Barbara Cleverly (26 page)

‘So – confide in me, Joe! I think you’ll agree I have an interest. What are you going to do?’ She sighed and rubbed her head against his shoulder.

‘Find out who’s blackmailing you, track him down and we’ll have found our murderer.’

‘Do you think you can do in three days what I’ve been unable to do in three years? I have made my own enquiries, you know. Discreetly of course. Rheza Khan is in my confidence, has always been in my confidence, and our combined efforts have been fruitless.’

‘Well, at least we’ll have the full resources of the law at our disposal – Scotland Yard’s finest, Simla’s specials and the incomparable Sir George Jardine – that’s quite a line-up of talent, you know!’ Joe spoke lightly and reassuringly. ‘But – I have to know, Alice – to what extent is Rheza Khan in your confidence?’

‘I told him why I was being blackmailed when the first demand note arrived. That I had assumed Alice’s identity, that is. It was a risk but I had to trust someone. And I’ve never regretted it for a moment. He asks no questions – he never has. He’s a Pathan, you know: natural conspirators, perhaps the best in the world. Over and over again he’s shown me that I can trust him. He knows I’m not who I claim to be but he is content with that.’ She stirred uncomfortably. ‘Joe, I haven’t told him all that I have told you about my past. He doesn’t know about my

my career in France. He doesn’t know about Korsovsky and all that.’

‘Well, he won’t hear about it from me. None of my business.’

‘I wouldn’t like him to find out. I would prefer to keep his respect. And I’m sure that at the moment I have that. He gives me discreet and unstinting help. He arranged to cover the outgoing sums of money. He covered it easily. The regularity and consistency of the leakage made it easy apparently. He runs the finances of the firm and I think he just invented other phantom employees with credible salaries. He’s not concerned about who I am. I arrived in India with complete authority and I used it. To good effect. He accepts me and would do much, I believe, to ensure that

’ Her voice trailed away and she looked thoughtful for a moment before adding, ‘He has my complete trust.’

The moonlight filtering through the moving branches lit up and concealed her features by turns, reflecting her uncertainty. Joe looked with pity at the lovely, defenceless face. Who was she able truly to trust? he wondered. Who had she ever been able to trust? Used, deceived, passed from man to man and ending up literally in the arms of the law. In the sheltering arms of a man who was far from being her protector, a man who threatened her liberty and perhaps her life. And yet he recognized that he was feeling a deep urge to protect her, to keep her safe from her enemy. Time to move on.

He rose and pulled her to her feet, tucking her revolver into his pocket. ‘It’s getting late. I’ll escort you back to the Mall and you can pick up your rickshaw. If we stay away together any longer there’ll be much worse rumours circulating in Simla tomorrow.’ He steered her towards the staircase. ‘And as we go, I’ll tell you how you can help us with this next bit.’

Joe extended a hand to steady Alice as she stepped into her rickshaw and, swept by an impulse, stood, her hand in his, and by a further impulse stooped and raised it to his lips and kissed it. They stood for a moment looking at each other in silence.

‘Joe,’ Alice breathed, ‘I wish I knew a bit more about you. You know everything there is to know about me and I know nothing, nothing whatever about you. That’s strange.’

‘There’s nothing to know really,’ said Joe. ‘I’m very pedestrian.’

Alice looked at him, considering, for a moment. ‘That’s the impression you try to give but I think there’s more to it than that.’ And then in a low voice she called to the rickshaw men to proceed.

Creaking, with the patter of running feet and the tinkle of warning bells, the rickshaw set off down the curving road, leaving Joe watching it and her disappear. ‘You know all there is to know about me,’ she had said. Not true, thought Joe. The rest of my life wouldn’t be long enough to find out all there is to know about that very remarkable, very complex and, let me admit it to myself, that very seductive girl. What’s that charge that’s sometimes levied? ‘Interfering with a witness’? That’s one witness with whom I would so happily interfere!

He turned to go on his way but out of the shadow there came a gently mocking voice. ‘ “Oh, what can ail thee, Knight at Arms, alone and palely loitering?” ’

Charlie Carter stepped into the dim street light. ‘Loitering, Commander? Loitering with intent to commit a felony?’

Joe was quite extraordinarily pleased to see him and said so. ‘Though how the hell you knew where I was I don’t suppose you’ll ever tell me!’

