He lay low until Govind had disappeared. Where to start? His headache was not as bad as he feared it might be. Even more encouraging — there was no one sleeping on his couch. Or ever had been, to all appearances. All was neat, cushions back in place and surely that was his bathrobe hanging on the door? He sat up and called out softly, dreading to hear a reply: ‘Are you there, Madeleine?’
No reply.
Relief washed over him and for a moment he was tempted to allow himself the delusion that the events of the last evening had never occurred. The discovery of a still-warm place on the other side of his bed, an indented pillow and several golden hairs in that indentation brought an even more unpalatable scenario to mind. He’d drunk too much champagne but surely he would recall the intimacy implied by his finds? He felt about guiltily under the covers for other clues but found nothing more incriminating than a folded square of writing paper.
‘Didn’t Nancy ever complain that you talk in your sleep?’ was the short message.
Almost as a signature the sound of a small aeroplane passed overhead. For a moment he thought it might be Madeleine heading off for Delhi but the plane circled and returned before flying off again towards the Aravalli hills.
There was something he had to check on, he remembered, and, scrambling from his bed, he searched about in the waste paper basket and in all the corners where she might have abandoned an empty champagne bottle. There was only the one he remembered finishing himself. Madeleine had, he calculated, in spite of appearances — the husky gin-fogged voice, the mistimed gestures — actually drunk in his presence about a thimbleful of wine. Her first glass had been spilled on the floor, he remembered, and the bottle was chill and must have been almost full when he arrived.
Madeleine was putting on a pretence of drunkenness. But why would she do that? Protective colouring perhaps? Drunks are never taken seriously. They are disregarded, an embarrassment; people look the other way when they enter a room. People underestimate them. He sighed as he realized that he had been misled into behaving like this towards Madeleine himself. And this had clearly been her intention. Poor little Madeleine, widowed and drowning her grief in a bottle. A common enough solution in India and therefore an easy deception but, if the drunkenness was a deception, what about the grief?
Joe wondered again about Madeleine’s ambivalent attitude to her circumstances. She had loved her husband by all accounts whilst hating his home and family. If something had happened to upset the balance in her life. . But, of course, something had happened. Something of earthshaking proportions for Madeleine. The oldest son had died. At a stroke, Prithvi the gadabout socialite who was quite prepared to spend the larger amount of his time living with princely abandon in Europe or America with his adored young wife was now next in line for the throne of Ranipur. Had he succumbed to pressures put on him in the weeks following his brother’s death, pressures to devote himself to the serious business of ruling, to return to family traditions, take an Indian wife to ensure the succession? How secure had Madeleine’s marriage been latterly?
She had the technical skill and the opportunity to cut just the right number of steel threads to send her husband plummeting to the ground. Had she grown weary after two years of the stifling palace life of a princess — and a despised and disregarded princess at that? She had said something last night that had stayed with him through the mental fog into which he had descended. ‘I’ve got my ticket out of here!’ She was going to persuade the maharaja, by fair means or foul, to allow her to leave and not empty-handed. He wondered what exactly the ‘ticket’ consisted of.
Perhaps her brother Stuart could shed a light on all this? Joe looked at his watch. Six o’clock and he was due to see him at nine. Time to do justice to the pot of coffee and the pile of toast Govind had just brought in. He thought he would leave the lid of the silver chafing dish which undoubtedly contained eggs in some form or another firmly in place. He’d enjoy a cool bath and then a head-clearing walk in the freshest air he would experience that day, heading out to the polo ground perhaps, keeping well clear of the women’s quarters and the town. Half an hour later, he put on the white shirt, the light box cloth trousers and the riding jacket Govind had selected for him, snatched up a topee and set out.
The sun was already beating down fiercely when he walked out of the palace at seven. As he strolled out on to the verandah looking across the undulating polo ground an elegant figure in riding habit mounted on a gleaming black Arab mare spotted him, turned and came on towards him.
Third Her Highness was followed by a syce riding an equally fine horse a few yards behind. The red silk tunic and turban and the black trousers he wore had been carefully chosen, Joe guessed, to complement the white jodhpurs and black jacket of his mistress. Even the white egret pecking his way in their wake across the lawn seemed to involve himself in the frieze they presented. Raising a foot, the bird offered a hieroglyphic profile and stalked forward. Unconsciously, Shubhada echoed its movements, tilting an imperious nose that would have looked impressive on a coin.
‘Commander Sandilands. Good morning,’ she called. ‘I was surprised not to see you exercising earlier.’
‘I overslept, Your Highness,’ he said with a disarming smile. ‘Unused as I am to Rajput hospitality I indulged too recklessly in all the good things the palace has to offer.’
Oh what the hell! If the palace grapevine was all it was cracked up to be she’d probably heard he’d defeated a Russian grand master and slept with a whole boardful of chess pieces.
‘Then I recommend a short canter.’ She turned and spoke to her syce who dismounted and led his horse over to Joe. ‘Shall we?’
Luckily for Joe the horse was well into its morning exercise. He thought he would have had quite a struggle to control the magnificent animal coming straight from the stables.
Shubhada led the way at a canter along the polo field and Joe began to enjoy himself, thankful that he’d remembered to put on the topee against the sun. It occurred to him that he was taking part in a very unusual scene. Maharanees like Shubhada would at any time in the past and, as far as he was aware, in the present, be kept well away from the eyes of any man and yet here she was riding off with him with the ease of any Western girl.
She stopped and dismounted at the far end of the polo field in a shady grove of acacia trees and Joe joined her, hitching their horses to a branch. He was curious to know why she had arranged this time alone with him. He wondered whether she knew the true nature of her husband’s illness. He would have very much liked to know how her own future would be affected by his death. He asked none of his questions. Even in riding clothes she was regal and a Scotland Yard officer knows his place.
She went to sit on a fallen tree trunk and pointed a finger at the other end. Joe sat down and waited.
‘I wonder if you are aware, Commander,’ she said finally, ‘of the seriousness of my husband’s condition?’
Perhaps this interview wasn’t going to be as awkward as he had anticipated.
‘I am, Your Highness, and may I offer you my — ’
‘Yes, you may,’ she interrupted, ‘but when the time comes. You will hear more from his physician, I am sure, but we are thinking that he will not last out the summer. We ought, of course, to have moved him to Switzerland where we would normally spend the hot season but his doctor has advised against it. Udai would not survive the journey apparently. And, naturally, as ruler, he prefers to die where he has lived, here at the heart of his kingdom.’