Death in Kashmir (19 page)

Meril flushed an unbecoming shade of red and shuffled her feet like a small child: ‘I'm sorry, Aunt Ena. Can I get you anything?'

‘Yes. A brandy and soda please. You know I detest cocktails.'

‘Yes, Aunt Ena. Of course, Aunt Ena.' Meril left at what was almost a run, and Lady Candera turned her lorgnettes upon Sarah, observing her from head to foot with the peculiar rudeness of the undisputed autocrat. Sarah remained unruffled and returned the old lady's scrutiny with equal interest.

Lady Candera showed little signs of the beauty that legend credited her with. Though perhaps a hint of it lingered in the modelling of jaw and temple and the line of the thin, beaked nose. Her face sagged in innumerable yellow wrinkles and was curiously blotched, as is the skin of some elderly Indian women, and her eyes were an odd, pale grey that appeared lighter than the tone of her somewhat swarthy complexion–and were certainly a paler shade than the iron-grey of her hair. She wore a magnificent rope of misshapen pearls, and her bony fingers were loaded with diamonds and emeralds in heavy, old-fashioned and not over-clean settings.

Sarah's appearance, or possibly her calm gaze, appeared to interest her, and raising her lorgnettes she addressed Major McKay in commanding tones: ‘Major McKay, who is this gel? She's new. Not like the usual run of cheap stuff we get up here this time of year. Or is she?'

Major McKay, his ruddy countenance betraying a mixture of embarrassment and frigid disapproval, said stiffly: ‘Lady Candera, may I introduce Miss Parrish. Miss Parrish——”

‘—of London and Hampshire,' interpolated a gentle voice as Hugo drifted up, glass in hand. ‘How are you Lady Candera? Hello Doc, nice to see you up here again.'

‘One of these tourists, is she?' said Lady Candera, with a sound that in anyone less majestic would have been termed a sniff.

‘Please! Please!' deprecated Hugo, waving his glass in a pained manner. ‘Let us say “A bird of passage”—and what a bird! In my opinion, a golden oriel.'

‘Ah,' said Lady Candera, bringing the lorgnettes to bear again. ‘Very interesting.' She nodded briefly at Sarah, turned abruptly and walked away.

‘Hugo, that was outrageous of you!' said Sarah, attempting severity and relapsing into a giggle.

‘Why? I am a keen soldier and believe in keeping in practice.'

‘What were you practising then?' inquired Major McKay.

‘Counter-attack,' said Hugo solemnly. ‘Have a sausage?' He collected a plate of small hot sausages speared on cocktail sticks, and a glass of sherry for Sarah. ‘The sherry is a far, far better thing than that weird mixture they are dishing out,' said Hugo. ‘I recommend it. Here's cheers! By the way McKay, perhaps you can——' He stopped. The Major was no longer with them. ‘Odd,' commented Hugo. ‘He was around a moment ago.'

‘Why, hello Sarah!' a tweed-clad figure was pushing its way between the guests towards them: Reggie Craddock, whom Sarah had last seen in Tanmarg, superintending the departure of the Ski Club members: ‘Oh … hello Hugo; I didn't see you'… Reggie sounded less than pleased. ‘Up here again?'

‘What do you mean “again”? I am practically a fixture. In fact they are considering according me the status of a Protected Monument. What brings you here, Reggie?'

‘Last spot of leave in Kashmir,' said Reggie. ‘I'm due home soon. We're selling up, you know. Nearly seventy-five years and three generations in this country, and now—oh well. You know the Nawabzada, don't you?'

He caught the arm of a slim, flannel-clad figure and dragged him out of the crowd.

‘Yes, of course,' smiled Sarah. ‘We met skiing.' She held out her hand to Mir Khan who bowed over it gracefully.

‘It is nice to see you again, Miss Parrish. I do not ski now. The snow has gone. So I play tennis and golf instead. Do you play these games also?'

‘A little,' said Sarah.

‘Don't you believe her, old man! She plays both with distressing competence,' said Hugo.

Sarah laughed, and catching a glimpse of Johnnie Warrender through the crowd, asked Mir Khan if he included polo in his list of sports?

Mir Khan shrugged. ‘When I can find it,' he said. ‘But polo is dying in India; even among the Princes.'

Reggie said: ‘Don't you ever do any work, you idle plutocrat?'

