“Those Hindoo gentlemen are still watching us,” Sir Humphrey said, when the waiter was gone.
“Not Hindu,” corrected Professor Laslow, “Thugee.”

He cut into his main course-which was some sort of chicken done up with red pepper-and stared contemplatively out the window of the train. Sir Humphrey apparently considered the matter academic, as he merely shrugged at the correction and turned to his dinner with habitual enthusiasm.

“Well, I suppose in the most technical sense, you could call them Hindu,” Professor Laslow continued, “for the Goddess they worship is part of the Hindu pantheon. But to compare the followers of Kali to the ordinary sort of Hindu is to liken a churchgoing Christian to an avowed Satanist like Mr. Crowley. These Thugee worship death and destruction. They are assassins, feared throughout the world for the particularly gruesome way in which they dispense with their victims.”

“They’re coming this way,” said Sir Humphrey.

The Professor turned his head a little and saw that this was true. Their table was empty, and the three of them were slowly moving towards him. Their long, grey-black robes swished with the rhythm of their soundless steps, and Laslow could see by the look in their grim, glassy stares that they were thinking of murder, and that it made them glad, for the edges of their mouths were curled up ever-so slightly, like the corner of an old newspaper.

“What could they want with us, Professor?”

In the inside pocket of his jacket, where other men might keep a watch or a handkerchief, Professor Laslow kept a small revolver. His fingers crept toward it by aching degrees.

The cultists approached their table, but made no move to attack them. Rather, they passed by the table without even breaking stride, but as he did so the one in front extended his hand over the Professor’s table and let something fall from his palm on to the tabletop next to him. It was a long, red ribbon of silk. The assassins laughed quietly and in a moment had left the dining car.

Both men stared at the ribbon. Sir Humphrey cleared his throat. “How did you say they killed their victims, Professor?”

“They strangle them with a silken cord.”

They were somewhere between the Rhine and Rhone, on the Furka-Oberalp railway, and the train clicked on steadily into the night.