At Rosebank Villa, Major Hardwicke was busied with Captain Murray, while Anstruther drew Alixe Delavigne aside. “Listen to all Murray proposes, and agree to it. You may be astonished at our plans, but between you and I, alone, lies the deeper secret. My secret orders from the Viceroy are for your ear alone. Your life-quest to reach Nadine’s side can only be taken up after Murray and Hardwicke have finished their little masquerade at the ‘Banker’s Folly.’ Let this secret be ours, alone! Do you promise me, Alixe? I will aid you, heart, life, and soul!” And, with her eyes softly shining in a growing tenderness, Alixe Delavigne murmured: “I trust you in all things! It shall be as you wish.”
Captain Anstruther then led the way to the library, and closing the doors with the minute attention of a true conspirator, cried: “Murray, we will hear from you first!” Seated, with her lips parted in an expectant smile, Alixe Delavigne listened in amazement as “Red Eric” proceeded.
“I got the little idea from Frank Halton, of the Globe. You may know that he was out at the Khyber Pass seven years ago, as the war correspondent of the Telegraph, and he ran over Cabul at the time of the Penj-Deh incident. He has prepared a series of varied skits and personal items covering the visit incognito of Prince Djiddin, a Thibetan noble of ancient and shadowy lineage. This ‘Asiatic Lion’ will be duly kept in the shadows of a mysterious seclusion in the Four Kingdoms until we introduce him to a small section of the British public.
“The Globe, the Indian Mail, the Mirror, the Colonial Gazette, and other periodicals will darkly hint at his itinerary, and he will be paraded judiciously, and no vulgar eye must ever rest upon him. These items will be widely copied. A graceful, social phantom, a Veiled, mysterious young potentate is Prince Djiddin!” “The humbug will be easily discovered!” said Anstruther, still at sea.
“Not if you flung your protecting mantle over him!” cried Murray. “We will shield him by a protecting Moonshee, who alone speaks his august master’s language, a tongue not to be easily translated; in fact, perfectly proof against all prying outsiders. The one way to hoodwink old Fraser is to humbug him about the great work on Thibet. That is the one soft spot in the hide of this old alligator. We have gone carefully over the reports of your secret agent at St. Heliers. Make us square with him, Captain, let him have your orders to aid us, and he can get us first hooked on to this Yankee Professor Alaric Hobbs! We will jolly him a bit, and so, get an interview with old Fraser, and then fool the old chap to the top of his bent. We will supply him with theories enough to set every bee in his bonnet buzzing. Your man is already ‘solid’ with Professor Alaric Hobbs, who is a quaint genius, and withal, a hard-headed Yankee, but full of cranks and ‘isms.’”
Anson Anstruther exchanged doubtful glances with Alixe Delavigne, who was still very agnostic. “The real object is to spy out the interior of Fraser’s household without alarming him, and to locate his hidden treasure, and, moreover, to open a safe, personal communication with Nadine Johnstone. Letters and messages finally go astray. And, at the very first sign of danger, old Andrew would clear out to the Continent, shut up the girl, get rid of that insured package, and cut all future communications! In the long three years, the girl might die, be estranged from you, or perhaps fall into the hands of some foreign fortune hunter. Human nature—woman nature—is a mutable quantity. But once we are in communication we can provide for future correspondence in any event.
“And you, Anstruther, would be defeated in recovering the hidden property of the Crown. Moreover, these two Frasers are the only heirs-at-law.
“Who knows what might not be done for a million, when a beggarly fifty pounds will buy a death certificate in many a little continental town?” They were all gravely silent as Murray soberly clinched his argument. “It is idle not to believe that old Hugh Fraser Johnstone laid out his brother’s whole future course! He certainly has trusted him with his stealings, the lost crown jewels! He trusts his child’s whole future to the care of these two cold Scotsmen, and gives the heiress over to old Andrew, to keep her safe from Madame,” Murray bowed, “his only living enemy, and from all the other relatives of his long-hated dead wife. From your own disclosures and Madame’s own words, we must all fear that her first appearance would be the signal for the spiriting away of Nadine until the minority is at an end. And it might invite some secret crime. She bears the hated face of her dead mother, you say!”
“True,” murmured Anstruther. “My solicitor tells me, too, that a guardianship by will is the very strongest tying-up of a rich young ward. We can follow on later, perhaps, if this opening could be made, but where have we a ‘Prince Djiddin,’ and where, the wonderful ‘Moonshee?’”
“There is Prince Djiddin,” laughed Captain Murray, pointing to Major Harry Hardwicke, “and here is the Moonshee,” he tapped his own broad breast.