*CHAPTER IV.*
*A DUSKY POTENTATE.*
A very late breakfast, past two o'clock, in fact, was laid out in one ofthe private sitting-rooms of Gardner's hotel that self-same afternoon.Gardner's only catered for foreign princes and ambassadors and people ofthat kind, the place was filled with a decorous silence, the servants intheir quiet liveries gave a suggestion of a funeral of somedistinguished personage, and that the body had not long left thepremises. But despite the fact, some queer people patronised Gardner'sfrom time to time, and His Highness the Shan of Koordstan was not theleast brilliant in that line.
It was nearer three when he pushed his plate away and signified to theservant that he had finished his breakfast. A morsel of toast andcaviare assisted by a glass of brandy and soda-water is not a mealsuggestive of abstemious habits, and, indeed, the Shan of Koordstan byno means erred in that direction.
He looked older than his years, and had it not been for his duskycomplexion and yellow eyes, might have passed for a European of swarthytype. His features were quite regular and fairly handsome; he wasdressed in the most correct Bond Street fashion, the cigarette he heldbetween his shaky fingers might have come from any first-class club.
"I've got a devil of a head," he said, as the servant softly crept awaywith the tray. "I shall have to drop that old Cambridge set. I can'tstand their ways. If anybody comes I am out, at least out to everybodybesides Mr. Harold Denvers; you understand."
The servant bowed and retired. He came back presently with a card on asalver, and he of Koordstan gave a careless nod of assent. The nextmoment Harold Denvers came into the room. He sniffed at the mingledodour of brandy and cigarette smoke, and smiled. Koordstan was watchinghim with those eyes that never rested. Their side gleam and the hard setof the grinning mouth showed that a tiger was concealed there under athin veneer of Western civilisation.
"You've got back again, Denvers," he said. "'Pon my word, you'redevilish lucky. They had quite meant to put you out of the way thistime."
"Your Highness is alluding to Sir Clement Frobisher, of course," Haroldsaid.
Koordstan crossed over to an alcove and pushed the curtain back. Beyondwas a small conservatory filled with choice orchids. They were apassion with him as with Frobisher. One of his chief reasons for comingto Gardner's was because it was possible to fill the small conservatorywith a selection of his favourites. The atmosphere was damp andoppressive, but the Shan seemed to revel in it.
"That's about the size of it," he said. "Frobisher found out that youwere _epris_ of his lovely ward, and he had other views for her. Theyoung lady has a will of her own, I understand."
"If you could see your way," Harold murmured, "to leave Miss Lyne out ofthe discussion----"
"My dear chap, I have not the slightest intention of erring against goodtaste. I like you, and out of all the men I come in contact with, youare the only honest man of the lot. Now I have stated why you were tobe got out of the way I can proceed. Can't you see that there issomebody else who is your mortal enemy besides Frobisher?"
"I cannot call any one particularly to mind at present."
"Oh, you are blind!" Koordstan cried. "What about George Arnott? Now Iknow that, like a great many people, you regard Arnott as a fool. He hasthe laugh of a jackass, with the silly face of a cow. But behind themooncalf countenance of his and that watery eye is a fine brain, and noheart or conscience. He and Frobisher are hand in glove together: theyhave some fine scheme afloat. And the price of Arnott's alliance is thehand of a certain lady, who shall be nameless."
"Do you mean that Arnott, when I went out to Armenia, actually----"
"Actually! Yes, that is the word. I shall be able to prove it when thetime comes. And now you have come about those concessions that I was toconsider with a view----"
"Begging your pardon--the concessions which your Highness has promisedto my company."
"Drop that polite rot, old chap," Koordstan said, with engagingfrankness. "You speak like that, but you regard me as a sorry ass whois building his own grave with empty brandy bottles. _Entre nous_, I didpromise you those concessions, but you can't have them."
Harold knew his man too well to rage and storm or show his anger. Hehad counted on this matter. He had seen his way through dangers andperils of the fertile valleys of Koordstan and a fortune and perhapsfame behind. The hard grin on the face of the Shan relaxed a little.
"I'll tell you how it is," he said. "You know a lot about my people andwhat a superstitious gang they are. And you have heard the history ofthe Blue Stone of Ghan. As a matter of fact it's a precious big ruby,and is a talisman that every Shan of Koordstan is never supposed to bewithout. Now if I sold that stone or gave it away, what would happen tome when I got home?"
"They would tear you to pieces and burn your body afterwards."
