‘Flown? How flown?’

‘I’ll tell you but – do you think this well-equipped police station could provide a chap with a drink? It’s been rather a dusty day so far.’

‘I don’t think Charlie would begrudge us,’ said Joe, turning to the whisky decanter and glasses that stood on the windowsill. ‘But go on. What were you going to tell me?’

‘Listen,’ said Troop. ‘At the back of the station is the old post office warehouse. Now empty. I couldn’t help noticing that there were two horses – good horses – saddled and standing in the old warehouse. A syce was with them. Not a local man. A man, I’m prepared to surmise, from Rheza Khan’s village. Now who could these horses possibly have been ready for? And I’ll tell you something else. Alice and Rheza passed within a few yards of me and to all outward appearances Alice was appropriately dressed for travel with her luggage into Kalka on the Toy Train. To all outward appearances, I said. But if you have the habit, which I have, when I’m in the company of a pretty girl, and that is how I would describe Alice, you look her up and down. I speculate as to what she is wearing underneath and I’ll go further – I speculate as to what she would look like if she were wearing nothing. Perhaps you do the same? And I’m never wrong about these things! Under that unfashionably long travelling dress Alice was wearing jodhpurs and riding boots. That say anything to you? It suggested to me that she was about to climb on to a horse and while Charlie Carter and others were standing by the front door waiting to interview Alice and Rheza Khan she had discreetly left by the back and by now had a considerable start.’ His eyes narrowed and he took another sip of his whisky. ‘Those waiting horses were good ones, I can tell you!’

‘Troop,’ said Joe, ‘you may be right, you may be wrong. I suspect you are right but why are you telling me this? What axe have you to grind? I don’t know you well but – forgive me – I have reason to believe that you are in the axe-grinding business much of the time. So, tell me, what’s this all about?’

Edgar Troop suddenly flushed and turned on Joe. Venomous, he hissed, ‘Alice! The mighty director of ICTC! Chosen confidante of Lady Reading! The so pitiably neglected wife of drunken Sharpe! The focus of so much womanly sympathy! Christ Almighty! Bloody woman! “Oh, Captain Troop, very kind of you. Now tell me what do I owe you?” And “Oh, Captain Troop, I have a tiny commission for you. I wonder if you’d be so kind… And I’m so terribly sorry if I can’t know you when we meet in public… I’m sure you understand… You mustn’t mind, if, when you come to see me I have to keep you waiting… I’m so terribly busy.” Treated me like an errand boy! And she nothing but a tart if Flora’s to be believed! I – and several others in Simla, I can tell you – would be delighted to see that one get what I’ll call her just deserts!’

‘So you’re saying they’ve made off on fast horses, but where?’

‘Well, not to Kalka, I’ll bet! I think Carter and his merry men will have gone chasing off down there and it’ll be some hours before they realize they’re following a false trail – and you can bet a false trail will have been laid for him. By the time they double back Alice and Rheza Khan will be miles away into the hills. They’re making for Borendo and the Zalori Pass and thereafter I’d guess on north through Manali. It’s their back door out of this country. That’s where Rheza Khan’s people come from. Up there, every second person you meet is likely to be his cousin.’

‘But, Troop, what’s in it for Alice? What’s she going to be doing empty-handed on a spur of the Himalayas?’

‘Empty-handed? When was Alice ever empty-handed? Where do you suppose the jewellery paid for by ICTC and filtered through Robertson is to be found? Good jewels – I mean good by international standards and Alice wasn’t collecting rubbish – don’t take up much space. You can hide an emperor’s ransom up your knickers! Is it in a safe at ICTC? In Alice’s bottom drawer? No, it’s in a saddlebag on its way up to the Zalori Pass. And remote? Not if you know the country. Come and look at this!’

He moved through into Charlie’s office and pointed to a large map on the wall. ‘There’s Simla. And there to the south is the Kalka railhead and on south to Delhi and the P&O liner at Bombay. But north – look! You pass through these mountains – Rheza Khan’s back yard – and weave your way along to Joginder Nagar. That’s a railhead too and the track leads on to Amritsar, Lahore and eventually to Karachi. And in Karachi you can pick up a steamer on its way from Bombay to the Gulf and from there to London and the rest of the world. Assuming you’re allowed to leave tribal territory of course.’

‘What is Rheza Khan’s stake in this enterprise, do you suppose?’

‘Alice of course. Money and Alice – in that order. That’s his stake. Do I have to spell that out?’

Joe remembered that, passing close to Alice, he had encountered a distant and teasing scent of sandalwood and that the same scent had come to him from Rheza Khan. ‘I believe you, Troop,’ he said heavily. ‘I believe you entirely. Are you saying that Alice is in danger?’

Troop gave him a long and unfathomable look. ‘I can’t tell,’ he said at last. ‘Where she is now going, she’s entirely in the hands of Rheza Khan and you know what they say? “Trust a rat before a snake and a snake before a Pathan.” Alice will know that the game is up as far as Simla’s concerned and Rheza will know the same but the question is – have they both the same objective? Oh, yes! They have the same primary objective, that is to say, leave the country with the swag, the fruit of three years’ careful swindling of ICTC, but what then? Well, I think this is where they diverge. Alice, I believe, intends to get out of the country with her fortune and to get out in the company of Rheza Khan and then – I suppose – settle down somewhere out of British jurisdiction.’

‘She told me she’d like to live in America,’ Joe remembered.

‘Yes, I think that would be Alice’s idea. It’s a country that would suit her. She’d prosper there. But I can’t see Rheza, if I understand him at all, embracing a wider horizon than his native land.’

‘You’re not really answering my question which was – is Alice in danger?’

Troop answered immediately with the air of one who had thought this out with care. ‘I don’t think she’s in danger until they reach journey’s end. But when they do, she will, as far as Rheza is concerned, have fulfilled her purpose. I don’t think Alice, clever though she be, will get out of there alive. I think she’ll stay alive, as I say, just long enough to ensure a safe passage back to Rheza Khan’s homeland. Women – especially faithless wives – aren’t much respected up there, you know. I don’t think she’s going on a picnic in the foothills of the Himalayas with a couple of decent chaps like Troop and Sandilands!’

The tone was light, the tone was cynical, but Edgar Troop’s face was tormented.

‘Bloody girl!’ he said, exasperated.

‘But what now?’

‘Well, Charlie is by now miles down the Kalka road. I don’t know how far he’ll get before he realizes he’s been double-crossed and comes spurring back to Simla to pick up the trail at this end. They’ll be too late. They’ve got to be cut off before they get to the Zalori Pass. The tribe will be waiting for them beyond that. I think we only have a serious chance of stopping them if we can get them before they make it through the pass.’

‘We? Troop, you must know I have no authority.’

Troop crossed the room and pulled a rifle from the rack. He tossed it to Joe. ‘That’s all the authority they recognize in the hill country. I took the precaution of borrowing Reggie’s best mount from the stables at the chummery. He’s a bit of a handful but you look like a chap who can keep his seat. And if you’re coming with me you’ll need to borrow a coat of Carter’s – it can get cold up there, this time of year. Here – take this poshteen. Charlie won’t mind.’