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"It is! It is!" Sister Raghavendra nodded. "Ma'am, I feel positive that you can trust the good captain to behave with the utmost decorum. I would speak with him awhile, if you don't mind, in my own tongue; of his travels in my homeland. It would be dreadfully boring for you. Why not continue with whatever you were doing? I smell cooking-were you performing miracles in the kitchen again?"

The landlady raised a gnarled hand to her veil and tittered behind it.

"Silly girl!" she chortled. "You know very well that Polly cooks to my directions and inevitably adds her own special ingredient: utter incompetence!"

The three of them laughed.

"Mrs. Wheeltapper," said Burton, "a few months ago the monarch honoured me with a knighthood. I can give you my word that I would never tarnish that title with any act of impropriety."

Even as he spoke, Burton wondered whether he could trust himself to keep such a promise.

"Good gracious!" the old widow cooed. "A knight! A `sir' in my own home! Well I never did! I never did indeed!"

She reached up and lifted her veil. The baggy, liver-spotted face beneath, as ancient as it was, had obviously been attractive in its day, and was made so again by the unrestrained smile that it directed at the famous explorer. Two teeth were missing, the rest were yellowed, but the pale blue eyes twinkled with good humour, and Burton couldn't help but grin back.

"Forgive me!" pleaded the widow. "I treated you like a common visitor when you are obviously a man of culture, as was my dear Tony, may he rest in peace. I shall give you both your privacy!"

She stood.

Burton got to his feet and escorted her to the door.

"A gallant gentleman!" she sighed. "How lovely!"

"It has been a delight to meet you, Mrs. Wheeltapper. I shall talk with Sister Raghavendra awhile, then depart-but may I call again some time? I know of the 17th Lancers and would be very much interested in hearing of your late husband's service with them."

A tear trickled down the old woman's cheek. "Captain Sir Burton, sir," she said, "you are welcome to call on me whenever the inclination takes you!"

"Thank you, ma'am."

He closed the door after her and returned to Sadhvi Raghavendra, who, in truth, was the real reason he might consider a repeat visit to 3 Bayham Street.

"What do you know of mesmerism?" he asked as he sat down.

"I saw it practised many times when I was a child," she replied.

"Are you scared of it?"

"No. I want to know what it is that I can't remember. If that means placing me in a trance, so be it."

"Good girl. Wait a moment-let me pull this chair a little closer."

Burton shifted the armchair until he was sitting face to face with the nurse. He looked her in the eye and spoke in her language.

"Allow yourself to relax. Keep your eyes on mine."

Two pairs of dark, fathomless eyes locked together.

"You have long lashes," said the girl.

"As do you. Don't speak now. Relax. Copy my breathing. Imagine your first breath goes into your right lung. Inhale slowly; exhale slowly. The next breath goes to the left lung. Slowly in. Slowly out. And the next into the middle of your chest. In. Out."

As her respiration adopted the Sufi rhythm he was teaching her, Sister Raghavendra became entirely motionless but for an almost undetectable rocking, which Burton could see was timed to her heartbeat.

He murmured further instructions, guiding her into a cycle of four breaths, each directed to a different part of her body.

Her mind, subdued by the complexity of the exercise, gradually gave itself over to him. He could see it in her luminous eyes, as her pupils expanded wider and wider.

Suddenly, the black circles closed inward from the sides, forming perpendicular lines, and the deep brown irises blazed a bright pink. Something malevolent regarded him.

Burton blinked in surprise but the illusion-if that's what it was-was gone in an instant.

Her eyes were brown. Her pupils were wide black circles. She was entranced.

Recovering himself, he spoke to her: "I want you to return to last