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- Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
The Cardinal Moth by Fred M. White is a spellbinding mystery set against the backdrop of Edwardian England. A rare and valuable moth becomes the center of a gripping tale of obsession, betrayal, and murder. When a wealthy collector dies under mysterious circumstances, his prized possession—the elusive Cardinal Moth—goes missing, drawing the attention of detectives and rivals alike. As the tension escalates, dark secrets emerge, and no one is safe from the deadly intrigue that follows the moth's disappearance. Will the truth come to light, or will the Cardinal Moth claim yet another victim? This atmospheric and suspense-filled novel is perfect for fans of classic crime and thrillers.
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Table of Contents
The Cardinal Moth
II. — ANGELA
III. — CROSSED SWORDS
IV. — A DUSKY POTENTATE
V. — AN INTERRUPTED FEAST
VI. — A BIT OF THE ROPE
VII. — A GRIP OF STEEL
VIII. — THE WEAKER VESSEL
IX. — A WORD TO THE WISE (I)
X. — A WORD TO THE WISE (II)
XI. — BORROWED PLUMES
XII. — A MODEL HUSBAND
XIII. — THE QUEEN OF THE RUBIES
XIV. — "UNEASY LIES THE HEAD..."
XV. — HUNT THE SLIPPER
XVI. — DIPLOMACY
XVII. — A FRIEND IN NEED
XVIII. — A DEFENSIVE ALLIANCE
XIX. — WHAT DID SHE MEAN?
XX. — CHECK TO FROBISHER
XXI. — DENVERS LEARNS SOMETHING
XXII. — STRANDS OF THE ROPE
XXIII. — A LUNCH AT THE BELGRAVE
XXIV. — A WOMAN'S WAY
XXV. — A STRIKING LIKENESS
XXVI. — A BAD QUARTER OF AN HOUR
XXVII. — MRS. BENSTEIN INTERVENES
XXVIII. — NEMESIS
XXIX. — THE TIGHTENED CORD
Landmarks
Table of Contents
Cover
The Cardinal Moth
"The Cardinal Moth," Frobisher said, hoarsely.
II. — ANGELA
Frobisher sat the following morning in the orchid-house chuckling to himself and waiting the advent of his two guests to luncheon. Heaven alone could follow the twists and turns of that cunning brain. Frobisher was working out one of his most brilliant schemes now. He took infinite pains to obtain by underground passages the things he might have obtained openly and easily. But there was the delight of puzzling other people.
He looked up presently, conscious of a presence beyond his own. In the dark Frobisher could always tell if anybody came into the room. He crooked his wicked head sideways with the air of a connoisseur, and in sooth there was good cause for his admiration. Here was something equal at least to his most beautiful and cherished orchids, a tall, graceful girl with shining brown hair, and eyes of the deepest, purest blue. Her complexion was like old ivory, and as pure, the nose a little short, perhaps, but the sweet mouth was full of strength and character.
"I came for the flowers that you promised me, Sir Clement," she said.
"Call me uncle and you shall have the conservatory," Frobisher grinned. "I am your uncle by marriage, you know, and your guardian bylaw. Angela, you are looking lovely. With the exception of a peasant woman I once met in Marenna, you are the most beautiful creature I ever saw."
Angela Lyne listened with absolute indifference. She was accustomed to be studied like this by Sir Clement Frobisher, whom she loathed and detested from the bottom of her heart. But Lady Frobisher was her aunt, and Frobisher her guardian for the next year, until she came of age, in fact.
"Give me the flowers," she said. "I am late as it is. I have sent my things on, for I shall dine with Lady Marchgrave after the concert, and come home alone. Hafid will let me in."
"Better take a latchkey," Frobisher suggested. "There! Let me pin them in for you. I'll show you an orchid when you have time to examine it that will move even you to admiration. But not now; she is too superb a creature for passing admiration. Now I think you will do."
