"It's a strange thing. Of course there's nothing really in it, and I am not at all frightened, but the last two nights, on going to bed, I have found that one of my windows was no longer bolted."
Linforth looked up in alarm. Ralston's face, however, did not change.
"Are you sure that it was bolted before?"
"Yes, quite sure," said Violet. "The room is on the ground floor, and outside one of the windows a flight of steps leads down from the verandah to the ground. So I have always taken care to bolt them myself."
"When?" asked Ralston.
"After dressing for dinner," she replied. "It is the last thing I do before leaving the room."
Ralston leaned back in his chair, as though a momentary anxiety were quite relieved.
"It is one of the servants, no doubt," he said. "I will speak about it afterwards"; and for the moment the matter dropped.
But Ralston returned to the subject before dinner was finished.
"I don't think you need be uneasy, Mrs. Oliver," he said. "The house is guarded by sentinels, as no doubt you know. They are native levies, of course, but they are quite reliable"; and in this he was quite sincere. So long as they wore the uniform they would be loyal. The time might come when they would ask to be allowed to go home. That permission would be granted, and it was possible that they would be found in arms against the loyal troops immediately afterwards. But they would ask to be allowed to go first.