Barbara Cleverly by Ragtime in Simla Read Free Book Online Page B

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