at the corners of noticeably dark-gray eyes. His hands looked like a conjurer's; he could do anything with them, even, to keeping them perfectly still.
"So you've actually turned in your resignation? We grow!" he remarked, laughing. "Everything grows—except me; I'm in the same old rut. I'll get the ax—get pensioned some day—dreadful fate! Did you have your interview with Jenkins? What happened? I can see you had the best of it—but how?"
Ommony laid three letters on the desk—purple ink on faded paper, in a woman's handwriting. McGregor laughed aloud—one bark, like the cry of a fox that scents its quarry on the fluke of a changing wind.
"Perfect!" he remarked, picking up the letters and beginning to read the top one. "Did you blackmail him?"
"I did."
"I could have saved you that trouble, you know. I could have 'broke' him. He deserves it," said McGregor, knitting his brows over the letter in his hand. "Man, man, he certainly deserves it!"
"If we all got our deserts the world 'ud stand still." Ommony chose a cigar and bit the end off. "He's a more than half -efficient bureaucrat. Let India suck him dry and spew him forth presently to end his days at Surbiton or Cheltenham."
McGregor went on reading, holding his breath. "Have you read these?" he asked suddenly.
Ommony nodded. McGregor chewed at his mustache and made noises with his teeth that brought Diana's ears up, cocked alertly.
"Man, they're pitiful! Imagine a brute like Jenkins having such a hold on any one—and he—good God! He ought to have been hanged—no, that's too good for him! I suppose there's no human law that covers such a case."
"None," Ommony answered grimly. "But I'm pious. I think there's a Higher Law that adjusts that sort of thing eventually. If not, I'd have killed the brute myself."
"Listen to this."
"Don't read 'em aloud, Mac. It's sacrilege. And I'm raw. It was at least partly my fault."
"Don't be an idiot!"
"It was, Mac. Elsa wasn't so many years younger than me, but even when we were kids we were more like father and child than brother and sister. She had the spirituality and the brains; I had the brute-strength and was presumed to have the common sense; it made a rather happy combination. As soon as I got settled in the forest I wrote home to her to come out and keep house for me. I used to trust Jenkins in those days. It was I who introduced them, Jenkins introduced her to Kananda Pal."
"That swine!"
"No, he wasn't such a swine as Jenkins," said Ommony. "Kananda Pal was a poor devil who was born into a black art family. He didn't know any better. His father used to make him stare into ink-pools and all that devilment before he was knee-high to a duck. He used to do stunts with spooks and things. Jenkins, on the other hand, had a decent heritage and ditched it. It was he who invited Kananda Pal to hypnotize Elsa. Between the two of them they did a devil's job of at. She almost lost her mind, and Jenkins had the filthy gall to use that as excuse for breaking the engagement."
"My God! But think if he had married her! Man, man!"
"True. But think of the indecency of making that excuse! I called in Fred Terry—"
"Top-hole—generous—gallant—gay! Man, what a delightful fellow Terry was!" said McGregor. "Did he really fall in love with her?—You know, he was recklessly generous enough to—"
"Yes," said Ommony. "He almost cured her; and he fell in love. She loved him—don't see how any real woman could have helped it. But Jenkins and Kananda Pal—oh, curse them both!"
"Amen!" remarked McGregor. "Well—we've got what we want. How did you hear of these letters?—Just think of it! That poor girl writing to a brute like Jenkins—to give her mind back to her. So that she may—oh, my God!"
"I saw Kananda Pal before he died. That was recently. He was quite sorry about his share in the business. He tried to put all the blame on Jenkins—you know how rotters always accuse each other when the cat's out of the bag. He told me of the letters, so I went to Jenkins yesterday and, having resigned, I was in position to be rather blunt. In fact, I was dam' blunt. He denied their existence at first, but he handed 'em over when I explained what I intended to do if he didn't!"
"I wonder why he'd kept them," said McGregor.
"The pig had kept them to prove she was mad, if any one should ever accuse him of having wronged her," Ommony answered. "Do they read like a mad-woman's letters?"
"Man, man! They're pitiful! They read like the letters of a drug-addict, struggling to throw off the cursed stuff, and all the while crying for it. Lord save us, what a time Fred Terry must have had!"
"Increasingly rarely," said Ommony. "He had almost cured her. The attacks were intermittent. Terry heard of a sacred place in the hills—a sort of Himalayan Lourdes, I take it—and they set off together, twenty years ago, to find the place. I never found a trace of them, but I heard rumors, and I've always believed they disappeared into the Ahbor country."
"Where they probably were crucified!" McGregor added grimly.
"I don't know," said Ommony. "I've heard tales about a mysterious stone in the Ahbor country that's supposed to have magic qualities. Terry probably heard about it too, and he was just the man to go in search of it. I've also heard it said that the 'Masters' live in the Ahbor Valley."
McGregor shook his head and smiled. "Still harping on that string?"
"One hundred million people, at a very conservative estimate, of whom at least a million are thinkers, believe that the Masters exist," Ommony retorted. "Who are you and I, to say they don't? If they do, and if they're in the Ahbor Valley, I propose to prove it."
McGregor's smile widened to a grin. "Men who are as wise as they are said to be, would know how to keep out of sight. The Mahatmas, or Masters, as you call them, are a mare's nest, Ommony, old man. However, there may be something in the other rumor. By the way: who's this adopted daughter of Miss Sanburn?"
"Never heard of her."
"You're trustee of the Marmaduke Mission, aren't you? Know Miss Sanburn intimately? When did you last see her?"
"A year ago. She comes to Delhi once a year to meet me on the mission business. About once in three years I go to Tilgaun. I'm due there now."
"And you never heard of an adopted daughter? Then listen to this."
McGregor opened a file and produced a letter written in English on cheap ruled paper.
"This is from Number 888—Sirdar Sirohe Singh of Tilgaun, who has been on the secret roster since before my time. His home is somewhere near the mission. 'Number 888 to Number 1. Important. Miss Sanburn of mission near here did procure fragment of crystal jade by unknown means, same having been broken from antiquity of unknown whereabouts and being reputed to possess mysterious qualities. Miss Sanburn's adopted daughter'—get that? —'intending to return same, was prevented by theft of fragment, female thief being subsequently murdered by being thrown from precipice, after which, fragment disappeared totally. Search for fragment being now conducted by anonymous individuals. Should say much trouble will ensue unless recovery is prompt and secret. Miss Sanburn's adopted daughter'—get that, again?—'has vanished. Should advise much precaution not to arouse
