Barbara Cleverly (8 page)

‘Well?’ they both said together.

‘One or two things here,’ said Joe, ‘which – I don’t know if you agree – we really ought to talk about. When can we arrange to do that?’

‘I was going to say the same thing. Look, why don’t we meet again tomorrow? Go over some of the evidence with me. And, to take this thing away from the cloak of officialdom, why don’t you come and have tiffin with us? Apart from anything else I’d like you to meet my wife.’

‘I’d like to meet your wife. Let’s do that.’

‘Any rickshaw will bring you to my house.’

‘I was going to say,’ said Sir George as they remounted the carriage together, ‘I think the time has come for a further conference with Carter but if I well understood what you and he were saying to each other just now, it seems as if that may have arranged itself. Am I right?’

On return to Sir George’s residence it became clear that he and Joe had very different ideas as to how the next hour or so should be passed. Hospitable and expansive, Sir George could see no reason why they should not between them discuss the day’s events over a bottle of port. Joe, nearly dropping with tiredness, wasn’t even sure that he had the strength to fall into bed and he had some difficulty in convincing Sir George of this. He was suffered at last to retire to the manifest comforts of the guest bungalow.

‘It’s been a damn long day,’ he said apologetically and, indeed, he could hardly believe that it was in the same day that he had driven up the Kalka road with Korsovsky. But the guest bungalow when he finally reached it was everything he could have asked of comfort and luxury. His clothes had been unpacked, his bed was ready, an eiderdown lay across it as a precaution against the cold Simla nights. There was even electric light. Joe fell into bed and into a restless night. Dreams and visions troubled him and more than once he woke with a shock believing himself to be hearing once more a double shot from behind encircling boulders. Visions of Alice Conyers-Sharpe perpetually intruded between him and sleep and, following him into his dreams, she bent over him, her hypnotic eyes fixed on his. ‘Find him!’ she said. ‘You’ve got to find him!’ Alice faded and he was climbing with Carter a sliding scree slope from which stones fell booming into an abyss below. ‘Find him!’ said Carter.

Twice he got out of bed to stand by the window looking down on silent, moonlit Chota Simla to the south. A very distant dog and only a somewhat less distant rattle of a trotting horse broke the silence. From Sir George’s garden came the faint fragrance of jasmine and lily of the valley. He drained the carafe at his bedside, appreciating the chill water and, thankful for the absence of a mosquito net, he fell, finally exhausted, into sleep.

It was a bad night but what Sir George’s staff thought suitable for breakfast went a long way to compensate for it. There was a plate of porridge, there was a rack of toast, four rashers of bacon and two fried eggs and, inevitably, a pot of Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade together with an urn of coffee that would adequately have supplied the officers’ mess of a small regiment. Heartened by this and grateful for the clean clothes that had been laid out for him, Joe was preparing to set off on a voyage of exploration round Simla but his eye was caught by a note from Sir George.

‘If you look in your spare room, you will find your luggage and that of Feodor Korsovsky. My car has been released to me by the police and these items were with it. I thought you might like to go through his things. Carter has had a preliminary rootle around. He sends you the keys and invites you to do the same. I suppose, in due course, it will all have to be returned to K’s next of kin (whoever that may turn out to be) but in the meantime you and Carter may be able to glean a thing or two. Come and see me when convenient. I shall be out all morning and certainly for the first half of the afternoon. Dinner perhaps?’

Joe was impressed. Among his mental list of things to do had been the question of the whereabouts of Korsovsky’s luggage but, predictably and characteristically, Sir George was one jump ahead of him. Joe looked at his watch. Nine o’clock. He wondered at what hour officialdom in Simla got to work.

There were two large cases. Expensive luggage, Joe noticed, with a Paris label. The clothes were mostly French apart from the dinner jacket which was made in New York and the shirts which were made in London. The shoes were hand-stitched and barely worn. Amongst the toiletries was a bottle of bay rum from a barber in Duke Street, St James’s. An expensive set of lawn handkerchiefs came from a haberdasher in Milan; in a black metal box was a patent safety razor from New York with a packet of razor blades, each bearing the portrait of King C. Gillette, claiming to be the inventor. It was the luggage of a very much travelled and incessantly travelling man. But the collection was curiously impersonal and was answering no questions.

