"But what could I do?" the man called Reggie protested. "Never was so cruel a piece of bad luck in the history of war. Who should come down but Langford?"

"But you were so carefully disguised that Langford could not possibly have known you," the woman said.

"I admit it. I positively had forgotten the fact for the moment. The sight of Langford was such a shock to me. On the spur of the moment I made my excuses and departed."

"Leaving the little girl uneasy and suspicious," said the woman, "so that she came up to her room where I was and walked off with the gems. I was very near to taking her by the throat and half strangling her. But there were greater issues at stake and I had to restrain my feelings. I had to smile and nod and play my part whilst the little lady was sending the jewels off to the safe custody of the hotel clerk. I could have danced with fury, I could have wept with rage. But what was the good?"

The Rajah swore roundly and pa.s.sionately. He could be seen from the drawing-room, striding about the place and muttering as he went.

"It is more than unfortunate," he said. "If we could have got hold of those jewels we should have had a fortune in our grasp. We were quite justified in robbing Richford, who only serves me for his own ends. He is a bully and a coward and he must pay the price. He says that he has no ready money, that his affairs are more desperate than we imagine. And yet he could find the cash to buy those diamonds."

"They always mean cash," the woman said. "It is a good thing for the wife of a speculator to be in possession of a lot of fine diamonds. It would have been a precious good thing for us, too, if Reggie had not lost his nerve last night."

"Have you any idea who those people are?" asked Berrington of his companion.

"Not personally," Field replied, "but I have a pretty shrewd idea. It is very good of them to come here, just as nature made them, and without disguises. Surely you know what they are talking about? The discussion is over Mrs. Richford's diamonds which she nearly lost, as she told me.

Unless I am greatly mistaken, we are listening to a confession of the way in which that robbery had been planned. Stripped of their very clever disguises, these two people yonder are no other than Countess de la Moray and General Gastang."

Berrington nodded, wondering why he had not found them out before. From the dining-room came the sound of a match, as the Rajah lighted another cigar.

"We shall have to go back to our original scheme," he was saying. "There was never anything better. We must get the other man into this. He must be frightened. Send him the salt."

There was another rattle of the latchkey, and the watchers were not in the least surprised to see Richford come in, with the air of a man who is quite at home. He was looking white and anxious and a little annoyed as he took off his coat and entered the dining-room. Unhappily he closed the door behind him, so that no more conversation could be heard.

"That's unlucky," Field said in a vexed tone. "What does that salt allusion mean? You recollect telling me that Richford was frightened by finding that salt on his plate?"

"It's a kind of Indian dodge," Berrington proceeded to explain. "It has to do with caste and religious observances and all that sort of thing.

Don't be deceived with the idea that you are on the track of an Anarchist society or anything of that kind."

"Is it something more or less on the line of freemasonry, then?" Field asked.

"Well, yes, you can put it that way if you like," Berrington said thoughtfully. "I made a special study of that kind of thing in India, though I only came across the salt fetich a few times. It seemed to me to be more religious than anything else, though in one or two instances it was attended by tragedy. There was a young native prince who was a great friend of mine and he was about to be married to a princess who was as bright and intelligent as himself. She had been educated like himself in Europe, so that they were free from a deal of superst.i.tion and prejudice. The prince was dining at my bungalow one night when I noticed a little bullet of salt on his plate. It was useless to ask him how it got there for one could never have elicited the truth from any of the native servants. My friend got dreadfully pale for a moment, but he turned it off and he thought no more about the matter. But the next day the prince was found dead in his bed; he had shot himself with a revolver."

"And you never got to the bottom of it?" Field asked with pardonable curiosity.

"Never. There are mysteries in India that puzzle us as much as they did in the good old days of John Company. What's that noise?"

There was a sound like the rumble of wheels along the hall, and presently appeared a kind of invalid chair, self-propelled by its occupant, a little man with a pale face and dark eyes. He paused before the dining-room door and rattled the handle.

"Evidently the master of the house," Berrington suggested. "The lame man who can't walk. It was he who sent the message to Richford."

"Sure enough," Field exclaimed. "Must have been in the abduction business. Evidently the same gentleman who was waiting in the black cab outside the _Royal Palace_. Rather a nice looking man, with by no means unpleasant face. Hope they won't shut the door upon him."

Somebody opened the dining-room door at this moment and the lame man steered himself in. Where he had come from was a mystery, as the house had appeared to be quite empty when Berrington and his companion entered it. Clearly the man could not have come from the upper part of the premises, for his physical condition disposed of that suggestion.

"Well, my friends," the newcomer cried gaily, "very glad to see you all safe and sound again. So our little scheme has not been a failure.

