As the porter put Trent's luggage into an automobile, the expected happened: the spectacled, pink-turbaned native approached, beamed upon him and spoke in suave tones, in English.
"You are Tavernake Sahib?"
Trent nodded. "Tambusami?"
The pink turban inclined forward as he salaamed. "I have a communication for the Presence!" he announced, extending an envelope that distilled an unmistakable perfume.
Trent did not open it, but thrust it into his pocket and instructed:
"Get in."
The motor car rolled across the Hoogly and deposited Trent and his involuntarily acquired servant at a hotel off the Maidan. There he dismissed his bearer.
"I sha'n't want you this morning," he told the pink-turbaned Tambusami, resolving to experiment with him.
And the native departed with a most profound salaam.
A half hour later, over breakfast, Trent read the note from Sarojini Nanjee. It wished him welcome to Calcutta and urged him to listen well when he visited his Excellency the Mandarin Li Kwai Kung—"who lives in that very poetic Street of the River of the Moon," as she put it. "I regret that it will be impossible for me to see you in Calcutta," she concluded. "Meanwhile, I trust you will find Tambusami an excellent bearer."