“Not I, indeed. I know a trick worth two of that. I send it out, empty, every day, in the hope of having those Apache johnnies follow it, and have a plain-clothes man trailing along behind in a taxi, ready to nip in and follow them if they do. But they don’t—that is, they haven’t up to the present; but there’s always hope, you know.”
“Not in that direction, I’m afraid. Waldemar’s a better general than that, believe me. Knowing that we have discovered his little plan of following the red limousine just as we discovered his other, of following me, he will have gone off on another tack, believe me.”
“Scotland! You don’t think, do you, that he can possibly have found out anything about the new one and has set in to follow this?”
“No, I do not. As a matter of fact I fancy he has started to do what he ought to have done in the beginning—that is, to keep a close watch on the criminal news in the papers day by day, and every time a crime of any importance crops up, pay his respects to the theatre of it and find out who is the detective handling the case. A ducat to a doughnut he’d have been on our heels down here to-day if this little business of the Stone Drum had been made public in time to get into the morning papers. He means to have me, Mr. Narkom, if having me is possible; and he’s down to the last ditch and getting desperate. Yesterday’s cables from Mauravania are anything but reassuring.”
“I know. They say that unless something happens very shortly to turn the tide in Ulric’s favour and quell the cries for ‘Restoration,’ the King’s downfall and expulsion are merely a matter of a few days at most. But what’s that got to do with it that you suggest its bearing upon any need for haste on Waldemar’s part?”
“Only that, with matters in such a state, he cannot long defer his return to the army of his country and the defence of its king,” replied Cleek, serenely. “And every day he loses in failing to pay his respects to your humble servant in the manner he desires to do increases the strain of the situation and keeps him from the service of his royal master.”
“Well, I wish to God something would happen to blow him and his royal master and their blooming royal country off the map, dammem!” blazed out Narkom, too savage to be choice of words. “We’ve never had a moment’s peace, you and I, since the dashed combination came into the game. And for what, I should like to know? Not that it’s any use asking you. You’re so devilish close-mouthed a man might as well ask questions of a ton of coal for all answer he may hope to get. I shall always believe, however, that you did something pretty dashed bad to the King of Mauravania that time you were over there on that business about the Rainbow Pearl, to make the beggar turn against you, as I believe he has.”
“Then, you will always believe what isn’t true,” replied Cleek, lighting a fresh cigarette. “I simply restored the pearl and his Majesty’s letter to the hands of Count Irma, and did not so much as see the King while I was there. Why should I?—a mere police detective, who had been hired to do a service and paid for it like any other hireling. I took my money and I went my way; that’s all there was about it. If it has pleased Count Waldemar to entertain an ugly feeling of resentment toward me, I can’t help that, can I now?”
“Oh, then, it’s really a personal affair between you and him, after all?”
“Something like that. He doesn’t approve of my—er—knowing things that I do know; and it would be the end of a very promising future for him if I told. Here—have a cigarette and smoke yourself into a better temper. You look savage enough to bite a nail in two.”