"Precisely. Now that is a pretty way to treat a gentleman who merelyhas the misfortune to be hard up. And I have been most infernally hardup lately, owing to my unlucky speculations and those tribe troubles.Can't get in the taxes, you know. So the long and short of it is, thatI pledged the Blue Stone."
Harold started. The statement did not convey much to the Western earsgenerally, but Denvers realised the true state of the case. The Shanwas not a popular monarch; he was too European and absentee for that,and if the fact came out the priests would ruin him.
"That was a most reckless thing to do," Harold said.
"It was acting the goat, wasn't it?" Koordstan said carelessly, as hepared his long nails. "There was a new orchid or something that I hadto buy. Sooner or later I shall recover the Blue Stone. Butunfortunately for you, Lefroy and his set are after those concessions,and in some way Lefroy has discovered that the precious old jewel is nolonger in my possession."
"So that is the way in which he is putting the pressure on you?"
"That's it," the Shan said with a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "Mindyou, he is too good a diplomat to say out and out that he has made thatimportant discovery. The Blue Stone is engraved on one side, and thatside is used as a seal for sealing important state documents. Lefroy isdesolate, but his people will do nothing until they get from me a waximpression of the seal; he told me that here. And he smiled. It wasvery near to the last time he smiled at anybody. If we had not been inLondon!"
Koordstan checked himself and paced up and down the small conservatoryas like a caged tiger as a human being could be.
"Your answer to that was easy," Harold said. "You might have declined onthe grounds that it would have been too easy to forge a die from thatwaxen impression."
"Good Lord, and I never thought of it!" Koordstan cried. "By Jove, thatopens up a fine field for me! But it will take time. In the meantime asmiling face and a few of those previous subterfuges that men for wantof a better name call diplomacy. You shall have your concessions yet."
Harold muttered something that might have been thanks, but he had hisdoubts. The Shan was favourably disposed towards him, but he would nothave trusted the latter a yard so far as money was concerned. But therewas another and better card yet to play.
"I have not forgotten your promise," he said. "When I showed you theCardinal Moth."
"Afterwards subsequently destroyed. Ah, that we shall never see again.If you could give me that, you could make any terms with me. By heaven,I would have all Koordstan back at my feet if I could show them the'Moth'! Denvers, you don't mean to say that you have come here with theinformation----"
He paused as if breath had suddenly failed him. The yellow face wasquite ashy.
"Indeed I have," Harold said quietly. "That was one of the reasons whyI came home. I got scent of the thing on the far side of the Uralmountains. My adventures would fill a big book. But I came home withthe 'Moth' packed up in a quarter-pound tin of navy cut tobacco."
"You have kept this entirely to yourself?" the Shan asked hoarsely.
"Well, rather. I meant to
have brought you a bloom as a guarantee ofgood faith. The plant is at present hidden away in the obscureconservatory at a nursery in the suburbs. If you would like----"
Harold paused as a soft-footed servant came in with a card on a tray.The Shan glanced at it and grinned.
"Tell him to come again in half an hour," he said. "Denvers, you hadbetter depart by the Green Street door; it's Lefroy, and it would be aswell for him not to know that you had been here. Go on."
"If you would like to see the 'Moth' I can make arrangements for you todo so. Only not one word of this to anybody. We can steal away down toStreatham and----"
Koordstan bounced to his feet, anger and disappointment lived on hisface.
"Streatham, did you say!" he cried. "There seems to be witchery aboutthe business. Don't tell me that you left the plant in care of a mancalled----"
The Shan grabbed for an early edition of an evening paper whichfluttered in his hand like a leaf in a breeze. He found what he wantedpresently and began to read half aloud.
"Yesterday evening Thomas Silverthorne, caretaker at the Lennox Nursery,Streatham---- Look here, Denvers, read it for yourself. At the Lennoxnursery a man was found dead, murdered by having a rope placed round hisneck, and held there till he was strangled. Silverthorne says there wasa rare orchid or two in the house, and that one of them had been pulleddown and probably stolen. Now if you tell me that your 'Moth' wasplaced there, I shall want to murder you."
Harold rose, his face was disturbed and uneasy.
"It is as you imagine," he said. "I did place the 'Moth' there thenight before last. And I would have taken my oath that nobody knew thatthe plant was in England, I'll go to Streatham at once; I'll get to thebottom of this strange mystery."
"Count Lefroy is sorry," murmured the soft-footed servant, as he lookedin, "but he hopes your Highness will see him now as he can wait nolonger."