The House of the Falcon, by Harold Lamb (Hardcover)

A white traveler rides into the old bazaar quarter of a Central Asian city, asking after a man no one will name. Hours later a caravan with no cargo and no destination takes him away, and the dust closes over the whole affair. The story follows him into drawing rooms and hill stations, where a globe-trotter repeats it as a curiosity and a quiet stranger listens far too closely.

South, past the gateway of the mountains, a young American woman arrives in the City of the Sun with her ailing aunt, expecting polo, gardens, and a promised dance. Instead she keeps meeting a scarred hillman who vanishes whenever he is seen, and a courteous acquaintance who seems to know more about the missing man than he will admit.

Between the ordered world of the British cantonments and the lawless passes beyond, an old pursuit is still running its course — and someone has decided that she is now part of it.