Death in Kashmir (30 page)

The lake seemed to drowse in the late afternoon sunlight, the reflections mirrored in its placid surface broken only intermittently by the passing of an occasional country boat or
shikara,
or the splash of a brilliant hued kingfisher. And Sarah, toying abstractedly with a cucumber sandwich as she tried to make up her mind whether or not to return to the
Waterwitch
and continue her search, decided against it. The thought of leaving the sunlit peace of the comfortable deck-chair at Fudge's side to rummage through the dark, dusty corners of the
Waterwitch
was repellent, and though conscience fought with inclination, inclination won, and Miss Parrish stayed on: watching the shadows lengthen across the water and the mountains turn saffron and pink and rose in the rays of the setting sun, while Subhana, the Creeds'
mānji,
cleared away the tea things.

Lager, entirely recovered from his last night's adventure, snuffled and skirmished among the reeds and willows on the bank, and Fudge and Sarah sat idle, their hands in their laps, looking out across the lake through the soft blue shadows while below them homeward-bound
shikaras
and country boats from Nasim passed down the water lane towards the Nagim Bagh Bridge, their paddles splashing in musical rhythm.

A scent of woodsmoke drifted across the quiet air, and presently, like the first star in a pale sky, the light on the top of the little stone temple that crowns the hill of the Takht-i-Suliman shone out, wan in the warm evening light, and from somewhere in the Creeds' cookboat a voice began to sing a plaintive Kashmiri song full of odd trills and quavers.

‘Where's Hugo?' asked Sarah suddenly.

‘What?' Fudge woke from her reverie with a start.

‘Hugo? He went along to the Nagim Club to meet some chap who's putting up there, and who's advertising a trout rod for sale on the Club's noticeboard. Hugo wanted to have a look at it. I think this must be him now——'

There was a sound of voices from beyond the willows that screened the field path leading from the houseboat to the Nagim road, and Fudge sighed and said: ‘Damn! he's brought somebody back with him; and I did so want a peaceful evening doing nothing. Now we shall have to sit about drinking short drinks and making polite conversation for hours on end. I suppose it's this rod man.'

‘No, it isn't,' said Sarah, who had risen and was peering down through the willow boughs. ‘It's Charles.'

‘Oh,' said Fudge on an odd note. She looked sideways at Sarah and laughed. ‘Still interested in him, Sarah?'

‘No of course not,' said Sarah hastily.

‘Which means you are. Well—now's your chance.' She stood up and waved to Hugo who had arrived on the bank below.

‘I've brought a guest,' called up Hugo. ‘Rustle us up a drink, darling. We're coming up.'

Fudge crossed the deck and called down to Subhana, as Hugo and Charles, enthusiastically greeted by Lager, came up onto the roof of the houseboat.

‘I found him at the Club,' said Hugo, waving an explanatory hand at Charles. ‘I hadn't realized he was staying there. He wishes to take you poodlefaking in the moonlight, Sarah.'

‘Hugo!'
said Fudge. ‘I do wish you wouldn't use that disgusting expression.'

Charles laughed. ‘As a matter of fact,' he said mildly, ‘I wondered if you would all dine with me tonight? There is apparently a gramophone dance on at the Club, and though I don't imagine the attendance will be large, it might be quite fun. The Secretary has put out a plaintive appeal for support.'

Fudge smiled and shook her head. ‘That's sweet of you, Charles. But I don't think I could face a gramophone dance tonight. I've got a bit of a headache and I feel like a peaceful home evening and early bed. You take Sarah. I'm sure her Kashmir education will not be complete without a dance at Nagim on a moonlight night.' Fudge turned her head and looked out across the lake to where the setting sun was transforming the Gulmarg range into a flat lilac silhouette against a saffron sky: ‘It's going to be a lovely night,' she said.

Charles turned to Sarah. ‘What about it, Sarah? Would you like to come? I'm afraid I can't promise you a very amusing evening: we shall be lucky if half a dozen couples show up at the Club.'

Sarah hesitated a moment, looking from Fudge to Charles and back again, and Charles, turning a little so that his back was to the Creeds, lowered one eyelid for a fraction of a second. ‘Yes, I'd love to,' said Sarah promptly. ‘Are you sure you and Hugo won't come, Fudge?'

