Far Pavilions (74 page)

They reached the outskirts of the camp some fifteen minutes later, and the rest of the day passed uneventfully. The heat discouraged any unnecessary form of activity, and men and animals sought what shade they could find and drowsed away the slow hours until the sun was low in the sky and the temperature became more tolerable. Ash had kept a desultory watch on the plain where the solitary palm tree showed small as a toothpick against the bleached sky, but except that the landscape quivered continually to the waves of heat, nothing alive moved there. And when at length the camp aroused itself and set about its evening chores, the grass-cutters did not go that way, but avoiding the well-trodden route along which they had marched that morning, fanned out to left and right where the grass would be less thickly smothered in dust and sand.

As usual Ash ate in the open, though this evening he did not sit out late, but moved back into his tent as soon as the first stars showed, and having dismissed Gul Baz, waited until darkness fell and then turned out his lamp so that anyone who might happen to be interested in his movements would imagine that he had retired to bed. He had plenty of time at his disposal, for the moon was on the wane and would not be rising for another hour and more, but he was taking no chances. He preferred to be on the ground too early rather than risk being late, and the glass of the hurricane lamp had barely had time to cool before he slid out under the side of his tent, and lying flat on his stomach, wriggled across the open to the shelter of the grass clumps with a silence and celerity that even Malik Shah – who had taught him that trick – could not have bettered. Behind him the glow and glitter of lamps, torches and camp fires lit up the sky and turned night into day, but the plain ahead was a chartless sea of shadow dotted with rustling islands of grass, and even the nearest
kikar
trees were barely visible against the stars.

He paused for a while to make sure that he had not been seen or followed, and then set off into the darkness, guided by the line of the dry water-course whose sandy bed showed white in the starlight. The track he had ridden along earlier that day ran parallel to it, and though its windings added half as much again to the scant crow-flight mile that separated him from the spot where he had discarded the torn half of Biju Ram's
achkan,
it was easy to follow. So easy that almost before he knew it the dark column of the palm tree was looming up against the star-strewn sky.

Leaving the track he walked towards it, and once there, squatted down native-fashion to wait. The moon would not be up for well over half an hour, and as Biju Ram was unlikely to leave the camp until there was enough light to see by (and once started would take at least forty-five minutes to cover the distance) the wait promised to be a long one.

Ash had learned patience – painfully –but he would never find it easy to practise, and tonight proved to be no exception. For although he had been careful to memorize the place where he had thrown that piece of material, and would have said that he knew to within a yard or two where it lay, the islands of grass seemed to have taken on different shapes in the starlight, so that now he was less sure. And there was no way of telling whether it was still there or if a hawk or a prowling jackal had carried it away, and no point in searching for it in the darkness. If it was there Biju Ram would find it soon enough, while if it had gone it would not matter, because the mere fact that he had come in search of it would be proof enough. But when at last the moon came up over the plain he saw the thing itself, lying near a clump of pampas grass some ten paces to his left.

The moonlight also betrayed his own position, for now the palm tree no longer provided any shelter, and he rose and went over to the pampas grass, and having trodden out a rough-and-ready hide from where he could watch unseen, settled down once more to wait.

It proved to be an uncomfortable hiding place, as any unguarded movement made the grass rustle and the night was so still that the smallest sound was sharply audible. Yet the silence was to his advantage, for it meant that he would be warned of Biju Ram's approach long before he came in sight. But as the slow hours crawled by and nothing stirred, Ash began to wonder if he had made a mistake, not as to the ownership of the grey coat - he knew it to be one of Biju Ram's but in the manner in which he had discarded it. Had he thrown it away too quickly and without allowing enough time for it to be recognized? Or so casually that the gesture had not even attracted a disinterested glance? Or had he overplayed the scene, so it rang false…?

