"Oah, Mister Amber, I believe?" he gurgled, oily and affable. "Believe me most charmed to make acquaintance." And he laughed agreeably.
But Amber's face had darkened. With an oath he sprang back, threw his weight against the door, and with his left hand shot the bolt, while his right whipped from his pocket Rutton's automatic pistol.
"Drop that gun, you monkey!" he cried sharply. "I was afraid of this, but I think you and I'll have an accounting before any one else gets in here."
CHAPTER IX
PINK SATIN
Shaking with rage, Amber stood for a long moment with pistol poised and eyes wary; then, bewildered, he slowly lowered the weapon. "Well," he observed reflectively, "I'm damned." For the glittering thing he had mistaken for a revolver lay at his feet; and it was nothing more nor less than a shoehorn. While as for the babu, he had dropped back into the chair and given way to a rude but reassuring paroxysm of gusty, silent laughter.
"I'm a fool," said Amber; "and if I'm not mistaken you're Labertouche."
With a struggle the babu overcame his emotion. "I am, my dear fellow, I am," he gasped. "And I owe you an apology. Upon my word, I'd forgotten; one grows so accustomed to living the parts in these masquerades, after a time, that one forgets. Forgive me." He offered a hand which Amber grasped warmly in his unutterable relief. "I'm really delighted to meet you," continued Labertouche seriously. "Any man who knows India can't help being glad to meet the author of 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush.'"
"You did frighten me," Amber confessed, smiling. "I didn't know what to expect—or suspect. Certainly,"—with a glance round the incongruously furnished room—"I never looked forward to anything like this—or you, in that get-up."
"You wouldn't, you know," Labertouche admitted gravely. "I might have warned you in my note; but that was a risky thing, at best. I feared to go into detail—it might have fallen into the wrong hands."