Unerringly, stepping as lightly as a cat on the soft carpet, he made his way across to the opposite wall, where a dark patch showed against the whiteness, portières of jade-green velvet that masked folding doors leading into the Chinese Room. On the other side the doorway was concealed by magnificent curtains of black and gold embroidery in a dragon design, that had a very curious feature—one that Thomson had discovered by pure accident. The eyes of the dragons were pierced with large eyelet holes, invisible from even a short distance, but through which a perfect bird’s-eye view could be obtained of the room beyond.
The doors were closed but not latched, and it was the work of an instant cautiously to swing them open sufficiently to clear the two nearest peep-holes, just at a convenient level to Thomson’s eyes.
Sir Robert was lying on his wheeled couch before the fire, with his back towards the screened portal and the hidden watcher, who, however, could see his master’s face reflected in a great lacquered mirror on the opposite wall. A remarkable face, aged, drawn, but also refined by these long weeks of suffering and sorrow. Under the short, carefully trimmed white beard which had been allowed to grow during his illness his square jaw was firm and relentless, as his steel-grey eyes were keen as ever beneath their grey penthouse brows.
He turned his head slightly as the door opened and Jenkins announced
“Mr. Boris Melikoff.”
“It is very good of you to come, Mr. Melikoff,” Sir Robert said, with grave courtesy, extending his hand, over which the young man bowed respectfully. “I cannot rise to receive you. I am quite helpless as you see. Will you sit in that chair?”
Boris complied. The chair, as Thomson had already noted, was placed so that the lamplight would fall full on the face of the visitor, leaving that of his host in shadow, an invariable device of the old diplomatist at important interviews.
For a few seconds the old man and the young one looked at each other warily, like a couple of fencers preparing for a bout, then Rawson’s stern gaze softened.
“You are very like my dear wife,” he said quietly, “so like her that you might almost have been brother and sister rather than cousins.”