“Yes, Sebastian and Viola, I know. They say Shakespeare got it wrong, that identical twins have to be, well, identical. But as you can see, it sometimes happens that a brother and a sister come pretty close to being cut from the same mold. We’re even both short-sighted and left-handed. However, I assure you that I’m half an inch taller, have a better sense of humour, a superior seat in the saddle, and can beat her at darts any day of the week. I’m also not nearly half the trouble she can be. I don’t suppose she’s still here? Her husband’s having the devil of a time finding her; he’s peppering me with telegrams, sending me chasing all over the country.”
The dark face was busy re-evaluating the person in front of him, trying to shape me into this new form. I left an amiable look on my face, and prayed that my moustache would stay in place.
“No,” he said at last. “She left here a week ago precisely. Vanished during the night, taking a few articles and leaving a note to ask that we forward the rest of her things to an hotel in Delhi. Which I believe we did.”
“Oh, you did, all right. That’s what set a burr under the old man’s tail, Mary’s bags showing up without her. Not that it’s the first time she’s pulled a disappearing act. Last time it was Mexico; she spent the better part of a month with the wife of Pancho Villa, or girlfriend or sister, some damned thing. ‘She only does it to annoy, because she knows it teases.’ Nesbit invited me here more to escape the telegrams than because I thought she’d be here. You have any luck with your panther?”
“Panther? Oh, yes. We got him, although we had to use a gun to do it, unfortunately. He came for me out of some rocks, and I was ready for him but he had one taste of the spear and decided he didn’t like it much. He turned tail, swiped a chunk out of one of the beaters, then took to a tree and wouldn’t come down. We’d have set fire to it to bring him out, but the field was too dry, it would have burnt the village with it.” During the telling, his attention had shifted from me to Nesbit, the one who might appreciate the tale. I was glad to see the shift, because it indicated a degree of acceptance that, unlikely as it seemed, Martin Russell might be who he appeared.
I didn’t ask after the wounded beater. Mary would; Martin wouldn’t.
The others began to catch us up, their horses plodding and stained with sweat, and we went through the same shock of introductions with the four of them who had met Mary. With the maharaja’s acceptance, however, the lead was down for them to follow, and I slipped into the rôle of visiting male friend without great difficulty. One of the young women, a newly arrived friend of the novelist Trevor Wilson, even batted her eyelashes at me.
We met for drinks on the terrace, with the sun slanting low over the rooftops behind us and the talk circling about the panther, its ferocity and speed, the bravery of the men approaching it with nothing but sharp sticks. At one point the animal itself was paraded through on a sort of decorated stretcher for our approval. Its sleek hide had been sponged to remove the gore, but I thought that, while the pair of gashes in its shoulders should prove easy for a taxidermist to stitch into invisibility, the great hole in its chest might prove more of a problem, particularly if, as the maharaja clearly did, one regarded a bullet as somewhat shameful.
Perhaps damaged skins were set aside to upholster more furniture.
The sun retreated up the walls, and a thousand small oil lamps were lit for our festivities, tiny earthenware saucers with floating wicks that added an incongruous touch of romance and tradition to the evening. A passing servant asked if I would like another gin and tonic, but I turned down his offer, knowing that we would shortly be off to our rooms to dress for dinner.
However, the maharaja had a surprise up his sleeve. With a flourish, not of trumpets but of his arm, he raised his voice and called us to attention.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have for you a small entertainment, a performance for your amusement and your mystification.”
That was all the warning I had before the tall, black-clad figure of my husband was escorted in from an unlit corner. Holmes had kept his own clothes, I saw, although he wore a Moslem cap instead of the starched turban, and his boots had been replaced by soft native shoes (which meant, damn it, that the knife and pick-locks in his heels were no longer a part of his equipment). I saw with relief that he had not been mistreated—his motions with the mirrored balls were fluid, his posture dignified, the broken English of his patter word-perfect. Whatever the maharaja was doing with him, Holmes seemed happy enough to go along with it for the moment.
