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cigarette. He grabbed her wrist and then almost lost consciousness in
a blaze of agony as something struck him on the back of the head from
behind.
    “The commissioner was right. It’s a trap, and I’m in it,” was his first
thought. “Now what?”
    The pain was welcome; he knew he could not have felt it if he had been -
knocked out. He let his knees yield under him, and as he fell, amid the fire
that flashed in his eyes he saw the Chinese girl!s face smoking the cigarette
in the jade tube, calmly indifferent. He closed his eyes again and lay still.
He felt himself being searched by experienced hands; the police pass that he
had shown to the patrol crackled as someone took it from its envelope. He
heard Wu Tu’s voice:
    “You dog! If you killed him—”
    Then Zaman Ali’s, speaking Pushtu: “Wah, wah—dogs’ names on a
woman’s tongue—death in her heart! Nay, tie him. Tie his hands behind
him. Bring him back here.”
    Someone seized his arms. Some other man tied his wrists unmercifully
tight. Then he was dragged by the feet, face downward. He contrived to raise
his head an inch or two to save his face from being skinned, but the Chinese
girl set her foot on it promptly, not pressing, however, as hard as she might
have done. He took that for a hint and guessed she was obeying Wu Tu’s
order.
    Once in the room, they turned him on his back and he glimpsed that the
door behind the screen was opened wide. He could feel blood on his face and
he suspected he looked a pretty bad casualty, so he kept his eyes shut and
lay still. He could hear Wu Tu’s voice arguing in whispers, but could not
distinguish words, until at last she said in English angrily:
    “You heard me say no! You have got what you wanted. Now go to the devil
and I will take what I want!”
    Water was dashed in his face, again and again, so he opened his eyes. The
Chinese girl was dipping water in a cup from a crystal bowl. She seemed quite
uninterested and kept on splashing until he sat up. Then he almost betrayed
astonishment, because Chetusingh stood staring at him, smiling and apparently
awaiting orders.
    “Loose my hands!” he commanded. “Look sharp!”
    “There!” said Wu Tu’s voice. Someone else exclaimed “Allah!” Wu Tu again:
“Does that satisfy you?”
    Then he knew the man was not Chetusingh, but someone remarkably like him
who was dressed in Chetusingh’s clothes and had studied the Rajput’s
mannerisms.
    “He will do in the dark,” said Wu Tu.
    She was on the divan beside Zaman Ali. Three men who might be Punjabis
stood near them, but they were dressed in bazaar-made English suits, with
brass watch-chains. They looked like deadly-respectable merchants on a night
out.
    Near them was an Afghan in silver-rimmed spectacles, who looked like a
teacher of the Koran. And there was another man who might be
anything—Sikh, Dogra, Mahratta—in a well cut blue serge suit, who
had an undefinable look of being well educated; but he looked silly in
striped socks. His must be the brown-and-white shoes under the mat
downstairs. He had a blackjack in his hand and the sight of that made Blair
realize that his head ached. He could feel a big bruise swelling where the
blackjack had hit him.
    “Why do you wait?” asked Wu Tu. It was a command. There was much more than
a hint of a threat in her voice and the man who looked like Chetusingh made a
gesture toward the curtained doorway, flourishing Chetusingh’s police pass.
All five men followed him through the curtain. Other men—Blair could
not see how few or how many—joined them in the corridor. The Chinese
girl went and let them out by the door at the stair-head, while Zaman Ali sat
gloating over Blair’s police pass.
    “ Mashallah !” he remarked. “It is signed by the commissioner! The
great—the wise commissioner, whom none mistrusts but all obey! ‘Pass
bearer on government duty!’ Wah! Wah !”
    He produced a fat wallet and