Текст книги "The Palace Tiger"

Автор книги: Barbara Cleverly

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Joe considered this. ‘No. I would say – no. Ajit spotted her in the centre of the draw on her way down from the den. He tracked her as far as the next sector – Claude’s stand. From there she was in view tree by tree until I put a bullet in her.’

‘Thank you, Joe. You’re very patient. And clear.’

‘Sir Hector, is there a point to all this?’ Joe asked uncertainly.

The old doctor came close to him and shot a swift anxious look at the door flap. He paused for a moment, listening, before he answered.

‘I think we’ve got another one of those, Joe,’ he said.

Chapter Twenty-Two

This was the last thing in the world Joe wanted to hear and for a moment his mind refused to take in what Sir Hector was saying. He stifled the automatic objections that leapt to his lips and instead sat down, silently absorbing the doctor’s assertion, made carefully, unwillingly and fearfully. It was not an assertion he could dismiss out of hand.

‘You mean you’re not happy with the circumstances of the death as reported?’ he asked. ‘Surely nothing could be clearer?’ He pointed to the claw in the dish. ‘He even left his calling card.’

‘And there’s the problem,’ said Sir Hector. ‘Just follow a thought through with me, will you, Joe?’ He sighed and tugged at his moustache in his anxiety. ‘I’m sure you’ll say I’m being unnecessarily pedantic and after all, if you look at the line-up of witnesses closely involved – two top police officers, the best tiger hunter south of the Himalayas, the Resident, the maharanee, Sir George’s trusted hatchet-man . . . well, who am I to throw a spanner in the works and tell you you’re all deluded?’

‘And is that what you’re saying? Come on! Out with it! What have you seen?’

‘Unfortunately, I haven’t got my microscope to hand . . .’ He rummaged in his bag and produced a hand-held lens. ‘I use this for removing splinters and suchlike. It will have to do.’

He leant over the table and examined the claw again with the aid of the glass. ‘Ah! Yes! I was not mistaken. Here, take a look yourself, Joe.’

Joe looked and blinked and looked again.

‘Could you perhaps wash the rest of the blood off, Sir Hector? We need to be quite certain about this . . . Thank you. Yes, that’s even clearer.’ He spoke slowly. ‘To my inexperienced eye, this claw has a slight striation along the length of it which might be a split or crack; it has a chip at what you might call the business end and the whole claw has a yellowed appearance.’ He looked up at Hector. ‘In fact it reminds me of nothing so much as my great-aunt Hester’s teeth in her declining days. Hector! This is the claw of an old tiger!’

Hector nodded. ‘Colin! You must fetch Colin!’

It was pitiful to see the change that had come over the old hunter in the last two hours. Like a man just hanging on to the threads of consciousness after a stunning blow to the skull, Joe thought. Colin was going through the remembered motions of polite response but his spirit was somewhere beyond reach. Blaming himself for the whole fiasco, Joe realized, and he acknowledged that in his place he would have reacted in the same way. He guessed that Colin would have seen in Joe’s eyes a reflection of his own pain and guilt had he been able to focus on anything other than his inner turmoil.

He followed Joe without question back to the doctor’s tent. Joe handed him the magnifying glass. ‘Look at this object in the dish and tell us what you see.’

Colin studied the claw and then said with a note of puzzlement creeping in, ‘A claw. Tiger claw. Well worn . . . chipped . . . judging by its colour I’d say from a mature if not aged beast. What is all this?’

Joe and Hector looked at each other. ‘That’s what we thought. Would it surprise you to hear that I’ve just extracted it from the boy’s throat wound?’

‘Yes, it would. The old tigress went nowhere near the thicket where Bahadur was found. He was killed by the cub,’ said Colin patiently. ‘And, anyway, I’ve never come across a claw being left in a wound before. Just doesn’t happen.’

‘Colin,’ said Joe gently, ‘that’s a claw I’ve just witnessed being taken from Bahadur’s throat.’

Colin was beginning to rally and recover his old sharpness. ‘Something wrong here . . . I think we should have another look at the wound, don’t you? Sir Hector, would you . . .?’

They gathered around the body, taking care to leave elbow room for Sir Hector as he retrieved his instrument. Joe held up the magnifying lens in position for him as he worked. Suddenly he stopped and grunted. ‘Pass me that probe, will you? Third item from the right, top row . . . There it is. I’m sure I’m not mistaken. Oh, good God!’

‘There’s what?’ hissed Joe.

