“Look alive now, Ram Lal!” said Hawke, briskly, as he handed his confederate the telegram from Berthe Louison. “You see that the lady will arrive here tomorrow night! Some one must go down to Allahabad for her! Are you all ready for her coming?”
“Perfectly!” smiled Ram Lal. “The Mem-Sahib could give a dinner of twenty covers in an hour after her arrival! You know that the bungalow was fitted up for—” he bent his head and whispered to Major Hawke, who laughed intelligently and viciously.
“All right, then! Here is the address in Allahabad, where the lady is to wait for her conductors. She seems not to wish me to come down. I will be at the bungalow, then, on your arrival! I will give you a letter for her,” said Hawke. Ram Lal’s eyes gleamed in anticipation of the fat pickings of the Mem-Sahib. He pondered a moment over the case.
“Then, I will go down myself,” complacently said Ram Lal, with an eye to future business. “You can tell her to trust to me in all things. She shall travel like a queen!”
“That is better, and so I will telegraph to her, at Allahabad, this afternoon, that I have sent you to meet her! Have a covered carriage awaiting her here, and no one must be allowed to follow her to her hidden nest. It is the making of your fortune with her!” cried Hawke, as he lit a cheroot.
“Trust to me, Sahib!” answered the wily jewel merchant, relapsing into an expectant silence. He already connected the arrival of the beautiful foreigner with the destiny of the opulent man whom he had revengefully watched for twenty years. Hugh Fraser Johnstone had heaped up a fortune, but it was not yet successfully deported to England.
“And the Swiss woman, when may I see her; this morning?” demanded the adventurer, as he dropped into a cool, Japanese chair.
“My man will bring you the news of her coming!” answered the oily old miscreant. “I told him to watch her, and run on to warn me!” Ram Lal was a wily old Figaro of much experience.
“Good! Then go outside and wait for her,” coolly commanded the young man. “When she comes, you can come in and warn me, and I will be ready.” Ram Lal obediently left Hawke without a questioning word, and the busy brain of the adventurer was soon occupied with weaving the meshes for the bird nearing the snare. “This woman’s help is absolutely necessary to me now!” he thought, as he contemplated his own handsome person in a mirror. “If she can only hold her tongue and keep a secret, she may be the foundation of my fortunes. I think that I can make it worth her while, but she must never fall under the influence of this she-devil in petticoats, who comes to-morrow night! And yet, the Louison knows she is here! A friendship between them must be prevented!” He closed his eyes dreamily, and studied the problem of the future attentively, revolving every point of womanly weakness which he had observed in his past experience.
He had finally hit upon the right thing. It came to him just as Ram Lal entered, with his finger on his lip. “She is in there, waiting for you, and she came alone!” said the crafty merchant. “I can perhaps frighten her with the idea that Madame Louison wishes to supplant her as lady bear leader. The future pickings of this young heiress would be then lost to her! Yes! A woman’s natural jealousy will do the trick!” so sagely mused the young man as he walked out into the hall, where Ram Lal’s treasures were heaped up on every side. There was no one visible in the shop, but Ram Lal silently pointed with a brown finger, gleaming with whitest gems, to a closed door. It was the entrance to the room specially devoted to the superb collection of arms, the regained loot of Delhi, slyly collected in the days of the mad sacking by the revengeful English soldiery. A bottle of rum then bought a princely token.