He did not say much, being a man of few words; but he picked up the loose end of the tablecloth and threw it over the remnants on the table. ‘It strikes me,’ said he, putting down the lamp, ‘our friend Imray has come back. Oh! you would, would you?’ There was a movement under the cloth, and a little snake wriggled out, to be back-broken by the butt of the mahseer-rod. I was sufficiently sick to make no remarks worth recording. Strickland meditated, and helped himself to drinks. The arrangement under the cloth made no more signs of life. ‘Is it Imray?’ I said. Strickland turned back the cloth for a moment, and looked. ‘It is Imray,’ he said; ‘and his throat is cut from ear to ear.’ Then we spoke, both together and to ourselves: ‘That’s why he whispered about the house.’ Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furiously. A little later her great nose heaved open the dining-room door. She sniffed and was still. The tattered ceiling-cloth hung down almost to the level of the table, and there was hardly room to move away from the discovery. Tietjens came in and sat down; her teeth bared under her lip and her forepaws planted. She looked at Strickland. ‘It’s a bad business, old lady,’ said he. ‘Men don’t climb up into the roofs of their bungalows to die, and they don’t fasten up the ceiling cloth behind ‘em. Let’s think it out.’ ‘Let’s think it out somewhere else,’ I said. ‘Excellent idea! Turn the lamps out. We’ll get into my room.’ I did not turn the lamps out. I went into Strickland’s room first, and allowed him to make the darkness. Then he followed me, and we lit tobacco and thought. Strickland thought. I smoked furiously, because I was afraid. ‘Imray is back,’ said Strickland. ‘The question is---who killed Imray? Don’t talk, I’ve a notion of my own. When I took this bungalow I took over most of Imray’s servants. Imray was guileless and inoffensive, wasn’t he?’ I agreed; though the heap under the cloth had looked neither one thing nor the other. ‘If I call in all 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; but I don’t think it’s likely. He has only been here two or three days,’ I answered. ‘What’s your notion?’ ‘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’s a very warm night, isn’t it?’ Bahadur Khan, a great, green-turbaned, six-foot Mahomedan, said that it was a very warm night; but that there was more rain pending, which, by his Honour’s favour, would bring relief to the country.