The Game (48 page)

“Possible, my foot,” his superior officer said with a grin. “You planned for it. That’s why you worded your vow the way you did. You knew someone would come after you sooner or later, and had to trust that they would be able to haul you off.”

“Or drive me at gunpoint,” O’Hara said, shooting a grin of his own in my direction. “Yes, I admit it: another tit-bit of pride, to sweeten the tongue.”

“The sweetness of the plan must have faded considerably, after two years in a cell.”

“Not at all. I knew my son was safe, and I knew he would arrange things as needed, with the assistance of my . . . friends. Once I had the amulet away, I knew it was literally only a matter of time.”

By way of response, Holmes reached forward to knock out his pipe against the stones of the fireplace, then pulled the heavy knife out of the cedar kindling-block and drove its point into the side of his boot-heel. Reluctantly, the heel parted, and Holmes picked from the base of it the small oilskin-wrapped amulet that had set us on our play of The Game long weeks before. He tossed it over to O’Hara, who dropped the rosary in order to catch it. He cupped the object in his right palm, his face going soft with affection.

“One of the guards had a small son he loved, who fell ill,” O’Hara told us. “I cured the boy where the physicians could not, and in gratitude, the man passed my amulet on to a friend in Hijarkot, who would give it to a relative in a camel caravan, and so on. I was glad to hear that it survived.” He slipped it into his robes, and his hand resumed the beads. His left hand had not moved from the boy’s dark head.

“And now, Mr O’Hara,” Nesbit said, his voice taking on the edge of a superior officer. “Do you have a report to give me?”

With that demand, tension took hold of the dank stone room. It all came down to this: a report demanded and given. From the beginning, his friends had sworn to O’Hara’s loyalty, but his being locked in the maharaja’s gaol did nothing to obviate the doubts. He could as easily have been working for India as for Britain.

But the imp Kim looked out of the middle-aged eyes, as if he knew what we were thinking.

“Oah, of course I have a report,” he said. “I have ears, the guards have tongues, their master enjoys teasing his prisoners, and the hours are long for purposes of analysis. Do you wish my report now?”

“The gist of it will do.”

“The maharaja of Khanpur plots rebellion, but of a twisted and most secretive kind. He is using The Russian Bear to supply himself with guns and ammunition, which he will pass on to the most radical of firebrands he can find—the makings of tons of explosives, guns fresh from Germany. When he is ready, he will then secretly open his borders to the Bolshevik troops. But he has no intention of handing them India. Instead, he plans to allow them in just so far, and then raise the alarm. When the British respond, in force, after the Russians are extended into his land, he will shut the door behind The Bear’s back. The Bolsheviks will be trapped between Khanpur and the Indian Army, where they will be crushed entirely. For the second time, a maharaja of Khanpur will become an heroic defender of the Crown, and his reward this time, for saving British India from The Bear, will be vast.

“His reward, in fact, will be India itself.”

“The Lenin of the sub-continent,” I interjected softly.

“You might say that,” O’Hara agreed. “Or a native Viceroy.”

“Native prince, hereditary ruler,” Holmes mused. “The blood of the Moghuls in his veins, a thousand years of experience in his hands. A compromise between Congress and the Moslem League, certainly, but a shining opportunity as well, for India and England. Gandhi and Jinnah wouldn’t have a chance.”

“The English would seize upon Khanpur’s maharaja with vast relief, that with a man of his stature in charge, they could now withdraw with honour.”

“Leaving the country in the hands of a murderer and a madman,” I pointed out.

“Which is why we cannot allow his plot to ripen even one week further.” It was O’Hara who spoke, which surprised me.

“Wouldn’t continuing to involve yourself in Survey business be furthering the actions of the Wheel of Life?” I asked him.

“One attains merit through action as well as by refraining from action,” he answered piously. “The innocent must be given the opportunity to attain self-knowledge, which the unfettered actions of the wicked would prevent.

“To say nothing of the fact,” he added, “that it should be jolly fun.”

Our startled laughter woke Bindra for a moment. He kneaded his eyes with his fists, located his father, and settled again, nuzzling into the robed lap with a sigh of contentment.

“If I understand you aright,” Nesbit said, ignoring my digression, “you would suggest that action be taken that does not bring the Army into this? Since,” he noted, his green eyes beginning to dance, “it was you who suggested that we might not wish to approach the encampment at this time.”

“Oah, Nesbit, truly you are a man after my own heart.”

“What do you propose?”

“Well,” the Irish Buddhist said, “you were willing to carry me on your shoulders from The Forts to the borders of Khanpur, until Miss Russell drew her gun.” Holmes stirred, and I realised, belatedly, that he knew nothing of the events of the previous midnight. “But as that demand was not made upon your back and sinews, perhaps, given a few days for your leg to heal, you would not mind carrying the considerably lesser weight of the maharaja?”

“Kidnap him?” The quirking of Nesbit’s mouth showed his love of the idea, although the hesitation in his eyes said he was thinking, too, of the report he would have to make to his superiors. Particularly if the plan went awry.

“Invite him outside to Delhi, for conversations,” O’Hara suggested.

Holmes took his pipe out of his mouth to point out gently, “He is in a heavily guarded fortress.”

“There is at least one concealed entrance,” O’Hara said. “When he came to the Old Fort in the night, he did not always come smelling of the outside world, but of stones and dampness.”

Holmes nodded. “I thought as much, the first time he came to my cell. But if a passageway links the Old Fort with the New, that would still require passing a number of guards. Unless it also has an opening to the outside.”

I sat up as if brushed by a raw wire. “The zoo!” The three men looked at me. “When the maharaja showed us the zoo, I noticed a small pathway going around the back of the lion pen, past the entrance used by the zookeepers. The big path was marked heavily by bits of spilt food and the drag of equipment, but beyond it was the sort of footpath worn by a single set of feet, walking it with regularity. His dogs knew it as well—when they would have gone down it, he called them back. Sharply.”

