Albert followed his gaze and realized with a start what he was looking at. Ucho’s little encounter with the body had turned it over, dislodging it from the cloth it had been wrapped in. Castor’s head lolled to the side, facing them, eyes open, looking right at them, lips drawn back in a macabre smile. Albert stared at it, mouth open in a mixture of horror and revulsion, almost unable to look away.

Father got up and went up to the body, gently covering the face with the cloth again. Albert shut his eyes and shuddered, glad not to have to look at it any more. There had been something very disturbing, unsettling, something that bothered him about that sneering, shrunken face and the discoloured teeth laughing at them.

Father turned to him. ‘Is there anything else you can remember, Albert, any detail of your conversation with Castor?’

Albert shook his head. Father looked around at them sombrely. ‘Then we have no leads, no clues, nothing to help us.’

‘But people saw Castor go home, right?’ said Albert. ‘Somebody must have seen something else!’

‘Ucho’s men have been questioning everyone who we can identify as being in the vicinity at the time. So far, nothing has turned up. Nobody saw anyone enter Castor’s tent, except us.’

‘It’s not surprising,’ said Colby. ‘With all the excitement and hustle of the fights and the speech and so on, it’s no wonder nobody noticed anything amiss. He was smart, whoever he was.’

‘But there must have been a struggle or a fight of some sort! How could nobody see that? Even if it was happening inside the tent.’

‘There was no sign of any struggle,’ said Father. ‘When we got to the tent, everything was as it should be. It was only when I looked in Castor’s sleeping quarters that I found him. Moments later, I heard Ucho shouting for me; he had discovered the guard, on the floor of the back chamber. There were no marks of violence on either of them, except the wounds that killed them. It appears as though neither Castor nor his guard put up any sort of resistance.’

‘Are you telling me that they lay down and waited for their throats to be slit?’

‘It is my belief that the killer was either known to them, and so took them by surprise, or was so quick about it that he struck the two of them down before they could raise the alarm.’

‘Or both,’ said Colby.

Albert looked around at them, his gaze coming to rest on the sack on the floor—with its grisly cargo inside, tucked safely away from sight—and couldn’t repress a shudder. Strange how what was in there had been alive, breathing and walking around not so long ago. He looked away, at Father. ‘So now what?’