The lieutenant heard my tale out with impassivity. "Is that all, Mr.
Bayne?" he asked shortly, as I paused.
"Yes," I lied doggedly. "And if you want more, I call you insatiable.
I've told you enough to satisfy any man's appetite for the abnormal,
haven't I?"
"Your defense, then," he summed it up, "is that under the protection of
a German management a German agent entered your room, opened your trunk,
concealed these papers in it, and repacked it. You believe that, eh?"
It sounded wild enough, I acknowledged gloomily as I sat staring at the
carpet with my elbows on my knees.
"You've been a pretty fool, a pretty fool, a pretty fool!" the refrain
sang itself unceasingly in my ears. I was disgusted with the episode,
more disgusted yet with my own role. Why was I lying, why making myself
by my present silence as well as by my former density the flagrant
confederate of a clever spy?
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Oh, what's the use?" I muttered. "No, of course I don't believe it, and
you won't either if you are sane. It is too ridiculous. I might as
well suggest that if the thief hadn't been gone when they arrived, the
manager and the detective would have shanghaied me, or the house doctor
drugged me with a hypodermic till the fellow could get away.
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