He waited impatiently in the shadow of the great portico. It was now 8.10. He would make an attempt.
He slowly pushed back the heavy door, and entered the vestibule. This was cut off from the hall by big glass doors, and then by heavy curtains. Still more carefully he opened the inner door, and then quickly closed it again. Through the opening had come the sound of voices and laughter. They were gathered in the hall before the fire, waiting for the summons to dinner. So there he stayed, cursing the unpunctuality of the house, and unquietly reflecting that a casual remark as to the present state of the weather might lead to the glass door being opened and himself ignominiously disclosed.
And Mary would witness his humiliation. Nay, she might even be the innocent cause of it. She was within half a dozen yards of him now, separated only by some glass and a curtain. Yet he could not speak to her—could not even see her. Ah! that was her laugh. And that Strathpeffer's raucous voice. Hang Strathpeffer!
It was now 8.15. The Hindoos were in the garden. The situation was distracting. At any moment they might enter the Temple room.
Ah! there was the sound of movement within. The guests trooped past the door. Their voices died away. All was still.
It was nineteen minutes past eight. Travers hesitated no longer. He unbuttoned his top-coat, and, with cap in hand as though he were a guest just come in from a stroll before dinner, he opened the hall door.
No one was in sight. He crossed the hall, and stepped lightly up the stairs. At their head he passed a maid. She certainly took him for a guest.
He went straight down the great corridor, and then branched to the left. It was the third door ahead. He pulled back the panel as Mary had shown him, undid the bolt from within, and entered. The room was in darkness. He struck a light, half expecting to find the Hindoo disclosed. No, he was alone, and the Pearl still there.
It was a room without furniture. In the centre was a replica of the great idol of Agni at the temple from which the Pearl had been looted. The god sat there, smug, cross-legged, and hideous. The eyes fascinated the beholder. The left one was of marble; the right made of a stone worth a prince's ransom—the one known throughout the world as the Black Pearl of Agni. At the god's knees, their holders resting on the floor, were two gigantic candles. Travers lit them.