Chapter X: Part 10

“Where is he now?”

“In the outer hall.”

Carrados bent towards the fire. “It’s a million-to-one chance,” he thought, “but it’s worth trying.” He dropped the leather on to the red coals, waited until it began to smoke fiercely, and then, lifting it out with the tongs, he allowed the pungent aromatic odour to diffuse into the air for a few seconds. A minute later the charred fragment had lost its identity among the embers.

“Go now, and on your way tell the hall porter that I want to speak to him.”

The hall porter came, a magnificent being, but full of affable condescension.

“You sent for me, sir?”

Carrados was sitting at a table near the fire.

“Yes. I am a little nervous. Do you smell anything burning?”

The porter sniffed the air--superfluously but loudly, so that the blind gentleman should hear that he was not failing in his duty. Then he looked comprehensively around.

“There certainly is a sort of hottish smell somewhere, sir,” he admitted.

“It isn’t any woodwork about the fireplace scorching? We blind are so helpless.”

“That’s all right, sir.” He laid a broad hand on the mantelpiece and then rapped it reassuringly. “Solid marble that, sir. You needn’t be afraid; I’ll give a look across now and then.”

“Thank you, if you will,” said Carrados, with relief in his voice. “And, by the way, will you ring for Maurice as you go?”

A distant bell churred. Across the room, like a strangely balancing bird, skimmed a waiter.

“Sair?”

“Oh, is that you, Maurice? I want----By the way, what’s that burning?”

“Burning, sair?”

“Yes; don’t you smell anything?”

“There is an odour of smell,” admitted Maurice sagely, “but it is nothing to see.”

“You don’t know the smell?”

The waiter shook his head and looked vague. Carrados divined perplexity.

“Oh, I dare say it’s nothing,” he declared carelessly. “Will you get me a sherry and khoosh?”

The million-to-one chance had failed.

“Sherry and bittaire, sair.”

Maurice deposited the glass with great precision, regarded it sadly and then moved it three inches to the right.

“I ’ave recollect this odour, sair,” he remarked, “although I cannot give actuality. I ’ave met him here before, but--less--less forcefully.”

“When?”

“Oh, one week since, perhaps.”

“Something in the coals?” suggested Carrados.

“I imagine yes,” pondered Maurice conscientiously. “I was ‘brightening up,’ you say, for the night, and the fire was low down. I squash it with the poker still more for safety.”

“Oh, then the lounge would be empty?”

“Yes--of people. Only Mr Slataire already departing.”

Carrados indicated that he did not want the change and dismissed the subject.

“So long as nothing’s on fire,” he said with indifference.

“Thank you, sair.”

The million-to-one chance had come off after all.

* * * * *

Two days later, walking beyond the usual limit of the conventional promenade, Carrados reached a rough wooden hut such as contractors erect during the progress of their work. Having accompanied his master to the door, Parkinson returned towards the promenade and sat down to admire the seascape from the nearest bench.

Inside the hut three men had been waiting. One of the trio, a tall, military-looking man with the air of a personage, had been sitting on a whitewash-splashed trestle reading _The Times_. Of the others, one was Inspector Tapling, and the third a dwarfish, wizened creature with the air of a converted ostler. He had passed the time by watching the Cliffhurst side through a knot-hole in a plank. With the entrance of Carrados the tall man folded his newspaper and a period of expectancy seemed to have come to an end.

“Good-morning, Colonel, Inspector and you there, Bob.”

“You found your way, Mr Carrados?” remarked the Colonel.

“Yes; it is not really I who am late. I had a letter this morning from Wrattesley holding me up for a wire at 10.30. It did not arrive till 10.45.”

“Ah, it did come! Then we may regard everything as settled?”

“No, Colonel. On the contrary, we must accept everything as upset.”

“What, sir?”

Carrados took out the slim pocket-book, extracted a telegram and held it out.

“What is this?” demanded the Colonel, peering through his glasses in the indifferent light. “‘Laburnum edifice plaster dark dark late herald same dome aurora dark vitiate camp encase.’ I don’t know the code.”

“Oh, it’s Westneath’s arrangement,” explained Carrados. “‘The individual with whom we are concerned must not be arrested on charge, but it is of the gravest importance that the papers in question be recovered. There must be no public proceedings even if conviction assured.’”

There was a moment of stupefaction.

“This--this is a bombshell!” exclaimed the Colonel. “What does it mean?”

“Politics,” replied Carrados tersely.

“Ah!” soliloquised Tapling, walking to the door and looking sympathetically out at the gloomy prospect of sea and sky.

“But I’ve had no notification,” protested the Colonel. “Surely, Mr Carrados----”

“The wire is probably at the station.”

“True; you said 10.45. Well, what do you propose doing now?”

“Scrapping all our arrangements and recovering the papers without arresting Slater.”

“In what way?”

“At the moment I have not the faintest idea.”

The Inspector left the door and came back moodily to his old position.

“We have reason to think that he is becoming suspicious, Mr Carrados,” he remarked. “He may decide to go any hour.”

“Then the sooner we act the better.”

The stunted pigmy in the background had been listening to the conversation with rapt attention, fastening his eyes unwinkingly on each face in turn. He now glided forward.

“Listen to me, gents,” he said, throwing round a cunning leer; “how does this sound? This afternoon....”

* * * * *

That afternoon Mr Slater had been for what he termed “a blow of the briny,” as his custom was on a fine day. He was returning in the dusk and had crossed the spacious promenade when, at a corner, he almost ran into the broad figure of a policeman who stood talking to a woman on the path.

