It looked so to me, too, and I fell into gloomy thought.

“You’ve got your men watching the house, I suppose?” I asked, at last, turning to Simmonds.

“Yes; and we managed to score one little point to-day.”

“What was that?”

“I found out that Annie Crogan, the housemaid over there, had a cousin on the force, so I got him out here and he managed to have a talk with her.  He didn’t find out anything,” he added; “that is, anything we don’t know; but she promised to leave the door of her bedroom open at night, and, if anything happened, to show a light at her window.”

“Splendid!” I said.  “And of course she’ll keep her eyes open in the daytime.”

“Sure she will.  She’s a bright girl.  The only thing I’m afraid of is that the Hindu will get on to her and fire her.  But she’s been warned to be mighty careful.  If they don’t suspect her, maybe she’ll have something to tell us, in a day or two.”

“Perhaps she will,” I agreed; and I drew a breath of relief.  Surely with all these guardians, inside the house and out, Miss Vaughan was safe.  The least outcry would bring swift assistance.  Besides, I could not bring myself to believe that Silva was such a brute as Godfrey seemed to think him.  I had been attracted by him, not repelled, and I have always believed in the accuracy of these instinctive feelings.

And Godfrey himself, I reflected, did not seem to be very clear in the matter.  If Silva was merely a fakir and a charlatan, there was no reason why he should wish to induct Miss Vaughan into the mysteries of a religion which he wore only as a cloak, to be dropped as soon as his plans were accomplished.  On the other hand, if he was sincere and really wished to convert the girl, it was only reasonable to suppose that he was sincere in other things as well.

“It reduces itself to this,” I said finally to Godfrey.  “If Silva is a charlatan, there is no reason why he should hypnotise Miss Vaughan; but if he really wishes to make a priestess of her, then, by the same token, he is sincere and not a charlatan at all.”

Godfrey nodded.

“There’s a twist there which I can’t seem to get straight,” he admitted.  “We’ll have to watch Silva a little longer to find out what his game really is.  Of course, it’s just possible that he’d be glad to get rid of the girl, but that she really is obsessed by the idea of carrying out her father’s wish.  If that’s the case, Silva is rather up a tree.”

“That’s where we’d better be getting,” broke in Simmonds, who had taken out his watch and held it up to the light.  “It’s nearly twelve o’clock, and I don’t want to miss the fireworks.  Besides, you fellows don’t gain anything by all this jawing.  You’ve been at it for an hour, and you’re more tangled up now than when you started.  My motto with a case of this kind is just to sit quiet and watch it; and pretty soon the rat thinks the coast is clear, and pokes out his head, and you nab him.”