“Well, I call that handsome. One could not want more, and you can rely on it that Tring will jump at the offer. He has not been able to get a fight on lately, and he is rather in low water.”
“Well, you will both get up as quiet traders. I don't know what other passengers there may be, but I don't want them to know that you belong to the fancy.”
“I twig, sir. We will get up quiet like.”
“Then I want you tomorrow morning, Gibbons, to go down to Holmes & Moore, No. 67 Tower Street, and take two first class tickets to Amsterdam on board the Essex, which sails on Saturday. I don't know what the passage money will be, but this is sure to be enough; and we can settle accounts afterwards. You will find out what time of day she will start.”
“All right, governor. I suppose you will be here again before that?”
“No, I don't suppose I shall, unless there is some change in the arrangements. If for any reasons Tring cannot go with you, you will get somebody else instead. You are sure that you quite understand your instructions? Here is the name and address of the people in Tower Street.”
“All right, sir. You may make sure that when you go down to the ship you will see the two of us on board.”
It needed but a few minutes at Bow Street to inform the chief of the arrangements that had been made.
“I have told off Chester and Malcolm; one of them shall go down and take their tickets. Of course, they will take their passages in the fore cabin, as the danger, if there is danger, may come from there, and you will have your other two men with you aft. I fancy myself that there is hardly any chance of your being in any way troubled while on board. It will be considered that there will be a vastly greater chance of carrying out any plan they may have formed at Amsterdam than there would be on board a ship; you see, if there were any struggle whatever on board there would be no escape for them.
“For myself, of course I cannot give any opinion worth having in a matter so different from anything we have to do with here, and I should have unhesitatingly scoffed at the idea of anyone watching the movements of people for a long number of years in order to obtain the possession of jewels, however valuable. However, your uncle was well acquainted with the habits of Hindoos, and was not a man to be lightly alarmed; you yourself, after your year with us, should not be deceived in such a matter as being yourself followed; under these circumstances you are quite right to take every precaution, and as you pay well for the services of our two men, even if I had no belief whatever in the existence of danger to you, I should not feel justified in refusing to let you have them.”