“That’s the man!” exclaimed the woman with almost vicious certainty.

Mr Slater fell back a step in momentary alarm; then, recovering his self-control, he went forward with admirable composure.

“Beg pardon, sir,” explained the constable, “but this young lady has just lost her purse. She says she was sitting next to you on a seat----”

“And the minute after he had gone--the very minute--my bag was open like you see it now and my purse vanished,” interposed the lady volubly.

“On the seat by the lifeboat where I passed you, sir,” amplified the constable.

“This is ridiculous,” said Mr Slater with a breath of relief. “I am a gentleman and I have no need to steal purses. My name is Slater, and I am staying at the Rose and Plumes.”

“Yes, sir,” assented the policeman respectfully. “I know you by sight, sir, and have seen you go there. You hear what the gentleman says, miss?”

“Gentleman or no gentleman, I know my purse has gone,” snapped the girl. “If he hasn’t got it why did it vanish--where is it now? That’s all I ask--where is it now?”

“You’ve seen nothing of it, I take it, sir?”

“No, of course I haven’t,” retorted the gentleman contemptuously. “I was sitting on a seat. The woman may have sat next to me--someone reading certainly did. Then I got up, walked once or twice up and down and came across. That’s all.”

“What was in the purse, miss?” inquired the constable.

“A postal order for a sovereign--and, thank the Lord, I’ve got the tag of it--a half-crown, two shillings and a few coppers, a Kruger sixpence with a hole through, a gold gipsy ring with pearls, the return half of my ticket, some hairpins and a few recipes, a book of powder papers, a pocket mirror----”

“That ought to be enough to identify it by,” said the constable, catching Mr Slater’s eye in humorous sympathy. “Well, miss, you’d better come to the station and report the loss. Perhaps you’ll look in as well, sir?”

“Does that mean,” demanded Mr Slater with a dark gleam, “that I am to be charged with theft?”

“Bless you, no, sir,” was the easy reassurance. “We couldn’t take a charge in the circumstances--not with a gentleman of respectable position and known address. But it might save you some inquiry and bother later, and if it was myself I should like to get it done with while it was red-hot, so to speak.”

“I will go now,” decided Mr Slater. “Do I walk with----?”

“Just as you like, sir. You can go before or follow on. It’s only just down Bank Street.”

The two went on and the gentleman followed at a few yards’ interval. Three minutes and a blue lamp indicated their destination. No other pedestrian was in sight; the door stood hospitably open and Mr Slater walked in.

The station Inspector was seated at a desk when they entered and a couple of other officials stood about the room. The policeman explained the circumstances of the loss, the Inspector noting the details in the record-book.

“This gentleman voluntarily accompanied us as he had been brought into the case,” concluded the policeman.

“Here is my card, Superintendent,” said Mr Slater with some importance. He had determined to be agreeable, but dignified, and to enlist the Inspector on his side. “I am staying at the Rose and Plumes. It’s deuced unpleasant, you know, for a gentleman in my position to have to answer to a charge like this. That’s why I came at once to clear the matter up.”

“Quite so, sir,” replied the Inspector; “but there is no charge at present.” He turned to the girl. “You understand that if you sign the charge-sheet and it turns out that you are mistaken it may be a serious matter?”

“I only want my purse and money back,” replied the young woman mulishly.

“We will try to find it for you; but there is nothing beyond your suspicion that this gentleman has ever seen it. Probably, sir, you don’t possess a sovereign postal order, or a Kruger coin, or any of the other articles, even of your own?”

“I don’t,” replied Mr Slater. “Except, of course, some silver and copper. If it will satisfy you I will turn out my pockets.”

The Inspector looked at the complainant.

“You hear that, miss?”

“Oh, very well,” she retorted. “If he really hasn’t got it I shall be the one to look silly, shan’t I?”

On this encouragement Mr Slater made a display of his various possessions, turning out each pocket as he emptied it. The contents were laid before the Inspector, who satisfied himself by a glance of their innocent nature.

“I should warn you that I am going to bring out a loaded revolver,” said Mr Slater when he came to his hip-pocket. “I travel a good deal abroad and often in wild parts, where it is necessary to carry a pistol for protection.”

The Inspector nodded and examined the weapon with a knowing touch. The last pocket was displayed.

“That’s not what I mean,” objected the girl with a dogged air, as everyone began to regard her in varying degrees of inquiry. “You don’t suppose that anyone would keep the things in their pocket, do you? I thought you meant properly.”

The Inspector addressed himself to Mr Slater again in a matter-of-fact, business manner.

“Perhaps you would like one of my men to put his hand over you to settle the matter, sir?” he asked.

For just a couple of seconds there was the pause of hesitation.

“If nothing is found you withdraw all imputation against this gentleman?” demanded the Inspector of the girl.

“Suppose I must,” she admitted with an admirable pose of sulky acquiescence. In less exciting moments the young lady was a valued member of the Kingsmouth Amateur Dramatic Society.

“Oh, all right,” assented Mr Slater. “Only get it over.”

“You quite understand that the search is entirely voluntary on your part, sir. Hilldick!”

One of the other policemen came forward.

“You can stand where you are, sir,” he directed. With the practised skill of, say, a Custom House officer from Kingsmouth, he used his fingers dexterously about the gentleman’s clothing. “Now, sir, will you sit down and remove your boots for a moment?”

“My boots!” The man’s eyes narrowed and his mouth took another line. He glanced at the Inspector. “Is it really necessary----?”

“That’s it!” came from the girl in a fiercely exultant whisper. “He’s slipped them in his boots!”

