“Quite so, sir,” was the grim response.
“But it has occurred to me, Watkins,” Rukh looked up for the first time, “that perhaps it’s not quite safe to have them so near the wireless room. Their one chance would be to get into wireless communication with India. They appeared last night to know nothing about wireless, but I have my doubts. Most British service officers know something of it now. Tell me, Watkins, have they made any attempt to bribe you?”
“Not yet, sir,” Watkins said cryptically.
“Ha, that looks bad,” the Raja observed regretfully. “It looks as if they had something else up their sleeves, and were leaving bribery to the last resort. I want to test their ignorance of wireless. I want you, in their presence, to send out some message that is bound to startle or enrage them, and see if they show any sign of understanding it.”
“That’s a notion, sir,” Watkins exclaimed with a grin of applause. His manner when he and Rukh were alone was no less respectful—he knew that his head answered for that—but it was less wooden and servant-impersonal than it was before others. And when alone they invariably spoke English, as indeed they usually did at other times.
Rukh grinned back at Watkins. The child in him liked applause and sucked it, even from an inferior he despised.
“But,” he said with a bothered frown, rising and moving aimlessly towards the wireless room, “I can’t think of a message.”
If that was an appeal, Watkins ignored it. He made no attempt to help the prince to a sufficiently effective and stinging message. Sage Watkins obeyed orders implicitly; he never assumed responsibility. If the Raja of Rukh fumbled and waited for a cue, the valet did not feel it his place to give it. And he had volunteered more now than he often volunteered. He stood perfectly still and waited—waited perfectly.
At the door of the wireless-room the Raja paused suddenly, and fingered the lock, making sure that it was well secure. And as he stood doing it the ayah opened the corridor door, and Mrs. Crespin passed by her into the snuggery. She did not see either Rukh or Watkins until she was well inside the room, and the ayah had reclosed the door she had opened, and had disappeared. It was too late to retreat, Lucilla knew, so she merely paused, and held her ground. She again wore the plain tweed frock she had worn in the aeroplane, the locket again at her throat, as it had been when she’d waked, the wide silk scarf hanging carelessly over her shoulders. Her face was pale, but her eyes were feverishly bright, and she held her head—she had dressed it today, simply—proudly.
Rukh heard the door close, turned, and came to her quickly.