"An idea!" he exclaimed.
"I will offer my canaries and my cockatoo to this vast Metropolis—my agent shall present them in my name to the Zoological Gardens of London.
The Document that describes them shall be drawn out on the spot."
He began to write, repeating the words as they flowed from his pen.
"Number one.
Cockatoo of transcendent plumage: attraction, of himself, to all visitors of taste.
Number two.
Canaries of unrivalled vivacity and intelligence: worthy of the garden of Eden, worthy also of the garden in the Regent's Park.
Homage to British Zoology.
Offered by Fosco."
The pen spluttered again, and the flourish was attached to his signature.
"Count! you have not included the mice," said Madame Fosco
He left the table, took her hand, and placed it on his heart.
"All human resolution, Eleanor," he said solemnly, "has its limits. MY limits are inscribed on that Document.
I cannot part with my white mice.
Bear with me, my angel, and remove them to their travelling cage upstairs."
"Admirable tenderness!" said Madame Fosco, admiring her husband, with a last viperish look in my direction.
She took up the cage carefully, and left the room.
The Count looked at his watch.
In spite of his resolute assumption of composure, he was getting anxious for the agent's arrival.
The candles had long since been extinguished, and the sunlight of the new morning poured into the room.
It was not till five minutes past seven that the gate bell rang, and the agent made his appearance.
He was a foreigner with a dark beard.
"Mr. Hartright—Monsieur Rubelle," said the Count, introducing us.
He took the agent (a foreign spy, in every line of his face, if ever there was one yet) into a corner of the room, whispered some directions to him, and then left us together.
"Monsieur Rubelle," as soon as we were alone, suggested with great politeness that I should favour him with his instructions.
I wrote two lines to Pesca, authorising him to deliver my sealed letter "to the bearer," directed the note, and handed it to Monsieur Rubelle.
The agent waited with me till his employer returned, equipped in travelling costume.
The Count examined the address of my letter before he dismissed the agent.
"I thought so!" he said, turning on me with a dark look, and altering again in his manner from that moment.
He completed his packing, and then sat consulting a travelling map, making entries in his pocket-book, and looking every now and then impatiently at his watch.
Not another word, addressed to myself, passed his lips.
The near approach of the hour for his departure, and the proof he had seen of the communication established between Pesca and myself, had plainly recalled his whole attention to the measures that were necessary for securing his escape.
A little before eight o'clock, Monsieur Rubelle came back with my unopened letter in his hand.
The Count looked carefully at the superscription and the seal, lit a candle, and burnt the letter.
"I perform my promise," he said, "but this matter, Mr. Hartright, shall not end here."
The agent had kept at the door the cab in which he had returned.
He and the maid-servant now busied themselves in removing the luggage.
Madame Fosco came downstairs, thickly veiled, with the travelling cage of the white mice in her hand.
She neither spoke to me nor looked towards me.
Her husband escorted her to the cab.
"Follow me as far as the passage," he whispered in my ear; "I may want to speak to you at the last moment."
I went out to the door, the agent standing below me in the front garden.
The Count came back alone, and drew me a few steps inside the passage.
"Remember the Third condition!" he whispered.
"You shall hear from me, Mr. Hartright—I may claim from you the satisfaction of a gentleman sooner than you think for."
He caught my hand before I was aware of him, and wrung it hard—then turned to the door, stopped, and came back to me again.
"One word more," he said confidentially.
"When I last saw Miss Halcombe, she looked thin and ill.
I am anxious about that admirable woman.