The Last Kashmiri Rose Page 8

  ‘How do you know this?’ asked Joe.

  ‘I was twelve at that time and very interested in police work. I was a great help to my father. I could go to places as a village boy that my father could not have visited in his uniform without attracting attention. I overheard many useful things which my father was pleased to use in his enquiries. He was very concerned that the boat should be found. He very much wanted to examine it. My little brothers and I were sent to search the river for it. We went for ten miles along each bank in the direction of the current and we could find no trace of it. No one had found it, no one had even seen it. I talked to the old man who ran the ferry about the accident. He enjoyed talking about it. He said he did not know the ferryman who was working that day. His own men had been taken ill three days before and he had been desperate for help. Usually there are two swimmers to take these rafts across. It would have been a most difficult and tiring job for one man. Most difficult. It is not a job, you understand, sahib, that most men would want to do or would be able to do. A man appeared in the village at the right moment, he blessed Shiva for his good luck, and set him to work. He was very happy with him. And then the accident happened. The man who tried to save the memsahib came forward. But after the enquiry he told the old man he no longer wished to do the work and he left. The old man says he was a local man, judging by his accent, but not from the village, and he told him he was on his way to find work on the station. Is this helpful, sahib?’

  ‘Yes, Naurung. But I’m afraid what you have to say raises as many questions as it answers!’

  ‘It answers a question, sahib?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Naurung. The question, was Alicia Simms-Warburton murdered? And the answer is yes, decidedly yes.’

  Chapter Seven

  THEY MOUNTED THEIR horses and swung away from the river and back towards the station. As the day declined they parted and went their separate ways, Naurung to his wife and the welcome of his family and Joe to the austere comforts of his guest bungalow. He was casting about for a scheme to help him while away the dead hours, wondering whether his reception would be more congenial in the mess or at the Club when, on the road down to his bungalow, his eye was taken by a notice. A notice of a dance at the Club. ‘Saturday, March the 11th at 7.30. Last of the Season.’

  ‘Tonight!’ An impulse came over him to attend. He would surely see Nancy Drummond there, he thought with a spurt of excitement. He had been made an honorary member of the Club – so why not? He looked again at the notice and read ‘Black tie’. Somewhere in his luggage there was a dinner jacket, probably by now crumpled, but ‘This is, after all, Anglo-India – presumably all I have to do is clap my hands and call for someone to come and press it for me.’

  On entering his bungalow he called, as to the manner born, ‘Koi hai!’ With a gesture he indicated to his bearer the dinner jacket, a boiled shirt, butterfly collar, dress studs – no cummerbund, he would have to make do with an evening waistcoat – but he really needn’t have bothered. He was obviously not the first person for whom his bearer had had to put out evening clothes. With a further gesture he indicated his bath.

  At seven o’clock, duly bathed, shaven and starched, he set off for the Club. ‘Protective colouring,’ he thought. ‘I think I have it!’

  The clubhouse and its gardens occupied the best part of one side of the maidan. Dating from the spacious days of the East India Company, it was a building which, though it had seen better days, was luxuriously designed. Somewhat in the Italian manner, somewhat in the Islamic manner and owing not a little to Hindu architecture, it made a very confident statement. A fitting residence for its first owner, a Calicut nabob whose summer residence it had been. If the stucco was perhaps beginning to peel, the swarming bougainvillea and jasmine and the embracing spray of climbing roses concealed most of the effects of time. The Club employed five full-time gardeners and the lawns were watered and immaculate, the flower beds ablaze with English flowers.

  There was a press of buggies, horses, men in dinner jackets, women in evening dresses gathering round the door of the Club and Joe lost himself in this crowd, making himself briefly known to the servant on the door before walking past the long bar on to the verandah to get his bearings.

  Internally, the ‘large ballroom’ had been converted by a vandal hand into squash courts but the smaller ballroom remained. The dining-room, lit through a series of french windows opening on to the all-embracing verandah, was furnished in the heaviest possible Victorian style with furniture from Maples in the Tottenham Court Road. But the life of the Club, Joe guessed, was lived on the verandah and the tennis court and even on the croquet lawn. In more recent years a single-storey extension surrounding a courtyard had been added at the rear with spare bedrooms for the use of visitors, for the use of bachelors from up-country, for the use of the bereaved such as William Somersham whose grief and despair had taken refuge here.