“Idiot!” commented Mr Slater. He sat down and slowly drew slack the laces.

“Thank you,” said Hilldick. He picked up both boots and with them turned to the table underneath the light. The next moment there was a sound like the main-spring of a clock going wrong and the sole and the upper of one boot came violently apart.

“You scoundrel!” screamed Slater, leaping from the chair.

But the grouping of the room had undergone a quiet change. Two men closed in on his right and left, and Mr Slater sat down again. The Inspector opened the desk, dropped in the revolver and turned the key. Then all eyes went again to Hilldick and saw--nothing.

“The other boot,” came in a quiet voice from the doorway to the inner room. “But just let me have it for a second.”

It was put into his hands, and Carrados examined it in unmoved composure, while unpresentable words flowed in a blistering stream from Slater’s lips.

“Yes, it is very good workmanship, Mr Frankworth,” remarked the blind man. “You haven’t forgotten your early training. All right, Hilldick.”

The tool cut and rasped again and the stitches flew. But this time from the opening, snugly lying in a space cut out among the leathers, a flat packet slid down to the ground.

Someone tore open the oiled silk covering and spread out the contents. Six sheets of fine tracing paper, each covered with signs and drawings, were disclosed.

The finality of the discovery acted on the culprit like a douche of water. He ceased to revile, and a white and deadly calm came over him.

“I don’t know who is responsible for this atrocious outrage,” he said between his clenched teeth, “but everyone concerned shall pay dearly for it. I am a naturalised Frenchman, and my adopted country will demand immediate satisfaction.”

“Your adopted country is welcome to you, and it’s going to have you back again,” said the Inspector grimly. “Here is a pair of boots exactly like your own--we only retain the papers, which do not belong to you. You are allowed twenty-four hours to be clear of the country. If you have not sailed by this time to-morrow you will be arrested as Henry Frankworth for failing to report yourself when on licence and sent to serve the unexpired portion of your sentence. If you return at any time the same course will be followed. Inspector Tapling, here is the warrant. You will keep Frankworth under observation and act as the circumstances demand.”

Henry Frankworth glared round the room vindictively, drew himself up and clenched his fists. Then his figure drooped, and he turned and walked dully out into the darkening night.

* * * * *

“So you let the German spy slip through your fingers after all,” protested Mr Carlyle warmly. “I know that it was on instructions, and not your doing, Max; but why, why on earth, why?”

Carrados smiled and pointed to the heading of a column in an evening paper that he picked up from his side.

“There is your answer, Louis,” he replied.

“‘POSITION OF THE ENTENTE. WHAT DOES FRANCE MEAN?’” read the gentleman. “What has that got to do with it?”

“Your German spy was a French spy, Louis, and just at this moment a certain section of the public, led by a certain gang of politicians and aided by a certain interest in the Press, is doing its best to imperil the Entente. The Government has no desire to have the Entente imperilled. Hence your wail. If the dear old emotional, pig-headed, Rule-Britannia! public had got it that French spies were stalking through the land at this crisis, then, indeed, the fat would have been in the fire!”

“But, upon my soul, Max----Well, well; I hope that I am the last man to be led by newspaper clap-trap, but I think that it’s a deuced queer proceeding all the same. Why should our ally want our secret plans?”

“Why not, if he can get them?” demanded Max Carrados philosophically. “One never knows what may happen next. We ought to have plans and knowledge of all the French strategic positions as well as of the German. I hope that we have, but I doubt it. It would be a guarantee of peace and good relations.”

“There are times, Max,” declared Mr Carlyle severely, “when I suspect you of being--er--paradoxical.”

“Can you imagine, Louis, an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Poet Laureate, or a Chancellor of the Exchequer being friendly--perhaps even dining--with the editor of _The Times_?”

“Certainly; why not?”

“Yet in the editor’s office, drawn up by his orders, there is probably a three-column obituary notice of each of those impersonalities. Does it mean that the editor wishes them to die--much less has any intention of poisoning their wine? Ridiculous! He merely, as a prudent man, prepares for an eventuality, so as not to be caught unready by a misfortune which he sincerely hopes will never take place--in his time, that is to say.”

“Well, well,” said Mr Carlyle benignantly--they were lunching together at Vitet’s, on Carrados’s return--“I am glad that we got the papers. One thing I cannot understand. Why didn’t the fellow get clear as soon as he had the plans?”

“Ah,” admitted the blind man, “why not, indeed? Even Inspector Tapling bated his breath when he suggested the reason to me.”

“And what was that?” inquired Carlyle with intense interest.

Mr Carrados looked extremely mysterious and half-reluctant for a moment. Then he spoke.

“Do you know, Louis, of any great secret military camp where a surprise fleet of dirigibles and flying machines of a new and terrible pattern is being formed by a far-seeing Government as a reserve against the day of Armageddon?”

“No,” admitted Mr Carlyle, with staring eyes, “I don’t.”

“Nor do I,” contributed Carrados.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

IX

The Eastern Mystery

It could scarcely be called Harris’s fault, whatever the driver next behind might say in the momentary bitterness of his heart. In the two-fifths of a second of grace at his disposal Mr Carrados’s chauffeur had done all that was possible and the bunt that his radiator gave the stair-guard of the London General in front was insignificant. Then a Railway Express Delivery skated on its dead weight into his luggage platform and a Pickford, turning adroitly out of the mêlée, slewed a stationary Gearless round by its hand-rail stanchion to spread terror among the other line of traffic.

