Some considerable time afterwards — we did not meet very often — I asked Davidson how he had managed about the shawl and heard that he had tackled his mission in a direct way, and had found it easy enough. At the very first call he made in Samarang he rolled the shawl as tightly as he could into the smallest possible brown-paper parcel, which he carried ashore¹ with him. His business in the town being transacted², he got into a gharry with the parcel and drove to the hotel. With his precious experience, he timed his arrival accurately³ for the hour of Schomberg’s siesta⁴. Finding the place empty as on the former occasion, he marched into the billiard-room, took a seat at the back, near the sort of dais which Mrs. Schomberg would in due course come to occupy, and broke the slumbering⁵ silence of the house by thumping⁶ a bell vigorously. Of course a Chinaman appeared promptly⁷. Davidson ordered a drink and sat tight.

“I would have ordered twenty drinks one after another, if necessary,” he said — Davidson’s a very abstemious⁸ man —“rather than take that parcel out of the house again. Couldn’t leave it in a corner without letting the woman know it was there. It might have turned out worse for her than not bringing the thing back at all.”

And so he waited, ringing the bell again and again, and swallowing two or three iced drinks which he did not want. Presently, as he hoped it would happen, Mrs. Schomberg came in, silk dress, long neck, ringlets, scared eyes, and silly grin — all complete. Probably that lazy beast had sent her out to see who was the thirsty customer waking up the echoes of the house at this quiet hour. Bow, nod — and she clambered up to her post behind the raised counter, looking so helpless, so

分享到：