‘
Quite
sure!' said Fudge firmly. ‘Thanks all the same, Charles.' She smiled across at him, and Hugo said sadly: ‘I, you notice, get no say in the matter.'

‘Oh, darling!' said Fudge remorsefully, ‘do you really want to go? All right then, I'll go if you'd like. I can easily take an aspirin.'

‘Nonsense,' said Hugo. ‘I was only pulling your leg. I could do with early bed myself after the ghastly schemozzle of that storm last night. I hardly got a wink of sleep. Besides, I am reaching the sere and yellow leaf. My dancing days are done. It is now up to young and sprightly creatures like Charles and Sarah here to carry on the good work of making the nights hideous with revelry. All that I shall now contribute to the racket will be a snore.'

Subhana and Ayaz Mohammed appeared upon the roof with an assortment of drinks and glasses, and Hugo having dispensed sherry and whisky with a liberal hand, the four of them sat on into the green twilight, talking and laughing, while a huge, apricot-coloured moon lifted above the mountains beyond Shalimar and laid a shimmering silver pathway across the lake.

Eventually, glancing at her watch, Fudge inquired of Charles what time he was thinking of dining?

‘Round about eight, I suppose. The dance won't begin until after nine.'

‘Well it's nearly eight now,' said Fudge. ‘I don't want to hurry you, Sarah, but if you intend to change you'd better think about moving.'

Sarah jumped up, and Charles said: ‘I'll wait for you. Then we can go along to the Club together. That is, if you won't mind looking at the papers while I change? Or would you rather I came back and fetched you in about half an hour's time?'

‘No. Wait for me here. I won't be more than ten minutes,' said Sarah; and vanished down the hatchway staircase, calling to Lager to follow.

Abdul Gaffoor, her
mānji,
was switching on the lights in the
Waterwitch
when she reached the boat, and pausing only to tell him that she would not be in for dinner, she made for her bedroom—conscious of a little shiver of distaste as she passed through the silent rooms, and grateful for the scuttering patter of Lager's feet and the sound of his small excited snufflings and whimperings as he sniffed at the floorboards, beneath which lurked an entrancing smell of rats.

Strewn all over her bed was the untidy heap of paper-wrapped parcels that she had bought that morning and which Abdul Gaffoor and the Creeds' bearer had carried in from the car; and Sarah was annoyed to see that every parcel had been opened, the string round each one cut and the paper roughly replaced. Abdul had evidently been curious as to her purchases and had peered at them all with the inquisitiveness of a squirrel. ‘He might at least have had the decency to do them up again tidily!' said Sarah aloud and crossly.

She bundled the entire collection hastily into an empty suitcase, and had removed her shoes and dress when a sudden and unpleasant thought slid into her mind and she stood still, staring down at the bed where the parcels had lain. A moment later she whirled round to open the cupboard and have her suspicion instantly confirmed; for it needed no second look to see that someone had been going through her belongings.

Neat piles of underclothing were not quite as neat as she had left them. A nest of carefully rolled stockings had been disarranged, and the order of the line of shoes on the bottom of the hanging cupboard had been changed—Sarah invariably put walking shoes at one end of the line, followed by house shoes and then evening slippers; but now a pair of gold evening sandals stood between blue suede house shoes and brown brogues …

There were other indications too; small in themselves, but enough to show that someone had been taking an exceedingly thorough look at all her possessions. Was it only curiosity on the part of Abdul Gaffoor, or was there some other less pleasant explanation? Sarah was suddenly intensely thankful that she had taken the precaution of carrying Charles's gun with her in her bag which had not been out of her sight, except——

She snatched up her bag in a panic and opened it, but the gun was still there, wrapped about with a chiffon scarf, and she drew a deep breath of relief and regarded it thoughtfully. She really could not carry a gun to a dance! Besides, she would be with Charles, and since her room had already been searched it was highly unlikely that anyone would search it again for some time. On that decision, she took out the gun and stuffed it under her pillow, and straightening up, saw with dismay that according to the little travelling clock that stood on her bedside table she had already overstepped the ten minutes she had promised to be away.

