While Del had been speaking, Rafe had recharged their glasses. They each claimed theirs.
“To success,” Del said, raising his glass.
“To justice,” Gareth offered, putting his glass alongside.
“To James MacFarlane’s memory.” Logan raised his glass to the other two.
They all looked at Rafe.
Who raised his glass to theirs. “To beheading the Black Cobra.”
They clinked, then drained their glasses.
Setting them down with a snap, they rose and left the bar.
September 14, twelve days later
Bombay
They met in the back room of the Red Turkey Cock, a smoke-filled tavern down a minor side street in one of the seedier native quarters of Bombay.
The tavern’s back room was a small square chamber with no window, the only entrance the doorway behind the scarred bar through which they’d entered. Logan, the last to arrive, let a bamboo screen rattle down to the floor behind him, a sufficient impediment to interested eyes. With Gulah, a massive ex-sepoy, manning the bar, and the otherwise flimsy walls reinforced by countless boxes and crates stacked against them, they weren’t too worried about interested ears.
“I don’t think I was followed.” Logan sounded disappointed as he slipped onto the last of the four rickety chairs set about a square wooden table.
“I don’t think I was either,” Gareth said. “But in this district, four anglos like us will be noticed and remembered—the Black Cobra will hear about our meeting without a doubt.”
“Ferrar knows something’s up.” A grim smile curved Del’s lips. “He knows we’ve resigned, and isn’t swallowing the gossip that we’re all devastated because of what happened to James. He’s been asking questions about our plans for the future.”
“Perhaps he’d like to recruit us?” Rafe said. “Come to think of it, that’s a tack we never tried.”
“Because he’d never believe it. The man isn’t just a cold-blooded killer—”
“Torturer, maimer, fiend,” Rafe supplied.
“—he’s clever, and cunning, and a great deal too powerful. So”—Del looked at Gareth—“are we ready to move against him?”
Gareth reached down, lifted a woven basket from the floor beside his chair, and set it on the table. His chair squeaked as he reached into the basket and lifted out four wood-and-brass cylindrical scroll-holders. “As ordered. The subcontinent’s version of a diplomatic pouch.”
The scroll-holders were identical, each about ten inches long and a bit more than two inches in diameter. Formed from strips of rosewood clamped together by brass bands, their lids were secured by a complicated set of brass levers of varying length and thickness.
They each took a holder, fiddled. “How do you open them?” Logan asked.
“Watch.” Setting the basket back on the floor, Gareth picked up one holder and deftly moved the six levers, one after the other. “It has to be done in that order, or the metal teeth inside don’t disengage. Try it.”
They all practiced. Gareth insisted they worked at it until they could open and close the holders by touch alone. “You might need to at some point—who knows?”
Rafe reached across and took the holder Gareth held, compared it with the one he’d picked up. “They truly are identical.”
“I don’t think anyone could tell them apart.” Logan looked at Del, then Rafe. “So we have the holders. Now for what goes in them.”
From his pocket, Del drew the sets of instructions Wolverstone had sent. “Five packets.” He separated out one with Original scrawled across a corner. “That one goes with the real letter. These”—he fanned out four identical packets—“are the decoys’ instructions. But we only need three.”
Now that James was gone.
They all looked at the four letters. Rafe sighed. “Shuffle the four, I’ll select one, and we can open it and see what form of instructions we’re going to find when we open our own sets later.”
“Good idea.” Del shuffled the four packets, held them out. Rafe drew one and handed it to Logan.
Logan took it, opened it, scanned the sheets inside, then handed them on to Gareth. “Comprehensive, but not specific, of course. The route we should follow, but no dates, no specified modes of travel. He does specify which English port we’re supposed to head for—Brighton, in this instance. Apparently we’ll be met by two men, Dalziel’s ex-operatives, who will have our route through England and our ultimate destination, neither of which are included here.”
