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Updated: May 14, 2025
When he returned at three o'clock, the door of Mr. Labertouche's private office was ajar and that gentleman was at his desk. The memorandum was, however, gone. Mr. Labertouche was in the process of opening and reading a ten-days' accumulation of correspondence, an occupation which he suspended temporarily to call his clerk in and receive his report.
At the bottom Amber stopped. "Hold on!" he cried. Labertouche pulled up impatiently. "What's the matter?" "Sophia !" "Trust me, dear boy, and come along." Persuaded, Amber gave in, blundering on after Labertouche, who loped along easily, with the confidence of one who threads known ways, the spot-light from his lamp dancing along the floor several feet before him.
Finishing the last page he turned back to the first and went over it a second time with much deliberation and frequent pauses, apparently memorising portions of its contents. Finally he said, "Hum-m!" inscrutably and rang for Frank. "He left New York by the Lusitania, eh?" said Mr. Labertouche aloud. The clerk entering interrupted his soliloquy.
"You're quite right, as I said before. So I'm off to the Residency. But how to get through that guard out there?" He received no response. In as little time as it took him to step backwards from Amber, Labertouche had resumed his temporarily discarded masquerade.
Then, as they won through to open ground, Labertouche paused and whistled a second time, staring eagerly from right to left. "I'm blessed!" he declared, with a vehemence that argued his desire for stronger language. "This is bad bad bad! He never failed me before!
"We got here only a quarter of an hour ago," he apologised, swinging back as the men deployed into the thicket, "and haven't had time to nose out the lay of the land thoroughly." "I infer you got my man with the horses native calling himself Ram Nath?" "He's with the Colonel-commanding now, Mr. Labertouche.
Amber grunted and said no more, contented now with the assurance that he was in truth in touch with Labertouche, that this Ram Nath was an employee of the I.S.S. The wink was now explained away with all the rest of the tonga-wallah's churlishness. Since there was a purpose behind it all, the Virginian was satisfied to contain his curiosity.
It was an order, he said: he had no choice other than to obey. Shabash! Would the sahib be pleased to make up his mind quickly? Perforce, the sahib yielded. "It'll be Labertouche; he's arranged this," he told himself. "That loafer said he'd gone on ahead of us." And comforted he issued his orders to Doggott, who received and acceded to them with all the ill-grace imaginable.
He stepped back in his surprise, his right hand seeking instinctively the wrist of his left, which was numb with pain. His change of position left the pistol unguarded, and the woman swooped down upon it like a bird of prey; but before she could get her fingers on its grip, Labertouche stepped between them, fended her off, and quietly possessed himself of the weapon.
Amber entered, his eyes quick, his right hand in his pocket and grateful for the cold caress of nickelled steel, his body poised lightly and tensely upon the balls of his feet in a word, ready. Prepared against the worst he was hopeful of the best: apprehensive, he reminded himself that he had first met Labertouche under auspices hardly more prepossessing than these.
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