n the _Madras_ for England. To make sure he rang for his waiter; no
message of any kind had come.

"Shall I ask at the office?" the waiter asked.

"By no means," answered Thresk, and he added: "I will have dinner served
up here to-night."

There was just a possibility, he thought, that he might after all escape
this particular payment. He took from his pocket his unposted letter to
Stella Ballantyne. There was no longer any use for it and even its
existence was now dangerous to Stella. For let it be discovered, however
she might plead that she knew nothing of its contents, a motive for the
death of Ballantyne might be inferred from it. It would be a false
motive, but just the sort of motive which the man in the street would
immediately accept. Thresk burnt the letter carefully in a plate and
pounded up each black flake of paper until nothing was left but ashes.
Then for the moment his work was done. He had only to wait and he did not
wait long. On the very next morning his newspaper informed him that
Inspector Coulson of the Bombay Police had left for Chitipur.

The Inspector was a young man devoted to his work, but he travelled now
upon a duty which he would gladly have handed to any other of his
colleagues. He had met Stella Ballantyne in Bombay upon one of her rare
visits to Jane Repton. He had sat at the same dinner-table with her, and
he did not find it pleasant to reflect on the tragic destiny which she
must now fulfil. For the facts were fatal.

At daybreak on the morning of the Friday a sentry on the outer edge of
the camp at Jarwhal Junction had noticed something black lying upon the
ground in the open just outside the door of the Agent's big marquee. He
ran across the ground and discovered Captain Ballantyne sprawling, face
downwards, in the smoking-suit which he had worn at dinner the night
before. The sentry shook him gently by the shoulder, but the limpness of
the body frightened him. Then he noticed that there was blood upon the
ground, and calling loudly for help he ran to the guard-room tent. He
returned with others of the native levies and they lifted Ballantyne up.
He was dead and the body was cold. The levies carried him into the tent
and opened his shirt. He had been shot through the heart. They then
roused Mrs. Ballantyne's ayah and bade her wake her mistress. The ayah
went into Mrs. Ballantyne's room and found her mistress sound asleep. She
waked her up and told her what had happened. Stella Ba