As you stand under the gas lamps, take your handkerchief from your pocket if you wish to speak with him." Shere Ali turned back from the ropes.

But the spectators were already moving from their chairs to the steps which led from the stage to the auditorium.

There was a crowd about those steps, and Shere Ali could not distinguish among it the man who was likely to have whispered in his ear.
All seemed bent upon their own business, and that business was to escape from the close heat-laden air of the building as quickly as might be.
Shere Ali stood alone and pondered upon the words.
The man who had written to him from Calcutta! That was the man who had sent the anonymous letter which had caused him one day to pass through the Delhi Gate of Lahore.

A money-lender at Calcutta, but a countryman from Chiltistan.

So he had gathered from Safdar Khan, while heaping scorn upon the message.
But now, and on this night of all nights, Shere Ali was in a mood to listen.