Victor inclined his head. “To what lengths will he not go to cover up his daughter’s shame, if it threatens to become public that she is a thief? I do nothing without purpose, Shaik Tsin.”
“That is to say, you have to-night taken out insurance against punishment if this other business fails.”
“If it fail, others may suffer, but if necessary the Lone Wolf himself will arrange my escape from England.”
“To serve so wise a man is an honour my unworthiness can never hope to merit.”
“As to that, Shaik Tsin,” Victor said without a smile, “our minds are one. Go now. Good-night.”
XVII
THE RAISED CHEQUE
While the Princess Sofia, Sybil Waring, and Prince Victor motored down from London in the lilac dusk of that dim September day, and the maid Chou Nu accompanied them, riding in front beside a newly engaged Chinese chauffeur, the man Nogam made the journey to Frampton Court by train, and alone.
Alone, at least, in the finer shading of that adjective; aside from the usual assortment of self-contained fellow-travellers in the third-class carriage, he had no company other than his thoughts; a gray and meagre crew, if that pathetic face of middle-age furnished trustworthy reflection of his mind.... So absolute was the submergence of that ardent adventurer who, overnight, had lain awake for hours, a dictograph receiver glued to his ear, eavesdropping upon the traffic of those malevolent intelligences assembled in Prince Victor’s study, and alternately chuckling and cursing beneath his breath, aflame with indignation and chilled by inklings of atrocities unspeakable abrew!
If he surmised that he travelled alone in appearance only, it was with no evident concern or astonishment. If his mind was uneasy, oppressed by a nightmarish burden of half-knowledge, guesses, and premonition, it was not apparent to the general observer. His most eloquent gesture was when, from time to time, he tamped an ancient wooden pipe with a fingertip that wasn’t as calloused as he could have wished, philosophically sucked in strangling fumes of rankest shag and, ignoring his company in the carriage as became a British-made manservant, returned jaded, gentle eyes to those darkling vistas of autumnal landscape that were forever radiating away from the window like spokes of a gigantic wheel.
Alighting in the first dark of evening at the station for Frampton Court, he suffered himself to be herded, with a half-score more, into the omnibus provided for other bodyservants to arriving guests. Even to these compeers he found little to say: a loud lot, imbued with the rowdy spirit of the new day; whereas Nogam was hopelessly of the old school—in the new word, he dated—though his form was admittedly unimpeachable. And if because of this he was made fun of more or less openly, to an extent that added shades of resignation to his countenance, secretly he commanded considerable respect.