Death in Kashmir (13 page)

They left Meril and Major McKay and the remaining skiers standing in the cold wind among the trodden snow-banks and the crowds of jostling coolies. And a few moments later Hugo's big, luggage-laden Chevrolet rolled out of Tanmarg on the start of its two-hundred-and-forty-mile journey down the long, winding, mountainous Kashmir road towards the sun and dust and roses of Peshawar.

Part II

PESHAWAR

‘There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave, To tell us this.'

William Shakespeare,
Hamlet

6

‘That,' said Sarah reflectively, her eyes following the white-clad figure on the racing polo pony, ‘is by far the most attractive man in Peshawar.'

Sarah, Hugo and Fudge Creed were seated in deck-chairs at the edge of the polo ground, watching a knock-up game between two scratch sides.

‘I thank you,' said Hugo graciously, tipping his hat a shade further over his nose to keep the sun-glare from his eyes: ‘You were referring to me, of course.'

‘Oh, I don't count you——'

‘In that case, I withdraw my gratitude.'

‘Don't interrupt, Hugo! I was going to say, I don't count you because you are a sober married man and therefore technically out of play. If you weren't married to Fudge of course, I dare say I could go for you in a big way.'

‘Kindly avoid the use of imported slang, my child,' begged Hugo. ‘Besides, the expression you have just made use of never fails to put me in mind of a determined dowager at a free tea making a feline pounce upon the last austerity bun. And to return to the subject of your original remark, which I now take, in lieu of myself, to refer to Charles Mallory, if you are thinking of working up a romantic interest in him you can save yourself a lot of trouble by following Mr Punch's celebrated advice to those about to get married:
“Don't!”
'

Sarah laughed. ‘I'm not. But why not?'

Hugo tilted the brim of his hat with one finger and peered sideways at her. ‘Can I be sure of that?'

‘I'm afraid so. I've tried out my fresh young charms on him for weeks now, without the slightest result. In fact I think he is the only man who has ever snubbed me firmly and with intention, and I don't mind telling you that it's a salutary experience.'

‘Hmm,'
said Hugo sceptically. ‘It also, apparently, has its attractions—judging from the vast sale of novels by women writers, devoted exclusively to square-jawed heroes of the “pick 'em blond and knock 'em down” variety.'

‘I,' said Sarah serenely, ‘am neither blond nor susceptible to brutality.'

‘No. You are red-headed and green-eyed and snub-nosed, and I frequently wonder why the local wallflowers don't gang up on you and scratch your eyes out, instead of eating out of your hand.'

‘Charm,' said Sarah complacently. ‘Charm and personality, coupled with a sweet disposition. Things you wouldn't know anything about. Stop snuffling at my ankles, Lager!' She bent down and scooped up a small black and tan dachsund puppy who was skirmishing round her chair. ‘Tell me more about my Secret Passion, Hugo. Why would I be wasting time and trouble on him?'

‘On Bonnie Prince Charlie? Because he's immune, my child. Inoculated, vaccinated and everything. There isn't a woman for miles around who hasn't tried out her technique on him, only to retire with it badly bent and in drastic need of repair. He prefers sport of the outdoor kind to games of the indoor variety.'

‘He also, if you want to know,' put in Fudge, who had been idly listening to the conversation from a deck-chair on the other side of Sarah, ‘speaks five languages and half a dozen dialects, and is what Reggie Craddock would call “a chap's chap”. Finally, alas, he has a revoltingly glamorous girl at home who answers—judging from the outsize photographs that adorn his rooms—to the name of Cynthia, and who wears a gigantic solitaire on the correct finger, presumably donated by the said Charles.'

‘Yes,' said Sarah with the ghost of a smile. ‘So I noticed.'

‘Oh you did, did you? How and when—if it's not too personal a question?'

‘Jerry Dugan and I called in on him on our way to the Club the other day. Jerry wanted to borrow a stirrup-leather or something. She is lovely, isn't she?'

‘Well up in the Helen of Troy class, I should say. Very depressing.'

‘What did I tell you?' said Hugo. ‘The chap is a mere waste of anybody's valuable time.'

