Cautiously, and, to be frank, a bit dismayed, he made a reconnaissance, circling the building, but discovered nothing to reward his pains. The snow lay unbroken except in front of the cabin, where the traces of feet existed in profuse confusion; Amber himself, Rutton, Doggott, the babu, and perhaps another, had passed and repassed there; the trail they had beaten streamed out of the vale, to the eastwards. Only, before the window, through which he had seen the peering turbaned head, he found the impressions of two feet, rather deep and definite, toes pointing toward the house, as though some one had lingered there, looking in. The sight of them reassured him ridiculously.
"At least," he reflected, "disembodied spirits leave no footprints!"
He found Rutton precisely as he had left him, his very attitude an unuttered question.
"No," Amber told him, "he'd made a quick getaway. The marks of his feet were plain enough, outside the window, but he was gone, and … somehow I wasn't over-keen to follow him up."
"Right," said the elder man dejectedly. "I might have known Chatterji would not have come alone. So my crime was futile." He spoke without spirit, as if completely fagged, and moved slowly to the door. "I don't want another interruption to-night," he continued, shooting the bolts. He turned to the windows, "Nor peeping Toms," he added, drawing the shade of one down to the sill.
Amber started for him in a panic. "Get away from that window, Rutton!
For the love of heaven don't be foolhardy!"
Rutton drew the second shade deliberately. "Dear boy!" he said with his slow, tired smile, "I'm in no danger personally. Not a hair of my head will be touched until…." Again he left his thought half-expressed.
"But if that fellow out there was Chatterji's companion——!"
"He undoubtedly was. But you don't understand; my life is not threatened—yet."
"Chatterji fired at you," Amber argued stubbornly.