go his interference would not continue beyond that night. It
has not. Lanyard knows I have his daughter, that any blow aimed at me must
first strike her."

"Doubtless yourself knows best...."

With the Irishman gone, Prince Victor turned to Sturm.

"You will want a good night's sleep," he suggested with pointed solicitude.
"Who knows but that to-morrow will bring your night of nights, my friend?"

He lapsed immediately into remote abstraction, sitting with chin bent to
the tips of his joined fingers, his eyes downcast, motionless.

Disgruntled, but afraid to show it, the German cleared away the litter of
papers, assorting them into huge portfolios, and took himself off. Shaik
Tsin replaced him, moving noiselessly about the room, restoring the
reference books to the shelves and stowing the portfolios away in a massive
safe hidden behind a lacquered screen. This done, he stationed himself
before his master, awaiting his attention, a shape of affable placidity,
intelligent, at ease; his attitude not entirely lacking a suggestion of
familiarity.

Without changing his pose by so much as the lifting of an eyelash, Victor
spoke in Chinese:

"To-morrow afternoon, late, I shall motor down into the country with the
girl Sofia. I shall be gone three days--perhaps. I will leave a telephone
number with you, to be used only in emergency. As soon as I have left, you
will dismiss all the English servants, with a quarter's wage in advance in
lieu of notice. Karslake will provide the money."

"He does not accompany you?"

"No."

"And the man Nogam?"

Victor appeared to hesitate. "What do you think?" he enquired at length.

"What I have always thought."

"That he is a spy?"

"Yes."

"But with no tangible support for your suspicions?"

"None."

"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. In my absence you will be guided by such further instructions as I
may leave with you. These failing, consider the man Sturm, my personal
representative. In the contingency you know of, Sturm will warn you in time
to clear the house."

"Of everybody?"

"Of all servants except those whom you may need to guard the man Karslake.
These and you