‘Well, maybe you're right. Hello, here's Aunt Alice coming to ask me why I'm not wearing a topee—or whatever those dreadful pith mushrooms are called—and whose side is winning. And I don't know the answer to either.'

A plump, grey-haired lady in a flowered silk dress was bearing down upon them from the direction of the row of cars parked at the edge of the polo ground.

‘Sarah dear! No topee! You'll only get sunstroke. Now which side is winning? No thank you Hugo, I'll sit here. Why isn't the Maharajah playing? Rajgore, I mean?—I see Captain Mallory is riding one of his ponies.'

‘There's been a bit of a flap in the State. Some enterprising burglar has made off with the Rajgore emeralds,' explained Hugo. Adding with a regretful sigh: ‘I wish it had been me! I think I shall set up as a sort of Raffles when I get the sack from the Army. All these Princes and Potentates simply dripping diamonds are an open invitation to crime.'

‘So
that's
why Captain Mallory is playing his ponies! Sarah dear, how many times have I told you that it's dangerous for you to be out without a topee before four o'clock?'

‘But it's after five, darling,' Sarah pointed out, ‘and you know I haven't got a topee, and too much vanity to wear one if I had. And anyway, I don't believe anyone has worn one out here for the last ten years. You haven't got one yourself.'

‘Oh, but we're used to it dear. The sun I mean. But coming from Hampshire——'

‘Auntie darling, I do wish I could get it out of your head that the whole of Hampshire is a cold and draughty spot full of damp and fogs.'

‘Not fogs dear. Blizzards. I remember once when your mother and I spent Christmas with our grandparents at Winchester it never stopped snowing and blowing. I had to wear a woollen vest over my combinations. Which team did you say was winning, dear?'

‘I don't know darling. The one Johnnie Warrender is captaining, I suppose. I've been gossiping with Fudge and not really paying very much attention to the game. Anyway, it's only a sort of knock-up, isn't it? Here's Uncle. Uncle Henry, did your lot win?'

‘Naturally,' said General Addington, collapsing into a deck-chair and fanning himself with his hat: ‘I was umpiring, and saw to it. As a matter of fact,' he added thoughtfully, ‘they came very near to losing, in spite of Johnnie's best efforts. That young protégé of the Governor's is hot stuff.'

‘So Sarah thinks,' interrupted Fudge maliciously. ‘Don't you, Sarah?'

‘Does she, indeed? There used to be a song in my young days,' mused the General, ‘that said something about

“I've seen the hook being baited,

I've been inoculated;

They can't catch me!”

Don't waste your time, Sarah.'

‘Hugo has just been giving me much the same advice. A bit more of this, and I shall get really intrigued.'

‘That reminds me,' broke in Mrs Addington brightly, ‘I
knew
I'd forgotten something. I've asked that nice Mallory man to dinner tonight. The Charity Dance at the Club, you know. Another man is always so useful. And, as I told him, I had no idea until I wrote out the table plan just after tea, that I'd asked thirteen people, or of course I'd have asked someone else. Some people are so odd about sitting down thirteen.'

Sarah felt a sudden uncomfortable shiver up her spine: where had she heard a conversation like this before? Of course!… Hugo had fallen out of the party to Khilanmarg and left it thirteen, which was why Janet had decided to come. She gave a little hunch to her shoulders as though to shrug off the uncomfortable memory and said: ‘Aunt Alice, you didn't really tell him that did you?'

‘What, dear?'

‘Tell him that you were only asking him because you'd discovered at the last minute that you had a party of thirteen?'

‘But there aren't thirteen now, dear. He will make the fourteenth, so it's quite all right. Not that I'm in the
least
superstitious myself—except about black cats of course. I once very nearly ran over one on my bicycle and only half an hour later I heard that April the Fifth had won the Derby—just as I said he would.'

‘How much did you have on him?' asked Hugo, interested.

‘Oh, I didn't have any money on him. I never bet. But it does go to show that there is something after all in those old superstitions, doesn't it?'

