“Going to take matters into your own hands?” he had said to Nicholas. “Excellent, my dear sir, excellent.”
Nicholas had glanced down at the said hands.
“I think,” he had said slowly, “that they are rather old. No; I have other plans in view.”
“Yes?” Curtis had queried.
“I wish to try a new régime,” Nicholas had said calmly. “I should like to introduce you to my new agent.” He had waved his hand towards Antony.
Black as murder is a well-worn and somewhat trite expression, nevertheless it alone adequately described the old agent’s expression. And then, with a palpable effort, he had recovered himself.
“A really excellent plan,” he had said, with scarcely veiled insolence. “I congratulate you on your new régime. They say ‘Set a thief to catch a thief’; no doubt ‘Set a hind to rule a hind’ will prove equally efficacious.” He had laughed.
“On the contrary,” Nicholas’s voice, suave and calm, had broken in upon the laugh, “that is the very régime I am now abolishing. ‘Set a gentleman to rule a hind’ is the one I am about to establish, that is why I have offered the post of agent to Mr. Antony Gray, son of a very old friend of mine.”
For one brief instant Curtis had been entirely non-plussed, the cut in the speech was lost in amazement; then bluster had come to his rescue.
“So you have had recourse to a system of spying,” he had said with a sneer that certainly did not in the least disguise his fury. “Personally I have never looked upon it as a gentleman’s profession.”