The Damascened Blade (Joe Sandilands Murder Mystery) Read online

  He was remembering the scene at the door of the dining room the previous evening, the last time he had set eyes on Rathmore. Joe tried urgently to conjure up the expression on Rathmore’s face as he spoke to Lily. He had only had time to get out a few words before Iskander placed himself between them but his face had spoken volumes. Joe had not been able to interpret the emotion in that context but, looking back, he felt it had been one of triumphant complicity directed at Lily. Complicity. Joe, with a flash of insight, began to see how Iskander might have managed his conjuring trick – the disappearance of Rathmore. But did the conjuror have an assistant? Grimly, Joe decided he had a hundred hard questions to put to Miss Coblenz.

  Their deliberations were cut short by the entry of Betty. Tense and pale, she stood for a moment, silent in the doorway. ‘Lily,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for Lily. Anyone seen her this morning? Anyone know where she is?’

  ‘Oh, she’ll be around,’ said James, ‘somewhere. With Grace maybe? Having a bath? I don’t know. You, Joe?’

  ‘I don’t know where she is,’ said Joe suddenly alert, ‘but I do know where she isn’t and that’s under my care. Oh, dammit! Bloody little nuisance! I’m getting a bad tremor out of this. Little earthquake about to happen? But – for a start – have you looked in her room?’

  They ran upstairs to find Grace standing by the open door of Lily’s room.

  ‘She’s gone, James! Lily’s not there!’

  Chapter Ten

  With dreadful predictability a third pristine, unslept-in bed greeted them. James called for a havildar and ordered a complete search of the fort. Miss Coblenz was to be brought to him directly no matter where she was found or what she was doing. Betty and Grace went off to help in the search and, left alone in Lily’s empty room, Joe and James looked at each other in silent despair. They could no longer do other than accept the truth – that Lily too had disappeared at some unknown hour the previous night.

  Looking yet again at Iskander’s letter although he knew every word by heart, James said, ‘He mentions one hostage. Rathmore. He doesn’t say he’s taking Lily and, as you know, Joe, that’s not the Pathan way. He wouldn’t harm or inconvenience Lily or any woman. Oh, hell! The trackers are out. Eddy’s gasht left ten minutes ago. I’ll run another one in an hour and another an hour after that. I’ll shake these hills until Iskander and his bandits fall out! For the moment, that’s all we can do, I think.’

  ‘Not quite all we can do, James, surely?’ said a confident voice from the doorway behind them and Fred Moore-Simpson stepped into the room. ‘I understand from Betty that our Afghan friends have bunked off in the night and you want them found? If there’s some urgency about it I can probably help.’

  Joe and James looked at each other and Joe nodded. Briefly James laid out the problem for Fred and handed him Iskander’s letter, adding as Fred finished reading, ‘And as well as Rathmore they seem to have carried off Lily Coblenz, so all in all we have the makings of a situation with which these hills will still be resounding in a hundred years’ time.’

  ‘And, in the meantime, I expect you’re planning to fall on your sword, James?’ said Fred shrewdly. ‘I can see why you would. But look, we’ve got some days to play with and it seems to me – oh, tell me to shut up if you like – that we can attack this problem on two fronts. Firstly, we have to try to contact these brigands and that means locating them. You’re obviously doing all that you can on the ground but isn’t it time you moved into the twentieth century? What about a little air support? There are some spotter planes based at Miram Shah down in Waziristan. We could telegraph them via Peshawar and have a plane sent up. One pair of eyes can cover many square miles from a thousand feet, see things you can’t see at ground level. These planes are so small they could land on the football pitch here if you clear the goalposts – or the road, even the road would do.’

  James turned an anguished face to them. ‘Now why the hell didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Medieval thinking, my boy,’ said Fred. ‘Not surprising in this bloody medieval country!’

  ‘That would be a help indeed,’ said James. ‘Thank you, Fred! I’ll get someone to take you over to the communications room. The lines are still working – they at least didn’t cut the wires – and you can liaise straight away with Peshawar. Oh, by the way, I sent a signal to the fort at Landi Kotal – that’s half-way down the Khyber, Joe – to watch out for and detain the Afghanis when they try to pass through. Nothing seen of them so far but they’re going to wire us every hour on the hour with news or a nil return. But you mentioned two fronts, Fred?’

