The Man on the Threshold

A new governor, a Scotsman named David Alexander Glencairn (possibly based on John Nicholson),^[2] is sent to a certain Muslim city in British India to restore order. He succeeds using violent measures, but after few years, mysteriously disappears. The narrator is assigned to find Glencairn. He goes to a certain address where a Muslim ceremony is being held. An old man on the threshold tells the narrator a story of a tyrant who was kidnapped and put to trial: he was judged by a madman and his verdict was death, which is implied to be the fate of Glencairn himself.^[3]

Daniel Balderston argues that the central theme of the short story is the search for justice that transcends religion or power systems set in place by the powerful.^[1]