He ran through most of the one-man stunts, and if the audience was vastly more sophisticated than the rustic villagers he normally performed for, even the English guests were caught up in the mystery of where objects went when they left his hands, and why they might reappear in unlikely places.
After twenty minutes, the mirrored juggling balls sparkling into nothingness for the last time, he bowed first to the maharaja, then to us, and made as if to leave. But the maharaja would have none of it; he called various people forward to examine the innocent hands of the magician, to pat his sleeves and marvel at the absence of hidden pockets (Holmes was a surprisingly competent tailor, when the need arose). Nesbit and I hung back, but we did not go unnoticed.
“Come,” our host called. Nesbit stepped forward and I reluctantly followed. The prince held up the magician’s hand as if this were the foot of a horse to be examined for stones, and he patted Holmes’ wrists, which showed nothing but brown skin—not nearly brown enough, I saw in alarm; dyestuffs are not readily available inside gaol. Holmes stood impassively under the handling, his eyes meeting mine but giving no sign of recognition—clearly, he had studied the crowd on the terrace from his dark corner and seen me talking with Nesbit.
And then the maharaja said to me, “Do remove your topee, Captain Russell; you’ll be able to see better.” Holmes tensed, his hand making a fist, his eyes darting to the guards as he prepared to fling himself to my protection.
But a topee is not a turban, and I had been my teacher’s pupil before I became my husband’s wife, learning to my bones that half a disguise is none at all. I lifted my topee, smoothed my regulation officer’s haircut with my other hand, and bent forward obediently to witness the lack of tricks up the magician’s sleeve.
The moment my short-cropped, pomade-sleek, unquestionably masculine hair passed beneath his nose was the closest I’ve ever seen Holmes to fainting dead away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The magician was led back into the palace, either escorted or under guard, according to the eyes that watched him go. The rest of us drifted away to dress for dinner. My clothing had been ironed and either folded away or hung in the spacious wardrobe, and the safety razor and shaving mug I had borrowed from Nesbit were laid out in the bath-room, ready to lend the verisimilitude of smooth cheeks to my appearance. I launched into the laborious process of donning a man’s formal attire, fumbling with the studs and cursing under my breath at the tie, working for just the correct touch of insouciance. The indicators of quality in a human male are more subtle than those of the female, hence all the more essential to hit it right. Hair combed but not plastered; shoes of the highest quality and shined to a mirror gloss, but clearly not new; fingernails clean but not pampered. When the knock came on my door, I presented myself with all the nervousness of a débutante at her Court presentation.
Nesbit ran his eyes over me, coming up with approval and a trace of amusement, which made me glad, that he was beginning to get past his dislike of the clandestine impetus for our invasion of Khanpur. He did not care for spying on his friend, but he would do so at the top of his bent.
“Shall we go?”
“I didn’t hear the bell.”
“Time for a drink before,” he suggested, and Martin Russell followed him agreeably down to the billiards room.
The atmosphere of the palace had shifted in my absence, although I could not lay my finger on the how or why. Mrs Goodheart had left, off to Bombay to see her “Teacher,” taking Sunny with
her; that accounted for some of the change. And although Gay Kaur was there, her hands trembling as she lit a cigarette, I saw neither Faith nor Lyn, who had seemed to me steadying forces in the maharaja’s ménage.
For one thing, we seemed to be heavily weighted to the masculine now, the three flighty German girls gone, a couple of visiting wives returned to their homes. The feminine exodus had left behind eight rather hard-looking females who would only by the furthest stretches of chivalry be termed “ladies,” two of whom I thought I recognised from the nautch dancers, as well as four diminutive Japanese girls, two peculiar-looking albino women, and three of the maharaja’s female dwarfs, all of them wearing heavy make-up and scanty dress.
We didn’t actually make it as far as the billiards room, not with drinks being served on the terrace. We were standing with our glasses in our hands and a couple of flirtatious women in our faces when Thomas Goodheart came onto the terrace, spotted me, and stopped dead. I carefully took no notice of him, bending instead to listen to the witticism of the painted lady, but he certainly took notice of my every action. After a few minutes he brought his drink over to where Nesbit and I stood.
