Grayson started to his feet. "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" he cried. "Are you gone stark mad, to quarrel over such a trifle? Baggin, stop glaring like a caged beast. Sit down. The count has returned your book, which doubtless you dropped upon the hill. And did you not boast that its contents were undecipherable?"
Baggin took the book. "I may have been over-hasty," he acknowledged grudgingly, suspicion still in his eye. "But your disguise——"
"Was necessary, my friend, and I accept your apology. Say nothing more of it." The count unfastened the clasp at his throat, stuck the dagger into the panel of the door, and hung his hat and mantle upon it. The moustache he held up between thumb and forefinger with a grimace.
"How do you like me with mustachios, Mr. Grayson? They fell off three times to-day."
The man whom most of London supposed to be dead laughed heartily.
"They change the entire cast of your countenance," he remarked candidly. "They make you look like a rascal."
"That is true," admitted the count. "I have observe' the same. They bring out the evil streak in my nature. I used to wear them, five years ago, in London," he continued pensively, "and then I shaved for—ah—æsthetic reasons. Mr. T. B. Smith does not fancy mustachios. He thought they gave me the look of a nihilist—or perhaps a Russian spy. Apropos," he nodded to Grayson, "he has charge of your case. He is a clever man, my friend." He sighed gently.
Grayson looked at him sombrely. "I wish I were out of this job," he muttered, "and back in America with Doris. You saw her?" he demanded eagerly.
The count nodded, with a significant glance toward Baggin.
The latter caught the look, and suspicion flamed again in his eye.