The blind man gave a start, while the little man seized his hand and made a number of rapid movements upon it with his fingers.
"My friend wants to know if you are aware of that man's name?" he said. "We lost a companion, and he thinks that he may be the man. For Heaven's sake tell us what you know. You have no idea what it means to us."
"Since you are so interested in him I am sorry to have to say that I do not know very much. You see he had very little to do with us. As I have said, he turned up while our predecessors were here. From what I heard about him from Gregory, he gathered that he was a tall, thin man, who had come through from Pekin by way of Yunnan."
"Are you sure it was from Yunnan?"
"That's what they told me," said Grantham. "Since then I have heard that he was on his way from Pekin to Burmah, and that his coolies had robbed him of all he possessed."
"You don't happen to remember his name, I suppose!"
The blind man tried to ask the question calmly, but his voice failed him.
"As far as I remember his name was George Bertram," Grantham answered.
There was a pause for a few seconds, after which the blind man began again—
"He didn't tell you, I suppose, whether he had any money about him?"