  ‘Yes, the other solution would seem to be to do as Iskander insists. Find out who killed Zeman – if anybody did. And you’d better work fast, my boy, because your list of suspects appears to be shrinking at a quite alarming rate! Last night there were nine people here in the guest wing whose names might have been on any suspect list and now there are only six. And that’s if Burroughs is still around. Anybody checked? At this rate Joe is going to find himself the only one remaining and he’s going to have to top himself. But have you thought? – suppose that Rathmore is the villain. He’s the chap my money’s on. Hot-headed and jealous. Though I wouldn’t have thought he was clever enough to have pulled off a stunt like this . . . Anyway, he’s in custody and can’t answer for himself but just suppose we find that he’s guilty? What then?’

  ‘In that case we take no action at all,’ said Joe, ‘and we wait for Iskander to do the dirty deed for us.’

  ‘Sounds like the best solution all round,’ said Fred cheerfully.

  ‘Stop this!’ said James. ‘This is just silly speculation! I’ve told you what’s going to happen!’

  ‘And I told you what isn’t going to happen! Let’s get those planes up,’ said Joe. ‘Come on, Fred, we’ll give those idle buggers in Peshawar something to do.’

  Dermot Fitzmaurice Benson, First Baron Rathmore, was in anguish both social and physical. As the official precursor of an important trade mission, he was firmly and indignantly of the opinion that he had not been treated with the deference that he deserved. He blamed James for this. He blamed Joe to some extent. He didn’t think Zeman – or for that matter Iskander – had paid him appropriate respect. He didn’t after all expect the natives to presume to address him as equals. ‘Bloody cheek! Quoting Kipling!’

  So much for his social disquiet which was now compounded by a physical anguish even more acute. A note on a sheet of the fort’s own writing paper had summoned him to an assignation with Lily. He had it in his pocket. He didn’t need to look at it again. He knew it well by heart. ‘Why don’t we meet at eleven at the postern? L.C.’ Lily Coblenz. There could be no doubt about that. But it had not been Lily who had kept this tryst but two Afghani tribesmen. Untidy habiliments, long, dust-coloured shirts over baggy trousers, hawklike, wind-blackened faces and not much ceremony!

  As he’d stepped up to the gate, strong hands had swept his legs from under him from behind, a cloth – through which it was difficult to breathe – was firmly tied over his mouth and another one put over his head and in spite of his solid twelve stones he was hauled out through the gate and on to the back of a waiting horse. A far from docile horse. A horse that skittered sideways and humped its back, a horse he just had time to see was grey with a wild white eye. He was at best an indifferent horseman and the thought came to him, ‘I shan’t be able to stay on that bloody thing! I could break my neck!’ But, as he soon realized, among many dangers, falling from his horse was not one. His feet were tied firmly with leather straps under the horse’s belly, the reins were thrust into his hand and with a slap across its quarters, the horse set off at a trot in the company of two – or was it three? – horsemen. From the noise, Rathmore deduced that they were at first walking then trotting and later cantering. For a while the hooves rang on a tarmacked surface and then broke off on to rocky ground and they appeared to be scrambling over loose stones and moving up a defile.

  His captors
muttered incessantly amongst themselves. A horseman drew up beside him and a soft voice spoke, just audible above the clatter of hooves and the rattle of falling stones. ‘Good morning, Lord Rathmore – I suppose it is morning? I’m sorry to have to discommode you.’ A hand came out and the cloth was taken from his head revealing the face of Iskander Khan. ‘With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem, you see,’ he said with a gesture to the gang of horsemen who’d gathered around, grinning at him.

  Purple-faced, Rathmore recovered his breath and turned on Iskander. ‘You won’t get away with this!’ he said. ‘I don’t know what the devil you’re playing at but you won’t get away with it!’ He wished he could have thought of something more original to say and added, ‘Start from there and tell me what the hell’s going on!’

  ‘I think your normal good sense has deserted you, Lord Rathmore! I shouldn’t need to explain. It must be obvious to the meanest intelligence – that you have been “kidnapped” and that you are now a hostage. A hostage to ensure the performance of an undertaking which I have laid on the good Major James Lindsay.’

  ‘Where the hell are we going?’ said Rathmore.

