The clue spoken of by John Raby lay in the note for a thousand rupees with which Colonel Stuart had paid a portion of his card debts during his last deal in the great game. It proved to be not only one of the missing notes, but, as luck would have it, the very one about the number of which uncertainty existed. The figures stood as the Colonel had written them; so the mistake lay with the usurer, if it was really a mistake. John Raby lit a cigarette and meditated, with the list before him; but beyond an odd persistency in threes and fives, the figures presented no peculiarity. So he set the problem aside till he could tackle it on the spot where it had arisen; for he was a great believer in scenery as an aid to the senses.

The day was almost done, however, ere he found leisure for the task; nevertheless, fatigued as he was, he set to work methodically and was rewarded by the immediate discovery that uncertainty existed as to the number of another note, the one which had been paid in by some one else. The entry had been blotted by the hasty closing of the ledger, and though it read like 159934, it was quite conceivable that it might be something else. Again those threes and fives! Idly enough he wrote the two uncertainties on a sheet of paper, and sat staring at them till suddenly a suggestion came to him, making him re-write the number given by Shunker in close imitation of the dead man's bold black figures, and then deliberately blot it by placing it in the ledger. The result bore so close a resemblance to the blurred entry that his quick brain darted off in a wonder how the usurer had got hold of the number of a note which he had not paid in. No reasonable explanation suggesting itself, he began a systematic search in the waste paper basket; the scraps there would at least tell him on what work the Colonel had been engaged during his last day. He knew that Shunker had had an interview with him in the morning, but that did not account for the shreds of a receipt for three thousand five hundred maunds of grain which he found almost on the top. An old receipt dated some months back; three thousand five hundred too--an odd coincidence! So far good; the next thing was to have a sight of Shunker's face before he had time to hear rumours or make plans.

The summons to come up for an interview early next morning rather pleased the LÂlÂ, for he received it while at the receipt of custom, when it added to his importance in the eyes of the wedding guests who sat watching a nautch girl sidle, like a pouter pigeon, over a strip of dirty carpet. She was stout to obesity; her oiled hair was plastered so as to narrow her forehead to a triangle; her voluminous skirts ended just under the arms in a superfluity of bust. She held one fat hand to her cheek persistently as if in the agonies of toothache, while she yelled away as if the dentist had failed to comfort her. Yet the best native society of Faizapore had sat there for an hour and a half with the impassive faces of the Asiatic bent on amusement; a face which surely will make Paradise dull work for the houris.

"Yea! I will come to Raby if he needs me," assented the rich man, turning with a spiteful chuckle to his right hand, where old Mahomed Lateef sat solemn and dignified. "See you, KhÂn sahib, how even the Sirkar favours money?"

"When I was young, Oh Shunker!" retorted the other grimly, "the hands of Nikalsane and Jan Larnce held the sword too tight to leave room for the rupees."

"Ay! when you KhÂns of Kurtpore brought fifty swords to flash behind theirs, without payment. Swords are bought nowadays, and those who lack money must e'en go to the wall."

The old Mahomedan's eyes flared. "MashÂllÂh, oh buniah-ji, if they go to the wall in my poor house they will find swords enow! But yesterday a hut fell--I mean 'twas pulled down for repairs--and we came on five Persian blades!^[3] Ready to use, O LÂlÂ-ji; no spot or blemish of rust. Haply they may help back the rupees some day."

Shunker moved uneasily in his chair, and the guests sank again into silence, broken only by the occasional tributary hiccup which native etiquette demands for the memory of dinner. The stars shone overhead, and a great trail of smoke from the brazier of oil and cotton-seed seemed to mix itself up with the Milky Way. Little Nuttu, the hero of the feast, had fallen asleep in his chair, his baby bride being engaged in cutting her teeth elsewhere. A group of younger men, squatted in the far corner round a flaring paraffin lamp, talked vociferously in a mixed jargon of "individual freedom," "political rights," and "representative government." And no one laughed or cried at anything; neither at the nautch girl with her unmentionable songs, nor the spectacle of people discussing freedom while engaged in taking it away from two harmless infants.

So the night wore on in dull dissipation, leaving Shunker at a disadvantage when he came to confront the young civilian's clear-cut, clean-shaven face in the morning.

