“All the same, Max, I don’t think that you have treated me quite fairly,” protested Carlyle, getting over his first surprise and passing to a sense of injury. “Here we are and I know nothing, absolutely nothing, of the whole affair.”
“We both have our ideas of pleasantry, Louis,” replied Carrados genially. “But I dare say you are right and perhaps there is still time to atone.” In the fewest possible words he outlined the course of his investigations. “And now you know all that is to be known until Drishna arrives.”
“But will he come?” questioned Carlyle doubtfully. “He may be suspicious.”
“Yes, he will be suspicious.”
“Then he will not come.”
“On the contrary, Louis, he will come because my letter will make him suspicious. He is coming; otherwise Parkinson would have telephoned me at once and we should have had to take other measures.”
“What did you say, Max?” asked Carlyle curiously.
“I wrote that I was anxious to discuss an Indo-Scythian inscription with him, and sent my car in the hope that he would be able to oblige me.”
“But is he interested in Indo-Scythian inscriptions?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” admitted Carrados, and Mr Carlyle was throwing up his hands in despair when the sound of a motor car wheels softly kissing the gravel surface of the drive outside brought him to his feet.