"Are you waiting here for some official of the Embassy?" went on Theydon.
"Not exactly, sir, some friends of His Excellency." The man glanced toward the door of the hotel. "Here they are now," he added.
Theydon turned. Two Chinamen, sedate, pig-tailed persons, were descending the steps. With them was Furneaux! One of the Orientals gave Theydon a rather sharp glance, having noticed, apparently, that he was conversing with the chauffeur, but Furneaux, after a stonily indifferent stare, said to the second Chinaman, in plain English:
"Do you mind dropping me at Scotland Yard?"
"With pleasure," was the composed reply.
The three entered, and the gray car made off, leaving Theydon to gaze blankly after it. His sister, though badly scared at first, quickly recovered her self-possession. She even made a joke of the incident.
"As an anti-climax, Frank, that is the best thing of its kind you have ever brought off," she tittered.
CHAPTER XV
FORCEFUL TACTICS
Though a prey to that most burthensome of cares—the uneasy consciousness of an impalpable yet ever-threatening evil—Theydon was not blind to the humorous element in the present situation. Mrs. Paxton, of course, did not know who the little man accompanying the Chinamen was.
She had seen her brother stalk the motor car and its presumed occupants in the most approved melodramatic fashion, and could not help noticing his complete discomfiture. Naturally she imagined he had encountered a pair of perfectly harmless citizens of the Middle Kingdom, and, being one of those happy beings more readily swayed to laughter than to tears, rallied him upon an apparent blunder.