In truth, too, Hervey recognized the predicament Sleeman had faced. Arjan Brar’s house was in Chintal, if only a league or so. Sending his native police into a princely state was risky enough; going himself might have set back his entire scheme. Fort William had enacted the ‘hovering laws’ to prevent malefactors from taking advantage to carry on their trade – a right of ‘hot pursuit’, as the Americans called it, and the native rulers had shown no objection, but it was in their nature, said Sleeman, not to take issue with a proclamation in principle, hoping instead to circumvent it as the need arose.

Besides, he, Hervey, had another concern. Their newest approver, Ghufoor Khan himself, had told Sleeman all in a contract to secure his life no matter what crimes were subsequently uncovered; he’d sung, as Sleeman put it, like a cock linnet. That meant, likely as not, that they’d soon be sharing the road with a vile murderer – and hardly a repentant one at that. It would stick in his craw. Was it right to grant a man such as this Ghufoor Khan his life when the full extent of his crimes was not yet known? He recognized that his own world was, as the saying went, black and white (which was why the business of Major Garratt gave him so much unease), while Sleeman’s was of types and shadows. How Sleeman managed being Solomon in this place he couldn’t conceive. They’d spoken of it, of course, the ‘greatest and continuing dilemma’, and Sleeman had said simply that he slept at nights only in the knowledge that such things as condonation, repugnant that it was, might – should – in time mean the obliteration of this savage guild, and the saving of thousands of other men’s lives. For to Hervey, with his Mutiny Act and King’s Regulations, condign punishment (inflicted wisely) was the surer, the proven way. And Sleeman had replied that in the early days he couldn’t be sure, for he too had been hard-schooled in military discipline, and his uncertainty had troubled him very greatly. Now that he believed that intelligence of the entire guild of thugs was within his grasp, however, he didn’t hesitate so much, though even so there were occasions when the discovery of past crimes brought him close to revoking his pardon. That, of course, would have been the end of his system of approvers, he said; for who would betray the guild only to be hanged later, doubly damned?

Meanwhile, Hervey could console himself that he had Arjan Brar’s people (his wife – one of them at least – and children) hostage, fast within the sturdy walls of the old fort of Sthambadree atop a great hill – massive, impregnable for five centuries – and under close watch of Serjeant-Major Armstrong. Nothing was impossible, but with Armstrong, the improbable was not worth a moment of his consideration. So until Sleeman returned and they could discuss their next moves, and although he would have relished any diversion, there was office to which at last he could attend.