There was no question of Frobisher's taste or his feeling for arranging flowers. The blossoms looked superb and yet so natural as they lay on Angela's breast—white orchids shot with sulphur. They were the theme of admiration an hour later at Lady Marchgrave's charity concert; they gleamed again on Angela's corsage as she sat in the Grosvenor Square drawing-room at dinner. Five-and-twenty people sat round the long table with its shaded lights and feathery flowers. There were distinguished guests present, for Lady Marchgrave was by way of being intellectual, but Angela had eyes for one man only. He had come a little late, and had slipped quietly into a chair at the bottom of the table—a tall man with a strong face, not exactly handsome, but full of power. The clean-shaven lips were very firm, but when the newcomer smiled his face looked singularly young and sweet. Angela's dinner partner followed her glance with his eyes.
"If it isn't that beast Denvers," he muttered. "I thought he had been murdered in the wilds of Armenia or some such desirable spot. You ought to be glad, Angela."
"I am glad, Mr. Arnott," Angela said coldly. "Permit me to remind you again that I particularly dislike being called by my Christian name; at least, at present."
The little man with the hooked nose and the shifting, moist eye, put down his champagne glass savagely. For some deep, mysterious reason, Sir Clement favoured George Arnott's designs upon Angela, and if nothing interfered he was pretty sure to get his own way in the end. At present Angela was coldly disdainful; she little dreamt of the power and cunning of the man she was thwarting. She turned her head away, absently waiting for Lady Marchgrave's signal. There was a flutter and rustle of silken and lace draperies presently, and the chatter of high-bred voices floating from the hall. A good many people had already assembled in the suite of rooms beyond, for Lady Marchgrave's receptions were popular as well as fashionable. Angela wandered on until she came to the balcony overlooking the square. She leant over thoughtfully—her mind had gone back to such a night a year or so before.
"Mine is a crescent star to-night," a quiet voice behind her said. "I seemed to divine by instinct where you were. Angela, dear Angela, it is good to be with you again."
The girl's face flushed, her blue eyes were full of tenderness. Most people called her cold, but nobody could bring that accusation against her now. Her two hands went out to Harold Denvers, and he held them both. For a long while the brown eyes looked into the heavenly blue ones.
"Still the same?" Denvers asked. "Nobody has taken what should be my place, Angela?"
"Nobody has taken it, and nobody is ever likely to," Angela smiled. "There is supposed to be nothing between us; you refused to bind me, and you did not write or give me your address, but my heart is yours and you know it. And if you changed I should never believe in anything again."
"If I should change! Dear heart, is it likely? If you only knew what I felt when I caught sight of you to-night. My queen, my beautiful, white queen! If I could only claim you before all the world!"
Angela bent her head back behind the screen of a fluttering, silken curtain and kissed the speaker. He held her in his arms just for one blissful moment.
"It seems just the same," he said, "as if the clock had been put back a year, to that night when Sir Clement found us out. The son of the man whom he had ruined and his rich and lovely ward! There was a dramatic scene for you! But he only grinned in that diabolical way of his, and shortly after that mission to Armenia was offered to me. I never guessed then who procured it for me, but I know now as well as I know that Sir Clement never intended me to come back."
"Harold! Do you really mean to say that—that——"
"You hesitate, of course. It is not a pretty thing to say. Life is cheap out there, and if I was killed, what matter? Let us talk of other and more pleasant things."
"Of your travels and adventures, for instance. Did you find any wonderful flowers, like you did, for instance, in Borneo, Harold? Where did you get that lovely orchid from?"
A single blossom flamed on the silk lapel of Denvers' coat—a whitish bloom with a cloud of little flowers hovering over it like moths. It was the Cardinal Moth again.
"Unique, is it not?" Harold said. "Thereby hangs a strange, romantic tale which would take too long to tell at present. What would Sir Clement give for it?"
"Let me have it before I go," asked Angela, eagerly. "I should like to show it to Sir Clement. He has some wonderful flower that he wants me to see, but I feel pretty sure that he has nothing like that. I shall decline to say where I got the bloom from."
Denvers removed the exquisite bloom with its nodding scarlet moths and dexterously attached it to Angela's own orchids. The thing might have been growing there.
"It seems strange to see that bloom on your innocent breast," Harold said. "It makes me feel quite creepy when I look at it. If you only knew the sin and misery and shame and crime that surrounds the Cardinal Moth you would hesitate to wear it."
Angela smiled; she did not possess the imaginative vein.
