He took a ragged and hairy sheepskin coat from a peg behind the door and handed it to Joe. Joe looked at it dubiously. ‘Are you quite sure it’s dead?’

‘Would smell even worse if it weren’t. Now that’s enough buggering about. They’re riding already and they’ve got about twenty minutes on us. