Maharaja of Kooch Behar with the retarded son-and-heir who thinks he’s a concert pianist. Or even the planters themselves. Perhaps he’s a secret tea agent.’

‘Agatha…’ said her husband.

‘But we’re not worth spying on are we darling?’ she continued.

‘Perhaps he’s a double agent!’ said Aunty enjoying herself.

‘Now look this is all very amusing ladies, but let the poor man breathe before you start mapping his destiny in Darjeeling. Poor fellow, he’s hardly been here five minutes.’

‘Then how can he speak Bengali!’ came back Aunty triumphantly.

‘I don’t know Aunty,’ said Bit dryly, ‘But I’m sure there’s no such great mystery attached to him. Very little in life is truly mysterious, despite what these Indians would have us all believe. And do please keep your voice down as the servants tend to ear-wag everything, then repeat a mangled version in the bazaars, which is how bad rumours start.’

‘And good rumours darling,’ his wife asked him, ‘How do they start?’

‘Agatha…’

But before their quarrel had time to develop, the mysterious new guest had arrived at Agatha’s whitewashed fence, which led into the bungalow’s garden.

It wasn’t the best of entrances.

He had a hard face, fixed with sunburn and bright-sunburned hair mixed with grey at the roots, and hawkish brown eyes. Indeed there was something of the hawk about him. He had even arrived hawkish-ly, his eyes slightly hooded, his tall body bent round as if prepared to defend himself, as if he was always under some kind of attack. He straightened up on the veranda, slightly out of breath from the hill, a full six foot four, and wide.

There was a shift of mood in the garden, from humour to tension, which even the servants must have felt for they moved swiftly to break the silence,