Death in Kashmir (38 page)

‘I hope you've noticed that I haven't kept my voice down? Your amateur watchdog will have heard loud voices and laughter proceeding from this boat for the last ten minutes or so. The Miss-sahib having a jolly chat with the stout sahib who is her friend. No sounds of alarm. Not a bark from the dog. When I've dealt with you and set the scene here, I shall go out, chatting merrily, call back a gay “good-night” to you, and leave with the same amount of ostentation as I arrived. The watcher will think nothing of it. I shall then—which is a bore but necessary—have to deal with him. A very simple business.'

‘You couldn't!' breathed Sarah. ‘You couldn't! He'll have a gun…'

‘Oh, almost certain to. But what more natural than that you or Charles have told me—the old familiar friend—that he is there, lurking in the bushes? I shall hail the bird in a conspiratorial whisper and say you have a message for him. Naturally he will bite. Here is a sahib who is obviously in on the whole thing. And at close range he can get a whiff of this, and since we don't want to overdo the heart-failure idea, he can be found in the morning—drowned, I think. All very murderous and harrowing, but absolutely nothing to do with that nice Major Creed, who will be simply prostrated with manly grief and emotion. See?'

‘Yes,' said Sarah slowly. ‘I see.'

Her brain seemed suddenly to have cleared. Hugo was not mad: it was worse than that. He was a dedicated, dyed-in-the-wool fanatic in his loyalty to his own ruthless dogma and his equally ruthless masters, and he meant just exactly what he said. He would kill her without a qualm; as he had killed Janet and Mrs Matthews and Ahamdoo—and how many others? He would deem himself justified, because to those of his kidney the end would always justify the means—any means! however brutal and degrading. And what he had said was true—no one would ever suspect him. Even Charles would never suspect. Those who were employing Hugo had chosen a good tool, for like Caesar's wife, he was above suspicion.

There must be some way out. This could not be happening to her—Sarah Parrish.

The light. Could she make a jump for it and smash it? In the dark she could have a chance, for the weapon Hugo held had one disadvantage. Except at point-blank range he could not use it without grave risk to himself. And if he tried to use it in the dark he might himself fall a victim to it.

The switch was near the far door and out of Sarah's reach; but the single bulb that lit the room was nearer, and though it was still too far away, the wire that led from the switch sagged across the ceiling, held in place by a few rusty nails, and if she could jump for it and wrench it down the lights would go out. But would it break or hold? And even if it did break, would the shock from the current knock her out? If so, she would be in as bad a position as before …

Hugo followed her gaze with complete understanding, and grinned.

‘You can't do it, Sarah. Well, I must be getting along. Any last messages or anything?'

And then Sarah heard it. Coming from that distance it was a very faint sound, and if all her perceptions had not been screwed to their peak by panic her ears would never have caught it.

Someone was coming down the field path, and whoever it was had trodden on the sheet of tin that lay over the wet patch.

Lager had heard it too. He lifted his nose from his paws and his eyes turned to the window behind Hugo's head.

‘Lager—!'
pleaded Sarah desperately.

Lager dropped his head back on his paws obediently, and Hugo said: ‘I'll look after him. Don't worry.'

I must talk, thought Sarah, I must keep him talking. There's a chance …

Hugo sat up and lifted his right hand. His eyes had widened curiously so that the whites showed all round the irises. Odd, pale eyeballs, hard and glittering like wet pebbles. That small, cruel mouth. Henry VIII—who had said that? It had seemed funny once, but it wasn't funny now. How could they all have been so blind? ‘Bluff King Hal,' who in spite of his bluffness and his bulk and his joviality had been a killer. This was a killer too.

Sarah said frantically: ‘Listen Hugo—if I tell you—all that I know—what they know…' her voice was coming in gasps, and Hugo's eyes narrowed a little, but his right hand did not move and Sarah realized that he too was listening. She began to talk loudly, wildly: ‘Look, Hugo—I can tell you things. I can tell you everything you want to know—anything you like, I——'

Lager lifted his nose again and said
‘Wuff!'
and Hugo turned his head.

