Ragtime in Simla Read online

  ‘Mine too,’ said Joe. He pulled a similar book from his bag and demonstrated. He wondered whether the stranger had noticed the appalling condition of his copy. Every battered page was stained with Flanders earth and candle grease, and peppered with cigarette burns; some were even stained with his own blood. The cheeky, proud and resourceful bazaar boy, Kim, had been his companion through four years in the hell of France and he had never tired of reading it. Kim’s spirit had encouraged, even chided him in the depths of despair; the scents and sounds and sights of a hot country he had never seen, nor expected to see, had always seemed able to distance for a while the bleak landscapes and cloying mud of the battlefields.

  He looked more closely at the other. There was something familiar about him. Joe had the extraordinary feeling that he knew this man and yet he was sure they had never been introduced. As he spoke Joe’s guess that he wasn’t English was confirmed. He spoke with a slight accent that was neither French nor Italian. It could have been German but Joe didn’t think so. He had a tall figure with a massive torso and carried himself with the confidence of an actor. The man laughed out loud at the sight of Joe’s disreputable book and all at once the sound of that laugh triggered a memory. Joe had got it. He recalled a performance of Faust at Covent Garden when the Royal Opera House had reopened after the war. Mephistopheles had been played by a Russian baritone. He thought furiously and a name came to him.

  ‘I think I have the honour of addressing Feodor Korsovsky,’ he said. ‘My name is Sandilands. Joseph Sandilands and I am a detective. From London.’

  Another burst of laughter greeted this. ‘A detective! You do not surprise me! Are you now going to tell me what I had for breakfast and the name of my tailor?’

  ‘Elementary, my dear sir,’ said Joe. ‘You were on the Umballa train so you had a chapatti, vegetable curry and a pot of tea. Your tailor though? American? Too obscure for me but I will tell you what you are thinking… You’re wondering how you would best go up to Simla. You’re weighing the advantages of a journey on the Toy Train with its longer route and its one hundred and seven tunnels against the shorter but more precipitous cart road in a bumpy tonga drawn by a wheezing old hack of uncertain strength and speed.’

  ‘Quite right, Mr Sandilands.’ He pointed to the line of dejected-looking tonga horses standing by to carry passengers in relays up into the Hills. ‘I was instructed to take a tonga but I fear my weight would be too much of a challenge. And yet I think the romance of the approach to Simla which I have often dreamed of would be somewhat spoiled by the summer migrants if I took the train.’ He nodded to the crowds milling around it. ‘And are you going to tell me which I am to take?’

  Joe hesitated. This precious moment! This moment of solitude in the impressive company of the mighty hills. Did he want to share it with a stranger? He took a further look at his companion and answered his question.

  ‘Yes. Neither.’

  ‘I am not fifteen-year-old Kim to walk the fifty miles!’

  ‘No need to do that. I would be delighted if you would accompany me. We could pass the long journey happily boring each other with quotations from Kipling!’

  ‘Indeed! And how are you proposing to get up there?’

  Joe had spotted a groom in the livery of the Governor of Bengal waiting at the entrance to the station, anxiously scanning the crowds. At a gesture from Joe he hurried forward, hand extended, and gave Joe a letter. Joe tore it open and read a note in Jardine’s sprawling hand:

  ‘Joe. Welcome to the Hills. This man will drive you to the foot of the town and then conduct you to your quarters. I came ahead of you, you see. Dinner at seven. Theatre at nine. G.J.’

  ‘Packard. We’ll go in the Governor’s Packard. Where’s your luggage?’

  Rickshaws and tongas veered out of their path as they motored by at a steady fifteen miles an hour. At this pace Joe calculated that they would just manage to arrive in Simla by mid-afternoon. His fellow passenger settled into the big Packard with the air of one well accustomed to such luxury and even smiled and waved graciously whenever they overtook a pretty woman. He could well have been taking the air in the Bois de Boulogne, Joe thought, instead of trundling along a desert road in a temperature of over a hundred degrees. Man of the world he undoubtedly was, but Joe was amused and touched by the innocent enthusiasm with which he looked about him, curious and joyful.

