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Updated: September 11, 2025
The front of the house alone was dressed with a handful of English servants nominally under the man Nogam, but actually, like him, answerable in the last instance to Shaik Tsin. Why this should be Chou Nu couldn't say.
"Then likely Prince Victor meant you to ask Shaik Tsin to translate it for you, sir." "Probably," Sturm muttered. "I'll see." "Yes, sir. Good-night, sir." Without acknowledging this civility, Sturm turned back into the house and slammed the door. Nogam lingered another moment, then shuffled wearily down the steps and toward the nearest corner.
Had Nogam, as he had meekly insisted on being questioned subsequent to his subjugation, truly delivered the two messages as directed and, miraculously escaping his fate decreed, returned to Frampton Court by the twelve-three, likewise in strict conformance with instructions?
The Chinese chauffeur had driven him to the station, and had furthermore lingered to see that Nogam did not fail to board it. But the next hour was all his own. His study of the Chinese phonograms at length resulted in the transformation of his careworn face by a slowly dawning smile, the gleeful smile of a mischief-loving child.
It was the merest of glimpses; for Victor's casual glance had barely identified the servant when Nogam started guiltily and in a twinkling disappeared; but a glimpse was enough for eyes and a mind alike quick with distrust, enough to assure Victor that Nogam's face had worn an indescribably furtive and hangdog expression, most unlike its ordinary look of amiable stupidity, and widely incongruous with the veniality of his fault.
Notwithstanding, Nogam pursued his bedtime rites with precisely the same deliberation and absence of perceptible self-consciousness as before. One never knew: there might be other peepholes in the walls. His trousers, neatly folded, he laid out on the seat of the chair.
"One moment, Karslake.... This man, Nogam: where did you pick him up?" "He used to buttle for my father, sir, but got into trouble some domestic unpleasantness, I believe needed money, and raised a cheque. The old boy let him off easy; but I've got the cheque, and Nogam knows it. The fellow's perfectly trained and absolutely dependable, knows his place and his duties and not another blessed thing.
"Eleven, M.P.", however, could mean nothing to anybody but Victor except a body clever enough to hide a dictograph detector in a turnip. So Victor saw no reason to believe that Nogam, although undoubtedly guilty of the sin of prying, had been able to read the meaning below the surface of this communication.
But she didn't; their first few speeches failed to excite her curiosity in the least. She heard Mr. Karslake, who was becomingly affable to one of inferior station, express the perfunctory hope that he hadn't kept Nogam waiting long, and Nogam reply to the simple effect of "Oh, not at all, sir."
"I want you to tend the door to-night," Victor pursued. "Eleven is expected at any moment. You need not announce him, simply show him in." "Hearing is obedience." "Wait" as the Chinaman began to bow himself out "Karslake is still in his room, I suppose?" "Yes, master." "And Nogam?" "Has just gone to his." "When did you last search their quarters?" "During dinner." "And of course found nothing?"
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