“Hello, Captain Nesbit,” Goodheart said, although he was watching me as he spoke. “I didn’t know you were coming to Khanpur.”
“Good evening, old chap,” Nesbit said, pumping the American’s hand in greeting. “And I didn’t realise you were still here. I don’t see your charming sister. Or your mother.”
“No, they’ve gone to meet Mama’s friend. I stayed on to … I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, although he didn’t sound at all sure of it.
“Captain Martin Russell, old friend of mine,” Nesbit told him. We shook, and I arranged a somewhat tired smile on my face.
“From your reaction I take it that you, too, have met my twin sister. Whatever she did, I probably don’t want to know.”
Nesbit’s ease and my hearty masculinity completed what the haircut and false moustache began, and Goodheart, like the others before him, began tentatively to accept this peculiar coincidence. I felt various eyes on me during the evening, but my mask did not slip, and by the evening’s end, I was Captain Russell, not Miss.
After dinner we were again entertained by nautch girls, and although they were the same dancers who had entertained us the other night, their performance tonight was a rather different thing from that wholesome version. When the dozen figures came into the durbar hall, whirling and clashing and gyrating seductively, I could not help glancing to see what Geoffrey Nesbit made of it. He seemed much taken aback, so much so that he looked over at me and then quickly away, his face going blank, if slightly pink about neck and ears. Clearly, this was not a form of entertainment commonly offered on his past visits.
I kept my place, grateful that I was not on the outside and thus a target of one of the sinuous women, and it was with huge relief that I saw them leave: It would have been exceedingly awkward had the evening degenerated into a whole-scale orgy then and there. When the group rose to adjourn in the direction of billiards or cards or the smaller-scale orgy that no doubt was scheduled for elsewhere, I made my excuses and headed for the doors.
Unfortunately, Nesbit was not with me. The maharaja had claimed him early, kept him by his side, and looked to be intent on keeping him now. I met his eyes across the room as I left, an exchange that said without words that he had no idea when he might join me. I sat for a while in the fresh air of the garden, making a display of smoking a cigarette through, then went upstairs to my quarters to wait for Nesbit. As I passed, I offered a cigarette to the chuprassi positioned outside our rooms, who took it with gratitude. Inside, I changed my formal wear for something dark and tough and suited to climbing cliffs. Then I waited.
I waited a very long time.
When Nesbit came, there was no missing it. Scuffles, loud grumbles, and a stifled burst of laughter preceded him down the corridor; his door slammed back, and a minute later a crash came, followed by more hilarity. I pulled pyjama bottoms and a smoking jacket over my clothes and went into the hall-way. Three servants were backing out of Nesbit’s door, looking amused until they spotted me and went obsequious again.
“Is the old man all right?” I asked the one assigned to squat at our door.
“Oah yes, he has merely taken much drink.”
“Thanks for getting him here in one piece,” I said, and absently distributed cigarettes to all four, then let myself into Nesbit’s room, closing the door behind me.
The man’s drunkenness was not an act, not entirely. I thought at first it was, expected him to put it aside and go rational, but he was too far gone for that. Not that the rational portion was entirely overwhelmed. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, shoeless and wearing neither tie nor coat, when I came in. He raised his wavering head.
“Ah, Russell. My ol’ fren’ Martin Russell. Have to ask you to help me into the johnny, that’s a good man.” He raised his arm, asking for my support, and I went to his side to haul him upright. My shoulder kept him from falling, and we made the cloakroom without mishap. “Tha’s fine, you jus’ leave me here for a minute.”
From the bedroom I listened to the sounds of gagging and retching. When the splash of the flush toilet had run its course, I took him a glass of water and helped him back to the bed. He dropped heavily down, his hands clutching his skull to keep the world from whirling.
“Sorry,” he said, slurring the sounds. “Sorry. He wouldn’t let me stop, and there’s only so much whisky you can spill on the floor. God, this is bad.” I saw his face change, and hurriedly shoved the shaving-bowl into his hands. A second glass of water was sipped more slowly, and stayed down. “Never seen him like this. Madman,” Nesbit muttered.
