The old “fence” nodded sullenly—he wasted no words.
“To your places then, gentlemen. Remember we may have to wait some time. but it’s dark by five. I shall expect our man to come straight on here from the quay-side.” Anthony squeezed himself into the musty-smelling passage with his two eminent companions and arranged his own position so that he commanded the view through the crack of the door. “A chink of vantage,” he remarked to the Crown Prince.
“A seat on the stairs will do for me for a time,” remarked Sir Austin sadly.
“And for me,” supplemented Alexis, “this place has a most infernal smell. I doubt whether I can endure it for long.”
Cuypers took a black velvet skull cap from the pocket of his jacket and put it on his round head. He patted it dramatically. “Pen and ink, Demetri—please! Quickly, too! And don’t forget, if the occasion demands to address me as ‘Pieter—Pieter Steen’ I am—for the next hour or so. Your very good clerk.”
Stefanopoulos, maintaining his sullen demeanour, put the writing materials in front of him. Cuypers grinned at him almost benevolently. “And one of your very best cigars, Demetri. You make an ungracious host! And a drop of real Schnapps. That’s right—and have a drop yourself, old boy. Show this poor native who’s coming to see you this evening a touching picture of the master hob-nobbing with his trusty old confidential clerk. Your very good—health.” He smacked his lips in gratified appreciation as Stefanopoulos grunted an unintelligible rejoinder. The two hours that followed reminded Anthony as he stood upright in the passage of that weary vigil in the garden of Considine Manor when he awaited with others the coming of the “Spider.” Neither the Crown Prince nor Sir Austin Kemble seemed particularly inclined to conversation. Remarks between them were few and far. A large old fashioned clock that hung on the wall of the evil-smelling passage announced the winging of the minutes with jaunty loudness. At times its ticking was the only sound that disturbed the ominous silence. In Anthony’s heart there was also a dangerous coldness. He was on the point of avenging a particularly cruel and callous crime—he was inclined to regard the case as perhaps—the door of the outer shop jangled discordantly! Through the crack of the door he saw the muscles of Cuyper’s face set rigidly as Stefanopoulos rose to his unsteady feet and shuffled once again into the shop. He heard a deep voice cut into the noise of the Greek’s shuffling slippers. Words passed that he was unable to hear. Then the two people came nearer.
“Salaam, sahib! You speak the Angleesh—yes?”
Anthony could not catch the reply but he saw Stefanopoulos usher his caller into the private apartment where Cuypers was seated. Sir Austin and the Crown Prince crowded noiselessly behind him in the passage. Anthony could now see the visitor quite plainly. He could see an Indian, clad in the white costume affected by his race, with turban on his head. He was a man of splendid physique. A flowing beard gave him the appearance of age and wisdom and his dark eyes glowed with excitement.
“What can I do for you?” mumbled the old Greek.
Lal Singh glanced meaningly at Cuypers busy with pen and paper. “My business is with you alone.”
“Be easy on that point. It is my clerk—you need not fear.”
Lal Singh hesitated for a moment and glanced round the room suspiciously. Then his fingers played delicately round his white turban for a palpitating second or two, and there flashed across the drabness of the squalid room the emerald-sapphire brilliance of the ‘Peacock’s Eye.’ Its rendezvous was reached at last! Stefanopoulos eyed the dazzling gem with greedy lust.
“So!” he permitted himself to mutter.
“I have come to trade,” declared Lal Singh. His tone held the silkiness of malevolent menace. “If you will deal justly with me. If not—I will kill you as I killed for—”
Demetri broke in. “This—eh?” His cunning eyes gleaming with cupidity caught those of Lal Singh and held them for a brief period.
The Indian laughed cruelly. “You have said. ‘Twas but Justice if you only knew.”
Stefanopoulos was silent. He held out his hand for this stone of liquid beauty that had come to him so unexpectedly, yet was not for him. His fingers itched to hold it—to feel some of its flaming fire. “Let me look at the stone,” he growled.
Lal Singh pushed it over very slowly, watching the old man as a hungry cat regards a mouse. Stefanopoulos held it to the light watching its flashing points of scintillating brilliance play round the room. The eyes of Lal Singh wandered upward, fascinated at what the Greek was doing. As they did so Cuypers rose like lightening and covered the Indian with his revolver. Simultaneously, Mr. Bathurst, similarly armed slipped through the door behind which he had been standing and covered Lal Singh from the rear.
“Don’t move,” he said, “or I’ll put a bullet through you. You are arrested for the murder of Sheila Delaney at Seabourne in England on July fifth. See to him, Cuypers!”
As