  ‘The name would mean nothing to you. We are going to a place nearby. There are plenty of “places” in these hills, none of them frequented by the British. The comforts of these vary but we will do our best to make you feel at home. In any case your stay will not be a long one.’

  Rathmore threw his head back. ‘Help!!!’ he shouted. To his bitter mortification this was greeted with a roar of laughter and remorselessly the clattering convoy went on its way. It was clear that Iskander was hurrying them all he could. As dawn broke, a rider offered a water bottle to Rathmore and another a handful of dried apricots. This apart, the journey proceeded in silence as the sun rose.

  A way led them down a path in the hills, little more than a steep-sided cleft in the black rocks with a yeasty, brawling and rocky stream at its foot, a narrow ribbon of blue sky above, dotted with circling birds. Listening to the rattle of hooves, Rathmore became aware that a second group was following his but, straining and tied to his stirrups, he couldn’t turn enough to see who or what this could be.

  Ceaselessly, Iskander rode up and down the convoy, cheering and encouraging, and at last came to rest beside Rathmore. ‘Five more miles,’ he said, ‘and then you can rest. I’m sorry this has been uncomfortable for you.’

  ‘Who’s that behind us?’ asked Rathmore.

  ‘Not, I’m afraid, Indian cavalry come to your rescue but someone whom I think you will be surprised to see. Let’s get you untied. I don’t think you could walk back to the fort from here. And, were you so foolish as to try, you would be picked off by a ten rupee jezail loaded with who knows what, possibly a Lee-Enfield if you were lucky, before you had gone ten yards. You are in what we call and have always called “The Free Land”. The warriors and the shepherds – and out here it’s the same thing – who lurk behind every crag are not aware that they are “the captives of your bow and spear” and a barony is no breastplate out here, you’ll find. And now we’ll halt for a few minutes and get acquainted.’

  With a rattle and a clatter the convoy drew to a halt where the track widened and descended to a surging stream. Rathmore’s legs were untied and, stiff and sore, he turned in the saddle to watch the company bringing up the rear approach. Two Afghanis escorted a smaller figure who had been, unlike him, riding free. The small, fair-haired figure bundled up in an afghan poshteen was laughing with one of her attendant brigands. A terrible truth paralysed his mind and the only words he could summon up were a shocked exclamation.

  ‘Miss Coblenz! Lily!’

  He sat transfixed.

  ‘Lord Rathmore! Dermot!’

  ‘You little traitor! You little baggage! You’ve betrayed me to these, these bloody murdering wogs! This is all your doing! What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

  Lily had enjoyed such high expectations of her visit to the frontier. It had seemed to her an area populated by free and dangerous men perhaps, dangerous situations certainly. It was here she would experience – and she tried to avoid the cliché – life in the raw. A long way from the conventions of American society, a long way from the restrictions of Simla, a long way from the straitjacket of the British Raj, its acceptances and expectations. It all seemed – as James himself might have expressed it – ‘jolly good fun’. But there was no doubt about it, her enjoyment had faded in the face of the menacing reality of life on the frontier and after dinner, unable to sleep, she had wandered from her room and climbed on to the wall. She sat quietly, feet dangling, looking inwards at the bulk of the old fort and out over the wall towards the gardens and the outer skirting wall of the lower fort. Peace, or what passed for peace, on the frontier seemed to reign. For the moment. Lily was uneasy and nervous. Something was going on which she did not understand, something in which she was involved but unknowingly involved and if there was anything Lily could not accept it was being in a state of not knowing.

  In the centre of her vision was the rear postern gate with its watchful sentries. That old nuisance Rathmore! She identified him as the reason she could not sleep. What had he tried to tell her after dinner before Iskander had interceded? Some rubbish about meeting her at that gate at eleven. And that in itself would not have worried her but it was his manner – gloating, complicitous, out of key in someone who had been rebuffed in strong terms the night before. There was definitely something here that she did not understand. One thing was certain though: she was not going within twenty yards of the postern gate.

  As she watched, the emphasis seemed to change. A dim figure had emerged and walked into the fragile lamplight that illuminated the gate. Straining her eyes, Lily was able to identify the heavy shoulders and the heavy walk of Rathmore. (‘Call me Dermot,’ he had said with heavy invitation.) ‘Well, hi there, Dermot!’ said Lily to herself. ‘And what are you up to?’ And with that thought the peaceful scene dissolved.

