"Then how d'you know he hasn't found the stuff already?"
"Because many of his personal bills aren't paid, and the political stormy petrels are not yet heading his way. He's handicapped by not being able to hunt for it openly. Some ill-chosen confidant might betray the find to us. I doubt if he trusts more than one or two people at a time."
"It must be hell to be a maharajah!" Tess burst out after a minute's silence.
"It's sometimes hell to be commissioner, Mrs. Blaine."
"If I were Gungadhura I'd find that money or bust! And when I'd found it—"
"You'd endow an orphan asylum, eh?"
"I'd make such trouble for you English that you'd be glad to leave me in peace for a generation!"
Samson laughed good-naturedly and twisted up the end of his mustache.
"Pon my soul, you're a surprising woman! So your sympathies are all with Gungadhura?"
"Not at all. I think he's a criminal! He buys women, and tortures animals in an arena, and keeps a troupe of what he is pleased to call dancing-girls. I've seen his eyes in the morning, and I suspect him of most of the vices in the calendar. He's despicable. But if I were in his shoes I'd find that money and make it hot for you English!"