‘Deep wound to the jugular. Severs the vein. And not delivered by a tiger’s claw. Much, much deeper than a claw could penetrate. It’s straight . . . slim. Insignificant surface entry marks and these camouflaged by subsequent laceration administered by the claws. Two sharp edges, clean cut. The skin has retracted over the mouth of the exit making a very small wound indeed. Very easy to miss. Stiletto? Isn’t that what those Italian blades are called? Went in at an angle, so delivered by someone taller than the victim. But then, who isn’t?’

He put down his probe. ‘I’d say the lad was killed by a stab to the jugular. It could have been delivered from behind. There’s the faintest bruising on the jaw. Here, Joe, kneel down for a second, will you?’ He demonstrated, advancing on Joe from behind, grabbing his chin and holding his head firmly. ‘Not a good idea to pull the head up too far – you can lose the arteries behind the windpipe but that’s not generally known. We’ll assume our man pulled upwards. Such a small throat, he wouldn’t have had a problem.’ He raised his scalpel and Joe cringed as he brought it down sharply, the point hovering over his exposed throat. ‘Clear run at the neck, you see, and that way the jet of blood is directed away from you and you don’t emerge from the undergrowth covered in blood. There would have been a lot of blood . . . And the boy was standing at the time, as you see from the blood trails on his clothing.’

‘But the claw wounds, Hector? What are you saying about them? Were they inflicted before, at the same time as or after the insertion of the blade? Did the tiger come across him as he lay dead? Can you tell?’

Sir Hector sighed. ‘Speaking generally, post-mortem wounds are diagnosed by the absence of signs of vital reaction. If a wound is made while the victim is still alive, tiny blood vessels are ruptured and the heart – if it’s still beating – forces blood into the tissues around the damaged area. The blood clots and it’s difficult to remove by washing. Pass me the water and that sponge over there. I’ll see what I can do.’

He worked on, muttering about microscopes, white cells and leucocytes, only half expecting Joe to follow. Finally, he put down his instruments and washed his hands, saying thoughtfully, ‘Difficult to believe but the claw wounds seem to have been inflicted at the same time as, or as near as makes no difference, immediately after, the stab to the neck.’

Hector shook his head. ‘The poor chap appears to have been mangled as he was dying by an elderly tiger with a loose claw but that’s as far as I can go with the medical evidence. Beyond this point I’m out of my territory. Sorry, but it has to be over to you and Colin now. I’ve done all I can and probably said more than is warranted – or safe.’

‘Hector, thank you! You’ve been most meticulous. No one else would have noticed there was anything wrong and what fools we would have been. Look, can I ask you both to say nothing of what we’ve seen for the moment?’

Colin and Hector nodded their agreement and Joe went on, ‘And I’m sure you’d understand the reason if I were to suggest that the next step might be a second autopsy?’

Hector began to look affronted but Colin nodded. ‘I see where you’re going with this, Joe. You wouldn’t have been about to call for an autopsy on a tiger, would you?’

‘Exactly that!’

‘Oh, er, I’m afraid you’ll have to count me out, old boy. Not my area of expertise at all,’ Hector demurred.

‘It’s all right, Hector,’ said Colin. ‘You’re looking at a world-class dissector of tigers! I always remove the paws, the head and the pelt, sometimes with nothing more than a penknife. It’s expected. No one will think anything of it if I go and do that right away. In this heat, the sooner the better. Will you come with me, Joe?’

They found the tigers where the bearers had left them in a small clearing next to the supply tent. Many men had gathered round to marvel at the size of the beasts, to gossip and to commit to memory every detail of their deaths at the hands of the scarred sahib. And here was more excitement. The eagerly anticipated moment when O’Connor Sahib would skin them. Murmurs of encouragement greeted Colin and the freshly bandaged Joe as they approached to examine the bodies.

‘Start with the young one, shall we?’ said Colin briskly. Joe found he could in all honour not look away when all the eyes of the admiring crowd were trained on the swift silver knife as it worked over and through the body. He found it helped to concentrate on Colin’s matter-of-fact commentary delivered in Hindi and English. Off came the paws with a cursory examination. ‘Trace of blood on the right front. Healthy young beast. About three years old, I’d say. Not much wear on the claws. All five on each front paw intact and four claws on each of the hind paws.’ Catching Joe’s flash of interest, he added, ‘Tigers only have four claws on the back paws, Joe.’ He turned his attention to the head. ‘Do you want this prepared to hang over your desk at Scotland Yard, Joe? It’s yours by rights!’

