Текст книги "Ragtime in Simla"

Автор книги: Barbara Cleverly

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‘Sounds reasonable to me,’ said Carter but Joe noticed he kept his protective escort in place.

The posse swept on, attracting much attention from the few people now on the road, and rounded the bend before the ill-fated Devil’s Elbow.

‘We’ll stop here and dismount,’ said Carter. ‘I’ll tell off horse-holders – two should be enough – and the rest of us will do a short sweep through the rocks.’ He looked up at the sky, judging the amount of light left to them. ‘Better get a move on. Where did you reckon the shot came from?’

Joe pointed.

‘Right then,’ said Carter. ’Off we go! This is what’s called a gasht. Pushtu word. Suppose if this were the British Army it would be called “an armed reconnaissance”, perhaps even “a fighting patrol”. Call it what you will. Equally it could be called “sticking your neck out”.’

The policemen formed a line and with rifles at the port set off to sweep into the hills, Carter in the centre, a police jemadar marking the right flank and Joe reluctantly marking the left.

‘I don’t know what on earth I think I’m doing,’ he thought. ‘I’m supposed to be on leave, for God’s sake! And has it occurred to Carter that of all this mob, I’m completely unarmed? Perhaps I should have said something? Ah, well, too late now.’ But a further thought came to him: Feodor had been a nice man – interesting, interested, talented, looking forward to the coming weeks, harmless – yes, surely harmless, and yet someone had shot him. And, so far as he was anything to Joe, he could say that he was his friend for however brief a time. Joe could turn his back on it but – he realized – he had no intention of doing so.

The gasht moved up the hill at surprising speed and it wasn’t more than a hundred yards before Joe began to blow. Tirelessly, Carter led them forward. Resentfully, Joe floundered in his wake, glad to be out on a wing, deeming this to be, if there was such a thing, the position of minimum danger. And perhaps that was why Carter had put him there.

After a sweating quarter of an hour, Carter held up a hand to call a halt and redress ranks and at once there was a call from the man to Joe’s right. He shouted something Joe did not understand and Carter replied. They closed in together to meet beside the discovery of whatever it might be.

‘Perhaps we have a clue,’ said Carter. ‘Hardly dared to hope for such a thing. Let’s see what we’ve got!’

What they had got was the brass cases of two spent rounds. The man who’d found them was standing still and pointing at them, not, Joe was relieved to see, dashing in to scoop them up in his hand.

‘We don’t have the facilities to test these,’ said Carter, once again reading Joe’s mind, ‘but we can send them away to Calcutta if it’s relevant. In the meantime I’ll handle them with care.’ And he produced a fold of paper evidence bags from his pack. ‘.303,’ he said. ’You were right. From a British service rifle perhaps.

‘And look,’ he added, ’here’s something else. A cigarette end.’

‘Two cigarette ends,’ said Joe, pointing further up the hill.

‘Black Cat,’ said Carter. ‘Fat lot of help! Probably the most common English cigarette in India after the Woodbine. That won’t tell us much. Now if only it had been a Russian cigarette or an Afghani or a Balkan Sobranie, it might have told us something.’

They peered together at the remains of the cigarettes held on Carter’s outstretched palm.

‘Nervous type?’ said Joe.

‘See what you mean,’ said Carter. ‘They’re only half smoked. A few puffs and they’ve been extinguished. Still, at least we know where the shot was fired from. Line yourself up with the black rock down there. My lady’s maid couldn’t have missed!’

Carter moved in closer to take a sighting between the rocks. Joe noticed that he was careful, before he did so, to look closely at the ground for footprints or other disturbance. Joe looked too, trying to make out any slight indentations where elbow or knee might have rested.

‘Well, that’s plain enough,’ said Carter. ‘See there.’ He pointed to two deep scrapes in the moss about two feet apart. ‘That’s where the toes of his boots rested and over here… yes… there and there… you can just make them out – those depressions are where he placed his elbows. And here’s where his knee went. Clear as day.’

‘Tall man, would you say?’ said Joe. ‘Hard to make out, looking at the signs from above like this.’

‘I’d say average to tall,’ said Carter. ‘Taller than me, shorter than you.’ He looked along the group of interested sowars who were following developments and selected one. ‘Gupta?’ He did not need to explain further. The Indian came forward, dropped to his knees and adopted the classic sniper’s attitude, lying slightly oblique to the line of shot. His boots fitted the scrapes perfectly and his elbows and knees the depressions.

