Barbara Cleverly (4 page)

‘Appalling!’ Joe murmured. ‘Did they find out who’d replaced the animal?’

‘I don’t suppose anything like a Scotland Yard enquiry took place but there was retribution. The Master of the Hunt and all his assistants disappeared at once and haven’t been seen since. It’s assumed they were quietly executed.’

‘Didn’t Claude Vyvyan have something to say about that?’

‘Apparently not. I’m still awaiting his report.’

There was something in George’s tone which alerted Joe.

He knew him well enough by now to be able to pick up his unexpressed thoughts. Certainly time he got out of India! Almost resentfully, he followed where George was leading him.

‘A man you can trust, Vyvyan? It sounds as though you’re going to need to trust him, the way things are going in Ranipur. A regency is no small matter. Calls for a skilled and loyal servant of the Empire and one who’s prepared to put in a concentrated effort over a period of time

Is this what we have in Vyvyan, Sir George?’

‘Highly qualified fellow. Talented

thorough

ambitious, you’d say. But, well, you understand, I’m always glad to have an unbiased pair of eyes to spy out the land. Let me know what you make of him, Joe. That’s another reason I want you down there, my boy. Find out, if you can, what’s really going on in Ranipur, will you? Look on this in hunting terms, shall we? We’re out in the jungle, unseen danger lurking behind every bush, and some helpful forest creature gives a warning cry. What do you do? Well, you interpret the cry and check your gun’s loaded. Then you wait and watch and see what comes creeping out of the undergrowth. Come on, let’s go and have lunch then we’ll get our shooting practice in.’

He turned to Joe and looked at him steadily. ‘My boy, there are man-eaters about in Ranipur, certainly one with stripes and four legs but quite possibly another prowling the palace corridors on two legs. Be careful, Joe!’

Ť ^ ť

Joe very much enjoyed Indian first class rail travel. He liked the comfortable buttoned black leather upholstery, he appreciated the block of ice sharing a tin bath with a dozen bottles of India Pale Ale, strong and hoppy, and he watched as one by one their labels floated off. He listened with half his mind to Edgar’s anecdotal conversation and was glad enough to have escaped from Simla.

It was late afternoon before they arrived at the junction with the private rail link with Ranipur. ‘Say goodbye to comfort,’ said Edgar. ‘From now on we’re on the narrow gauge, colloquially known as the Heatstroke Express. I keep talking to Udai about it but he never travels by train himself and he doesn’t know how the rest of the world suffers. You would think that some of the nobs who use the little railway would have told him.’ He rose to his feet, began to button himself up and committed his cigar to a deep ashtray. Joe joined him to look out of the window.

‘Behold the powerful state of Ranipur!’

‘Powerful? Would you say powerful?’ Joe asked.

‘Well, it’s all relative, isn’t it? Some would say prosperous, successful, untroubled.’

‘But having a bloodstained past?’

‘Yes, indeed, and possibly a bloodstained future as well.’

Joe gave him a sharp look. ‘You sound a bit ominous. Ancestral voices, do I hear, prophesying war?’

An unaccustomed look of uncertainty passed briefly over Edgar’s florid features and he paused a moment before replying. ‘Nothing as definite as that but I’ll answer your question properly when I find out why, I mean really why I’ve been summoned by Udai. Devious old twister that he is!’

They stepped down into the extreme of an Indian summer’s day.

‘Heatstroke Express!’ said Joe. ‘I see what you mean!’ And a little train whistling and steaming sweatily stood by on another line to receive them.

‘Only an hour,’ said Edgar. ‘We’ll probably survive. People mostly do.’

But they didn’t have to make the experiment. As they walked across the station forecourt they turned to look at a large white car approaching them at speed and trailing a cloud of dust.

‘Ha!’ said Edgar with satisfaction. ‘A great honour! They’ve sent the Rolls! I wonder if it’s for you or me?’

‘Can’t be for me,’ said Joe. ‘He didn’t know I was coming. Did he?’

‘My dear chap,’ said Edgar, ‘you haven’t begun to understand Udai if you imagine he doesn’t know who’s come, who’s gone, who to expect, who not to expect and what you’ve got packed in your luggage!’

For a startled moment, Joe had a vision of the dark metal of the snub-nosed gun nestling amongst his dress shirts and hoped he’d remembered to lock his trunk. Joe’s eyes followed it anxiously as it was moved with Indian efficiency along with other luggage from the mainline on to the waiting narrow gauge train. For a moment he regretted not keeping the gun tucked away in his belt in spite of the discomfort. He turned his attention back to the open-topped Rolls Royce Phantom and looked and looked again at the two people in the front seats.

