They all three were excited—even Traherne, though he scarcely showed it—and they drew closer together eagerly. What importance Mrs. Crespin’s discovery, if she was right, could be to them, or why it excited them, not one of them could have said; but in such threatening of shipwreck as theirs agitated human minds see in every straw a possible life-boat, and catch at it anxiously. They clustered together excitedly, Lucilla Crespin still in her seat, the two men standing close before her. Traherne’s face alert, the woman’s eyes sparkling, and Antony Crespin raised his voice exultantly. “By God, you’ve hit it, Lu!” he repeated.
“Take care!” Traherne cautioned him quickly, not looking at Major Crespin, but at the man out on the loggia. “He’s watching.”
Dr. Traherne was right; Watkins was watching stealthily, and too was straining his utmost to listen.
“You remember,” Mrs. Crespin almost whispered, “he deserted, Antony, and was suspected of having murdered a woman in the bazaar.”
“I believe it’s the very man,” Crespin muttered eagerly.
“It’s certainly very like him,” his wife insisted.
“And he swears he’s never been in India!” Crespin said with a nasty laugh.
“Under the circumstances,” Dr. Traherne said dryly, “he naturally would. I should.”
“At all events he’s not a man to be trusted,” Mrs. Crespin added regretfully.
“Trusted!” Crespin retorted impatiently, “who thought of trusting him? Who’d be such a fool? He with that damned Uriah Heep face of his, and a British man, if of the true cockney brand, an Englishman acting as a body servant to a native! Who’d think of trusting him!”