Biju Ram was no fool, and if he suspected a trap he would take no chances, no matter how alluring the bait. On the other hand, if he had been deceived by that performance this morning and accepted it at its face value, then nothing would keep him away; nor would he send a deputy or bring anyone with him. He would come alone or not at all. Yet by now the moon had been up for well over two hours and still there was no sign of him and no sound of anyone approaching. If he failed to appear it might well mean that he suspected a trap, in which case the likelihood of walking into an ambush on the way back to camp could not be disregarded.

Ash stirred restlessly and was tempted to abandon the vigil and return to his tent by a circuitous route, and go to bed. It must have been close on one o'clock by then, and in little more than three hours' time the camp would be astir in preparation for another early start. Besides it was not as if he needed any further proof that it was Biju Ram who had fired at him and whose coat had torn in his hands as they struggled together in the dark. Or, for that matter, that it was Biju Ram, on behalf of the
Nautch-girl,
who had engineered the disappearance of Hira Lal and the death of Lalji, and was now, at the bidding of a new master, striving to dispose of Jhoti as well. There was surely no need for anything more, and this quixotic conviction that he must, in all fairness, obtain at least one concrete piece of evidence to support his suspicions before taking any action, was absurd: what could it do but confirm what he knew already? And what had fairness ever had to do with Biju Ram?

‘Nothing,’ decided Ash angrily.
‘Nothing’
…

Yet he knew that he could not leave until Biju Ram came. Or did not come. The conviction might be quixotic, but it was there and he could not free himself from it. The past was too strong for him. Hilary and Akbar Khan had, between them, sown better than they knew when they had impressed upon a small boy that the one unforgivable sin was injustice, and that he must at all costs be fair. And the very laws of England held that any accused person is presumed to be innocent until he is proven guilty.

‘
Ad vitam aut culpam,
’ thought Ash wryly, recalling one of Colonel Anderson's favourite tags, which the Colonel had chosen to translate as ‘until some misconduct is proved’; while the Commandant of the Guides, discoursing on the same subject (the proper administration of justice), had been fond of quoting the opinion of Dickens's judge that ‘what the soldier said was not evidence’. Yet the case against Biju Ram was founded on gossip and guess-work, strongly biased by a personal antipathy that dated back to the days of Ash's childhood, and he could not bring himself to condemn a man to death on suspicion alone.

To death
… The words gave him an odd shock of surprise, for strangely enough it was the first time that he had consciously realized that he meant to kill Biju Ram. Yet here the influences of the Hawa Mahal and the Border tribes took over and Ash ceased to think as an Englishman…

Faced with a similar situation, ninety-nine out of a hundred British officers would have arrested Biju Ram and handed him over to be tried by the proper authorities, while the hundredth would probably have allowed Mulraj and the senior members of the Karidkote camp to deal with the matter. None would have dreamt of taking the law into their own hands, yet Ash saw nothing untoward in doing so.

If Biju Ram was guilty of murder and attempted murder, then there was nothing for it but to deal with him here and now – if he came. And if he did not? ‘But he will,’ thought Ash. ‘He must. He won't be able to resist coming on the off-chance of finding that pearl.’

The shadows had shortened as the moon travelled up the sky, and by now the light was so bright that small print could have been read by it. A hot-weather moon over the plains of India has little in common with the cool silver globe that floats above colder lands, and even the smallest beetle scurrying across the dusty spaces between the grass clumps was as clearly visible as though it had been daylight. The torn piece of cloth with which Ash had baited his trap now lay starkly exposed as a dark blotch on the white dust, and the silence of the night was no longer unbroken.

A faint clattering sound announced the arrival of a young porcupine that had been attracted by the smell of stale blood, but having nosed the cloth and found it inedible, it scuttled off with an indignant rattle of quills. Far away a jackal pack broke into a wailing, yelping chorus that echoed across the plain and died on a long mournful howl, and shortly afterwards there was a patter and a rustle as a hyena loped past, making for the camp where there would be rich pickings for scavengers. But there was still no sound that suggested the approach of a man, and Ash flexed his stiffening muscles and longed for a cigarette. The moonlight was bright enough to neutralize the momentary flare of a match and he could easily conceal the glowing tip in his hand. But he could not risk lighting one; the scent of tobacco smoke would carry too far on the windless night, and Biju Ram would smell it and be warned.

