Ragtime in Simla Read online

  ‘Only to ask if the gentlemen would favour her with a visit before they left.’

  Charlie Carter looked a question.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Joe. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world! Probably all in the night’s work for you but I’m mesmerized by the veiled hints of oriental promise.’

  ‘Well,’ said Troop, ‘if you’re going, you’d better go. We’ve got out of the habit of keeping Flora waiting. Claudio will show you the way.’

  He hurried off.

  Another woman whose will will be done, thought Joe with vivid memories of the skill with which Alice had kept him at arm’s length.

  Claudio indicated that they should follow him. As Joe scrambled to his feet he gave a small exclamation of surprise. He leaned forward and picked something up from the floor. Handing the object to Claudio he said casually, ‘Captain Troop dropped this, would you hand it back to him?’

  Claudio held out his hand, looked disdainfully at the packet of Black Cat cigarettes and gave it back to Joe. ‘I’m sorry, sir, you are mistaken. Captain Troop smokes only cigars. The best cigars. Perhaps your friend…?’

  ‘Oh, yes, quite. Mine, I’m afraid,’ said Carter and pocketed the cigarettes.

  They were led down a corridor and along a raised internal verandah from where they glimpsed below them a vividly green indoor garden. The tinkling of a fountain drew Joe irresistibly over to the fretted balustrade. Small flowering trees were growing in carefully arranged profusion, lamps had been lit beneath each and the effect in the warm dusk was magical. The heat of the day was still rising from the earth of this south-facing slope and though a mountain chill would soon take its place, for this moment Joe thought he was peering down into paradise. An impression reinforced by the presence of girls sitting in twos and threes on cushions, laughing and chattering. Joe had a glancing impression of bright silks, dark eyes raised invitingly to his, white teeth and fluttering hands. The scent of strange flowers mixed with a trace of something more elusive – hashish? – rose teasingly to his nostrils as he leaned over.

  He was drawn on by a look from Claudio, who was holding open a door at the far end. Joe and Carter moved through and along another corridor.

  ‘If we had to find our way out of here in a hurry,’ Joe muttered to Carter, ‘could you do it? Not sure I could.’

  Carter grinned and nodded confidently. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got the place mapped.’

  Claudio stopped at a carved wood door, listened, opened it and waved them in. He closed the door behind them and they were left alone with Madame Flora.

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  « ^ »

  What had Joe expected? A flaunting madam of the kind he had encountered in London with gimlet eyes, bad teeth, rouged face and puffy bosom exuding wafts of Phul Nana? A corseted, iron-grey Frenchwoman with steel-trap mouth and cash box?

  Carter’s eyes crinkled with amusement as he watched Joe’s reaction to his first sight of Madame Flora.

  Joe was for a moment overwhelmed. He was taken back in time to a not-forgotten London summer which, at the age of thirteen, he had spent with two elderly uncles in Eaton Square. The uncles had set out to show him the town and make his stay a happy one. The gawky, inexperienced Borderer, neither truly Scots nor truly English in their estimation, but fully uncivilized, had been taken from gallery to gallery, to concert hall, to music hall and to the opera. And Joe had fallen in love. In love with Carmen.

  He had been enchanted by the first opera he had ever seen but, even more, his awakening sexual and romantic yearnings had found a focus in the mezzo-soprano who had sung the part of Carmen. He could still call back, seventeen years on, the luxuriant dark hair, the glowing eyes that seemed to single him out in the audience and flirt with him, the voice, seductive, treacherous and reeking of death.

  When his uncles had, at the end of the performance, declared their intention of taking him round backstage to meet her, Joe thought he’d never be able to breathe properly again. He remembered the moment still, the smell of the oil lamps, the shouts and laughter and bustle in the hidden and glamorous world behind the stage, and he remembered Carmen taking his hot hand in her two cool ones and leaning forward to kiss him on both cheeks.

  Her soft hair had brushed his forehead and he hadn’t been able to say a word.

  As Madame Flora took Joe’s hand in her slim, scented one he was transported back to that moment with a completeness that left him silent and astonished.

