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Page 112
"Yes," he said, "from us."
The girl's inspiration was now illumined by a further light.
"And you have not been paid for them?"
The man stood up now. And again this involved process of moving
the words back through various translations was visible - and the
answer up.
"Yes - " he said, "we have been paid."
Then he added, in explanation of his act.
"These rubies have no equal in the world - and the gold-work
attaching them together is extremely old. I am always curious to
admire it."
He looked down at the girl, at the necklace, at the space about
them, as though he were deeply, profoundly puzzled.
"We had a fear," he said, " - it was wrong!"
Then he put his hand swiftly into the bosom pocket of his evening
coat, took out a thin packet wrapped in a piece of vellum and
handed it to the girl.
"It became necessary to treat with the English Government about
the removal of records from Lhassa and I was sent - I was
directed to get this packet to you from London. To-night, at
dinner with Sir Henry Marquis in St. James's Square, I learned
that you were here. I had then only this hour to come, as my
boat leaves in the morning." He spoke with the extreme care of
one putting together a delicate mosaic.
The girl stood staring at the thin packet. A single thought
alone consumed her.
"It is a message from - my - father."
She spoke almost in a whisper.
The big Oriental replied immediately.
"No," he said, "your father is beyond sight and hearing."
The girl had no hope; only the will to hope. The reply was
confirmation of what she already knew. She removed the thin
vellum wrapper from the packet. Within she found a drawing on a
plate of ivory. It represented a shaft of some white stone
standing on the slight elevation of what seemed to be a barren
plateau. And below on the plate, in fine English characters like
an engraving, was the legend, "Erected to the memory of Major
Judson Carstair by the monastery at the Head."
The man added a word of explanation.
"The Brotherhood thought that you would wish to know that your
father's body had been recovered, and that it had received
Christian burial, as nearly as we were able to interpret the
forms. The stone is a sort of granite."
The girl wished to ask a thousand questions: How did her father
meet his death, and where? What did they know? What had they
recovered with his body?
The girl spoke impulsively, her words crowding one another. And
the Oriental seemed able only to disengage the last query from
the others.
"Unfortunately," he said, "some band of the desert people had
passed before our expedition arrived, nothing was recovered but
the body. It was not mutilated."
They had been standing. The girl now indicated the big library
chair in which she had been huddled and got another for herself.
Then she wished to know what they had learned about her father's
death.
The Oriental sat down. He sat awkwardly, his big body, in a kind
of squat posture, the broad Mongolian face emerging, as in a sort
of deformity, from the collar of his evening coat. Then he began
to speak, with that conscious effect of bringing his words
through various mediums from a distance.
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