Death in Kashmir (31 page)

‘That's it,' said Charles. ‘The assistant with the pockmarked face. You saw him again at the hotel I think.'

‘But–but I don't understand,' said Sarah again. ‘What was he doing at the hotel?'

‘Trying to see me,' said Charles, hurrying her onwards. ‘He's one of our best men. We planted him there two years back. A pretty neat bit of work it was too. He had hoped to get an opportunity to speak to me this morning during the time that we were all at the shop, but due to the mob of customers who turned up he was kept too busy and didn't dare risk it. The most he could manage was to make me a sign to that effect, which he did when he handed me the cigarettes.'

‘What was it?' asked Sarah in a whisper.

‘Nothing in the least exciting, I'm afraid,' said Charles with a grin. ‘He merely scratched his chin with the little finger of his left hand, in a gesture that is shorthand for N B G, or “sorry, no can do—over to you.” So I immediately mentioned Nedou's Hotel and that I was lunching there, and talked of the stage.'

‘Yes,' said Sarah slowly. ‘I remember.'

‘Ahamdoo is pretty quick, and that was quite enough for him. But the meeting at Nedou's was a frost—largely due to you, I may say! You walked in on us before he had time to say a word. We heard you coming, and he whisked round and was halfway up those stairs to the gallery when you appeared on the scene positively radiating suspicion. By the time I was able to catch up with him he'd got the wind up good and proper—either he thought he'd been followed or he'd spotted someone he was scared to death of, because he was in a blind panic and couldn't wait to get away. He merely hissed at me that he'd be on the Char-Chenar island at eleven tonight, and was off like a scalded cat: I wasn't given time to draw breath, let alone argue the toss; and I have to admit that when you bust up that initial meeting I could cheerfully have strangled you!'

‘You ought to have warned me,' retorted Sarah, employing the popular tactic of attack being the best form of defence. ‘And anyway, where were you?'

‘Sitting in one of the armchairs that had its back to you. The back was a high one, but I don't mind telling you, Sarah, that you gave me a few very nasty moments. You couldn't see me unless you started peering round among the furniture; but I couldn't see you either, and I didn't know who the hell it was. I didn't dare move until I heard you walk away towards the staircase, and believe me it was a weight off my mind when I realized it was you.'

‘Why didn't you tell me at once?' demanded Sarah indignantly. ‘I was scared stiff. You might have explained!'

‘With the place simply teeming with people? Not much!' said Charles firmly.

‘What people in particular?' asked Sarah curiously.

Charles looked down at her and shook his head, for by now they were near a small village, and a few yards further on the path left the field to wind between a handful of tall, ramshackle Kashmiri houses before joining the main road that stretched away on either hand, white and deserted in the moonlight.

The acacia trees that bordered it patched the dusty road with shadows and filled the air with fragrance, and the few shops—rickety buildings hurriedly constructed of unseasoned deodar-planks during the brief boom years of Nagim Bagh—were for the most part shuttered and silent. Once safely past these and walking in the direction of the Club, Sarah repeated her question.

‘Well,' said Charles meditatively, ‘there's Reggie Craddock for one.'

‘But he couldn't be mixed up in a thing like this?' gasped Sarah, horrified. ‘Yes I know he tried to get me off the boat, but——Oh no! He couldn't. Not really. Besides, he's an Englishman!'

Charles said dryly: ‘My dear Sarah, money talks in all languages. And there has been big money spent here.'

‘Then you think that Reggie…?' began Sarah.

‘I don't know,' said Charles curtly. ‘He might be in debt. When chaps get into the hands of Indian money-lenders they can end up in some ghastly tangles. I don't say he is; but I'm curious about Reginald Craddock. He knew Janet Rushton, and for all I know he may have been genuinely fond of her; though somehow that doesn't strike me as sufficient reason for wanting to get you off Janet's boat. Craddock was a member of the party at the ski-hut, and he was at Ghulam Kadir's shop this morning at a time when a very important message was due to be passed to someone there.'

‘What's that?'
Sarah stopped for a moment on the moonlit road. ‘Oh, you mean the one that pockmarked man meant to give you?'