Joe took out each item carefully and piled everything neatly on the floor. At the very bottom of the first trunk were one or two books and underneath that a layer of newspaper. Joe examined the books carefully, shaking them to dislodge any papers which might be hidden between the pages, but the well-worn copies of War and Peace in Russian, Les Trois Mousquetaires in French and Plain Tales from the Hills in English yielded up no secrets. Dutifully Joe looked at the yellowing newspaper. A French national paper, Le Matin, and a date in 1919. But more, evidently, than just a lining for the trunk.

A short handwritten message in French in the margin said, ‘Feodor – as promised. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’ And there followed initials so flamboyant as to resemble a coat of arms. G.M.? Joe thought back to his journey with the talkative Monsieur Korsovsky. He had mentioned his agent

Grégoire, was it? Grégoire Montefiore

something like that. He wondered what the agent could possibly be apologizing for. He glanced at the headlines. The French Minister for Finance was announcing strict measures to control inflation. A severe frost had decimated the vines in the Rhone Valley. Miracle baby, six-month-old orphan Jules Martin, was once again in the arms of his grandmother.

Fighting the temptation to dip deeper into three-year-old news Joe turned to the inside page where he knew he would find the Arts Diary. Yes, there it was. An article about Korsovsky. He read it quickly. After his phenomenal success in New York and New Orleans the singer was to return to Europe where he was booked to appear at the reopening of the Covent Garden Opera House in the autumn. And – a treat for French music lovers who had, after all, been the first to recognize his talents – he was to give three summer recitals in the Roman theatres of Provence.

Was this what his agent was apologizing for? It looked like a case of enthusiastic overbooking to Joe. He replaced the newspaper in the bottom of the trunk and continued his search.

Looking more closely at the trunks themselves, he noticed that under the lid of the second was a slim compartment built into the lining. He slid in a hand and took out a leather satchel containing a leather writing case. A leather writing case with Russian writing on the cover and embossed with a coat of arms. This once smart and very expensive item was the only thing which showed any signs of wear. It was, indeed, much used. On a small chain in the satchel was a key which fitted and Joe opened the writing case and took it over to the window. He settled down to go through the contents.

There were several letters of recent date still in their envelopes. There was a photograph of a family group. A bearded man, a smiling woman in a large sun hat and a little boy in a sailor suit who by a small stretch of the imagination could have been Feodor himself. There was a group photograph by a professional photographer of an operatic cast. Rigoletto, Joe decided after a little examination. There was a family group on a seaside terrace with a large house in the background and now Korsovsky appeared to have been joined by a younger brother and a baby in his mother’s arms.

Joe took the letters one by one from their envelopes. These seemed to be letters from his agent bafflingly written in a careless mixture of Russian and French and signed with the flourishing G.M. But there was one letter with a Simla postmark. On headed Gaiety Theatre writing paper an official and impersonal typed message confirmed the arrangements for the recital. It referred to terms agreed in previous correspondence, politely said how much they were looking forward to his visit and how honoured they would be by this. It concluded with the words: ‘

you should leave the train at Kalka and come on by tonga. The Toy Train (!) is really not to be recommended at this time of year and is likely to be very crowded. Yours sincerely

’ A signature he couldn’t read followed.

What had been Korsovsky’s words? ‘I was instructed to proceed by tonga.’ This, presumably, was the instruction. The instruction which had led him to his death.

‘I wonder who the devil signed this?’ thought Joe.

The old programme with its wine-stained front looked so ordinary Joe nearly thrust it back into the leather case unexamined. Professional procedure stayed his hand and he looked at it more closely. A performance of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville staged in the Opera House in Nice in March 1914. With a flicker of interest Joe wondered why Korsovsky would have carried around with him just one of what must be dozens of programmes bearing his name in a starring role, a dog-eared eight-year-old programme.

