Death in Kashmir (21 page)

Only when all the obvious hiding-places had been exhausted did Sarah turn resignedly to the bookshelf in the living-room, and taking down the volumes one after another, go methodically through them. It proved to be a weary, dusty and thankless task, for the books were for the most part old and tattered, and they smelt of dust, mildew and mice. The dust made Sarah sneeze and her head ache, but she plodded doggedly on: occasionally coming across one that had been Janet's and which bore her name on the flyleaf—written in that sprawling school-girl hand that Sarah remembered so well from her one sight of it in the letter she had burnt at the flame of Charles Mallory's cigarette lighter.

These particular books she had examined page by page, and in one of them she found several sheets of paper covered with Janet's handwriting and stuffed between the cover and the dust jacket—and for a marvellous five minutes was convinced that she had found what she was looking for, since it appeared to be a code. But its appearance was deceptive, for it proved to be a laundry list.

On the following day she had barely settled down to work when an unexpected caller arrived in the person of Helen Warrender.

Helen had evidently driven out to the Club at Nagim, which lay only about a quarter of a mile from where the
Waterwitch
was moored, on the far side of the narrow strip of land that separates the Nagim Bagh lake from the backwater of Chota Nagim. Leaving her car there, she had walked across the fields to call on Sarah.

A flurry of barks from Lager announced her approach and gave Sarah just time to push the day's quota of unsorted books under the frill of the sofa and hurriedly brush the dust from her hands, before going out to greet her. Helen, it appeared, had come to make her an offer for the boat.

Friends of hers, explained Mrs Warrender airily, had specially wanted this particular boat, and been most disappointed at hearing that it was already occupied. But on hearing that Helen knew the present occupant they had asked her to approach Sarah with a view to an exchange of boats: ‘And of course dear,' concluded Helen, casting a disparaging eye about the cluttered living-room of the
Waterwitch,
‘I knew you couldn't possibly have any objection, so I told them they could consider it fixed. That's right, isn't it?'

‘No,' said Sarah coldly. ‘I'm afraid it isn't. I have absolutely no intention of giving up this boat, and when you next see Reggie you can tell him that from me!'

‘Reggie?'
exclaimed Helen Warrender blankly.

‘You can add,' continued Sarah, with a dangerous sparkle in her green eyes, ‘that I am a moderately easy-going person, but I don't like being pushed around.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' said Helen Warrender. Her customary drawling voice had suddenly lost its veneer of affectation and was quick and harsh: ‘Reggie? What Reggie? You mean Reggie Craddock? The man who—but
he
can't be…' Helen stopped abruptly and bit her lip. ‘I'm sorry,' she said more slowly. ‘There seems to have been some muddle. It wasn't Reggie Craddock who wanted the boat. It was—oh well. Someone you wouldn't know. A friend of mine.'

She turned and stood for a while staring out of the houseboat window in frowning concentration and tapping her teeth with the edge of her sunglasses. She seemed to have forgotten about Sarah.

Presently she swung round and said: ‘Why did you think I was trying to get the boat for Reggie Craddock? Has he been after it too?'

‘It looks that way, doesn't it?' said Sarah. ‘I'm sorry I was rude, Mrs Warrender, but——'

‘Oh, call me Helen,' said Mrs Warrender impatiently. ‘There's no need for you to apologize. I didn't realize your boat was so much in demand. Why did Reggie Craddock want it?'

‘Sentimental reasons,' said Sarah. ‘Or so he said. I didn't really go into it. Srinagar is full of houseboats and most of them appear to be empty this year. But as I happen to have taken this one, I prefer to stay on it.'

‘And that goes for me too, I suppose?' said Helen.

‘Well, yes; I'm afraid so. I'm sure your friends will be able to find a dozen boats as good as this one, and probably at half the price. After all, prices should have fallen considerably this year.' She realized suddenly that she had made a tactical error and stopped.

‘Oh,' said Helen Warrender in an interested voice. ‘So you booked this boat last year? But you can't have done that. You weren't here. How did you come to take it? And why are you paying higher than you need for it?'

