"Never mind," said H.M. darkly. He turned back to the telephone again. "Oi! Operator! Operator? Gimme Cheltenham double four, double four. That's right… So. Line's engaged." He banged back the receiver. "I wonder what that young feller's doin' now?"
Courtney himself would not have been pleased with this question. What he had been doing, up to a few minutes of that call, was sitting in Major Adams's library and listening to a long lecture on India.
It was being delivered by the major himself. And, since it was the second long lecture on India to which he had listened recently, he had grown a trifle fed up.
He preserved a Chesterfieldian politeness. Aside from his first visit to the house, he had not since set eyes on his host, whose habit was to play golf all day and bridge most of the night. But, in the absence of H.M., the major was now laying himself out to be agreeable.
The rain sluiced down. H.M. was an hour and ten minutes late. Courtney, having brought no raincoat to Cheltenham, had been imperfectly protected on the journey out by an umbrella he borrowed from the hall-porter at The Plough. His shoes and trouser-legs were soaking. Worse than this were the twinges of disquiet he experienced as the hour grew later.
"Rather odd experience, what?" inquired the major, comfortably pulling at a cheroot. "I'll tell you an odder. At Poona, in nineteen-o-nine…"
Out in the hall, the telephone rang.
Courtney jumped up.
"That's probably for me," he said. "You don't mind if I answer it?"
"My dear chap!" said the major. "Dammit. Not at all. Do."