The Game - Laurie R. King [119]
“The people are extremely wary of their ruler. They acknowledge that he has improved their lot in any number of ways, appreciate that their sons are learning to read and that their villages have clean water, but they accept these things with the caution that an experienced fox will use in retrieving bait from a trap. And twice I have heard rumours of men vanished into the night.”
“Men, not women?”
“Strong, middle-aged men.”
“Not the sort of target one would expect for perversions.”
“No. And as evidence, it would be dismissed by the most forgiving of judges. Men disappear for any number of reasons, in Khanpur as in London.
“So tell me, Russell, having spent five days in his company: If the maharaja of Khanpur did lay hands on Kimball O’Hara three years ago, would he have killed him or kept him?”
“Kept him,” I answered instantly, then thought about it. “Assuming he knew who the man was. And unless O’Hara drove him to murder.”
“For what purpose?”
What Holmes was asking me to do might to the uninitiated sound like guesswork, but was in fact a form of reasoning that extended the path of known data into the regions of the unknown. Unfortunately, this sort of reasoning worked best with the motivations and goals of career criminals and other simple people; the maharaja of Khanpur was not a simple man.
“I can envision two reasons, although they would not be exclusive. One is, for lack of a better term, political: The maharaja knows O’Hara is in fact a spy, and he wishes to extract from him all possible information about the workings of the British Intelligence system. Although after three years, I can’t imagine there would be much he had not got out of the man.”
“You see political power as the maharaja’s goal?”
I found myself fiddling with the silver-and-enamel charm around my neck. “Nesbit indicated something of the sort, that a native prince might be a compromise between the Congress Party and the Moslem League.”
“Even if he does not come into power through the ballot box.”
“You think the maharaja is setting up a revolution of his own? He could hardly expect to take over the country as a whole.”
“Even a small blow at the right place might be enough to shatter the British hold on the country, given the current political climate.”
“‘By surprise, where it hurts,’ ” I murmured. Goodheart’s drunken cry at the costume ball had stayed with me.
“Precisely. And the provocative elements in this drama are mounting.”
“His friendship with a self-avowed Communist who, according to his sister, has considerable experience with aeroplanes—perhaps to the extent of piloting them himself,” I said. “The capture—possible capture,” I corrected myself before he could, “—of one of the lead spies of the occupying power.”
“His superior air field, with stockpiled arms and explosives,” Holmes added. “Its proximity to the border. A trip to Moscow; three British spies found dead in the vicinity of Khanpur.”
“The remarkable number and variety of guests who come through this rather remote kingdom.”
“The maharaja of Khanpur as a Lenin of the sub-continent?” Holmes mused. “We are reasoning in advance of our data, but it is an hypothesis worthy of consideration. What was your other reason?”
“My other—? Oh yes, for keeping O’Hara in custody. Because the maharaja wants to gloat over him. Not openly, but secretly—what was it he said to me? ‘I like to keep some things to myself.’ His private rooms show it, that the things that are really important to him he guards close to his chest. And,” I said more slowly, trying to envision the complete picture, “maybe he even regards it as a sport, trying to get inside the man and twist him.”
Holmes did not respond, and I glanced to see his reaction. His face was stoney, his eyes far away.
“Holmes, I’ve heard a great deal about Kimball O’Hara, from you and from Nesbit, and I suppose you could say from Kipling’s story before that. So, what is O’Hara’s weakness? How would the maharaja turn him?”
We had