The Traitor's Gate by Edgar Wallace — Read

THERE WERE THOSE who thought that His Excellency the Prince of Kishlastan lacked something more than a sense of discretion. A tall, thin man, with the facial characteristics of the typical Easterner, he was for the moment not only under the ban of the French Government, but was extremely unpopular with the Government of India. Though nominally a French subject, since he took his title from a small patch of territory which impinged upon French possessions--a territory he so misruled that he had been brought before the Governor of Pondicherry--he had, to the embarrassment of the British Government, acquired vast estates in British India.

"Riki," as they called him, came to London with a confused grievance; and since he was a man of enormous wealth, found many sympathisers in that stratum of society which is ready to excuse the eccentricities of native rulers. He was a daily visitor to the Row, an indefatigable firstnighter, and his dinner parties were marked by a luxury and profusion which had no exact parallel amongst the season's entertainments. It is true that no official from the Foreign Office attended these functions, that he was not to be met with in the circles associated with the official world; but though it withheld its countenance, yet, in a remote fashion the Foreign Office was inevitably represented on Riki's more elaborate occasions.