They shook hands, and the colonel and Merriton departed. Not until the sounds of the dog-cart had dwindled did Trent discover that the Head of Police had left the piece of coral on the table. His first impulse was to call after him, but he decided to give it to him later, and dropped it into his pocket.
Through the seemingly endless night Trent kept vigil beside the curtained bed where Manlove lay. He sat huddled in a chair, his face expressionless; frequently he rose to pace the floor; on several occasions one of the men in the next room heard him murmuring to himself. Shortly after midnight (about the time the veiled Memsahib's train roared out of Gaya toward Mughal Sarai) it began to rain. That was the prelude to a storm that crashed and tore in a fury about the bungalow. In the dead silence following, when the damp heat shut in and stars sparkled in the rain-swept sky, jackals chattered mournfully in the jungle.
The last stars passed and the earth awoke in a bath of gold. Ganeesh, with a frightened, awed expression, crept in hesitatingly with tea, and behind him came one of the officers.
"I'll have to get ready to leave now, Eckard," Trent said laconically to the officer, when he had gulped down the hot liquid.
Twenty minutes later, washed and shaved, he came out of his bedroom and found Colonel Urqhart waiting for him.
"Just came by to tell you Merriton hasn't found Chatterjee yet," announced the colonel. "Cleared out, it seems. But they'll get him."
"Uncommonly nice of you, Colonel," returned Trent. His face was drawn, his eyes veined with red, and a pallor underlay his tanned skin.
The colonel waved his hand toward the door. "My cart's outside. I'll drive you to the station. 'Bout time, isn't it?"
Trent nodded. He strode to the door of Manlove's room and halted on the threshold, looking with dry eyes into the hushed apartment. A diamond-winged dragonfly lay dreaming on the window-sill ... the white face shone through the mosquito-curtain.... Thus Trent stood for a moment, then he turned and joined the colonel.
He talked very little during the ride to the station, and Colonel Urqhart did not press conversation. In the midst of chattering native passengers and a few whites, with an engine puffing heat into the already suffocating air, he parted with the colonel,--a handshake and a few perfunctory words--and settled down in his carriage.