The Game - Laurie R. King [139]
Slightly cheered by the possibility, and marginally restored by food and coffee, I smoothed my freshly glued moustache and went to face the day’s “entertainment,” my mind not so much forgetting Gay Kaur’s bruised face, as putting it aside.
I walked through the gardens and down the road to the stables, nodding at the guards, seeing no one else, which was slightly unusual. The animals in the zoo seemed restless, the monkeys’ chatter on seeing a human pass louder than usual, their leaps and swings on the high perches nearly frantic. The great African lion loosed its coughing roar every half minute or so, although as I went by its cage, I could see nothing out of the ordinary through the trees. Then at the stables, I found five horses saddled: the white Arab stallion, two bays, and the two nearly matched chestnut geldings that Thomas Goodheart and I had been given the first day. I greeted the syce; he responded with a sickly grin and would neither answer nor meet my eyes.
My skin began to prickle with uneasiness.
Minutes passed, and the gabble of monkeys heralded the approach of Geoffrey Nesbit, his perfect features looking older in the morning sun.
“Jimmy’s not here yet?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I told him, keeping my voice cheerful in the proximity of servants. “I was just going to have a smoke and watch the birds.”
We strolled around the stables to the rise overlooking the great tank, and settled on a half-wall in view of the swans and exotic fowl. A snowy egret picked its way through the reeds, perusing the water, and my companion held a match to the end of my cigarette. I filled my lungs with as much appreciation as act.
“If I’m not careful,” I said, “I’m going to find myself liking these things.”
Nesbit was not interested in my bad habits. “Have you any idea what’s going on?”
“None. But the maharaja’s cousin has a badly bruised face, and the syce won’t talk to me. Something’s wrong. You think he’s discovered O’Hara missing?”
“I went to borrow a stamp from Trevor Wilson. He told me that Jimmy had a letter yesterday, from Delhi. No one seems to know what was in it.”
“If it came yesterday, it could explain his evil temper yesterday night.”
“And if he then found O’Hara gone . . .”
I was suddenly glad for the weight of the revolver against my leg.
“How will that change things?” I asked him.
“Impossible to say. However, if he decides to make another all-nighter of it with me, I don’t think we ought to wait. You play ill. An attack of malaria should do it, you can start looking flushed over dinner and excuse yourself. As soon as it’s dark, make your way over to Old Fort and wait for them to bring Holmes out. The two of you should be able to overcome the guards—I can give you another vial of morphia, if you like, so they stay unconscious for a while, although I haven’t another syringe.”
I stared out over the lake, the forgotten tobacco burning down towards my fingers as I pushed the various parts of the puzzle about in my mind. Would Holmes use the syringe and drug his guard as soon as darkness fell, or would he wait until after the maharaja’s midnight matinée? He had no way of knowing that, with the current turmoil, the call might never come. In which case, how long after midnight would he wait, before having to risk the dawn? No, better if I ventured again into the prison fortress and brought him out. Nesbit would simply have to watch his own back.
My tobacco had burnt itself out; Nesbit ground his out under his boot and said, “It’s possible he’s forgotten—oop. Spoke too soon.”
The clamour from the monkey-cage rose as they spotted someone coming down the path. We stood to see, over the roofs of the stable; in a moment I could make out three men, the first bareheaded, the two taller figures behind him topped with red puggarees. The monkeys screamed and bounced around their trees wildly, the men came down the path, and then the three stopped, directly adjacent to the high, noisy cage.
The maharaja seemed to be speaking to his two guards, although at this distance, I could not even make out the