He left Linforth standing in the hall and went up the stairs.  When he reached the gallery, he leaned over quietly and looked down.

Linforth was still standing by the table, fingering the cotton-pad.

Ralston heard him say again in a voice which was doubtful now rather than incredulous: 

“It can’t be he!  He would not dare!”

But no name was uttered.

CHAPTER XXIX

MRS. OLIVER RIDES THROUGH PESHAWUR

Violet Oliver told her story later during that day.  But there was a certain hesitation in her manner which puzzled Ralston, at all events, amongst her audience.

“When you went to your room,” he asked, “did you find the window again unbolted?”

“No,” she replied.  “It was really my fault last night.  I felt the heat oppressive.  I opened the window myself and went out on to the verandah.  When I came back I think that I did not bolt it.”

“You forgot?” asked Ralston in surprise.

But this was not the only surprising element in the story.

“When you touched the man, he did not close with you, he made no effort to silence you,” Ralston said.  “That is strange enough.  But that he should strike a match, that he should let you see his face quite clearly—­that’s what I don’t understand.  It looks, Mrs. Oliver, as if he almost wanted you to recognise him.”

Ralston turned in his chair sharply towards her.  “Did you recognise him?” he asked.

“Yes,” Violet Oliver replied.  “At least I think I did.  I think that I had seen him before.”

Here at all events it was clear that she was concealing nothing.  She was obviously as puzzled as Ralston was himself.

“Where had you seen him?” he asked, and the answer increased his astonishment.

“In Calcutta,” she answered.  “It was the same man or one very like him.  I saw him on three successive evenings in the Maidan when I was driving there.”

“In Calcutta?” cried Ralston.  “Some months ago, then?”

“Yes.”

“How did you come to notice him in the Maidan?” Mrs. Oliver shivered slightly as she answered: 

“He seemed to be watching me.  I thought so at the time.  It made me uncomfortable.  Now I am sure.  He was watching me,” and she suddenly came forward a step.

“I should like to go away to-day if you and your sister won’t mind,” she pleaded.

Ralston’s forehead clouded.

“Of course, I quite understand,” he said, “and if you wish to go we can’t prevent you.  But you leave us rather helpless, don’t you?—­as you alone can identify the man.  Besides, you leave yourself too in danger.”

“But I shall go far away,” she urged.  “As it is I am going back to England in a month.”

“Yes,” Ralston objected.  “But you have not yet started, and if the man followed you from Calcutta to Peshawur, he may follow you from Peshawur to Bombay.”