Joe was not easy under her gentle scorn.

‘Can we turn to your brother’s death, Mrs Sharpe? Tell me – when and how did you discover that he had survived the war?’

‘He sent me a telegram as soon as he got back to England. It reached me in Bombay in November 1919. He was still very weak and spent the next year gathering his strength, leaving family and business matters ticking over as they were. We wrote to each other, of course, and I kept him fully informed of the steps I was taking. Then, in the April of 1921, he wired again to say he was well enough to travel out to arrange his affairs in India. He’d come to some decisions. He approved of my plans and schemes.’ Her face hardened for a moment. ‘And why would he not? I was always much cleverer than Lionel, Mr Sandilands. Truthfully, I fear he would have undone all the good I had done, had he assumed full responsibility for the company.’

‘What were his plans for you?’

‘He was prepared to let me continue in an executive position, though with forty-nine per cent of control to his fifty-one per cent. He had no intention of settling here, his health was too fragile. So, in effect, I would have continued to work eighteen hours a day in the heat of India for the good of the firm though lacking the ultimate authority to steer the company in the direction I wished.’ Her tone was bitter and Joe could appreciate the strength and justice of her grievance.

‘And Mr Sharpe, your husband by this time…?’

‘Would have been totally dispossessed. No, he was not happy about that and was preparing to fight the case through the courts.’ She shuddered. ‘It would have been a very distressing and unprofitable time for everyone. What a jolly scandal! Nothing like a family row to blossom into a cause célèbre! It doesn’t bear thinking of!’

‘So both you and your husband would have had a great deal to gain financially from your brother’s death?’

‘Of course. And there have been many to whom that thought has occurred. And many, doubtless, who must have noticed that my grief was not particularly deep.’

‘You were not fond of your brother?’

‘It was devastating to lose my only close living relative and for what seemed to be a second time. A very cruel twist, that. But Lionel and I were never close. He was a good deal older than I and hardly noticed me when we were growing up. I did not admire him. I knew I was…’ she hesitated, searching for a word, ‘more worthy than he was although I was constantly reminded by our parents that I was only a girl and that the family’s fortunes rested on Lionel. I resented the assumption that little sisters were there to be seldom seen and never heard. Then we were divided by school and the war. He was a stranger to me. But I didn’t kill him.’

‘I understand you were in the view of a hundred people when he was assassinated?’

‘Yes. But that means nothing, you’ll find. If I wanted someone to die, Mr Sandilands, I would merely mention the matter to Rheza Khan. He would mention it to someone else who would in turn make suitable arrangements. The true killer will in all likelihood have paid to have the trigger pulled. There is no lack, you’ll find, in Simla of obliging retired military types with the skill and the inclination to perform such a service for a fee. I could suggest a few names myself… Some, indeed, I know to be drinking companions of my husband… But you can be sure that the instigator of the act will almost certainly have taken the precaution of being engaged in a very public activity at the moment the shot rang out.’

Joe was silent for a moment. She was trying to tell him something without putting it into words herself. Without naming names.

‘And your husband Reginald was very much in the public eye at that time?’

She shivered. With fear?

‘Reggie. Yes. He was handing a plate of cucumber sandwiches to Her Excellency, Lady Reading. He could not have been more flamboyantly well positioned.’

Chapter Seven

«^»

Joe pondered this with disbelief, not able for a moment to react to her suggestion, so blandly delivered, saying at last, ‘You’re telling me that you think your husband may have procured your brother’s murder?’

Alice nodded, unwilling still, it seemed, to put her suspicions into words.

‘And that the instrument,’ Joe continued, ‘the actual assassin, could well be Edgar Troop? Is that what you’re saying?’

After a quick flash of surprise she nodded again.

‘And you’re saying that same Edgar Troop who has, shall we say, an executive position of some significant but dubious sort chez Madame Flora?’

Low-voiced, ‘Yes, that Edgar Troop!’

Joe took another turn about the room. He had imagined working tactfully and circuitously round the stark realities. He had even prepared a series of careful questions, but here was the surprising Alice firmly and unequivocally at the heart of the matter and, unlike Meg Carter, having no delusion as to the true nature of Madame Flora’s establishment and seemingly with more than a suspicion as to Reggie Sharpe’s true relationship with the as yet unseen but sinister Edgar Troop.

‘Oh, do stop pacing about!’ she said abruptly. ‘Sit down and listen to me!’

Joe took a seat opposite and waited.

‘I know all about Madame Flora’s brothel. I know it is the source of much vice and crime in Simla and I am aware that my husband is heavily involved with it – a valued and loyal customer, you could say,’ she added in a curiously flat, expressionless voice. She might have been discussing his golf handicap.

‘You must find that very distressing,’ was Joe’s inadequate reply. Brothels formed a part of his London life but he had never held such a conversation with a lady before. He had never heard a lady pronounce the word ‘brothel’ and he found that it shocked him.

‘Distressing?’ Alice laughed derisively. ‘Say rather appalling – not to be tolerated! Ours was never a happy marriage, Mr Sandilands, it was one of convenience but, initially, I did my best to pretend to the world that we had a normal married relationship. My fault, I wonder? Perhaps a bit my fault. When I arrived in India I had to fight. Fight to establish myself in a man’s world. It took a lot of careful work. It filled my days and nights. Reggie is not secure – he is easily threatened. He couldn’t keep his manhood intact with a woman who was his equal and was completely unmanned in the presence of a woman recognized by many to be his superior.

‘But then, at the end of our first season in Simla, I discovered that my husband had contracted – was in the first stages of – a venereal disease. At first I was stunned. I thought this was the sort of thing that only happened to other people – servants – soldiers’ wives – but I made him tell me who he’d got it from and where. Perhaps I was heavy-handed? Certainly I made it difficult for him. I insisted that he go and see a doctor. The MO here is very good; very co-operative and on my side. Between us we arranged for inspections – of the girls, I mean. Madame Flora didn’t like it, I’m told, but she jolly well knew if she wanted to stay open she’d have to do it my way. I kept it in the background but everybody knew that I’d caused the fuss and brought about the clean-up.’

‘And was the reaction favourable?’ Joe wanted to know.

‘Mixed,’ she replied candidly. ’You know Simla… well, you don’t yet, but you soon will. Plenty of Mrs Hawksbees around still to tittle tattle and remind one of a woman’s place. You know there are still many women who would totally deny the existence of brothels. They would not recognize a sexually transmitted disease if their husband’s tackle crumbled before their eyes. If you don’t notice it – it’s not really happening and a lady would never make reference to such matters. And then there are those who are truly women of the twentieth century. They may have been suffragettes, they may have driven an ambulance in the war… they know what goes on in the real world and they are with me all the way. A surprising number of them, Commander, roll their sleeves up and do a very messy job brilliantly and for no reward other than the satisfaction of knowing that they have improved things for their sisters. No matter what their colour or religion.’