"You are sure it was a tiger?" I put in.
"I think there was no doubt of it," Sir Alister replied. "The Bhils swore the teeth-marks were unmistakable, and not only that, but I saw another case seven years later. The body of a young woman was found in the compound outside my bungalow, done to death in precisely the same way. And several of the natives testified as to there being a tiger in that vicinity, for they had found three or four young goats destroyed in similar fashion."
"Who was the girl?" I asked.
Moeran slowly turned his lucent, amber eyes upon me as he answered. "She was a German, a sort of nursery governess at the English doctor's. He was naturally frightfully upset about it, and a regular panic sprang up in the neighbourhood. The natives got a superstitious scare—thought one of their gods was wroth about something and demanded sacrifice; but the white people were simply out to kill the tiger."
"And did they?" I queried eagerly.
Sir Alister shook his head. "That I can't say, as I left the place very soon afterwards and went up to the mountains."
A long silence followed, during which I stared at him in mute fascination. Then an unaccountable impulse made me say abruptly: "Moeran, how old are you?"
His finely-marked eyebrows went up in surprise at the irrelevance of my question, but he smiled.
"Funny you should ask! It so happens that it's my birthday to-morrow. I shall be thirty-five."
"Thirty-five!" I repeated. Then with a shiver I rose from my seat. The room seemed to have turned suddenly cold.