"It is well that Your Honour latter had obligingly insisted leave this to me," responded upon taking upon himself all Mr Vittal Rao, "for this I the trouble involved in estabhave learned to-day. There lishing the correctness of the are certain records I wish to Railway's position with regard see at Dharwar. Had Your to the consignment alleged to Honour entered terain here, have been short-landed at those records would have be- Bombay. come, without doubt, missing. It is concerning waggon-numbers and dates, Your Honour." "OHO! How did you...?" but Mr Vittal Rao's face had suddenly become quite expressionless. Which was really very good of him, as Clayton had said, seeing that on the strength of the receipt in his possession he might easily have remained a more or less indifferent observer of any activities that might have been undertaken. But he had his instructions from Madras to render Clayton all possible assistance, and asserted his determination to carry them out. He had omitted to add, however, that to the best of his ability he would see to it that such assistance should be confined to Mormugao Harbour. He intended to keep that cheerful but obviously gullible young man from raising Cain all the way up the line, and from possibly stumbling, quite accidentally, of course, upon any little discrepancies there. For even sections under the control of so able and energetic an A.T.S. as Mr Richard Polson had, he must admit, been known to harbour error. For the next two days Ronny Clayton thoroughly enjoyed himself. On each morning, that might be occurring up for the sake of appearances, he had been closeted for an hour or so with Collins in the latter's office. Then he had strolled about on the busy quay, asking foolish questions of the Railway staff, and generally behaving himself in the deceptively irresponsible manner of which he was a master. With the Assistant Traffic Superintendent, Polson, he had made great friends, and the Clayton was perfectly contented. In fact, had it not been for his frivolous temperament, which Polson rather despised, he might almost have been deemed suspiciously so. He had spent each afternoon since his arrival either reading the stations from which they jolly books upon the verandah had come, the senders' and of his new friend's bungalow, consignees' names and the railor catching butterflies in the way markings; the dates upon compound. Upon Polson's re- which the goods had been disturn from the labours of the patched, the numbers of the day they had dined together, wagons in which they had been conversing pleasantly upon all loaded, the dates on which the such simple topics as were wagons had arrived, and on suited to the guest's mentality, which they had been unloaded. and had each night parted It also showed the dates upon cordially, the host to bed and which the goods had been Clayton to his hotel. signed for by the Company's Agent, and upon which the empty wagons had left Mormugao. Thus it was that Polson, returning home upon the third evening after Clayton's arrival, found the latter lolling in a long chair, pleasantly tired in consequence of a particularly stern chase that had ended successfully half an hour ago. In his hand Polson was carrying a large roll of paper, which he proceeded to wave in the face of the recumbent figure in the chair. Included in the list, carefully underlined in red ink, was the consignment of three hundred bales which had apparently not reached Bombay. And under the whole statement were two dotted lines, one of which bore Polson's signature. Clayton regarded it politely for some time. "I think it's It's finished, you lazy splendid. Does you great devil," he said. credit, Polson." 66 What's finished? What's that you've got there? It looks unpleasantly like work.” "It is work, my boy. A whole week's work, accomplished to the last dot and cross. Here is the whole thing about all the cotton passed on to your people since the 1st of April, all in a nutshell." He unrolled the paper and spread it out across Clayton's knees. It really was a most comprehensive affair. It contained a list of every separate consignment of cotton that had arrived at Mormugao during the previous eight weeks. It showed 66 'Dear old Traffic Officer," he said, "I'll see you eternally damned first." Polson flushed up. He snatched the now useless document from Clayton's knees. "Do you mean to say," he stuttered furiously, "that after getting me to take all this infernal trouble you refuse to acknowledge the result?" "Certainly I refuse," answered Clayton, rising, his manner now entirely changed, "I never asked you to get out that blessed thing. You insisted on doing it all on your own. Look here, Polson, your job is to look after the interests of the Railway that employs you, and according to your lights you have done it. It is likewise my job to protect the interests of the people who employ me. Have you anything to say against my doing that according to my lights?" "But you haven't done a damned thing," objected the other, more quietly. "Oh