"Exactly." Major Burton rapped out the word with a sound like the cracking of a nut. "We—or rather Barnes—tried to pump Hafiz about it, but he was a mass of ignorance and lies. I believe the old brute turned up again before Monck's return, but he wasn't visible till afterwards. He and Monck have always been thick as thieves—thick as thieves." He paused, looking at Sir Reginald. "A very fishy transaction, sir," he observed.
Sir Reginald's eyes met his. "Are you," he said calmly, "trying to establish any connection between the death of Dacre and the absence from Kurrumpore of this man Rustam Karin?"
"Not only Rustam Karin, sir," responded the Major sharply.
"Ah! Quite so. How did Dacre die?" Sir Reginald still spoke quietly, judicially. There was nothing encouraging in his aspect.
Burton hesitated momentarily, as if some inner warning prompted him to go warily.
"That was what no one knew for certain, sir. He disappeared one night. The story went that he fell over a precipice. Some old native beggar told the tale. No one knows who the man was."
"But you have your eye upon Rustam Karin?" suggested Sir Reginald.
Burton hesitated again. "One doesn't trust these fellows, sir," he said.
"True!" Sir Reginald's voice sounded very dry. "Perhaps it is a mistake to trust any one too far. This is all the evidence you can muster?"
"Yes, sir." Burton looked suddenly embarrassed. "Of course it is not evidence, strictly speaking," he said. "But when mysteries coincide, one is apt to link them together. And the death of Captain Dacre always seemed to me highly mysterious."