The Faraway Drums. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ her like a battered beggar’s bowl. She was a damned good-looking woman. He wished he had met her a week later, down in Delhi.

      ‘We’ll go and wake up Major Savanna. He’s probably dead to the world with all that drink he had.’

      They went down the corridor to the room at the end. Its door was beside the open window through which the thug had escaped; the cold night air pressed in against them and Farnol shut the window. Then he knocked on Savanna’s door.

      With still no answer to his third knock, he opened the door and went in. He fumbled for the light switch, clicked it on. The room was empty, the big four-poster bed unslept in. On the bed was tossed Savanna’s tail suit, his boiled shirt and his dress suit. The wardrobe’s doors were open and the clothes were strewn on the floor in front of it.

      ‘Right, go back to your room, lock the door and stay there.’ He was already on his way back along the corridor. He still carried the heavy brass candlestick, as if he had forgotten it was still in his hand. He paused by Bridie’s door, swung it open and motioned with the candlestick for her to go in. He looked and sounded like a schoolmaster who had found a pupil in some after-lights-out escapade. ‘Come on – inside! Lock the door. I’ll be back!’

      He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed him. He went back to his own room, dragged on the clothes nearest to hand, the tailcoat and dress trousers, over his pyjamas, pulled on his shoes; then, still carrying the candlestick but also his pistol this time, he went down to the entrance hall. He switched on lights, found a bell-pull and gave it several tugs that almost pulled it out of the ceiling, creating a carillon effect down in the depths of the servants’ quarters. In less than two minutes the butler and two bearers, stumbling with haste, puzzlement and the effects of the sleep from which they had been disturbed, came up from the rear of the house. With them was Karim Singh, the only one who looked fully alert.

      ‘Where’s Major Savanna?’ Farnol addressed the butler, an elderly Punjabi who had a proprietary interest in the Lodge; he had seen Viceroys come and go, none of them had the tenure that a good servant had. ‘Did he say anything to you about going out tonight?’

      ‘No, sahib.’ The butler looked bewildered and indignant: it wasn’t right that he should be aroused in the middle of the night, in His Excellency’s own house, and rudely interrogated by this army officer who was only a major, not even a colonel. ‘He should be asleep in his room.’

      ‘He isn’t – his bed hasn’t been slept in. And I’ve had a chap in here who tried to kill me.’ He didn’t mention Bridie. The attack on her had been accidental, he was certain, and he wanted to protect her from any further involvement.

      The two bearers hissed with shock, looked over their shoulders, waiting for another attack. The butler said, ‘I regret that, sahib. It has never happened before. His Excellency will be most disturbed –’

      ‘I’m sure he will. Karim, get down to the guard-house, get the guard up here on the double –’

      ‘You can call them on the telephone, sahib.’ The butler lifted a big red velvet cover, like a huge tea-cosy, from a side-table, exposing a telephone. ‘We have every modern convenience.’

      Every modern convenience but an effective guard system. Farnol called the guard-house and a minute later there was a banging on the front door. The butler, moving with all the dignity of a State occasion, went to the doors and opened them. Three soldiers came plunging in, a sergeant and two rankers, one of them Private Ahearn.

      ‘How many did you have on picquet tonight?’ Farnol demanded.

      The sergeant blinked in the light; he, too, had been sound asleep down in the guard-house. ‘May I ask who you are, sir?’

      ‘Major Farnol.’ He saw Ahearn’s eyebrows go up; then he remembered he had shaved off his beard. ‘Private Ahearn escorted me up here earlier this evening.’

      The sergeant stood to attention. ‘Four men on picquet, sir. Did they miss something?’

      ‘They missed a bloody thug who got in here and tried to kill me. He got away, went down the south side of the hill. There’s no point in going after him,’ he said as the sergeant looked over his shoulder to give an order to Ahearn and the other ranker. ‘He’ll be halfway to Kalka by now. Have you seen Major Savanna at all?’

      The sergeant looked at his two men and Ahearn said, ‘Yes, sir. He went out on his horse about half an hour ago.’

      ‘Riding?’

      ‘Yes, sir. I thought it was a bit queer, too.’

      ‘How was he dressed?’

      ‘Why, like he was going on a trip, sir.’ Ahearn was a young man, skinny and short, with the long Irish upper lip, thick black eyebrows that looked like caterpillars ready to advance on the potato of his nose and an expression that hinted he had come out of his mother’s womb without bothering to bring any innocence with him. ‘Breeches, bandolier, the lot. He had a rifle in his saddle scabbard.’

      ‘You don’t miss much.’

      ‘No, sir. The Irish can’t afford to.’

      ‘That’s enough!’ snapped the sergeant, Irish too, but careful of his sergeant’s pay. A few shillings a day extra could buy an Empire-builder, Farnol thought. ‘Do you want me to send someone after the Major, sir?’

      ‘Did he say where he was going?’ Farnol looked back at Ahearn.

      ‘No, sir. Didn’t say a word, just rode right by me like I wasn’t there.’

      Farnol now was mystified and worried; but did his best not to show it. ‘Righto, sergeant. Double the picquet, stay up here close to the house. I’ll see you at six in the morning. Dismiss.’

      The soldiers went away, then Farnol dismissed the butler and the two bearers. At last he looked at Karim Singh. ‘It was meant to be another ambush, Karim.’

      ‘I should never have left your door, sahib.’ Karim was looking around him, shaking his head in wondering disgust. He had a proper respect for surroundings and something was wrong with the scheme of things when some bugger would try to murder a British officer in the Viceroy’s own house. ‘I should be ashamed that I went down to the servants’ quarters and allowed myself the luxury of a charpoy. To sleep in a bed is jolly marvellous, but not while your master has his throat cut.’

      ‘Bring your things up to my room and sleep inside my door.’

      Karim disappeared towards the depths of the house and Farnol climbed the stairs. Normally a clear thinker, his mind now seemed a mud-heap of confusion. He was no stranger to mystery; that was part of the trade of a political agent. But, had he ever had occasion to give the matter any thought, he would have classified Rupert Savanna as the least mysterious man in India, no more opaque than the air of these mountains on a clear day, every thought, prejudice and remark open to even the simplest intelligence. He tried to run his mind back over the evening, rummaging for a clue that might have hinted at Savanna’s intention to depart secretly; but he could think of nothing, Savanna had been as bland as his boiled shirt-front. In future he would watch Rupert Savanna more closely.

      At the top of the stairs Bridie was waiting for him. She was still in her peignoir and her hair was still down round her shoulders; but she had run a brush through it and she looked СКАЧАТЬ