Heavens! thought Sarah, I'm going to be appallingly late, and Charles will think I'm one of those deadly women who say ten minutes and mean thirty! She turned hurriedly back to the cupboard, selected a deceptively simple evening dress of white linen boldly patterned in black leaves, and slipped her feet into a pair of white sandals. That should do for a gramophone dance, thought Sarah—and for Charles.

A few minutes later she was dressed and ready. She gave a final glance at herself in the inadequate mirror and looked in the cupboard for an evening-bag. But the assortment that presented itself to her proved unsatisfactory, and with another look at the clock and an exclamation of annoyance, she snatched up the white suede one from which she had removed the little automatic, and having reached for a brief fur cape, switched off the lights, and with Lager frisking at her heels, returned to the Creeds' boat.

Charles must have been watching for her, for he came down the gangplank as she arrived opposite the boat. ‘Are you intending to bring that pup?' he inquired, ‘because he won't be allowed inside the Club rooms you know.'

‘Don't worry, I'm going to ask Hugo to keep an eye on him: Lager dotes on him, and he'll stay quiet as long as Hugo is around. It's only when I leave him alone that he behaves abominably and yelps non-stop like a lost soul. We left him behind this morning in the charge of the
mānji,
but I'm afraid he's a snob. He doesn't consider that
mānjis
are “company”, and I gather he hardly paused for breath. He started yelping when we left and we could hear him still at it from the Nagim road when we got back at half past three. But he behaves like an angel with Hugo, don't you Lager, you little horror?'

‘Who is taking my name in vain?' inquired Hugo appearing in the open doorway at the top of the gangplank.

‘Me,' said Sarah ungrammatically. ‘Hugo, be a darling and look after Lager for me. He's had his supper, and if I leave him alone on my boat he'll only howl until I come back.'

‘OK,' sighed Hugo. ‘Sling him along. Here, Lager boy—no, there is no need to chew holes in me to show your appreciation of my person. Goodnight, Charles. Have a good time, Sarah.'

‘I intend to,' promised Sarah. ‘Good-night, Hugo.' She raised her voice and called up through the willow boughs: ‘Good-night Fudge,' but there was no reply from the roof of the boat and Hugo said: ‘She's gone to bed—it's that headache, I'm afraid. I'll say good-night for you.' He waved a cheerful hand, and they turned away along the bank to pass round the shadowy trunk of the big chenar tree and come out onto the moonlit path that ran across the fields towards the Nagim road.

‘Nice work,' said Charles, taking Sarah's arm and hurrying her down the path between the young corn. ‘I need an alibi tonight Sarah, and you're it. Damn that thing!'… he had trodden on a piece of rusty tin, laid down by one of the
mānjis
to cover a depression in the path that the last night's rain had filled with muddy water, and it had creaked loudly and protestingly under his feet as though a nightjar had screamed in the fields.

‘I had to ask the Creeds to come along for the look of the thing,' said Charles, ‘but that providential headache of Fudge's has saved me a lot of trouble.'

‘What do you mean? “want me for an alibi”?' asked Sarah.

Charles glanced over his shoulder before replying, but the moonlit expanse of field offered little or no cover, and they were out of earshot of the boats and the trees. Nevertheless he dropped his voice to an undertone: ‘I have an assignation for tonight,' said Charles, ‘on an island in the lake. Not the sort of place I should have chosen for it myself, but I suppose it has its points. However, under the circumstances I do not want to go floating about the lake by myself. It's not the sort of thing I'd be likely to go in for, and might well give rise to comment and curiosity. On the other hand, if there is one thing that chaps go in for more than another in Kashmir, it is floating round the lake in a
shikara
with a girl. So no one is likely to consider it in the least odd if I take the beautiful Miss Parrish for a moonlight ride. Even if Fudge and Hugo had decided to join the party, it would still have raised no more than a tolerant eyebrow and an indulgent laugh if I had gone off with you in a boat for an hour or two.'

‘What is this assignation?' asked Sarah, her eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘Who is it with?'

‘One of our men. You saw him today—twice, if I am not mistaken. In fact you scared him considerably the second time!'

Sarah checked to stare up at him, her brows wrinkling: ‘I don't understand,' she said. ‘I haven't seen anyone I don't know today except——' She drew her breath in on a sudden gasp and stood still. ‘Not–not the man from that shop?'