"You shall tell me that another time," she said. "Meanwhile you seem to have dropped from the clouds.... Are your plans more promising for the future?"
"A little nebulous for the present," Denvers admitted, "though the next expedition, which is not connected with Sir Clement Frobisher, promises well for the future. There is a lot to be done, however, and I am likely to be in London for the next three weeks or so. And you?"
"We are here for the season, of course. My aunt is staying at Chaffers Court till Friday, hence the fact that I am here alone. If you are very good you shall take me as far as Piccadilly in a taxi. I must see a good deal of you, Hal, for I have been very lonely."
There was a pathetic little droop in Angela's voice. Harold drew her a little closer.
"I wish I could take you out of it, darling," he said. "For your sake, we must try and make the next venture a success. If we can only start the company fairly, I shall be able to reckon on a thousand a year. Do you think you could manage on that, Angela?"
"Yes, or on a great deal less," Angela smiled. "I could be happy with you anywhere. And you must not forget that I shall have a large fortune of my own some day."
Other people were drifting towards the cool air of the balcony now, George Arnott amongst the number. It was getting late, and Angela was tired. She whispered Harold to procure her a cab, and that she would say good-night to Lady Marchgrave and join him presently. The cab came, and so did the lights of Piccadilly all too soon. Denvers lingered on the steps just for a moment. He was going down to a big country house on Saturday for the week-end. Would Angela come if he could procure her an invitation? Angela's eyes replied for her. She was in the house at length by the aid of her latchkey. The dining-room door opened for a moment; there was a rattle of conversation and the smell of Egyptian cigarettes. Evidently Sir Clement was giving one of his famous impromptu dinner-parties. Angela took the spray of orchids from her breast and passed hurriedly in the direction of the orchid-house. The bloom would keep best there, she thought.
As she passed along the corridor the figure of a man preceded her. The stranger crept along, looking furtively to the right and the left. From his every gesture he was doing wrong here. Then he darted for the orchid-house and Angela followed directly she had recovered herself. She would corner the man in the conservatory and demand his business. In the conservatory Angela looked about her. The man had vanished.
He had utterly gone—he was nowhere to be seen. Angela rubbed her eyes in amazement. There was no other way out of the conservatory. She stood therewith the Cardinal Moth in her hand, aware now that she was looking into the scared face of Hafid.
"Take it and burn it, and destroy it," he said in a dazed kind of way. "Take it and burn it at once. Dear lady, will you go to bed? Take it and burn it—my head is all hot and confused. Dear lady, do not stay here, the place is accursed. By the Prophet, I wish I had never been born."
III. — CROSSED SWORDS
Hafid came into the library and pulled to the big bronze gates of the orchid-house like the portals of a floral paradise. There were flowers here: stephanotis climbing round the carved mantel, ropes of orchids dangling from the electroliers, in one corner a mass of maiden-hair fern draped the wall. Even the pictures in their Florentine frames were roped with blossoms.
Frobisher glanced beyond the carved and twisted gates with a peculiar smile after Angela had departed. His luncheon guests were late. He looked more like a mischievous bird than usual. There was an air of pleased anticipation about him as of a man who is going to witness a brilliant comedy.
There came to him a tall man with a heavy moustache and an unmistakable military swagger. If Frobisher resembled a parrot, Lefroy was most unmistakably a hawk. He passed in society generally as a cavalry officer high in favour of his Majesty the Shan of Ganistan; more than one brilliant expedition against the hill-tribes had been led by him. But some of the hill-men could have told another tale.
"Well, Lefroy," Frobisher exclaimed, genially. "This is a pleasure, a greater pleasure than you are aware of. Mr. Manfred, take a seat."
Lefroy's secretary bowed and sank into a deep chair. His face was absolutely devoid of emotion, a blank wall of whiteness with two eyes as expressionless as shuttered windows. Most people were disposed to regard Manfred as an absolute fool. The hill-men at the back of Ganistan muttered in their beards that he was, if possible, worse than his master.
