"It must have been near midnight,—perhaps a little later."
"Are you sure of that?"
"As sure as I can be of anything."
"Then you are altogether mistaken in supposing it was Luchman. He can prove an alibi. There was not a minute from the time you withdrew to rest, or rather from the time he fired the pistol that you all heard, that he was not within my reach and under my eye. Not once did he pass inside."
"Who then could it have been?"
"A stranger."
"But he could not have come through the archway without being seen by one of you."
"He didn't come through it. My friends," said the surgeon, "that confirms a suspicion which I have entertained all along. There is some communication with the temple of which we know nothing."
"What can it be?"
"It is subterranean, such as you find in hundreds of buildings, in every country. I have no doubt it leads to the river bank, and was constructed with a view of allowing the priests and fakirs of the temple to go in and out unknown to others."