"You have made a mistake, LÂlÂ-ji," he began, opening fire at once; "a serious mistake about the notes you claim to have left with Colonel Stuart." So much, at least, was certain; John Raby, however, saw more in the unrestrained start of alarm which the surprise evoked. "It isn't so very serious," he continued blandly; "nothing for you to be so frightened about, LÂlÂ-ji; we all make mistakes at times. By the way, did you keep your original memorandum of the numbers in English or MÂhÂjani [accountant's character]?" "In MÂhÂjani, Huzoor," bleated Shunker, and John Raby smiled. For this diminished the possibility of clerical error enormously; indeed it was to settle this point that he had sent for the usurer. "So much the better for you," he went on carelessly, "and if you will bring the paper to me this evening, say about six, I'll see if we can get the error in your claim altered. You have interchanged a five and a three in one number, and it is as well to be accurate before the inquiry commences. It will be a very stringent one. By the by, what time did you last see Colonel Stuart?"

But the usurer was prepared this time, and when he finally bowed himself out, John Raby was as much in the dark as ever in regard to the details of a plot which he felt sure had been laid.

All day long in a sort of under-current of thought he was busy ransacking memory and invention for a theory, coming back again and again, disheartened, to the half-tipsy laugh with which Colonel Stuart had given him the note, declaring it was a windfall. A windfall! what could that mean! Had Shunker given it back? Then there must have been a second interview; but none of the servants could speak to one. He went over early to the office and sat in the dead man's chair trying to piece things together. The shadows were beginning to cling to the corners ere the usurer was announced, and something in the scared glance he gave towards the tall figure in the seat of office convinced John Raby that the man was reminded of another and similar visit to that room. The quaver in hand and voice with which he produced his day-book, and said that the Huzoor's number was right after all, clinched the matter.

"I suppose," remarked the young man coolly, "you were confused by the other note." A random shot, but it struck home!

"Huzoor!" faltered the fat man.

John Raby looked him full in the face, and went one better; poker was a game of which he was passionately fond. "The other note with the threes and the fives which you saw,--which you got when,--I mean the second time you came here--when you brought the receipt for the grain which he destroyed--By Jove!" He threw his hand up, and a light came into his face. "Fool not to see it before--the receipt,--the wrong receipt of course."

"But he never gave me the money; I swear he didn't!" protested Shunker, completely off his guard.

His hearer broke into a fit of cynical laughter. "Thank you, Shunker, thank you! Of course he gave you the money: I see it all; and as one of the numbers were different, you improved on your original memorandum, thinking you had made a mistake. Stay,--number 150034 wasn't your note. By Jove! he must have given you back the whole roll of four thousand five hundred by mistake. You're a bigger blackguard than I thought!"

"No, no!" cried the usurer, beside himself with fear of this shaitan. "Only three! I swear it! I only picked up three."

"Thank you again, LÂlÂ. You picked up three. Let me see; how was it?" The young man rose, pacing the room quickly and talking rapidly. "Stuart must have taken four from the safe. The windfall! by George! the windfall. The Colonel must have thought Shunker had only taken two. Well! you're a nice sort of scoundrel," he went on, stopping opposite the usurer and viewing him with critical eyes. "So you gave him the wrong receipt on purpose, and now claim a second payment, is that it?"

Shunker collapsed to the floor as if every bone had left his body. "I didn't,--I'll swear by holy Ganges, by my son's head--I didn't mean it. I thought he would kill me, and I gave him the wrong receipt in my hurry. Oh, sir, I swear--"

"Let go my legs, you fool, or I shall! Stand up, and don't let your teeth chatter. I'm not going to kill you. So you weren't even a good scoundrel, Shunker, only a pitiful fortune-finder. Having done a clever trick by mistake, you thought it safe to claim the money again, as the only witness was dead. And it was safe, but for that chance of the other note! It was hard luck, LÂlÂ-ji, hard luck!"

There was something almost uncanny in John Raby's jeering smile as he threw himself into a chair and began to light one of his eternal cigarettes. The fact being that he was elated beyond measure at his own success, and unwilling to detract, as it were, from his own skill by any hint of carelessness on the other side.

