‘Your wife seems to be a busy lady…’

‘This is just a small part of what she does. She has many irons in the fire. Talented woman, my wife, as all will tell you.’

‘Do you type your letters or do you write them in longhand?’

‘Sometimes one, sometimes the other. If it’s important – type. If unimportant – write.’

‘You, or someone,’ said Joe, ‘would have written to Korsovsky clinching the arrangement. Do you have a copy of that letter here or would that not have been a typed letter?’

‘Certainly. Yes, it would have been typed. I think I can almost say I remember typing it myself. It’ll be here somewhere.’

He took the file from Joe’s hand and riffled through the papers. ‘Yes, here it is.’

Joe read a carbon copy of a letter confirming arrangements for train and hotel bookings that had been made on Korsovsky’s behalf, the letter concluding with the words: ‘… and again we would like to express our gratitude that you should be undertaking this trip to Simla. We are looking forward so much to hearing you perform.’ It was followed by a clearly readable signature ‘R. Sharpe’.

Joe produced the letter from the leather case and showed it to Sharpe.

‘Good Lord!’ he exclaimed and pointed to the ending of the second letter.

‘You see that the two letters are in a vital particular not identical. If you typed this letter why did you advise Korsovsky to come by tonga and not by the train?’

Sharpe seemed genuinely astonished and genuinely at a loss for a word. ‘Just a moment,’ he said in tones of excitement. He took up a fountain pen from his desk and a sheet of paper, signed his name and held it out to Joe. The signature was exactly like the one on the carbon copy and in no way resembled the letter from Korsovsky’s writing case. ’Compare the two. Identical typewriters, identical text until you come to this last bit about the tonga. It’s clear somebody wanted him to come up the cart road in a tonga but that somebody wasn’t me! Somebody who had access to the Gaiety writing paper… That wouldn’t be difficult – we’re not very careful about such things. Why should we be? Who would expect something like this to happen?’

‘Look at this signature,’ said Joe. ‘Anything familiar about it?’

‘Indecipherable, wouldn’t you say?’ Sharpe held it to the light. ‘Obviously meant to be indecipherable, for Korsovsky’s eye only.’ He was silent for a moment then, ‘Blue-black ink, broad-nibbed fountain pen,’ he said. ‘Could well be my own. I leave it here on the desk. Look, Sandilands, someone could have got in here… when?… last November the letter’s dated – before we all went back down to Bombay… typed this second letter and suppressed the first which would have been left out for posting. Perhaps they didn’t even bother but just added a note to say this second supersedes the first and then they took it along to the post office. But from last November – is anyone going to remember who was in and out? It’s a busy time – packing up and tying up loose ends. Lots of people in and out all day, every day.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Sharpe in surprise after a pause. ‘Doing your job for you! Do you want me to put my own handcuffs on too?’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Joe smiled. ’For the moment at least. You’re being very helpful, Mr Sharpe. And now, before I leave, just one more question. Can you tell me where you were yesterday between noon and five o’clock?’

‘Let’s see.’ Reggie sighed and flipped a page in a diary lying on his desk. ‘Tiffin with friends over at Mount Pleasant – Johnny Bristow’s place. I keep a horse or two over there – they’ve got good stabling. And then they gave me a lift over to Annandale to look at a horse I was thinking of buying off Brigadier Calhoun. Thought I could sell it on to Effie Carstairs and make a few bob on the deal. Didn’t buy it. It was tubed. Made a noise like a fire engine! Took a tonga back to the theatre and got back here in time for the four o’clock run-through.’

Joe made a note of the names he mentioned and the times and closed his notebook. Leaning forward, he tweaked the Korsovsky letter from Sharpe’s fingers and replaced it, along with the carbon copy, in the leather case. ‘I’ll keep this to show to Carter but I don’t believe we need to take away the rest. Keep them available, won’t you? Good morning Sharpe.’

He paused at the door and looked back to see Sharpe riffling thoughtfully through the file.

‘Oh, by the way,’ he said with an apologetic smile to excuse an unimportant afterthought, ‘did you have any pictures, any photographs of Korsovsky? Did he or his agent send you any material in advance of the concert? To be used in posters, perhaps?’

‘No. None that I am aware of. We wouldn’t have the resources for that sort of publicity anyway. This isn’t Paris, you know, with a Toulouse Lautrec and a printing press round every corner.’

‘Well, as far as you’re aware, is there anyone in Simla who would recognize him – perhaps, er, lend a hand with identifying the body? Anyone familiar with his features?’

‘Not that I know of. Everybody knows his name, of course, and is aware of his reputation… People do go on leave, you know. Someone may have seen him on stage in London or Paris if he was performing there but no one’s mentioned it. You’ll just have to ask about, won’t you? But then,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘he’d be in costume and make-up, wouldn’t he? No, shouldn’t think anyone would know him from Adam.’

The smirk faded from his face as he saw the implication of his words. His eye brightened, the scorn replaced by calculation as he drawled, ‘Well, well, well! No one had any cause apparently to shoot down a visiting singer and no one had any means of identifying the said singer… but what about a visiting detective, a detective whose features are, it would seem, known to the highest in the land? As I understand it, Sandilands, you were sitting right next to the poor chap when someone popped him. Now if I were you, I’d be going around grilling people to find out who knew you were coming up that hill! You could start with Sir George, couldn’t you?’

Joe smiled and withdrew. Sharpe had told him all he wanted to know.

Chapter Six

«^»

Stepping out into the road, Joe hailed a rickshaw and gave instruction to go to ‘Carter Sahib’s house’. As Carter had predicted, no further instruction was required and the rickshaw proceeded to wind its way into the complicated heart of residential Simla. Houses clung to the steep side of the rising hill to the north of the town and, consulting the map Sir George had provided, he guessed this hill to be Elysium. Some houses were supported on posts, some relied on what seemed to Joe to be alarmingly ambitious cantilevers. All were surrounded by dense and prolific gardens and all, he supposed, enjoyed the superb view which opened up behind him as he progressed.

The lanes approaching these houses were narrow and several times his rickshaw had to stop and edge into the hillside as they met another coming in the opposite direction. Joe was not small, the rickshaw men were. Embarrassed to be conveyed in this way, Joe marked this with what he knew to be an over-lavish tip, greeted to his further embarrassment by a pantomime of subservient gratitude.

Carter’s house when he stood before it was the epitome of Simla domestic architecture. Corrugated iron roof, painted red, two – or was it three? – verandah terraces, a profusion of climbing plants and two small, sandy-haired children digging in a sand pit under the eye of the mali. They acknowledged Joe’s greeting with shy smiles and Carter’s wife emerged to welcome him.

So English did she look, Joe could not suppress a smile. Sandy hair, blonde eyebrows, small bright blue eyes, freckled face and a cheerful and very English voice. Pausing only to shout an instruction over her shoulder in Hindustani, she held out a welcoming hand. ‘Very pleased to meet you, Commander! Heard such a lot about you from Charlie and I can’t tell you how pleased he is to have you on board! I suppose he’s in charge of the investigation but it isn’t often that he has a New Scotland Yard Metropolitan Police Commander under him! I say – make the most of it – it’ll never happen again! All the same, you must be hot. Let me give you a drink. We’ll be eating in about half an hour. Will that be long enough for you? I’ll try not to be indiscreet but there’s lots of things I want to ask and sometimes I think I’m married to a clam! Are you married?’