Death in Kashmir

by M. M. Kaye

  Of course! That was it—Lager. Lager would save her! He would race off into the darkness, barking defiance and create a diversion, for darkness would be no problem to him, and he could, when the occasion demanded it, make as much noise as a hurdy-gurdy. It might well be sufficient to frighten away the intruder—though on this wild night it would not wake the Creeds—and under cover of the noise Sarah herself would escape by the back of the boat and rouse the cookboat.

  She leaned forward in the darkness and dug Lager out of his nest of blankets. He was warm and velvety and relaxed, and he continued to snore gently. But he did not wake. Sarah shook him and spoke urgently into his floppy ear in a tense whisper: ‘Lager! Lager! Wake up. Rats, Lager!’

  But the dachsund puppy did not move. Sarah shook him violently. He’s doped! she thought incredulously. He’s eaten something. Where? When? And then she remembered how he had scuttled off into the shadows when she returned from the Creeds, and had reappeared licking his chops. He had eaten doped food. Food that had in all probability been put there for this special purpose …

  A sudden fury of rage shook Sarah, temporarily submerging her panic, and clutching the unresisting Lager under one arm she slid to the floor and groped her way across the room.

  For one wild moment she had considered opening the window and shouting. But she knew that the wind would tear the sound to tatters and it would only be a waste of breath. She would have to go through the empty second bedroom behind her and through the bathroom and out at the back of the boat, from where she could rouse the mānji. Or better still, feel her way along the narrow duckboards that ran along both sides of the boat, until she reached the gangplank by the pantry door, and go down it and along the bank to the Creeds.

  The Waterwitch rocked to another sudden buffet of wind, and Sarah banged her head violently against the open door of her cupboard and dropped Lager. For a moment she clung to the edge of the cupboard door while a variety of coloured sparks shot through the darkness: she must have forgotten to latch it and the draught and the uneasy motion of the boat had combined to swing it open.

  After a moment or two she stooped dizzily and groped about in the darkness. Lager still snored gently, and guided by the soft sound she gathered him up and made unsteadily for the spare bedroom door, moving this time with more caution.

  It seemed a long way in the dark. The door was ajar—presumably the wind again—and Sarah passed through it. There was no gleam of light from the black night beyond the curtained window-panes, and the wind shrilled through the cracks in the houseboat and sent cold draughts along the floors. Once something touched her cheek and she started back, her heart in her mouth. But it was only a curtain billowing out on the draught.

  She tried to remember how the room was furnished. A bed against the wall, and the door into the bathroom to the left of the bedstead; the dressing-table under one window. Was there a chest of drawers under the other? She could not remember, but once she touched the bed she would get her bearings.

  Sarah moved forward an inch at a time, one hand held out before her. Where had the bed got to? And then suddenly her hand touched polished wood. But it was not the end of a bed. It must be the dressing table. No, it was too high for that and too smooth, and it had a carved edge. Surely there was no table in the spare bedroom that had a carved border to it?

  She stood still, confused and uncertain, her head still aching and dizzy from its violent contact with the cupboard door. And as she stood there, she became aware of something else: a curious clicking sound somewhere near her. She could hear it between the blustering gusts of wind. Click … clack … click … Very softly, like someone telling beads. Beads! The garish bead curtain that hung in the open doorway between the dining-room and the living-room … That was it!… it was here, close beside her; swaying and clicking in the dark. And with a sudden, sickening shock of panic she realized what she was touching. It was the oval dining-table with deep, carved, chenar-leaf border.

  She wasn’t in the spare bedroom at all. She was in the dining-room! She must have lost her bearings when, confused by the blow on her head, she had stooped down to grope in the dark for Lager. And the curtain that had touched her cheek was blowing out from an open window; that was why this room was so much colder. There was a window standing open in it; which could only mean that the sound she had heard—the sound of a window being opened—had come from here.

  She was in the wrong room. And in the same instant she realized that someone else was in the room with her.

