Barbara Cleverly by Ragtime in Simla Read Free Book Online

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
    Ť ^ ť
    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