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“He read aloud: My Dear Anya – make haste to Master Trevor with this note. Trevor – for Godsake help us! We were taken by bandits three mornings back. They hold us in the hills, demanding a ransom of some £500, to be left beside the well on Chatterjee Hill. If constables are present, they threaten to kill us. Trevor, I implore you – pay the ranson and we will reimburse you in due course. Please look after Anya until our release.’ ”

“Signed, William and Bruce Atkinson.”

“ ‘But of course,’ said I, ‘the day after the brothers disappeared, Anya fell ill and could not make the usual rendezvous.’ ”

“ ‘Good God, man,’ Trevor cried. ‘What tragedy. They might lie dead with their throats cut as we speak. But what now? Do I go ahead and deliver the ransom?’ ”

“ ‘I rather think that it is too late in the day for that,’ I said.”

“The kidnappers have despatched them already?”

“I refrained from answering him, but strode outside and climbed into the trap. Trevor rushed after me.”

“I said, ‘You mentioned yesterday that six months ago, shortly after the brothers disappeared, you locked the outbuildings on the eastern fringes of the estate – ’ ”

“This I did. But I hardly see …”

“Get your men to open every one and search them thoroughly. Time is of the essence.”

“We returned to the house, and Trevor ordered his men to do as I willed. He distributed keys, and we once again boarded the trap and made for the eastern sector.”

“Fifteen minutes later we heard a cry from a native worker not 200 yards distant. He was standing with a crowd of other men outside the open double-doors of a storage shed. They stared into the dark interior, seemingly too fearful to enter.”

“We hurried across and approached the shed, and the noisome stench that assailed my nostrils confirmed my gravest fears. Covering our lower faces with ‘kerchiefs, we cautiously entered the storage shed.”

“Two bodies, dressed in tropical garb, were sprawled out across the floor. The heat of the shed had advanced their decay past the point of easy recognition. Trevor gagged and retched and hurried outside.”

“ ‘I swear,’ he said at last, ‘I swear to bring to justice the dogs responsible for this!’ ”

“ ‘Look no farther than the two men lying dead,’ said I.”

“ ‘What!’ he cried.”

“Trevor, my friend – there were never any kidnappers, except in the wily imaginings of the brothers’ minds. This is indeed a tragic business.”

“ ‘Do you mean to say …’ he gestured at the corpses of his erstwhile friends, speechless.”

“ ‘They manufactured the whole sorry business, Trevor,” I said. ‘They had gambling debts; their estate was failing … they took the cowards” way out and came up with this disastrous plan to extract from you the £5,000. Of course they would never have reimbursed you – they planned to take the money and leave behind them their debts and the failed estate, leave in disguise by the ship to Calcutta and start a new life with their criminal gains. Of course, they were thwarted by ill-luck: they were not to know that Anya would fall ill, or that you would happen by this shed and inadvertently lock them inside. These buildings are sturdy constructs; they had no hope of escape.’ ”

“ ‘Good God,’ Trevor cried, stricken. ‘Their cries! Those banshee wails reported by the workers …’ ”

“ ‘It was this detail that made me suspicious,’ said I. ‘I am a man of science, Trevor – I have no truck with ghosts and ghouls and such. Taken together with all the other small details of this case, the brothers’ gambling debts, the failing estate, the tickets booked for Calcutta, and Anya’s unforeseen illness … I began to see what tragedy might have occurred.’ ”

“I left him pondering these terrible circumstances and made my way to the trap. At length Trevor hurried after me. ‘But one thing puzzles me,’ said he. ‘You said that two tickets were booked for Calcutta – and yet Anya says that William promised that together they would head for India to start a new life …’ ”

“I paused in the process of climbing into