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As he went up the stairs, he saw the door to his bedchamber cautiously opened far enough to permit one eye to spy out and discover his approach. Immediately then the door swung wide, and Nogam ambled into view with an envelope on a salver and an air of childlike innocence, an assumption of ease so transparent, indeed, that only the vision of a child could have been cheated by it.
Then Karslake announced they must bustle along, because they were expected by some person unnamed, but just the same he meant to have a drink before he budged a foot. And he called a waiter and requested a whiskey and soda for himself and some beer for Nogam.... And Sofia turned her attention to other things.
You are a religious man, Nogam?" "I 'umbly 'ope so, sir, and do my best to be, accordin' to my lights." "Glad to hear it. Now cut along, or you'll miss the up train." Long after Nogam had left the memory of their talk continued to afford Victor an infinite amount of private entertainment. "A religious man!" he would jeer to himself. "Then may your God help you, Nogam!"
She made no struggle, but her eyes of pain and terror sought the speaker's face, and saw that he was the man Nogam. In extremity of amazement she spoke his name. He shook his head. "No longer Nogam," he said in the same low accents, and smiled "but your father, Michael Lanyard!"
Without looking round, but with an inscrutable smile, Prince Victor took the girl in his arms again and held her close. "You rang, sir?" "Oh, are you there, Nogam? Is the apartment ready for the Princess Sofia?" "Quite ready, sir." "Be good enough to conduct her to it." Again Prince Victor kissed Sofia's forehead, then let her go. "Good-night, my child."
This message sealed into a second envelope without superscription, he lighted a cigarette and sat smiling with anticipative relish through its smoke, a smile swiftly abolished as the door re-opened; though Nogam found him in what seemed to be a mood of rare sweet temper.
On the table by his shoulder a battered electric standard with a frayed cord and a dingy shade remained alight long enough to permit Nogam to spell out a short chapter. Then he put the Bible aside, yawned wearily, and switched out the lamp. Profound darkness now possessed the room, immaterially modified by the light-struck sky beyond the windows.
When Nogam had left the room, Sturm, remarking the slight frown that knitted Victor's brows, ventured an impertinence couched in a form of respectful enquiry: "Excellency, perhaps you trust that fellow too much, hein?" "You think so?" "He is too perfect, if you ask me never makes a false move."
"You have not failed to watch him closely?" "As a cat watches a mouse." "But nothing?" "Nothing." "Yet I agree with you entirely, Shaik Tsin. I smell treachery." "And I." "Nogam shall go with me as my bodyservant. Thus I shall be able to keep an eye on him. Let Chou Nu be prepared to accompany us as maid to the girl Sofia.
While the Princess Sofia, Sybil Waring, and Prince Victor motored down from London in the lilac dusk of that dim September day, and the maid Chou Nu accompanied them, riding in front beside a newly engaged Chinese chauffeur, the man Nogam made the journey to Frampton Court by train, and alone.
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