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Dermot was kept informed of whatever happened in Lalpuri by the repentant Rama through the medium of Barclay. For the Deputy Superintendent had been appointed to a special and important post in the Secret Police and told off to watch the conspiracy in Bengal. This he owed to a strong recommendation from Dermot to the Head of the Department in Simla. Rama proved invaluable.
He was starting at an early hour next morning on a long ride to Lalpuri to visit his father, of whose health he said he had received disquieting news. When Noreen went to bed that night she lay awake for some time thinking of their new friend.
And when she entered the room the first person that Noreen saw was Dermot, seated at a small table with Payne and Granger. On his return from a secret excursion across the Bhutan border the Major had found awaiting him at Ranga Duar the official invitation of the Lalpuri Durbar.
So he promptly wrote an acceptance. He reached the Palace only half an hour before Daleham's party arrived from another direction, and had just met his two planter friends when Noreen entered the room. He had not known that she was to be at Lalpuri. The three men rose and bowed to her, and Dermot looked to see if Charlesworth were with her.
He had seldom seen her since their return from Lalpuri, and on the rare occasions of their meeting she seemed to avoid him more than ever. Chunerbutty was always by her side.
"Sounds as if he were a Bengali Brahmin himself," said Dermot. "He is. His father holds an appointment in the service of the Rajah of Lalpuri, a native State in Eastern Bengal not far from here. The son is an old friend of ours. I met him first in London." "In fact, it was through Mr. Chunerbutty that we came here," said Noreen. "He gave Fred an introduction to this company." Dermot reflected.
Aye, and perhaps information that may save India and proofs that will hang our friends in the Palace of Lalpuri. Mul, Badshah!" The storm had burst on India. In the Khyber Pass there was fiercer fighting than even that blood-stained defile had ever seen.
Then he put down the lamp and drew Dermot into the centre of the room. "Has your servant any reason to dislike you?" he asked in a low voice. Dermot answered him in the same tone: "I have not brought one with me." The D.S.P. whistled faintly, then looked apprehensively round the room and whispered: "Have you any enemies in the Palace or in Lalpuri?" Dermot smiled. "Very probably," he replied.
In the blazing sun a couple of hooded hunting-cheetahs lay panting on the bullock-cart to which they were chained. The Palace stood in the heart of the city of Lalpuri, a maze of narrow, malodorous streets off which ran still narrower and fouler lanes.
His was the brain that had conceived the project of uniting the disloyal elements of Bengal with the foreign foes of the Government of India, and he was the leader of the disaffected and the chief of the conspirators. When Chunerbutty arrived in Lalpuri he rode with difficulty through the crowded, narrow streets.