Mourning Raga

IX

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I trust you will forgive,’ said the Swami courteously, ‘so late and unceremonious a call.’ He looked from Dominic to Felder, whom he had never seen before, and his wise brown eyes, behind the unequal lenses, refuged deep in the shadow of large ivory eyelids and kept their own counsel. He even seemed able to suppress the unnerving magnifying power of the strong lens when he chose. ‘I am afraid that I have interrupted a private conference. But you will understand that I am exercised in my mind about Mr Kumar’s daughter. I may speak freely?’

‘Yes, certainly,’ said Dominic, torn several ways at once and quite incapable of resolving the struggle. ‘This is Mr Felder, who is an old and valued friend of Anjli’s mother. Mr Felder is directing a film here in India, and he has been very kind to us since we came. And this is the Swami Premanathanand, of the Native Indian Agricultural Missions, who is an old friend of Mr Kumar.’

‘Delighted!’ said Felder feelingly. ‘We can certainly use another friend here… and another good sound head, too. If I’m right in taking it that the Swami knows what’s going on?’

‘I have that honour,’ said the Swami shyly, and modestly accepted the chair Dominic offered. Tonight he wore an old European trench coat, minus the belt, over his saffron robe, and when he stripped it off in the warmed room his one shoulder emerged naked and polished and adamant as bronze, bone and sinew without the more dispensable elements of flesh.

‘You have received no trustworthy news about Anjli’s whereabouts?’

‘No,’ said Tossa miserably, ‘But we have had a telephone call to say she’s being held to ransom.’ She could see no reason at all for concealing anything that had happened; passionately she recounted the events of the afternoon. ‘And we’re no farther forward at all, and they’re not going to keep their bargain. We’ve been waiting here all the evening for a telephone call, and nothing! They’ve cheated us. And now we haven’t any way at all of getting in touch with them, it was a one-way traffic. We’ve just poured that money down the drain, and it wasn’t even ours, it has to be replaced. And I can’t bear to think…’

‘If money has been demanded and taken,’ said the Swami, smoothly interrupting the downward cadence of her grief and self-blame, ‘then clearly money is the means to further negotiation. This first sum was very easily come by, there is a strong temptation to repeat the success. Do you not agree, Mr Felder? You are a man of the world, where money counts for more, perhaps, than we realise who want it only to invest in crops and food and development. The actual notes we scarcely even see. Nevertheless, they exist, and there are those who know how to value them. And there are those who have them, and know how to devalue them when there is something of great worth to be bought.’

‘I’d give whatever I could raise,’ said Felder warmly, ‘to get Anjli back. But I’ve shot not only my own bolt, but the company’s too. Right now I’m bankrupt. If Dorrie stands by me, I’ll pull out of it. If she doesn’t, I’m sunk. And what did I buy for her? Not a thing!’

‘You have done what you could. It is now for others, perhaps with greater responsibility, to do as much as you have done. Also it is for them to appreciate at its true worth the thing which you have done.’ Benevolently the great eye, like a rare and awe-inspiring omen, beamed through the pebble-thick lens, and again was veiled as his head turned. Like the lance of light from a light-house its brief, comprehensive flash encompassed them all, and withdrew itself into dimness. He raised a lean, long-fingered hand, and took off his glasses. Mild, short-sighted eyes, one brighter than the other, blinked kindly at Dominic. ‘Since I saw you I have been active ceaselessly upon one problem, that of where Satyavan Kumar might be found. I have sat beside the telephone and pondered the possibilities, testing all I considered valid. There are universities where he has studied, colleges where he has lectured, laboratories where he has taken part in research. There are the ordinary places where he directed, not always willingly, the business of his family’s interests. But there are also places to which he withdrew sometimes for refreshment of the spirit, ashrams, solitudes, hermitages… And some of these I have, in the past, shared with him.’ He looked up obliquely, smiling with the delicate pleasure of a child bringing gifts, but a child acquainted, in some obscure amalgam of innocence and experience, with maturity and age. ‘I have run up,’ he said, with the sprightly nonchalance that emerged so surprisingly from his normally measured and precise vocabulary, ‘the very devil of a telephone bill. But I have located Satyavan.’’

