"Well, here we are," mused the Englishman, pressing his thumb
into the bowl of his pipe. "The affair promises some excitement.
To-morrow will be the sixth; on the twentieth it will be a
closed incident, as the diplomats would say. I don't know what
brought me here so far ahead of time. I suppose I must look out
for a crack on the head from some one I don't know, but who
knows me so deuced well that he has hunted me in India and
England, first with fine bribes, then with threats." He glanced
over his shoulder in the direction of the gun cases. "It was a
capital idea, otherwise a certain ubiquitous customs official,
who lies in wait for the unwary at the frontier, would now be an
inmate of a hospital. To have lived thirty-five years, and to
have ground out thirteen of them in her Majesty's, is to have
acquired a certain disdain for danger, even when it is masked. I
am curious to see how far these threats will go. It will take a
clever man to trap me. The incognito is a fort. By the way, I
wonder how the inspectors at the station came to overlook my
traps? Strange, considering what I have gone through.
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