Читать книгу Paradise In Penang - Barbara Cartland - Страница 2

The train came into Victoria Station and Lord Selwyn stepped out with a deep sigh of relief.

He was home!

There was no carriage waiting to meet him at the Station, but fortunately travelling with him was a French Diplomat, who was to be met by a carriage sent by his Embassy.

“May I give you a lift, my Lord?” he asked politely.

“I would be most grateful,” Lord Selwyn replied. “As I have already informed you, I left sooner than I had expected and did not have time to notify my secretary that I was returning earlier than I had previously arranged.”

The Diplomat smiled.

“I have always been told, my Lord, that it can a dangerous thing to do.”

Lord Selwyn laughed.

“Not as far as I am concerned, but, of course, you are right in principle.”

They stepped into the Embassy carriage.

Lord Selwyn noted it was not only very smart but was drawn by two well-bred horses.

They were not the equal of his own. At the same time they were a credit to whoever had purchased them.

As he sank down against the well-padded back seat, he thought that tonight he would see Maisie Brambury.

She had been in his mind ever since he had left England.

Then while he was in Paris he had made what he knew was the most important decision of his life.

He would get married!

For years and years he had fought against what at first had been subtle hints from his family and then pleadings for him to be married.

He could not imagine in any way why there should be any hurry for him to do so.

Except, of course, that he was distinguished, extremely wealthy and also owned one of the finest Georgian houses in the country.

It was obvious, therefore, that sooner or later he will have to produce an heir to succeed him.

He had decided many years back that the idea of being tied down was abhorrent to him.

He wanted to be free, untrammelled and most definitely unencumbered by a wife.

He had gone to Paris on a delicate Diplomatic mission that had been assigned to him by Lord Clarendon, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

He had been determined to forget all about Lady Brambury.

Paris, he well knew, would be full of women who wanted to flatter him into spending his money. At the same time they made sure that he felt every penny of it had been well spent.

Although he had adhered strictly to the business in hand, which was very characteristic of him, his evenings were totally free.

It was then that he started to search for the attractive courtesans whom he had met on his last visit.

They welcomed him with open arms and he went from party to party and inevitably from bed to bed.

It was only yesterday morning that he had finally decided that enough was enough.

If he was honest, and he usually was honest with himself, he had to admit that the magic of Paris had this time not been there for him.

He had forced himself to enjoy what in the past had been spontaneous excitement and what the French called very rightly joie de vivre.

At first he had asked himself what was wrong.

He just had to admit that instead of the alluring dark eyes looking passionately into his, he could see only the blue of Lady Brambury’s.

He could hear only her voice, soft and childlike, as she talked to him brightly on any and all subjects.

‘I am being a fool!’ he told himself and drank a little more champagne.

Nothing that the French could provide seemed now to satisfy him.

The food he had enjoyed at various parties was superlative and even better when he took some charmer to the famous Maxim’s or Le Grand Vefour.

No one, he thought, could be more alluring than the French Demi-Mondaines.

They were chic and they were witty and with a fascination that was all their own.

They made every man feel like a King.

But all he could hear was a little voice saying,

“I am so – alone and the – Social world – frightens me!”

Two blue eyes looked at him helplessly and he felt that he wanted to protect Maisie and there was only one sure way that he could do so.

“But marriage is not for me!”

He just wondered how often he had said those words to his relatives, to his men friends and to too many women for him to count.

He had everything that he could possibly want in his life.

He was never lonely in his impressive house in the country nor in his delightful London mansion in Park Lane.

As he was exceedingly intelligent, he enjoyed reading.

While his contemporaries rushed off to their Clubs rather than be alone at home, Lord Selwyn could sit reading in his library long into the night.

“You must be careful, my dearest, not to ruin your eyes,” his mother had said when she was alive. “You will not look so handsome if you have to wear spectacles.”

Lord Selwyn had laughed.

There were many years for him to enjoy his reading, he thought, before his eyes began to fail him.

Reading books always gave him as much pleasure as did a beautiful woman.

Moreover, he often thought cynically that they lasted a great deal longer.

All his love affairs came to an end simply because he found that there was nothing to talk about except love.

He was of the opinion that the English language was regrettably extremely limited on the subject and the women who gave him their favours were undeniably beautiful and had figures like young Greek Goddesses.