‘You have?’ Dominic shot out of his chair joyfully. This couldn’t be the whole answer, it couldn’t solve everything, and above all it couldn’t absolve Tossa and himself, but the surge of relief and release he felt was wonderful. The father should have been there from the beginning, he should never have let go, at any cost, of that fragile essence of himself that survived in Anjli. He shouldn’t have given up what was his; and he must know it, in this extreme, better than anyone. If he was found, they had an elemental force on their side, a tornado that would sweep away obstacles like a breeze winnowing chaff. ‘Where was he, all this time? What’s he been doing?’

‘Is he coming?’ demanded Tossa, slicing straight through to essentials.

‘Where he has been I cannot tell you, surely in many places. Where I found him was in a place of the spirit where we have sometimes rested together when there was need. One does not ask too many questions of those one meets there, for only the answer to one question is of any importance, and that is; from here, whither? And yes, he is coming. There will be a plane from Madras arriving to-morrow a little after noon.’

‘Then he didn’t know,’ said Tossa, quivering, ‘that his mother was dead? He didn’t see the newspapers?’

‘He did not know until it was too late… no. One does not always read newspapers. There is a time not to read them, if you wish to remain upright.’

‘Then you had to tell him?’ she said, her eyes, dark and luminous with sympathy, fixed on the austere old face that confronted her with such serenity. ‘That must have been very hard for you both. And then, his child…’

‘It is never easy,’ said the Swami apocryphally, ‘to return to the world. Until you have left it, you cannot know how hard. But there is no other way forward and none back. Yes, I told him all that it was necessary to tell. And tomorrow in the afternoon he will be here.’

‘But what can he do?’ demanded Felder. ‘God knows I shall be glad to have him emerge into the light again, and get hold of his responsibilities. He’s taken his time about it! But it’s the kid we’re concerned about, and how is he better placed than we are to get her back? Damn it, we did what they told us to do, we paid what they asked for, and they’re ratting on the deal. What more has he to offer, when it comes to the point?’

‘About twelve million rupees more,’ said the Swami Premanathanand with all the aplomb and all the cold blood of a banker or a saint. And he added patiently, as to unrealistic children: ‘Do not forget we are concerned with people whose requirement is essentially simple… money. That puts us in a very strong position, because Satyavan is in command of a very great deal of money – now, as you know, in almost complete command of it – and to him it means very little. It sweats from his finger-ends, money. Daughters are infinitely harder to come by. He will pay whatever is necessary to recover Anjli. He has told me so with his own lips. To the limit of what he has, he will pay for her.’

‘But how,’ wondered Tossa distractedly, ‘do we get in touch with them? They can reach us, but we don’t know how to reach them.’

‘That probably won’t be a problem,’ Dominic said bitterly, ‘as soon as her father emerges. After all, they must be watching absolutely any developments in connection with the family, they wouldn’t miss a thing like that.’

‘You may well be right. But in fact Satyavan has left as little as possible to chance. I have here the text of a personal advertisement which I have composed at his dictation.’ He felt in the deep pocket of the trench coat, which was draped like a cloak of office over the back of his chair, and produced a folded sheet of paper. ‘It is his wish that this shall appear in tomorrow’s newspapers… all the main ones – in the personal column. It is too late to get it into the morning press, but we are in time for the evening papers. If we are not successful with this approach, then of course it may be necessary to let the newsmen have some item to use concerning the return of Mr Kumar, but for the moment he judged it better to come home as quietly as possible and attempt a private contact.’ He unfolded the sheet of paper, and perched his spectacles back upon his long, narrow, beautiful nose. ‘This is how it reads: “Anjli: Am interested in your merchandise. High price if delivered in good condition. Full guarantees.” Then I had intended to give Mr Kumar’s home number and request a call at a fixed hour any evening – hoping, of course, that it will come tomorrow evening if the advertisement has been seen. But if you would permit, I think it would be better now to say only: “Call usual number, eight p.m. Kumar.” If you will allow this telephone to be used as before, I think it might avoid alarming the vendors.’

Felder uttered a soft whistle of admiration. ‘You think of everything!’

‘If one must do such things at all, it is necessary to think of everything. And therefore I cannot any longer avoid,’ said the Swami mildly, ‘pointing out to you the one remaining possibility with which, unfortunately, we also have to count. Though it may well be that you have thought of it for yourselves, even if you have refrained from expressing it. Anjli may already have been killed.’

Tossa nodded wretchedly, Dominic stood frozen eye to eye with the fear he had hoped she need not share, and Felder protested aloud, all in the same instant.