  The verandah was supplied with an endless array of bamboo planters’ chairs with their long foot rests, with sockets thoughtfully provided in the arms safely to contain a tumbler. Here was the social life of Panikhat while the punkhas creaked overhead, the click of croquet balls came in through the windows as one late party drew to a noisy close with shouts and laughter, while, in the charge of attendant syces, horses kicked and fretted in the shade.

  Joe became aware of two men, invisible behind the high backs of their long chairs, both, he judged, in spite of the early hour, somewhat drunk and both prepared to be indiscreet with each other.

  He overheard: ‘It’s all the fault of the Greys, I hear. Can’t imagine why Prentice was so keen to elect the feller an honorary member of the mess and, of course, if they made him an honorary member the Club had to follow suit. Damned embarrassing, if you ask me!’

  His companion rejoined, ‘Damned embarrassing! Quite agree! I suppose we should be grateful we’ve only been visited with one blue locust! Hear they usually go about in swarms! Damned chap’s come down here to investigate – spy on us, you might say. Can’t believe anybody that’s been involved wants any of this raked up again.’

  There was a laugh from the other. ‘What do we have to put up with? Magnifying glass and fingerprint kit? “Where were you on the night of the 11th of March 1910?” I mean, scent’s a bit cold, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, not very keen on the idea of a London policeman prancing round the dance floor! Are you?’

  ‘Mind your toes, girls! Here comes a pair of regulation police boots!’

  There was a chink of glasses and a laugh from both as they scrambled to their feet. ‘Nancy!’ he heard. ‘Good evening, my dear. How are you? We were just talking about your policeman.’

  ‘Joseph Sandilands?’ He heard Nancy’s voice. ‘Have you met him? I was hoping he might be here somewhere …’

  Joe decided the time had come to step forward.

  ‘Mrs Drummond!’ he said. ‘I was hoping to hear a friendly voice!’

  He was well satisfied with the confusion his sudden appearance had created.

  ‘Commander!’ said Nancy Drummond. ‘I’m so pleased to see you! Come and meet my husband, if these two sots will excuse us.’ And, to the two sots, ‘See you in a minute or two.’

  She took Joe’s arm and led him away.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘tell me everything! Tell me what you’ve been doing. Give me the benefit of the razor-sharp accuracy with which you have cut to the heart of our problems! And, by the way, take no notice of those two.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ said Joe, ‘but I’ve been quite amused to hear what’s being said.’

  They walked together through the thickening crowd, attracting many curious glances as they went. Joe was aware that they made a striking couple and he didn’t wonder that Nancy should draw so many admiring gazes. He watched her covertly as she stepped aside to exchange a brief greeting with a middle-aged pair. Her slender shape in yellow silk was all energy and grace. The dress was the height of London fashion, floating a discreet inch below the knee, the
clinging and diaphanous top held up by narrow straps over her shoulders. Where most of the ladies were wearing their long hair up in tormented chignons, Nancy’s shiny, dark chestnut bob swung free about her neat head and Joe was aware that every man she spoke to would have liked to run his hands through it. He decided that he would do just that. When the occasion offered itself.

  She led him to a table and two chairs. ‘Let’s sit for a moment. You never get more than a moment for private conversation on a barrampta of this sort! Sit down. Buy me a drink.’

