He rose. He felt giddy, and the inner court, with its shadows, its pool of moonshine, swam in a throat-gripping vertigo. But it passed swiftly. Out of the mental chaos emerged a coherency: perhaps the one who had done this was still in or about the temple. The remembrance of Chatterjee immediately appeared to deny it. A solution of the affair unreeled quickly. Chatterjee, the avenger ... a fatal mistake. That explained the native's look of terror when he met Trent on the road, explained his flight.
Nevertheless, Trent made a search of the ruins and returned to the body. The face, outlined boyishly in the pallid moonlight, commanded his gaze with hypnotic insistence. Now that the first acute horror had dwindled, he was conscious of an abysmal loneliness, an ache that habited every nerve and fiber of his being.
He must notify Colonel Urqhart. But the body, what of that? He couldn't leave it lying in this den of vipers. The very suggestion horrified him, although he knew the body was but a husk of flesh. He had some authority; he'd act on his own responsibility.
An involuntary dread ran through him as he slipped his hands under the inert form and lifted it. His sight blurred, but he moved with a steady stride across the courtyard and through the gate. Upon reaching the bungalow, he laid the body upon the bed in Manlove's room. When he switched on the light, the boyish features again compelled his gaze. Manlove had told him of the dream of "Gray Towers," of the House of Lords; and the memory of it, returning through the stupefaction that still surrounded him, sent a poignant charge into his throat. To have his dream perish like this! Whatever a man's philosophy of immortality, death remains a shock.
He was about to leave the room when his attention was arrested by the gleam of a bright object in the lifeless hand. He was forced to pry open the fingers. The gleaming thing proved to be a piece of reddish stone. Coral. It was oval-shaped and some six inches in circumference. An intricate design was overlaid in silver upon the smooth salmon-hued surface—a human figure. The oval was edged with silver, and at the top was a tiny clasp. The clasp was broken. He studied the silver design. It was evidently some sort of deity, but different from any he had ever seen—an ugly little god with three eyes.
What was it? he wondered—part of a necklace, an ornament? The broken clasp testified that it had been wrenched from its fastening. Perhaps in a struggle—the struggle....
Temporarily dismissing it from his thoughts, he left it lying upon the table and went to the telephone.
4
Meanwhile, at the dâk bungalow, which looks out upon the main street of Sahib's Gaya, the khansammah, a ghostly figure in his white garments, sat on the covered portico and watched a gharry approach in a whirl of dust.
The carriage was jerked to a halt at the compound, and from its dim interior appeared a form.