‘Arrest this man!’ snapped Charlie.

A shattered silence was followed by loud guffaws as Gupta leapt to his feet in surprise and then joined in the joke. ‘Thank you, Gupta,’ said Charlie, writing down ‘Five feet ten inches’ in his notebook.

‘Who in Simla would be capable of firing these shots?’ Joe began and instantly regretted the naivety of his question.

‘Who wouldn’t?’ said Carter. ‘That’s our problem. Place is full of Dead Eye Dicks! Army, retired army, tiger hunters – even the women are crack shots! You should see the Ladies Rifle Club at it on the range in Annandale! Still, we’ll go through the motions. Get the cases and the cigarette ends fingerprinted in Calcutta then if we should ever have anything so useful as a suspect we can get them tested and do a comparison.’

‘At least the cigarette ends tend to uphold the theory that Korsovsky was the intended target,’ said Joe.

‘How’s that?’ said Carter.

‘Only two of them. How long does it take to smoke two cigarettes? A matter of minutes. I would guess that our killer turned up here thinking he had all the time in the world to prepare himself for the arrival of his target in a slow-moving tonga. Snipers do nothing in a hurry; they like to take up position well before the intended killing time. The time of the train’s arrival in Kalka was known, easy then to calculate the arrival to this point of a tonga, but to his surprise and having had no time for more than two cigarettes, up draws a car carrying his target. He’s done his job and back home for tea earlier than expected.’

The daffadur listening intently to Joe and nodding excitedly chipped in. ‘Yes, sahib, sir, that is very correct. And last year, I remember, the same thing. Here at the Devil’s Elbow. The young gentleman who was shot – he arrived by tonga and there was a pile of cigarette ends… twelve at least!’

Chapter Four

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That was a damned odd remark,’ said Joe as they scrambled breathlessly down the hill towards their waiting horses. ‘Are you going to tell me what it was all about?’

‘Yes,’ said Carter. ‘You’ll have to know what it was all about. The plain fact is that that’s the second time that somebody’s been shot on more or less that spot.’

‘And the victim on that occasion?’ said Joe. ‘Don’t tell me – a Brazilian counter-tenor?’

Carter laughed. ‘Nothing so exotic as that, but a strange enough story all the same and a very sad one.’

They mounted and set off together towards Simla, their escort clattering and chattering behind them. Carter took up his story. ‘An Englishman coming out to Simla to visit his sister. His name was Lionel Conyers. His sister Alice is a prominent local citizen, a director, and indeed a majority shareholder, I believe, in ICTC. The Imperial and Colonial Trading Company. Very rich merchant family and high up the social scale too. This young Lord Conyers had a very remarkable experience. He was a regular soldier attached to an American unit and he was caught in the retreat on the Meuse Argonne a few weeks before the war ended. Blown up and buried alive. He was only discovered two days later and by the advancing Germans. Poor chap! He’d lost his memory completely. No idea who he was or where he was and can you wonder after all he’d been through? He got hauled away by the Germans, who filed him away somewhere in a POW hospital. They didn’t even know his nationality and it was some months before he surfaced again. At last they found out he was British and then by degrees who he was and sent him back to Blighty.’

‘That’s a terrible story but, sadly, not uncommon,’ said Joe. ’I expect his sister was overwhelmed to get him back – almost literally – from the dead?’

Carter hesitated for a moment. ‘Not that simple. In fact his reappearance caused an almighty muddle. You see, while he was mouldering in a German hospital he was posted “missing presumed dead”. His family at that stage consisted of his grandfather and his only sister – parents both died of the flu just after the war and he didn’t even know that. By the time he bobbed to the surface again his grandfather had died and left the considerable family fortune and the business to be shared between his sister Alice and her second cousin. I think she has a fifty-one per cent share in the company, he has forty-nine.’

‘I see,’ said Joe. ’And what was the reaction of the two directors? What, in law, was their position?’

‘See what you’re driving at,’ said Carter. ’First thing I thought of too. Bad situation. Legal nightmare! Young Conyers seems to have been a decent sort of chap. He wrote to Alice announcing he was still alive and had taken up the family title. He also said he was coming out to see her and would make arrangements for the equitable share-out of the company. He didn’t want to snatch it all straight from under her nose but he was damned if he could see why a remote second cousin should be involved. He was proposing to cut him out completely, take fifty-one per cent for himself and reduce Alice to forty-nine.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Joe asked.