  Carter covered for Joe’s unaccustomed gauche reaction by breaking into a very English speech, his voice just retaining the steely edge which might be considered appropriate to keep the distance between a police superintendent and the proprietor of a brothel, however elegant. ‘Always good to see you, Flora. Glad to see evidence of prosperity on every hand. I must present a friend and valued colleague…’

  While he burbled on Joe dragged himself away from the past and focused on the woman smiling up at him. The same glossy dark hair but cut fashionably short and waving naturally about her head, large dark eyes in an olive skin and a nose of Grecian straightness – she could be southern French, Provençal, Joe guessed. A girl from Arles.

  ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘je suis enchanté de faire votre connaissance. J’ai tellement entendu parler de vous depuis mon arrivée à Simla.’

  ‘Oh, Commander,’ she said, ‘do let us speak in English! Captain Carter would feel we were excluding him perhaps from our conversation.’

  The English was perfect with an attractive accent overlaying it. Whereas most French and certainly Parisians made a guttural, throaty sound when they pronounced the letter ‘r’, Flora rolled her ‘r’ sounds, making Joe even more certain that she was Provençal. And this distinctive sound was most likely the reason Carter had been uneasy with her accent – ‘… a little bit too ooh-là-là,’ he had said.

  Joe persisted. He wanted to hear her speak French. ‘Madame est Arlésienne, peut-être? Vous avez un léger accent du Midi, il me semble…’

  ‘Ah, oui!. Vous l’avez bien deviné. Je suis, en effet, née en Provence. Et vous allez maintenant sans doute faire des observations sur l’authenticité de la ligne greque de mon nez?’

  She stuck her nose in the air and offered him her profile and a smile undoubtedly inviting.

  This was exactly what he’d been about to say. And he knew now that what she said about her origins was true. He reverted to English to reassure Carter who was beginning to look anxious. ‘They say, Carter, that the most beautiful women in France are descended from the early Greek settlers in the south and, believe me, if you’d ever been to a bull-running feria in Arles in the summertime, you’d say so too.’

  ‘I had not expected such gallantry from a London policeman,’ said Flora.

  ‘Even a London policeman may appreciate beauty wherever he meets it,’ said Joe.

  Carter cleared his throat and looked at Joe sourly. ‘If you have nothing to add to that pronouncement let us turn to Flora and see what’s on her mind.’

  Her face clouded for a moment and, with a gesture, she invited them to sit on a gilt-legged sofa piled high with damask cushions. As they settled themselves, Joe watched her move gracefully across the room to fetch a decanter of whisky and three glasses set out on a tray. The room had none of the seductive oriental atmosphere of Captain Troop’s office but was none the less of a decided and calculated style. French Château, Joe thought. Crystal wall sconces illuminated a grand sideboard bearing piles of Gien china plates and Venetian glasses, a subtle blue and white contrast in simplicity and luxury. Spindle-legged tables which would have looked quite at home in Versailles were scattered around the room, each showing off a pretty object in gold or silver. A large fireplace in which smouldered a log or two was flanked by ebony cupids and surmounted by a tall gold decorated mirror. On the mantelpiece a handsome Sèvres clock ticked comfortably. The pale green walls with panelling picked out in a darker shade gave the room an air of calm and elegance.

  A st
range ambience, though a convincing one and one that must have cost a great deal of money, Joe thought, an odd setting for Flora who, in Joe’s increasingly fervid imagination, would have looked more at home sitting side saddle on a white horse of the Camargue, wearing a red ruched and frilled dress, one suntanned knee exposed as she and her cavalier herded black bulls through the sun-bleached streets of Arles. Against the traditional decor Flora seemed not to fit. She was wearing, not the red flounces Joe was convinced she was born to, but a dark blue silken dress which stopped a fashionable two inches below her knee. Her stockings were silk and flesh-coloured and her dark blue shoes were of kid. Around her throat was a long rope of pearls. Large pearls, Joe noted. Good quality pearls, beautifully sized and matched. In her ears were clusters of pearls and diamonds. Did she always dress as though setting out for cocktails at the Ritz, he wondered, or was the effect designed to impress them? She could have put on this outfit while they had been engaged with Troop. But, whatever Flora’s antecedents, whatever her present proclivities, it was clear that business was booming. Expense chez Flora was not spared.

