CHAPTER XX
The summer twilight was deepening into the summer dusk when Ailsa,acting upon Cleek's advice, set forth with his little lordship thefollowing evening, and turned her steps in the direction of the Park;but although, on her way there, she observed more than once that aswarthy-skinned man in European dress who wore a scarlet flower in hiscoat, and was so perfect a type of the Asiatic that he would have passedmuster for one even among a gathering of Cingalese, kept appearing anddisappearing at irregular intervals, it spoke well for the powers ofimitation and self-effacement possessed by Dollops, that she never oncethought of associating that young man with the dawdling messenger boywho strolled leisurely along with a package under his arm and patronisedevery bun-shop, winkle-stall, and pork-pie purveyor on the line ofmarch.
For upward of an hour this sort of thing went on without anyinterruption or any solitary thing out of the ordinary, Ailsa strollingalong leisurely, with the boy's hands in hers and his innocent prattlerunning on ceaselessly; then, of a sudden, whilst they were moving alongclose to the Park railings and in the shadow of the overhanging trees,the figure of an undersized man in semi-European costume, but wearing onhis head the twisted turban of a Cingalese, issued from one of thegates, and well-nigh collided with them.
He drew back, murmuring an apology in pidgin-English, then, seeing thechild, he salaamed profoundly and murmured in a voice of deep reverence,"Holy, most holy!" and prostrated himself, with his forehead touchingthe ground, until Ailsa and the child had passed on. But barely had theytaken five steps before Cleek appeared upon the scene, and did exactlythe same thing as the Cingalese.
"All right. You may go home now. I've got my man," he whispered, asAilsa and the boy passed by. "Look for me at Chepstow House some timeto-night." Then rose, as she walked on, and went after the man who firsthad prostrated himself before the child.
He had risen and gone on his way, but not before witnessing Cleek'sobeisance, and flashing upon him a sharp, searching look. Cleekquickened his steps and shortened the distance between them. Now ornever was the time to put to the test that wild thought which last nighthad hammered on his brain, for it was certain that this man was in verytruth a Cingalese, and, as such, must know! He stretched forth his handand touched the man, who drew back sharply, half indignantly, butchanged his attitude entirely when Cleek, who knew Hindustani more thanwell, spoke to him in the native tongue.
"Unto thee, oh, brother!" Cleek said. "Thou, too, art of us, for thou,too, dost acknowledge the sacred shrine. These eyes have beheld thee."
All his hopes rested on the slim pillar of that one word, "shrine," andhis heart almost ceased to beat as he watched to see how it wasreceived. It broke, however, into a very tumult of disturbance in thenext instant, for the man positively beamed as he gave reply.
"Sacred be the shrine!" he answered in Hindustani. "Clearly thou art ofus--not of those others."
"Others? What others? I am but newly come to this country."
"Walk with me, then, to my abode, sup with me, eat of my salt, and Iwill tell thee then, oh, brother. But I forget: thou hast no knowledgeof me. Listen, then. I am Arjeeb Noosrut, father of the High PriestSeydama, and it is among the people of my house that the gun is yetpreserved. Nor has the blood of Seydama been ever washed from the woodof it. Come."
All in a moment a light seemed to break over Cleek's brain. The missinglink had been supplied--the one thing that could make possible the wildthought which had come to him last night had been given into his hands,and here at last was the key to the amazing mystery! He turned without aword and went with Arjeeb Noosrut.
"What an ass!" he said to himself in the soundless words of thought"What an ass never to have suspected it when it is all so clear!"
Meantime Ailsa and the boy, dismissed from any further need of service,walked on through the deepening dusk and turned their faces homeward.But they had not gone twenty yards from the spot where Cleek had seenthem last when his little lordship set up a joyful cry and pointedexcitedly to a claret-coloured limousine which at that moment swung infrom the middle of the roadway and slowed down as it neared the kerb.