‘Alice herself told me. She showed me the letter he’d sent her announcing his arrival in Simla.’

‘How did she react?’

‘Well, after a period of disbelief (only to be expected, of course), apparently with joy. Her friends say she was thrilled to be getting her brother back from the dead. And then I saw her after the shooting and I can say my own impression is that she was devastated. Lost her only close relation twice, so to speak. She was, I’d say, stunned and incredulous.’

‘And where was Alice and for that matter her fellow director when the shooting occurred?’

‘They were together. They had by this time married, by the way. And, funnily enough, at the precise moment Alice was out shooting. She’s a very good rifle shot but the only target she was hitting at the time was a bull’s-eye on the range at Annandale in view of about a hundred onlookers. She rushed off from the competition to prepare to receive her brother who was expected to come up the cart road in about an hour’s time. And her second cousin was one of the onlookers.’

‘So what do you make of the two killings? Are they connected, do you think?’

‘Well,’ said Carter slowly, ‘at the moment I’m thinking that the two targets are completely unrelated. I’m guessing that we’re dealing with a madman. Someone killing for fun. Trying out a new rifle, if you like. What possible connection could there be between a forgotten soldier and the flamboyant Monsieur Korsovsky?’

‘Beyond the fact that they were both shot in the same place. By the same sort of bullet?’

‘Yes. .303, probably a service rifle in both cases. Calcutta will tell us more. They inspected the first lot of cases as well.’

‘And the killer smoked the same sort of cigarette?’

‘Yes. Black Cat. Same scenario exactly. Evidence of a tall – five foot ten or thereabouts – sniper though obviously with more time on his hands on the first occasion – all twelve cigarette butts were smoked right down to the end. Well, before I do anything else I ought to report to my chief. I know what he’ll say – “Carry on, Carter!” He never says anything else.’

‘You’re lucky,’ said Joe with considerable feeling. ‘I wish I could say the same about my superior back in London Town. He’d let me blow my nose occasionally without consulting him but never much more than that. And while you’re reporting to your Chief Superintendent I wonder if I ought to go and make myself known to the Lieutenant-Governor, my host, Sir George Jardine?’

‘Yes, I suppose you should. He’ll want to know. He took a very considerable interest, you might say a surprisingly considerable interest in the death of Lionel Conyers.’

‘Did he?’ said Joe. ‘Did he indeed! Do you know him? I mean, do you know him well? Just a nodding acquaintance?’

‘Well, I’m not sure,’ said Carter, ‘whether a humble police superintendent can have a “nodding acquaintance” with the mighty Sir George! I wouldn’t dare to nod! I’d be standing at attention and though I like him I have to say I hardly know him.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you something,’ said Joe. ‘He never does or says anything without a motive. Although I was very pleased and grateful for the offer of his guest bungalow, I rather wondered why it had been offered to me…’

‘And what conclusion did you come to?’

‘He’s done this to me once before. He hauled me into an investigation down in Panikhat and it just crosses my mind that he may have hauled me into this. Watch developments and you’ll see that I’m right. And now I apologize because I’m quite sure the last thing you want in the world is me!’

‘You’re quite wrong about that, Sandilands,’ said Carter. ‘I’d be damned glad of somebody to talk to.’

‘Well, never forget,’ said Joe, ‘before we both sink over our heads in this, that Sir George is a devious old bastard!’

And with these words they went their separate ways, Carter – as he put it – to set the creaking apparatus of police procedure in motion and Joe in the company of a police sowar detailed to guide him to the Governor’s Residence through the intricacies of the summer capital of the Indian Empire.

Here, Joe found, was no oriental magnificence. There was no concession as far as he could see to India at all. Houses, growing in size as he rode onwards and upwards, might have strayed from Bournemouth or Guildford. The Moghul Empire might never have existed, nor yet the Honourable East India Company. Houses were tile-hung, some even had leaded windows. Balconies and french doors abounded, peaked and decorated gables and, on all sides, bogus half-timbering. House names too, smacked of the English Home Counties: Bryony, Rose Cottage, Valley View, Berkhamsted. Gardens, where they could be poked in on an available flat piece of ground, were abundant with spring flowers and, against a background pine wood smell, they breathed nostalgically of English country rectories.