  She poured them each a glass of whisky which they sipped politely and put down again on the table. She took a cedarwood box from the table, opened it and offered it to them. ‘Turkish on this side and gaspers at the other,’ she said. Joe took one of the Turkish cigarettes and in turn offered the box to Flora.

  ‘Turkish, thank you. Not fond of Virginian tobacco,’ he said. ‘Will you have one?’

  She also chose a mild cigarette and Joe leaned forward and lit it for her. She inhaled the scented cigarette gratefully then, after a moment, she went to the door and opened it abruptly, looking this way and that. Closing it, she returned to settle on a chair opposite them. Without doubt a piece of theatre, Joe decided suspiciously.

  ‘You are here to investigate the shooting of the Russian singer, are you not?’

  ‘That’s so,’ said Carter. ‘And we are also reinvestigating the murder last year of Lionel Conyers. Do you have any information for us about either of these tragedies?’ He turned to Joe. ‘Madame Flora quite often gets to hear of things which would otherwise remain a mystery to the forces of law and order,’ he said wryly. ‘And, naturally, we are very grateful when she passes the information to us and we express our gratitude in an appropriate manner. Which is to say – we leave her in peace to tread the tightrope between the legal and the… not so legal.’

  They smiled conspiratorially at each other.

  ‘There is something, yes,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Something I find disturbing and hard to believe. Something which I think I should not tell you but yet I have to tell you…’ She broke off in confusion and started to bite her thumbnail.

  ‘We will be very discreet, Flora, you know that,’ said Carter reassuringly.

  She nodded and seemed to pull herself together. ‘I hear – through my usual channels – that you are looking for the murder weapon?’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Carter. ‘It’s a .303 rifle. The same gun could well have been used in both killings.’

  ‘I think the gun you are looking for may be only a few steps from where we are sitting, Superintendent,’ she said steadily and took another puff at her cigarette.

  ‘Edgar Troop’s pair of .303 rifles?’ said Carter. ‘Yes, we asked him about those and he’s given us permission to take them away and test them.’

  ‘Pair?’ she said in surprise. ‘Captain, there are three.’

  She stubbed her cigarette out in a silver bowl and stood up. ‘Come with me.’ She glanced quickly at the clock. ‘Everyone will be busy front of house at this time of day. Move quietly.’

  She led them into the corridor which widened out into a small hallway. In one alcove cartridge belts and bags hung from hooks. In the other alcove in a locking glass-fronted gun cupboard were a pair of twelve-bore shotguns, other armament of smaller calibre and two rifles. .303s.

  ‘Two?’ queried Carter.

  Flora shook her head and pointed to a second cupboard with a solid panelled door. She stood on tiptoe and ran a hand along the top. Showing them a small key she unlocked the cupboard and they peered inside. Behind the door, on the right, wrapped in an oily rag, was a third rifle.

  Joe took it, holding it carefully by the barrel, and mimed that he wished to take the other two rifles as well. Flora unlocked the second cupboard and Joe gathered them up. Handing one to Charlie Carter, Joe took two rifles under his arm and they returned together to Flora’s room. The rifles looked incongruous amongst the studied elegance of that pretty and civilized room. Not knowing what to do with them, Joe slid them under the sofa.

  Carter scribbled out a note for Troop saying simply that, as arranged and agreed, they had taken his .303 rifles away to the police station for testing and handed it to Flora.

  ‘To keep this official,’ he said, ‘here’s a receipt for the armament but now – tell us what you’re thinking, Flora,’ said Carter.

  She was once again hesitant. ‘I hate disloyalty. Loyalty is the quality above all that I demand in my staff and yet here I am about to betray perhaps a man who has been of great service to me since I arrived in Simla, and I am not ungrateful.’

  ‘We’re talking about murder, Flora, not accusing someone of making off with the silver fruit knives.’ Carter’s voice acquired an official edge.

