"Tonight, perhaps, yes." Barma Shah returned the gem to Biff and shook his head. "But the other day, if I had known you would run into that trouble at Chand's, I would have gone there myself, instead."
"But Mr. Chand said that you were marked."
"True. But so were you, as it turned out."
"Yes," agreed Biff, "but Chandra helped me out fast enough. Our real trouble was with the thugs on the road."
"Thugs? On the road? Tell me about that."
Biff detailed the incidents of the train trip, the detour by the old abandoned temple, and their final arrival on the Grand Trunk Road. As he concluded the account, Barma Shah shook his head again.
"And to think that I let you go through all that," he said, "while I was waiting for you on the Grand Trunk Road."
"But how," queried Biff, "did you know that we were coming that way?"
"From your father," explained Barma Shah. "He told me all about Chandra,
the boy who worked for Jinnah Jad. That is why I came here to Keewal, so
I would be near the village of Supari, where Chandra's uncle lives.
Naturally, Chandra would bring you there."
"But how did we happen to come along just when you were here for a tiger hunt and the villagers were so terribly excited over it?"