"I have no confidence in their doing it as surely as I would myself."
Hyde, it will be understood, had his own reasons for not wishing to present himself at the Prefecture.
"You propose to assume a disguise? As you please; but how can we help you?"
"By giving me papers in exchange for my passport, which you can hold, and by sending after me if I do not reappear within two or three days."
"You anticipate trouble, then; danger, perhaps."
"Not necessarily, but it is as well to take precautions."
"Yes; I should like to bring my disguise and put it on here. In the porter's lodge, a back office--anywhere."
The _attaché_ promised to get the ambassador's permission, which was accorded in due course, and that same afternoon Hyde entered the Embassy a well-dressed English gentleman, and came out an evil-looking ruffian, wearing the blue blouse and high silk cap of the working classes. One sleeve of the blouse hung loose across his chest, as though he had lost his arm, but his injured limb was safe underneath the garment. His beard was trimmed close, and on either side of his forehead were two great curls, plastered flat on the temple, after the fashion so popular with French roughs.
In this attire he plunged into the lowest depths of the city.
Amongst the papers seized at the Maltese baker's in Kadikoi were several that gave an address in Paris. This place was referred to constantly as the headquarters of the organisation which supplied the Russian enemy with intelligence, and at which a certain mysterious person--the leading spirit evidently of the whole nefarious company--was to be found.
"I'll find out all about him and his confederates before I'm many hours older," said Hyde, confidently, as he presented himself at the porter's lodge of a tall, six-storied house, of mean and forbidding aspect, close to the Faubourg St. Martin. It was let out in small lodgings to tenants as decayed and disreputable as their domicile.
"M. Sabatier?" asked Hyde, boldly, of the porter.
"On the fifth floor, the third door to the right," was the reply.
Hyde mounted the stairs and knocked at the door indicated.
"Well?" asked an old woman who opened it.
"The patron--is he here? I must speak to him."
"Who are you? What brings you?" The old woman still held the door ajar, and denied him admission.