‘Oh, come on, Sandilands, for God’s sake! You’re not suggesting…’
‘Yes I am suggesting,’ said Joe, ‘and perhaps while we’re on the subject you can tell me where you were at the relevant time on that evening? Let’s say between four o’clock and seven?’
Bulstrode leapt to his feet and stood glowering down at Joe. ‘I really resent that! Who the hell do you think you are? Not in bloody Scotland Yard now, you know! This is my bloody district! I’ve a good mind to ask the Collector to have you taken off the case. Know what a quagga-quagga bird is? If you don’t – I’ll tell you. It’s a bird that flies round in ever-decreasing circles until it finally disappears up its own arse! And that, I suspect, is what you’re busy doing.’
‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘perhaps you could tell me what you were doing at the relevant time?’
‘I was in the lower town,’ said Bulstrode, ‘as I think I’ve already told you.’
‘Dealing with petty theft in the bazaar, you said. I remember well. And if I asked to see your report on the incident…?’
Bulstrode’s face flushed with rage. ‘I’d tell you to mind your own bloody business!’
In the face of Joe’s expression of continued polite enquiry, after a moment, spluttering in disgust, he flung himself over to a shelf piled high with papers. He snatched up a battered file with ‘Shala-mar Bagh’ written across the spine.
‘I repeat, I was in the lower town, though not in the bazaar exactly. To be precise, I was here.’
‘And what is Shala-mar Bagh?’
‘It’s a tea house. It’s a sort of dance hall, I suppose you’d say.’
‘What does it mean – Shala-mar Bagh?’ Jo persisted.
Bulstrode looked uncomfortable. ‘It means, The Garden of Cupid. Had some trouble. Put it out of bounds to BOR’s. There was a fight and two stupid privates from the Shropshires got themselves cut up. I went down to see that the rules were being obeyed.’
‘And is this documented? Did you bring a case against the management?’
‘I didn’t need to. I cautioned them. Very easy-going sort of establishment. Get anything you want there. Perhaps you’re interested?’ he concluded venomously.
‘The alarm was given when, according to medical evidence, Peggy Somersham had been dead for an hour. It was some time before you could be located, er, digging in Cupid’s Garden, and you arrived at the crime scene three hours after the body was discovered. Presumably there are people in this dance hall who would vouch for your presence there over the period in question?’
‘Of course there bloody well are!’ said Bulstrode.
Joe’s mind was racing ahead. What was it Naurung had said? ‘An exchange.’ Drop charges against the establishment in exchange for an alibi? But could Bulstrode have entered the house unobserved? In disguise? Joe resolved to take Naurung into his confidence: to find out when – and truly when – Bulstrode had entered Shala-mar Bagh and when he had left.
‘We’ll leave it there for the moment,’ he said.
‘Leave it there for ever, you bloody fool!’ and the Superintendent strode from the room.
Hardly had he left when Naurung entered.
‘Ah, good morning, Naurung,’ Joe said cheerfully. ‘You’ve just missed Bulstrode Sahib but you arrive in time to escort me to my next interview. Colonel Prentice’s bungalow? Can you take me there?’
On the way to the bungalow Joe briefed Naurung on his superior officer’s alibi and asked him to discreetly check on his movements on the day of the murder. Naurung listened with expressionless discretion but there was a gleam in his eye which said, ‘Give me a bit of routine policework and I’ll know just where I am.’ In front of Prentice’s bungalow Joe dismissed him and began to walk down the drive unaccompanied.
He was hailed by a voice behind him and turned to see Prentice handing his horse over to a syce.
‘Looking for me?’ Prentice asked.
‘Yes, I am. I was hoping I might be able to talk to you. Away from sharp ears and wagging tongues.’
‘When would you like to do that?’ said Prentice without much interest.
‘Well, I rather thought now… the sooner the better… no time like the present…’
Prentice laughed. ‘That alone would mark you out as a European,’ he said. ‘No Indian would say, “No time like the present.” For them any time would be better than the present. But there we are, you’ve said it. Come in and I’ll give you a cup of tea.’
‘An early ride?’ asked Joe as he walked down the gravelled drive alongside Prentice.
‘Regimental exercise. Try to get in one a month and this month’s was today. I like to start them early at this time of year – get them over before the heat.’
He led the way on to a verandah, called out ‘Koi hai!’ and sat down on a stool. A servant appeared and took his hat and whip, a second performed the same service for Joe. A third hurried forward to pull off Prentice’s boots. He stood up again and padded forward in his socks. ‘Shall we go through to the north verandah? It’s much cooler on that side at this time of day.’
They passed through the house and looked down at the garden, neat, tidy and totally unimaginative. The adjoining garden, however, was almost theatrically overgrown. Marechal Niel roses had run rampant and there were rose bushes as big as cottages. Seeing Joe’s attention taken by this wilderness, Prentice stopped, smiled and said, “That is the garden of what used to be my house. Destroyed in a fire, as you may have heard. Big garden. It goes all the way down to the river.’
‘And the pretty little building down there at the end?’ Joe asked.
‘Garden pavilion. Terribly overgrown now. It’s older than the British Raj – it’s older than John Company. It’s a Mogul building. I’ve often thought of selling the site but to do so would mean selling the pavilion and that I really can’t do. It’s been such a refuge to me. There are times when you want to get away from the demands of matrimony; there are times when you want to get away from the cares of parenthood, to say nothing of the demands of the regiment. When I go and work there it’s understood that I’m not to be disturbed. I don’t think I could run my life without it! But, come on now, let’s see if I can find you a drink or a cup of tea.’
To all outward appearance, Prentice’s bungalow was a fair example of the Raj public works department as they developed such things in Edwardian times. Four rooms of identical size surrounded an open sitting area and the whole within a wide verandah. There the resemblance to a typical Anglo-Indian house finished because Prentice had furnished exclusively with Indian furniture. No nostalgic glance towards the English home counties here. No framed hunting scenes by G.D. Armour or Lionel Edwards, not even a copy of the ubiquitous ‘Midnight Steeplechase’. In their place Indian illuminated paintings, many on silk, many on rollers, small jade, ivory and soapstone figures, Kashmir embroidered hangings on the walls, Bokhara and Afghani rugs on the floor.
Joe paused beside a large painting of an elephant bearing a small jewelled figure.
‘The Emperor Akhbar, riding an elephant,’ Prentice explained. ‘I oughtn’t to keep it hanging like this. It ought to be kept on a roll but I really enjoy it so much, this room would seem unfurnished without it. Now, come with me.’
They walked through the house together and Prentice opened a door leading off from the central hall, pointing as he did. ‘Getting this room ready for my daughter. She’ll be home soon. Haven’t seen her for four years.’
Joe was amused to see the array of spindly bamboo furniture, the paintings and the fabrics that the surprising Prentice had thought suitable for an eighteen-year-old fresh from the sophistications of Europe. The centrepiece of the room was a light wood-framed Indian charpoy bed whose simplicity had been relieved by silver decorations which twined their way up the legs. Above it, at the head, had been tacked a delicate embroidered hanging depicting the goddess of the night. Against a background of midnight blue, she threw a protective fold of her silver-starred sari around the dimly seen shape of a child, naked but for the two silver bangles around its ankles. Joe compared this with the iron bedstead, the neatly folded rug, striped in the school colours, the steel engraving of the ‘Light of the World’ that Midge would have grown accustomed to in Europe and thought that Prentice probably had it right.