e. The silver box was identified by several
people as the property of Govind Chung, a jewel-seller in the Bara
Bazaar, who had made a recent journey to the court of the Rajah of
Baroda, but had not yet returned home, although for some time expected.

"That night the paint-bedaubed pickaxe, sacred emblem of Kali's worship,
lay on the table in my sleeping chamber. But in the morning it had
disappeared--gone how and where no one has ever discovered. The informer
had been confined in the public prison, guarded by two sepoys. Thither,
on discovering my loss, I straightway repaired.

"The soldiers were still on guard in the corridor; nothing had happened
during the night to disturb their watch.

"But within his cell the informer was found dead--strangled, eyes and
tongue protruding from blackened face, the twisted knot under his ear
tied in the very manner I had seen him himself tie it over his upraised
knee on the afternoon of his confession.

"That is the end of my story."

* * * * *

The narrator of the grim tale folded his hands across his breast, bowed
his head, and thus remained in an attitude of meditation. There was an
interval of silence.

"Who murdered the informer?" at last asked the astrologer.

"We never learned," replied the magistrate.

"Was he strangled with his own silken scarf?"

"No. A plain cotton loin-cloth had been used for the deed. It had never
been worn or washed. It must thus have come straight from some shop in
the bazaars. But scores of the same kind are bought and sold every day.
We could discover nothing from this, the only clue the murderer had left
behind him."

"The assassin must have been the mysterious individual you saw in the
rear of the shop of Kubar Bux," commented the Afghan general. "Himself a
member of the thug fraternity, he no doubt took swift vengeance on the
informer for having betrayed its secrets."

"As I believed then, and believe now. But the whole affair remained a
puzzle. For how was access gained to the locked and guarded prison cell,
and to my sleeping chamber as well whence the sacred pickaxe was
stolen?"

"Well, who can be certain even of his associates or followers? According
to the miscreant's own story, there are thugs all around, knowing each
other but not known to us."

"Can such things be?" asked the merchant, his eyes showing the fear and
horror that had smitten him. "Many times have I travelled in company
with just