The sun had sunk now behind the hills and a chill breeze knifing in from the snow fields reminded Joe that he was not in familiar Surrey but in wild country on a remote spur of the Himalayas at a height of seven thousand feet. He shivered and began to think about a hot bath and perhaps a log fire. He urged his horse along, keeping up with the cracking pace being set by the sowar, and noting the landmarks he might need to find his own way to the Governor’s Residence. At last he saw a discreet sign for ‘Kingswood’ and they swung off the main road down a steep lane between crowding rhododendron bushes.

The Governor’s house, though undeniably cosy in intent, was large and, within the limits of the architectural manner, impressive. Joe wound his way through the gardens, marking no fewer than ten gardeners at work and noting the servants in their dark green livery by the door. He handed his horse to his escort to return to the police station.

Sir George’s greeting when he finally made his way to him was characteristic.

‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking out for you all afternoon! Been doing a bit of sightseeing, have you? Tasting the social charms of Simla?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Joe. ‘Not exactly.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Sir George. ’I’m not deaf! I am, as you may well remember, reasonably well connected. Chaprassis have been hot-footing it between here and the town hall for the last three hours. I understand there’s been another shooting at Devil’s Elbow. Pick it up from there. But, before you do so, tell me – what did you make of Carter?’

‘Not my place to make anything of Carter,’ said Joe repressively. ‘But, for what it’s worth, I thought – good man.’

‘Somebody you could work with?’ asked George innocently.

‘Certainly. But, before we go any further – why do you ask? In fact, you can answer another question if you will – I was very grateful to you for the offer of your guest bungalow but I couldn’t help wondering why you had offered it to me.’

‘Why? Does there have to be a reason why? Thought you might be glad of it.’

‘It didn’t, I suppose, cross your mind that you had an unsolved shooting practically in your back garden and that a little input from the Met might not be out of the way?’

Sir George broke into a roar of laughter. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘There’s no fooling Sandilands, as they say at Scotland Yard! You’ve guessed my secret! Yes, Joe. It did just cross my mind that this affair might be right up your street and in my devious old mind I went one further and thought, He won’t be able to resist, and, dammit, from the eager look in your eye, I believe I was right! But, Joe, I say, be tactful. I’m sure I don’t need to say this – I’m hoping you’ll work with Carter. He’s no fool and I don’t think his amour-propre will suffer but some might resent the suggestion from me that he could do with some help.’

Joe eyed him with exasperation but with amusement too. ‘I’ve been manipulated, I know that. And, of course, Carter has been manipulated as well. His last words on this subject to me were, “I’d be glad to have somebody to talk to.” ’

‘And you don’t mind?’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Joe slowly, ‘because of Korsovsky. I saw him killed, don’t forget. I was the last person to see him alive and, it would seem, the only person in Simla to remember him. And I will remember him. He was an impressive man. Some bastard gunned him down before my very eyes.’

‘And you don’t hang that on Sandilands and get away with it.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Joe. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Know just how you feel,’ said Sir George. ‘When I was a young man in Persia I got very interested in cock fighting. I had some very good birds. Gave it all up years ago of course but now, if I see a cock fight by the side of the road, I can’t just pass by. I have to see what’s happening. It’s the same for you. Once a copper… But now, tell me what happened.’

And Joe gave him an account of the events at the Devil’s Elbow concluding by asking, ‘Anything in particular strike you about this?’

‘Beyond the obvious fact – only this: both men were on their way to Simla. Neither man got there. Someone or some people had an interest in preventing them reaching Simla. Isn’t that the fact? Now who could that have been?’

‘Or, as Carter believes, a mad sportsman. He said, “Someone trying out a new rifle.” I can’t accept that very easily. But then it’s almost impossible that there should be a link between a Russian baritone and a British officer. No connection between the two.’

‘Well, we shall see. And, by the way, I said in my note that we were due at the theatre at nine. It’s not yet officially known that Korsovsky’s dead and he wasn’t due to perform until the day after tomorrow so I would guess that all goes ahead as planned. Won’t be much of an evening, I’m afraid; it’s very early in the season and they won’t have had much time to rehearse. The Operatic Society are doing a turn or two. Bits and bobs, you know, a sort of review to open the new season – “The First Cuckoo” or “Ragtime in Simla”, something of that sort. Look, there’s no reason why you should go, Joe. Why don’t you recover from the rigours of the journey?’

