In any case, it seemed to throw the dewan off his line, whatever that line was, and he returned to brooding silence. He was a tall, angular man, bearded, like most of his caste, and not without the appearance of physical strength; yet still the word ‘reptilian’ came to mind. A little later Suneyla turned to him, and there were rapid exchanges, which Hervey couldn’t get even the gist of. She, however, looked uneasy rather than masterful. At length she turned away from the dewan and kept silent, her eyes distant. Hervey took the opportunity to look about the rest of the long table, content to wait for her to quit her contemplation.

Meat of all kinds – he thought it better not to know precisely – came on gold plate, and Cape wine in finely chased ewers. The ragas continued. There was plenty to distract from conversation, and to mask the absence of it. He began to wonder if his mention of thuggee had been ill-judged, putting Suneyla on her guard – the dewan too. But surely they’d known of it?

‘It is very fortunate, is it not, Colonel, that you should have been in Guntoor?’

After so long a silence the question seemed strange, puzzling. Her manner was colder, too.

‘Fortunate, ma’am? How so?’

She didn’t answer.

‘It was fortunate of course that I was in Guntoor when the news of the agent’s death reached Fort William, and that I knew these parts. But such is life, is it not? There is pleasing happenstance, occasionally.’

Suneyla said nothing again for the moment, and then, ‘Tell me of Georgiana’s mother, Colonel.’

He thought it a strange locution, but knew it a mistake to imagine – for all her fluency – that he sat next to an Englishwoman. Though perhaps she knew more than he supposed.

He told her all that had happened.

‘And so now you begin again, as it were?’

‘My wife is with child, yes.’

She quickened. ‘Ah, so you will not wish to be detained long from Fort St George?’

He smiled. ‘I am quite used to the exigencies of the service, ma’am, as indeed is Mrs Hervey.’

‘Indeed she must be, with a husband killed at Bhurtpore.’

It was said with hard edge. Hervey almost blenched.

Suneyla lapsed into silence once more. Dishes came and went. The ragas continued anon.

Then, suddenly, she spoke sharply to the dewan. He in turn gestured briskly to the sirdar.

The musicians fell silent and the khitmagars made themselves scarce. Hervey glanced to where Serjeant Acton stood, as the evening before, discreetly in a corner.

But soon he saw that he need have no worry. The little band began its music again, but this time much slower, and twelve sinewy, elaborately dressed ‘ladies of the nautch’ – young and of passing beauty – entered as if floating, bending this way and that like tall grass in a breeze. From neck to ankle they were aflash with mirrors, bracelets and rings, and in each bare navel an emerald shone.