"You don't," answered the Collector, with frank emphasis on the pronoun. "But that confirms my suspicions that such methods were tried and succeeded not so very long since, and it throws fresh light on some things. The blackguard! So he put forth that early feeler to see what stuff you were made of! Good; he found his match this time!"
Mark, happening to glance at one of the screen doors at the moment, perceived a pair of handsome brown feet with a massive ring on the great toe planted on the rattan matting. He at once recognised them as Moideen's and strode across to the door, but when he reached it, only Sheila, one of the Collector's setters, stepped in with an apologetic air.
The Collector, lying back in his chair absorbed in thought and taking satisfying puffs of his cheroot, had not noticed the incident. Should he call his attention to it, Mark pondered, but decided to ignore it. Possibly the man was only passing the door, though certainly those brown feet had had a stationary appearance.
Presently the Collector proceeded to unfold, in the frankest manner, the circumstances which Mrs. Goldring had been eager to weave into a sinister web. He narrated simply how he had been led to sanction the building of the mosque in a neighbourhood which now suggested trouble all round.
"The fact is, having more confidence in Printer than was possible later, I left the negotiations to him, thinking it was a simple matter. It was foolish and wrong, I see now, but these town squabbles have always been particularly odious to me. As to Zynool, I only knew him by hearsay as a relative of my boy Moideen, who was very eager about the mosque. I believed it was solely on account of his zeal for the Faith, and was quite touched by his religious emotion. He saved up his pay, made no end of sacrifices to help to buy the site; but since then I've had reason to suspect that he was used as a tool by that fellow Zynool, who I know now to be a treacherous dog. He is backed up in his infamy by a shady pleader in Madras, who secretly bought the site from an unsuspecting Hindu for an old song. Then he and Zynool together sold it to the Mahomedan community for twice the sum, getting the money out of them on religious pretexts. I want to have it out with Zynool, and have summoned him more than once, but I think he must be keeping out of my way. Perhaps he guessed I was not at office to-day and went to take the measure of the new Assistant," said Mr. Worsley, with an air of discovery.
Mark, remembering the brown feet planted behind the screen door, was about to say: "He got a message from Moideen that you were not to be there. Possibly you were detained at home so that Zynool might have an opportunity of sounding my depths"; but he forebore, contenting himself by listening to this frank statement of affairs, open as the daylight, and which he contrasted with Mrs. Goldring's jaundiced narrative. The main point with him was to know that his chief was fully aware of Zynool's villainy. It was not to be wondered at that such methods could not readily be fathomed by the English gentleman, without fear and without reproach.
As he sat by his side now in the gathering dusk, a recurrence of a slumbering anxiety awakened in his mind. What was that remark as to Zynool's being a client of "a shady pleader in Madras"? Alfred Rayner had certainly mentioned his name as being a client, so it must be he! It was bitter indeed that anyone should be able so to designate Hester's husband, and yet had there not been suggestions of baseness in Rayner's conduct on more than one occasion during his own brief sojourn in Clive's Road? Could he forget the epithets he had used about the good Morpeth? Was it possible that Hester Bellairs was mated to a man quite unworthy of her? How futile was anything he could do to shield her from the thorns and briars which must encompass her path even if their roads did not lie apart? But he would be true to his promise given on the lawn of the Pinkthorpe Rectory! He would take the earliest opportunity of a visit to Clive's Road. Possibly Rayner might only be the dupe of the wily Zynool, and, on being told his true character and methods, might shake himself free of the plotter.
With hopeful thoughts Mark turned to interest himself in the project of a tour through the District which the Collector was planning for the following week.