CHAPTER XXII
The man had come in noiselessly, carrying a centerpiece for the dinner table, a silver elephant very beautiful in its workmanship, the howdah filled with fresh flowers—delicate filmy orchids, radiant and deep carnations and odorous violets. He put it down and turned to go, as he had come, but it was then that Crespin had seen, and Traherne had heard.
“Hullo!” Crespin hailed him. “Hullo! What’s your name? Just come here a minute, will you?”
“Meaning me, sir?” Watkins advanced a few steps, with a touch of covert insolence in manner and voice, his nervousness of an hour ago seemingly gone.
“Yes, you, Mr.—? Mr.—?” Crespin said, involuntarily speaking in his turn with a touch of contempt.
“Watkins is my name, sir,” the man told him.
“Right-o, Watkins.” Far wiser to be as hail-fellow as one could contrivably stomach with a fellow so near the person and the ear of the autocrat upon whom one’s fate actually depended. And after all this chap was English—the letter H was his hall-mark for that—not much English, but English, the only being of their own island-race within impassable miles of them probably. That counted for something! It always does in the wilds. “Can you tell us where we are, Watkins?”
“They calls the place Rukh, sir.”
Traherne, listening and watching, knew that the man was not to be drawn.
But Crespin persisted, “Yes, yes, we know that. But where is Rukh?”
“I understand these mountains is called the ’Imalayas, sir,” Watkins replied in a tone that said clearly that he merely passed on a rumor he’d heard, and in no way vouched for it.
“Damn it, sir, we don’t want a lesson in geography!” the Major snapped.
“No, sir?” Watkins seemed surprised, then added apologetically, “My mistake, sir,” but the insolence still lurked in the voice and manner.
“Major Crespin means that we want to know,” Traherne intervened, “how far we are from the nearest point in India.”
“I really couldn’t say, sir.” Well, Traherne had not expected that he would. “Not so very far, I dessay, as the crow flies.”
“Unfortunately we’re not in a position to fly with the crow,” Traherne retorted. “How long does the journey take?” He had no idea that Watkins knowingly would admit anything useful, but there was always the chance that the better and finer trained intelligence might trap the boorish and feebler.
“They tell me it takes about three weeks to Cashmere,” the valet said indifferently.
“They tell you!” Crespin almost snarled. “Surely you must remember how long it took you?”
“No, sir,” Watkins spoke meekly now, but something far from meekness lurked in his shifty eyes. “Excuse me, sir—I’ve never been in India.”
“Not been in India?” Crespin was openly incredulous. And he added, “I was just thinking, as I looked at you, that I seemed to have seen you before.”
“Not in India,” Watkins said quickly—too quickly, Dr. Traherne thought. “We might ’ave met in England, but I don’t call to mind having that pleasure.”
Crespin was too angry at that impertinence to allow himself to notice it, and only said, “But, if you haven’t been in India, how the hell did you get here?”
“I came with ’Is ’Ighness, sir, by way of Tashkent,” Watkins explained glibly—but Traherne thought that he said it anxiously too. “All our dealings with Europe is by way of Russia.”
“I daresay,” Crespin grunted, not too wisely.
“But it’s possible to get to India direct,” Traherne broke in, “and not by way of central Asia?”
“Oh, yes, it’s done, sir,” Watkins admitted; “but I’m told there are some very tight places to negotiate—like the camel and the needle’s eye, as you might say.”
“Difficult traveling for a lady, eh?” Traherne asked it, knowing the answer, but he wished to keep the man talking, on the chance of even one useful word that might be let slip; and he thought the prompting safer in his hands than in Crespin’s.
“Next door to himpossible, I should guess, sir,” the man said promptly.
Crespin groaned. “A nice lookout, Traherne!” Then he turned to Watkins, with, “Tell me, my man—is His Highness—h’m—married?”
Watkins permitted himself a respectful smile. “Oh, yessir—very much so, sir.”
“Children?”
“He has fifteen sons, sir.”
“The daughters don’t count, eh?” Crespin demanded.
“I’ve never ’ad a hopportunity of counting ’em, sir,” Watkins said as if gently correcting a not too excusable ignorance.
“He said,” Traherne slipped in, “the men accused of assassinating a political officer were his brothers—”
“Did ’e say that, sir?” the man asked quickly—evidently he was startled out of his well-trained impersonality. Clearly Watkins was excited.
“Didn’t you hear him? What did he mean?” Traherne said it carefully, not as if too much interested, watching Watkins narrowly though, and pressing swiftly into the possible opening.