  Sarah stood frozen, not daring to move. Even her heart seemed to have stopped beating. She could hear no sound other than the noises of wind and water and the creaking of the boat as it rocked and strained at its moorings, but she did not need any sound to tell her that someone was there, close to her; almost within reach of her hand. Sheer animal instinct, that sixth sense which warns us of the near presence of one of our own kind, was sufficient …

  I mustn’t move, she thought frantically. I mustn’t breathe … She felt the floorboards under the feet vibrate, and the air about her stirred as though something solid had passed her in the black dark.

  There was a sudden lull between gusts of wind and in the brief silence Lager gave a loud snuffling snore.

  She heard someone draw a hard breath in the darkness, and something—a hand—brushed against her bare arm.

  Sarah dropped Lager, backed wildly away, and screamed at the top of her voice. And as she did so a light flashed on; the white glare of an electric torch, full in her face, and an incredulous voice said: ‘For God’s sake! Sarah!’

  The next moment arms were about her holding her closely, and she was struggling frantically, still in the grip of terror. Her captor held her with one arm and with his free hand turned the torch onto his own face.

  ‘Charles!’

  13

  Sarah burst into overwrought tears, and Charles, holding her, said: ‘I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t know there was anyone on board. Don’t cry, dear. It’s all right now. There’s nothing to be frightened of now.’

  No, there was nothing to be frightened of now. All at once Sarah knew that. The terrors and confusions and doubts that had haunted her since that white night in Gulmarg when she had awakened in the moonlight were over: Charles was here and she was safe. For a long moment she let herself relax against his shoulder, and then jerked away; aware of a sudden and entirely unfamiliar feeling of shyness.

  ‘Here,’ said Charles. ‘Handkerchief.’

  Sarah accepted it thankfully, blew her nose and sniffed childishly.

  ‘Could we turn on the lights do you think?’ said Charles. ‘I’m not sure how much more life there is left in this battery.’

  ‘There aren’t any,’ said Sarah unsteadily. ‘I think the line must be down somewhere. But there are candles in the next room, if you’ve got any matches.’

  ‘I’ve got a lighter. That’ll do instead. Good Lord! What on earth’s that?’

  Charles retreated a swift step and flashed the beam of his torch onto the floor.

  ‘It’s Lager,’ said Sarah, dropping onto her knees beside the limp velvet bundle: ‘I’d forgotten him, poor lamb. I dropped him when you touched me. I was so scared.’

  ‘What’s the matter with him? Is he ill?’

  ‘No. He’s doped.’ Sarah lifted wide startled eyes to Charles’s face above her. ‘Did you do it?’ she asked sharply.

  Charles went down on one knee and turned the puppy over. ‘Do what? Dope him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sarah in a whisper.

  ‘No. Why the hell should I want to?’ said Charles impatiently. He turned back one of Lager’s eyelids and studied the eye for a moment. ‘Opium, I should say. He’ll be all right.’

  Sarah said in a shaky whisper: ‘Someone did. If it wasn’t you, then there’s someone else who meant to get on this boat tonight.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Charles sharply. ‘Look—it sounds to me as though something pretty tricky has been going on around he
re. This is no place to talk. Let’s find these candles.’

  Sarah got up holding Lager in her arms and they went into the living-room and lit two dusty, yellowed candle-ends that still remained in a pair of tarnished candlesticks of Benares brass. The flames flickered wanly for a moment or two in the draught and then steadied and burnt brighter, and the small room was once again just a room: overcrowded with furniture of a vanished era, shabby, over-ornate, uninteresting and uninterested; and remembering the vivid impression of tense and watchful awareness that it had given her earlier that night, Sarah wondered at herself.

  She looked up to find Charles watching her with an unreadable expression in his eyes and the shadow of a smile about his mouth, and became abruptly conscious of the fact that she was wearing nothing but an exceedingly flimsy chiffon and lace nightdress: and in the next instant, with fury, that she was blushing.

  ‘You look very nice,’ said Charles pensively. ‘All the same, I think you’d better put on something else or you’ll catch cold. Besides,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘there are a lot of things I want to talk about, and I’d like to be able to keep my mind on the job.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Sarah breathlessly. ‘Oh! You … you … Give me that torch!’