"And now, Shunker," he asked, his chief attention being apparently given to his tobacco, "what do you intend to do?" Coolly as he spoke, he was conscious of inward anxiety; for he had rapidly reviewed the position, and confessed himself impotent should the usurer regain the courage of denial, since any attempt to prove the facts must bring to light his own possession of the unlucky note. His best chance therefore was to work on the LÂlÂ's terror without delay.

"I throw myself on your honour's mercy," quavered the usurer in a dull despairing tone, knowing by experience that it was but a broken reed on which to rely.

"You don't deserve any; still there are reasons which incline me to be lenient. Your son is young to be deprived of a father's care; besides, as the Colonel sahib's executor, I do not wish to have a committee of inquiry in the office. You understand?"

"Sahib, I understand." This eminently sensible view of the matter was as welcome as it was unexpected.

"Therefore I shall be content if you withdraw your claim, in some credible way of course. Equally, of course, you will sign a confession, which I will burn when--"

"But, sahib, how--?"

"Not another word. I particularly do not wish to know what you are going to do; but I haven't lived seven years in India without being aware how things can be burked."

"If the sahib would only tell me--"

"I tell you to burke it! Why, man, if I only had your conscience all things would be possible; I'd make money even out of this. I'll help you so far. You have somehow or another to restore certain notes, the numbers of which are known. I happen to have traced one of these already, and you happen to have got hold of a wrong one. I will exchange. If you haven't got it about you,--ah! I see you have; that is a great saving of trouble."

A quarter of an hour later John Raby wrote a few lines to Major Marsden's successor enclosing a thousand-rupee note which he had found in an unexpected place in Colonel Stuart's office, adding his belief that the others would doubtless turn up ere long, and suggesting a few days' grace in order that a thorough search might be made.

"Never lie if you can help it," he said to himself sardonically. "That dear old prig Marsden would be shocked at my squaring this business, though at one stage of the proceedings he tried to do so himself. What the devil would be the good of an inquiry to any living soul? And as I've lost a thousand in avoiding one, no one could accuse me of interested motives. Marsden and I row in the same boat, and if I had had as much money as he has!-- Well, she is a dear little girl, and that's a fact."

He called on the dear little girl after leaving the office, and comforted her greatly by general expressions of hope. They made her almost more grateful to him than any certainty would have done, for they showed a more perfect trust in her father's integrity. So even the young man's caution told in his favour, and he went home very well satisfied with himself, to await the final explanation that was to emanate from the LÂlÂ's fertile brain. The notes would be found somewhere, no doubt; or else in looking over his accounts he would discover a like sum owing to Government which would cause the disappearance of the apparent deficiency.

But amid all his terror, the LÂl had noted John Raby's assertion that, given a certain conscience, he could make money out of the restitution; and these idle words stood between him and many a solution of the difficulty. His soul (if he had one) was full of hate, a sense of defeat, and a desire for revenge. If only he could devise some plan by which he could retain the plunder, especially that thousand-rupee note the white-faced shaitan had given him in exchange!

Dawn found him still in the upper chamber alone with his faithful jackal. There was determination in his face and dogged resistance in RÂm LÂl's.

"Fool!" whispered the usurer. "If I fall, where art thou? And I swear I will let the whole thing go. I have money,--thou hast none. It is only a year without opium or tobacco, RÂmu, and the wife and children well cared for meanwhile. Are you going to back out of the agreement, unfaithful to salt?"

"A year is ten years without opium, LÂlÂ; and there is no need for this. I am the scapegoat, it is true, but only for safety."

"Son of owls!" cursed the usurer, still under his breath. "It is for safety, thy safety as well as mine. For if thou wilt do as I bid thee, it will tie that shaitan's hands; and if they be not tied, they will meddle. Besides, the sahib-logue are never satisfied without a scapegoat, and if some one go not to jail they will inquire; and then, RÂmu, wilt thou fare better? 'Twill be longer in the cells, that is all. Opium can be smuggled, RÂmu! See, I promise five rupees a month to the warder, and a big caste dinner when thou returnest from the father-in-law's house [a native euphemism for the jail]. And listen, RÂmu--"

So the whispered colloquy went on and on through the hot night, and during the course of the next day John Raby was asked to sign a search-warrant for the house of one RÂmu LÂl, who was suspected by his master, Shunker DÂs, of having stolen the missing notes from Colonel Stuart's office-table. For a moment the young man, taken aback by this unexpected turn of affairs, hesitated; but reflection showed him that, for all he could prove to the contrary, the crime might have been committed. At least there would be time enough for interference at a later stage of the proceedings. So RÂmu and his house were searched; a note for five hundred rupees was found on his person, and two previous convictions against him promptly produced by the police.

