In the long afternoons, Major Hawke was apparently busied with the "dispatches" which duly mystified the Club quid mines, as they were ostentatiously displayed in the letter-box.

No one but Ram Lal knew of the abstraction from the mail, and destruction of these carefully sealed envelopes of blank paper.

But the thieving mail clerk in their secret pay, laughed as he consigned them later to the flames.
The astute Major was not aware that he was being daily watched by secret agents representing both the absent ones whom he desired to dupe.

But a daily letter was dispatched by a local banker to a well-known Calcutta firm, which reached Madame Louison, and old Hugh Johnstone, busied at his lawyers, or sitting alone at night with Douglas Fraser in Calcutta, smiled grimly, when he, too, received his data as to Hawke's progress.
A growing coldness which had cut off Hardwicke's friendship seemed to interest Hugh Johnstone.

"I suppose that old Willonghby thinks Hawke is spying upon him.