The Game - Laurie R. King [32]
When we were close enough to pick out the peculiar architecture of the yacht club, my heart began to quail: Land was a solid, pulsating, cacophonous, and even from this distance, malodorous wall of people, and the water was not much less heavily populated, by boats of all shapes and sizes. Perhaps we could just wait on board for a few hours, or days, until they all went away. But we were being met, it seemed, by shipping agents who would nurse us and our luggage through customs, and here, as elsewhere, company pride would undoubtedly demand that each man fight to ensure that his client be early through the process. I shook my head and went down to my suffocating cabin to assemble my last-minute things, to be startled five minutes later when the great engines fell silent.
We were, as I’d anticipated, claimed instantly by a round and obsequious brown-faced man in a tropical suit, accompanied by a pair of uniformed chuprassis. He introduced himself as Mr Cook and apologised five times in the first quarter hour for this “unseasonable” great heat which his great city was inflicting on ourselves, since at this time of year we might have justifiably anticipated a more gentle climate, a temperature more suited to our English selves, a less trying degree of mercury. After the fifth such synonymous phrase I wished him violently struck mute, but I was too flattened by the “unseasonable tropical humidity” to do so myself.
He herded us off the ship in the shade of a wide umbrella, following in the wake of four scarlet elbows that jabbed a path through the riot of colour and motion, a confusion of tongues raised at never less than a shout, with the ferocious sun beating down on us all. The Goodhearts were ahead of us, their umbrellas larger, their crowds kept at bay by rifle-bearing guards in trim red turbans with a white device at the forehead. The three Goodhearts wore garlands of brilliant marigolds around their necks, and were under the supervision of dignified individuals with nothing of our Mr Cook’s air of commercial traveller. Their maharaja, it seemed, was already smoothing the path of his bison-providing guests; as some heavy foot came down upon my shoe, I could not suppress a twist of envy for the truly blessed.
But, I reminded myself, if Mycroft had thought it sensible for us to stand out from the other passengers, he, too, would have arranged for a noble’s escort—with a marching band and caparisoned elephants, if the fancy had struck him. This way was hellish, but unavoidable.
Had I been in charge of this adventure, I might also have given us a few days in Bombay to get our bearings before we were shut inside a rattling train car for twenty-four hours, for the northwards journey to Delhi. That idea, however, had died a quick death at the sight of the crowds all along the waterfront: If the remainder of the city was anything like this portion of it, a stay here would not be a restful thing.
However, it appeared that there was a problem with our onward journey. My luggage was incomplete.
“What do you mean, ‘incomplete’?” I asked Mr Cook, for whom I had developed an instant and completely unreasonable dislike. He was so polite, I longed to kick his shins.
“I mean, memsahib, that my list says that you, Miss Russell, are the possessor of two small trunks: one from your cabin, the other from the hold, which was sent down to the hold when the ship reached Port Said, and yet there is but the one which was in your cabin. I have had this trunk placed into the baggage car of the train, along with the two trunks of Mr Holmes, but alas, I lack the requisite companion from the hold of the ship.”
“What’s happened to the other one?”
“We are endeavouring to determine that, memsahib.”
“Oh Lord, they’ve lost half my things,” I groaned, then