‘No, I don't. That shop is used as a cover for a lot of things. Not active things: strictly passive ones. I think you would find that its aged and respectable proprietor is careful to know nothing of plots or plans. He merely allows his premises to be used, in return for a nice fat sum, as a sort of post office and receiving centre that collects and passes on information for the opposition. Something was due to be passed today: Ahamdoo was onto that much. I have my own ideas as to how it was done, but I can't be sure. We've had a check on everyone who entered or left that shop today, and Reggie, of course, was one of them.'

‘So was I, for that matter. And so were lots of other people—including you,' retorted Sarah.

‘I know. But all the same I am distinctly interested in Major Reggie Craddock … Left turn here—this is the Club.'

They turned in through an open gate, to walk down a long, tree-shaded drive that wound through an orchard and ended in lawns, neat flowerbeds, and a low Club building on the extreme edge of the Nagim Bagh lake. As they neared it Sarah, who had been silent for a few minutes, said thoughtfully: ‘I wonder if you could work up a case against everyone who was in that shop this morning?'

‘Of course,' said Charles cheerfully. ‘I can produce a different theory to fit each one of you; and yours is still the best of the bunch.'

‘In that case, I'm surprised that you trust me with all this information,' said Sarah with a laugh.

‘How do you know I do?' asked Charles softly. Sarah stared at him blankly, but before she had time to frame an indignant reply Charles had steered her inside the Club and seated her in a chair on the edge of the ballroom floor, and having ordered tomato juice and promised not to keep her waiting long, vanished in the direction of the Club's residential block, leaving her alone with a pile of illustrated papers and two bored Club
khidmatgars
who were whispering together by the bar at the end of the room.

On the far side of the ballroom floor a row of french windows faced the lake and gave onto a long, roofless verandah, supported by wooden piles and set with chairs and tables. Sarah left her chair and went out onto it, to find herself looking across a sheet of moonlit water bounded on the far bank by a row of dimly seen houseboats, from which an occasional square of light threw a thin quivering line of yellow across the lake. The majority of them, unlike the many boats that were moored to the near bank, appeared to be unoccupied, and behind them, above the dark, distant treetops, rose the crouching bulk of fort-crowned Hari Parbat; silhouetted blackly against the moonwashed plain and the long line of glittering snow peaks that fringed the far wall of the valley.

Sarah leaned her arms on the verandah rail and gazed out across the water to where, shimmering in the moonlight, the snowy slopes of Apharwat lifted above the dark tree-line that marked Khilanmarg. Somewhere over there, a dot in the waste of whiteness, was the little ski-hut, and somewhere below it, among the miles of trees, lay the rambling hotel buildings and the small hotel room where, for her, this fantastic adventure had begun. And once again, as she looked at those far mountain ranges she wondered why she stayed on in Kashmir, where so many frightening things had happened to her since the night that she had been awakened by the moonlight on her face.

She had quitted the place with such deep relief, feeling thankful that she need never see it again. But a mixture of curiosity, bravado, and a promise given to the dead girl had brought her back, and ever since her return she had been living in a constant state of fear and tension. So why did she stay, when it would be so easy to send a cable to the Pierces in Ceylon, to hire a car and be in Rawalpindi in less than a dozen hours, and on the Frontier Mail speeding south the same day? If she were in her right mind she would be thinking of packing and leaving immediately, if this was any concern of hers. Yet she knew that she had no intention of going, and was, on the contrary, conscious of a feeling of intense exhilaration, even though last night on the
Waterwitch
she had experienced pure, undiluted terror, and again that morning, both in Ghulam Kadir's shop and as she stared up the dark staircase at the side of the stage in Nedou's Hotel. But it did not seem to matter. All that mattered was that she was young and alive, and life was glorious and exciting—because she was going to dine with Charles.

