“Do you go to Borneo every year?” asked Michael.
“I go almost every year,” said the other. “I’ve got a yacht: she’s lying at Southampton now. If I didn’t get out of this cursed country once a year, I’d go mad. There’s nothing here, nothing! Have you ever met that dithering old fool, Longvale? Knebworth said you were going on to him—pompous old ass, who lives in the past and dresses like an advertisement for somebody’s whisky. Have another?”
“I haven’t finished this yet,” said Michael with a smile, and his eyes went up to the sword above the mantelpiece. “Have you had that very long? It looks modern.”
“It isn’t,” snapped the other. “Modern! It’s three hundred years old if it’s a day. I’ve only had it a year.” Again he changed the subject abruptly. “I like you, What’s-your-name. I like people or I dislike them instantly. You’re the sort of fellow who’d do well in the East. I’ve made two millions there. The East is full of wonder, full of unbelievable things.” He screwed his head round and fixed Michael with a glittering eye. “Full of good servants,” he said slowly. “Would you like to meet the perfect servant?”
There was something peculiar in his tone, and Michael nodded.
“Would you like to see the slave who never asks questions and never disobeys, who has no love but love of me”—he thumped himself on the chest—“no hate but for the people I hate—my trusty—Bhag?”
He rose, and, crossing to his table, turned a little switch that Michael had noticed attached to the side of the desk. As he did so, a part of the panelled wall at the farther end of the room swung open. For a second Michael saw nothing, and then there emerged, blinking into the daylight, a most sinister, a most terrifying figure. And Michael Brixan had need for all his self-control to check the exclamation that rose to his lips.
CHAPTER VIII
BHAG
It was a great orang-outang. Crouched as it was, gazing malignantly upon the visitor with its bead-like eyes, it stood over six feet in height. The hairy chest was enormous; the arms that almost touched the floor were as thick as an average man’s thigh. It wore, a pair of workman’s dark blue overalls, held in place by two straps that crossed the broad shoulders.
“Bhag!” called Sir Gregory in a voice so soft that Michael could not believe it was the man’s own. “Come here.”