"There is indeed something wrong," I answered. "Come inside and let me tell you. I hurried back on purpose to let you know at once."
"I am obliged to you," he said. "Now come inside. Your face frightens me. I fear bad news."
"It is not good news I have to tell you, I'm afraid," I replied. "But still, if we're sharp, we may be able to remedy the mischief before it's too late. First and foremost you must understand that this morning I called upon an old friend who lives here, one of the sharpest men in the East, if not the very sharpest. He's a man who knows everything; who would in all probability be able to tell you why that Russian cruiser, which was due in Hong Kong last Friday, at the last moment put back to Vladivostock, though she did not require coal, and had nothing whatever the matter with her. Or he will tell you, as he did me, the reasons which induced a certain English jewel merchant to hasten to Colombo from Madras, and then come on to Java in company with a man named Christopher Collon."
"Do you mean to say that our business here is known to people?" he cried in alarm. "In that case we are ruined."
"Not quite, I think," I answered; and then with a little boastfulness which I could not help displaying, I added, "In the first place it is not known to people. Only to one person. In the second, Maalthaas may play fast and loose with a good many folk, but he dares not do so with me. I carry too many guns for him, and we are too useful to each other to endeavour in any way to spoil each other's games. But for him I should never have known what has happened now until it would have been too late to remedy it."
"But you have not yet told me what has happened," said Mr. Leversidge in an aggrieved tone.
"Well, the fact of the matter is," I said, "while we have been congratulating ourselves on our sharpness, we have very nearly been forestalled in what we intended doing. In other words, we are not so early in the field as we thought we were."
"What do you mean? Not so early in the field. Do you mean to tell me there is some one else trying to do what we are going to do? That some one else is setting off for the wreck?"
"I do," I answered, with a nod of the head. "You have just hit it. A schooner left Tanjong Priok yesterday with a diver aboard, and as far as I can gather—and there seems to be no doubt about the matter—she was bound for the wreck."
"Do you mean a Government vessel? Surely she must have been sent by the authorities?"