  The few hot sandy miles from the plains to the uplift of land which marked the beginning of the foothills passed quickly in the Russian’s company. He was an entertaining companion and talked about himself with a refreshing lack of reticence. He had travelled the world and yet this journey up into the Indian hill country seemed to be a very special one for him, amounting, perhaps, to a pilgrimage.

  ‘You know, for centuries we British have been expecting an invasion from Russia in the north,’ Joe said with mock seriousness. ‘We believe their armies to be poised ready to rush down through the passes of the Himalayas to sweep the British out of India and snatch it from our grasp. But here – what have we? A Russian invasion from the south? Must we think our guns are pointing the wrong way?’

  Another rumbling laugh greeted this comment. ‘One baritone does not make an invasion! And besides I come here for two very unmilitary reasons. One, I have been invited to perform at the Gaiety Theatre by the Amateur Dramatic Society of Simla. A great honour! Many distinguished singers and actors have performed there. And secondly, as you must have guessed, I was swept away by the romance of India and especially these hills at a very impressionable age. I was thirteen, of a diplomatic family living in London, when someone gave me a copy of Kim which had just come out. From then on, I knew one day I would have to make this journey… Listen! Is that a cuckoo? It was a cuckoo! And there are the trees!’

  Both men enjoyed the moment when, turning a bend, a rush of cool mountain air, faintly scented with pine trees, fanned their faces. The hood of the car was down so, turning their heads this way and that, they had a complete view of the rising ground whose character changed from minute to minute. As they chugged on and up they heard the chatter of a hundred brooks spilling the spring meltwater in torrents down the hillsides. They saw the trees growing ever more plentiful, the few scrubby cacti of the plains now replaced by pine and lush rhododendron. Birds called loudly to each other and Joe thought he spotted the grey shapes of monkeys swinging through the branches of the trees.

  They were not the only travellers on the road. They passed strings of Tibetan merchants on foot, men and women of the hills who stopped to gaze in amazement at the car, tongas struggling to make way for them to overtake and a good deal of foot and horse-borne traffic. Loads obviously too cumbersome to be stowed into the narrow gauge Toy Train were being carried up on the backs of men. To Joe’s astonishment they passed two men labouring under the weight of a grand piano while a third walked behind carrying its legs. At the passing places when they pulled over they were greeted by cheerful young men on their way back from leave down to the plains by tonga and all asking the same rueful question: ‘Hot down there, is it?’ And Joe’s reply was the same to all: ‘Hotter than hell!’

  As they climbed higher, the air grew fresher and the scenery more spectacular. Here now began to appear the majestic cedar trees of the Simla Hills, the deodars, their graceful hazy-blue branches dipping gracefully towards the slopes below. Scents grew sharper and more varied. Joe was intrigued by smells unfamiliar and familiar. He breathed in the nostalgic scents of an English garden – lily of the valley, roses, wild garlic and – like a knife to his lungs – was that balsam or wild thyme? Joe and his companion began to feel almost light-headed. The sluggishness and discomfort of the plains fell away and left them light-hearted, merry, celebratory. Rounding a bend, Feodor jumped to his feet, swaying precariously, pointing ahead. ‘There it is! Driver – pull over there into that passing place and stop for a moment!’

  The driver turned to them, smiling, and announced, ‘This is Tara Devi, sahib, and there,’ he g
estured grandly ahead, ‘is Simla!’

  A sight Joe would never forget. In the middle distance the town spilled, higgledy-piggledy, down from the wooded summit of a precipitous hill flanked by other thickly wooded dark slopes, and beyond and above it, the lines of the Himalayas shading from green through to deepest blue and iced with a line of dazzling snow.

  For a moment Joe was speechless but not so Feodor. ‘Now this is an auditorium worthy of a serenade from the world’s greatest baritone!’ he announced and to Joe’s amusement he stayed on his feet, expanded his lungs, filling them with intoxicating mountain air, and with a wide gesture burst into ‘The Kashmiri Love Song’.

