It was not a pleasant position to be in, and well I knew it. The new law was very elastic. It made it an offence to use the telegraph, the telephone or the postal facilities, or to enlist directly or indirectly any assistance from any native for the purpose of conveying any information which could be considered likely to be of use to any belligerent power; whilst the only literature which had recently found favour in the eyes of the reading public seemed to relate to spies and espionage, whether in fact or in fiction. Hence every local junior or senior police or other officer seemed to imagine himself a born Sherlock Holmes. In vain I indignantly protested against the intrusion. It merely seemed to whet their appetite for investigation. Every belonging I had with me was turned inside out, even to the lining of my raiment. Hats and boots were separately and collectively opened up, whilst the marks on my linen, off and on, were compared and commented upon.
"Perhaps a cigar would cool you down a bit?" I remarked somewhat sarcastically, but the suggestion was refused with an indignant snort.
"Well, I presume there is no objection to my smoking, even if _you_ don't care about it," I added, as I bit the end off a big black cigar and hunted round for matches. Blindly ignoring a box on the table, I eventually extracted some from the pocket of my greatcoat, which was hanging on a peg. In doing so I pulled out a glove which fell to the floor.
Of course my every action was watched. But I did not appear to notice this until I had twice paced the floor smoking. Then, seeing the glove lying there, I picked it up and sarcastically offered it for examination, after which I placed it in my side pocket. Quite a natural thing to do.
Meanwhile, it should have been recorded that I had purposely left the folded piece of paper containing the partly-written message lying on the table and in sight during the whole interview. When the officer had advanced to read the postcards I had taken care to be there first. I had carelessly picked up the aforesaid paper and played with it; twisting it round my fingers as though it were a piece of string. When the officer was out of reach of the table I threw it down again. If he came closer I annexed it and played with it as before.