“I don’t look pretty, I’m afraid,” I said, with a laugh. “But it’s about the best show I can make for the moment.”
Her eyes were now full of sweet concern.
“You have been in great trouble?” she said.
“Nothing’s the matter that a bath and a clothes brush won’t cure. But it’s been a near thing.”
“Tell me.”
“I will, everything; but not now. Let me see you presently; there is some work to be done first. You will have to leave here; go and get ready.”
“Leave here? I cannot. I must not.”
“The place is known to Kalkov’s police and to Vastic’s friends. There has been hell’s work; but you will be safe now.”
I drew Ivan aside then and told him what I knew and surmised, and how I proposed to act. My idea was that he should take some of the servants down into the cellars with him; let the men who were expected enter one by one, seize them and make them prisoners.
Ivan was the man of all men I would have chosen for such a task. He possessed enormous strength and a courage equal to any demands that could be made upon it; I knew I could leave the affair safely in his hands.