‘Good God, no! They surely wouldn’t hurt the child. I’m sure she must be alive and safe somewhere.’

‘It is common practice in cases of kidnapping. Such people tend to make certain that they can never be identified, and the obvious witness is the victim.’

It was doubly terrible to hear this said in that tranquil, matter-of-fact voice. Felder looked grey with shock and a little sick; but still he shook his head vigorously, resisting the foreboding. ‘No, it’s impossible. I’m certain she’s alive and well.’

‘Let us hope so. But the criminals have not kept their bargain with you. There must be a reason why you have not received the expected call. Either it is a further gesture of greed to hold on to her for still more money, since the first demand was so encouragingly successful. Or else they cannot produce her, and you will hear nothing more. Her father’s arrival will resolve that problem. For I must tell you that he will insist on seeing with his own eyes that his daughter is unharmed, before he even enters into negotiations. What is more, on my advice he insisted that you, who may now know her more certainly than he himself would, shall also see her and verify that it is indeed Anjli. He has not set eyes on her for six years, a substitute might be passed off on him if you were not present to confirm her identity.’

‘But how,’ asked Dominic with patent dismay, ‘can we hope to make them agree to taking a risk like that?’

‘That is for them to arrange as best they can. Satyavan will agree to any safeguards they suggest, provided he can satisfy himself that there still exists something to be bought. If they want their money – and it will be worth their while – they will go to some trouble to arrange it.’ He added: ‘I also have promised that the police will not be drawn into the affair by me, though of course, as you know, they are already informed about the crime itself. A quick settlement is therefore much to the criminal’s advantage.’

‘I hate,’ said Dominic with sudden and uncharacteristic passion, ‘to think of them getting away with it.’ And it came out as a plain protest against the Swami’s apparent acceptance of the possibility. True enough, the main thing was to recover Anjli alive and well, and restore her to her rediscovered father. But even so, the ugliest and meanest of crimes… not to speak of Arjun Baba’s thin but tenacious thread of life, snapped almost by the way…

The Swami rose, faintly smiling, and put on his trench coat. ‘I am more fortunate than you in this respect, that my beliefs assure me that no one ever gets away with anything. There is a constant account which must balance. In what form of life these people will return to earth it is useless to conjecture.’

‘Cockroaches, probably,’ said Tossa with detestation, and saw Felder wince perceptibly. In India cockroaches are the nightmare of the uninitiated.

‘Ah, cockroaches are sagacious and relatively harmless creatures! Do not attribute human malice to them. And now I shall leave you,’ said the Swami, ‘until tomorrow evening. If you agree that I may bring my friend here to hope for his daughter’s return?’

‘Yes, please do! None of us can rest until we get her back.’

Only after he had withdrawn did it occur to Tossa, to her amazement and shame, that they had not offered him any refreshment in return for his typist’s excellent coffee. The magnetism of his presence was such that one sat at his feet while he was in the room. And yet, when it came to the point, what did they really know about him?

Felder went out on to the balcony outside the window, and looked down into the courtyard, curious about the ancient Rolls with its tattered body and indestructible heart. The driver had just observed the Swami approaching from the garden entrance of the hotel, and slid nimbly out from behind the wheel to open the door for his master.

‘Wouldn’t you know he’d have that sort of car? I bet everything he does and everything that belongs to him measures up. Say what you like about this country, at least it has a sense of style.’

Tossa and Dominic came to his side and stood looking down with him as the Swami clambered majestically but athletically into the lofty front passenger seat, which had something of the throne about it. As Girish closed the door a large taxi came prowling into the patio from the drive, and its headlights focussed directly upon the Rolls. Girish moved at leisure round to the driving seat, head raised to free his vision from the momentary glare. Felder uttered a sudden sharp moan of astonishment, and leaned out far over the balustrade.

‘Oh, no! It can’t be…!’

‘Can’t be what? What’s the matter?’ Dominic asked in alarm.

‘That fellow… Look! The driver…“ At that moment the headlights swerved from Girish, and left him to climb into the Rolls in shadowy obscurity, and so start up his noble vehicle and drive it away.

‘Girish? What about him? He’s the Swami’s regular one… at least, he’s the same man who was driving him when we first met him.’

‘He’s the hillman who stopped me outside the temple this afternoon,’ Felder said with certainty, ‘and asked me the way to Birla House. That’s who he is! The guy who took my attention off the pay-off briefcase just long enough to get the contents swopped over.’