But while his body responded to their beauty, he found that his brain was being critical also, although it was a strange word, ‘deprived’.

When he thought of marriage, he realised that it would be impossible for him to listen to what he would call ‘banal conversation’.

It was what he would have to do from first thing in the morning to last thing at night.

Even his most witty and amusing mistresses had a way of expecting him to laugh at the same joke that they had told him before or to pay them the same compliments over and over again.

‘What am I looking for? What do I want?’ he asked himself often.

There was no answer.

When he looked at Maisie Brambury, he thought that she was most definitely different.

To begin with she looked very young and attractive.

He had just finished an affaire de coeur with a rather intense woman who was a little older than himself.

Maisie was therefore a most delightful contrast.

She was, he thought, like the small cherubs he had seen carved and painted in Bavarian Churches.

At first he could hardly believe that she was aged twenty-four, to which she admitted.

Then, when he learnt her history, he understood.

Maisie had been married when she was eighteen to Lord Brambury, who was one of the more influential figures at the Court of Queen Victoria.

That he was sixty when he first saw Maisie was considered unimportant beside the fact that he was so distinguished.

He held many posts including that of the Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire and was extremely wealthy.

He had been married before and his first wife had died, having unfortunately failed to provide him with any children.

When he proposed marriage to the daughter of a well-born country Squire, he was being sensible in making sure this time that he had an heir to his riches as well as to his title.

Maisie’s parents were completely overcome and thrilled that their daughter should have received such a splendid offer.

Because she was very pretty, they had always hoped that she might marry well.

They had planned to take her to London for the Society Season.

But before they could do so, she had met Lord Brambury.

Like many an older man had done before him, he fell head-over-heels in love with a very much younger woman. Casting discretion to the winds, he refused to listen to an inner voice that told him that he was far too old for her.

Maisie was indeed everything that he had dreamed of.

She was young, healthy and of good country stock and would surely give him the son he wanted now desperately.

Maisie had little say in what was happening to her. She was told that she was the luckiest girl in the world and that every one of her contemporaries would envy her.

She was swept up the aisle of the fashionable St. George’s Church in Hanover Square in Mayfair.

She had always imagined that she would be married in the little village Church that stood on her father’s estate.

But Lord Brambury was too important.

“You will understand, my dear,” he said, “that Her Majesty the Queen will be present at the Church and a large number of Statesmen, Courtiers and Diplomats will be attending the Ceremony as well.”

He was able to clinch the matter quite easily with Maisie.

He then announced that the Reception would take place in the large house in Grosvenor Square that he had occupied for nearly thirty years.

Maisie was never asked if she agreed or disagreed with all that was being planned for her Wedding Day.

She was told only what had been arranged. This meant that Lord Brambury had given his orders and all her father and mother had to do was to accept them gracefully.

Because it was undoubtedly the most important Wedding of the Season, everyone wished to be present.

On the day St. George’s Church was full to overflowing and the huge Reception rooms of the house in Grosvenor Square were packed with the great and good.

When his friends saw Maisie for the first time they could so easily understand why Lord Brambury was so infatuated with anyone so lovely.

She looked like a piece of beautiful fragile Dresden china.

It is true that one or two of their guests sniggered that ‘there is no fool like an old fool!’

But they kept their voices low, having no wish to offend a man who had the Queen’s ear.

Lord Brambury had in the whole of his successful life never put a foot wrong.

To Maisie everything seemed unreal. It was as if she had stepped from the schoolroom straight into a maelstrom.

Lord Brambury had wished to be married as quickly as possible.

Maisie was therefore hurried from one fashionable dressmaker to another.

She found it extremely tiring to stand for hours being fitted for gown after gown.

On top of all this there were parties almost every night.

The Brambury family was very large and they all wanted to ingratiate themselves with the head of it.

Invitations to luncheons, dinners, Receptions and Assemblies poured in for them and Maisie’s father and mother enjoyed every moment of it.

But Maisie herself saw very little of her future husband.

“You will understand, my dear,” he said, “that before I take you away on our honeymoon I have a thousand and one urgent matters to attend to.”

He smiled before he added,

“I have always found that if I want something done well, I have to do it myself.”

Maisie had, of course, agreed with him and in a way she was somewhat relieved.

She was, in fact, rather frightened of this large and imposing man whose hair was turning grey.

