Rau recovered his equanimity. His thin lips ceased to twitch. He felt that this was a mere matter of money.
“Old chap,” he said quite cordially, “what’s the figure?”
“You always were a sensible man,” Vaughan replied. “Never any dashed Oriental poetry about you. All the same, there is no figure—in money signs, that is.”
“Then what the deuce do you want?”
“That I can hardly go into in detail. Let us speak plainly. I’ve got the whip hand of you: a few words from me and your interest in the sovereign lord and ruler business stops. You recognise that, of course. That I require something is obvious. I want you to stay away from Windsor to-morrow.”
Nana Rau smiled at the suggestion.
“Absurd,” he said; “you know I dare not do so.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, no. But these are not ordinary circumstances. You are merely going semi-officially. There will be no State fuss; you will dine at the Castle, and return here next morning. What is intended to take place yonder you know as well as I do.”
“I don’t want to go. It’s certain to be deuced slow. And if you can only show me some way out of the difficulty without compromising myself—”
“Of course I have my plans prepared,” Vaughan interrupted.
“You don’t leave Paddington till a train somewhere about six. Here is my card with my address. My place is out at Epsom. Come out there and lunch with me to-morrow, and bring your suite with you, baggage and all, and if we can’t come to terms, my carriage shall take you to Paddington.”
“I have only two chaps with me besides my cook,” said the Prince.
“Good. So much the better. Then you will come?”
“Well, there is no harm in that,” said Nana Rau. “I will.”
A few minutes later Wilfred Vaughan, alias Felix Gryde, was placidly walking along Piccadilly. He turned into the Café Soyer, where the other parties to the conspiracy were awaiting him and dinner. They were the tools to be used and to be discarded when the curtain fell.
“It’s all right,” Gryde proceeded to explain over the bisque. “I told you Nana Rau was the same man I used to be at Oxford with twenty years ago. I spotted him at Ascot, and I never forget a face. Nana was terribly frightened, and, indeed, it was no idle boast that I could bring about his ruin.”
“Will he come?” asked tht second conspirator.
“And will the original plan stand?” asked the third.
“Exactly as arranged. You will look after all the details, as I shall be very busy till luncheon time to-morrow. You will see that the cold luncheon is properly laid out by the local caterer, and pay for it. Then the keys must be packed up so as to be posted to the landlord’s agent directly we leave the house. Let the carriage be ordered for 3.30 prompt, and pay the liveryman for that also. Let it be understood that we have just taken the house for six months furnished— which is, indeed, the fact—and go to a registry office to inquire about servants. Order a dozen, and say the housekeeper will call to interview them on a certain day. Each of us, till the time for changing comes, retains his present disguise.”
As a “make-up” artist Gryde had no equal. Several society acquaintances there passed him without a s:gn of recognition.
“That’s all very well,” suggested one of the lieutenants; “but suppose any of the Castle people happen to have seen Nana Rau?”
“Which they haven’t done,” said Gryde. “I have made the most minute inquiries on this head. Besides, one Eastern Potentate is as like another as two peas when he is in his full war paint. It’s any money nobody yonder speaks the language, and if they do I shall make it my pleasure to stick to English. As you have both presumably been in England before, you can do the same. You have carefully studied the plans of the apartments I gave to you?”
The others protested that they had.
“Very good,” Gryde concluded; “in that case there is no more to be said. We ought to find enough within easy reach yonder to reward us for all our trouble. And the servants of the sovereign shall assist us in getting it away. I hope you won’t find it altogether too slow.”
Gryde settled the score and they rose to depart. In the street they separated, and each took a different way. Then they went to bed early and virtuously as befit men who have before them matters of importance on the morrow. On the whole they slept better than Nana Rau, Mahrajah of Curriebad.
CHAPTER II
IT WAS with considerable misgivings that Nana Rau drove with two dusky assistants down to Epsom the following morning.
With him was all his baggage, a formidable-looking amount for a night out; but then the dazzling splendour of Eastern attire cannot be measured by Western sartorial restrictions. These big trunks contained the full war paint which Nana Rau and suite intended to don after luncheon, and ere proceeding to Windsor.
One thing Nana Rau was fully resolved upon. Nothing should induce him to play into “Vaughan’s” hands unless the latter could provide him with a proper way out of the difficulty. It was only natural that the Prince should desire to protect himself, and nothing short of being able to show that he was the innocent victim of a vile conspiracy would satisfy him.
The Indians reached Vaughan’s hospitable mansion at length and were met at the door by that individual himself.
“I am afraid I shall have to request you to dispense with a deal of ceremony,” he said. “The fact is, this place has been let furnished for about a year, and my late tenants only turned out of it last week, and thus we are terribly short of servants. These footmen don’t seem able to do anything without a lot of women to help them.”
Vaughan, or Gryde rather, rang the bell violently, and presently a pair of men-servants appeared breathlessly. They were a fine-looking pair of men, and their livery left nothing to be desired. The astute reader will have little difficulty in guessing who these footmen were.
“Whatever have you fellows been doing?” Gryde demanded.
“Please, sir,” replied one, in the purest of Cockney accents, “it’s all along of the new cook, which she’s drunk—”
Gryde waved these details aside.
“I desire to know nothing of these matters,” he replied. “Take the Prince up to the room prepared for him, and these gentlemen also, and see that they have everything they require. Luncheon is prepared, I suppose?”
“Luncheon is waiting in the dining-room now, sir.”
A little later and Nana Rau, together with his host and attendants, sat down to one of the most perfect luncheons it is possible to imagine. The Prince was a bit