  ‘Pale hands I loved, beside the Shalimar…’ Fortissimo his rich voice rolled along the narrow valley, waking flights of agitated pigeons and raising alarm calls from deer and other forest creatures. Joe joined in but found he was laughing too much to continue and, reaching the final line with its swift descent down the scale, he had to trail off and listen in admiration as Feodor’s voice, echoing and bouncing from the crags, plumbed the emotional depths of that most sentimental of songs.

  ‘Pale hands I loved, beside the Shalimar.

  Where are you now? Where are you now?’

  As he held the last deep note Joe almost expected to hear a thunder of applause. Instead there was a thump and a simultaneous crack and the bass note rose, tearing uncontrolled up the scale until it climaxed in an unearthly scream. A second crack cut off the sound abruptly.

  Joe’s soldier’s instincts had hurled him instantly to the floor of the car. Turning his head, he was horrified to see Feodor Korsovsky, thrown back against the upholstery of the car, collapsing slowly across the seat.

  ‘Drive on! Drive on!’ Joe yelled urgently at the driver but his driver needed no order. Hardly had the echo of the two shots died away before he had put his foot down and the big car surged forward in a shower of gravel, bouncing across the potholes until it came sharply to a halt in the shelter of an outcrop of rocks. Scrambling up, Joe knelt on the back seat and turned to the Russian who, with arms asprawl, lay prostrate across the back seat. A glance was enough to tell Joe that he was dead and as he tore his clothing apart he saw two neat bullet holes, one just above and one just below the heart.

  ‘Good shooting,’ he thought automatically and as he slipped his hand behind Korsovsky to lift him it came away drenched in blood. The entry holes were small; the exit holes had run together in a bloody mess of torn muscle and chipped bone. .303, he thought. Service rifle perhaps. Soft-nosed bullet anyhow.

  Pallid with alarm the driver turned towards him and, to his relief, addressed him in English.

  ‘Where to, sahib? The Residency?’

  ‘No,’ said Joe, thinking quickly. ‘To the police station. But first, look about you. Note where we are. Does this corner have a name?’

  ‘Sahib, it is bad place. It is called the Devil’s Elbow.’

  Without delay the driver let the clutch up and stormed ahead, cornering dangerously to cover the few miles that separated them from Simla. With the driver’s hand perpetually on the bulb of the horn, the Packard edged its way, squawking a warning, into the town.

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  « ^ »

  Police Superintendent Charlie Carter yawned, screwed the cap on his Waterman’s fountain pen, stood up and stretched, walked to the door and shouted for tea. He strolled out on to the balcony for a breath of fresh air and paused for a moment, leaning on the rail and looking out with approval at the disciplined activity below him.

  His men were changing shifts. One group of police sowars was standing chatting, taking off equipment, and one, formed up under the command of a havildar, was preparing to go on duty. He smiled with satisfaction at their businesslike appearance, their neat uniform and their alert faces. He ran an eye over the line of tethered horses, gleaming rumps stirring and bumping.

  Carter wished he could join the patrol but he had to finish writing up the week’s report for his Commissioner. Not that the lazy old bastard would bother to read it. And who could blame him? As usual it was almost void of incident or interest. Carter sighed. He accepted a cup of tea brought out to him on a brass tray and made his reluctant way back to his desk. He picked up the threads of his report, his meticulous account of the investigation into an alleged burglary the previous night rolling from his pen in a neat, firm hand.

  The reported crime irritated him with its triviality and he resented spending even five minutes recording the fact that old Mrs Thorington of Oakland Hall, Simla, had accused her bearer of stealing a silver-backed hairbrush. It had taken him an hour to convince the old boot that it had in fact been snatched by the usual troupe of monkeys raiding down from their temple on Jakko Hill and gaining entry through a bedroom window which she herself had left open.

  A clamour of voices and – surprise – the revving of a powerful engine on the road outside caught his attention. His havildar rushed excitedly into the office announcing the arrival of a motor car, a motor car going unsuitably fast for the tortuous streets of the town. Three cars only were allowed to enter Simla: cars belonging to the Viceroy and the local Governor of the Punjab, neither of whom was due in Simla until the following week, and that of the Chief of Staff, which had just gone to Delhi for repairs. Any other car owner knew very well that the rule was you left your car in the garages provided below the Cecil Hotel. So who the hell was this? Very intrigued, Carter put down his pen again and went out to see for himself.