The head was set on one side to be collected by the palace skin-curer and the pelt followed, Colin rolling it up carefully. ‘They say a diet of human flesh is bad for tigers but I must say I’ve never found any evidence of that. Always seem to be in perfectly good condition. This one certainly was. The other one now?’

He moved over to the tigress and the crowd murmured savagely under its breath. They knew who was the real villain. They knew it was the tigress who had become a man-eater and terrorized their villages for months, killing their children, their parents, their cousins. Teaching her cub to become a killer. Colin began methodically to carry out the same procedure, talking to Joe as he worked. ‘Always a good idea to do this when a man-eater’s involved,’ he commented. ‘Physical flaws can often explain why the creature’s taken to the unnatural habit of preying on men. I note that this one has been blinded in the left eye but I understand that is a recent wound and not the reason behind her change in diet.’

Three paws were removed then, detaching the fourth, he held it up to the gaze of the audience. ‘And here you have it. Porcupine quills. Must have come off worst in a fight with a porcupine.’ He counted. ‘Eight, nine, ten quills have penetrated the paw to quite a depth. In fact some have worked their way in, hit the shin bone and done a U turn. Must have been painful and incapacitating. I think this tells us why she took to catching slower, feebler prey. All claws in all four paws in place and I would judge that she wasn’t all that old. More than ten, less than thirteen years perhaps? Weight? A good size for a tigress . . . I’d say 350 pounds or thereabouts. And the pelt . . . Fine coat rather ruined by two bullet holes. Looks as though Edgar got her in the side before you finished her off, Joe. Look, old man, would you mind very much if I offered this to the headman of the local village?’

‘I think that would be very fitting,’ said Joe and the pelt was carried off with whoops of triumph.

They made their way back to Hector’s tent. All signs of the autopsy had been cleared away, the body covered in a white sheet, and Hector was sitting quietly on watch. He listened with raised eyebrows to Joe’s account and then said simply, ‘Well, your experts have given their forensic opinions and evidence, Joe. We can go no further. Nothing more we can do here. Does anyone have plans for the body? There’s no way we can get it back to the palace before dark today and you know they cremate their dead within twenty-four hours.’

‘It’s all right, Hector,’ said Colin. ‘Ajit’s dealing with that. A pandit has been summoned and the cremation ceremony will be carried out by the villagers at first light. We’ll take his ashes back to Ranipur to be scattered in the river.’

He approached the body and looked sadly down at the torn features. ‘Poor, poor little scrap,’ he murmured. ‘And when someone dies, aren’t there always things you regret? Things you didn’t say . . . things you did say . . .’

There was something underlying Colin’s sadness that invited Joe to ask, ‘Something you said, Colin?’

He seemed relieved to be prompted to say, ‘Yes, you all heard me. Ticked him off in front of everyone. Last thing I ever said to him. Told him not to fool about with his whistle.’

‘Sounded entirely reasonable to me,’ said Joe. ‘The lad was a bit overexcited . . . could have caused havoc. But was there something behind the warning?’

‘Yes, there was. He’d been larking about in the night. Surprised you didn’t hear anything, Joe?’

‘I did hear . . . things,’ said Joe. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, I’d taken the precaution of leaving a night watch on duty. Oh, they didn’t enter the camp – their brief was to discreetly patrol the perimeter. So I was surprised when one of the chaps woke me up at three in the morning. He said there was a problem in front of the tents. Couldn’t work out what it was but a large patch of something white, shining in the moonlight, had caught his attention. He thought I ought to investigate. We went along and found that the ground between Claude’s tent and the one opposite – Captain Mercer’s, I think – an area of four by four yards – had been strewn with flour.’

‘Flour?’ The doctor was astonished, Joe less so.

‘Did you alert anyone?’ he asked.

‘Yes, we did. Got poor old Claude out of bed. Couldn’t understand what was going on but when he twigged, he was prepared to put the blame on Bahadur for a particularly pointless practical joke.’

‘What steps did you take?’

‘Sent for a broom and brushed it away as best we could and then, egged on by Claude, we did something I’ll always regret. Turned into schoolboys ourselves. Must have been the full moon, the spirit of camaraderie . . . I don’t know what. It was Claude’s suggestion. He was spitting angry and determined to teach the boy a lesson but all the same I should have put the lid on it.’

‘Colin, what did you do?’

