“Bribe your dead grandmother’s parrot!” Crespin jibed.
And, “I don’t believe it’s a bit of good,” Lucilla objected.
“Nor I,” Traherne owned. “The fellow’s a thorough-paced scoundrel. But we might succeed, and, if we don’t even try, they’ll suspect that we’re plotting something else. If we can convince them that we’re at our wits’ end, we’ve the better chance of taking them off their guard.”
“Yes,” Lucilla urged quickly. “You see that, Antony.”
He patted her hand. “Perhaps you’re right,” he told Traherne. “But, even if the damned scoundrel can be bought, what good is it, if I can’t remember the wave-length to Amil-Serai?” He threw his wife’s hand off unconsciously as he felt again for his handkerchief, and mopped at his troubled face. But Lucilla laid her hand again on his arm.
“You’ll think of it all of a sudden,” she told him.
“Not if I keep racking my brains for it,” he groaned. “If I could get my mind off it, the damned thing might come back to me.”
“Yes,” Traherne agreed, “and that’s all the more reason for action. But first, we must settle what message to send, if we get the chance.”
“Yes—oh—yes,” Mrs. Crespin said breathlessly, and she went hurriedly to the writing-table, and flung herself into Rukh’s writing-chair. “Dictate!” she ordered. “I’ll write.” She snatched an envelope, her fingers flew to a pen. Crespin bent over her shoulder, and pulled the ink nearer her hand.
“What about this?” Traherne suggested, after a moment: “‘Major Crespin, wife, Traherne, imprisoned Rukh, Raja’s palace; lives in danger,’” he dictated slowly, while Mrs. Crespin, writing it down feverishly, waited impatiently after each word for the next.