He opened it, noting that the part of Figaro had, as he had guessed, been played by Korsovsky. The part of Rosina was taken by a soprano, unheard of all those years ago but now one of the glittering names on the London and international stage. But it was not the printed programme which held his attention. It was the handwritten message scrawled across the top. A message in an exuberant girlish hand. It was a quotation from the opera. The first six lines of Rosina’s most famous aria ‘Una voce poco fa’ were copied out in the Italian but one slight alteration had been made to the text. Joe translated:

The voice I heard just now

Has thrilled my very heart.

My heart already is pierced

And it was Lindoro who hurled the dart!

Yes, Lindoro shall be mine,

I’ve sworn it! I’ll succeed!

The original name ‘Lindoro’ had been crossed out and ‘Feodoro’ substituted.

‘Feodoro shall be mine!’ Joe mused, much intrigued.

He sat back on his heels and reflected. The message was unsigned. And surely that was unusual? In his experience girls finished off a note of such intimacy with an initial at least. Or a jokey nickname. The exuberance and youthful confidence chimed badly with this note of discretion. What had been going on? A clandestine liaison? Very likely. But an important one to the man who had carried it around with him in his trunk for eight years. He wondered who she could have been. Eight years ago in her prime or young – the writing gave the impression of youth – the lady would be in her late twenties now, possibly early thirties. Korsovsky himself, he guessed, must have been in his forties when he died. Perhaps his passport would tell him more and that would be in his notecase which undoubtedly Carter had taken from the body and kept.

Aware of the weight of material the case was now beginning to engender, Joe got to his feet. He put the programme, the photographs and the letter from the Gaiety Theatre back into the leather case and pushed it into the inside pocket of his khaki drill jacket. Deciding that the theatre would be his first call and that his approach should be a bit anonymous, he waved aside the Governor’s rickshaw and set off to the town on foot.

He paused outside the Gaiety and thought how raffish and down-at-heel it seemed, like all theatres, in the daytime. The play bills announcing Korsovsky’s recital had been torn down already, dustbins full of waste paper were being hauled away by teams of Indian sweepers, and others were clearing the pavings of cigarette ends and cigar stubs. With a general hangover air the doors stood open on a dimly lit interior. Finding no bell and no knocker, Joe walked in and called, ‘Anybody there? Hello!’

Impatiently a figure in shirt-sleeves emerged from the booking office and Joe recognized Reggie Sharpe.

‘Morning!’ he said affably.

Reggie Sharpe looked him up and down. ‘Yes?’ And then, ‘Oh, it’s you, is it? Sanderson? Can I help you?’

‘Yes,’ said Joe. ‘I think you probably can. We met last night. Commander Joseph Sandilands of Scotland Yard

’

Reggie Sharpe looked at him with considerable distaste. ‘Can’t give you long,’ he said. ‘So make it as short as you can. What can I do for you?’

‘Well,’ said Joe, not prepared to be patronized, ‘what I have to ask might be confidential. I don’t really choose to discuss murder in the foyer and in the presence of,’ he waved an explanatory hand, ‘half a dozen sweepers.’

‘You’d better come in,’ said Reggie Sharpe reluctantly. With ill grace he opened the door of the booking office and with an ostentatious glance at his watch he took the only chair, offering Joe a small stool. ‘Now what’s all this about?’

‘You may know — ’ Joe began.

‘Well,’ said the other, ‘I’ll save you a bit of time and tell you what I do know. You’re a policeman, though God knows what you’re doing in Simla! I understand that you’re acting with the approval of Sir George though again I can’t imagine why and I imagine you are in concert with Carter investigating the death of the unfortunate Korsovsky. And I’ve yet to discover what on earth you think I will be able to tell you.’

‘Perhaps I can help you. Korsovsky didn’t just happen to be in Simla. His visit must have been arranged a long time ahead. There must be some correspondence between the theatre and him or between the theatre and his agent. There are two theories as to the cause of his death – firstly that it was a random shooting and has no connection with the former assassination of Conyers, and the second theory is that he was expected; someone was lying in wait for him, someone who knew his movements well enough to mount an ambush, and the information I need might conceivably emerge – to some extent at least – from any correspondence you or the theatre might have had with him. Perhaps you could enlighten me?’