Part 2 (1/2)
”Oh, who was that?” asked her chaperone, with interest.
”A certain Daniel Lane,” she replied.
Lady Smith-Evered gave a gesture of impatience. ”Oh, _that_ man!” she exclaimed. ”He's in Cairo again, is he? He's an absolute outsider.”
”What is he?-What's he do?” Muriel asked, desiring further particulars.
”Ah! That's the mystery,” said Lady Smith-Evered, with a look of profound knowing. ”Incidentally, my dear, he is said to keep a harim of Bedouin women somewhere out in the desert. I shouldn't be surprised if every night he beat them all soundly and sent them where the rhyme says.”
She laughed nastily, and Muriel made a grimace.
CHAPTER II-THE FREEDOM OF THE DESERT
Lord Blair rose from his chair as the door opened, and removed from his thin, furtive nose a pair of large horn-rimmed spectacles which he always wore when quite alone in his study.
”Come in, come in, my dear Mr. Lane,” he exclaimed, taking a few blithe steps forward and shaking his visitor warmly by the hand. ”I'm very well, thank you, very well indeed, and so are you, I see. That's right, that's good,-splendid! Dear me, what physique! What a picture of health!
How did you get here so quickly?-do take a seat, do be seated. Yes, yes, to be sure! Have a cigar? Now, where did I put my cigars?”
He pushed a leather arm-chair around, so that it faced his own desk chair, and began at once to hunt for his cigar-box, lifting and replacing stacks of papers and books, glancing rapidly, like some sort of rodent, around the room, and then again searching under his papers.
”Thanks,” said Daniel Lane, ”I'll smoke my pipe, if it won't make you sick.”
”Tut, tut!” Lord Blair laughed, extending his delicate hands in a comprehensive gesture. ”I sometimes smoke a pipe myself: I enjoy it. A good, honest, English smoke! Dear me, where _are_ my cigars?”
Lord Blair was a little man of somewhat remarkable appearance-remarkable, that is to say, when considered in relation to his historic name and excellent diplomatic record. In a company of elderly club waiters he would, on superficial observation, have pa.s.sed unnoticed. He bore very little resemblance to his daughter; and, in fact, he was often disposed to believe his late wife's declaration, made whenever she desired to taunt him, that Muriel was no child of his. Lady Blair had had many lovers; and it is notorious that twenty odd years ago in Mayfair there was an exceptionally violent epidemic of adultery.
He himself had thin auburn hair, now nearly grey, neatly parted in the middle; nervous, quick-moving brown eyes; closely cut 'mutton-chop'
whiskers; an otherwise clean-shaven, sharp-featured face; and a wide mouth, furnished with two somewhat apparent rows of false teeth. His smile was kindly and gracious, and his expression, in spite of a certain vigilance, mild.
The evening dress which he was now wearing was noteworthy in four particulars: his collar was so big for him that one might suppose that, in moments of danger, his head totally disappeared into it; his bow-tie was exceptionally wide and large; his links and studs were, as such things go, enormous; and the legs of his trousers were cut so tightly as to be bordering on the comic. In other respects there was nothing striking in his appearance, except, perhaps, a general cleanliness, almost a fastidiousness, especially to be noticed in the polished surface of his chin and jaw, and in his carefully manicured finger-nails.
Daniel Lane pulled out his pipe and began to fill it from a worn old pouch. ”Please don't bother about cigars,” he said, as Lord Blair extended his hand towards the bell. ”Tell me why you sent for me. Your letter was brought over from El Homra by a n.i.g.g.e.r corporal of your precious frontier-patrol, who nearly lamed his camel in trying to do the thirty miles in under four hours. My Bedouin friends thought at the very least that the King of England was dying and wished to give me his blessing.”
”Dear, dear!-it was not so urgent as all that,” his Lords.h.i.+p replied. ”I told them to mark the letter ”Express,” but I trust, I do trust, the message itself was not peremptory.”
”Not at all,” the other replied. ”I was mighty glad of an excuse to come into Cairo; I wanted to do some shopping; and there was another reason also. A young cousin of mine-in the Guards-has come to Cairo, with his regiment, and I ought to see him about some family business. I should probably have let it slide if you hadn't sent for me. Tell me, what's your trouble?”
”Ah, that's the point!-you always come to the point quickly. It's capital, capital!” Lord Blair leaned forward and tapped his friend's knee with a sort of affection. ”I don't know where I should be without your advice, Mr. Lane-Daniel: may I call you Daniel?”
”Sure,” said Daniel, laconically.
”When I came here two years ago, my predecessor said to me 'When in doubt, send for Daniel Lane.' Do you remember how worried, indeed how shaken-yes, I may say shaken-I was by the Michael Pasha affair? How you laughed! Dear me, you were positively rude to me; and how right you were! Personally I should have had him deported: it never occurred to me to convert him into a friend.”
His visitor smiled. ”'Bind a brave enemy with the chains of absolution,'” he said.
”Yes, yes, very true,” replied Lord Blair, still hunting about for the cigars. ”Very true, very daring: a policy for brave men.” He started into rigidity, as though at a sudden thought: one might have supposed that he had recollected where he had put the cigars. ”Daniel!” he exclaimed, ”you bring with you an air of the mediaeval! That's it! One always forgets that Egypt is mediaeval.”
Daniel blew a cloud of oriental tobacco-smoke through his nostrils, at which his host frenziedly renewed his search for the less pungent cigars. ”About this business you want to ask my advice upon ...?” he asked.