Ash yawned tiredly and closed his eyes; and he must have dozed for a few minutes, for when he opened them again a little vagrant breeze was stirring the grasses with a sound like far-away surf on a pebble beach. And Biju Ram was standing in a patch of moonlight less than a dozen yards away…

For a moment it seemed to Ash that his hiding place had been discovered, for the man appeared to be staring straight at him. But Biju Ram's gaze passed on. He was looking about him, glancing from the palm tree to the mile-distant camp and evidently calculating the line that he and the others had ridden along on the previous day. It was clear that he had no suspicion that he had walked into a trap or that anyone might be watching him, for he stood out in the open without any attempt at concealment and with his coat half unbuttoned to allow the breeze to cool his plump, bare chest.

Presently he began to move forward between the scattered clumps of knee-high grass and the tall islands of pampas, searching as he went. Once or twice he leant forward to peer more closely into the shadows and poke among them with the heavy silver-mounted walking-stick that he carried, and once he swooped to pick up something that he dropped again with a gesture of disgust, pausing to wipe his fingers on his coat sleeve before moving on again.

He was within a few feet of Ash's hiding place when he saw the thing that he came in search of, and his sudden in-drawn breath of satisfaction was audible even above the susurration of the grasses. For an appreciable length of time he stood wide-eyed and rigid, staring at it, and then he dropped his stick and ran forward to pick it up and crumple it between frantic hands.

An uncontrollable spurt of laughter proclaimed his discovery that there was still some small hard object hidden among its folds, and he tore at the concealed pocket in such a frenzy of haste that the earring leapt out and fell at his feet…

The diamonds in the tiny leaf glittered with a frosty brilliance and the black pearl lay like a drop of glowing darkness on the white dust, a thing of beauty and wonder that seemed to gather and reflect the moonlight. Looking down at it, Biju Ram laughed again – that familiar giggling laugh that had almost always been an expression of satisfied malice rather than honest amusement, and that now held an unmistakable note of triumph.

He had been too obsessed with his search for the lost jewel to sense the near presence of another human, and now, as he stooped to pick it up, he was not aware that though the breeze had died as suddenly as it had arisen, the grass was still rustling. And when he saw the shadow it was too late.

A hand like a steel trap closed about his wrist and twisted it so savagely that he cried out with pain and let go of the pearl, which fell back onto the dust.

Ash picked it up and put it in his pocket, and releasing his grip, stood back.

Biju Ram was quick and cunning, and he had shown himself capable of thinking very fast and of translating thought into action with equal speed. But this time he was taken off guard, for he had thought himself safe and the shock of Ash's sudden appearance drove him to incautious speech: ‘Sahib! What – what do you do here?… I did not know… I came out to – to search for that trinket that I – that I lost this morning. Give it back to me, Sahib. It is mine.’

‘Is it?’ inquired Ash grimly. ‘Then the coat that it was concealed in must also be yours. Which means that you have twice, to my knowledge, tried to kill me.’

‘To kill you?’ Biju Ram was recovering himself and his face and voice expressed complete bewilderment. ‘I do not understand, Sahib. What coat?’

‘This,’ said Ash, touching it with his foot. ‘You left this much of it in my hands when you escaped from me – having failed to kill me. And later you ransacked my tent looking for it, because you knew, as I did not, what it contained. But last night I too found out, and so I threw it down here for you to find, knowing that you would come back for it. I have watched you search for it and seen you take the pearl from it, so there is no need for you to waste breath pretending that you do not know what I am talking about, or that the coat was none of yours.’

A mixture of emotions compounded of rage, fear, indecision and wariness showed fleetingly on Biju Ram's face, to be succeeded by one of half-humorous deprecation as he smiled and spread out his hands in a gesture of resignation, and said wryly: ‘Now I see that I shall have to tell all.’

‘Good,’ said Ash, surprised at this swift capitulation.