The most unconcerned person, to all appearance, was the driver of the London General, the vehicle whose sudden stoppage had initiated the riot of confusion. He had seen a man, engrossed to the absolute exclusion of his surroundings by something that took his eye on the opposite footpath, dash into the road and then, brought up suddenly by a realisation of his position, attempt to retrace his steps. He had pulled up so expertly that the man escaped, so smoothly that not a passenger was jarred, and now he sat with a dazed and vacant expression on his face, leaning forward on his steering wheel, while caustic inquiry and retort winged unheeded up and down the line behind him.

It was not until the indispensable ceremony of everyone taking everyone else’s name and number had been observed under the authority of the tutelary constable that the single occupant of the private car stirred to show any interest in the proceedings.

“Parkinson,” he called quietly, summoning his attendant to the window. “Ask Mr Tulloch if he will come round here when he has finished with the policeman.”

“Mr Tulloch, sir?”

“Yes; you remember Dr Tulloch of Netherhempsfield? He is on in front there.”

A moment later Jim Tulloch, as genial as of old, but his exuberance temporarily damped by the cross-bickering in which he had just been involved, thrust his head and arm through the sash.

“Lord, lord, it really is you then, Wynn, old man?” he cried. “When your Parkinson came up I couldn’t believe it for a minute, simply couldn’t believe it. The world grows smaller, I declare.”

“At all events this car does,” responded Carrados, wringing the hearty, outstretched hand. “They’ve got us two inches less than the makers ever intended. Is it really your doing, Jim?”

“Did ever you hear such a thing?” protested Tulloch. “And yet that wall-eyed atrocity yonder has kidded the copper that if he hadn’t stopped dead--well, I should.”

“Was it a near thing?” asked Carrados confidentially.

“Well, strictly between ourselves, I don’t mind admitting that it might have been something of a shave,” confessed Tulloch, with a cheerful grin. “But, lord bless you, Wynn, the streets of London are paved with ’em nowadays, paved with them. You don’t merely take your life in your hands if you want to get about; you carry it on each foot.”

“Look here,” said Carrados. “You never let me know that you were up in town, Tulloch. What are you doing to-day?”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” interrupted Parkinson’s respectful voice, “but the policeman wishes to speak with you, sir.”

“With me?” queried Tulloch restlessly. “Oh, good lord! have we to go into all that again?”

“It’s only the bus-driver, sir,” apologised the constable with the tactful deference that the circumstances seemed to demand. “As you are a doctor--I think there’s something the matter with him.”

“I’m sure there is,” assented Tulloch. “All right, I’m coming. Are you in a hurry, Wynn?”

“I’ll wait,” was the reply.

The doctor found his patient propped up on a doorstep. Having, as he expressed it afterwards, “run the rule over him,” he prescribed a glass of water and an hour’s rest. The man was shaken, that was all.

“Nerves, Wynn,” he announced when he returned to his friend. “I don’t quite understand his emotion, but the shock of not having run over me seems to have upset the poor fellow.”

“I was asking you whether you were doing anything to-day,” said Carrados. “Can you come back with me to Richmond?”

“I’m not doing anything as far as that goes,” admitted Tulloch. “In fact,” he added ruefully, “that’s the plague of it. I’m waiting to hear from a man who’s waiting to hear from another man, and _he’s_ depending on something that may or mayn’t, you understand.”

“Then you can come along now anyway. Get in.”

“If it’s dinner you mean, I can’t come straight away, you know,” protested Tulloch. “Look at me togs”--he stood back to display a serviceable Norfolk suit--“all right for the six-thirty sharp of a Bloomsbury boarding-house, but--eh, what?”

“Don’t be an ass, Jim,” said the blind man amiably. “I can’t see your silly togs.”

“No ladies or any of your tony friends?”

“Not a soul.”

“The fact is,” confided Tulloch, taking his place in the car, “I’ve been out of things for a bit, Wynn, and I’m finding civilisation a shade cast-iron now. I’ve been down in the wilds since you were with me.”

“I wondered where you were. I wrote to you about six months ago and the letter came back.”

“Did it actually? Now that must have been almighty careless of someone, Wynn. I’m sorry; I’m a bit of a rolling stone, I suppose. When Darrish came back to Netherhempsfield my job was done there. I felt uncommonly restless. I hadn’t much chance of buying a practice or dropping into a partnership worth having and I jibbed at setting up in some God-forsaken backwater and slipping into middle age ‘building up a connection.’ Lord, lord, Carrados, the tragic monotony of your elderly professional nonentity! I’ve known men who’ve whispered to me between the pulls at confidential pipes that they’ve come to hate the streets and the houses and the same old everlasting silly faces that they met day after day until they began to think very queer thoughts of how they might get away from it all.”

“Yes,” said Carrados.

“Anyway, ‘Not yet,’ I promised myself, and when I got the chance of a temporary thing on a Red Cable liner I took it like a shot. That was something. If there was a mighty sameness about it after a bit, it wasn’t the sameness I’d been accustomed to. Then, as luck of one sort or another would have it, I got laid out with a broken ankle on a Bombay quay.”

Carrados voiced commiseration.

“But you made a very good mend of it,” he said. “It’s the left, of course. I don’t suppose anyone ever notices it.”

“I took care of that,” replied Tulloch. “But it was a slow business and threw all my plans out. I was on a very loose end when one day, outside the Secretariat, as they call it, I ran up against a man called Fraser whom I’d known building a viaduct or something of that sort in the Black Country.

“‘What on earth are _you_ doing here?’ we naturally both said at once, and he was the first to reply.

