Barbara Cleverly by The Palace Tiger Read Free Book Online Page B

had just witnessed was not an accident. He had little experience of aeroplanes but had listened for hours with interest and pleasure to the stories of Squadron Leader Fred Moore-Simpson in the time they spent together as guests of the fort at Gor Khatri on the North-West Frontier, had even gone up with him once or twice, and he remembered his terror when Fred had demonstrated with mischievous relish a stall at five thousand feet over the Khyber Pass.
    He thought he knew what to look for. Kneeling in the sand he hauled in the lengths of twisted steel cable that had linked the controls in the cockpit with the elevators. He picked up the two ends, brushed away the sand and looked at them closely.
    In a formal tone he replied to Madeleine’s request. ‘I observe that the control cables are both broken. To the naked eye - and I will need to have a magnification of this, of course, to verify my observation - it appears that several strands of the wire have been cut through. The cut is clean and straight, the section recently severed. Two
    no, three, strands were left intact. These subsequently snapped, I presume, when placed under the stress of the final manoeuvre - a loop - before the plane crashed. These strands are stretched and ragged at the break point.’
    Tight-lipped, Madeleine listened and looked carefully at the cable ends.
    ‘What are the chances of damage like this happening accidentally?’ asked Joe.
    ‘Accidentally?’ said Madeleine. ‘No chance! No chance at all!’
    She fixed him with desperate brown eyes, ‘Commander, my husband was murdered.’
    Left alone at the scene of the crash, Joe looked down at the broken body in speculation. He had sent Edgar and Madeleine off in the Rolls along with the tail section and had settled to wait for help to be sent from the palace. Udai, sick unto death himself, if George had it right, had lost his two oldest sons in the space of a few weeks. Edgar’s fears were being realized. Joe had just witnessed the second act of a murderous tragedy and his policeman’s mind was asking the usual questions beginning with the glaringly obvious ‘Who stands to gain from these deaths?’ He tried to remember what Sir George had told him about the other possible heirs to the throne and number three in particular.
    With relief, he noticed that a rider was making his way at a gallop from the town. He paused briefly to exchange a word or two with Edgar and Madeleine as he passed the Rolls and then came on down the road. The man approaching rode well but with none of the stiffness of a military man. He was wearing a solar topee, khaki drill jacket and trousers, and his horse was a fine, tall sorrel. Looking about him with a keen eye he dismounted and, leading his horse, came on towards Joe, hand outstretched.
    ‘How do you do? Claude Vyvyan. British Resident at Ranipur.’
    Joe extended a blackened hand and tried not to flinch as Vyvyan grasped it firmly. ‘Joe Sandilands. Commander, Scotland Yard.’
    So formal and ridiculous was the exchange, Joe almost expected Vyvyan’s next utterance to be ’I see you’ve been having a spot of bother?’
    What he did say was, ‘What a bloody awful mess! Thank God you were here. Though I’m sorry you ran into this shower of shit.’ He batted away a straying strand of tinsel and grimaced apologetically.
    Joe smiled and looked with interest at the man who was the power behind or, more probably, beside the throne in Ranipur. Vyvyan moved with an athletic grace unspoiled by the parade ground. In his early thirties, he was as tall as Joe and, as the portly Edgar had not failed enviously to notice, had a slim and elegant figure. Seeing that Joe was bareheaded, Vyvyan swept off his topee and the two men stood for a moment assessing each other. Cold blue eyes, Joe remembered, had featured in Edgar’s description. Not cold, he thought, not cold to him at least, but intelligent and penetrating. The nose was commanding; he’d seen its like on a portrait of the young Duke of