said.
I resumed my former seat and he sat down at the desk again and very carefully compared what I had written with the letter the signature of which he had shown to me. The work of comparison occupied a long time, and now and again he made a note of some point which struck him.
“You gave me a pledge on your word of honour just now, Mr. Donnington,” he said, at length turning a very stern face to me. “Are you willing that I treat with you on that basis?”
“Of course I am.”
“Then will you pledge me your word to imitate to the utmost of your ability a line of the writing of this letter?”
“Certainly.”
Again I took his seat and he folded the letter so that only one line was visible.
“Rua de Catania. It is one of the headquarters,” was the line.
“It’s a little unusual for a magistrate to give lessons in forgery, isn’t it?” I asked as I studied the writing and then wrote as good an imitation of it as I could, and returned to my seat.
Again he made an examination letter by letter, very laboriously.
“Well?” I asked, growing impatient at his long silence.
“I am greatly perplexed, Mr. Donnington. And I must ask you one or two questions. How did you come to know of the house mentioned here?”
“Wait a bit, please. I have complied with the test you put; what is the result? And what is my position now?”
“I put my questions in a perfectly friendly spirit—as M. Volheno would put them were he here.”
“And that writing test?”
“I will discuss it freely with you afterwards. I promise you that.”
“Well, I can tell you nothing about the house. Evidently the writer of that letter knows that I learnt what I know by accident; but what I know I cannot reveal.”
“I am sorry you take that line. Whom did you meet there?”
“I cannot answer.”
“Did you meet a Dr. Barosa there?”
“I cannot answer.”
“Did you rescue a lady from any of the men belonging to the place?”
“I cannot answer. I will not answer any questions.”
“Was that lady the Contesse Inez Inglesia?”
I held my tongue.
He asked many questions of a similar nature, surprising me considerably by his knowledge of my movements on that night and since; but I maintained a stolid silence.
I could see his anger rising at his repeated failure to extract any reply, and he sat thinking with pursed lips and a heavy frown. “I will make one further effort. I ask you as a personal favour to M. Volheno to reply to me.”
“If M. Volheno were fifty times as great a friend of mine as he is, and begged me on his knees, I would not do it, sir!”
His frown deepened at this. “Then you must understand that if you persist in refusing, you may as well abandon all thought of obtaining the concessions you seek.”
“To the devil with the concessions. If Volheno or you or any one else in the business think you are going to bribe me with them to do spy work for you, the sooner you disabuse your minds of that insulting rot the better,” I answered letting my temper go. “And now I’ve finished with this thing and want to go back to bed.”
“I cannot take the responsibility of allowing you to leave, Mr. Donnington,” he snapped back sharply.
“Do you mean that you dare to detain me as a prisoner?”
“Keep your temper, sir, and remember that I am a law officer of His Majesty the King of Portugal.”
“Then as a British subject I claim my right to communicate at once with the British Legation.”
“That request will be considered, and if it is thought desirable, complied with. Not otherwise. This is a political matter. It is known to us that you have held communication with these dangerous revolutionaries; you are seeking to shield them by refusing information; and the only inference I can draw is that you do so because you are in collusion with them.”
At that I burst out laughing. “Infer what you like and be hanged to you.”
“You may find this is no laughing matter, sir,” he cried, getting white with anger.
“And so may you, magistrate though you are. Kidnapping Englishmen is not a game your Government can play at with impunity, my friend.”
“I shall send for M. Volheno,” he said as he rose; “and in the meantime shall detain you here on my own responsibility.”
And with that he favoured me with a scowl and went out of the room, leaving me to speculate where I was going to finish the night.
The odds appeared to be in favour of a prison cell rather than my own bed.