Lefroy reached for a cigar, lighted it, and looked around him. The white-faced Manfred seemed to have lapsed into a kind of waking sleep. A more utter indifference to his surroundings it would be hard to imagine. Yet he was a kind of intellectual camera. He had never been in Frobisher's library before. But a year hence he could have entered it in the dark and found his way to any part of the room with absolute certainty.
"I came to see you over that central Koordstan Railway business," Lefroy said.
"Precisely," Frobisher smiled. "I might have guessed it. As an Englishman—though you have so picturesque a name—you are anxious that England should receive the concessions. In fact, you have already promised it to our Government."
Lefroy made a motion as who should move a piece on a chess-board.
"That is one to you," he said. "Yes, you are quite right. Whereas you?"
"Whereas I am interested on behalf of the Russian Government. I tried our people here two years ago, but they refused to have anything to do with me."
"Refused to trust you, in point of fact."
Frobisher laughed noiselessly. The wrinkled cunning of his face and the noble expanse of his forehead looked strange together.
"Quite right," he said. "They refused to trust me. Any man who knows my record would be a fool to do so. But in that instance I was perfectly loyal, because it was my interest to be so. Still I bowed with chastened resignation and—immediately offered my services to Russia. Then you slipped in and spoilt my little game."
"There is half a million hanging to the thing, my dear fellow."
"Well, well! But you have not won yet. You can do nothing till you have won the Shan of Koordstan to your side. Whichever way he throws his influence the concession goes. And He of Koordstan and myself are very friendly. He dines here to-night."
Lefroy started slightly. He glanced at Frobisher keenly under his shaggy brows. The latter lay back smoking his filthy clay with dreamy ecstasy.
"Yes," he went on, "He dines here to-night to see my orchids. My dear fellow, if you and Manfred will join us, I shall be delighted."
Lefroy muttered something that sounded like acceptance. Manfred came out of his waking dream, nodded, and slipped back into conscious unconsciousness again.
"That picturesque and slightly drunken young rascal has a passion for orchids," said Frobisher. "It is the one redeeming point in his character. But you know that, of course. You haven't forgotten the great coup so nearly made with the Cardinal Moth."
"The plant that was burnt at Ochiri," Lefroy said uneasily.
"The same. What a wax the old man was in, to be sure! Ah, my dear Lefroy, we shall never, never see a Cardinal Moth again!"
"If I could," Lefroy said hoarsely. "Your chances with the Shan of Koordstan wouldn't be worth a rap. With that orchid I could buy the man body and soul. And the plant that was stolen from us at Turin is dead long ago. It must be, such a find as that couldn't possibly have been kept quiet."
"I'll bet you a thousand pounds that orchid is alive," Frobisher said dryly.
Lefroy sat up straight as a ramrod. The waxed ends of his big moustache quivered. He turned to Manfred, anxiety, anger, passion, blazing like a brief torch in his eyes. Manfred seemed to divine rather than know that he was under that black battery, and shook his head.
"I fail to see the point of the joke," Lefroy said.
Frobisher signed to Hafid to throw back the gates. Lefroy was on his feet by this time. He breathed like one who has run fast and far. Manfred followed him with the air of a man who is utterly without hope or expectation.
"There!" Frobisher cried with a flourish of his hand. "What is that you see beyond the third tier of ropes? Ah, my beauty, here comes another lover for you!"
Lefroy's black eyes were turned up towards the high dome of the orchid-house. Other tangled ropes and loops of blossoms met his gaze and held it as he glanced in the direction indicated by Frobisher. And there, high up above them all he could see the long, foamy, pink mass of blooms with the red moths dancing and hovering about them like things of life.
"The Cardinal Moth," he screamed. "Manfred, Manfred, curse you!"
He wheeled suddenly round in a whirl of delirious passion, and struck Manfred a violent blow in the mouth. The secretary staggered back, a thin stream of blood spurted from his split lip. But he said nothing, manifested no feeling or emotion of any kind. With a handkerchief he staunched the flow with the automatic action of a marionette.
"The Cardinal Moth," Frobisher said as genially as if nothing had happened. "The gem has but recently come into my possession. It will be a pleasant surprise for our friend the Shan to-night."