“‘I’m just off to repair an irrigation “bund” a thousand miles more or less away, and I’m looking for a doctor who can speak six words of Hindustani, and doesn’t mind things as they are, to physic the camp. What are you doing?’

“‘Good lord! old man,’ I said, ‘I was looking for you!’”

It only required an occasional word to keep Tulloch going, and Carrados supplied it. He heard much that did not interest him--of the journey inland, of the face of the country, the surprising weather, the great work of irrigation and the other impressive wonders of man and nature. These things could be got from books, but among the weightier cargo Tulloch now and again touched off some inimitable phase of life or told an uninventable anecdote of native character that lived.

Yet the buoyant doctor had something on his mind, for several times he stopped abruptly on the edge of a reminiscence, as though he was doubtful, if not of the matter, at least of the manner in which he should begin. These indications were not lost on his friend, but Carrados made no attempt to press him, being very well assured that sooner or later the ingenuous Jim would find himself beyond retreat. The occasion came with the cigarettes after dinner. There had been a reference to the language.

“I often wished that I was a better stick at it,” said Tulloch. “I’d picked up a bit in Bombay and of course I threw myself into it when Fraser got me the post. I managed pretty well with the coolies in the camp, but when I tried to have a word with the ryots living round--little twopenny ha’penny farmers, you know--I could make no show of it. A lot of queer fish you come across out there, in one way or another, you take my word. You never know whether a man’s a professional saint of extreme holiness or a hereditary body-snatcher whose shadow would make a begging leper consider himself unclean until he had walked seventy miles to drink a cupful of filthy water out of a stinking pond that a pock-marked ascetic had been sitting in for three years in order to contemplate quietly.”

“Possibly he really was unclean--in consequence or otherwise,” suggested Carrados.

“Help!” exclaimed Tulloch tragically. “There are things that have to be seen. But then so was the sanctified image, so that there’s nothing for an outsider to go by. And then all the different little lots with their own particular little heavens and their own one exclusive way of getting there, and their social frills and furbelows--Jats and Jains and Thugs and Mairs and Gonds and Bhills and Toms, Dicks and Harrys--suburban society is nothing to it, Wynn, nothing at all. There was a strange old joker I’ve had in mind to tell you about, though it was no joke for him in the end. God alone knows where he came from, but he was in the camp one evening juggling for stray coppers in a bowl. Pretty good juggling too it seemed to be, of the usual Indian kind--growing a plant out of a pumpkin seed, turning a stick into a live snake, and the old sword and basket trick that every Eastern conjurer keeps up his sleeve; but all done out in the open, with people squatting round and a simplicity of appliance that would have taken all the curl out of one of your music-hall magicians. With him he had a boy, his son, a misshapen, monkey-like anatomy of about ten, but there was no doubt that the man was desperately fond of his unattractive offspring.

“That night this ungainly urchin, taking a cooler in one of the big irrigation canals, got laid hold of by an alligator and raised the most unearthly screech anything human--if he really was human--ever got out. I seemed to have had something prominent to do with the damp job of getting as much of him away from the creature as we could, and old Calico--that’s what we anglicised the juggler’s name into--had some sort of idea of being grateful in consequence. Although I don’t doubt that he’d have put much more faith in a local wizard if one had been available, he let us take the boy into the hospital tent and do what we could for him. It wasn’t much, and I told my assistant to break it to poor old Calico that he must be prepared for the worst. A handy man, that assistant, Wynn. He was a half-bred ‘Portugoose,’ as they say in Bombay, with the name of Vasque d’Almeydo, and I understood that he’d had some training. When we got out there he said that it was all the same to him, but he admitted quite blandly that he was really a cook and nothing more. What about his excellent testimonials? I asked him, and he replied with cheerful impenitence that he had hired them in the open market for one rupee eight, adding feelingly that he would willingly have given twice as much to qualify for my honorable service. In the end he did pretty much as he liked, and as he could speak five languages and scramble through seven dialects I was glad to have him about on any terms. I don’t quite know how he broke it, but when I saw him later he said that Calico was a ‘great dam fool.’ He was a conjurer and knew how tricks were done and yet he had set out at once for some place thirty miles away--to procure a charm of some sort, the Portuguese would swear from a hint he had got. Vasque--of course by this time he’d become Valasquez to us--laughed pleasantly as he commented on native credulity. He was a Roman Catholic himself, so that he could afford it. The next day the boy died and an hour later poor Calico came reeling in. He’d got a nasty cut over the eye and a map of the route drawn over him in thorns and blisters and sand-burns, but he’d got something wrapped away in a bit of rag carried in the left armpit, and I felt for the poor old heathen. When he understood, he borrowed a spade and, taking up the child just as he was, he went off into the pagan solitude to bury him. I’d got used to these simple ways by that time.

“I thought that I’d seen the end of the incident, but late that night I heard the sentry outside challenge someone--we’d had so many tools and things looted by ‘friendlies’ that they’d lent us half a company of Sikhs from Kharikhas--and a moment later Calico was salaaming at the tent door. As it happened, Valasquez was away at a thing they called a village trafficking for some ducks, and I had to grapple with the conversation as best I could--no joke, I may tell you, for the juggler’s grasp on conventional Urdu was about as slender as my own. And the first thing he did was to put his paws on to my astonished feet, then up to his forehead, and to prostrate himself to the ground.

“‘Sahib,’ he protested earnestly, ‘I am thy slave and docile elephant for that which thou hast done for the man-child of my house.’