The passenger seat was occupied by an Indian wearing a smartly tailored but dusty chauffeur’s uniform. Hatless and dishevelled, he was holding on to a leather strap, bracing himself as the car came to an abrupt halt at their feet. The driver, a slim figure in khaki trousers and white shirt, applied the handbrake and jumped out to greet them. She took off the borrowed chauffeur’s cap, releasing a shining fall of fair hair, and knocked the cap against her knee to shake off the thick layer of dust.

‘Edgar. How nice to see you again.’ Her tone was formal rather than warm and her attention moved rather more quickly than was polite from Edgar to himself.

‘And this is your English policeman? Cops finally got wise to you, did they, and put you in custody?’ She stared at Joe with undisguised appreciation, her expression now warm and playful. ‘Well, lucky old you!

My! If I weren’t already spoken for I’d put my cap right back on and set it at you, mister!’

‘Hello, Madeleine,’ said Edgar stiffly. ‘May I present my friend and colleague, Commander Joseph Sandilands? Joe is in India on secondment from Scotland Yard. Joe, this is Madeleine Mercer - as was - now the first wife of Udai’s second son, Prithvi. What the hell are you up to, Madeleine? Still trying to astonish, unnerve and upset? Udai won’t like this display, you know!’ He waved a hand theatrically at the onlookers beginning to gather round the Rolls. ‘Quite a decent crowd you’ve drummed up

thinking of going round with the hat?’ The sarcastic edge to his voice made Joe uneasy and he waited for Madeleine to reply in kind, but she ignored the gibe, smiled sweetly and put out a hot, sticky hand to shake Joe’s.

‘Hello, Joe, and welcome to Ranipur. I’m Maddy. Oh, and I’m not the first wife - I’m the only wife.’

Clearly there was little respect or liking between these two and Joe thought he could understand this. Loyal as he was to the ruler, Edgar would share his disappointment with the heir to the throne’s odd choice of bride. And Joe suspected that Edgar had an innate mistrust of any woman who did not conform to his idea of her role in society, Indian or British.

And this was a nonconformist, Joe decided, liking her at once. She was pretty, even beautiful. The first impression of youth and innocence given by the shining blonde hair and widely spaced brown eyes was belied at second glance by the thick straight brows, knowing expression and determined chin. He would have guessed her age as mid-twenties, a year or two younger than himself.

‘I’ve never driven a Rolls,’ Joe offered in an effort to distract them from pursuing their show of mutual dislike.

‘Have a go on the way back if you like,’ said Madeleine easily.

‘Thank you, but I’d hate to wrap it round a peepul tree,’ said Joe. ‘Not had much practice with motor cars. I do rather better with horses.’

‘It wouldn’t matter much if you crashed it. My father-in-law’s got nine more like it back home.’ Was there disapproval in her flat American drawl? ’I’ll give you lessons if you like. I’m pretty good, you’ll find.’

‘Madeleine’s father was a racing driver,’ Edgar explained. ‘And he passed on his skills - along with his modesty - to his daughter.’

The disapproval was unmistakable.

While they talked the chauffeur had taken their hand luggage and stowed it away in the car. He was now standing hopefully by the driver’s door.

‘Oh, go on then, Gopal! You’ve had enough excitement for one day, I guess! You can drive us back to the palace,’ said Madeleine. ‘Edgar, you sit in front. I’m going to cosy up with your friend and colleague in the back and tell him about Ranipur.’ She grinned at Joe. ‘All about Ranipur. The lid off Rajputana! Though I’ll have to work hard to counter some of the impressions Edgar’s given you, I expect. A woman’s-eye view of the principality is never going to be the same as a man’s.’

They settled down into the leather upholstery and the sleek car moved off at a sedate pace into the interior.

‘Just irritating Edgar,’ Joe guessed as Madeleine fell silent, allowing him to register his own impressions of the countryside uninterrupted by commentary. He looked about him eagerly. Desert scenery gave way to orchards and cultivated fields; strips of corn and millet and other crops Joe didn’t recognize filed past. Here and there patches of jangal, which Edgar explained meant uncultivated land, intruded into the tame landscape, small thatched villages sheltered under ancient fig trees, plough oxen plodded their desultory way under the relentless sun. In this dry countryside Joe was pleased to notice sleeping tanks of jade green water and here and there a turning water wheel and evidence of irrigation. And everywhere there were people working, the men standing out against the dun background in white dhotis and richly coloured turbans of saffron and magenta.

