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Originally Posted by stuartjmz
This seems very plausible to me. It still happens today too, with empowered female characters suddenly and inexplicably becoming blancmanges who need a man. The possibility that it was the fault of the rewrite has pushed her female detective story, Lady Molly of Sotland Yard, up on my TBR list, to see if the eponymous heroine has more agency.
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I shall be interested to hear what you think about it in due course,
stuartjmz.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Not to mention the huge bag of cosmetics and clothes changes that would have been needed, not to mention no one noticing a big handsome guy (in garish clothes) going in and a old-lady/elderly-Jew/whatever (in dirty rags) coming out.
Still, if we can accept that a pair of reading glasses are enough to turn Superman into Clarke Kent, I guess we can give Orczy a pass on this. 
On the plus side, the few disguises we are given in this book remain vaguely plausible: the old lady driving the cart was always seated, the elderly Jew was described as "He had the habitual stoop, those of his race affected in mock humility in past centuries". (We may question why Chauvelin did not remember his own advise, recited back to him just a few minutes earlier, to watch out for "if he be tall, or stoop as if he would disguise his height", but better not  ) |
I did love the idea of Percy lugging his make-up and disguises bag around with him! Maybe there was a false bottom in his snuff box, which acted a bit like a TARDIS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stuartjmz
At lest a decade ago, an online article I read about the resurgence of anti-Semitism in France referred to this very part of the book in support of the article author's contention that the sentiment really was so deeply-ingrained as to make Chauvelin's behaviour credible
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Interesting it should be quoted, when Orczy was not French but Hungarian. Then of course, Chauvelin is utterly evil and therefore one assumes a bit dense. (It's expected of villains!) Though he had put two and two together to guess that Percy slumbering in the supper room was the Pimpernel.