‘Girish? But he… damn it, he drove us home… Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure! I’d know that face again anywhere. Now you tell me,’ said Felder savagely, ‘why a man who can drive his boss about Delhi smartly enough to be worth his pay should have to ask his way to Birla House? Go ahead, tell me! I’m listening.’

After which, it was hardly surprising that a conveniently anonymous taxi, with three people aboard besides the driver, should sit waiting for the arrival of the plane from Madras, at something after noon the next day at Safdarjung Airport. The passengers didn’t care to venture out on to the tarmac, because the ancient Rolls was there in all its glory, with Girish lounging at the wheel, and the Swami Premanathanand had gone briskly through the airport buildings to the landing frontage, to wait for the emerging travellers. Instead, the taxi parked in a convenient position to watch the new arrivals proceeding towards their town transport. The Sikh driver, efficient, intelligent and uninterested in his freight, had taken out the newspaper he had bought half an hour previously, and was reading the news pages. He skipped the agony column; which was a pity, because one of its small ads. began: ‘Anjli: Am interested in your merchandise. High price if delivered in good condition…’ Felder had bought a paper, too; so they knew exactly what the advertisement said. But the dignified and faintly disdainful Sikh didn’t look at all like a probable kidnapper.

The passengers from the Madras flight were coming through. A bustling lady in a sari and a woollen coat, with a child in one hand, and transistor in the other, a bandylegged little husband in a Nehru cap and European suit following with two suitcases; a blasee girl, either English or American, worn-out with sight-seeing and pursued by two porters; a quiet, sensible couple, probably Australian – there must really be something in that legend of easy-going democracy – talking placidly to their one porter as if he lived next door back home, and giving the pleasant impression of effortless enjoyment; and then the flood of southern Indians, small-featured, delicately-built, golden-skinned, alert and aloof, good-humoured people balancing curiosity and self-sufficiency like acrobats. And finally, the Swami Premanathanand, pacing at leisure beside a tall, erect, haughty Punjabi – no mistaking those lofty hawkish lineaments – in the most expensive and yet unobtrusive of tailorings in a neutral tan. They came out through the glass doors talking earnestly, totally absorbed. The stranger was thicker-set than many of the Punjabis Dominic and Tossa had seen, with something of the suavity and goldenness of the Bengali about him, but the jutting nose and flaring nostrils were there, and the fastidious, full-lipped mouth, and the hooded eyes. Bengali eyes have a liquid softness, they suggest reserve but not reticence. These eyes were proud and distant, even, at first encounter, hostile. He had beautifully-cut black hair, crisp and gently wavy, and the sophistication of his movements was what they had expected. The manner of his conversation, urgent, quiet and restrained, tended to bear out everything they had heard or thought of him. He was so well-bred that he might as well have been English.

‘That’s it!’ said Dominic flatly. ‘Not much doubt. He’s genuine!’

The new arrival was brought up standing at sight of the Rolls. It would not have been surprising to see him insert a monocle into his eye to survey it more closely, but he did not. Delicately he stepped up into the back seat, presumably not merely cleared of grain samples for this occasion, but dusted as well; and the Swami mounted beside him as nimbly as ever, twitching the skirt of his robe clear with an expert kick of one heel.

The Rolls turned ponderously, and swept superbly away towards the centre of Delhi.

‘All right, driver,’ Felder said, at once resigned, puzzled and uneasy. ‘Back to Keen’s Hotel.’ And when they were in motion, not too close to the resplendent veteran sailing ahead: ‘Back to square one! It looks like him, and it must be him. Anybody could check the passenger list, after all. So where do we stand now? Don’t tell me that driver of his is on the level!’

They didn’t tell him anything, one way or the other; it remained an open question all the way back into town.

The Swami brought his friend to Keen’s Hotel punctually at half past seven in the evening, apparently deeming it necessary to allow them half an hour for the social niceties before the stroke of eight, when they would all, almost certainly, freeze into strained silence, waiting for the still hypothetical telephone call. Felder, in fact, was the last of the party to arrive, and came in a great hurry from the Connaught Circus office, with a much-handled script under his arm.

