“Time to listen to a suggestion?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Will you excuse us a moment?” I said to Grantham, and got up and walked to one of the rear corners of the platform.
Einarson followed me, frowning suspiciously.
“Why not give Grantham his crown now?” I asked when we were standing in the corner, my right shoulder touching his left, half facing each other, half facing the corner, our backs to the officers who sat on the platform, the nearest less than ten feet away. “Push it through. You can do it. There’ll be a howl, of course. Tomorrow, as a concession to that howl, you’ll make him abdicate. You’ll get credit for that. You’ll be fifty percent stronger with the people. Then you will be in a position to make it look as if the revolution was his party, and that you were the patriot who kept this newcomer from grabbing the throne. Meanwhile you’ll be dictator, and whatever else you want to be when the time comes. See what I mean? Let him bear the brunt. You catch yours on the rebound.”
He liked the idea, but he didn’t like it to come from me. His little dark eyes pried into mine.
“Why should you suggest this?” he asked.
“What do you care? I promise you he’ll abdicate within twenty-four hours.”
He smiled under his mustache and raised his head. I knew a major in the A.E.F. who always raised his head like that when he was going to issue an unpleasant order. I spoke quickly:
“My raincoat—do you see it’s folded over my left arm?”
He said nothing, but his eyelids crept together.