Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/103

 fantastic departure for Calcutta—and what lay beyond.

Resolutely, deliberately, being a sober-minded young Englishman, he tried to forget, to deny even to himself, the mysterious veil which cloaked the whole incident, from the advertisement in the newspaper to Ali Yusuf Khan's parting advice that the blade would speak to him when man failed him, or Fate. He preferred to picture Ali as a kindly old man who had taken pity on his unhappiness and had helped him out of the generosity of his heart without any ulterior motive; and so, twenty-four hours before the Kashmere reached Calcutta, he asked the cabin steward to bring pen and ink and paper, and wrote a letter to his impromptu benefactor, winding up with:

And, just then, Ali Yusuf Khan needed help.

For a day after Police Sergeant Horatio Pinker had told the story of the old Oriental's string of diamonds to reporter Jimmy Hawden who, in turn, had mentioned it to a sandy-haired gentleman, the latter had faced Mr. Preserved Higgins in the dingy, cobwebby office on Upper Thames Street, not far from Poultney's Inn.

He had told his tale, and the Cockney millionaire had mused and shaken his head.

“I 'ave 'arf an idea who the blighter is,” he had said, finally, “but I don't know wot 'e's doin' 'ere. Well—