And to an aide-de-camp entering at that moment, ‘This thing at the theatre tonight, James – don’t have to go in uniform, do I? Black tie be all right? Well, there you are, Joe. If you want to come – black tie.’

Bathed and changed (black tie, white mess jacket) and after an outstandingly good dinner washed down by two bottles of claret, Sir George and Joe set off together in the carriage, two attendant aides-de-camp on horseback, two syce on the box and one man running in front with a lantern. Joe lay back enjoying the busy glamour of Simla. The whole town seemed to be on the move. Rickshaws, one or two carriages, men in dinner jackets – a few in uniform – women in evening dress and long white gloves making way for Sir George who bowed and smiled absently as they went by, Sir George pointing out the sights.

Joe was enchanted by the strings of electric lights which marked out the narrow and winding road ahead. Dipping and climbing and skirting the pine-clad slopes they looked like garlands on a Christmas tree. A full April moon added a natural illumination to the scene and Joe felt his spirits reviving. He made a polite remark to Sir George on the quirkiness of the architecture of Simla, pointing ahead to the slopes of the Lower Bazaar, clinging like a swallow’s nest to the hill. It rose in uneven layers, topped by corrugated iron roofs and dissected by flights of stairs climbing to the Mall above.

‘It’s a really terrible place, Simla!’ said Sir George confidentially. ‘Edwin Lutyens – architect chap – New Delhi – had it absolutely right. Took one look at Simla and said, “If one were told that the monkeys had built it, one could only say – What clever monkeys! They must be shot in case they do it again!” ’

He burst out laughing. ‘That really says everything that needs to be said but, all the same, everybody will tell you – when you come up from the plains you feel twenty years younger in Simla. It’s not only the fresh air. It’s the atmosphere. Irresponsible, you know. An adventurous spirit. Even at my age I feel it. No wonder people go off the rails from time to time when they get here. Most of them come up to Simla with the firm intention of going off the rails! So, my boy, mind what you’re about!’

Through the thickening crowd and threading their way though the parade of timber-framed and Anglicized villas, they clattered across the Combermere Bridge and the pale bulk of Christ Church came in sight.

‘There’s the cathedral for you,’ said Sir George unnecessarily. ‘People talk about the Anglican compromise – not much compromise about that! It’s as unashamedly Home Counties Gothick as you could find. You must go and look inside sometime. Frescoes were designed by Kipling’s father. And if you’re here on Sunday you must come and saunter about on the terrace amongst the rank and fashion.’

‘I’m not expecting to have much sauntering time,’ said Joe drily.

Turning a corner they came on the theatre, brilliantly lit.

‘Might be a Victorian music hall,’ said Sir George. ‘Hindu Baroque I always say.’

With a certain amount of flourish the carriage came to rest. A syce went to the horses’ heads, ADCs dismounted, carriage doors were opened and Joe and Sir George stepped down into the throng that opened up for them. As they entered the foyer an ADC leaned forward and murmured, ‘His Excellency isn’t here tonight, Sir George, nor the Governor of the Punjab. You’re the most prominent European, I’m afraid, sir.’

‘Do I have to do anything?’

‘I don’t think so, sir. Just bow and smile.’

‘I spend my whole life bowing and smiling,’ grumbled Sir George. ’Still, I suppose I’m paid for it! Ah, good evening Mrs Gallagher. And is this Margaret? Margaret! I would never have recognized you! So grown up, if you’ll forgive my saying it. First season?’

Others pressed round him.

‘May I present my sister, Sir George? Joyce, this is Sir George Jardine, Acting Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal.’

‘Delightful! Delightful!’ said George. ‘First visit?’

‘This,’ said an ADC in a discreet murmur, ‘is Colonel Chichester’s widow who was here last year.’

‘Ah,’ said Sir George, ‘Mrs Chichester! How delightful to see you again! Second visit, I believe? Third, is it? How time passes! And may I present Commander Sandilands who is staying with me – for a few weeks, I hope. Eh, Joe?’

Somewhere in the background a not very skilled orchestra was tuning and in groups of twos and fours the crowd dispersed by degrees to take their seats in the gilded boxes which surrounded the auditorium.

‘Doesn’t look as though they’ve heard about Korsovsky yet,’ said Sir George as they took their seats. ‘Wonder if they’ll make an announcement? Well, just as long as they don’t expect me to.’