Colin swallowed, his head drooped and he said softly, ‘Claude took the flour we’d swept up and spread it in front of Bahadur’s tent. Then we faked up a trail of enormous tiger paw prints marching straight up to the door – the old pebble in hanky trick.’ He looked at Joe, stricken, tears in his eyes. ‘It wouldn’t have fooled him for half a minute! He’d been out in the jungle with me many times and I’d taught him all I know about tracking – even the tricks! He would have recognized it as such in no time at all and, I would have thought, erupted with laughter. That would have been normal. He liked a joke.’

Joe’s mind was absorbing these details, unpleasant with hindsight, and linking them with facts he remembered himself from the night before. ‘Colin, was anyone else aware of what you and Claude had done? What Bahadur had done?’

‘Hard to say because I was rushing about liaising with the lead mahout by then and not really thinking about practical jokes. The lad got up late and by the time he came to breakfast I think everyone must have seen it. Assumed it was one of his own pranks, I suppose, rolled their eyes and passed on – I’m describing the actual reaction of – Madeleine, I think it was . . . yes . . . Madeleine. She laughed and said, oh, something like: “I see the man-eater dropped in for a midnight feast.” Surprised to hear the detective hadn’t noticed though?’

‘I was more wakeful at the other end of the night,’ said Joe. ‘And I too made a late appearance. He’d had time to get rid of it by then.’ He was reconstructing Bahadur’s puzzling remark. Something about springing a trap set by Bahadur the great hunter, he remembered.

‘You shouldn’t put on a hair shirt for all this, Colin,’ he said. ‘Not your fault. But it is someone’s fault. Someone who very nearly got away with murder and who, if it hadn’t been for Hector’s thoroughness, undoubtedly would have done. Because you were fooled, Colin, Edgar was fooled and I was fooled.’

‘Fooled you may claim to have been, Joe,’ said Hector, ‘but it’s going to be up to you to make some sense of all this. I must say I can’t make head or tail of it. All I know is that the third heir is dead in our care and there’ll be hell to pay when we get back!’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Riders had been dispatched ahead of the rest of the group to break the news at the palace. Shubhada had insisted on going with them, claiming it was her duty to speak to the maharaja first. No one was eager to contest this dubious privilege though, dutifully, Claude offered to escort her himself. His services were finally accepted with rather bad grace, Joe thought, and the advance party set off in the grey dawn.

The return journey was uncomfortable, spent tête-à-tête with Edgar who went over the previous day’s events again and again, trying to work out why it should all have gone so hideously wrong. Was it possible to mistrust a man who had saved your life twice in as many months? Joe wondered, his instincts to confide the minimum to Edgar very strong. In the end, Edgar’s repeated expressions of concern for his old friend Colin and the damage the death of Bahadur might do both to the man and to his reputation, persuaded him to tell Edgar about the doctor’s findings.

‘So you see, there was very little Colin could have done to prevent it . . . if, indeed, it was a case of murder as Sir Hector has made out. Can a hunt manager be expected to take as a factor in his arrangements the possibility that one of the shikari will murder another one? I don’t think so. The shoot went according to plan – well, almost.’

‘And, apart from the inquisitive doctor, the murder too. Admit it, Joe, that was a piece of ice-cold planning combined with a recklessness that makes your hair stand on end. Who the hell would have been able to do that? Who is so ruthless that they’d stab a child in the throat? Who would have had the opportunity? You and I had each other in our sights for the whole time from the bugle to the whistle, you might say, so we can rule each other out, I think.’

‘It’s not quite that clear,’ said Joe grimly. ‘I heard what I thought was a langur bark a warning about half an hour before the bugle blew. But, thinking about it later, I realize that the monkeys in my tree didn’t respond. They knew it wasn’t one of their own tribe. I think it may have been Bahadur’s attempted call for help . . . or his death cry. If someone killed the boy well before the hunt started, he would have had plenty of time to get back to his tree . . . or his position . . . not everyone was on a machan . . . before the tigress started her run down the nullah. Let’s imagine the scene, Edgar. Now, let’s assume you’re the villain for a moment.’

Joe brushed aside his spluttered protests. ‘You get up into your tree, having had the forethought to take up there with you a pair of gloves and a blanket – standard issue on each of the hunt elephants – and immediately everyone is settled you climb down again armed with these bits of equipment and a knife of some sort – not the skinning knife from the howdah, I think – too broad. Then you weave your way, easy for a tracker like yourself to do (I believe even I could have managed), between the clumps of tall grasses back across the nullah. With everyone’s eyes glued to their own sector, you could have done it. Half an hour is plenty of time to get to Bahadur’s tree. You call up to him to come down on some pretext. He trusts you and comes down while Shubhada’s back is turned. Perhaps it’s your lucky day and you don’t even need to trick him into coming down; perhaps, nervously, like the rest of us, he becomes obsessed with the idea of having a pee and comes down for that purpose –’

‘Joe, I won’t interrupt again but I have to say – there was a patch of damp soil near the body as though someone had done exactly that. I thought at the time it corroborated Shubhada’s story.’

