Strickland did the thinking. I smoked furiously because I was afraid.
"Imray is back," said Strickland. "The question is, who killed Imray? Don't
talk--I have a notion of my own. When I took this bungalow I took most of
Imray's servants. Imray was guileless and inoffensive, wasn't he?"
I agreed, though the heap under the cloth looked neither one thing nor the
other.
"If I call the servants they will stand fast in a crowd and lie like Aryans.
What do you suggest?"
"Call 'em in one by one," I said.
"They'll run away and give the news to all their fellows," said Strickland.
"We must segregate 'em. Do you suppose your servant knows anything about it?"
"He may, for aught I know, hut I don't think it's likely. He has only been here
two or three days."
"What's your notion?" I asked.
"I can't quite tell. How the dickens did the man get the wrong side of the
ceiling-cloth?"
There was a heavy coughing outside Strickland's bedroom door. This showed that
Bahadur Khan, his body-servant, had waked from sleep and wished to put
Strickland to bed.
"Come in," said Strickland. "It is a very warm night, isn't it?"
Bahadur Khan, a great, green-turbaned, six-foot Mohammedan, said that it was a
very warm night, but that there was more rain pending, which, by his honor's
favor, would bring relief to the country.
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