There was a
perfect Mont Blanc of cigarette stumps on a plate, and the shifty-
looking plain-clothes men were still watching their man like
hawks. I told the police that they had got hold of the wrong man,
that the Embassy was quite satisfied about him, and that they must
release the gentleman at once. They accordingly did so, and the
alluring vision of the ten thousand pounds vanished into thin air!
The poor man was quite touchingly grateful to me; he had formed
the most terrible ideas about a Russian State prison, and seemed
to think that he owed his escape entirely to me. I had not the
moral courage to tell him that I had myself ordered his arrest
that morning, still less of the awful crime of which he had been
suspected. Looking back, I do not see how I could have acted
otherwise; the prima facie case against him was so strong; never
was circumstantial evidence apparently clearer. Mr. D---went back
to Sweden next day, as he had had enough of Russia. Should Mr. D--
still be alive, and should he by any chance read these lines,
may I beg of him to accept my humblest apologies for the way I
behaved to him thirty-eight years ago.
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