"But mother?" she protested nervously.
"I shall tell her of my discovery about Gretchen, and that in view of my connection with the Secret Service, it is essential for me to be absolutely secure against anything of the sort." She nodded approval.
"I shall then be too busy officially to come here much, and this will relieve you from all the unpleasantness of open deception with her and others." Again she nodded.
"The next thing will be to obtain the necessary papers for Nessa and me to leave. Have you any friends in Holland?"
She started rather nervously. "Yes, several old school friends; but——" She paused and gestured.
"My idea is that you should invent a sudden desire to go to them; say that one of them is dying or very ill, or something. You could not very well travel alone at such a time, and thus Hans would naturally go with you. It would be simple enough for you two to obtain permits to travel and passports and so on, and——"
"But I should be instantly questioned and—— Oh, that would never do," she interrupted, with a vigorous shake of the head.
I smiled reassuringly. "I have thought of that, believe me. On the morning you were to start, after you had obtained your tickets, something would occur to make it impossible for you to go. Nessa or I would then get the tickets and things, and she and I would use them. You would not discover the loss until we had had time to cross the frontier, and could then give information of their loss; and as soon as we were safely in Holland, I would write to you a letter explaining everything."
This lessened her uneasiness considerably. "It is possible," she admitted.
"Such a letter from me, confessing my imposture and everything, would free you from the slightest taint of suspicion that you had been in any way a party to the scheme, and, of course, as Nessa and I should be in safety, I could make the confession with absolute impunity."