The Cardinal Moth. White Fred Merrick

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.

      "Yesterday evening Thomas Silverthorne, caretaker at the Lennox Nursery, Streatham – Look here, Denvers, read it for yourself. At the Lennox nursery a man was found dead, murdered by having a rope placed round his neck, and held there till he was strangled. Silverthorne says there was a rare orchid or two in the house, and that one of them had been pulled down and probably stolen. Now if you tell me that your 'Moth' was placed 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 the night before last. And I would have taken my oath that nobody knew that the plant was in England, I'll go to Streatham at once; I'll get to the bottom of this strange mystery."

      "Count Lefroy is sorry," murmured the soft-footed servant, as he looked in, "but he hopes your Highness will see him now as he can wait no longer."

      CHAPTER V

      AN INTERRUPTED FEAST

      To Frobisher's pêtit dîner the same evening of that eventful day ostensibly to meet the Shan of Koordstan, Lefroy came large and flamboyant, with a vivid riband across his dazzling expanse of shirt and a jewelled collar under his tie. There was an extra gloss on his black moustache, his swagger was a little more pronounced than usual. He looked like what he was – a strong man weighed down by not too many scruples.

      There were less than a dozen men altogether, a couple of well-known members of the Travellers', a popular K.C., and a keen, hatchet-faced judge with a quiet manner and a marvellous faculty for telling dialect stories. The inevitable politician and fashionable doctor completed the party. As Lefroy and his secretary entered the drawing-room most of the men were admiring a portfolio of Morland's drawings that Frobisher had picked up lately.

      Hafid stepped noiselessly across the floor with a telegram on a salver. Frobisher read it without the slightest sign of annoyance.

      "The Shan is not coming," he said. "Koordstan is indisposed."

      "So I gathered when I called professionally this afternoon," Dr. Brownsmith said dryly.

      "Champagne," Frobisher laughed