“Oh,” Rukh said in surprise, hesitated a minute, then added, “Oh, well, show him in.”
Watkins passed into the corridor and came back almost at once, ushering in an ornate, sinister-faced figure. He must have been wearing not less than half a dozen coats or gowns, furred, beaded and embroidered. Some looked fairly new, several were faded, one was frankly patched. His hands were not over-clean, but they wore many rings. And he wore ear-rings, great hoops of gold with many small jewels hanging from them. His features were at once heavy and sharp, and his shrewd-looking, not unhandsome eyes held the uncanny smoldering fire of the true fanatic’s. His lips were fat and violently red, his cheeks were high, his nose was beaked, and his eyebrows were heavily stained with henna.
The Raja greeted the decorative, if not to English eyes attractive, prelate briefly, but ceremoniously, and as Watkins disappeared, turned to his prisoners.
“I mentioned my Archbishop of York,” he reminded them with a slight grimace. “This is he. Allow me to introduce you. Your Grace,” he said in his best Mayfair manner—His Grace scowled hideously, “Mrs. Crespin—Major Crespin—Dr. Traherne.”
The Priest appeared to understand the situation, for he paid the introduction the acknowledgment of a more than half contemptuous salaam. To be fair to him, Traherne and the Crespins acknowledged it in a manner scarcely more polished. Mrs. Crespin and the physician stared not admiringly, and Major Crespin irreverently muttered, “Well, I’m blowed!”
“The Archbishop’s manners are not good,” the Raja said with a sigh of regret, “but a holy man—a very saintly, spiritual man, believe me. You will excuse him. He regards you, I regret to say, as unclean creatures, whose very presence means pollution. He would be a mine of information for an anthropologist,” he added with a laugh.
None of them made any reply.
Rukh turned to the scowling saint, and they exchanged a few words. Rukh turned again to the three. “His Grace reminds me,” he told them suavely, “of some arrangements for to-morrow’s ceremony which, as Archbishop of Canterbury, I must attend to in person. You will excuse me for half an hour? Pray make yourselves at home. Tiffin at half-past twelve,” he added hospitably. Then he spoke again to the Priest, speaking rather peremptorily. The Priest replied with what may have been scholarly Rukh, but sounded a bitter growl. The Raja turned to Lucilla again, with a laughing, apologetic face. “His grace says au revoir,” he told them, “and so do I.” He nodded to the two Englishmen, bowed gravely to Mrs. Crespin, and passed into the corridor, the Priest stalking behind him.
As the door closed, Crespin pulled his handkerchief from his cuff, and mopped his forehead—and he turned an eager, troubled look to the decanters. But when his wife and Traherne were just about to speak, he motioned them imperatively to be cautious. Then he stole noiselessly to the billiard-room, went in and searched it. Convinced that no eavesdropper was hidden there, he came back into the snuggery, and closed the billiard-room door.
The others had taken their cue from him. Lucilla was examining the narrow balcony outside the window, Traherne had crept up to the door of the wireless room, and was testing noiselessly its fastening.