Del nodded as he received the sheets from Gareth. He scanned them, then handed them to Rafe, who exchanged them for four slim packets he’d pulled from his inside coat pocket. “The three copies and the original.” Rafe cast a cursory glance over the now-to-be-discarded set of instructions while Del and the other three carefully unfolded and compared the copies and the original.
Reaching the end of the instructions, Rafe looked up. “We should destroy this.”
Logan held out his hand. “I’ll burn it.” Rafe handed the folded sheets over.
Del and Gareth had lined up the four scroll-holders across the table. They laid one instructions packet and one letter before each holder, making sure the original letter with its incriminating seal was paired with the appropriately marked instructions.
“As per Wolverstone’s directions,” Del said, “I sent him word we were putting his plan into action. It went ten days ago by fast frigate, so he’ll know we’re heading home in good time to have his men waiting at the ports.”
Rafe reached out, drew the nearest scroll-holder, letter and instructions to him, and set about opening the holder. “Now we do as he suggested and draw lots—in this case, scroll-holders.” He proceeded to carefully roll the letter and instructions and insert them into the holder.
The others followed suit, smiling faintly, all knowing that Del had been about to try to pull rank and argue that he should take the original.
He wouldn’t have succeeded—they’d resigned their commissions effective from this morning. They were all in this together, and equals in all ways now.
Reclosing his holder, Rafe asked, “Where’s that basket?”
Gareth hauled it back up. Rafe took it, dropped the scroll-holder he’d packed inside, then collected the holders from the others as they reclosed them, sealing in the letters and instructions.
“Right.” Rafe stood, closed the top of the large basket with his hands, then shook and rattled the holders, mixing them. With one last flourishing swirl, he set the basket down in the middle of the table and sat again.
“All together,” Del said. “We reach in, each takes a holder at the same time, whichever is closest.” He met the others’ eyes. “We don’t open them here. We leave this room together, but from the moment we pass through the door of the Red Turkey Cock, we go our separate ways.”
That morning, they’d moved out of the barracks. Over the years, each had gathered small households who traveled with them; those households were now packed and waiting, ready to leave, but all in separate locations.
They exchanged one last glance, then sat forward, reached into the basket. They waited until each of them had grasped one of the cylindrical holders, then, as one, drew them forth.
“Right,” Rafe said, his gaze locked on his holder.
“Wait.” Gareth swept the empty basket from the table, and replaced it with a bottle of arrack and four glasses. He splashed pale amber liquor into each glass, then set the bottle down.
They each took a glass and rose.
Del held his out. “Gentlemen.” He looked at each of them in turn. “To our continued health. Godspeed, and may luck be with us.”
They knew the Black Cobra would come after them; they knew they’d need all the luck they could get.
Gareth raised his glass. “Until we meet again.”
“On the green shores of England,” Logan added.
Rafe hesitated, then raised his glass. “To the death of the Black Cobra.�
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They all nodded, then drank, drained their glasses and set them down.
They turned to the doorway. Lifting the bamboo screen, they ducked beneath it, walking out into the smoky bar.
Picking their way past rickety tables, they reached the open tavern doorway and moved out onto the dusty steps.
Del halted and held out his hand. “Good luck.”
They all shook hands, each with the other.
For one last instant, they stood and simply looked at each other.
Then Rafe stepped down into the dusty street. “May God and St. George be with us all.” With a last salute, he walked away.
They parted, each disappearing by a different route into the bustling city.
September 15, two nights later
Bombay
“We have a problem.”
The voice fitted the setting, the clipped, aristocratic accents appropriate to the beauty, the elegance, the wanton luxury pervading the enclosed courtyard of the discreet bungalow tucked away on the fringe of the fashionable district of Bombay.
No one seeing the house from outside would look twice. The street frontage was unremarkable, like many others nearby. But on entering the front foyer, one was struck by a sense of subdued elegance, yet the front reception rooms—the rooms those who called socially might see—were nothing more than quietly refined, restrained and rather spare.