Richford, judging from the gloom on your brow, you have not had the luck you desire. You must be content with the knowledge that virtue brings its own reward. And yet if you only knew it you are the most fortunate of men. For your sweet sake we have undertaken difficulties and dangers that----"

"Oh, shut up," Richford growled. "I don't understand what you are driving at. Anybody would think that you were no more than a silly child who had nothing to do but to attend to your flowers and stick your postage stamps in your alb.u.m. And yet----"

"And yet I can give my attention to more serious matters," the cripple said with a sudden stern expression and in a voice that had a metallic ring in it. "You are right. And if you two have eaten and drunk enough we will get to business."

There was a little stir amongst the listeners, the Rajah pitching his cigar into the grate and coming forward eagerly. Evidently something was going to happen.

CHAPTER XVI

Cool and collected as he usually was, even Field was excited now. He crept as near to the drawing room door as he dared, and peeped into the ring of light, eagerly. He popped back hurriedly as the man called Reggie and the Rajah came into the hall and proceeded to enter a room opposite, under the direction of the little cripple. Richford seemed to be vague and irritated.

"What the deuce is the good of all this mystery?" he asked. "Why don't you come to the point, Sartoris? But no, you must always be so infernally close, just as if you were the only one of us who rejoices in the possession of brains."

"Well, so I am," Sartoris said, without the least display of temper.

"You don't delude yourself that you are a person of intellect, surely?

Cunning you have of a low order, the mean, vulgar cunning that enables people to make money in the city. But that is not intellect, my dear friend--intellect is quite another matter. We very nearly landed ourselves in a serious mess because I did not care to trust you too far.

And when we were face to face with that mess, what good were you? What good was anybody besides myself? Where was the brain that schemed out everything and made success certain? True, I had allies upon whom I could depend--Reggie and Cora, for example. But they could have done nothing without me. And now we have the thing in our hands again. Come along, then."

Richford subsided, muttering to himself. From the room opposite came the sound of somebody moving a heavy package of some kind, and presently the man called Reggie and the Rajah appeared shuffling a big case between them. The box sc.r.a.ped over the polished parquet floor, leaving deep scratches as it went; amidst a strained, breathing silence it was pushed into the dining-room. Sartoris watched these proceedings with a curious gleam in his eyes.

"So far, so good," he said. "All we want now is Bentwood. He's very late. Go out and see if you can make anything of him, Reggie. If that fellow has dared to get drunk to-night, I'll give him a lesson that will last him for the rest of his life."

The little man's voice grew harsh and grating. Evidently he was a man that it would be dangerous to trifle with. A curious silence fell over the little group; the whole room grew so still that Field could hear his companion breathing. They were perfectly safe up to now, but if anybody happened to go into the drawing-room for anything, and they were discovered, each knew that his life was not worth a minute's purchase.

Very steadily Sartoris steered his chair to the side of the big case on the floor, and his hands began to fumble with the strings.

The front door opened with a bang that startled everybody, for nerves were strung up to high tension and the least noise came with a startling force. The door burst open, only to be as quietly closed, and a big man, with a red face and small red eyes, reeled across the hall and almost collapsed in a heap on the floor.

"Night," he said unsteadily, "night, all of you. You may say that I've been drinking. Nothing of the kind. The man who says I've been drinking lies. Experiment. Nothing in the world but a lot of experiments which a braver man than I would shrink from. Sartoris, if you say I am drunk, then I say that you are a liar."

"I should be a liar if I agreed with you," Sartoris said. "The whole place reeks of drink."

"So it does," the newcomer said with amiability. "Upon my word, you yourselves seem to be doing remarkably well while I've been working for the good of the community. Give me a bottle of champagne, to begin with.

Poor stuff, champagne, only fit for women. But then, there appears to be nothing else--why----"

The big red-faced man reached his hand out and Sartoris caught him a savage blow on the knuckles. The little man's face was livid with fury, his eyes flashed like electric points.

"Pig, beast, drunken hound," he screamed. "Have you no sense of shame or duty? After to-night I will give you a lesson. After to-night you shall know what it is to play with me."

The man called Bentwood lapsed into sudden dignity.

"Very well," he said. "Have it your own way. When you say that I am drunk you outrage my feelings. You don't seem to understand that you can't get on without me. If I like to snap my fingers in your face you are powerless. But I do nothing of the kind--such is not my nature. Give me a gla.s.s of brandy and I shall be myself again."

Just for a moment Sartoris seemed to be fighting down the rage that consumed him. It was evidently a big struggle, but the mastery came.

"Very well," he said. "I'll do as you want. Wait a moment."

The invalid carriage rolled rapidly across the room and down a long pa.s.sage to the back of the house. When Sartoris came back again he had a gla.s.s in his hand and a cup of black coffee balanced on the chair before him. Bentwood s.n.a.t.c.hed eagerly at the gla.s.s and drained it at a gulp.