Hervey was puzzled. ‘But from all you said previously I’d have imagined there to be reluctance on their part to furnish such information? They don’t fear reprisals?’

‘That is the encouraging part of it. If the village is of good character – and much depends on the headman – and the inquiry is well conducted, as fatalists they will cooperate. If not of good character, they will fear intrusion into the village and thereby the uncovering of all sorts of misdemeanour, but even this can be used to advantage – the threat of turning every stone. The gangs – who are not from the parts where they do their marauding – make a point of not molesting any from those parts. Nor as a general rule do they prey on European travellers, which would bring down the severest wrath of the authorities, but once they move on, there is opportunity for a diligent policeman.’

He explained that over the past five years he’d accumulated several thousand names of active thugs, and also their genealogies. Most of those he’d interrogated personally confessed to being born stranglers, and the older ones to have initiated their children into what they saw as their rightful inheritance. ‘They don’t hesitate in the slightest to tell you, or blush to confess the number of murders they’ve committed. They show no moral disquiet in what they’ve done – nor indeed any fear of what awaits them on the gallows. They take it as part and parcel of life. It’s very strange to the English mind, Colonel Hervey, but not at all to theirs.’

Hervey nodded again.

Sleeman unfolded one of his genealogies.

Hervey was astonished by its detail.

Then he unrolled a large map hanging on the wall, on which were marked the different gangs’ areas of activity, and explained how he used it to predict their future movement.

Hervey got up to study it closer.

It even reached some distance into the presidency.

‘Truly, I am all astonishment. This is a most particular collation of intelligence.’

‘The governor-general has been generous with his encouragement and subventions, without which, I fear, we would not make progress.’

Somervile seconded the opinion. ‘Major Sleeman has also discovered that some of these gangs work with the connivance of certain zamindars, and perhaps even princely rulers. There has of late been increase in the waylaying of treasury parties despatched by sahoukars – bankers, that is – who as a rule follow set routes and are expected to arrive at their destination by certain dates. We are speaking of considerable sums, Colonel Hervey, such as would be attractive to a nabob.’

‘They travel with an armed escort, I imagine?’

Sleeman nodded. ‘They do, but some of the gangs are thirty and more, and, as their name suggests, they do their work first by deception – only then the roomal, the strangling cloth.’

He spoke for an hour in all, explaining how with the genealogies, the maps and the approvers he would soon be in a position to take the offensive against thuggee rather than, as up to now, gathering intelligence and biding his time, content simply to put before the magistrates the open and shut cases. When the time was right, and soon, he would concert a campaign to capture the gangs and at the same time arrest all who were named in his charts as connected with them. ‘That way I trust that the material evidence gained from the gangs, together with the increase in approvers once our success becomes widely known, will be enough to send most of them to prison, or even to the hangman. But for this I’ll need the assistance of considerable military force to supplement my nujeebs.’