She wondered vaguely what he would expect of her when she was his wife.

She knew of no one who she could ask.

Her mother had always treated her as if she was a very young child and her father made no secret of the fact that he was disappointed that she was not a boy.

She had been educated by a series of Governesses who never stayed in their job for long.

They had found it boring living in the depths of the country when they had no chance of going to London or to any other large town.

“I am sorry,” they would say at the end of a year, “but I do feel as if I am buried here.”

Maisie’s parents could not understand at all.

“After all the woman has a very nice bedroom,” Maisie’s mother said indignantly. “And the schoolroom gets all the sunshine.”

Governesses for ever came and went. Each one started their history lessons with Hengist and Horsa so that Maisie never went beyond Richard Coeur de Lion.

She found history boring and Geography even worse. She learnt, however, not to make any protests but to look as if she was listening wide-eyed to all that they were saying to her.

Nine times out of ten she got away with it.

It was the same expression on her face that she put on when Lord Brambury talked to her before they were married.

It was indeed the same expression she assumed when they set off amid a shower of rose petals and rice to the Station.

They were to travel in Lord Brambury’s private coach to Huntingdonshire and he had planned to spend the first week of their honeymoon at his ancestral home near to the town of March.

Then they would go to his Hunting Lodge in Leicestershire, which he had not used for a long time and he had, in fact, given up hunting ten years ago.

The house was partly Jacobean and partly Tudor and stood on five hundred acres of good Leicestershire soil.

Maisie learnt that it had been in his family for three generations.

“I would never part with it,” he told Maisie’s father. “It is comfortable and quiet and I know we shall not be disturbed on our honeymoon.”

It was during the train journey that Maisie thought that her husband was looking rather flushed.

She had been enjoying the train ride as she had never been in a private carriage before.

“Are you not feeling well?” she asked in a concerned voice, which pleased him.

“I am quite all right,” he replied to his wife. “It was so very hot in the Church and even hotter at the Reception.”

She poured him out a glass of champagne and he drank it thirstily.

“You are a credit to me,” he said with satisfaction, “and you looked exactly as I wanted you to, beautiful and enchanting.”

“I hoped you would like my gown,” Maisie replied. “It was very expensive.”

“You need not worry about that in the future,” Lord Brambury answered in a thick voice.

He drank some more champagne, which seemed to make his voice even thicker.

Maisie had described to Lord Selwyn what had happened when they arrived at Brambury Hall.

“We had dinner,” she said, “and I thought Arthur – looked a little strange. He ate very – little but drank rather a lot.”

Her voice trembled and at this stage was almost inaudible, but Lord Selwyn was listening to her intently.

At the same time he was thinking how lovely Maisie’s pink-and-white skin was.

And he noticed that her eyelashes curled up like a child’s, dark at the roots and fading into gold.

“After dinner we – went up to – bed,” Maisie went on in a hesitating voice.

She stopped speaking and clasped her hands together.

Lord Selwyn then urged her gently,

“I really don’t want you to upset yourself, Maisie.”

“But I wish you to – know. I have never – told this before to anybody.”

She looked away from him and he thought because she was shy that it was very alluring.

“I-I climbed into – bed,” she related in a voice that he could hardly hear, “then – Arthur came into my room.”

She drew in her breath as if she could see it all happening again in her mind.

“He – he walked towards me and then – just before he – reached the bed – he made a strange sound in his throat.”

She gave a little sob.

“As I put out my – hands – towards him, he – collapsed and fell forward.”

There was silence until Lord Selwyn said,

“He had suffered a stroke.”

Maisie nodded.

“It was – terrible! I cannot tell you – how terrible it was! And the doctors could do – nothing to – help him.”

The tragedy was, Lord Selwyn thought, that Lord Brambury did not die at once.

He remained a helpless cripple for five years – five years when there was nothing Maisie could do but be near him and listen to the doctors as they came and went.

The doctors tried to give her some hope, but they spoke in a way which made her know that her husband’s recovery was increasingly unlikely.

“It is difficult to put into words how sorry I am for you,” Lord Selwyn sympathised.

“I knew – you would – understand,” Maisie replied simply.

As she spoke, he wanted to make it up to her for all the years she had wasted her beauty.

She had seen no one but doctors and nurses and the Brambury relatives visited the house occasionally, feeling that it was their duty to enquire after the Head of the Family.

