“I see, I see! He had placed this basket in the boat. The boatman, employed to carry off and preserve the Child of Mystery, does not notice it, and thus carries away two baskets; then he makes a mistake, and puts the pie out to nurse, and gives the pastry-cook the baby to bake.”
“So the good pastry-cook brings up both the children, or, rather, he mistakes and brings up the child of the duchess. Thus there arise endless entanglements, and we can go forward with confidence to our denouement. Courage, M. Goefle! the painting is done, and now for the pen again. Let us arrange the scenes. Scene First: The cook, solus.”
“Wait, Christian! Why not have the child quietly carried down by a staircase?”
“True, particularly as Stollborg has a secret staircase, but it was watched by the assassins.”
“Were they incorruptible?”
“No, but the duchess is very short of money, while the traitor has his pockets full.”
“Why don’t he go himself to the tower where his victim is imprisoned, and throw the child out of the window, without so much ceremony?”
“I really don’t know. We must make it out that the child is not yet born, and that they are waiting for the fatal moment.”
“That will do very well! The child, then, must be born at the very moment that Don Sancho enters the donjon and ascends the stairs. Paquito, the waiting-woman, lowers down the infant that has just seen the light. But tell me, is the child to be visible?”
“Certainly. I am going to paint it in its cradle. There’s a string for the rope. All those things are cut out in profile; they are to be seen from a distance.”