‘George,’ said Joe, ‘what on earth are you saying?’
‘I’m saying, would you like to take shares in a company I’m thinking of founding? A little private company? I’m going to call it Fraudsters Anonymous or The Alice Conyers-Sharpe Protection Society. Any takers?’
With the warmest memories of his last minutes with Alice at the foot of the garden steps, Joe was tempted. With no such memories Charlie Carter was profoundly shocked. ‘You can’t be serious, sir!’ he said indignantly. ‘You can’t be preparing to compound a felony! Fraud is a felony and leaving aside the moral implications I don’t believe you’d ever get away with it.’
‘All right then,’ said Sir George, ‘if you won’t go all the way with me, and I acknowledge that there is a problem, let us at least agree on a stay of execution. Let us leave matters as they are. Let this complex situation roll on its way and let us exercise every sort of vigilance to follow it through until it leads us to our killer. I’m not issuing an order – I’m not quite sure if I’d be in a position to issue an order of that sort – I’m doing no more than invite your co-operation.’
He looked briskly from one to the other. ‘Do I have it?’
‘Yes, Sir George,’ said Carter.
‘Yes, Sir George,’ said Joe.
Chapter Eighteen
«^»
Joe and Charlie Carter set out to walk through the streets of Simla, heading together for the establishment of Mr Robertson, the jeweller.
‘You’ve read Kim, I think you said?’ said Charlie as they went along the Mall.
‘Yes, indeed. And it did occur to me that perhaps Cecil Robertson has too! For a moment, stepping into his shop on Wednesday morning I thought I was entering the world of Lurgan Sahib!’
‘One of the best descriptions Kipling ever wrote! But I don’t think Robertson does it to play to the tourists. As far as his shop is concerned time has stood still. It’s been there for as long as I can remember and Robertson is not the first owner by any means. He continues a tradition. He performs an essential service. Lots of Indian families treat him as if he were a bank. Only the most informal records are kept but a satisfactory service is offered, it would seem. Many people prefer to deal personally with someone they know and can trust their money to rather than a faceless European bank with head offices in Leadenhall Street, EC1. No, he’s a man of many parts, is our Mr Robertson.’
‘Not above a little smuggling?’
‘Certainly not above a little smuggling. But then, almost nobody who lives in these parts is above a little smuggling. Jewellery, gold, opium, hashish… their passage back and forth over the frontiers is as old as the Himalayas. The government of India doesn’t worry too much. A little jewel smuggling this way and that doesn’t do any harm, but gold – now that’s a different matter. We wouldn’t want to see large quantities of that disappearing north over the border into Asia. Cecil Robertson has always been totally co-operative with us. In fact he’s given us two or three valuable tips over the years. We don’t interfere with the movement of gemstones – mostly on their way to China – and in exchange he lets us know… about other things.’
‘Other things?’
‘Yes, boys and girls. Jewels going into China, pretty boys and girls coming back again on their way to Kashmir through Chandigarh and on eventually to the Gulf. Poor little devils! We got a tip from Robertson last year. We stopped a bullock cart… shots were exchanged if you can believe… and there they were – drugged, like a lot of dormice. So, you might say, I owe Robertson a good turn. I don’t suppose that the trade troubles his conscience much, it’s as good a way as any of keeping in with me – slipping a bit of information from time to time. I suppose that’s the way to run an Empire. A little bit of accommodation, if you know what I mean.’
They paused outside Robertson’s shop. Robertson himself emerged in his shirt-sleeves taking an elaborate farewell of a Bengali customer.
‘Spare us a couple of moments, Robertson?’ said Charlie. ‘I think you’ve met my friend Joe Sandilands? Fact is, we could do with a little help. May we come in?’
‘Of course,’ said Robertson unctuously with something between a salute and a salaam. Joe remembered that he was said to have a Scottish father and a Persian mother and looking at that mysterious face he was very ready to believe this, supported as it was by the accent. Strange! Very much the English of a man of whom it was not the first language and yet, on the other hand, a perceptible flavour of upper class English as spoken in the Raj.
His eye slid over Charlie Carter without much interest but dwelt on Joe. ‘Come in,’ he said again. ‘Come right through.’ He said a few words to an assistant and, calling into the back premises, addressed a few more to an unseen presence who answered deferentially.
The shop, Joe recalled from his earlier brief visit, operated on two levels. Outwardly there was the stock in trade of any well-equipped jeweller’s shop but behind this was an accumulation that it would be impossible to classify. Objects Tibetan, Chinese, Indian and even European. Objects doubtless from the collapse of the Russian Empire, icons and pectoral crosses and a few items of classical antiquity. Joe remembered that Alexander the Great had passed this way. He tried to suppress the unprofessional fascination which these things had awakened. His hand went out to a small carved ivory figure and he held it to the light. A large-eyed, full-breasted woman held in her hand a knot of golden snakes.
‘You’re right,’ said Robertson surprisingly. ‘From Crete, I suspect. Minoan culture. The snake goddess. Question – how on earth did it get here? I can’t tell you anything about the provenance. Probably stolen from the excavations. It’s not expensive. Are you interested?’
‘Yes. Very,’ said Joe. ‘Some other time.’
‘Of course. Of course. I had assumed that this was an official visit.’
He led them into an airless little room and turned on a feeble electric light. He turned some cushions aside to reveal three chairs which he indicated with a hospitable gesture. ‘And now, how may I help the police?’
‘What I have to say is in confidence, Robertson,’ said Charlie in a bland official tone.
Robertson nodded and waited.
‘It concerns Alice Conyers-Sharpe.’
‘Really?’ Robertson’s eye flicked for a second to Joe.
‘We are worried,’ said Charlie confidentially. ‘You may say that it has nothing to do with us but she is a prominent citizen – a good client of yours, I believe – and many people in Simla depend on her. It has been revealed to us that this lady we all so admire is being cheated. Has any idea of this sort occurred to you?’
Joe decided that Robertson was making only a show of considering this question. He replied with confidence, ‘Yes. But it is not my place to question or advise or comment on Mrs Sharpe’s arrangements. All acknowledge her to be a splendid businesswoman, successful, decisive and well advised. Who am I to speculate on the soundness of her transactions? So long as her requirements of me are within the law, Superintendent, there is nothing I am called upon to do but fulfil them.’
‘It is known,’ said Joe, ‘that Mrs Sharpe deals consistently in jewels. We are making enquiries, with her knowledge and consent I should say, into specifically the purchases she makes twice yearly in April and October. Tell us how the exchange is managed from your end, will you?’
After a moment’s consideration, Robertson got up and took down a file from a high shelf. He extracted a single sheet of paper and handed it to Carter. As he and Joe eagerly pored over it he explained. ‘I received that in October 1920.’
On a plain sheet of white writing paper a short message had been written in English in neat capitals. Robertson recited the message as they read. ‘Mrs Sharpe will bring you a cheque for four thousand rupees biannually in April and October. When she arrives you will sell her jewels to the value of two thousand rupees. Select other jewels to the same value and place them in a blue box under the counter. Choose gems or pieces that are easily transportable and unremarkable. When a messenger asks for the blue box hand it over.’