He turned away, and, crossing the dewy lawn, entered his library by the unfastened French window. The shaded lamp had been lit, shedding a pleasant glow over the cosy bachelor room, and he gave a little sigh of content. He was fain to admit that he was tired with the day's exertions, and glad to be home again. He rang the bell, and the soft-footed Sinnett appeared. "Mix me some whisky and soda water and give me a cigar," he said. "You have nothing out of the common to report?" "Nothing that you do not know already, sir," was the reply. "Tuke will have informed you about Miss Mallory and the stone grotto." "That is why I asked," rejoined Nugent. "The young lady has gone, and part of the roof of the grotto has been removed. You have heard or seen nothing that would account for it?" "Nothing at all, sir. I have not been in the garden, but no sound reached me in the house. And I have been listening--in case she called out." Nugent nodded, knowing the man's ways. "And that mad French seller of onions, he has not been here to-day?" he continued. "No, sir; I haven't seen him for a day or two." "Thank you, Sinnett. Then that will be all now I think. Don't go to bed just yet. I may want you to go out and post a letter for the early collection." The butler having retired, Nugent lay back in his luxurious lounge-chair and sipped his drink and watched the blue wreaths from his Havana coiling upwards. He was filled with a delightful sense of achievement. The thing which had seemed so easy at first, and had then threatened dire failure through Chermside's defection, had been carried out in spite of the temporary obstacle. That band of electric light stealing away across the dark sea had been the signal that he had won the game, the stakes of which were the Maharajah's twenty thousand pounds. Not bad pay for six months' work, of which his pawns had taken the most arduous share. He did not anticipate any trouble from these pawns, except perhaps, from one. Leslie Chermside was safe on board the _Cobra_, and Bhagwan Singh might be trusted to see to it that he was never heard of again. That vain puppet, Louise Aubin, could do him no harm if she would, since she would believe, as all the world would believe, that Violet had voluntarily fled with her lover. And if the flighty French maid was disappointed in her preposterous aims with regard to himself--well, a little palm-grease would effectually staunch the bleeding of her fickle heart. Simon Brant, Bully Cheeseman, Tuke, and Sinnett were his accomplices rather than his tools, and they might be trusted to keep silence for their own sakes; if not, he knew enough to hang each or all of them. The crew of the _Cobra_ were to be paid off in India, whence they would doubtless be scattered to the four winds of heaven; and, besides the captain and the mate, not one of them was aware of his connection with the affair.