Dermot turned towards Daleham.

“Do you remember showing me on this garden one day a coolie whom you said was a B.A. of Calcutta University?”

“Yes; he was called Narain Dass,” replied Fred.  “We spoke to him, you recollect, Major?  He talked excellent English of the babu sort.”

“What has happened to him?”

“I don’t know.  He disappeared a short time ago.  Deserted, I suppose, though I don’t see why he should.  He was getting on well here.”

Dermot smiled grimly and touched the cord and spectacles.

“The man who wore these, who led the Bhuttias in the raid, was Narain Dass.”

These was a moment’s amazed silence in the room.  Then a hubbub arose, and there was a chorus of exclamations and questions.

“Good Heavens, is it possible, Major?  He appeared to be such a decent, civil chap,” exclaimed Daleham.

“His face seemed familiar to me, as he lay dead on the ground,” replied Dermot.  “I couldn’t place him, though, until I found the spectacles.  I put them on his nose, and then I knew him.  His hair was cropped close, he was wearing Bhuttia clothes, but it was Narain Dass, the University graduate who was working as a coolie for a few annas a day.”

“And he had eight hundred and fifty rupees on him,” added the young engineer.

“Yes; and if all the Bhuttias had as much as the one shot that meant over two thousand.”

“Where did they get it?”

“Who is behind all this?”

“The seditionists, of course,” said an elderly planter.

“Yes; but today it isn’t a question of an isolated outrage on one Englishwoman, nor of a few Bengali lawyers in Calcutta and their dupes among hot-headed students and ignorant peasants,” said Dermot.  “It’s the biggest thing we’ve ever had to face yet in India.  What we want to get at is the head and brains of the conspiracy.”

“What do you make of this attempt on Miss Daleham?” asked Granger.  “What was the object of it?”

“Probably just terrorism.  They wanted to show that no one is secure under our rule.  It may be that Narain Dass, who had worked on this garden and seen Miss Daleham, suggested it.  They may have thought that the carrying off of an Englishwoman would make more impression than the mere bombing of a police officer or a magistrate—­we are too used to that.”

“But why employ Bhuttias?” asked Payne.

“To throw the pursuers off the track and prevent their being run down.  The search would stop if we thought they’d gone across the frontier, so they could get away easily.  When they had got Miss Daleham safely hidden away in the labyrinths of a native bazaar, perhaps in Calcutta, they’d have let everyone know who had carried her off.”

“Who was the other fellow with Narain Dass—­the chap who talked Bengali?”

“Probably a Bhuttia who knew the language was given the Brahmin as an interpreter.”