Joe looked about him. Bright eyes, what his mother would have called ‘bold glances’, piled hair and silk dresses, white shirt fronts, moustached faces. Every now and then the light was reflected from a monocle amongst the audience. Joe felt himself transported back to a disappearing age. He was aware that, as Sir George’s guest, he was the focus of curiosity. ‘If I had a moustache, this would be the moment to twirl it!’ His eye was caught by Mrs Graham, the companion of his journey up to Kalka, and he greeted her, to her satisfaction, with a conspiratorial wink.

With a few bars of what Joe believed to be the overture to Aida, from the six-piece orchestra, the show began. The house lights were turned out and the curtain rose on a one-act comedy played with considerable skill and to much applause by a cast of four.

‘Angela,’ he overheard from a near neighbour, ‘really doesn’t look a day over thirty.’

And the acid reply, ‘I can sit in the sun and look twenty-one, while she’s forty-two in the shade!’

The drawing-room comedy gave way to the Choral Society – ‘List and Learn, Ye Dainty Roses’ – and to a male voice choir which boomed out the ‘Soldiers’ Chorus’ followed by a floundering Cakewalk danced to a jazz record by a coltish group of only slightly embarrassed girls.

‘If this was truly music hall fifty years ago, you could have one of them sent to you in the interval,’ said Sir George. ‘Just mention it to James!’

‘Oh, sir! For goodness sake don’t!’ said James nervously.

‘Come, come, James! We must look after our guests, you know!’

The dancing brought the first part of the entertainment to a close. Gossiping and chattering, the crowd proceeded to the foyer. Cigars were lit and, considerably daring, one or two women accepted cigarettes from their escorts. Genial and expansive, Sir George let the crowd wash about him.

The second and main part of the programme was a melodrama with a cast of eight in three acts. It had been a long day and Joe began to nod, losing the thread from time to time of the unnecessarily complicated plot. The applause, however, was warm and people were beginning to stir in their seats and gather up their wraps when a girl came on to the stage and held up her hand. The audience at once fell silent and looked at her with pleasurable anticipation. She was wearing a long, simply cut white satin evening dress with a red rose at her breast. Her hair, caught in the stage lights, was the colour of a freshly minted King George the Fifth penny and hung, shining and loose on her shoulders.

Pretty girl, thought Joe automatically. He glanced at his programme to see who this might be but there was nothing listed after the melodrama. He was turning to Sir George for some explanation when she began to speak.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the theatre management committee I have to make an announcement.’ Her voice was low and musical and carried well to all parts of the auditorium. This was a girl who was used to appearing on stage, Joe thought. Taking her time, she swept the gilded boxes with a confident gaze, gathering attention.

The audience settled into a rustling, whispering expectancy.

‘A tragic announcement, I’m afraid. We’ve had many distinguished performers in the Gaiety Theatre and all had been looking forward to hearing perhaps the most distinguished of all – Feodor Korsovsky, booked to perform here for four nights this week.’ There was a long pause. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have to tell you that Monsieur Korsovsky was shot earlier today on his way to Simla. He was killed on the Kalka road.’

The gasp and the roar of astonishment that greeted her words drowned for a moment what she had further to say and once again she held up her hand for silence.

‘At the moment,’ she continued, ‘there is little more to say but, in his honour and in his memory, I am going to sing a Russian song.’

The murmur of expectancy and surprise broke out again. An Indian with a stringed instrument in his hand slipped quietly into the orchestra pit below her.

‘This song,’ she went on, ‘should properly be accompanied by a balalaika but Chandra Lai will do the best he can.’ She nodded to the Indian who plucked a chord on his instrument. They nodded to each other again in an unbroken silence and she began to sing.

Her voice was untrained and soft but sweet and true. Joe knew enough Russian to make out that this was a lament. A song of sadness at a parting. A song sung, as far as he could guess, in perfect Russian. And perhaps here in the foothills of the Himalayas this haunting farewell was not out of place. It was a song of the mountains, the distant Russian mountains, beyond which a girl’s lover had strayed never to return.

The song wound its way through three verses to the soft accompaniment of the strings. Joe was spellbound. Who, he wondered, could this be? Who was this girl, herself overcome by the pathos of her song and with tears, he noticed, running unheeded down her cheeks?

So, after all, someone had been waiting for Feodor. Someone in Simla was mourning him.