"And Vahana?"
The smile, unchanged, gained in significance.
"He was on a great pilgrimage to Holy Benares, Meester Barclay." The old usurer put his hand to the neck of his tunic and pulled up something which hung there by a cord. The thing glittered yellow in the light. "See, this is what I found on her body-0an old bracelet—strange and wonderful in design, Meester Barclay. I wear it, for there is a saying that a murdered woman's jewels shield a man from the evil eye, and I, Lalloo, who believe in nothing, am cautious. There was a fellow to it, but that I gave to Vahana in remembrance of the wife he had loved. He thanked me and went his way—some say to Kailasa, but there is no knowing, for since that day no man has heard him speak."
Barclay, who had bent down for a moment, let the bracelet slip from his fingers. He turned away and went and stood near the spot which Lalloo had indicated, frowning down at it as though the stain were still visible or bore for him some deeper significance.
"And so, because of a sordid tragedy, many years old, the place is boycotted by all save outsiders—such as I am. Is that the delicate point of your story, Lalloo?" he asked.
"They say a spirit dwells in this room," Lalloo answered indirectly, "—an evil spirit," he added.
"Or a living one. Ghosts, if there are any, are men's deeds which live after them. But there are no ghosts." He shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Look about you, Lalloo. A ghost couldn't haunt this room now. He'd lose his bearings. It's changed since those days, eh?"
Lalloo looked at the marble Venus with her lamp.
"It is indeed wonderful," he assented.
Barclay swung on his heel and came back. He was suddenly neither arrogant nor pleading, but utterly and rather terribly sincere.