Sarah abandoned the unequal struggle and relapsed into a helpless fit of giggles, while Fudge, returning to the previous topic, said: ‘I wonder he didn't refuse, or invent an excuse or something. It's not like Charles to let himself be bounced into going to Club dances.'

‘Oh, I don't expect he'll come to the
dance,
dear. I told him that as long as he came to the dinner that was all that was necessary. I'm sure no one will mind
dancing
thirteen. Not that they could, of course. And I can't think what you're giggling about, Sarah dear. He didn't at all mind my being frank with him, whatever you may think. He's a very nice-mannered young man, and I can't imagine why Mrs Crawley and Mrs Gidney, or Kidney, or whatever her name is, and Joan Forsyth and that Roberton woman are so catty about him.'

‘Suffering from a sprain in the technique, I expect,' offered Fudge. ‘Are they catty about him?'

‘Well, dear, you must admit it's a little
odd.
I mean after all the war
was
on still—when he arrived here, that is. And then when his regiment went off to Palestine or the Pyramids, or one of those places where they were always capturing hundreds of Italians—though what on earth they wanted them for I cannot imagine—what did we do with them when we had them? Just
think
how much food they must have eaten! And no spaghetti or anything. Still, I believe they provided one or two quite good dance bands in places like Muree, or was it Mussorie?'

Sarah said: ‘Aunt Alice, what
are
you talking about?'

‘Captain Mallory of course, dear. You aren't paying attention. A lot of people have been inclined to criticize him severely. For being a sort of A D C I mean—while we were still at war. They feel that he should have been fighting like the rest of them; his regiment I mean—not Mrs Kidney and the Roberton woman, though goodness knows they fight enough. But I must say, we did think it a little
odd
of the Governor to insist on a regular officer when there were so many tobacco people about who were so much cleverer at running things, and danced
quite
as well. But then of course so many people are silly about a man who doesn't do any fighting in a war. So stupid of them, because it's so much more sensible
not
to, don't you think? If we all just
didn't,
I mean, well where would people like Hitler have been?'

‘In Buckingham Palace and the White House I imagine,' grunted her husband.

‘Don't be silly, dear. How could he have been in two places at once? But as I was saying, Sarah dear, he was always being some sort of an A D C somewhere while the war was on—Captain Mallory I mean, not Hitler—and when it was over he still stayed on here, and now they're sending his regiment off to Palestine, or some place where they still seem to like fighting, and of course everyone thought he'd go, as it couldn't be
too
dangerous now—I mean not like D-Day, and Burma—but it seems he'd rather stay here instead.'

‘I think,' said General Addington, rising from his deck-chair and addressing Sarah, ‘that your aunt has said quite enough for one evening. Let us remove her before worse befalls. Come along, Alice, it's past six already and your fourteen guests will be arriving in under two hours.'

‘Only eleven guests, dear. The other three are Sarah and you and I. Goodbye, Antonia. Goodbye, Hugo. You two really must come and see us some time. Drop in for drinks some evening won't you?… Oh, you're coming to dinner tonight? How nice.'

‘Alice!'

‘Coming, Henry dear. Come along, Sarah. You mustn't keep your uncle waiting.'

The procession departed down the dusty length of the polo ground to where the General's car waited by the roadside.

7

There was a pile of mail addressed to Miss Parrish on the hall table of the big white bungalow on the Mall: letters that had arrived by the afternoon's post and had been put aside to await her return. Sarah pounced upon them hungrily—aware of a sudden pang of homesickness at the sight of the English stamps on the bulging envelopes—and retired to her room to indulge in an orgy of news and gossip from home.

She was still reading half an hour later when her aunt tapped on the door to announce that she had forgotten to write out the place cards for the dinner table, and would Sarah please try and get down early and do this for her?

Sarah started guiltily, and hastily skimming through the last two sheets of the letter in her hand, bundled them all into her dressing-table drawer. There was still one envelope unopened which she had left to the last because it bore an Indian stamp and looked as though it might be a bill or a circular since the address was typewritten. But there being no time to read it now, she slipped it into her evening-bag before scrambling hurriedly out of her linen frock and into a bath.