“That could be anything,” Nesbit objected.

“I think not. The lion pen itself is built right up against the hill of the Fort, firmly into its westernmost side. And just before going to the zoo, I was in a room in New Fort located on the heights of that same side. The toy room, he calls it. Have you seen it?” I asked Nesbit.

“Years ago, and briefly. But you’re right, it is on the western spur of the New Fort.”

“It has a hidden door. I noticed the wear on the floor there, where the marble is grey with soil and scattered particles of gravel. The servants do not clean in the toy room very often. And in fact,” I said as another piece of the puzzle came to me, “the maharaja has the reputation of sorcery—of being able to appear and disappear unexpectedly. No doubt this is partly explained by the number of purdah screens throughout the Fort, which would conceal a small elephant, but there may be a network of hidden passages as well. And you’d expect one to the outside, such as down to the zoo.

“Too,” I said before they could object, “there may be a similar hidden passage in that horrid fur-lined gun-room of his. A room which is near the gates on the east side, a location which would be very convenient for crossing under the road to the Old Fort in the night. A passageway smelling of stones and dampness.”

Silence again fell in the room, but it was an electric silence of intense speculation rather than repose. Even the boy was awake—or had given up the pretence of sleep—and had drawn himself up at his father’s side.

“Provocative,” Holmes said at last, and proceeded to repack his borrowed pipe with the Indian black leaf.

“You’re certain?” Nesbit demanded.

“Of soil and wear on the floor near two blank walls? Yes. That those doors lead to the zoo and the Old Fort? Of course I cannot be sure.”

“Even if we find a door out of the zoo, we could wander underneath the Fort for hours,” he fretted.

“Oah, Nesbit,” O’Hara said gently, “you English are so unhappy with uncertainty.”

“And you Indians are so deucedly eager to embrace it.”

The two men grinned at each other in easy understanding.

“However,” Nesbit said, struggling to get to his feet. “Tomorrow I ride to the encampment, to arrange a proper show of support once we get the gentleman across his border.”

We spread ourselves around the main room, Nesbit and myself on the narrow iron-framed beds, the others on the floor. Bindra turned down the paraffin lamp and padded back to his sleeping roll in front of the low-burning fire. We lay, silent with our thoughts, Nesbit’s bed creaking and complaining as he sought to find a comfortable position for his leg, but at last even he fell still.

But it was O’Hara who had the last word, voicing a thought that was going through my own mind, and I think Holmes’ as well.

“In the morning, when we are fresh, I should like to propose that the expedition into Khanpur be done posthaste.” Nesbit’s bed squealed in preface to his reaction, but the Irishman on the floor cut him off by saying, “I do not propose this tonight; but in the morning, we need to talk about it.”

Nesbit subsided, positively radiating distrust and suspicion. One by one, we slept.

All but O’Hara. Whenever I woke during the night, I could see him sitting before the dying embers, breathing the words to the prayer
Om mane padme om,
over and over again, his long rosary beads clicking softly as outside, light snowflakes whispered against the window-glass.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I
n the morning, Nesbit’s green eyes glittered with fever, although he
swore that it was nothing, that he was capable of riding, that he would carry the maharaja on his back if it came to that. Holmes and O’Hara glanced at each other over the wounded man’s head, and said nothing, not then. But after we had eaten the eggs and bacon the servants cooked for us, both men drifted away outside where they stood, Holmes trying to get his pipe alight, O’Hara again fingering his rosary, their breath swirling into clouds in the heatless morning sun. I gave them five minutes, then walked out onto the fresh snow after them, my unprotected scalp tightening with the cold.

I saw no reason not to come to the point. “I’ll not be left behind to play nursemaid.”

O’Hara’s hands stopped their motion as he gave me a look of surprise, but Holmes merely smiled into his troublesome pipe.

“You want to go today,” I continued. “I agree: If the maharaja was angry enough to shoot his pet monkeys yesterday, then today, after having all of us escape him at one time, he’ll be insane with rage. I’m glad Sunny is out of things, but the others are too vulnerable. We can’t wait until Nesbit is fit, but I refuse to stay with him. Leave Bindra here.”

“Unfortunately, I have given my word that the boy will not be left behind again,” O’Hara told me.

“As you wish, although I don’t believe I’d take a son of mine into that hornets’ nest. When do we go?”

“It is better that you stay here,” O’Hara said. Holmes took an involuntary step back.

“And why is that?” I began, then stopped. “No, don’t bother, I don’t need to ask. What do women need to do in order to be taken as equals? Become Prime Minister? For heaven’s sake, just pretend I’m ‘Martin’ if it makes you any happier, but let’s have no more words about leaving Miss Russell out of anything. Besides, you need me. I’m the only one who’s been to the toy room.”

“You can draw us a map.”

“Inaccurate. And you’d need to use a torch or matches, either of which would be seen from the room’s high window. I can walk it in the dark.”

O’Hara’s dark eyes travelled to consult Holmes, who nodded and said, “She has a certain skill at the Jewel Game.”

O’Hara studied me, as if such a talent would show on the surface, then said abruptly, “You went into the stables yesterday night.”

“Yes,” I replied, wondering if he was accusing me of something. “I wanted to see that the horses had been looked after.”

O’Hara had something else in mind. “We will cover your eyes, and you will walk through the stables by way of demonstration.”

It seemed to me a rather silly exercise, but we were, after all, embarked on a game here, and perhaps my accepting the challenge would move things ahead more rapidly.

And so it proved. From the moment O’Hara snugged the linen dish-cloth around my head to the time we slipped across the Khanpur border was a matter of half a day.