“I have it now,” he said, peering at the document while he held it close to the lamp. “It is a sort of pass. It declares that Mr. Malcolm is a friend of the Begum and gives him safe conduct if he visits Delhi within three days of the date named here, but I cannot tell when that would be, until I consult a native calendar. It is signed by Bahadur Shah and is altogether a somewhat curious thing to be in Malcolm’s possession. Is that all you know of it—merely that it was stuck in a fold of his turban?”
“This accompanied it,” said Winifred, with a restraint that might have warned her hearer of the passion it strove to conceal. But Mayne was deaf to Winifred’s coldness. If he was startled before, he was positively amazed when she produced the necklace.
He took it, appraised its value silently, and scrutinized the workmanship in the gold links.
“Made in Delhi,” he half whispered. “A wonderful thing, probably worth two lakhs of rupees,[13] or even more. It is old, too. The craftsman who fashioned this clasp is not to be found nowadays. Why, it may have been worn by Nurmahal herself! Each of its fifty pearls could supply a chapter of a romance. And you found it, together with this safe-conduct, in Malcolm’s turban?”
“Yes, uncle. Do you think I would speak carelessly of such a precious object? When one has discovered a treasure it is a trait of human nature to note pretty closely the place where it came to light.”
Mayne was yet too much taken up with puzzling side-issues to pay heed to Winifred’s demeanor. He remembered the extraordinary proposal made by Roshinara to Malcolm ere she drove away to Delhi from her father’s hunting lodge. Could it be possible that his young friend had met the princess on other occasions than that which Malcolm laughingly described as the lunging of Nejdi and the plunging of his master? It occurred to him now, with a certain chilling misgiving, that he had himself broken in with a bewildered exclamation when Frank seemed to regard the Princess’s offer of employment in her service as worthy of serious thought. There were other aspects of the affair, aspects so sinister that he almost refused to harbor them. Rather to gain time than with any definite motive, he stooped over the pass again, meaning to read it word for word.
“Of course you have not forgotten, uncle, that Mr. Malcolm took us into his confidence so far as to tell us of the curious letter that reached him after the second battle outside Delhi?” said Winifred. “It saved him at Bithoor when the men from Cawnpore meant to hang him, and, seeing that he had the one article in his possession, it is passing strange that he should have omitted to mention the other—to me.”
Then the man knew what it all meant to the girl. He placed his arm around her neck and drew her towards him.
“My poor Winifred!” he murmured, “you might at least have been spared such a revelation at this moment.”