Sarah considered for a moment. She was strongly tempted to tell Mrs Warrender to mind her own business, but realized that this would only create an impression of secrecy; in addition to being rude. It was not that she had any particular objection to being rude to Helen Warrender (who in Sarah's opinion had asked for it), but she particularly wished to avoid a suggestion of any mystery being attached to her occupancy of the boat. She therefore decided that an edited version of the truth would serve her best: ‘I took over this boat from a friend of mine,' she said carefully. ‘Janet Rushton.'

‘You mean the girl who killed herself skiing in Gulmarg? But I knew her!'

‘Yes, that's the one. She had this boat last year, and she'd taken it on for six months of this year as well. Then she changed her mind about it, and happened to tell me one day that if I ever wanted to come up here later in the year before the lease ran out, I could take it on. I thought it might be a good idea, so I took over her lease, hoping that I could sub-let if I didn't come up after all. But I did, and I like the boat; and I like this
ghat.
But I don't expect I shall stay up here long, and as soon as I've gone your friends and Reggie Craddock and the agent's uncle's brother-in-law, and anyone else who wants it, can fight it out between them. Until then I intend to stay on it myself.'

Mrs Warrender said ‘Oh' in an uncertain tone of voice, and sat down on the arm of the sofa. ‘Well, that's that, isn't it? It's damned hot all of a sudden; I shouldn't be surprised if we were in for a thunderstorm. I could do with a drink if you've got one around.'

‘I'm so sorry. I should have offered you one before,' apologized Sarah. ‘What'll you have? Lemon squash?'

‘As long as you put plenty of gin and a spot of bitters in it, yes.'

‘Sorry, no gin on board. But if you'll wait a minute I'll run across to the Creeds' boat and hijack some of Hugo's.'

‘That would be darling of you,' drawled Helen, dragging off her sun-hat and fanning herself with it. ‘I confess I loathe soft drinks, and I could do with a stiff John Collins.'

Sarah ran down the gangplank and across the short strip of turf that separated the two boats, but it took her a minute or two to locate the gin which Hugo had left behind a flower vase on the writing-table, and when she returned it was to find Helen Warrender sitting on the floor with a pile of books strewn around her. She had one in her hand and looked up, unabashed, as Sarah entered: ‘Funny place to keep your books,' she observed. ‘Your sausage puppy started rooting them out from under the sofa, so I thought I'd better rescue them. Your
mānji
must be an untidy devil. There are lots more under there.'

‘Are there?' said Sarah, in what she hoped was a disinterested voice; and mentally consigning Lager to perdition, she mixed a John Collins and handed it to her unwelcome guest. ‘I'm afraid there's no ice. Do you mind?'

‘Not at all, darling. Thanks. Well, here's cheers.'

Helen downed half the glass while continuing to gaze at the book in her hand, and Sarah saw that she was looking at a fly-leaf across which Janet had written her name.

‘This Rushton girl,' said Mrs Warrender. ‘Wasn't she supposed to be rather a spot skier?'

‘Yes,' said Sarah briefly.

‘Damn silly thing for her to do. She ought to have known better. I rather wonder at your wanting to take over her boat after that.'

‘Why?' inquired Sarah coldly.

‘Oh, I don't know. Rather gruesome, don't you think? Still, if you don't mind. It's been an unlucky year for Kashmir in the way of accidents, hasn't it? First the Matthews woman and then the Rushton girl. I keep on saying there's bound to be a third one. These things always go in threes, don't they? Well, I suppose I'd better be going.'

Sarah did not attempt to dissuade her and Helen stood up and brushed her skirts, and tossing Janet's book onto a chair, walked over to a looking-glass in an atrocious Victorian frame of plush and shells hung on one wall, and replacing her sun-hat, peered at herself and exclaimed: ‘Heavens, what a mess I look! It's this heat. Let's hope we get a good storm to clear the air.'

She dabbed at her nose with a rather grubby powder puff, and having touched up her mouth with lipstick, said: ‘Well, my visit seems to have been rather abortive, doesn't it? Sorry you don't feel like giving up the boat. Still—there it is. If you feel like changing your mind, let me know.'

Sarah continued to say nothing, and Mrs Warrender snapped shut her handbag, adjusted her dark glasses and trailed out of the boat into the sunlight. At the bottom of the gangplank she turned and said: ‘Thanks for the drink. I do hope you won't regret it. The boat business I mean.' Upon which cryptic remark she waved a languid hand and walked off between the willows.