Just for an instant it looked as if Lefroy were about to transfer his spleen from Manfred to his host. But Frobisher had been told enough already. The cowardly blow said as plainly as words could speak that Frobisher had obtained the very treasure that Lefroy was after. He imagined that his secretary had played him false. And, moreover, he knew that Frobisher knew this.
"You've got it," he said. He seemed to have a difficulty in swallowing something. "But you could not bring yourself to part with it. You couldn't do it."
"My good Lefroy, every man has his price, even you and I. My beloved Moth may not be a very good trap, but I shall find it a wonderfully efficient bait."
"I dare say," Lefroy returned moodily. "Can I examine the flower closer?"
"Certainly. Hafid, bring the extending steps this way. Be careful of those ropes and tangles. An active man like you could climb up the stays and bracket to the roof."
Lefroy was a long time examining the flower. He was torn by envy and admiration. When he came down again his face was pale and his hands trembled.
"The real thing," he said, "the real, palpitating, beautiful thing. But there is blood upon it."
"Born in blood and watered with the stream of life. No, I am not going to tell you where I got it from. And now, my dear Lefroy, what will you take for your Koordstan concessions?"
Lefroy said nothing, but there was a gleam in his downcast eyes. Then presently he broke into a laugh that jarred on the decorous silence of the place.
"The game is yours," he said. "White to play and mate in three moves. Still there may be a way out. And, on the other hand, you must be very sure of your game to show me that. Lord, I'd give twopence to have you alone in a dark corner!"
He rose abruptly, turned on his heel, and made for the door, followed by the white automaton with the bleeding lip. He could hear Frobisher's diabolical chuckle as the big bronze gates closed behind him. It was perhaps the most silent meal ever partaken of at Frobisher's. He was glad at length to see the last of his luncheon guests.
Once in the streets Lefroy's manner changed. He looked uneasy and downcast.
"I'm sorry I hit you, Manfred," he said. "But when I caught sight of that infernal plant I felt sure that you had sold me. But even you couldn't have carried the thing off quite so coolly as that. And yet—and yet there can't be two Cardinal Moths in existence."
"There are not," Manfred said impatiently. "That is the same one I hoped to have had in my possession to-night. Didn't Frobisher say it had recently fallen into his hands?"
"I recollect that now. Manfred, I'm done. And yet I regarded it as a certainty."
"You were a great fool to strike me just now," said Manfred, thoughtfully, and without resentment. "Why? Because the blow told Frobisher that he had gained possession of the very thing you were after. It was as good as telling him that you thought I had betrayed you. To-night when the Shan dines——"
Lefroy grasped Manfred's arm with crushing force.
"He isn't going to dine with Frobisher to-night," he whispered. "We shall dine there, but his Majesty will be unfortunately detained owing to sudden indisposition. In other words, he will be too drunk to leave his hotel. Let's go into your lodgings and have a brandy and soda. I've got a plan ready. There is just a chance yet that I may succeed."
Manfred let himself into a house just off Brook Street. In a modest room upstairs, a box of cigars, some spirits, together with a silver jug of water, and a box of sparklets were put out. On the round table lay an early edition of an evening paper that Manfred opened somewhat eagerly for him. He glanced over a late advertisement in the personal column and shook his head.
"It is as I thought," he said. "See here. 'The butterflies have gone away and cannot be found. My poor friend has broken his neck and I have gone on a journey'—That is addressed to me, Lefroy. It is a message from my man that somebody has stolen the Cardinal Moth, and that my man's confederate has met with a fatal accident. Also it seems likely that there will be a fuss over the business, so that my correspondent has gone somewhere out of the way. We will look for some account of the tragedy presently; it is sure to be in this paper. Now tell me what you propose to do."
Lefroy poured a brandy and soda down his throat without a single movement of his larynx.
"I'm in a devil of a mess," he said frankly. "I made certain of getting the Cardinal Moth."
"So did I. But that is a detail. Go on."
"I wanted money badly. The concession seemed to be as good as mine. With the Moth as a bribe for the Shan it would have been all Lombard Street to a green gooseberry. So I lodged the charter with a notorious money-lending Jew in Fenchurch Street, and got twenty thousand pounds on account."
"My dear Lefroy, you hadn't got the concession to lodge!"