"Oh, look, Miss Lorne; here's mummie's motor car; and I do believethat's Bimbi peeping out of it!" exclaimed the child--"Bimbi" being hispet name for Captain Hawksley--then broke, in wild excitement, fromAilsa's detaining hand and fled to a tall, military-looking man with afair beard and moustache who had just that moment alighted from thevehicle. "It is Bimbi--it is!--it is!" he shouted as he ran. "Oh, Bimbi,I _am_ glad!"
"Ceddie, dear, you mustn't be so boisterous!" chided Ailsa, coming upwith him at the kerb. "How fond he is of you to be sure, CaptainHawksley. You've come for us, I suppose? Ceddie recognised the car atonce."
"Yes; jump in," he answered. "Lady Chepstow sent me after you. She'snervous, poor soul, every moment the boy's away from her. Jump in, oldchap!"--catching up his little lordship and swinging him inside. "Bettertake the back seat, Miss Lorne; it's more comfortable. Quite settled,both of you? That's good. All right, chauffeur--Home!"
Then he jumped in after them, closed the door, dropped into a seat, andthe motor, making a wide curve out into the road, pelted away into thefast-gathering darkness.
"Bimbi says maybe he's going to be my daddy one day--didn't you, Bimbi?"said his little lordship, climbing up on to "Bimbi's" knee and snugglingclose to him.
"I say, you know, you mustn't tell secrets, old chap!" was the laughingresponse. "Miss Lorne will hand you over to Nursie with orders to putyou to bed if you do, _I_ know--won't you, Miss Lorne?"
"He ought to be in bed, anyhow," responded Ailsa gaily; and then, thisgiving the conversation a merry turn, they talked and laughed and keptup such a chatter that three-quarters of an hour went like magic andnobody seemed aware of it. But suddenly Ailsa thought, and then put herthoughts into words.
"What a long time we are in getting home," she said, and bent forward sothat the light from the window might fall upon the dial of her wristwatch, then gave a little startled cry and half rose from her seat. Forthe darkness was now tempered by moonlight, and she could see that theywere no longer in the populous districts of the town, but were speedingalong past woodlands and open fields in the very depths of the country."Good gracious! Johnston must have lost his senses!" she exclaimedagitatedly. "Look where we are, Captain Hawksley!--out in the countrywith only a farmhouse or two in sight. Johnston! Johnston!" She bentforward and rapped wildly on the glass panel. "Johnston, stop!--turnround!--are you out of your head? Captain Hawksley, stop him--stop himfor pity's sake!"
"Sit down, Miss Lorne." He made reply in a low, level voice, a voice inwhich there was something that made her pluck the child to her and holdhim right to her breast. "You are not going home to-night. You are goingfor a ride with me; and if--Oh, that's your little game, is it?"lurching forward as she made a frantic clutch at the handle of the door."Sit down, do you hear me?--or it will be worse for you! There!"--thecold bore of a revolver barrel touched her temple and wrung a quakinggasp of terror from her--"Do you feel that? Now you sit down and bequiet! If you make a single move, utter a single cry, I'll blow yourbrains out before you've half finished it. Look here, do you know whoyou're dealing with now? See!"
His hand reached up and twitched away the fair beard and moustache; hebent forward so that the moonlight through the glass could fall on hisface. It had changed as his voice had now changed, and she saw that shewas looking at the man who in those other days of stress and trial hadposed as "Gaston Merode," brother to the fictitious "Countess de laTour."
"You!" she said in a bleak voice of desolation and fright. "Dear heaven,that horrible Margot's confederate, the King of the Apaches!"
"Yes!" he rapped out. "You and that fellow Cleek came between us in onepromising game, but I'm hanged if you shall do it in this one! I wantthis boy, and--I've got him. Now, you call off Cleek and tell him todrop this case--to make no effort to follow us or to come between us andthe kid--or I'll slit your throat after I've done with his little
lordship here. Lanisterre!"--to the chauffeur--"Lanisterre, do youhear?"
"_Oui, monsieur_."
"Give her her head--full speed--and get to the mill as fast as you can.Margot will be with us in another two hours' time."