"I've reserved rooms at a quiet place beyond the Kashmir Gate," he told her as he helped her into a carriage. "From the terrace outside your room you can look upon the battlements and the river." Then, with another smile, "I can't believe it's you! Why, you're positively beautiful! Lord, it seems a century, a whole century, since I was in Bayou Latouche!"
He removed his topi as they wheeled off and she saw that his hair was shot with gray above the temples. They seemed so absurd, those gray hairs. And how his eyes lighted when he spoke of Bayou Latouche! She realized suddenly, with a tightening of the cords in her throat, that the search for the golden fleece hadn't been all pleasant. In his voice, in his face and manner, was a thirst for home-talk. She understood how he needed her, there in his bungalow in Rangoon.
"Bayou Latouche is just the same," she said, placing her hand upon his. (She spoke with a faintly slurring accent that was unmistakable.) "Except, of course, so many have gone ... the war...." Pause. "I don't believe you've changed a bit, Alan—you're like that last picture you had taken before you left. Mother—how she adored you! If you could have seen the way she looked at that picture! Father, too."
He smiled soberly. She could see her father in certain of his features. A sudden fierce joy of possession ran through her. He was hers, this bronzed brother!
"I'm glad you've come, Dana." This solemnly. "It's been rather lonely out here. You know the climate has a way, once it gets a hold, of sapping up the energy and mummifying a fellow before his time."
Her hand closed tighter about his. "And there hasn't been a girl, Alan?"
He smiled. "You're the only one, Dana.... I was sorry I wasn't in Calcutta when you landed, but this game of sleuthing has its unexpected twists. That's why I like it. Nothing very exciting ever really happens; it's usually humdrum thievery and dacoity. A French rogue put in his appearance in Rangoon about a month or so ago—an international character; only goes in for big loot. Don't know where he was before he turned up in Rangoon, but he vanished as queerly as he'd come. The day I reached Calcutta I was in the station and I recognized him. He'd peroxided his beard and hair! Heard him ask for a ticket to Indore, and I scented trouble in the wind. Of course, I should have had him arrested there, but I wanted to see what he was up to. I left the note with Bellingrath and took the next train."
Adventure! And he was talking of it in a matter-of-fact way!
"You caught him?" she urged.
"Has anybody ever caught Chavigny? No, he slipped through the net. And the nerve of him! He had letters to the Maharajah and the Agent! Used the name of Leroux. I dressed up in a Punjabi's garb—wanted to snoop around without arousing suspicion. I tracked Chavigny to a jeweller's shop the day I reached Indore and overheard him commission the merchant to make an imitation copy of the Maharajah Holkar's Pearl Scarf. After that I watched the jeweller, too. He—but I'm boring you."