Sarah could never remember very clearly what had happened then. It had all been a churned-up horror of panic and noise.

She only knew that Hugo's eyes had moved aside from hers at last, and terror lending her strength, she jerked up the chair she had been clutching. It caught Hugo under the chin and he fell over backwards.

She had a confused recollection of Lager barking, Charles's voice calling her name and someone else shouting: a crash of breaking glass, and then blackness.

*   *   *

Sarah recovered consciousness to find herself lying in the open on the prow of the
Waterwitch,
with Charles bathing her head with cold water. The drawing-room seemed to be full of people and there was a queer sickly sweet smell in the air—a smell that she knew.

She stared up at Charles and said:
‘Hugo!'

‘I know,' said Charles. ‘He's dead.'

‘Dead?'
Sarah sat up with a jerk, clutching at the wooden edge of the prow with frantic hands. ‘Did you—did you——'

‘No,' said Charles quietly. ‘He killed himself. He knew the game was up, and so he turned that devilish weapon on himself.'

Sarah stared wildly into the small brightly lit room where every window and door had been thrown open, the curtains drawn back and the night air was swiftly dissipating the sickly odour. There were three Indians in the room and Reggie Craddock: two of the former wore Kashmiri dress and the third was Mir Khan. Reggie Craddock was kneeling on the floor beside Hugo's body, stripping off the rubber gloves from the limp hands.

Charles stood up and went back into the room, and Sarah dragged herself to her feet, and following him, subsided onto the sofa and began mechanically to brush the water from her face with the backs of her hands, while staring down incredulously at Hugo …

Hugo lay on his back. His eyes were closed, and the small, cruel mouth had fallen into the lines he had trained it to take in life. He was smiling, an amiable and vacuous smile, as Mir Khan went through his pockets, removing papers and replacing cash, a cigarette-case, a box of matches and other objects of no interest.

Reggie got up from his knees and handed the gloves to Charles, who wrapped them gingerly round the weapon that Hugo had held, and picking up a carved wooden box from a table beside him, emptied out the oddments it contained and placed the small bundle inside it. Mir spoke to the two Kashmiris in their own tongue, and they went out, one of them carrying the box, and Sarah heard the sounds of their footsteps on the gangplank, and then silence.

Mir rose and offered her a cigarette, and when she shook her head, lit one himself, and Charles left the room—to return almost immediately with a small glass of brandy which he handed to Sarah without speaking.

She swallowed it down with a grimace, and Charles said gently: ‘Do you think you could tell us what happened?'

Sarah nodded dumbly, and as the brandy began to take effect she pulled herself together with an effort, and told him all that had happened since he left her, in a voice that she did not recognize as her own as it repeated, tonelessly, everything Hugo had said and what she herself had done.

At the mention of the curtain, Mir Khan turned sharply away from the window and going over to it stood fingering the beads while she spoke. But no one interrupted her.

There was silence for a while when she had finished, and Reggie Craddock said, looking down at Hugo: ‘Can you square the doctor?'

‘Yes,' said Charles curtly.

‘You'll have to explain things to him a bit.'

‘Of course.'

Mir swung the beaded strings, and listening to them click and clash together, said: ‘It is better this way. We cannot afford a public scandal. But can you be sure he spoke the truth when he said she did not know?'

‘I think so,' said Charles.

Sarah looked helplessly from one to the other. ‘I don't understand,' she said wearily.

Charles turned and walked over to the open door, and stood looking out into the night towards the Creeds' boat, his hands in his pockets. ‘We were talking about Mrs Creed,' he said.

Sarah caught her breath in a little gasp: she had forgotten about Fudge, and suddenly she found her eyes full of tears. ‘But I told you that Hugo said she didn't know anything about this!'

‘I can believe it,' said Charles quietly, ‘and I see no reason why she should be told.'

‘But you'll have to, now.'

‘No we won't,' Charles turned back from the doorway. ‘I think this is what had better be the official version. Mir, Reggie and I escorted you home after the dance, and found Hugo here on the boat having brought Lager back. We were all sitting round having a drink, when Hugo had a heart attack and died before any of us could do anything. We're all witnesses to it, and as that foul stuff appears to be everything that Creed claimed, I think you'll find that we won't even have to square the M O. The medical verdict will be heart failure. I'd better go and collect the M O now.'