  Two men, Afghanis, Lily thought, sprang from the shadows and without hesitation pounced on the strolling Rathmore, threw a cloth over his head, twisted his hands behind him and propelled him out through the gate. The sentries, the moonlight reflecting from their bayonets, held the gate open and then slipped through it themselves.

  ‘Holy shit!’ said Lily who did not often swear and for a paralysed moment she thought, ‘What do I do now?’ She opened her mouth to scream and alert the wall sentries and then, remembering the behaviour of the two below, closed it again. For a further moment she hesitated. Nobody seemed to have noticed what was happening! Quite obviously the sentries were in on this, whatever it was!

  ‘Joe! I must get Joe!’

  She ran down the steps intending to make her way silently back to the guest wing but on reaching the ground was struck by a thought inspiring in its simplicity and immediacy. The alarm bell! Hadn’t James shown them all a rope dangling somewhere around here? A rope attached to an old bell up there in the turret – a bell that would wake the whole fort and in much less time than it would take to get hold of Joe. She hunted about and encountered a hairy rope snaking its way down from on high. What had James said? ‘Summon all hands on deck.’

  But as she reached for the bellrope a slim, wiry and irresistible hand closed over her mouth and the voice of Iskander came in her ear: ‘A good idea but, forgive me, Miss Coblenz, I’m planning to leave with His Lordship by the back door and I don’t want you ringing the bell. Let the fort sleep.’

  With an arm round her shoulders and under her arm, with a swift concentration of muscle he swung her out through the postern and on to a horse standing by. Lily tried to open her mouth to scream but the hand tightened about it. She changed her mind and sank her teeth into flesh, provoking, to her satisfaction, a muted cry.

  ‘Good, Miss Coblenz – but not good enough!’ said the voice. ‘Now listen! Since you have chosen inconveniently to involve yourself in my affairs you must stay involved for a while longer. You will accompany u
s into the hills. You may do this in one of two ways. You may ride freely, untied, ungagged and silently, co-operating fully with us. No harm will come to you – I do not take women hostage. I place no such value on Rathmore who is decidedly a hostage. His welfare depends on your decision to agree to the first way. If you choose the second way and make a fuss Rathmore will suffer.’ His voice, which had been calm and reasonable, took on a cold edge. ‘And I will arrange for you to witness his suffering. Perhaps even his death – the man does not impress me with his physical fortitude. I would imagine that the mere sight of a skinning knife would bring on a fatal apoplexy.’

  Lily’s eyes grew huge as she peered helplessly over Iskander’s large, muffling hand.

  ‘Nod your head if you accept the first way,’ he muttered.

  Lily nodded.

  ‘Good. I will have two men escort you and you will ride last in the file.’

  He released her and handed her the reins. A moment’s adjustment to the stirrups and a hissed word of command to his men and Lily was walking quietly forward towards the mouth of the Khyber Pass. Sandwiched in single file between her two warrior horsemen she trotted and cantered and then galloped, keeping pace with them. The moon had risen and Lily was glad to have the track illuminated. She wondered how on earth poor old Rathmore was managing with a bag on his head and his feet tied beneath him. The silly old fool certainly deserved something but not this, she thought. A cold gust of wind blew down from the mountains and she shivered. Sitting on the wall of the fort which still radiated warmth from the heat of the day she had been comfortable enough in her shirt but she knew they were headed for the mountains, most of which were still snow-covered, and however energetic the ride she would soon begin to feel the cold. She took stock of her circumstances. She was wearing her divided skirt and leather boots so riding was no problem. The horse was no problem either. A delight in fact. Lily almost grinned to feel the muscles surge at her commands, the sure-footed ease with which the big dark grey horse picked its way over the scree slope they were now embarking on. She looked about her, remembering the maps she had seen. The fort was well behind them now, in the east, and to the west the sinister Khyber stretched and wound on. Out of earshot of the fort they had followed the metalled surface of the caravan route up into the pass for a mile or two but then they had crossed the track and made off to the left down a defile which had not been visible to anyone riding up from the east. A horseman stood waiting for them on the track ahead. As they drew level, he threw a wrap of some kind to Lily and moved off ahead of them without a word.