Voices in the Night. Flora Annie Webster Steel
she recognised as a source of danger--that, if the worst came to the worst, he could still prove a private knowledge in black and white of what had been the Government policy. The letter was very definite, very explicit.
The thought came to her as she passed into her room, and as she did so, she saw the reflection of her English maid's face in the looking-glass, as she stood rummaging hastily in the dressing-table drawers.
'What is it, Needham?'
The maid turned, with a cry of mingled relief and alarm, 'Oh, milady! I'm so glad you're back. I can't find the little jewel-box nowhere--it 'adn't so much in it, milady, for I'd took out the diamonds last night--that was when I seen it last. It 'ad your string of pearls, and ayah says she's not seen it either, but there was people in the verandah last night, for Captain Lloyd he threw boots at 'em, for disturbin' him. Oh, dear! oh, dear! why did I ever come to Ingiar!' Here Needham dissolved into tears.
Grace Arbuthnot turned very pale. 'The little jewel-box,' she echoed. Then she pulled herself together, and said calmly, 'Well, it is lucky it was only the pearls. Go down and ask Sir George to come to me at once; for if the box has really been stolen, the sooner the police know the better.'
Half an hour afterwards she was answering the police officer's questions still more calmly.
'Only a string of pearls--large ones--they belonged to my mother, who got them, I believe, from one of the late Nawâb's wives, and a few small trinkets--there is a list of them--that was all.'
'A letter or two, milady,' suggested Needham, who had been giving her evidence.
'Of no value to any one save the owner,' smiled Lady Arbuthnot, and her husband smiled back at her, for he knew she kept his letters.
'Well, it is lucky it wasn't worse!' he said consolingly, 'it might have been the diamonds. And if I were you, he added to the police officer, 'I'd let Mr. Lucanaster know at once, even if, as you say, it's wiser to keep the matter dark for a day or two. He is always buying jewels, and even if the thieves don't take the pearls to him direct, they might try and trade them off to the royal family, and then he is sure to hear of it in the end--he is always having dealings with them.'
CHAPTER II
THE KITE-FLYERS
'Bring me more paste, women, and see there be no lumps in it; the last was fit to ruin a body's reputation,' said Lateefa, the kite-maker, as he sate on the ground in one of the arched nooks which surrounded the wide sunlit courtyard of a large native house. It had been a sort of city palace to the dead dynasty, and was now occupied by Jehân Aziz, the Rightful Heir's, family. It was built of stucco, simulating marble; stucco decayed, fast crumbling to dust, so leaving scars, where once there had been ornaments.
The speaker was an old man, though his sleek oiled hair, square-cut in the royal fashion just below the ear, showed no streak of grey. On one side of him lay the raw material of his craft; on the other a swift-growing pile of the manufactured article ready for sale in the bazaar, after his master, Jehân Aziz, prince of kite-flyers, should have taken his choice. That Lateefa himself was prince of kite-makers could be judged from the way in which he bent the bamboo slips to a perfect curve, and held them thus by three dabs of paste and a sheet of tissue paper. It was a miracle of dexterity.
There were two women in the courtyard, one a girl about sixteen, who was lounging lazily behind Lateefa, the other a woman of sixty, dressed in ragged dirty garments, who was spinning as for dear life an arch or two farther down. After a pause, during which she looked almost appealingly at the girl, the latter rose and limped towards an inner court, for Khôjeeya Khânum was slightly lame; slightly deformed also, owing to her lameness.
'Keep the lumps to our dinners, Auntie Khôjee!' called the girl with a pert titter; 'for what with paste and the kites it makes we good women have scarce flour left to fill our stomachs!'
Lateefa, after watching the limp disappear, glanced round at the girl. She was a buxom creature, over-developed for her years, and over-dressed in the cheap finery of Manchester muslin at six pice a yard and German silver earrings at two annas a dozen.
'Thy sort of good woman need never starve, niece Sobrai,' he said (for he was connected by some by way of blood to the Heirs of All Things or Nothing), 'I have told thee that before. There is not a drop of her blood in thee,' he nodded to the inner door. 'I mean no blame; some daughters must favour the father. Indeed, I marvel ever there be so few to do it in this family, since, God knows! we men be debauched enough to outweigh the virtue of the sainted Fâtma herself.' He shook his head and began on a new kite.
'Thou knowest that better than I,' retorted Sobrai sharply; 'though thy memory, Uncle Lateef, can scarce hold the poor souls thou hast injured thereby.'
His deft hands left their work, and the supple fingers spread themselves in emphatic denial. 'Not a one! niece, not a one!' he protested, 'Lateefa makes kites, not souls. I take men and women as they came from their Maker's hands--as I came. For, see you, if my kites fly, as I make them fly, why not His souls?'--he paused for a thin musical laugh which suited his thin acute face--'I say not,' he went on, 'that thou art botched by being built another fashion, but that her life,' he nodded again to the inner or women's court, 'is not for such as thee--that thou hadst best appraise thine own needs betimes.'
'May be I have already,' sneered the girl insolently, 'and without thy help, pander!'
He turned on her swiftly. 'Have a care, girl! have a care! In vice, as in virtue, the old ways are safest. So listen not to that woman from cantonments whom the Nawâb brings hither when he entertains. Ah! think not I have not seen thee stealing down on the sly to have a word with her.'
Sobrai gave a half-abashed titter. 'And to Dilarâm thy friend of the city also! Lo! uncle! What is there to choose between them or their trade either? "If one comes to dance, what matters a veil?" And if the Nawâb would keep his women old-fashioned, why doth he bring Miss Leezie to the house? Ah! say not 'tis only to this outer court where we virtuous need see nothing; for "'tis only the blind cow which hath a separate byre," and my sight is good----'
'And thy heart bad,' added Lateefa dispassionately, as she stood shifting one foot to and fro after the manner of dancing-girls. 'Still, since God made thee, as I make kites, thou wilt doubtless fly thine own way--if thou canst find some one to hold the string! It needs that ever.'
She began a retort, but checked herself as Khôjeeya reappeared with the paste in a green leaf cup.
'Thy work brings quick return, Lateef,' said the old lady, pausing to look wistfully at the growing pile of kites, 'but my wheel twirls for two hours to a farthing tune.' She edged closer and brushed a speck of dirt from the kitemaker's board in wheedling fashion, then went on, 'Couldst not spare me something to-day, Lateef, against the boy's medicine? He needs it sorely, and Noormahal hath not had a cowrie from the Nawâb since the races. Dost know what he lost? He says all, but he lies often.' She spoke without a suspicion of blame, simply as if the fact--being a dispensation of Providence--was neither to be questioned nor resented.
Lateefa laughed airily. 'Lose!' he echoed, 'Jehân hath naught to lose, not even credit. He sets free of fate! "He who bathes naked has no clothes to wring!" 'Tis Salig Râm, his usurer, whose fat flesh quivers lest his tame pensioner should die prematurely. So take heart, my good Khôjee! Things cannot grow worse, or, for that matter, better, since Jehân's affairs are as a slipped camel in the mud. They can neither go back nor forward. For, see you, he must not die of starvation, lest the pension lapse; nor must he live riotous beyond reason, lest once more the pension lapse through his death by surfeit. Would to God I had such leading-strings to comfortable,