Their way was blocked for a moment or two in a village by a flock of girls as bright as birds of paradise in their saris of pink and acid green and yellow. Chattering and laughing and, Joe was quite certain, making rude remarks about the white faces in the white car, they moved off the road, heavy copper pots of milk balanced on their heads, backs straight and swinging along with a lithe grace.

Joe was enthralled. ‘What beauties!’ he remarked.

‘Village women,’ said Madeleine dismissively. She gave Joe a look full of speculation and amusement and added, ‘If it’s female beauty you’re interested in you’ll find a fine sample at the palace. Well, at least, the ones you’re allowed to see

the respectable ones are still in purdah.’

‘I had understood that the ruler wasn’t in favour of purdah? It’s a Moghul tradition, isn’t it? Not Rajput?’

That’s so. The Rajputs adopted it from their conquerors - the Moghuls. It was the fashionable way to live your life. The women got used to it, I guess, and most of them at court would refuse to give it up if you gave them the choice

and, to be fair to Udai, I think he has. His first two wives both stay firmly behind the slatted screens of the zenana. They haven’t been seen by a man apart from their husband since they were married. And before that - only their brothers. Can you imagine! They spend their whole lives guarded by eunuchs, in the company of other women, most of whom they can’t stand, squabbling and intriguing all day long. Their chief topics of conversation are who’s been given the most valuable necklace and how many times has the ruler slept with them that month. What a life!’ Madeleine shuddered in a showy way. ‘I have nothing to do with them. As far as I’m concerned, they’re dead. Dead to the world!’

‘A very short-sighted and ill-informed view, if I may say so,’ drawled Edgar. ‘First Her Highness and Second Her Highness are very intelligent women who not only rule the zenana with a rod of iron but manipulate events on the outside as well. First Her Highness, in particular, is very influential. Anyone affecting to be ignorant of that would be foolish indeed.’

Madeleine rolled her eyes and sighed.

‘And how do you rate the Third Her Highness as I suppose she’s called?’ Joe asked hurriedly before Madeleine could snap back a reply.

‘The Princess Shubhada?’ Madeleine fell silent for a moment, considering her response. ‘I hardly know her. We’re not exactly bosom pals. I’m American and what I do is flying. She’s Indian and what she does is hunting. She was educated in England and hobnobs with the aristocracy and the royal family. You should have seen her showing off when the Prince of Wales visited last winter! “Oh, Eddie darling! Do you remember that soirée at the Buffington-Codswallops in Henley Week? Pogo was so smashed I thought he’d drown when we chucked him in the Thames!” ’

Her imitation of upper-class flappers’ slang was unnervingly good.

Joe nodded seriously and replied in the same accent. ‘What a perfectly ghastly stunt! Poor Pogo! Too many pink gins aboard?’

Madeleine laughed and squeezed his arm. ‘You’ve got it! But you can imagine that we haven’t got much in common. Her natural milieu - as she would put it - is the polo field and mine’s the flying field. Hurlingham meets Kitty Hawk? Never!’

Their road led onwards and upwards and they caught occasional glimpses of the little train as it chugged along in their wake.

‘What are those hills ahead?’ Joe asked.

‘Outrunners of the Aravallis,’ said Edgar, turning and pointing. ‘And the reason for Udai’s wealth. Those unimpressive - and if we’re being honest we’d say downright ugly - bleak hills are a gold mine. Well, better than that - they’re a precious gems mine. They’re full of minerals from onyx up to the finest emeralds. Millions of pounds’ worth of gems have found their way into the Ranipur treasure house for generations. The city’s up there. It’s not at a great height but enough to lower the temperature a few degrees. Now prepare yourself for a surprise when we round the next bend!’

What Joe saw in the distance was the fabulous palace of Ranipur. A cliff of fretted, carved and decorated pink stone seemed to extend for a hundred and fifty yards on either side of a grand central entrance and to rise upwards and backwards in a cascade of balconies and pavilions, of garden, dome and temple and, over all, pencil-slim cypress stood on guard on every hand. At its feet frothed and surged a small town, the houses painted white or pale blue. Joe was enchanted. Without an instruction given, the car drew to a halt and the chauffeur put on the brake.