Hafid stepped noiselessly across the floor with a telegram on a salver. Frobisher read it without the slightest sign of annoyance.
"The Shan is not coming," he said. "Koordstan is indisposed."
"So I gathered when I called professionally this afternoon," Dr. Brownsmith said dryly.
"Champagne," Frobisher laughed whole-heartedly. "All right, Sir James. I won't question you too far. So white is not going to mate in three moves this evening, Lefroy?"
Lefroy shrugged his shoulders carelessly. The Shan of Koordstan was safe for the present. He had seen to that. Manfred had dropped quietly into a chair with just the suggestion of pain on his face. A smooth-voiced butler announced that dinner was served.
"Where does Frobisher get his servants from, Jessop?" Sir James Brownsmith asked the judge, as the two strolled across the hall together. "Now there's a model of a butler for you. His voice has a flavour of old, nutty sherry about it. By Jove, what are those flowers?"
There were flowers everywhere, mostly arranged by Frobisher himself. In the centre was a rough handful of green twigs bound together with a silver cord, and the whole surmounted by a coil of the pinky-white orchid with its fringe of trembling red moths.
"Orchids," said the politician. "Something fresh, Frobisher? What do you call it?"
"The specimen is not named at present," Lefroy said meaningly.
Frobisher glanced at the speaker and smiled.