Not quite soulless, yet the chosen few who were invited further quickly sensed a different ambiance, one that filled the senses with ever-increasing richness.
It wasn’t merely a show of wealth, but a deliberately sensual display. The further one penetrated into the private rooms, the richer, more wantonly yet tastefully luxurious the furnishings, the more artful, and graceful, the settings.
The courtyard, surrounded by the private rooms of the owner, was the apogee of restful, sensual delight. A long tiled pool glimmered in the moonlight. Trees and shrubs lined the whitewashed walls, while the open windows and doors gave access to mysteriously dark and inviting com forts. The exotic perfume of a temple flower tree wafted in the night breeze, the shed blossoms lying like snippets of the costliest silk scattered on the stone paving.
“Oh?” A second voice answered the first through the cool dark.
The speakers were on the extended open terrace that jutted from the owner’s private sitting room into the courtyard. The second speaker reclined on a sofa piled with silk cushions, while the first paced the edge of the terrace, his bootheels creating a quiet tattoo—one that held a certain tension.
A third man watched silently from an armchair beside the sofa.
The night’s shadows cloaked them all.
“Damn Govind Holkar!” The first speaker paused to rake a hand through thick hair. “I can’t believe he left it this long to send word!”
“Word of what?” the second asked.
“He lost my last letter—the one I sent over a month ago trying to persuade him to give us more men. That letter.”
“By lost, you mean…?”
“I mean that it went missing from the desk in Holkar’s room at the governor’s palace in Poona while that damned hound of Hastings’s, MacFarlane, just happened to be there, waiting to escort the governor’s niece back to Bombay.”
“When did this happen?” The second voice was no longer so languid.
“On the second of the month. At least that’s the day Holkar realized the letter was gone. That was also the day MacFarlane left Poona with his troop and the governor’s niece at dawn. Holkar sent his cultists after them—”
“Don’t tell me.” The until-then-silent man’s baritone rumbled, a contrast to the others’ lighter voices. “They killed MacFarlane but didn’t find the letter.”
“Exactly.” The first speaker’s voice dripped frustrated ire.
“So that’s why we killed MacFarlane—I did wonder.” The second speaker’s cool tones showed little emotion. “I take it they didn’t learn anything pertinent from him before he died?”
“No. But one of the sowars who made a stand with him eventually revealed that MacFarlane gave the governor’s niece a packet before sending her on.” The first speaker held up a hand to keep the others from interrupting. “I got word from Holkar only this morning—when he realized the letter had reached Bombay, he decamped to Satara, then he sent me word.”
“We can deal with Holkar appropriately later,” the second speaker put in.
“Indeed.” Anticipation colored the first speaker’s voice. “We will. However, once I knew about the letter, I had Larkins see what he could ferret out from the governor’s staff. Apparently, Miss Ensworth, the niece, was greatly distressed when she rode in, but later that afternoon, she took a maid and went to the fort. The maid was overheard saying that, on learning at the gates of MacFarlane’s death, the lady searched out Colonel Delborough, found him in the officers’ bar, and gave him a packet.”
“So there’s no reason to pursue this Miss Ensworth. Even if she read the letter, she knows nothing of any worth.”
“True.” The first speaker added, “And that’s just as well, because she’s leaving any day to return to England.”
The second speaker waved. “Ignore her. So Delborough has the letter, and Holkar is therefore compromised. All his own fault. We’ll just have to find another source of men, and the way our recruitment efforts have been progressing lately, I can’t see Holkar as any great loss.”
Silence fell, but it was strained, pregnant with unresolved tension.
The first speaker broke it. “That’s not why we have to get the letter back.”
The man with the deeper voice spoke again. “Why bother? It’s not as if Delborough can make anything more of it than of the other missives of ours his little group has gathered. They don’t contain anything to link you, personally, with the Black Cobra. Any suspicion he bears is simply that—suspicion. Suspicion he won’t dare air.”