Then, when Lord Brambury finally died, Maisie was now free.

At the same time, because the years had passed her by, she had no idea what to do with herself.

“My father suggested that I should come to London,” she said. “At first I was rather – frightened because I knew – nobody and was afraid of being alone.”

She went on to tell him that it was Lord Brambury’s sister, herself a widow as well, who chaperoned her.

Lady Elton, who was five years older than her brother, moved into Grosvenor Square.

The house had been shut up for five years, but it was soon a busy hive of activity.

The Brambury relations were only too willing to let a rich young widow entertain them and anybody else they wanted to introduce as a suitable friend.

There was no need for Maisie to exert herself in any way.

Her relatives were prepared to engage servants for her and Lord Brambury’s secretary had run his Master’s houses and properties extremely well while he lay unconscious.

“What makes me afraid,” Maisie confided to Lord Selwyn, “is that I may make a second mistake.”

She paused a moment before continuing,

“I know now that it was – wrong of me to marry anyone so much – older than myself, but if I had said ‘no’, nobody would have – listened to me.”

Lord Selwyn understood.

He was also astute enough to realise that Maisie was wooing him and wanted him as her second husband.

It did not occur to him that there would be any disadvantage.

Lord Brambury had left her a fortune and the Dower House in Huntingdonshire and the house in Grosvenor Square as well.

The ancestral home had gone to the new holder of the title, a nephew.

He made it quite clear that he was not interested in his uncle’s widow. He required her only to vacate the house as quickly as possible.

As it happened, she was only too eager to leave what had seemed to her a morgue ever since her Wedding Day.

She had been living in London for six months before she met Lord Selwyn.

He had heard about her before, but had not been particularly interested.

He was told that she was very lovely, but so were a number of other women, especially the one in whom he was interested at that moment.

When they did meet, however, he found himself amused and intrigued by the story of her marriage.

A great number of people were talking about it and he was also told that she was hailed as an important hostess.

When he first saw her, he was inclined to laugh at the idea.

She was so small and so childlike, standing at the top of the stairs receiving her guests. He thought for a moment that it must be a joke.

Then, when she looked at him closely with her baby blue eyes, he found himself at first interested and then captivated.

‘She is certainly original,’ he thought.

Several people had a great deal to say as the marriage had never been consummated.

“A widow and a virgin!” they laughed. “That, if nothing else, is certainly unusual.”

Lord Selwyn received invitation after invitation to the house in Grosvenor Square.

He realised then that he was now on Lady Brambury’s favoured guest list.

Only when she asked him to dine with just two other guests present had he been sure of what she intended.

The other two guests were elderly and they left soon after dinner.

Maisie and Lord Selwyn had sat talking in the glamorous and comfortable sitting room until midnight.

If it had happened with any other woman, Lord Selwyn would have known just where he stood and what was expected of him.

But with Maisie he felt somewhat unsure of himself.

He felt that if he suggested that he should become her lover, she would be extremely shocked. She might refuse to see him again and that was definitely something that he did not want.

Equally he was perceptively aware of what she did want and was afraid of being trapped.

‘I have no intention of marrying anybody,’ he told himself firmly as he drove home.

He kissed Maisie’s hand when he had said ‘goodbye’.

She raised her baby face to his.

Something cautious in his mind told him that if he then kissed her lips she would take it as being a proposal of marriage.

*

He was almost relieved on the next day to be asked by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to go to Paris on a special mission.

Because he was extremely clever and perceptive, Lord Selwyn was often required to step in where the regular Diplomats had failed.

He was invariably successful and was therefore asked again and again to undertake what others had failed to achieve.

Usually the whole thing amused him and he much enjoyed pitting his wits against men who were renowned for their astute brains.

One of his greatest assets was that he spoke most European languages fluently.

He had recently spent some time in Austria, in Rome and now he was in Paris.

On each occasion he had returned triumphant and Lord Clarendon had declared,

“I cannot think what I would do without you, Selwyn! I suppose you realise that instead of wasting your time with a lot of brainless women you could be sitting in my chair?”

Lord Selwyn held up his hand in horror.

“God forbid! I have no wish to involve myself in Politics and I carry out your missions simply because I enjoy the challenge and succeeding is always an adequate reward.”

