“I suppose this means that you want me to provide you with a disguise?”
“No, Paschics and I can manage that; but I want you to take me out of the city disguised as your footman, on the box of your carriage.”
“What, as Layard did the Spanish chap? But he got hauled over the coals terrifically for doing it. Still——”
“Still, you would do it, if only for the sake of getting rid of me from Thracia? After all, there is no reason why it should ever become known. I shall not tell, nor will you, and your coachman and footman can be paid to hold their tongues.”
“I don’t quite see how you propose to work it out.”
“Your footman is about my size, and fair. To-morrow you come in state to inquire for me, and send him on some errand while you come into the house. He is instructed to go back to the Legation at once, instead of returning to the carriage, and I come out of the house after you, and take his place. The police will only think that they did not notice him going in. Then you take me past the gate and some little way into the country—say to Mikhailoslav—where Paschics will be waiting for me with another disguise, and thus exit Count Mortimer from the Thracian stage.”
“You really intend to chuck things here, then?”
“That depends on circumstances—and my nerves.”
“By the bye, do you imagine you will be cool enough to go through this elaborate performance to-morrow? A slip might have disagreeable consequences.”
“My dear Stratford, when you offer a condemned man a chance of life, do you think he is going to waste it by playing the fool?”