  She waved a hand and a waiter came to her side. ‘We don’t seem to drink anything but gimlets these days. Gin and lime? That suit you?’ And she held up two fingers. ‘Now, let’s look about us. First, that’s my husband over there waving to us. He’s very eager to meet you but he appears to be rather affair´e at the moment. I’ll introduce you to him in a minute. And that’s Giles Prentice over there of whom you will have heard a great deal, I dare say. I think he’s outside our enquiry – I hope you don’t mind my saying “our” enquiry, do you? – but he’s probably the most interesting man on the station, or anywhere else for that matter. His father was British Resident at Gilgit in the North-West Frontier Province and he was brought up there as a child. He’s a fantastic linguist and that, no doubt, is where it all started. He spoke Pushtu before he spoke English and was practically brought up by Pathans. He speaks Hindustani, Bengali when required, Persian they tell me and not only that – half a dozen dialects as well. He never went home for schooling. You’ve probably already gathered that poor little European children get sent home when they’re about six. An iniquitous system! But instead of going to a smart public school in England he went to a Catholic school in Calcutta and from there to Sandhurst.

  ‘When he came back to India the Indian regiments were queuing to get him. He had a family connection of some sort with the Greys and that’s where he ended up but he hadn’t been in India five minutes before he got himself attached to a Scouts Unit, the Gilgit Scouts, I think …’

  ‘Scouts?’

  ‘Oh yes. The Scouts. Regular or semi-regular forces on the north-west frontier with Afghanistan. Toughest men in the world. English officers, Pathan other ranks. Giles Prentice joined them on attachment and spent five years back on the frontier where he was born. I don’t think he would have ever come away but his regiment insisted on his doing a little regimental duty. I’ll call him over. Hey! Giles! Come and meet the police!’

  Joe saw a dark face, a commanding nose, hair unfashionably long and a searching eye. So this was Colonel Prentice. Now commanding the Bengal Greys. This was the man who’d come home to find his bungalow destroyed, his wife burned to death and his little girl hysterical and terrified. This was a man who had taken the Bengal Greys to France in 1914, had led the charge of the regiment at Neuve Chapelle, who had won a DSO and bar and now, austere and aloof, ascetic and seemingly dedicated, commanded the regiment in peacetime.

  He looked at Joe with guarded friendship. ‘Glad you’re here,’ he said. ‘Too many mysteries! Having this in common, each with other – no mystery at all! Distressing, even horrifying, but all susceptible to explanation and the only mystery is that they should have happened in the same month. I expect you’re a clever man – wouldn’t be here if you weren’t – but I think you’re on a loser considered purely …’ He hesitated for a moment and continued, ‘considered purely as a matter of forensic detection. I’ll give you my explanation if you like which is “This is India”. India is not Seven Dials. Still less are we investigating a country house mystery – roast beef for lunch on Sunday, vicar coming round for a glass of sherry after matins, body on the library carpet and a domestic search for the truth through a cast of predictable characters. This is India, I say again, where the strangest things happen. I’ve lived for years on the north-west frontier where any Pathan would merely acknowledge the presence of a malignant spirit. They exist, you know.’

  ‘A Churel, perhaps,’ said Joe, remembering the word with difficulty.

  ‘A Churel, certainly,’ said Prentice, surprised. ‘And I could think of half a dozen phenomena the existence of which is widely believed to put beside your Churel. This is the country of Kali, the Destroyer, as well as of Vishnu, the Benevolent.’ He paused and Joe sensed that, though there was much more Prentice had to say, was even keen to say, he was about to obey the code of the Club which forbade that anyone should talk shop and was preparing to close down the conversation.

  ‘Keep it light, don’t dance with the same girl more than three times and don’t monopolise anyone’s time. Be like a butterfly and pass from flower to flower, that’s the drill for a Club Dance,’ Joe silently reminded himself. At that moment, the dance band of the Shropshire Light Infantry went into a foxtrot. He smiled, nodded and got to his feet, going through the ritual distancing gestures. Then, ‘Oh, one thing before dance floor duty calls, sir … Hardly like to ask but two minutes now will save us an interview at a later stage which would probably waste time for both of us …’

  ‘Carry on, Sandilands,’ said Prentice equably. ‘These are unusual circumstances and, if I understand the women’s concerns correctly, time is of the essence.’

  ‘Then I won’t apologise for asking you to go back to 1913, to the death of Alicia Simms-Warburton. The report mentions a piece of information which triggered her dash to the river and thence to her death …’

  ‘You mean the butterfly. The Camberwell Beauty.’ Prentice sighed. ‘I’ve always held myself in some way responsible for Alicia’s death. Indirectly, of course, but I am aware that if I hadn’t passed on the information she would never have been crossing the river that day. Though when the significance of the butterfly strikes you, you might begin to agree with me that I was used. Fate’s instrument. No more than that.’