‘Not that I’m thinking of leaving,’ he assured them all, with a tired and rueful smile, ‘not until this business of Anjli is cleared up. But I must do a little work sometimes. I hope and pray I’m going to be able to fly back to Benares soon with a clear conscience.’ It was easy to see that in spite of his poise the strain was telling on him. He turned to the stranger and held out his hand, not waiting to be formally introduced. ‘Mr Kumar, I’m Felder. I expect you know the score about all of us already from the Swami here. I needn’t tell you that you have the sympathy of every one of us, and we’ll do absolutely everything we can to help you and Anjli out of this mess.’

‘I understand from my friend,’ said Kumar quietly, ‘that you have already done all and more than I could possibly have asked of you. I’m very grateful, believe me. We must set that account straight as soon as possible. But you’ll forgive me if my mind can accommodate only one thought at this moment.’

He stood in the middle of Dominic’s extravagant hotel sitting-room, immaculate in his plutocratic tailoring, a curiously clear-cut and solitary figure, as if spot-lighted by his deprivation and loneliness on a stage where everyone else was a supernumerary. He was not so tall as they had thought him to be, but his withdrawn and erect bearing accounted for the discrepancy. The patina of wealth was on his complexion, his clothes, his speech, his manner; but that was neither his virtue nor his fault, it was something that had happened to him from birth, and if it had one positive effect, it was to add to his isolation. He was a very handsome man, no doubt of that; the gold of his skin, smoother than silk, devalued whiteness beyond belief. Maybe some day they would get used to that re-estimation of colour, and realise how crude the normal English pink can be.

The Swami, a benevolent stage-manager, set them all an example by seating himself calmly, and composing himself for as long as need be of nerveless waiting. ‘We are all of one mind, and all informed about what we have to expect. We have taken all possible steps to deserve success, let us then wait decorously and expect it. We are contemplating an exchange which will be to the advantage and convenience of both parties, there is therefore no need to anticipate double-dealing. It would be worth no one’s while.’ His practicality sounded, as always, unanswerable; but Kumar, even when he consented to follow his friend’s example and sit with folded hands, was tense from crown to heels.

‘If the call does come,’ ventured Dominic, ‘should I answer? And hand it over to you, sir, if it’s the same man?’

The Swami approved. ‘The number is your number. And there could, of course, be some quite innocent call. Yes, please answer in the first instance.’

It was barely twenty minutes to eight, and the scene was set already. There was nothing now to look forward to but the gradually mounting tension that was going to stretch them all on the same rack until the bell finally rang. Except that they had barely set their teeth to endure the waiting when they were all set jangling like broken puppets, as the innocent white handset emitted its first strident peal of the evening. Never, thought Tossa, huddled in her corner, never, never will I live with a telephone again. Better the telegraph boy at the door every time.

Dominic picked up the receiver. There was sweat trickling down into his eyebrows, prickly as thistles. A voice he hardly knew said distantly: ‘Hullo, Dominic Felse here!’

He should have known it was too early, he should have known the damned instrument was going to play with them for the rest of the night. A gentle, courteous, low-pitched voice said in his ear: ‘Good, I was afraid you might all be out on the town. I looked in the dining-room, but not a sign of you there. This is Ashok Kabir, I’m down in the foyer. May I come up? I brought a little present for Anjli.’

Distantly Dominic heard himself saying, like an actor reading from a script: ‘I wondered why we hadn’t heard anything from you. Have you been out of Delhi?’

‘Ever since the unit left for Benares. I had three concerts in Trivandrum and Cochin. I’m only just back. Am I inconvenient just now? Maybe you were getting ready to go out. I should have called you from Safdarjung.’

‘Anjli…’ Dominic swallowed whatever he might have said, looking round all the intent faces that willed him to discretion, and unhappily giving way to their influence. There was only one thing to be done. ‘Wait just a moment for me,’ he said, ‘And I’ll come down to you.’

He hung up the telephone, and they could all breathe again. ‘It’s Ashok,’ he said flatly. ‘He’s just back in town after a concert tour in the south, and it looks as if he doesn’t know anything about Anjli being missing. He’s brought a present for her, he’s expecting to see her. I said I’d go down to him. Now what do I do? Tell him the truth and bring him up here to join us?’

Very placidly, very gently, very smoothly, but with absolute and instant decision, the Swami Premanathanand said: ‘No! ’ It was impossible to imagine him ever speaking in haste, and yet he had got that ‘No!’ out before anyone else could even draw breath.

‘We are five people here already,’ he pointed out regretfully, as all eyes turned upon him, ‘who know the facts. Five people with whom the vendors have to reckon. I think to let in even one more is to jeopardise our chances of success.’