‘Oh, it’s not difficult! I picked up your trail after the seance. So did Alice’s rickshaw men, a couple of pi-dogs joined in the chase, “and after them, the parson ran, the sexton and the squire”. The whole of Simla’s agog by now, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Well, whatever,’ said Joe, ‘I’m devilish pleased to see you! And I’ll tell you – I could really do with a drink. It’s been quite an evening one way and another!’

‘Funny you should say that – that is exactly what Sir George said to me. Indeed, I’m under orders to bring you to him and if it’s a drink you want I can think of nowhere you’ll get a better one. We’ll walk, shall we? Clear the brain and you can run through some of the highlights of your tęte-ŕ-tęte with Alice.’

When they reached the Residence lights were burning and servants moving about.

‘Sir George has had a dinner party this evening and it’s only just dispersing,’ said Charlie. ‘There, look, that’s the last carriage moving off now. Step in here with me.’

They turned together and went in through a side door. They were greeted by Sir George in white tie and decorations. It had evidently been a formal occasion.

‘Flawless timing!’ came his booming voice. ‘Trust Scotland Yard! Been waiting for you. Didn’t know quite where you were or what you were up to. Come in here – we’ll go into the library. Now, what can I offer you? Coffee? Of course. Brandy? Brandy for heroes, you know and here we are, three heroes in a row.’

He clapped his hands and shouted, and almost before he had done so glasses and a decanter appeared and a tall silver coffee pot.

‘Now,’ said George when they were seated, ‘I’ve heard about the seance. Quite fascinating! Most irregular! Can’t imagine how you got Charlie Carter to cooperate in your nefarious scheme but it seems to have produced a result. And now I want to know – what happened next? It is known that you disappeared into the night with the attractive Mrs Conyers-Sharpe but more than that is not known beyond the fact that you spent an unconscionable length of time hiding, I might almost say canoodling, in an unfrequented garden. And I dare say you exchanged more than words! Set your mind at rest, however – I’m only interested in the words! Whatever else passed — ’

‘George!’ said Joe. ‘For God’s sake! Don’t let your imagination run away with you! But it is true – I have a lot to tell you.’

‘Well,’ said George, ‘I won’t say “the night is young” because it isn’t very, but here we are and we are at your service.’

Joe sipped from the proffered glass, lit the proffered cigar, crossed his legs, lay back in the cushioned armchair and collected his thoughts. ‘Firstly,’ he began, ‘it is admitted to me, though not necessarily or even probably to anybody else, that, incredible as it may seem, there was a switch. She whom we have known as Alice Conyers, whom I shall always think of as Alice Conyers, is in fact Isobel Newton otherwise known as Isabelle de Neuville.’ And he explained the events of the Beaune rail crash. His audience listened spellbound.

‘That,’ said George, ‘is the most incredible story I have ever heard!’ And to Charlie, ‘Did you have even the remotest suspicion?’

‘Never,’ said Charlie. ‘Never in a thousand years. In fact, were it not from her own lips I wouldn’t believe it now. Not sure I do believe it.’

‘Secondly,’ Joe continued, ‘Alice is being blackmailed. By someone or some people, male or female, Indian or English, who know and have known for three years her true identity. And she has paid. The blackmailers are desperate to keep her in place and will do anything including murder to do so. It’s absolutely true – find the blackmailer and we’ve found our murderer.’

Joe explained the system whereby payments were passed through Robertson. ‘And all we have to do is intercept the next payment. I’ve told Alice to carry on as though nothing has happened. If we all do this, the blackmailer will assume we are unaware of the switch. Now could be our moment to close in. It’s likely if he or they conform to pattern, and so far the behaviour has been very consistent, that a demand will soon be made for the removal of Korsovsky. We must lean heavily on Robertson, extract everything he knows and make him cooperate.’

‘You make it sound so easy,’ said Charlie.

‘I’m not deceived,’ said George. ‘I understand the problems. If we could prove it – and that’s not as straightforward as it might seem at first sight – we could bring an action for fraud against Alice but as far as the further investigations are concerned, what would be the advantage of that? None, as I believe. If the blackmailer realizes his game is up then he’ll disappear.’

‘So you’re intending no move against Alice?’ said Charlie, a note of indignation creeping into his voice.

‘I didn’t say that,’ said George. ‘But I’m certainly not going to act precipitately. But I particularly ask you, Joe, Carter, to treat Alice’s revelations in confidence between the three of us for the moment. This is a situation which bristles with complexity – criminal complexity, legal complexity. Indeed, just to start the ball rolling, answer me this – who has Alice (I’ll go on calling her Alice) defrauded?’