  ‘Yes, of course. Murder,’ she said more confidently. ‘And I have wondered whether Edgar might be involved. He is very close to Reggie Sharpe, as you know. I have thought – with the whole of Simla – that Reggie might have been very thankful that his brother-in-law never arrived in Simla. Where would he turn? To Edgar of course! Edgar knows the ropes; he’s well connected. Some of his associates are shady and worse. Yes, if he needed help he would have come to Edgar. They are always doing each other favours in their tight little group… and Edgar is a very good shot.’

  ‘Flora,’ said Carter, ‘I want you to be very careful and ponder what you say. So far this is a private conversation but you are levelling an accusation of murder against a man who – whatever else he may be – is acknowledged as a close associate – some say a partner – of yours. We have had a suspicion identical with your own. How far are you prepared to go with this? Indeed, I wonder why you should be saying this to us at all?’

  Flora drew deeply on her cigarette before replying and, briefly, her carefully made-up face was haggard in the lamplight as she said, ‘I’ll go all the way with you if I must.’

  ‘Troop produces a strong alibi,’ said Carter. ‘And for both occasions. More or less the same thing – out with his friends. Corroborated, of course. Impossible to break. Look, have you any other reason for thinking Troop might be involved?’

  She didn’t need to reflect on her answer. ‘Yes, Superintendent. Before the Conyers murder Edgar had been in debt. Gambling debts. He had tried to take more than was his due from the house profits and I had protested.’ A look of anxiety which might have amounted to fear furrowed her brow for a moment. ‘He reacted badly to that, I’m afraid! He told me what I could do with my money – very impolitely – and hinted that he knew other ways of getting it. It made me wonder, I must confess.’

  ‘And now?’ asked Carter. ‘Any signs of a flush of money?’

  ‘I don’t know… I’m not sure. Superintendent! Commander Sandilands! Do I have your absolute assurance that you will say nothing of this? If Edgar were to find out that I… He is a violent man, you know that, I think. He goes about in the world in a way which I am unable to do. His influence reaches further than one might expect and I do not understand why or how far. He has friends, friends who are unquestioningly loyal, friends on whom he has special claims, I believe.’

  ‘You mean he has the wherewithal to blackmail some influential and unscrupulous men and that he might, if pushed, use that influence to do you harm?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Do me harm?’ She smiled. ‘That man would put a cobra in my bed!’

  Carter stirred uneasily. ‘Look, Flora,
we’re very grateful for the information you’ve given us. You are in no danger from what we may divulge. You can rely absolutely on our discretion.’

  ‘Flora,’ said Joe seriously, ‘I continue to wonder why you are telling us this. Are you planning to break with Troop? For good? Is this the end of a beautiful friendship? Or merely a lovers’ tiff?’

  ‘Break with Edgar? I wouldn’t dare!’

  ‘Leave it there,’ said Joe, ‘for the moment. But if we were to want to communicate with you without raising suspicions, without going through the Troop front-of-house presence, is there any way…?’

  ‘Of course. Claudio. Contact him. He is discreet and loyal to me. And now I will show you to a side door. Edgar will grow suspicious if I delay my appearance any longer.’ She smiled a sly smile. ‘We have a most distinguished visitor to the house this evening.’

  As they walked back to the police station in the Simla dusk, they went over the two interviews, exclaiming, swearing and laughing.

  ‘Now see here, Sandilands,’ said Carter, handing back to Joe the packet of cigarettes Joe had claimed to have found, ‘you’re to give me warning before you go pulling a trick like that again!’

  ‘Well, you never know! Seemed worth the try,’ said Joe. ‘But the whole place seems to abound in smoker’s requisites to suit all types so I don’t think it got us very far. Even the madam likes to take a puff, it seems.’

  ‘So, where do you think all this leaves us? Troop? Flora? Reggie? In collusion or at each other’s throats? Who’s your money on? Can we believe a word Flora says?’

  ‘Well, considering Troop for a moment – he’s quite a conspirator, our Mr Troop, but not a very practised one!’

  ‘Oh? How so?’

  ‘Well, first, that was an over-elaborate alibi he dished up and it depends on the testimony of three or four people. If it’s true, then he has no problems but if it isn’t, they’d have to be as well rehearsed as the chorus of the Messiah if they’re all to give us the same story, same times, same places. Very easy to break down an alibi like that. Want to watch me do it?’