‘I am absolutely sure,’ said Tossa, ‘that Ashok is to be trusted. He is very fond of Anjli. I know!’

‘And I feel sure you are right, but unfortunately that is not the point. He could be the most trustworthy person in the world, and still be enough to frighten off the criminals from dealing with us.’

‘He is right,’ said Kumar heavily. ‘We are already too many, but that cannot be helped. We can help adding to the number and increasing the risk.’

Anjli was his daughter, and he was proposing to pay out for her whatever might be needed to bring her back to him safely. There was nothing to be done but respect his wishes.

‘Then what do I do? Go down and get rid of Ashok? Tell him Anjli’s out? Supposing he’s already questioned the clerk on the desk?’

‘He would not,’ said the Swami absently but with certainty. ‘He would question only you, who had the child in charge. Yes, go and talk to him. Tell him Anjli is not here this evening.’ He adjusted his glasses, and the great eye from behind the thick lens beamed dauntingly upon the unhappy young face before him. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘and I will tell you what you shall say to him, if you require from me an act of faith. Put him off for tonight, but invite him to come for coffee tomorrow evening, after dinner… with you, and Miss Barber here, and Anjli.’

Dominic staring at him steadily for a long moment, considering how deeply he meant it, and realising slowly that the Swami never said anything without deliberate intent. It might not, of course, be the obvious intent, but serious, final and responsible it would certainly be. The only way to find out what lay behind was to go along with him and take the risk.

‘All right!’ he said. ‘That’s what I’ll tell him.’ And he turned and walked out of the room and down the stairs to the foyer where Ashok waited.

It was then just twelve minutes to eight.

Ashok unwrapped the little ivory figure from the piece of grey raw silk in which the carver had swathed it, and set it upright in Dominic’s palm. She stood perhaps four inches high, a slender, graceful woman latticed about with lotus shoots and airy curves of drapery, her naked feet in a lotus flower, and a stringed instrument held lovingly in two of her four beautiful arms. Ashok’s expressive, long-lashed eyes and deeply-lined gargoyle face brooded over her tenderly.

‘It is a veena, not a sitar, but Anjli will not mind. This is Saraswati, the mother of the vedas, the goddess of the word, of learning, of all the arts. Perhaps a good person for her to consult, when she finally faces her problem. I found her in a little shop I know in Trivandrum, and I thought Anjli would like her. I am sorry to have missed her, but of course I gave you no notice.’

‘I’m sorry about that, too. But if you’re free, could you join us here tomorrow night for coffee? About eight o’clock or soon after? We shall all three be very happy to see you then,’ he said, setting light to his boats with a flourish; and he did not know whether he was uttering a heartless lie which must find him out in one more day, or committing himself to an act of faith to which he was now bound for life or death. At that moment he did not know whom he trusted or whom he distrusted, he was blind and in the dark, in a landscape totally unfamiliar to him, in which he could find no landmarks. Yet there must, for want of any other beacon, be a certain value in setting a course and holding by it, right or wrong; thus at least you may, by luck rather than judgement, set foot on firm ground at last and find something to hold by.

‘Gladly,’ said Ashok, ‘I shall look forward to it.’ He had asked no questions, and even now he asked only one: ‘Her father has not yet come to take charge of her?’

‘We’ve heard from him, indirectly,’ said Dominic, picking his way among thorns. ‘I hope he’ll be with her very soon.’

‘Good, so it was worth waiting a little.’ Ashok nodded his splendid Epstein head in contentment, and picked up his light overcoat, draping it over one shoulder of his grey achkan like a hussar cloak. ‘Until tomorrow, then! And my reverences to Miss Barber and Anjli.’

He had a taxi waiting for him in the courtyard, one of the biggest Dominic had ever seen; and at the first step he took into the open air the car came smoothly alongside, placing its rear door-handle confidingly in his hand. That was the kind of service Ashok, for all his reticence and modesty, commanded in Delhi, and probably throughout India, for that matter.

The Swami’s Rolls stood in tattered majesty at the end of the ground-floor arcade. The taxi driver gave it a long, respectful look as he turned his own car to drive away, and Ashok, from the rear seat, eyed it even more thoughtfully. Dominic noted, before he turned to go back upstairs in haste, that for once Girish was nowhere in evidence.