“Now you know, Carrados, I simply can’t stand that sort of thing. It makes me feel such a colossal ass. So I tried, ungraciously enough I dare swear, to cut him short. But it couldn’t be done. Poor old Calico had come to discharge what weighed on him as a formidable obligation and my ‘Don’t mention it, old chap,’ style was quite out of the picture. Finally, from some obscure fold of his outfit, he produced a little screw of cloth and began to unwrap it.

“‘Take it, O sahib, and treasure it as you would a cup of water in the desert, for it has great virtue of the hidden kind. Condescend to accept it, for it is all I have worthy of so great a burden.’

“‘I couldn’t think of it, Khaligar,’ I said, trying to give his name a romantic twist, for the other sounded like guying him. ‘I’ve done nothing, you know, and in any case this is much more likely to work with you than with me--an unbeliever. What is it, anyway?’

“‘It is the sacred tooth of the ape-god Hanuman and it protects from harm,’ he replied, reverently displaying what looked to me like an old rusty nail. ‘Had I but been able to touch so much as the hem of the garment of my manlet with it before the hour of his outgoing he would assuredly have recovered.’

“‘Then keep it for your own protection,’ I urged. ‘I expect that you run more risks than I do.’

“‘When the flame has been extinguished from a candle the smoke lingers but a moment before it also fades away,’ he replied. ‘Thy mean servant has no wish to live now that the light of his eyes has gone out, nor does he seek to avert by magic that which is written on his forehead.’

“‘Then it is witchcraft?’ I said, pointing to the amulet.

“‘I know not, my lord,’ he answered; ‘but if it be witchcraft it is of the honourable sort and not the goety of Sahitan. For this cause it is only of avail to one who acquires it without treachery or guile. Take it, sahib, but do not suffer it to become known even to those of your own table.’

“‘Why not?’ I asked.

“‘Who should boast of pearls in a camp of armed bandits?’ he replied evasively. ‘A word spoken in a locked closet becomes a beacon on the hill-top for men to see. Yet have no fear; harm cannot come to you, for your hand is free from complicity.’

“I hadn’t wanted the thing before, but that settled me. I very much doubted how the conjurer had got possession of it and I had no wish to be mixed up in an affair of any sort. I told him definitely that while I appreciated his motives I shouldn’t deprive him of so great a treasure. He seemed really concerned, and Fraser told me afterwards that for one of that tribe to be under what he regarded as an unrequited obligation was a dishonour. I should probably have had some trouble to get him off, only just then we heard Valasquez returning. Calico hastily wrapped up the relic, stowed it away among his wardrobe and, with his most ceremonious salaam, disappeared.

“‘Do you know anything about the tooth of the ape-god Hanuman, Valasquez?’ I asked him some time later. The ‘Portugoose’ seemed to know a little about everything and in consequence of my dependence on him he strayed into a rather more free and easy manner than might have passed under other conditions. But I’m not ceremonious, you know, Wynn.”

And Carrados laughed and agreed.

“‘The sacred tooth of Sira Hanuman, sir?’ said Valasquez. ‘Oh, that’s all great tom dam foolery. There are a hundred million of them. The most notable one was worshipped at the Mountain of Adam in Ceylon until it was captured by my ancestor, the illustrious Admiral d’Almeydo, who sent it with much pomp and circumstance to Goa. Then the Princes of Malabar offered a ransom of rupees, forty lakhs, for it, which the Bishop of Goa refused, like a dam great fool!’

“‘What became of it?’ I asked, but Valasquez didn’t know. He was somewhat of a liar, in fact, and I dare say that he’d made it all up to show off his knowledge.”

“No,” objected Carrados; “I think that Baldæus, the Dutch historian, has a similar tale. What happened to Calico?”

“That was the worst of it. Some of our men found his body lying among the tamarisk scrub two days later. There was no doubt that he’d been murdered, and not content with that, the ghouls had mutilated him shamefully afterwards. Even his cheeks were slashed open. So, you see, the tooth of Hanuman had not protected him.”

“No,” assented Carrados, “it had certainly not protected him. Was anything done--anyone arrested?”

“I don’t think so. You know what the natives are in a case like that: no one knows anything, even if they have been looking on at the time. I suppose a report would be sent up, but I never heard anything more. I always had a suspicion that Calico, with his blend of simple faith and gipsy blood, had violated a temple, or looted a shrine, to save his son’s life, and that the guardians of the relic tracked him and revenged the outrage. Anyway, I was glad that I hadn’t accepted it after that, for I had enough excitement without.”

“What was that, Jim?”

“Oh, I don’t know, but I always seemed to be running up against something about that time. Twice my tent was turned inside out in my absence, once my clothes were spirited away while I was bathing, and the night before we broke up the camp I was within an ace of being murdered.”

“You bear a charmed life,” said Carrados suggestively, but Tulloch did not rise to the suggestion.

“It was a bit of luck. Those dacoits are as quiet as death, but for some reason I woke suddenly with the idea that devilment was brewing. I slipped on the first few things that came to hand and went to reconnoitre. As I passed through the canvas I came face to face with a native, and two others were only a few yards behind. Without any ceremony the near man let drive at my throat with one of those beastly wavy daggers they go in for. I suppose I managed to dodge in the fraction of a second, for he missed me. I gave a yell for assistance, landed the leader one in the eye and backed into my tent for a weapon. By the time I was out again our fellows were running up, but the precious trio had disappeared.”

“That was the last you saw of them?” asked Carrados tentatively.