Owing to Maisie he had not enjoyed this last one as much as he might have expected.

He was unable to respond to the eroticism that was an integral part of Paris.

He found himself continually thinking that Maisie was pure and untouched and one day a man would awaken her to the joys of love, but it was obvious to him that she would not wait for ever.

Lord Selwyn was well aware that he had only to say the words and she would be in his arms.

He would be kissing her lips, which he was almost sure had never been kissed.

The question was could he bring himself to say the magic words that she longed to hear?

“Abracadabra! Will you be my wife?”

It was almost like appearing in a play where he was cast as the hero.

But the price he would have to pay for the hand of the Princess was a very high one, his freedom.

Finally he made up his mind.

He had never before met anyone he wanted to marry. Was it possible that he would find anyone more suitable?

Of course, like many other men, he wanted a woman who had never known another man before him.

He could not for a second contemplate marrying a promiscuous woman and have her be the mother of his children.

Lord Selwyn had sometimes felt ashamed when he had made love to another man’s wife who had sons and daughters by him.

He did not put it into words, but something idealistic within him felt that she degraded her womanhood.

At the same time how could he contemplate being married to a debutante of eighteen?

She would have been educated by Governesses, who would know little more than she did herself.

Maisie had not been able to travel while she was tending to her sick husband, but at least she could have read books and Lord Selwyn knew well that the library at Brambury Hall was very extensive.

‘I will take her to the places that she has only read about,’ he told himself. ‘I will take her to Notre Dame in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome, the Parthenon in Athens and the Pyramids in Egypt.’

He was sure, although he had never discussed it with her, that she would appreciate them as much as he did.

Perhaps she would find in all the places she visited, as he had, a deeper meaning of life that was really spiritual.

It was something that the average tourist would miss entirely.

Lord Selwyn prided himself that, like the Chinese, he was able to look at the World Behind the World.

‘I will see her tomorrow,’ he thought and a smile came to his lips.

It was no use denying the reason for his hurrying, it was why he had found Paris cold, dull and a repetition of the obvious.

Why was he so restless?

Maisie! Maisie!

He thought that he could now see her everywhere he looked and hear her voice whenever he stopped and listened.

The carriage came to a standstill outside his front door.

“Thank you for bringing me home,” he said to the French Diplomat in his own language. “I am extremely grateful.”

“It is always a great pleasure to see you, monsieur,” the Diplomat replied, “and I am one of your greatest admirers.”

Lord Selwyn laughed.

He walked into the house and the butler looked at him in surprise.

“We weren’t expecting your Lordship back so soon!” he exclaimed.

“I know, Barker,” Lord Selwyn answered, “and I did not have time to let Mr. Stevens know. I suppose the chef can provide me with something to eat at this late hour?”

“Of course, my Lord, and it’s a real pleasure to have your Lordship back with us.”

Lord Selwyn then walked into the library.

Because he liked to have his books around him, he kept his writing desk at one end of the room.

As he expected, the desk was piled with correspondence all neatly arranged for him.

He saw at once that there was a huge amount of work waiting to be done.

He was debating with himself if he should visit Maisie tonight or wait until tomorrow.

He then decided that it would be a mistake for him to rush anything of this importance.

In any case she would undoubtedly have a party or some other engagement this evening.

He would only upset her arrangements for the evening if he appeared unexpectedly at her house.

‘I will send her a note first thing in the morning,’ he then decided, ‘asking if we can dine alone. She will know exactly what to expect.’

He was thinking about what flowers to order to decorate the table when his secretary, Mr. Stevens, came into the room.

“This is a pleasant surprise, my Lord,” he exclaimed.

“I finished what I had to do sooner than I expected,” Lord Selwyn explained briefly.

As he spoke, a footman appeared with an open bottle of champagne in a wine cooler.

He set it down on the grog table and next poured out a glass for Lord Selwyn before he withdrew.

As he sipped it, Lord Selwyn, in his mind, drank a toast to the future.

Then he looked down at his desk.

“I see there is a lot of work for me to do,” he remarked to Mr. Stevens.

His secretary nodded.

“It is not as bad as it might be, my Lord,” he said. “There are a number of invitations and one from Her Majesty the Queen. Then I must draw your attention to an important letter that needs your immediate response.”

Lord Selwyn raised his eyebrows.

“Important?” he asked. “In what way?”

