“And what is the signal, Mr. Bristow, for which I am to look out?”
“The scratching, with my little finger—thus—of the left-hand side of my nose.”
“And what am I to do when I see the signal?”
“You are to pretend that you are taken suddenly ill, and you are to keep up that pretence long enough to render it impossible for the trial to be finished on Monday—long enough, in fact, to make its postponement to Tuesday morning an inevitable necessity.”
“I understand, sir. You want the trial to extend into the second day; instead of being finished, as it might be, on the first?”
“That is exactly what I want. Can you counterfeit a sudden attack of illness, so as to give it an air of reality?”
“I ought to be able to do so, sir. I see plenty of the symptoms every day of my life.”
“They will send for a doctor to examine you, you know.”
“I suppose so, sir. But my plan will be this: not merely to pretend to be ill, but to be ill in reality. To swallow something, in fact—say a pill concocted by myself—which will really make me very sick and ill for two or three hours, without doing me any permanent injury.”
“Not a bad idea by any means. But you understand that you are to take no action whatever in the matter until you see my signal.”