The Game - Laurie R. King [36]
We left the main thoroughfare and rose into an area both newer and cleaner, with fewer pedestrians and the occasional motorcar. We went half a mile without seeing a beggar. The high walls were iced with hunks of broken glass, each gate attended by a man with a rifle. The guards wore a variety of regional clothing and their turbans could have stocked a milliner’s shop, but each face held an identical look of suspicion as we clip-clopped past.
The gate before which our tonga stopped was no higher than its neighbours’, the guard no more nobly clad, but where some of the others had given the distinct impression that their guns were empty and for show, the stout Sikh here left one with no doubt that he would not hesitate to shoot down even a sahib, if it proved necessary. He watched us climb down from the horse cart, his only response a brief twist of the head (his eyes never left us) and an even briefer phrase grunted over his shoulder in the direction of the gate.
Before Holmes could dig into his pocket for the note we had received, the stout gate swung open. Inside it stood a slimmer, younger Sikh in beautifully laundered salwaar trousers and long, frock-like kameez, who bowed his snug sky-blue turban in greeting.
“You will please walk with me?” he suggested.
Chapter Seven
The garden within the gates was a place of Asiatic loveliness, a Paradise of birds and flowering trees, decorated by an old mali and his young assistant wielding watering cans, and a pale, cud-chewing bullock placidly waiting to be attached to the lawn mower. Brilliant potted flowers—rose, hibiscus, bougainvillea—marched the length of the drive, and near the house a fountain splashed and glittered. The rush and stink of the town was cut off as if by an invisible wall, and I felt my skin relax against my already-damp dress.
The bungalow was worthy of its grounds, simple and white, its verandah set with rattan chairs and tables, the entrance hall-way an expanse of linen-covered walls and gleaming dark flooring of teak or mahogany. The servant’s soft sandals made slight noise as we crossed to a doorway. He stood back to let us enter, said, “I will bring tea,” and left us.
The room was a light, open space looking out onto the garden. Its simple furniture was a far cry from the Victorian stuffiness, mounted animal heads, and heavy draperies that I had expected from a Raj household. The house’s silence seemed another carefully chosen furnishing of the room, its texture broken only by a rhythmic creak of machinery out-of-doors and the rise and fall of a voice from somewhere deeper in the house. It was a one-sided conversation—over the telephone, I decided, since it paused, resumed, and paused again. Tea was brought and poured, the servant departed without a sound, and I carried my cup over to examine the objects on the wall.
Near the door was a collection of framed photographs, groups of men with horses and dead animals such as one sees in the social pages of The Times. One photograph, placed centrally among the others, showed three men on horseback: at the left side a dark-haired Englishman, and on the right a smaller man with a bandaged arm, whose face was half hidden by the shadow of his topee but whose blond moustache said he was European as well. Between them sat a darker-skinned