I took the description as hyperbole, and waited impatiently for him to tell me what we were going to do next. All plans of making a reconnaissance of the Old Fort had clearly shot out the window; by the time Nesbit was sober enough to walk, it would be light.
“Saw the magician again,” he said.
I straightened sharply. “Where?”
“In the … Where were we?” he said to himself. “The gun-room.”
“That horrible fur-lined room? Why?”
“Jimmy wanted to see his tricks. Clever man.”
“I know,” I said. “Did you say anything, accidentally?”
“No.” He spoke firmly, with absolute assurance, and I thought that this might be one drunk who retained a thin edge of control.
“Did he give you anything?”
“Who?” He raised his head, struggling to focus on my face. “Jimmy?”
“No, Hol—the magician,” I said, although we were speaking quietly.
The green eyes narrowed exaggeratedly in thought, and Nesbit started to pat his pockets, then looked around for some place to put the glass. I took it, and watched him search pockets with clumsy fingers until impatience got the better of me, and I dipped my own into breast and coat pockets until I encountered the tiny twist of paper, no bigger than an apple seed.
“Got it,” I told him. He blinked owlishly at the object, and I resigned myself to the fact that there would be no more help or even sense got out of the man tonight. Holmes’ skin dye would have to last another day. I pulled back the bedclothes and patted the pillow. “You go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Got things to do,” he declared, and prepared to rally his body’s mutinous forces to his side.
“Nesbit,” I said in a firm voice. “Geoffrey, there’s not a thing either of us can do tonight. Sleep it off. We’ll talk in the morning.”
He focussed on my face, inches from his, and then his eyes went soft, and after a minute he sagged sideways into the pillow and went limp. I pulled the bedclothes up to his shoulders and crossed the room, but at the door I heard his voice.
“Pig sticking. In the morning. Early.”
Damnation.
Outside, I gave the servant a third cigarette and told him, “Nesbit sahib will
need aspirin and strong coffee when he wakes. And someone to help him shave,” I added.
“Yes, sahib,” the man said merrily. “Aspirin and coffee we have much of.”
I’ll bet, I said to myself.
In my room, with a chair braced under the door’s handle, I eased open the tiny wad of thin paper Holmes had secreted in Nesbit’s pocket:
First floor, southeast wing. Keys in the desk box. Bring rope, morphia, needle.
I was accustomed to odd shopping lists from Holmes, but this gave me a moment’s pause. Rope I could probably find, but the rest? As I traded my dark clothes for nightwear and climbed into bed, my mind was taken up with ways in which I might casually ask the servants for a drug addict’s gear.
Nesbit looked like death in the morning. The aspirin and coffee might have got him dressed and on the horse, but only time would restore the colour to his face and the flexibility to his posture. Still, he was there, and mounted, albeit looking decidedly queasy. His greeting to me was a brief nod; his answer to the maharaja’s hearty greeting not much more effusive. The prince laughed and clapped his guest on the shoulders.
“You’re getting soft, Nesbit,” he declared. “Not holding up the British side.”
“The day’s not over yet, Jimmy,” Nesbit answered, but the maharaja only laughed the louder. I realised with a shock that this drinking partner was still half drunk; how the hell could he manage the intellectually tricky and physically demanding business of going after pig? And I was none the happier when he chose Nesbit and myself as his partners for the run.
We rode five miles northwest, past the air field to where the servants were waiting. During that time, Nesbit pulled himself together, his seat improving with every minute, his green eyes taking on the gleam of challenge. It was a relief, to think that we weren’t all going to be hopeless at the task ahead.
The maharaja, on the other hand, became increasingly peculiar. His high spirits seemed to twist as we went along, climbing and turning hard, his remarks to his guests taking on an edge of spite, even cruelty, his hand on the reins causing his lovely white Arab to fret and sidestep nervously. When we reached the servants, it had worked itself into a sweat despite the coolness of the morning, and the lead shikari eyed his master and the Arab’s sweaty neck with equal apprehension.