‘Not if I can help it,' admitted Mir with a disarming grin. ‘One of these days work may catch up with me, but just now I run very fast and so I keep just out of reach. For the moment I am what the Americans would call a playboy.'

‘And very nice too,' sighed Hugo, accepting a fresh and brimming glass from a passing
khidmatgar.
‘I only wish I was in a position to follow your admirable example. But what with an expensive wife to keep in socks and headgear, not to mention keeping myself in pants and footwear, I am reluctantly compelled to apply my classic nose to the grindstone. It's all very sad. “Skin off your nose”,' said Hugo.

‘And what do you think of Srinagar?' asked Mir Khan turning back to Sarah.

‘Well, we only arrived the day before yesterday,' said Sarah, ‘but I like what I've seen of it so far.' The talk turned for a time to the valley and the various beauty spots Sarah must visit before she left, until Hugo said: ‘By the way, Reggie, there's another member of your skiing flock here this evening. McKay.'

‘Oh,' said Reggie Craddock briefly; his pleasant face all at once blank and uncommunicative. The oddly uncomfortable silence that followed was broken by their hostess, who bore down upon Mir Khan and whisked him away to meet a Frenchman who wrote travel books and knew his father, while Hugo was removed to entertain a Mrs Willoughby.

Sarah was left with Reggie Craddock, who began to talk skiing; but she was not really listening to him, being more interested in gazing around the crowded room to see how many faces were known to her. Surely that was one of the Coply twins talking to a pretty blond girl by the piano? The boy half turned his head; yes, it was Alec. Or was it Bonzo? She never could tell which was which unless they were standing together, when it was possible to pick out the small differences that distinguished them from each other. Apart, few people were aware which one they were addressing.

Reggie Craddock talked on and on. But now he was speaking of Janet Rushton, and the name served to jerk Sarah out of her inattention …

‘Damned shame about Janet,' said Reggie. ‘She was a really good sort: and one of the best women skiers I ever saw. Kandahar class. Why the hell women jib at obeying perfectly clear and rational orders, I'm hanged if I know. It wasn't as if I hadn't expressly ordered everyone to keep off Blue Run, and explained why. Good Lord, you'd have thought one fatal accident was enough to scare 'em off the run, apart from a direct order. Never been so upset in my life. Gives the Club a bad name too. Puzzles me though; she was no fool, Janet. Not the sort to do a damn' silly thing like that. To tell you the truth, Sarah'—Reggie dropped his voice to a confidential undertone—‘I've never been quite satisfied about that business of Janet.'

He stopped and looked at Sarah intently, as though he had perhaps expected to surprise some flicker of agreement on her face. His eyes were very bright and as curious as a bird's in his brown, nutcracker face.

Sarah felt herself flushing under his gaze and was furious with herself; it was a trick she had never outgrown and which she mentally designated as Victorian and ‘missish'. She spoke quickly to hide it, and with perhaps a shade too much emphasis: ‘What rubbish, Reggie! I didn't suspect you of being imaginative.'

‘Imaginative in what way?' asked Reggie Craddock. He lowered his gaze and examined the contents of his glass with exaggerated interest, but Sarah did not reply, and after a moment he said, apparently at a tangent: ‘You knew Janet quite well, didn't you.'

It was not a question but a statement of fact, and the suspicion darted across Sarah's mind that he said it casually—too casually—in order to … what? Was she herself getting over-imaginative? Why should she suddenly imagine that Reggie Craddock, of all people, should be laying a trap for her? Fishing slyly for an unguarded statement?

Reggie's eyes were upon her again, bright and bird-like. No, not bird-like, thought Sarah. A bird's eyes were bright and soft and inquisitive. Reggie's eyes were bright and inquisitive, but they were hard too. As hard as flakes of steel; and somewhere deep down in them there glimmered something that was wary and alert.

His question seemed to float in the air between them and she realized that she must answer it as casually as it had been asked. ‘No,' said Sarah, aware of an odd constriction of her throat. ‘I can't say I knew her at all well. I'd spoken to her, of course. But then I spoke to most people at the Meeting.'

‘She had the room next to you in Gulmarg, didn't she?' Reggie was once more intent upon his glass, twirling it slowly so that the lights moved on the olive at the bottom.