  A large pearl-grey Packard with the hood down roared the last few yards up the Mall, swung into the police compound and braked noisily in front of the police station. Carter recognized the plates and livery of the Acting Governor of Bengal. He recognized Sir George’s chauffeur, wild eyes in a dust-caked face, but the two passengers in the rear seat were unknown to him. One, a dark-haired man in a khaki linen suit, had been leaning forward urging the driver on and before the car rocked to a halt he had jumped out and now stood, hands on hips, looking around him, raking the lines of sowars and horses with a searching – perhaps even a commanding – eye.

  He was a tall man and carried himself with confidence. He had a brown and handsome face or at least – Carter corrected his first impression – a face that had been handsome. Intelligent, decisive but Janus-like – a face with two sides, one serene, the other scarred – distorted – hard to read. Scarred faces four years after the war to end war were common enough and Carter speculated that he was looking at a man who had taken a battering in France. The second passenger appeared to be battered beyond repair. He was lying sprawled across the back seat, his white jacket soaked with blood.

  With disbelief, Carter screwed an eyeglass in position and called down, authoritative and annoyed, ‘Perhaps you could explain to me who you are and what the hell you’re doing here?’

  Unruffled, the stranger turned to look him up and down and replied with remarkable calm, ‘Certainly I could. It’s rather a long story though. Are you coming down here or am I coming up to you?’

  Charlie Carter rattled down the steps, putting on his cap and saying as he did so, ‘I think I’d better come down to you and you might start by explaining who this dead gentleman is in the back of the Governor’s car. I assume he’s dead?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s dead,’ said the stranger. ‘And you may not believe this, in fact I’m not quite sure I believe it myself, but his name is Feodor Korsovsky and he’s a Russian baritone.’

  The superintendent looked at him with disbelief. ‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘That tells me everything I want to know. A Russian baritone – of course – how stupid of me and – lying dead in the back of the Governor’s car. Where else would you expect to find a Russian baritone? And before we go any further, perhaps you would tell me who you are?’

  ‘My name is Sandilands,’ he began but he was instantly interrupted by the superintendent.

  ‘Sandilands! Commander Sandilands? Ah, yes, the Governor mentioned your name to me. To
ld me you were a detective. From Scotland Yard? Yes? Didn’t tell me you were in the habit of hauling in your own corpses though… This man has been shot?’ He turned to the driver who explained rapidly in Hindustani what had happened and where it had happened.

  ‘I offered the gentleman a lift in the car which had been sent to Kalka to meet me. He was the victim of a sniper about five miles down the road. .303 rifle, two accurate shots to the heart. Soft-nosed bullets – the entry wounds you see are quite small but turn him over and you’ll find holes the size of your fist. To say nothing of the extensive damage done to the Governor’s upholstery. May I suggest,’ said Joe, ‘that we travel to the scene of the crime? And perhaps we ought to go at once? The driver and I marked the spot. The trail is cold and cooling.’

  The police superintendent appeared to consider. ‘My name’s Carter, by the way. Devil’s Elbow. This side of Tara Devi. That’s a damned nasty place you’re talking about. To search the ground you’d need a regiment. Now, if we were in the Wild West I’d say “Take a posse” and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.’

  He shouted orders, following which six police sowars mounted and led forward two horses for Joe and for Carter. Before mounting, Carter spoke urgently to a police daffadur with a gesture towards the body and the car. The Governor’s driver was escorted into the police station to make a statement.

  ‘We can talk as we go,’ said Carter as they mounted. ‘I’ve got a vague idea of what happened but tell me, what are you doing in Simla?’

  ‘I’m on leave,’ said Joe. ‘I’m a London policeman on detachment to the Bengal Police. I was, but now I’ve finished my tour and Sir George has kindly offered me the use of his guest bungalow for a month. To round off my tour of duty before going back to England. You’ve probably heard rumours, India being what it is, of what I’ve been doing in Calcutta?’