  She thrust Lager into his arms, snatched the torch from his hand and fled. To return a few minutes later wearing a severely tailored dressing-gown of dark green silk that clothed her from throat to ankles, and with her bare feet thrust into small green morocco slippers. An observant spectator might have noticed that she had also found time to apply a discreet amount of lipstick and powder and to run a comb through her red-gold curls.

  She found Captain Mallory lying on the sofa nursing Lager in his arms and blowing smoke rings at the ceiling. ‘Please don’t get up,’ said Sarah frigidly, seating herself in the armchair opposite him. ‘And now, if it’s not too much to ask, you will please tell me what you were doing on my boat?’

  ‘I didn’t know it was yours,’ said Charles, ‘and I didn’t know anyone was on board. So few of the houseboats have been taken this year that it seemed a safe bet that it was unoccupied.’

  ‘Look,’ said Sarah leaning forward, ‘do you see any green in my eye?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charles with disconcerting promptness: ‘emeralds and peridots and jade, sprinkled with gold dust and steeped in dew. Perfectly lovely.’

  Sarah flushed rosily and drew back with a jerk. ‘Thank you. But what I wanted to point out was that though I may have green eyes, I’m not all that green. If you thought the boat was empty you’d never have come creeping into it in the small hours of the morning.’

  Charles blew another smoke ring and regarded her meditatively over the tip of his cigarette before replying. He appeared to be turning something over in his mind. After a moment or two he apparently came to some decision, for he swung his heels off the sofa and sitting up spoke in a voice that was wholly free from flippancy: ‘All right. I didn’t think it was empty. I had been told that it was occupied by a “maiden lady”. The description is my informant’s, not mine. Her name was given as Harris. It rang no bell. I was further informed that she would be attending the dance at Nedou’s Hotel tonight and would not be back until well after midnight. By the way, do you mind my smoking? I should have asked.’

  ‘No,’ said Sarah. ‘Go on. Why were you on this boat?’

  ‘I wanted to have a look at it, and at the same time I did not want to appear in any way interested in it. I decided that the task of scraping an acquaintance with a maiden lady called Miss Harris in order to take a look at her boat, might take more time than I had at my disposal. So I came along to give it the once-over unofficially. I was therefore surprised, to put it mildly, to find Miss Parrish not only in residence but remarkably vocal.’

  Sarah said: ‘That’s not true either. Is it?’

  ‘What makes you think so?’

  ‘Because I don’t believe that you’re the kind of person who makes mistakes. Not when it really matters.’

  ‘I appear to have made one this time,’ said Charles dryly.

  ‘No you didn’t. You thought I’d be at the dance. So I should have been if Major McKay hadn’t strained a muscle. And as the dance goes on until one o’clock tonight, and it takes nearly an hour to get back here by shikara, you knew you had plenty of time. You didn’t expect to find anyone on this boat, but you knew I had taken it, didn’t you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Charles non-committally, watching Sarah with half-closed eyes. ‘Why do you think this is an occasion that really matters?’

  ‘Because——’ Sarah checked suddenly. ‘No. Tell me first why you came here.’

  Charles hesitated a moment, staring down at the glowing tip of his cigarette and frowning, and then he said slowly: ‘I knew the girl who had this boat last year. Her name was Janet Rushton.’

  Sarah drew a sharp breath and Charles looked up swiftly: ‘You knew her too, didn’t you. That letter you burnt on the lawn of the Peshawar Club was in Janet’s writing. I was fairly sure of it. We checked back on you. You were in Gulmarg for the Spring Meeting. You had the room next to Janet’s. You came up here and took over her boat, using the receipt signed by her. How about it, Sarah?’

  Sarah did not answer. She sat quite still, her eyes meeting Charles’s level, penetrating gaze while a minute ticked slowly by.

  The wind blew another flurry of rain against the windowpanes and the candle flames swayed and flickered to the draughts, throwing leaping shadows onto the panelled walls and the intricately inlaid woodwork of the ceiling, and the houseboat jerked and rocked, creaking and groaning at its moorings.