  ‘The significance of the butterfly?’

  ‘Yes, the Camberwell Beauty. That’s quite odd. They’re very rare in India but almost unknown in England. No wonder she was excited! Don’t suppose you’ve ever seen one? It’s large with black, drooping wings. Sinister-looking object, if you ask me. The local Indians call it something like Harbinger of Kali – in other words, precursor of death.’

  He paused for a moment, assessing Joe’s response.

  ‘And the man who brought you the information? Was he known to you?’

  ‘I’d better explain. Everybody knew about Alicia’s passion for collecting. It was quite a joke, you might say, but everyone, English and Indian, indulged her. Brought her specimens, told her where they’d spotted something interesting, that sort of thing. I’m afraid she used to tip the Indians far too heavily. Simms-Warburton had to speak to her about it – she was spending half the housekeeping on creepy-crawlies, he used to complain. Well, one day an Indian came asking to speak to me. I took him for one of the gardeners (though I was to find later he was no such thing – chap just disappeared). He had no English and only spoke his village dialect. He came to me because he knew no one else would be able to make any sense of what he had to say. Could hardly make it out myself. And what he had to communicate was a request that I should tell the lady who collects butterflies that there had been a hatch of a very rare one in the willow trees along the river by the ferry on the far bank. I thought he was just another chap trying to get money out of Alicia and was on the point of sending him away. Then he launched into a vivid description of the creature and told me its name, Harbinger of Kali, and, I must say, I began to be intrigued. Looked the thing up in a book and checked he knew what he was talking about of course. I gave him a tip – a reasonable amount, he’d have done better with Alicia – and passed the information on. Straight away. Butterflies wait for no man or even memsahib. Never set eyes on the fellow again.’

  ‘Another tool of Fate?’ murmured Joe.

  ‘Very probably. We must continue this conversation another time. I think there is much more you want to know. Now, are you dancing, Sandilands? I’m sure Nancy would let you pilot her round the floor.’ And, wi
th a bow to the returning Nancy, he turned and walked away.

  ‘Well,’ said Nancy, ‘what did you make of that?’

  ‘Formidable man,’ said Joe, reflectively. ‘I’ve met one or two but I think he tops my list. What can I guess? Faithful friend, implacable enemy, devious schemer – am I getting it right? I think he’d usually get his way.’

  ‘That’s not bad,’ said Nancy. ‘Not bad at all. That’s very much Giles as I understand him. The only thing you leave out is that his men are devoted to him. Some touching and remarkable stories came back from France. Servants too. They’re very loyal and you never hear gossip spreading from the Prentice bungalow. The bearer who was killed in the fire they say never left Giles’ side so the fire was a double disaster for him, poor chap.’

  ‘Lucky not to have lost his daughter. She was smuggled out by her ayah, I understand.’

  ‘Yes. And she’s back in India, they tell me. She must be eighteen now. She’s been away at school in Switzerland and sailed into Bombay last week under the sketchy chaperonage of Millie Bracegirdle! She’s spending a few days to recover from the voyage with an aunt and then coming on back to her father here at the station. Giles doesn’t show many emotions but he loves his daughter and if he were capable of showing excitement, I’d say he was excited at the thought of her coming back into his life again. He’s got plans for a party to welcome her back to the regiment so perhaps he isn’t such an icicle after all. Now, come and dance with me! Let’s give the gossips something to gossip about!’

  The band went into a slow waltz and Joe gathered her to him. ‘The Destiny Waltz’. His mind went back at once to France. This had been one of the few gramophone records they owned and he had last heard the tune being played on a wheezy accordion in an estaminet not many miles behind the lines. And here it was again. ‘Police boots!’ thought Joe and, with a quick glance down at Nancy’s silk stockings and delicate, high-heeled kid shoes, he said, ‘Can you do a reverse turn?’