Sarah smiled to herself a little ruefully in the moonlight, and thought: You may as well admit it, you're not staying on here and allowing yourself to be scared out of your wits just for the fun of it or from any altruistic motives. You are staying because you've fallen in love with a man who is engaged to a beautiful blond called Cynthia! You've had a lovely time playing at being in love and enjoying having men fall for you, but now you've burnt your fingers. And Cynthia or no Cynthia, you don't really give a damn
how
many people get themselves bumped off, or if the whole British Empire and the sub-continent of India goes up with a bang, as long as you can stay around near Charles.

Women, decided Sarah cynically, are wonderful! At which point her musings were interrupted by Captain Mallory, correctly dinner-jacketed, who joined her at the verandah rail carrying two glasses of sherry.

‘Here's to you, Sarah.'

‘Thanks,' Sarah sipped her sherry and looked at Charles over the rim of her glass. ‘Who is Cynthia?' she demanded abruptly.

‘Cynthia? Sounds like a song:
“Who is Cynthia, what is she, that all her swains commend her?”
What Cynthia—or should I say which Cynthia? Or do you mean my sister?'

‘Your sister! Have you got a sister called Cynthia?'

‘I have indeed. You'll like her.'

‘Oh,' Sarah smiled widely and dizzily. Yes, she was young and alive, and life was glorious and exciting because she was going to dine with Charles …

Except for a depressed gentleman wearing tweeds and a pince-nez, and a youthful couple who were holding hands under the table-cloth and conducting an intense conversation in whispers, the dining-room in the residential block of the Club was empty, and Charles and Sarah dined in the comparative privacy of a table set by a bow window, from where they could look out over the lawns and the lake to the mountains. The depressed gentleman finally departed, to be followed shortly afterwards by the intense couple. But Charles and Sarah sat on deep in conversation …

Sarah was enjoying herself. Her green eyes sparkled and her copper curls glinted in the wan light of the drably shaded ceiling bulbs, and the conversation, by mutual consent, did not touch on the business that had brought Charles to the valley. It was not until almost the end of the meal that she remembered to tell him of the search that had been made of her room and the opening of her parcels. ‘You hadn't anything there, had you?' asked Charles frowning. ‘Anything incriminating, I mean?'

‘No, thank goodness. The only incriminating thing I've had was that little automatic, and I'd carried that about with me in my bag. Lucky I did!'

‘Very,' agreed Charles soberly. ‘But I can't understand why anyone would have been interested in the stuff you bought this morning. That makes it look as if it could be only a bit of curiosity on the part of your
mānji.
Let's hope so, anyway.'

A white-coated
khidmatgar
appeared with coffee and inquired if they would prefer it served over in the ballroom or out on the lawns, but Sarah did not want to move: ‘It would be cold by the time it got over there anyway, and the kind of coffee they make in this country is bad enough when it's hot.'

She poured out the pale, unappetizing brew and handed a cup to Charles, inadvertently spilling some on her dress in the process.
‘Bother!'
exclaimed Sarah cheerfully: and reaching for her bag, opened it to pull out a handkerchief. Something else came out with it and fell onto the tablecloth—the little papier mâché matchbox container that Ghulam Kadir had presented to her that morning.

‘Complete with box of matches, I see,' said Charles, idly turning it over with one finger. “You've been favoured. Mine was only the case without the box of matches.'

‘So is this one,' said Sarah. She put away her handkerchief and picked up the little box. ‘No it isn't! But I'm almost sure … Why, it's not mine at all. Look! Mine had almost the same design, gold chenar leaves on cream. But it had those little furry chenar seeds in the pattern where this has got bulbuls. I know what must have happened! We all put our things down when we were hunting for my bag just after we'd been given these boxes, and I suppose I must have picked up someone else's by mistake. They're very alike.'

‘You did
what?
' said Charles sharply. ‘Here! Give me that box! It's a thousand to one chance, but——' He drew out the box of matches that the little case contained, but there were no matches inside it. Only a small slip of folded paper.

‘A thousand to one chance,'
repeated Charles in an awed whisper, ‘and, by God, we've pulled it off! This is what they were searching for of course, when they went through your room with a small-tooth comb.'

He smoothed out the scrap of paper on the palm of his hand. It bore a single line of graceful curving eastern writing, and Charles studied it, frowning.