‘Well,’ said Joe, who had been asking himself the same question, ‘I conclude that she has defrauded real Alice, little Alice. Little Alice is dead so she has defrauded little Alice’s heirs at law whoever they might be and little Alice’s heir at law would, I suppose, be her brother Lionel and Lionel is dead so who do we come down to? Well, you may be surprised to learn that as far as I can work it out we come down to Reggie. No longer her husband of course but the joint inheritor from real Alice’s grandfather’s will. She fraudulently made off with fifty-one per cent of ICTC which would otherwise have reverted to him. At least I suppose that’s right?’ he concluded dubiously.

‘Reggie!’ said George explosively. ‘Bloody fellow! Can’t stand him!’

‘Didn’t think much of him,’ said Joe.

‘Can’t stand him,’ echoed Charlie.

‘Well, that’s fine,’ said Sir George. ‘We “unmask” – I apologize for the word – Alice, she is disgraced, her marriage is null and void, her position in ICTC probably completely compromised, the work she does in Simla and Bombay will fall apart and we elevate that drunken oaf Reggie to a position of trust and influence. Sounds like a jolly good evening’s work, don’t you think, chaps?’

‘George,’ said Joe, ‘what on earth are you saying?’

‘I’m saying, would you like to take shares in a company I’m thinking of founding? A little private company? I’m going to call it Fraudsters Anonymous or The Alice Conyers-Sharpe Protection Society. Any takers?’

With the warmest memories of his last minutes with Alice at the foot of the garden steps, Joe was tempted. With no such memories Charlie Carter was profoundly shocked. ‘You can’t be serious, sir!’ he said indignantly. ‘You can’t be preparing to compound a felony! Fraud is a felony and leaving aside the moral implications I don’t believe you’d ever get away with it.’

‘All right then,’ said Sir George, ‘if you won’t go all the way with me, and I acknowledge that there is a problem, let us at least agree on a stay of execution. Let us leave matters as they are. Let this complex situation roll on its way and let us exercise every sort of vigilance to follow it through until it leads us to our killer. I’m not issuing an order – I’m not quite sure if I’d be in a position to issue an order of that sort – I’m doing no more than invite your cooperation.’

He looked briskly from one to the other. ‘Do I have it?’

‘Yes, Sir George,’ said Carter.

‘Yes, Sir George,’ said Joe.

Ť ^ ť

Joe and Charlie Carter set out to walk through the streets of Simla, heading together for the establishment of Mr Robertson, the jeweller.

‘You’ve read Kim, I think you said?’ said Charlie as they went along the Mall.

‘Yes, indeed. And it did occur to me that perhaps Cecil Robertson has too! For a moment, stepping into his shop on Wednesday morning I thought I was entering the world of Lurgan Sahib!’

‘One of the best descriptions Kipling ever wrote! But I don’t think Robertson does it to play to the tourists. As far as his shop is concerned time has stood still. It’s been there for as long as I can remember and Robertson is not the first owner by any means. He continues a tradition. He performs an essential service. Lots of Indian families treat him as if he were a bank. Only the most informal records are kept but a satisfactory service is offered, it would seem. Many people prefer to deal personally with someone they know and can trust their money to rather than a faceless European bank with head offices in Leadenhall Street, EC1. No, he’s a man of many parts, is our Mr Robertson.’

‘Not above a little smuggling?’

‘Certainly not above a little smuggling. But then, almost nobody who lives in these parts is above a little smuggling. Jewellery, gold, opium, hashish

their passage back and forth over the frontiers is as old as the Himalayas. The government of India doesn’t worry too much. A little jewel smuggling this way and that doesn’t do any harm, but gold – now that’s a different matter. We wouldn’t want to see large quantities of that disappearing north over the border into Asia. Cecil Robertson has always been totally cooperative with us. In fact he’s given us two or three valuable tips over the years. We don’t interfere with the movement of gemstones – mostly on their way to China – and in exchange he lets us know

about other things.’

‘Other things?’

‘Yes, boys and girls. Jewels going into China, pretty boys and girls coming back again on their way to Kashmir through Chandigarh and on eventually to the Gulf. Poor little devils! We got a tip from Robertson last year. We stopped a bullock cart