The self-accusation case-hardened him. He set his teeth, and almost physically reached out for the weapons of alertness, patience, persistence, cunning, with which he might redeem the situation. For redeem it he surely would, or else perish in the attempt. Exposure too soon would do no good. He needed full proof. And he cared less to punish the offenders than to rescue the children who had been carried off, and to make anything of the sort impossible in future, wondering, as he considered that, what any one would be able to do for girls in their predicament. The early years are the most impressionable; their characters would have been undermined. And then a worse thought: was Benjamin the only agent? There might be a regular market for European girls in that unknown corner of the earth, with secret agents supplying it from a dozen sources. If so, he felt and accepted his full share of responsibility. Who else could share it with him? Only Hannah Sanburn. She, too, had shielded the Lama and, if ignorant of what was going on, might at least have suspected.
And thoughts of Hannah Sanburn did not give comfort. He remembered now a dozen incidents that should have made him suspect her years ago. That look in her eyes, for instance, and her nervousness whenever he had urged her to bring about a meeting between the Lama and himself. He recalled now how carefully she had always shepherded him through the mission, under pretext of observing the proprieties; she had never given him a chance to talk alone with any of the mission girls, and like a fool he had believed she did that to prevent the very suggestion of scandal from finding an excuse. He had admired her for it. But there was that room (or was it two rooms) near her own quarters that she had always kept locked, and that he had not cared to ask to inspect, because she said she kept her personal belongings in there.
And now this story, told by Mrs. Cornock-Campbell, a witness as trustworthy as daybreak, of a white girl named Elsa, who spoke English and Tibetan, who had been to Lhassa, and who could draw—for he had seen the drawings—as masterfully as Michael Angelo. And Hannah Sanburn’s plea for secrecy. And the fact that McGregor had had suspicions.
Marmaduke might not have been the father of this strange girl, but that did not preclude the possibility of Hannah Sanburn being the mother. It seemed likely—more than likely—that the Lama possessed knowledge which enabled him to blackmail Hannah Sanburn; it was easy enough to understand how that well-bred New England woman would fight to preserve her good name, and how, if the Lama had once tempted her into one false position, she could be terrified from bad to worse. There is more deliberate blackmail in the world than most of its indirect victims suspect.
Nevertheless, Ommony wondered that Hannah Sanburn should not have confided in himself. She might have known he would have shielded her and helped her to redeem the situation. She had had dozens of proofs of his friendship. He smiled rather grimly as he thought to what lengths he would have gone to shield and befriend Hannah Sanburn—and yet more grimly—cynically—as it dawned on him to what lengths he might now have to go. Friendship is friendship—unto death if need be.
Benjamin returned; and an hour’s thought had had its effect on him too. His assistants came, and he chased them out on hurriedly invented errands, barring the shop-door behind them.
“I have sent for Maitraya,” he announced, stroking his beard, watching Ommony sidewise. He seemed to be not quite sure that Ommony might not have changed his mind with daylight.
“All right. Hunt me out a costume.”
Ommony stepped off the pile of blankets and began to strip himself. Benjamin’s swift fingers sought and plucked along the shelves, selecting this and that until a little heap of clothing lay ready on a table, Ommony saying nothing but observing almost savagely, like a caged man watching his meal prepared.
“There, that is perfect,” said Benjamin at last. “A dude—a dandy, such as actors are—aping the high-caste—too educated to submit to inferiority—a little of this, a little of that—fashionable—tolerated—half-philosopher, half-mountebank—”