The discovery of but one, and that the smallest, note gave John Raby the key to Shunker's plan; for if it could be proved that the money had been stolen after it had been duly handed over to the Commissariat officer, the LÂlÂ's claim would remain intact. Thus he would be the gainer by exactly three thousand rupees. Some of this would of course go towards indemnifying the scapegoat; but RÂmu was notoriously the contractor's jackal, and bound to take such risks.

What was to be done? It was maddening to be outwitted in this manner, but after all no one was really the worse for it. RÂmu had evidently been squared: Shunker was bound to escape in any case; and Government had gained all round. Practically speaking, he and Marsden were the only sufferers; the latter in having paid up ten thousand rupees which the authorities must otherwise have lost; he, in having restored one thousand out of his honest earnings. Besides, he had forced Shunker to disgorge another five hundred; in fact, but for him and his ÉcartÉ the fraud could not have been discovered. Surely that was enough for any man to do; especially as one disclosure must lead to another, and in that case Government would have to pay Marsden back his money. All of which devious but straightforward arguments ended in John Raby taking care that the case should be tried in another court; which it was and successfully. RÂm LÂl, confronted by a mass of evidence ingeniously compounded after native fashion from truth and falsehood,--from the denials of honest people who could not possibly have seen anything, and the assertions of those who were paid to have seen everything,--pleaded guilty to having watched his master give the money to Colonel Stuart, who, being in a hurry, had placed it in an envelope-box on the writing-table, whence RÂmu, returning after dark, had taken it "in a moment of forgetfulness" [the usual native excuse].

Here the LÂl interrupted the Court to say in a voice broken by emotion that RÂmu was a faithful servant, a very faithful servant indeed.

So the jackal got eighteen months for the theft, and Shunker drove down next morning to the jail on a visit of inspection and took the opportunity of presenting one of the warders with five rupees.

The net result of the whole affair, from a monetary (that is to say from John Raby's) point of view, being that Shunker gained three thousand rupees, the Government six thousand and odd, while Philip Marsden lost over nine, and he himself forfeited one. He did not count other gains and losses; not even when a day or two after the trial he stood, with Belle's hand in his, saying good-bye to her ere she departed to the hills. The gharri waited with its pile of luggage outside in the sunlight; poor Healy's Mary Ann, who was to accompany her to Rajpore, was arranging the pillows and fussing over the position of the ice-box which was to ensure comfort.

"I can't thank you," said the girl tearfully, her pretty eyes on his. "I wish I could, but I can't."

"Perhaps you may,--some day," he replied vaguely, wishing it were possible. "After all I did nothing; it was clear from the first that there was a mistake."

"Some people did not see the clearness," she returned bitterly. "So your kindness,--and--and confidence--were all the more welcome. I shall never forget it."

Once more the young civilian was driven, by sheer keenness of perception, to the position of an outsider who, seeing the game, sees the odds also. "If I were you I'd forget all about it," he said, more earnestly than was his wont. "It has been a bad dream from beginning to end. When we all come back from the wars with a paucity of limbs and a plethora of medals we can begin afresh. You look surprised. The fact is I've just accepted a political berth with one of the forces, and am off at once. I am glad; Faizapore will be dull when you are gone."

"What a nice young gentleman a' be, miss," said poor Healy's Mary Ann when he had seen them safely stowed away, and with a plunge and a wild tootle of the coachman's horn they were dashing out of the gate. "So cheerful like. He must a' suffered a deal 'imself for to keep up 'is sperrits so in trouble. It's wonderful what one gets used to."

"He has been very good to me,--and to father," replied Belle softly.