"What about it?" I asked when I had finished reading.

"While you were wasting time on the West Coast this office has been
busy," he snorted, looking more like General Grant than ever as he
pulled out a cigar and started chewing it. "We've taken this matter up
with the British Government, and we've been retained to look into it."

"You want me to go to Washington, I suppose."

"You've got to go to India at once."

"That clipping is two months old," I answered. "Why didn't you wire me
when I was in Egypt to go on from there?"

"Look at this!" he answered, and shoved a letter across the desk.

It bore the address of a club in Simla.

Meldrum Strange, Esq.,
Messrs. Grim, Ramsden and Ross,
New York.

Dear Sir,

Having recently resigned my commission in the British Indian army I
am free to offer my services to your firm, provided you have a
sufficiently responsible position here in India to offer me. My
qualifications and record are known to the British Embassy in
Washington, D. C., to whom I am permitted to refer you, and it is
at the suggestion of ---- ---- (he gave the name of a British
Cabinet Minister who is known the wide world over) that I am making
this proposal; he was good enough to promise his endorsement to any
application I might care to make. If this should interest you,
please send me a cablegram, on receipt of which I will hold my
services at your disposal until your letter has time to reach
Simla, when, if your terms are satisfactory, I will cable my
acceptance without further delay.

Yours faithfully,
Athelstan King, V. C., D. S. O., etc.

"Do you know who he is?" demanded Strange. "That's the fellow who went
to Khinjan Caves--the best secret service officer the British ever had.
I cabled him, of course. Here's his contract. You take it to him. Here's
the whole dope about this propaganda. Take the quickest route to India,
sign up this man King, and go after them at that end for all the two of
you are worth. That's all."

My passport being unexpired, I could make the _Mauretania_ and did.
Moreover I was merciless to the expense account. An aeroplane took me
from Liverpool to London, another from London to Paris.

I don't care how often you arrive in Bombay, the thrill increases. You
steam in at dawn by Gharipuri just as the gun announces sunrise, and the
dreamy bay glimmers like a prophet's vision--temples,