‘So you were already thinking at that time that people’s stories might need corroboration, Edgar? That’s interesting.’

Edgar grunted in a non-committal way and Joe went on, ‘So, the kid is standing in the undergrowth with his back to you. With your gloves on and the blanket tucked in front of you to soak up any blood splashes, you aim to put a hand over his mouth and plunge the dagger into his neck. Aware at the last moment that something’s not right, the lad screams and tries – almost makes it – to pull the revolver out of his waistband. But you prevail. When you think he’s dead you roll up the blanket and gloves – if you’ve been careful you might not have needed them anyway – and, and what . . .?’

‘Throw them away in the underbrush? No one searched the area more than ten feet away from the body and they were never going to – no reason. Stow them away on a tree, bundle them up, take them away with you and put them on the campfire? I’d have hidden them at the bottom of Bahadur’s funeral pyre,’ offered Edgar helpfully.

‘Yes, you would,’ said Joe. ‘And in London I’d have a squad of blokes checking whether those items went missing and whether any of the howdahs had traces of blood in them, but how the hell at this distance do we find out? The men will be half-way back to the palace or dismissed and gone home to their village. So little time at the crime scene because, as far as everyone’s concerned, it’s not a crime scene. Perhaps we should have made Ajit aware?’

‘I’m sure he never travels without his thumbscrews. You know very well why you didn’t tell Ajit!’

‘Yes. The murder was committed either by a European or by Ajit himself. An investigation likely to give even him pause! He might, for the sake of appearances, have aggressively interviewed a few beaters, roughed up a cook or two . . . who knows? . . . some poor sod might have been given a free one-way ticket to the capital.’

Edgar replied thoughtfully, ‘You underestimate Ajit. And that’s always a mistake. But let’s look again, shall we, from the obvious angle. Who had the opportunity?’

‘Anyone who was within a mile at the time,’ said Joe despondently. ‘So that’s the five people mounted on the machans, Colin who was roaming around . . . Madeleine and Stuart? Where were they, by the way? Back in camp? If so, that rules them out.’

‘No. In fact, they came along too. I heard them arguing about it before we all climbed aboard our elephants. Stuart wanted to see the action and asked for another elephant to be brought round. Madeleine didn’t want to go but he was persuading her, I think, by the time we all set off. They could have been cruising about anywhere in the vicinity. A word to the mahout to let one or both of them down for a minute . . . Problem – now why on earth would Stuart or Madeleine want Bahadur dead? Doubt they even knew him and they could in no way profit from his death.’

With vivid memories of his night with Madeleine, Joe was silent and it was a moment before he replied. ‘Of course, we’d know more if anyone had bothered to interview the mahouts. But how could you? This is Ajit’s territory and we were investigating a tiger slaying after all.’

Edgar asked thoughtfully, ‘And aren’t you inclined to think that’s exactly what we are dealing with? Joe, you don’t suppose the doc could have got this wrong, do you?’

It was with strong feelings of foreboding that Joe passed in the Dodge under the elephant gate and into the courtyard. Govind was waiting for him holding a slip of paper on a silver tray. A summons! Already! His heart sank.

‘A message, sahib, from Sir George Jardine. He has been trying to contact you by telephone and sends strict instructions that the moment you arrived back you were to speak to him on this number.’ Joe took the sheet of paper.

‘I’m coming with you,’ Edgar announced and, despite Joe’s objections, insisted on accompanying him.

They followed Govind to the communications room, where a telephone sat in splendour and state in the centre of a mahogany table. Govind pushed a chair towards Joe, found another for Edgar and bowed out of the room. Joe set out his police notebook and a pencil on the table, wiped his sweating palms on the knees of his trousers and picked up the handset. He asked the voice at the other end to connect him with the Simla number. Moments later Sir George’s voice erupted down the phone. Joe winced and held the receiver a little way from his ear. He wondered whether he would ever find the words to convince George that loud-hailer techniques were not necessary when using this modern equipment. He realized that Edgar would be able to hear every word.

