Joe smiled to see Edgar’s heavy features suffused with the joy of anticipation. This was his world: an evening spent in unbuttoned but purposeful ease with like-minded men, competent and keen. The barracks not the brothel, after all, appeared to be his natural habitat.

‘Did you manage to have much talk with First Her Highness?’ Edgar asked casually when they had distanced themselves from the zenana.

‘Incredibly, it was more in the nature of a mild flirtation,’ said Joe.

Edgar scowled. ‘She likes her distractions. It entertains her to make a fool of gullible young Englishmen. Never underestimate her. You can’t see her in the shadows behind that screen but it’s always strategically placed with you a little way away sweating it out in the sunshine. She sees you all right! Every shifting expression!’

‘Yes,’ said Joe. ‘I’d worked that one out! Thinking of introducing a similar technique to the CID when I get back. We too find it useful to catch the shifty expressions.’

‘What did she want with you? Apart from the chance to view your manly features?’

‘What everyone wants: find out who killed her son and whisper the killer’s name to her.’

‘And did you turn up anything interesting?’

‘I found that Bishan was a most unsatisfactory first son. He was a neglectful husband and produced no children.’

‘I could have told you that! In fact, I rather think I did. Out of his brains with something or other most of the time. Rumoured to have been interested in boys but I don’t think there was any evidence. Neutered tom, I’d have said.’

Joe was very prepared to take Edgar’s estimation of sexual orientation as professional and reliable.

‘No loss!’ Edgar added, echoing Sir George. ‘His mother mourns him but no one else.’

‘A different character from his brother, Prithvi?’

‘Well, remember they were half brothers. And yes, Prithvi was a much more likeable fellow. Got on much better with his father. Was trusted by him, you’d say. Good-looking, charming, bit of a drinker but he got that under control. Playboy. Madeleine wasn’t the first girl he got involved with but she was certainly the last. It was obvious to all that he was head over ears in love with her . . . But in all other ways he was a bright chap. You’d have liked him.’

Emerging from the palace buildings, Edgar stopped and pointed ahead. ‘But forget all that for the evening. There’s Colin’s bungalow – over there, half a mile away at the north end of the Long Pond. Do you see it?’

They followed a hard-beaten lakeside path, glad of the shade of fringing willows and the cooler air rising from the water. The sun had sunk behind a ridge of the Aravallis, turning the sky into an upturned copper bowl reflecting itself in the waters of the lake. A few birds, moorhens, he judged from their movements, were sculling about on the burnished surface but all was otherwise silent. Two grey, hunch-shouldered herons stood poised at the fringe, their frozen silhouettes emphasizing the deep stillness. It would be an hour or two before the animals would gather in twitching unease, making a fragile truce when they came down to drink as night fell. Joe noticed a small boat on the lake making for the shore. An Indian was rowing but Joe could not identify the other figure in the stern.

Following his gaze, Edgar commented, ‘Third Her Highness. She’s a keen fisherman. All-round sportsman in fact. She’ll be an admirable regent for young Bahadur. Set him a good example and perhaps a challenge! I’d like to see her weaning the lad away from the influence of that nanny of his. Too much store set by subordinate clauses, Bunsen burners and Plato’s views of the universe. What the lad needs is some experience of real life!’

The bungalow was built to a blueprint of the civilian accommodation designed by Edwin Lutyens. Practical, constructed to catch every air current that could be caught and, best of all, predictable. After nine months in India, Joe could have found his way around it blindfold. Colin’s welcome was warm and brisk. Without preamble he led them to a table on the verandah overlooking the lake. It was laid with sheets of paper, pencils and bottles of mineral water chilling in silver ice buckets and they settled to something very like a military briefing.

‘I’ve only had four days to chase after our tiger, a week would have been better, but at the rate at which the creature is killing villagers, I don’t feel inclined to wait any longer than necessary. Two or three are being killed each day or having narrow escapes. It was difficult to get any of the local people to accompany me, armed though I was with the latest Lee-Enfield. They’re scared stiff and hiding for most of the day.’

‘Why so many casualties?’ Joe asked. ‘I know nothing of tigers, of course, but isn’t that a high strike rate?’

Colin looked down at the table and said thoughtfully, ‘A tiger needs a given amount of flesh per day to sustain life . . . Thirty pounds or so. His normal kill: chital, sambur, pig, buffalo, he can sit over for two or three days. To be blunt – there’s not a great deal of flesh on some of these villagers.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Joe hastily, feeling rather foolish.

Colin sensed his embarrassment and added, ‘Claude asked the same question.’

‘Claude? Will he be of the party? Funny, I hadn’t expected him to be the slightest bit interested in tiger hunting.’

‘He isn’t. His interest lies in looking over my shoulder to make certain I’ve taken all precautions to ensure the safety of his protégé – Bahadur. As you can imagine – Claude is very involved with the lad’s continued good health! He came along with me for two of the days. Sensible chap, gets things done. We managed to buy up a few goats and stake them out. The tiger took the bait and we were able to follow the blood trail and the spoor. I think, in the end, Claude was quite intrigued by the process!’

‘Is that when tigers hunt? In the daytime?’ asked Joe.

‘Yes, daylight hours. Leopards attack at night.’

‘What sort of area are we looking at?’ said Edgar, examining a sketch Colin passed to them.

‘Well, you know that tigers are territorial?’ Joe sensed that Colin was setting out the problem in terms that he, a newcomer to the jangal, could understand. ‘Each one establishes supremacy in a particular area, kills within it and defends it from other tigers. This one has three villages on its shopping list. Here, look.’ He drew a line around the outer edge of his map and pointed out the three settlements inside the line. ‘Oh, by the way, not tiger. It’s a tigress. I’ve heard accounts from some of the people who’ve sighted it and I’ve seen its tracks. It’s a big female. Possibly as much as ten feet over curves. If she’s got cubs hidden away somewhere she will be very bad-tempered.’

‘But why does a tiger take to eating people?’ Joe asked. ‘They don’t do that naturally, do they?’

‘No, the tiger’s a gent. He’ll go out of his way – but not far out of his way (he’s proud, too) – to avoid humans. But sometimes the rules of nature break down. As in this case. The tracks I found near Dilakot show she’s been wounded in some way. The front right paw is turned in, practically unusable. Whatever happened to our beast, it produced a creature unable any longer to run at and attack its usual prey. Not got the speed and strength any more. To survive, she turns to easier, slower-moving creatures unable to defend themselves. We think she started out as a cattle-lifter then, as her debility increased, she took to killing men, women and children.

‘There have been no reports of hunters wounding and leaving a tiger to its own devices in the forest which is the sequence that usually creates a man-eater so we must assume that she got her wound in a fight, or a trap. Oh, there is a complicating factor: about a fortnight ago, a village woman threw a sickle at it – it had just killed her daughter – and she’s sure she hit it in the eye. So what we have is a half blind, limping tigress. Sounds a piece of cake, doesn’t it? But it’s these wounds that are making her desperate and cunning and making her seek out ever easier targets.’ He paused. ‘Five children were killed last week. The villagers are terrified. But more than terrified, they are grief-stricken and angry. The men have agreed to turn out and act as beaters when the royal hunt at last arrives with all its pomp and circumstance to help them.’