‘Now what was that intended for?' mused Sarah, addressing herself to Lager: ‘A threat or a promise? Either way, I'm not sure I like it. No. I do not like this set-up one little bit and I've half a mind to——No, I haven't! I won't be pushed around!'

There were two gangplanks on the
Waterwitch.
One that led from the bank to the pantry, and was used almost exclusively by the
mānji
and the other houseboat servants, and a second that led to a small open space on the square prow of the boat from which one entered into the living-room. Sarah stood on the prow in the hot sunshine and watched Helen Warrender take the field path that led between young corn and a blaze of yellow mustard towards the Nagim Bagh road, and presently she said again, and with more emphasis: ‘No, Lager. I will
not
be pushed around!'

12

Having replaced the books so tactlessly exposed by Lager, Sarah postponed any further search through the houseboat's tattered library, and spent the remainder of the day with the Creeds.

I'm beginning to imagine things and to be suspicious of everything and everybody, she decided ruefully; and that's fatal. After all, why
shouldn't
Reggie Craddock's story be true? How do I know it isn't? He did know Janet, and for all I know he may have been fond of her. Suppose Mrs Warrender's friends really do want this boat, and for quite unsinister reasons? It
is
rather an attractive little boat, and quite a reasonable size compared with most of these outsize floating palaces I've seen. I must try and cultivate a sense of proportion …

With this laudable object in view she lunched with the Creeds, accompanied them in the afternoon on a picnic to the Shalimar Gardens, and returned to dine with them on the roof of their houseboat, though their original plan had been to dine and dance at Nedou's Hotel, and they had booked a table there. But since Major McKay, who was to have made the fourth member of the party, had sent an eleventh-hour message to say that he had pulled a muscle while playing tennis, they abandoned the dance with some relief and ate a scratch meal, hurriedly concocted by the houseboat staff, instead.

The day had been hot and breathless, but with nightfall a light wind began to blow from the mountains, ruffling the surface of the lake and driving little waves in crisp slaps against the side of the houseboat.

Normally, on moonlit nights the lakeside was noisy with frogs; but tonight for some reason the croaking chorus was silent, and though the sky overhead was still cloudless, away to the southwest summer lightning licked along the distant ranges of the Pir Panjal, and there was a mutter of faint, far-off thunder in the air.

Beyond the willow trees a line of tall lombardy poplars bent their heads before the freshening breeze, the
mānjis
came out upon the bank and began to tighten mooring-ropes and chains, and Hugo, who was dispensing coffee, got up from the table and went to the roof's edge to observe the operation.

‘Ohé, Mahdoo!'
called Hugo in the vernacular: ‘What dost thou do?'

‘Perchance there will come a storm in the night, Sahib. We make the boats secure so that should the wind be great, it cannot pull them away to drift and sink in the lake.'

‘That's a jolly thought!' said Hugo, returning to his seat. ‘Nice thing for yer uncle to wake up in the small hours and find himself drifting rapidly away from the home bank and about to turn turtle at any moment.'

Sarah yawned and got to her feet. ‘Well I'm off to bed, I think. Good-night, and thanks for a lovely day.'

‘Good-night Sarah. Sweet dreams.'

Sarah strolled along the bank in the moonlight and waited at the foot of her gangplank while Lager scampered off into the shadows to chase imaginary cats. He was away for an unconsciously long time and Sarah, growing impatient, whistled and called. She could hear him scuffling about somewhere in the shadows beyond the willow trees, but he would not come to her, and when at last he reappeared he was licking his whiskers and prancing in a self-satisfied manner.

‘Lager, you little horror,' reproved Sarah sternly, ‘you've been scavenging! What have you been eating? You know you aren't allowed to eat rubbish!'

Lager's ears, nose and tail drooped guiltily and he pattered docilely up the gangplank at Sarah's heels.

The
mānji
had left the lights burning and Sarah made a tour of her little boat, checking that the windows and doors were fastened before returning for a last look round the living-room. She had already commented caustically to Fudge upon the feeble lighting in Srinagar, for the Power Station being unable to supply the load demanded of it, even a 60-watt bulb produced only a feeble yellow glow. But tonight, for some reason, it seemed to her that the lights were suddenly over-bright and garish and that in their glare the small houseboat appeared larger and less overcrowded and strangely empty.