‘There you are, my boy! Glad you could at last get yourself to a telephone. Now Edgar managed to find the ops room three days ago or I wouldn’t yet know that Prithvi Singh had all too literally bitten the dust.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, it’s been rather hectic over here . . .’ Joe embarked on an embarrassed apology.

‘So I hear. Those chess moves tax a fellow’s stamina. Lucky that Edgar found the resilience and the time to file his report.’

‘Before we go any further, sir, I should perhaps tell you that Edgar is himself at my side as we speak.’

‘Well, that’s nothing but good news. Saves me making a further phone call. I’ll speak up. Now then, suddenly, this morning I find the news of Prithvi’s death presents me with rather a problem. A problem of etiquette.’

‘Etiquette?’ said Joe, startled. ‘We too have our problems not unconnected with Prithvi’s death, sir, but I wouldn’t have said that protocol featured particularly in our –’

‘Yes, I’m sure, and you can tell me all about them in a moment. Now listen, Joe. On Tuesday night the good Edgar telephones me saying that the second heir to the throne has been killed. Now – not sure where you’ve got to down there but it’s Friday in Simla – yesterday, while you were all away chasing tigers, I received a missive from the maharaja. Sent, quite properly, by special messenger. It had been sealed and dispatched the day before Prithvi died. Quite extraordinary and – I’m sure you’ll agree – significant. It contained official advance notice of the betrothal of the prince’s second son Prithvi Singh to . . . what’s the girl’s name . . .’ Papers rustled and George began again, ‘Princess Nirmala, one of the daughters of Mewar state. Sensible move. An alliance between Ranipur and Mewar would, of course, always be interesting to His Majesty’s Government. Preliminary announcement and all that to assess our reaction to the forthcoming marriage. A fixture set for next month, I’m informed. Polite of him to let me know . . . all very correct . . . but you see my problem, Joe. Do I reply to this, causing hurt and offence, or do I tear it up and send my condolences on a death of which I have not yet been officially informed, possibly causing hurt and offence. Advise me.’

‘George! I had no idea! No one has mentioned this, not even his first wife . . .’ said Joe, reeling at the information.

‘Ah, yes, the fan-dancer. Is she still about the place?’

‘She is.’

‘Well, they couldn’t have kept it quiet for much longer but as the poor chap died before anything could come of it, they’ll want to keep it to themselves for the princess’s sake. Very Rajput. Wouldn’t want her name spoken of in harness with that of someone who’s no longer with us – could be damaging to her future prospects. With a bit of luck they’ll have been able to cancel the invitation cards. Anyway, I’ll hold fire for a day or two, see what transpires, what? Now tell me what you’ve been up to.’

Wearily, Joe started on his concise account of events since his arrival in Ranipur. Sir George listened so quietly Joe once or twice had to check that the line had not been cut. Finally George asked, ‘Is it too early to ask if by any chance you’ve come up with a solution to these mysteries? Three deaths? Any idea who’s behind all this?’

‘Yes. I have. Yes, I really think I have,’ he said. ‘Now that the evidence is in. I’d like a little more time to clarify things,’ he finished uncertainly.

‘Quite a puzzle, I agree,’ said Sir George, ‘but, look here, I think at least I can help you out with 3 across. Still got Edgar with you?’

‘Yes, he’s here.’

‘Right. He’s just the chap you need. Put him on for a minute, will you?’

Joe passed the earpiece to Edgar but heard every word of Sir George’s commands before he signed off.

‘Edgar, can you find your way to the silah-khana?’

‘Of course, Sir George.’

‘Then take young Sandilands there at once. You’re to show him the baghnakh. See if it gives him a few ideas.’

Edgar hung up the receiver with a hand shaking with excitement, his expression one of stunned amazement. ‘The baghnakh! The bloody baghnakh! That’s how he did it!’

In the irritating way of a conjuror who is determined to hang on to his surprise until the last dramatic moment, Edgar would say no more but hurried along the corridors until they arrived at a door Joe recognized. The armoury.

They slipped inside, having checked that they were unobserved, and Edgar switched on the lights. ‘Now, Sandilands, remember turning down my invitation to view the gladiatorial exhibits, the other night? This time you can’t refuse. George’s orders.’

‘Stop being so bloody mysterious and get on with it!’ Joe snapped.

Edgar approached a glass case and lifted the lid. ‘Ah. Both still in there, I see. Probably nothing in it but you can see what George was getting at. Hideous, hideous things! Baghnakhs! Sorry but there’s no word for them in English. Wouldn’t want one. The sound of the Hindi says it all, I think.’