“It’s not what’s in the damned letter that’s the problem.” Again the first speaker raked a hand through his hair. He turned from the other two, pacing again. “It’s what’s on the damned letter. I sealed it with my personal seal.”
“What?” The second speaker’s voice was incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but what chance was there this letter of all letters—going to Poona—would end back in Bombay, in Delborough’s hands?” The first speaker spread his arms. “It’s bizarre.”
“But what possessed you to write a letter from the Black Cobra and use your own damned seal?” The baritone’s accents were sharply condemnatory.
“It was necessary,” the first speaker snapped. “I had to get the letter off that day, or we would have lost another week—you’ll remember we discussed it. At the time we were desperate for more men, Delborough and his cohorts were making life difficult, and Holkar seemed our best bet. We agreed I should write, and it was urgent. But the Poona courier decided to leave early—the officious beggar actually had the gall to stand in my doorway and watch me finish the letter. He was itching to leave—if I’d ordered him out, told him to close the door and wait outside, he would have left. He was looking for any excuse to go without my letter.”
Still pacing, the first speaker twisted the signet ring on the little finger of his right hand. “Everyone in the office—the damn courier included—knows about my seal ring. With him standing there, I could hardly reach into my pocket, draw out the Black Cobra seal and use it—with him watching my every move. In the circumstances, I decided using my own seal was the lesser of all evils—it’s not as if Holkar doesn’t know who I am.”
“Hmm.” The second speaker sounded resigned. “Well, we can hardly allow you to be exposed.” The second speaker exchanged a glance with the baritone. “That would definitely put a dent in our enterprise. So”—gaze reverting to the pacing man, the second speaker briskly stated, “we’ll just have to locate Delborough and get this incriminating letter back.”
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September 16, the following night
Bombay
“Delborough and his three remaining colleagues, together with their households, left Bombay two days ago.”
Silence greeted the first speaker’s terse announcement. Once again the three conspirators had gathered in the night-shrouded courtyard—one on the sofa, one in the armchair, the other pacing the terrace above the glimmering pool.
“Indeed?” the second speaker eventually said. “That’s disturbing. Still, I can’t see Hastings acting—”
“They haven’t gone back to Calcutta.” Reaching the end of the terrace, the first speaker swung back. “I told you a week ago—they’ve resigned! They are, by all accounts, heading back to England.”
Another lengthy silence ensued, then the baritone inquired, “Are you sure they’re even bothering with this letter? Easy enough to miss a seal, especially if concentrating on the information inside. They’ve laid hands on similar letters before, and known well enough such documents would get them nowhere.”
“I’d like to believe that—that they’ve given up and are on their way home—believe me, I would.” The first speaker’s agitated pace didn’t ease. “But our spies have reported they met in a back room in some seedy bar in town two days ago. When they came out, each was carrying one of those wooden scroll-holders the locals use to ferry important documents—and then they parted. Went their separate ways. Those four have been together since long before they reached these shores—why would they each go home by completely different routes?”
On the sofa, the second speaker sat straighter. “Do you know which way each has gone?”
“Delborough’s done the obvious—he’s taken a ship of the line to Southampton. Exactly as if he were simply heading home. Hamilton took a sloop to Aden, as if he were ferrying some diplomatic communication along the way—but I’ve checked, and he isn’t. Monteith and Carstairs have vanished. Monteith’s household is due to leave shortly on a company ship for Bournemouth, but he’s not with them and they don’t know where he is. Their orders are to go to an inn outside Bournemouth and to wait there until he comes. Carstairs has only one man, a Pathan who’s as loyal as they come, and they’ve both disappeared. I’ve had all the passenger and crew lists combed, but there’s no sign of anyone who might conceivably be either Monteith or Carstairs leaving Bombay by sea. Larkins believes they’ve gone overland, or at least by land to some other port. He’s put men on their trail, but it’ll be days, perhaps weeks, before we hear if they’ve located them.”
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