"No, but I had the man's letters, and I had the draft contract. So I forged the Charter, hoping to exchange it for a more broad and liberal one later on, and there you are!"
"And where will you be if you stay in the country forty-eight hours longer?"
"I understand," Lefroy said grimly. "But there is a chance yet. The Shan does not go to Frobisher's dinner this evening and we do. You are suddenly indisposed and sit out. At a given signal I make a diversion. Then you hurry into that orchid-house and steal the flower."
"The thing is absolutely impossible, my dear fellow!"
"Not at all. There is a much smaller Moth growing side by side with the larger one. I found that out to-night. You have only to snap off a small piece of cork and unwind the stems. Then you hurry off to my place with it and put it amongst my orchids. The old man does not expect anything beyond a small plant; those we had before were babies compared to the one yonder. Then we get the Shan round the next day and give him the vegetable. I shall have the concession ready. And it's any money Frobisher never knows how he has been done."
"I'll make the attempt if you like," Manfred said without emotion. "We can discuss the details in the morning. And now let me see what happened to my man. There is sure to be an account in this paper."
Manfred came upon it at length:
"Mysterious Occurrence in Streatham.
"Yesterday evening Thomas Silverthorne, caretaker at Lennox Nursery, Streatham, was aroused by hearing a noise in the greenhouse attached to the house. Silverthorne had not gone to bed; indeed, only a few hours before his employer had died, leaving him alone in the house. On entering the greenhouse the caretaker discovered the body of a man lying on the floor quite dead. Silverthorne thinks that it was the dull thud of the body that aroused him. Some plants in the roof had been pulled down—rare orchids, according to Silverthorne, who, however, is no gardener—but there was no means to show how the unfortunate man got there, as there is no exit from the greenhouse to the garden. The man was quite dead, and subsequent medical examination showed that he had been strangled by a coarse cloth twisted tightly round his throat; indeed, the marks on the hempen-cloth were plainly to be seen. An inquest will be held to-morrow."
"Well, what do you think of it?" Lefroy asked.
Manfred pitched the paper aside in a sudden flame of unreasoning passion.
"Accursed thing!" he cried. "It is the curse that follows the pursuit of the Cardinal Moth. It is ever the same, always blood, blood. If I had my way——"
"Drop it," Lefroy said sternly. "Remember what you have got to do."
Manfred grew suddenly hard and wooden again.
"I have passed my word," he said. "And it shall be done, though I would rather burn my hand off first."
IV. — A DUSKY POTENTATE
A very late breakfast, past two o'clock, in fact, was laid out in one of the private sitting-rooms of Gardner's hotel that self-same afternoon. Gardner's only catered for foreign princes and ambassadors and people of that kind, the place was filled with a decorous silence, the servants in their quiet liveries gave a suggestion of a funeral of some distinguished personage, and that the body had not long left the premises. But despite the fact, some queer people patronised Gardner's from time to time, and His Highness the Shan of Koordstan was not the least brilliant in that line.
It was nearer three when he pushed his plate away and signified to the servant that he had finished his breakfast. A morsel of toast and caviare assisted by a glass of brandy and soda-water is not a meal suggestive of abstemious habits, and, indeed, the Shan of Koordstan by no means erred in that direction.
He looked older than his years, and had it not been for his dusky complexion and yellow eyes, might have passed for a European of swarthy type. His features were quite regular and fairly handsome; he was dressed in the most correct Bond Street fashion, the cigarette he held between 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 away with the tray. "I shall have to drop that old Cambridge set. I can't stand their ways. If anybody comes I am out, at least out to everybody besides Mr. Harold Denvers; you understand."
The servant bowed and retired. He came back presently with a card on a salver, and he of Koordstan gave a careless nod of assent. The next moment Harold Denvers came into the room. He sniffed at the mingled odour of brandy and cigarette smoke, and smiled. Koordstan was watching him with those eyes that never rested. Their side gleam and the hard set of the grinning mouth showed that a tiger was concealed there under a thin veneer of Western civilisation.
"You've got back again, Denvers," he said. "'Pon my word, you're devilish lucky. They had quite meant to put you out of the way this time."
"Your Highness is alluding to Sir Clement Frobisher, of course," Harold said.