But Watkins had remembered himself. “I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir,” he said colorlessly, permitting himself the slightest shrug. “’Is ’Ighness is what you’d call a very playful gentleman, sir.”
“But,” Traherne insisted, “I don’t see the joke in saying that.”
“No, sir?” the servant replied respectfully. “’P’raps ’Is ’Ighness’ll explain, sir,” he added significantly.
Dr. Traherne accepted the hint, and turned away his eyes and attention, giving them both again to the door.
There was a pause—the English “sahibs” busy each with his own thoughts, the English servant still, and patiently waiting, apparently interested in nothing on earth, and, if occupied or busy, entirely so with his own vacuity. As a matter of fact, Watkins gladly would have beat a soft-footed retreat, but he had had his orders, and he would obey them. For Watkins, as he had more than hinted in the courtyard of the Green Goddess’ temple, knew who buttered his bread, and knew acutely how sharp and sure the knife was by means of which that butter was spread.
Crespin broke the pause. Something the Raja of Rukh had said, down there by the temple, scarcely had struck him at the moment, but he had remembered it persistently, and the more he’d thought of it the more it had rankled, and he had been chewing it over in an impotent way ever since. He went at it now, “Your master spoke of visits from European ladies—do they come from Russia?” he questioned.
“From various parts, I understand, sir,” the man replied discreetly, but added tonelessly, “Mostly from Paris,” but an eye twitched slightly, as if it might under easier circumstances have winked not unlasciviously.
“Any here now?” Crespin asked roughly—and there was a rough lump in his throat—and Traherne knotted his hands, and went a stride nearer the door.
“I really couldn’t say, sir,” was all Watkins would own.
“They don’t dine with His Highness?” Traherne asked crisply.
“Oh, no, sir,” the valet assured him, adding, “’Is ’Ighness sometimes sups with them.”
“And my wife—Mrs. Crespin—?” Crespin began miserably—asking it because he was tortured indeed, and after all this bounder was British too.
“Make your mind easy, sir,” Watkins told him staunchly, speaking with a genuine something of kindness and more respectfully than he had before—perhaps because after all he was, or at least had been, British—“the lady won’t meet any hundesirable characters, sir. I give,” he added a touch pompously, “strict orders to the—female what took charge of the lady.”
“She is to be trusted?” Traherne swung round as he spoke.
“Habsolutely, sir,” the man said proudly, with a bow. “She is—in a manner of speakin’—my wife, sir.”
“Mrs. Watkins, eh?” Crespin exclaimed, a little amused in spite of his growing anxiety. Thomas Atkins never did that. But apparently Watkins had. “Mrs. Watkins!”
“Yessir,” Watkins admitted, “I suppose you would say so.”
Traherne was neither amused by them nor interested in Watkins’ matrimonial ventures—church-blessed or nominal—and he had no idea whether the fellow was telling the truth or not. But he spoke to him again, “But now look here, Watkins,” he began, “you say we’re three weeks away from Cashmere—yet the Raja knew of the sentence passed on these subjects of his, who were tried only three days ago. How do you account for that?”
“I can’t, sir,” the man said stolidly. “All I can say is, there’s queer things goes on here.”
“Queer things?” Traherne asked quickly—he was drawing the sleek valet at last!—“What do you mean?”
“Well, sir,” came the slow, provoking answer, “them priests you know—they goes in a lot for what ’Is ’Ighness calls magic—”
“Oh, come, Watkins—you don’t believe in that!” Dr. Traherne jibed impatiently, with an oath just behind his lips.
“Well, sir, p’raps not,” the English valet said slyly. “I don’t, not to say believe in it. But there’s queer things goes on. I can’t say no more, nor I can’t say no less. If you’ll excuse me, sir, I must just run my eye over the dinner table. ’Is ’Ighness will be here directly.”
Clearly there was no more to be pulled out of Watkins. And they waited in moody silence, while he touched the table arrangements here and there, and then noiselessly left the room.
Then, “That fellow’s either a cunning rascal or a damned fool,” Crespin muttered. “Which do you think?”
“I don’t believe he’s the fool he’d like us to take him for.” Then as if some endurance had snapped, Traherne flung towards the door.
“I say,” Crespin halted him, “where are you going?”
“I’m going to find her!” Traherne said roughly.
Crespin rose to his feet. “Sit down!” he ordered. “That’s up to me—if I think it either necessary or wise; which I don’t! It’s not up to you!”
“It’s up to a man!” Basil Traherne said hotly, with a level look in Crespin’s eyes.
“Come back!” Antony Crespin commanded. “You—”
A moment more and they would have grappled it out there, grappling each other’s throats.
But the door opened softly, and the woman they loved came into the room.