  Sarah spoke at last, and uncertainly: ‘I don’t understand. If you are—one of them—if you were keeping tabs on me … What is it all about, Charles?’

  Charles transferred Lager to a sofa cushion, and coming to his feet took a restless turn about the small room, and came back to stand over Sarah, frowning down on her and fidgeting with his cigarette.

  After a moment he said abruptly: ‘I’ve no idea how much you know, but it’s obviously a good deal more than is healthy for you. I think you’d better tell me. Everything please, right from the beginning and without leaving anything out.’

  Sarah told him: sitting in the shabby armchair that Janet must have sat in, in the boat that had been Janet’s boat, with the guttering light of the candles that Janet must have used throwing leaping shadows across her white face. And as she talked, it was as though she was reliving the incidents that she described: as though she saw again the lamplight glint along the barrel of Janet’s automatic, and stared unbelievingly at a line of footprints in the blown snow on a moonlit verandah. Once again she seemed to hear Janet’s voice in the shadow of the ski-hut on Khilanmarg, and to watch the flying shadow swoop across the snowfields and vanish into the darkness of the forest: once again to stare down across the shadowy bowl of Gulmarg at a far-off pinpoint of red light …

  She told, her voice a dry whisper with the returning terror of that moment, of the thing that had followed upon Janet’s departure—the sound of a door stealthily closing among the shadows under the snow-hung eaves of the ski-hut. Of the finding of Janet’s body in the Blue Run, and her own visit to the house by the Gap. Every incident seemed etched so clearly in her mind that she could tell it all as though it had only happened yesterday. The tracks on that snow-covered pathway. The darkness and silence of the empty house. The faint odours that lingered in the cold rooms—cigarette smoke, damp, cordite, and that other cloying, elusive scent that she could not place. She told him of the bullet hole and the stain upon the floor. Of the man in the snowstorm, and, finally, of the arrival of Janet’s letter months later in Peshawar.

  She told it all in meticulous detail up to the burning of Janet’s letter, while Charles sat on the arm of the sofa and listened; his face expressionless and his eyes intent. And when she had finished she shivered convulsively, and gripping her hands tightly together in her lap to hide the fact that they were trembling, said:
‘What’s it all about, Charles? I don’t understand, and I’m scared. Yes I am! I’m scared stiff. I wouldn’t mind if I thought it was just some of the usual anti-British stuff … Indian terrorists. But it isn’t. There was someone listening in the ski-hut. And then Reggie Craddock trying to get me off the boat, and someone who said he was from the agents, too. And this morning Mrs Warrender turned up with a story about a friend who wants to swop boats with me. What’s it all about—? or am I going crazy?’

  ‘Say that again?’ said Charles sharply.

  Sarah laughed on a high note. ‘I said “Am I going crazy”?’

  ‘No, I mean about Reggie Craddock and Helen Warrender. Let’s hear about that: word for word, please.’

  So once again Sarah took up the tale and repeated all she could remember …

  The cigarette burnt out between Charles’s fingers and he swore and flicked the smouldering fragment into the ashtray. ‘Hell!’ said Charles. ‘This needs a lot of thinking out. Go to bed, Sarah. You’ve had enough alarms for one day. We’ll defer any further explanation until the morning.’

  Sarah’s mouth set itself in a stubborn line and her green eyes sparkled in the wavering light of the candles.

  ‘I am not budging,’ said Sarah firmly, ‘until you tell me what it’s all about. I shouldn’t sleep a wink, and you know it. It’s no good trying to be discreet and hush-hush and Top Secret, because like it or not, I’m in this too. Up to my neck, as far as I can see! What’s it all about, Charles?’

  ‘If you mean Reggie Craddock and Co., I don’t know. As for the rest, I can’t tell you much more than Janet told you…’ Charles stood up and began to pace the small expanse of faded Axminster carpet once more; his hands in his pockets and his frowning gaze upon the floor.

  ‘A year ago,’ began Charles slowly, ‘one of our agents sent word that he was onto a big thing. He didn’t even give a hint as to what it was, but he sent a–a signal. One that we only use very rarely, and which means that we are onto something white-hot and must be contacted with all possible speed.’