Koordstan crossed over to an alcove and pushed the curtain back. Beyond was a small conservatory filled with choice orchids. They were a passion with him as with Frobisher. One of his chief reasons for coming to Gardner's was because it was possible to fill the small conservatory with a selection of his favourites. The atmosphere was damp and oppressive, but the Shan seemed to revel in it.
"That's about the size of it," he said. "Frobisher found out that you were épris of his lovely ward, and he had other views for her. The young lady has a will of her own, I understand."
"If you could see your way," Harold murmured, "to leave Miss Lyne out of the discussion——"
"My dear chap, I have not the slightest intention of erring against good taste. I like you, and out of all the men I come in contact with, you are the only honest man of the lot. Now I have stated why you were to be got out of the way I can proceed. Can't you see that there is somebody 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 I know that, like a great many people, you regard Arnott as a fool. He has the laugh of a jackass, with the silly face of a cow. But behind the mooncalf countenance of his and that watery eye is a fine brain, and no heart or conscience. He and Frobisher are hand in glove together: they have some fine scheme afloat. And the price of Arnott's alliance is the hand 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 the time comes. And now you have come about those concessions that I was to consider with a view——"
"Begging your pardon—the concessions which your Highness has promised to my company."
"Drop that polite rot, old chap," Koordstan said, with engaging frankness. "You speak like that, but you regard me as a sorry ass who is building his own grave with empty brandy bottles. Entre nous, I did promise you those concessions, but you can't have them."
Harold knew his man too well to rage and storm or show his anger. He had counted on this matter. He had seen his way through dangers and perils of the fertile valleys of Koordstan and a fortune and perhaps fame 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 and what a superstitious gang they are. And you have heard the history of the 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 be without. Now if I sold that stone or gave it away, what would happen to me 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 merely has the misfortune to be hard up. And I have been most infernally hard up 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, that I pledged the Blue Stone."
Harold started. The statement did not convey much to the Western ears generally, but Denvers realised the true state of the case. The Shan was 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 he pared his long nails. "There was a new orchid or something that I had to buy. Sooner or later I shall recover the Blue Stone. But unfortunately for you, Lefroy and his set are after those concessions, and in some way Lefroy has discovered that the precious old jewel is no longer 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. "Mind you, he is too good a diplomat to say out and out that he has made that important discovery. The Blue Stone is engraved on one side, and that side is used as a seal for sealing important state documents. Lefroy is desolate, but his people will do nothing until they get from me a wax impression of the seal; he told me that here. And he smiled. It was very near to the last time he smiled at anybody. If we had not been in London!"
Koordstan checked himself and paced up and down the small conservatory as like a caged tiger as a human being could be.
"Your answer to that was easy," Harold said. "You might have declined on the grounds that it would have been too easy to forge a die from that waxen impression."
"Good Lord, and I never thought of it!" Koordstan cried. "By Jove, that opens up a fine field for me! But it will take time. In the meantime a smiling face and a few of those previous subterfuges that men for want of a better name call diplomacy. You shall have your concessions yet."
Harold muttered something that might have been thanks, but he had his doubts. The Shan was favourably disposed towards him, but he would not have trusted the latter a yard so far as money was concerned. But there was another and better card yet to play.
"I have not forgotten your promise," he said. "When I showed you the Cardinal 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 the information——"
He paused as if breath had suddenly failed him. The yellow face was quite ashy.
"Indeed I have," Harold said quietly. "That was one of the reasons why I came home. I got scent of the thing on the far side of the Ural mountains. My adventures would fill a big book. But I came home with the '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 of good faith. The plant is at present hidden away in the obscure conservatory 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 had better depart by the Green Street door; it's Lefroy, and it would be as well 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 to do so. Only not one word of this to anybody. We can steal away down to Streatham and——"
Koordstan bounced to his feet, anger and disappointment lived on his face.
"Streatham, did you say!" he cried. "There seems to be witchery about the business. Don't tell me that you left the plant in care of a man called——"
The Shan grabbed for an early edition of an evening paper which fluttered in his hand like a leaf in a breeze. He found what he wanted presently and began to read half aloud.
