Talbot Mundy 
The Winds of the World 

It has always been a mystery to her how she knows everything that is happening in Delhi, India and in the great outer world, although they themselves give her information that no government could have landed on the quiet hills. They know where she keeps her cobra – where a lot of jewelry knows some of her old stories. There were many maids in Yasmin, but no one, even her favorite, most proud ones, knew that in the small room there was a black stroll with stairs and steel doors at the top.