"They are in the library," said Garthorne, as Enid came running out of the morning-room, saying:
"Oh, Sir Arthur and Vane, good morning! How are you? What a very sudden visit. I knew Sir Reginald asked you, but——"
"Never mind about that now, Enid," said Garthorne almost roughly. "Come along, Sir Arthur, this is the library."
He crossed the great hall, and went down one of the corridors leading from it, and the footman was already at one of the doors trying to open it. It was locked. Garthorne hammered on it with his fists and shouted, but there was no reply.
"I heard the library bell ring, sir," said Ambrose, "just as the front door bell went—after that Indian person had been with Sir Reginald some time."
"Never mind about that," said Garthorne; "run round to the windows, and if any of them are open get in and unlock the door."
But before he had reached the hall door the library door was thrown open. Koda Bux salaamed, and, pointing to the lifeless shape of Sir Reginald, lying on the hearth-rug, he said to Sir Arthur:
"Protector of the poor, justice has been done. The enemy of thy house is dead. Before he died he confessed his sin. Has not thy servant done rightly?"
"You have done murder, Koda Bux," said Sir Arthur sternly, pushing him aside and going to where Sir Reginald lay. He tried to lift him, but it was no use. There was the mark of the roomal round his neck, the staring eyes and the half-protruding tongue. Justice, from Koda Bux's point of view, had been done. There was nothing more to do but to have him carried up to his room and send for the police. Garthorne gripped hold of Koda Bux, and called to one of the servants for a rope to tie him up until the police came, but the Pathan twisted himself free with scarcely an effort.
"There is no need for that, Sahib; I shall not run away," said Koda Bux, drawing himself up and saluting Sir Arthur for the last time. "I came here to give my life for the one I have taken, so that justice might be done, and I have done it. In the next worlds and in the next lives we may meet again, and then you will know that neither did I kill your father nor die myself without good cause. Of the rest the gods will judge."