“No, no! Come in! You must! I insist! He is a charming man. We need not stay a minute and perhaps I’ll not have the opportunity again.” “To-morrow morning, then. Now is not the time to make a social call.” “The hour does not matter; I’m one of the staff. Come along!” He spoke pleadingly. I guessed what was in store for me, but deemed it wisest to agree, so followed him into the house. “Tell your master I wish to see him.” We entered a small reception room on the right. It was comfortably furnished for a Port Arthur house, and had a large writing table and a telephone. We had been seated only a few minutes when the Chief of Police entered the room. He is a tall, handsome, Baltic Russian, with a courtly manner, and a charmingly frank countenance. The Tsar has no more honourable or devoted servant than the clever Chief of the Port Arthur police. He acknowledged my bow with a slight inclination, and strode across to the telephone, and rang up. “This is an Englishman I have just arrested on the Serpionaya,” explained the detective. “Take him to the lock-up,” commanded his chief. That was all. As the telephone was ringing in answer, we left the room--and the house. When we were again seated in the carriage it was the detective’s turn to have the conversation take an unpleasant turn. “What about our supper at the Saratoff?” I began. He was silent. It would have been better had I remained silent too, but that was impossible. I upbraided him with his deceit, his treachery, his unfriendliness, called him _störer_, _schürke_, and _lump_, _schuft_, _verrather_, and _hundsfott_; the German language had not bad names enough for him, and I relapsed on mujik’s Russian. When he protested I called him _lugner_, and he took it with composure. It did not occur to me then that he had done his business in a masterly manner. The horses plunged into mudholes in the darkness; the carriage swayed and groaned; we were crossing unmade ground, going round to the back of the jail by a way with which I was not familiar. At last the carriage stopped near the edge of a rough declivity. We groped our way round the gable of a building and by-and-by reached the porch. Inside was one large room with some smaller offices opening from it, and a corridor leading in the direction of the jail. There was the usual stove, some policemen idling about, and a clerk busy with printed forms at a table in the corner. Tsintsius spoke a few words with some officer in one of the inner rooms, then left the building. I asked if it were permissible to smoke, and having leave to do so, walked back and forth in that room--it seemed for hours. Luckily I had my identification and other papers on me, for I had then no invention to concoct any sort of plausible story.