Supper was brought, and the lamps lit in the cool old room, where, through the open window, they could still catch the glint of foam on the stream and the dark gloom of pines on the hill. They fell ravenously on the meal, for one man had eaten nothing since midday and the others were fresh from moorland air. Thereafter they pulled armchairs to a window, and lit the pipes of contentment. Wratislaw stretched his arms on the sill and looked out into the fragrant darkness.
“Any news, Tommy?” asked his host. “Things seem lively in the East.”
“Very, but I am ill-informed. Did you lay no private lines of communication in your travels?”
“They were too short. I picked up a lot of out-of-the-way hints, but as I am not a diplomatist I cannot use them. I think I have already made you a present of most. By the by, I see from the papers that an official expedition is going north from Bardur. What idiot invented that?”
Wratislaw pulled his head in and sat back in his chair. “You are sure you don’t happen to know?”
“Sure. But it is just the sort of canard which the gentry on the other side of the frontier would invent to keep things quiet. Who are the Englishmen at Bardur now?”
The elder man looked shrewdly at the younger, who was carelessly pulling a flower to pieces. “There’s Logan, whom you know, and Thwaite and Gribton.”
“Good men all, but slow in the uptake. Logan is a jewel. He gave me the best three days’ shooting I ever dreamed of, and he has more stories in his head than George. But if matters got into a tangle I would rather not be in his company. Thwaite is a gentlemanlike sort of fellow, but dull—very, while Gribton is the ordinary shrewd commercial man, very cautious and rather timid.”
“Did you ever happen to hear of a man called Marka? He might call himself Constantine Marka, or Arthur Marker, or the Baron Mark—whatever happened to suit him.”
Lewis puzzled for a little. “Yes, of course I did. By George! I should think so. It was a chap of that name who had gone north the week before I arrived. They said he would never be heard of again. He seemed a reckless sort of fool.”