“No, queerly enough. The day I sailed I encountered the one whose eye I had touched up. It was down by the water--the Apollo Bander--at Bombay, and I was so taken aback, never thinking but that the fellow was hundreds of miles away that I did nothing but stare. But I promised myself that in the unlikely event of ever seeing him again I would follow him up pretty sharply.”

“Not under the wheels of a London General again, I hope!”

Tulloch’s brown fist came down upon the table with a crash.

“The devil, Carrados!” he exclaimed. “How did you know?”

“Parkinson was just describing to me a rather exotic figure. Then the rest followed.”

“Well you were right. There was the man in Holborn, and of all the fantastic things in the world for a bloodthirsty thug from the back wilds of Hindustan, I believe that he was selling picture post cards!”

“Possibly a very natural thing to be doing in the circumstances.”

“What circumstances, Wynn?”

“Those you are telling me of. Go on.”

“That’s about all there is. When I saw the man I was so excited, I suppose, that I started to dash across without another thought. You know the result. Of course he had vanished by the time I could look round.”

“You are quite sure he is the same?”

“There’s always the possibility of a mistake, I admit,” considered Tulloch, “but, speaking in ordinary terms, I should say that it’s a moral certainty. On the first occasion it was bright moonlight and the sensational attack left a very vivid photograph on my mind. In Bombay I had no suspicion of doubt about the man, and he was still carrying traces of my fist. Here, it is true, I had less chance of observing him, but recognition was equally instantaneous and complete. Then consider that each time he has slipped away at once. No, I am not mistaken. What is he after, Carrados?”

“I am very much afraid that he is after you, my friend,” replied Carrados, with some concern lurking behind the half-amused level of his voice.

“After me!” exclaimed Tulloch with righteous indignation. “Why, confound his nerve, Wynn, it ought to be the other way about. What’s he after me for?”

“India is a conservative land. The gods do not change. A relic that was apprised at seven hundred thousand ducats in the days of Queen Elizabeth is worth following up to-day--apart, of course, from the merit thereby acquired by a devotee.”

“You mean that Calico’s charm was the real original thing that Valasquez spoke of?”

“It is quite possible; or it may be claimed for it even if it is not. Goa has passed through many vicissitudes; its churches and palaces are now in ruins. What is more credible----”

“But in any case I haven’t got the thing. Surely the old ass needn’t murder me to find out that.”

The face he appealed to betrayed nothing of the thoughts behind it. But Carrados’s mind was busy with every detail of the story he had heard, and the more he looked into it the less he felt at ease for his impetuous friend’s safety.

“On the contrary,” he replied, “from the pious believer’s point of view, the simplest and most effective way of ascertaining it was to try to murder you, and your providential escape has only convinced them that you are now the holder of the charm.”

“The deuce!” said Tulloch ruefully. “Then I have dropped into an imbroglio after all. What’s to be done?”

“I wonder,” mused the blind man speculatively, “I wonder what really became of the thing.”

“You mean after Calico’s death?”

“No, before that. I don’t imagine that your entertaining friend had it at the end. He had nothing to look forward to, you remember; he did not wish to live. His assassins were those who were concerned in the recovery of the relic, for why else was he mutilated but in order to discover whether he had concealed it with more than superficial craft--perhaps even swallowed it? They found nothing or you would not have engaged their attention. As it was, they were baffled and had to investigate further. Then they doubtless learned that you had put this man under an undying obligation, possibly they even knew that he had visited you the last thing before he left the camp. The rest has been the natural sequence.”

“It seems likely enough in an incredible sort of way,” admitted the doctor. “But I don’t see why this old sport should be occupying himself as he is in the streets of London.”

“That remains to be looked into. It may be some propitiatory form of self-abasement that is so potent in the Oriental system. But it may equally well be something quite different. If this man is of high priestly authority there are hundreds of his co-religionists here at hand whose lives he could command in such a service. He may be in communication with some, or be contriving to make himself readily accessible. Are there any Indians at your boarding-house?”

“I have certainly seen a couple recently.”

“Recently! Then they came after you did?”

“I don’t know about that. I haven’t had much to do with the place.”

“I don’t like it, Jim,” said Carrados, with more gravity than he was accustomed to put into the consideration of his own risks. “I don’t like the hang of it at all.”

“Well, for that matter, I’m not exactly pining for trouble,” replied his friend. “But I can take care of myself anyway.”

“But you can’t,” retorted Carrados. “That’s just the danger. If you were blind it would be all right, but your credulous, self-opinionated eyes will land you in some mess.... To-morrow, at all events, Carlyle shall put a watch on this enterprising Hindu and we shall at least find out what his movements are.”

Tulloch would have declined the attention, but Carrados was insistent.

“You must let me have my way in such an emergency, Tulloch,” he declared. “Of course you would say that it’s out of your power to prevent me, but among friends like you and I one acquiesces to a certain code. I say this because I may even find it necessary to put a man on you as well. This business attracts me resistlessly. There’s something more in it than we have got at yet, something that lies beyond the senses and strives to communicate itself through the unknown dimension that we have all stood just upon the threshold of, only to find that we have lost the key. It’s more elusive than Macbeth’s dagger: ‘I have thee not and yet I see thee still’--always just out of reach. What is it, Jim; can’t you help us? Don’t you feel something portentous in the air, or is it only my blind eyes that can see beyond?”

“Not a bit of it,” laughed Tulloch cheerfully. “I only feel that a blighted old heathen is leading himself a rotten dance through his pig-headed obstinacy. Well, Wynn, why can’t he be rounded up and have it explained that he’s on the wrong tack? I don’t mind crying quits. I did get in a sweet one on the eye, and he’s had a long journey for nothing. Eh, what?”

