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."
CHAPTER 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