“It concerns your great-uncle, my Lord.”

“My great-uncle? Which one?”

“Lord Durham.”

Lord Selwyn stared at his secretary.

“Lord Durham? My father’s uncle? I have not thought of him for years! In fact I thought he was dead.”

“No, he has just died, my Lord. He was eighty-nine.”

“Yes, I suppose he must have been,” Lord Selwyn remarked. “He was living abroad.”

“Yes, my Lord, in Penang.”

Lord Selwyn gave an exclamation.

“I remember. He retired from Hong Kong, where he had been the Chief Judge for God knows how many years, but he then refused to return to England.”

“That is correct, my Lord.”

“My father’s family considered it a rude insult that he had no wish to be with us,” Lord Selwyn said. “I seem to remember his saying in a letter that he thought of the East now as his home and would feel out of place anywhere else.”

Mr. Stevens picked up one of the letters from the desk and handed it to Lord Selwyn.

He saw that it was written from George Town in Penang. It was obviously from a firm of Solicitors who were both English and Chinese.

He read the letter which informed him that his great-uncle had died and had left him his house and his estate.

He had also left him quite a considerable amount of money.

The letter ended by saying that the Solicitors now awaited his instructions.

If it was possible, they would appreciate it if he could come to Penang to see for himself what he had inherited. Lord Selwyn read the letter and then looked at Mr. Stevens.

“Well, that is certainly a surprise,” he exclaimed. “I never expected Great-Uncle Edward to remember me in his will.”

He laughed ironically before he added,

“God knows what I can do with a plantation in Penang!”

As he was speaking to Mr. Stevens, he was thinking that Penang was a small island off the Malay Peninsula and it was a place that he had never thought of visiting.

He had been to India and when he was there had contemplated going on to Singapore.

However, he had decided to come straight home.

There was so much for him to do in England that he could not spare the time to explore any more of the Far East.

“Why did my uncle settle in Penang of all places?”

He was really thinking out loud, but Mr. Stevens replied,

“I believe it is a beautiful Island, my Lord, and very prosperous as a Trading Post.”

Lord Selwyn was not listening.

He had put down the letter from the Solicitors.

On the desk beside a pile of invitations he noticed that there was a letter lying by itself.

For a moment he thought that it might be from Maisie.

Mr. Stevens had strict instructions not to open any letter addressed to Lord Selwyn that looked as if it might be private. And he very seldom made a mistake.

Now, as this letter was lying by itself, Lord Selwyn thought at once that it would be from a woman.

When he picked it up, he saw that it was not in Maisie’s handwriting.

The envelope was sealed and, because he was curious, he opened it right away.

He was well aware that Mr. Stevens was waiting to show him the rest of his mail.

Inside the envelope there was one sheet of writing paper.

It was of good quality, although not engraved with any address.

Then, as he looked at the handwriting, he was even more sure that it had come from a woman and wondered who it could be.

Written in a flowing hand, he read,

“You are being deceived by two treacherous blue eyes and a lying tongue. If you wait in the Mews at the back of a certain house in Grosvenor Square, no doubt you will learn a great deal more than you know already.

A Friend.”

Lord Selwyn stared at the letter in sheer astonishment.

He could not remember ever before receiving an anonymous letter and certainly not one from a so-called ‘friend’.

It was quite obvious to him who it referred to.

He thought angrily that it was only a woman who could attack another woman in such an underhand and disgusting manner.

“When did this letter arrive?” he asked Mr. Stevens.

“It was not posted, my Lord, but dropped through the letterbox.”

Lord Selwyn saw now that there was no stamp on the envelope.

He did not speak and after a moment Mr. Stevens enquired,

“Is it anything that I should deal with, my Lord?”

“No, no, of course not!”

Lord Selwyn put the letter back into the envelope and placed it in his pocket.

For a moment he just stood there as he hesitated.

Then he said,

“I think that the rest of the correspondence, Stevens, will have to wait until the morning. I will now go up and have my bath.”

He walked out of the library.

Mr. Stevens looked after him with an expression of concern in his eyes.

Something had clearly gone wrong.

Lord Selwyn was not at all sure what it was, but he was quite certain that the letter had come from a woman.

‘It is always a woman who is at the bottom of any trouble,’ he said to himself bitterly.

As he spoke, he picked up the letter from Penang.