‘Yes. But I didn't see much of her. She was in a different class from me as a skier.'

‘I see,' said Reggie Craddock slowly. He poked at the olive in his drink with a small cocktail stick. ‘I thought you must have known her well, since you've taken on her boat.'

His glance flicked upward to Sarah's face, and something jumped and fluttered in her throat, and her mouth was suddenly dry. She lifted her glass with a hand she was surprised to find steady, and sipped at her sherry before replying.

‘Yes?' said Sarah with a composure she was far from feeling. Her tone was gently interrogative and her slightly lifted eyebrows managed to convey a faint suggestion of polite surprise at this inquiry into her personal affairs.

Reggie Craddock flushed an unbecoming red and looked away. He said hurriedly: ‘I knew Janet pretty well. She was here last summer when I was up on leave. We were on one or two parties together; and of course we were both interested in skiing.'

He paused to eat the olive and tuck the discarded stick absently into a bowl of pansies that stood on the grand piano at his elbow: ‘She had a rather jolly little houseboat,' continued Reggie more slowly. ‘I remember her telling me last year that she'd taken it on a long lease for this year as well, because one of the best moorings on the lakes went with it, and decent moorings were often hard to get. When I came up here this year I thought I'd take it on, but the man from the agents was out when I called about it, and the next time I went along, which was this afternoon, they told me you'd taken it.'

Sarah said nothing and continued to sip her sherry.

Reggie cleared his throat and fidgeted with the stem of his glass. ‘I suppose you wouldn't consider sub-letting it to me? I wouldn't ask except that—well I know it sounds damn silly, but I've rather a hankering to take on that little boat. Reasons of sentiment, and all that rot, and this looks like being my last chance. Of course I'd get you another one just as good, and you could keep the same
ghat.
I don't suppose it makes any difference to you what boat you're on, as long as it's a decent one and you're next to the Creeds. Tell you the truth, I was a bit cheesed off when I heard you'd got in ahead of me with Janet's boat. Well—er—how about it?'

Sarah regarded Reggie Craddock thoughtfully over the rim of her glass. An assortment of quite incredible theories were running through her mind, whirling and flaming like catherine wheels on Guy Fawkes night.

Reggie had known Janet well. Reggie had taken the trouble to find out, or remember, that Janet had occupied the room next to hers at the hotel in Gulmarg. Reggie had tried to rent the
Waterwitch,
and having failed to do so was trying to persuade her to give it up to him. He had, it was true, issued a strongly worded edict against the use of the Blue Run; but supposing that had been a blind?

Added to all that there were two other facts worthy of note: Reggie Craddock had been in the ski-hut at Khilanmarg, and was the only skier up that year who was entitled to wear on his lapel the little gold K on a blue enamel ground that was the badge of the Kandahar Ski-Club.

All these things and many others raced and jostled each other through Sarah's brain, intermingled with a feeling of blank incredulity. It was, of course, utterly fantastic, and she was letting her suspicions run away with her. It was ridiculous, absurd, impossible, to imagine for one moment that a man like Reggie Craddock … And yet Janet Rushton was just as absurdly and impossibly dead, and all at once words that Janet had spoken repeated themselves in Sarah's brain: ‘If anyone had told you a few hours ago that I was a Secret Service agent, would you have believed them?… Of course you wouldn't! Because I don't look like your idea of a Secret Service agent.'

‘Well?' said Reggie Craddock.

Sarah collected herself with an effort. ‘I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you Reggie, but I'd rather not. I've taken a fancy to that boat, and once I've got settled into a place I hate having to move.' Her tone was light and friendly, but perfectly definite.

A rather ugly look crept over Reggie's face, but he answered easily enough: ‘Oh, that's all right. I merely thought it was worth asking. But of course, as you were a friend of Janet's…'

‘I've already told you,' snapped Sarah with some asperity, ‘that I barely knew the girl.'

Reggie finished his drink and put the glass down upon the piano with a brisk clink. ‘I think I forgot to mention,' he said, ‘that when the agents told me that you had taken on the
Waterwitch,
they also told me that you held Janet Rushton's receipt for the boat, without which you could not have moved in.'

There was a brief moment of silence. Then: ‘What month were you up here on leave last year, Reggie?' asked Sarah.

‘August. Why? What's that got to do with it?'