“Corrupt you?” The Raja held up a hand in horror. “That would be painting the lily with a vengeance.”
Watkins was incensed. Even a cockney blackleg has his sensitiveness—but he did not dare show it, and only a touch of annoyance crept into his voice, as he questioned again, “Suppose they tries to get at me, sir—what are your instructions?”
“How do you mean?” The Raja understood perfectly what Watkins meant, but it often pleased him—it did now—to put the cockney to the trouble of putting things into words very plainly.
“Shall I let on to take the bait?” the valet explained.
“You may do exactly as you please,” the master told him indifferently. “I have the most implicit confidence in you, Watkins.”
“You are very good, sir,” Watkins tried not to say it sulkily.
The Raja smiled. “I know that anything they can offer you would have to be paid either in England or in India, and that you daren’t show your nose in either country,” he remarked grimly. “You have a very comfortable job here—”
“My grateful thanks to you, sir,” the man said humbly.
“And you don’t want to give the hangman a job, either in Lahore or in London.”
“The case in a nutshell, sir,” Watkins said cheerfully. “But I thought if I was to pretend to send a message for them, it might keep them quiet-like.”