The second telephone call came on the stroke of eight, and thereby held up the one for which they were waiting. But the voice that demanded briskly and cheerfully: ‘Have you got my co-director there?’ was merely that of Ganesh Rao, back from Sarnath a couple of days ahead of schedule with the Deer Park scenes in the can, and anxious to get some early co-operation over the rushes.

‘Let me talk to him! ’ Felder took over the receiver. ‘Yes, Felder here! Sure, I’ll be out at Hauz Khas in an hour or two, if all goes well. Have you got the whole bunch back safely at the villas? You must have made good time.’ In the background he could hear the usual exuberant babel of voices, the girls shrilling and laughing, Channa the charioteer fluting mellifluously, the young American technicians deploying their large, easy drawls, the clinking of glasses, the usual party atmosphere. When he hung up his face was grey with strain; and as soon as the receiver hung in the cradle it pealed again, viciously.

Dominic snatched it from under Felder’s hand. This time it must be, this time it had to be, no one could stand much more of this.

‘I am calling,’ said the unpleasant, clacking old voice, rattling consonants like bones, ‘in answer to your advertisement.’

Without a word Dominic held out the receiver to Kumar, who was already stretching out his hand for it. For a moment they could clearly hear the juiceless tones continuing, then Kumar cut them off sharply.

‘Listen to me, and let us be clear. I am Kumar. You have what I want, and I am prepared to pay for it. But there will be no deal, there will be no discussion, even, until I have seen for myself that my daughter still lives. Not one rupee until then. No, I will not even speak of money until I am satisfied. You have my word that I have taken no steps to try and trace this call, or to find you, nor shall I do so. If you restore me what I want, neither I nor any of the people here with me will take any action against you. It is my word, it will have to be enough for you. If you cannot trust me far, you must know I cannot trust you at all. You will show my daughter to me, and to these friends of mine who have seen her more recently than I have. You will show her to us in good condition, or you will get nothing. I am a business man, I do not buy pigs in pokes. Then we will talk terms, and arrange an exchange which will protect both of us. You understand me?’

The old voice hectored, rising, growing angry.

‘You hold just one saleable article, my friend,’ snapped Kumar, ‘and I am offering to buy it… when I have satisfied myself that it is exactly what you are representing it to be. I have promised you we will do no more than that. I have promised you a high price. If you do not want to deal on those terms, where do you think you will find a higher bidder? The circumstances are your problem, not mine. Make up your mind.’

There were brief, acrimonious questions, a note of something like anxiety now in the tone.

‘Certainly. If you make it possible, the exchange can take place tomorrow. First let us see her. Then call me here, and I shall make no more difficulties than I must to ensure that she remains as we have seen her. There is no question of trust. Each of us must formulate his own safeguards. But do you question that my word is worth more than yours? Make your dispositions, then, we are waiting.’

After that he sat quite silent, listening with admirable concentration and patience for some minutes, the clapper vibrating viciously in his ear. He heaved a long, careful sigh. ‘Very well! On behalf of all of us here, I agree.’

Very slowly, as if the smoothness and silence of the action mattered vitally, he cradled the receiver, and sat back in his chair with a shivering gasp, wiping his moist hands frenziedly on a vast silk handkerchief.

‘Well, it’s arranged! Tomorrow, at twelve o’clock, all five of us – oh, yes, whoever he is, he knows how many of us there are! – are to meet for lunch in the first-floor restaurant at Sawyers’, on Connaught Circus, near Radial Road Number Five. A window table will be booked for us in advance – in my name! There is a sweet shop just opposite. Promptly at a quarter past twelve Anjli will be brought by taxi to that shop to buy sweets. He says we shall see her clearly. But if any one of us attempts to leave the table and interfere with her, we shall never see her again. And if we all obey orders, and finish our lunch and go home, then he will call us again to talk terms and make arrangements for the exchange.’

‘And do you believe,’ asked Tossa in a whisper, ‘that he’ll keep his word?’

‘I think,’ said the Swami Premanathanand, very gently but with complete detachment, ‘that he will greatly prefer money and no trouble rather than no money, a dead Anjli and a great deal of trouble. Do you not agree, Mr Felder?’

Felder made a small, protesting sound of revulsion and distaste. Of the impersonal mental processes of India he had had more than enough. ‘I think he took her for money, and he’ll twist circumstances all the ways he has to, to get money for her. So far he hasn’t committed any capital crime, why should he take such a risk now?’