“He would not believe.” Carrados was pacing the room in one of his rare periods of mental tension. Instinct, judgment, experience and a subtler prescience that enveloped reason seemed at variance in his mind. Then he swung round and faced his visitor.

“Look here, Tulloch, stay with me for the present,” he urged. “You can go there for your things to-morrow and I can fix you up in the meantime. It’s safer; I feel it will be safer.”

“Safer! Good lord! what could you have safer than a stodgy second-rate boarding-house in Hapsburg Square? The place drones respectability. Miss Vole, the landlady, is related to an archdeacon and nearly all the people there are on half-pay. The two Indians are tame baboos. Besides, if I get this thing I told you of, I shall be off to South America in a few days, and that ought to shake off this old man of the tooth.”

“Of course it won’t; nothing will shake him off if he’s made the vow. Well, have your own way. One can’t expect a doctor of robust habit to take any reasonable precautions, I know. How is your room situated?”

“Pretty high up. Next to the attics, I imagine. It must be, because there is a little trap-door in the ceiling leading there.”

“A trap-door leading to the attics! Well, at all events there can’t be an oubliette, I suppose? Nor a four-post bed with a canopy that slides up and down, Jim; nor a revolving wardrobe before a secret passage in the oak panels?”

“Get on with you,” retorted Tulloch. “It’s just the ordinary contrivance that you find somewhere in every roof when the attics aren’t made into rooms. There’s nothing in it.”

“Possibly; but there may be some time. Anyway, drive a tack in and hang up a tin can or something that must clatter down if the door is raised an inch. You have a weapon, I suppose?”

“Now you’re talking, Wynn. I do put some faith in that. I have a grand little revolver in my bag and I can sleep like a feather when I want.”

“Little? What size does it take?”

“Oh, well, it’s a .320, if it comes to that. I prefer a moderate bore myself.”

Carrados opened a drawer of his desk and picked up half-a-dozen brass cartridges.

“When you get back, throw out the old ones and reload with these to oblige me,” he said. “Don’t forget.”

“Right,” assented Tulloch, examining them with interest; “but they look just like mine. What are they?--something new?”

“Not at all; but we know that they are charged and you can rely on them going off if they are fired.”

“What a chap you are,” declared Tulloch with something of the admiring pity that summed up the general attitude towards Max Carrados. “Well, for that matter, I must be going off myself, old man. I’m hoping for a letter about that little job and if it comes I want to answer it to-night. You’ve given me a fine time and we’ve had a great talk.”

“I’m glad we met. And if you go away suddenly don’t leave it to chance the next time you are back.” He did not seek to detain his guest, for he knew that Tulloch was building somewhat on the South American appointment. “Shall Harris run you home?”

“Not a bit of it. I’ll enjoy a walk to the station, and these Tubes of yours’ll land me within me loose-box by eleven. It’s a fine place, this London, after all.”

They had reached the front door, opened it and were standing for a moment looking towards the yellow cloud that arched the west end of the city like the mirage of a dawn.

“Well, good-bye, old man,” said Tulloch heartily, and they shook hands. At the touch an extraordinary impulse swept over Carrados to drag his friend back into the house, to implore him to remain the night at all events, or to do something to upset the arranged order of things for the next few hours. With the cessation of physical contact the vehemence of the possession dwindled away, but the experience, short as it was, left him white and shaken. He could not trust himself to speak; he waved his hand and, turning quickly, went back to the room where they had sat together to analyse the situation and to determine how to act. Presently he rang for his man.

“Some notes were taken after that little touch in Holborn this afternoon, Parkinson,” he said. “Have you the address of the leading motor-bus driver among them?”

“The London General, sir?”

“Yes; the man who was the first to stop.”

Parkinson produced his memorandum book and referred to the latest of its entries.

“He gave his private residence as 14 Cogg’s Lane, Brentford, sir.”

“Brentford! That is fortunate. I am going to see him to-night if possible. You will come with me, Parkinson. Tell Harris to get out the car that is the most convenient. What is the time?”

“Ten-seventeen, sir.”

“We will start in fifteen minutes. In the meanwhile just reach me down that large book labelled ‘Xavier’ from the top shelf there.”

“Yes, sir. Very well, sir. I will convey your instructions to Harris, sir.”

It was perhaps rather late for a casual evening call, but not, apparently, too late for Cogg’s Lane, Brentford. Mr Fitzwilliam--Parkinson had infused a faint note of protest into his voice when he mentioned the bus-driver’s name--Mr Fitzwilliam was out, but Mrs Fitzwilliam received the visitor with conspicuous felicity and explained the circumstances. Fitzwilliam was of a genial, even playful, disposition, but he had come home brooding and depressed. Mrs Fitzwilliam had not taken any notice of it--she put it down to his feet--but by cajolery and innuendo she had persuaded him to go to the picture palace to be cheered up, and as it was now on the turn of eleven he might be expected back at any moment. In the meantime the lady had a favourite niece who was suffering--as the doctor himself confessed--from a very severe and unusual form of adenoids. Carrados disclosed the fact that the subject of adenoids was one that interested him deeply. He knew, indeed, of a case that was thought by the patient’s parents to be something out of the way, but even it, he admitted, was commonplace by the side of the favourite niece. The minutes winged.

“That’s Fred,” said Mrs Fitzwilliam as the iron gate beyond the little plot of beaten earth that had once been a garden gave its individual note. “Seems strange that they should be so ignorant at a hospital, doesn’t it?”

“Hallo, what now?” demanded Mr Fitzwilliam, entering.