hnstone and the resolute Alixe Delavigne.
"Money will not do it! Not a lac of rupees. The Frenchman and woman
never leave her day or night. He is on guard with weapons and a night
light at her door, and the maid sleeps in the room.

"And she has other secret helpers!" groaned the baffled Ram Lal. "She is
writing and receiving letters all the time. And yet none of these
come or go by the post. She does not trust you, Major," said the jewel
merchant, with a cruel gleam of his dark eyes. "I believe that she
is some old love of Sahib Johnstone. They have deep dealings. She has
bought a great store of jewels and trinkets from me."

"Hell and fury! I've been duped!" cried Hawke. "I see it. That damned
Frenchman takes and brings the letters! But who is her local go-between?
Perhaps the French Consul at Calcutta, or some banker here! I can't buy
them all. She only needs me in case of a violent rupture with Johnstone.
Damn her stony-hearted impertinence!"

And he mentally resolved to sell her out and out to the liberal old
nabob. "He might then give his daughter to me for peace and safety. But
I've got to do the trick before he finds out the falsity of Anstruther's
so-called telegram. And, first, I must have something to sell. She is
the devil's own for sly nerve, is my lady."

"She is too smart for us, as yet," soothingly said Ram Lal. "But wait;
wait till they return! Pay me well and I will find out all that goes on.
I can always get into the marble house at night. At any time, I may spy
on old Johnstone and get the secret there. I have a couple of men of my
own in his house. They know where to leave a door, a window, an opened
sash for me. And at the Silver Bungalow, I can go in and out secretly by
day and night. She would not know. You would not wish anything to happen
to her?" The old jewel merchant's voice was darkly suggestive.

"No! Devil take her!" cried Hawke. "What I want to know is hidden in her
crafty head and stony heart. Death would bury it forever. Nothing must
happen either to her or to him. It would spoil the whole game. Don't you
see, Ram Lal, there's money in this for you and me just as long as we
keep them all here under our hands. If they separate--even if one goes
to Europe--you can watch one and I the other. You can always frighten
money out of old Johnstone if we tell each other all, and I can follow
that woman over Europe and dog her till she is driven crazy. She will
fear me just as long as old Hug