‘No capital crime? Well, of course,’ said the Swami deprecatingly, ‘there is only the little matter of Arjun Baba.’

‘Who,’ asked Felder simply, ‘is Arjun Baba?’

It came as a shock, if a minor shock, to realise that he was in perfectly good faith. They had rushed to confide in him about Anjli, ready to take advantage of sympathy and help wherever it offered, they had mentioned the old man who had been used as a lure for her, but this was the first time Felder had ever actually heard the name of Arjun Baba. Names are powerful magic. That anonymous wisp of India, a puff of grey dust blown away almost unwittingly by the wind of somebody’s greed, suddenly put on a man’s identity and was illuminated by a man’s soul; and suddenly, for the first time, Felder was gazing with horror at the reality of murder.

The Rolls, starting up with somnolent dignity, drove away out of the courtyard with the Swami erect and impassive in the front passenger seat. Kumar, though he had left in company with his friend, was apparently not dependent on him for transport.

‘I don’t like it!’ said Felder, watching the old car round the tall hedge and vanish from view. ‘I can’t help it, there’s something going on that I don’t like and don’t trust, and there goes the man who’s stage-managing the lot of us. It was that driver of his who distracted my attention from the money, just long enough for the parcels to be swopped over. And now tonight, why didn’t he want us to let Ashok in on the truth? Why? You saw as well as I did how he jumped in to put his foot on that instantly. Oh, sure it made sense – sense enough for Kumar to echo what he said. And yet – you’ve seen him at work, he sits there like a god, and nods, and we all do what he says. And now we’re all committed to this lunch tomorrow. And he’s the one who’s pulling the strings!’

‘As long as he pulls the one that produces Anjli alive,’ said Dominic, shaken but helpless, ‘does it matter?’

‘No… if he does that, no, nothing else matters. Not until afterwards, anyhow. No, that’s right, we haven’t got much choice, have we? She’s what matters. Once we’ve got her back, we can afford to get inquisitive.’ His tone said that ‘inquisitive’ was an under-statement.

‘You don’t really believe,’ whispered Tossa, appalled, ‘that the Swami can be behind Anjli’s kidnapping? But he’s her father’s friend. You can see it’s true. They’ve known each other for years.’

‘That’s right! And who knows better than the Swami how much money his friend’s good for, and how little he’ll miss it? And who can get him to dance to his tune better?’

‘But it’s crazy! He doesn’t care about money. It means nothing to him…’ she protested, shaking.

‘No, not in dollars, or rupees, or pounds sterling, not one damn’ thing. Only in grain seed, and pedigree stock, and agricultural plant, and expert advice… An opportunity’s an opportunity, whatever you want the cash for, it doesn’t have to be for yourself. Why didn’t he want Ashok to know? Why was his driver watching me on Sunday, why did he pretend to be an innocent in Delhi, when he knows it like the palm of his hand?’

They laboured to find answers for him, and discovered that they had none for themselves. The thin fingers of the Swami Premanathanand were indeed unobtrusively present in the plot wherever they looked, gently stirring, bringing the mixture to the boil.

‘Our hands are tied, anyhow,’ said Dominic flatly. ‘If he really is behind the whole affair, then he genuinely intends to hand over Anjli tomorrow. And there’s nothing we can do except go along with him until she’s safe.’

On which exceedingly chilly comfort they separated for the night, Felder to the villa at Hauz Khas where Ganesh Rao was waiting with the rushes from Sarnath, and Tossa and Dominic to a belated sandwich and a lime soda in the bar, and then a solitary walk round the quiet streets near the Lodi Park. It was the walk that completed their sense of disorientation and confusion; for they returned by way of Aurangzeb Road, and passing by the drive of Claridge’s, were just in time to see one of the handsome, well-groomed, well-heeled couples of Delhi strolling arm-in-arm from the hotel to the taxi rank. A good-looking, austere, proud, pale Punjabi in a European suit, and a very lovely woman in a white and gold sari on his arm, her towering beehive of lustrous black hair defying fashion, which one so beautiful could well afford to ignore. There was nothing indecorous about them, they were talking together gravely and quietly, their faces intent. There was nothing about them, indeed, to excite any feelings but those of pleasure and admiration – except that the man was Satyavan Kumar, and the woman – once seen, never forgotten – was Kamala, whom they knew best as Yashodhara, the bride of Prince Siddhartha, the Buddha.