‘Take my car,' said Mir. ‘It's standing in the road.'

‘Thanks, I will.'

Reggie said: ‘What about Fudge? Hadn't you–hadn't one of us better go over and tell her?'

‘No,' said Charles curtly. ‘We'll have to get the doctor first.'

‘But surely she'll miss him and come over?'

‘I doubt it. It's my guess that you'll find Hugo slipped his wife a sleeping-draught on every occasion that he wanted to do any night work. He was too clever a chap to take chances. Come on, Sarah. Time for you to go to bed.'

‘I can't,' said Sarah. ‘I couldn't sleep. And–and—I'd better be here when the doctor comes and when Fudge comes. It would look all wrong if I'd gone to bed.'

‘She's right,' said Reggie briefly. ‘Cut along and get your medico. The sooner we get this beastly business settled the better.'

‘And I,' said Mir, ‘shall take down the rest of this bead code.' He stooped and picked up the fallen writing-block.

Sarah heard the sound of Charles's footsteps die away and the night was quiet again.

Mir's pen made a small, monotonous, scratching sound in the silence as it marked down line after line of dots and dashes, and Reggie leant against an open window, staring out into the night while the sky paled to the first, far-off, whisper of morning. And on the floor, Hugo lay and smiled.

Sarah found that tears were pouring down her cheeks, but she was too tired to lift her hand and brush them away.

20

It was three days before Sarah saw Charles Mallory again: by which time Hugo had been buried and the stir caused by his sudden death was already subsiding, for his had not been the only death in Srinagar that week.

Within a few hours of the news of Major Creed's death from heart failure, there had been another tragedy; equally sudden and unforeseen. Johnnie Warrender had broken his neck while exercising some of His Highness's polo ponies.

There had been other happenings too; arrests and disappearances. But since these had been among the crowded mazes of the city, they had not come to the ears of the European visitors, and it is doubtful whether they had aroused much attention even in the city itself, owing to the surge of rumour, counter-rumour, speculation and uncertainty aroused by the imminent passing of the British Raj.

Sarah was sitting on the grass under the willows, looking out across the lake and the open strip of water where the
Waterwitch
—now paid off and retired to some mooring on the Jhelum River—had recently lain. It was almost six o'clock, and the sun was moving down the western sky towards the mountains of the Pir Panjal. Lager was snuffling and digging among the roots of the great chenar tree, and overhead a pair of bulbuls were conducting a vociferous domestic argument.

Someone was walking down the field path, for the battered sheet of tin was still in place, and though the hot suns of the last few days had baked the ground beneath it to a bricklike hardness, it still creaked protestingly when trodden on. Sarah heard that familiar sound and turned swiftly; and all at once there was a tinge of colour in her cheeks and something strained and stiff in her attitude relaxed. A few moments later, Charles came towards her across the grass.

He looked very tired, and there were lines in his face that she did not remember having seen before. But his eyes were quiet, and the watchfulness that had been in them had gone.

‘Don't get up,' said Charles and subsided cross-legged on the turf beside her. ‘Where's Mrs Creed?'

‘She's gone for a walk.'

‘Alone?'

‘Yes. I wanted to go with her, but she preferred to go alone. She's all right; I mean——'

‘I know,' said Charles. ‘She has a lot of courage, and I'm very sorry for her. But not nearly so sorry as I would have been had her husband lived, and she had found him out.'

‘Do you think she would have done?'

‘Of course. In the end it would have been unavoidable. For one thing there were the children, who are both in England at the moment. Like a lot of British kids, they were here in Srinagar at the Sheik Bagh School during the war, and their parents took them home as soon as it ended and put them into boarding-schools in England. But Hugo had planned a family holiday in the Lebanon at the end of the summer term, and it's beginning to look as though from there they would all have vanished—to end up in some comfortable dacha outside Moscow, where the kids could have been educated and brainwashed and transformed into rabid little Stalin-worshippers.'