yes, I have. I have just refused to sign that statement. Good night, Polson. There is no reason for us to be bad friends, you know-in a private capacity-but officially we must both do what we can, mustn't we?' Clayton strolled slowly down the hill towards the hotel, leaving Polson, glum and pensive, upon the verandah. "And I took that chap for an irresponsible ass," he murmured bitterly. "Good Lord, I must see if he has really been up to anything." Mr But it was too late. Vittal Rao had long ago left Dharwar, and his train was even now drawing to a halt at the harbour below. In that little man's opinion this was no time for unnecessary delay, and he quietly presented himself at the door of Clayton's room soon after the latter had finished his dinner. "Sir," he said, plunging into his subject as soon as the first little greetings were over, "there was certainly some misfortunateness. A book was missing." "Oh, hell!" ejaculated Clay"Well? ton. paused, and opened a bundle I could not ascertain that he was holding. "Yes. What about them?" asked Clayton. They left Dharwar for Bombay by the all-rail route on that veree same day! Here, Your Honour, is the proof." And Mr Vittal Rao placed upon the table the book that had been missing. A few moments of complete silence followed. Clayton picked up the book, assured himself of the accuracy of the significant entry, and then in an absent-minded manner locked the record away in his dispatch-box. "I suppose I ought not to keep that," he said. Keep what, Your Honour?" "Dash it, Vittal Rao, that book, of course.' Mr Vittal Rao raised his eyebrows. "I do not understand Your Honour. Your Honour is here. I go to Dharwar to collect one debt. What should we know concerning any book?" At which Clayton hurriedly changed the subject. "I think I begin to see," he said. "The bales for which the Railway hold our receipt never existed at all. It was a matter of two sets of papers for only one consignment, which actually went by rail, and there was a deal of bribery both at Dharwar and here. The cottonseed sweepings were slung on board to make the figures tally. Did you see the sender ? "No, Your Honour. He had become very sick, and had gone away to his native place. place. But he was merely Agent." 66 When did he leave Dharwar?" "On that day of the telegram coming, Your Honour." "And whose Agent was he?" "That also I have been unable to ascertain," said Mr Vittal Rao slowly in a dull expressionless voice that Clayton had learned to interpret. Oh, all right. But it seems that we should not have found out very much if somebody at Dharwar had not made a silly mistake in letting those wagons go before they could possibly have been returned from here." Mr Vittal Rao agreed. "There are, without doubt, some very inexperienced clerks on this Railway, Your Honour. Now if I Clayton laughed. "If you and your numerous relatives had been running this show, I I think it would have been a very different matter." "Oh, a separate altogether kettle of shoes," answered the Rates Clerk, beaming through his spectacles at this singularly doubtful compliment. He rose to take his departure. "Your Honour and I return to Bombay to-morrow night ?" he inquired. "I shall, but what about the rest of your month's leave, Vittal Rao? Oh, tha-a-a-t." Mr Vittal Rao's tone was contemptuous. "My debt is already collected," he added, eyeing Clayton's dispatch-box. "That distant re lative was one assistant goods after Lowe became G.M., that clerk at Dharwar." 66 "You have always given me to understand that the Agency was originally opened in the town in order to counteract the increasing power of some of the more rascally of the merchants' muccadams." 1 he thought the Agency was unnecessary. And later on it was Lowe who insisted upon putting Jethanand in charge of it. Do you remember how Jethanand came to us?" "Oh yes. He was specially recommended to Lowe by one of his pals at Karachi, so he said. And he took him on at once." "And dumped him down at the Town Agency and let him nearly smash it while you were on leave." "So it seems. But what's all this got to do with your jaunt to Mormugao?" Clayton leaned across the table. "No claims for shortages of cotton were received last year from any merchants who made a practice of using our Town Agency. I verified that this morning. The line of conspiratorial communications was not complete. Yet Lowe disapproves of the Agency. The other day I got a special berth True, but where's the con- for the Netravati, and Lowe nection?" disapproved of that. I could see that he was more than annoyed about it, whereas he ought to have been jolly pleased. Do you know why Lowe was down at H. Shed on the same afternoon? Vittal Rao brought me this information an hour ago. Having got rid of Brown, Lowe tried to induce the Shed Manager to get the berth quietly but quickly cancelled, adducing some Port Trust reason. He “That was it," agreed Morrison. The idea was to get into more direct touch with the merchants themselves." "You also told me, shortly 1 Brokers, agents. |