The doctor returned up the palace steps.  Ten minutes later he came down again smiling, with the word that Tom was to be admitted.  In a hurry, then, Tom’s brass spurs rang on Gungadhura’s marble staircase while a breathless major-domo tried to keep ahead of him.  One takes no chances with a man who can change his mind as swiftly as Gungadhura habitually did.  Without a glance at silver shields, boars’ heads, tiger-skins, curtains and graven gold ornaments beyond price, or any of the other trappings of royal luxury, Tom followed the major-domo into a room furnished with one sole divan and a little Buhl-work table.  The maharajah, sprawling on the divan in a flowered silk deshabille and with his head swathed in bandages, ignored Tom Tripe’s salute, and snarled at the major-domo to take himself out of sight and hearing.

Soldier-fashion, as soon as the door had closed behind him Tom stood on no ceremony, but spoke first.

“There was a fracas last night, Your Highness, outside a certain palace gate.”  He pronounced the word to rhyme with jackass, but Gungadhura was not in a mood to smile.  “An escaped elephant bumped into the gate and bent it.  The guard took to their heels; so I’ve locked ’em all up, solitary, to think their conduct over.”

The maharajah nodded.

“Good!” he said curtly.

“I cautioned the relieving guard that if they had a word to say to any one they’d follow the first lot into cells.  It don’t do to have it known that elephants break loose that easy.”

“Good!”

“Subsequently, acting on instructions from Your Highness, I searched the cellar of Mr. Blaine’s house on the hill, Chamu the butler holding a candle for me.”  “What did he see?  What did that treacherous swine see?” snapped Gungadhura, pushing back the bandage irritably from the corner of his mouth.

“Nothing, Your Highness, except that he saw me lift a stone and look under it.”

“What did you see under the stone?”

“A silver tube, all wrought over with Persian patterns, and sealed at both ends with a silver cap and lots o’ wax.”

“Why didn’t you take it, you idiot?”

“Two reasons.  Your Highness told me to report to you what I saw, not to take nothing.  And Mr. Blaine came to the top of the cellar ladder and was damned angry.  He’d have seen me if I’d pinched a cockroach.  He was that angry that he locked the cellar door afterward, and nailed it down, and rolled a safe on top of it!”

“Did he suspect anything?”

“I don’t know, Your Highness.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Said I was looking for rum.”

“Doubtless he believed that; you have a reputation!  You are an idiot!  If you had brought away what you saw under that stone, you might have drawn your pension today and left India for good!”

Tom made no answer.  The next move was Gungadhura’s.  There was silence while a gold clock on the wall ticked off eighty seconds.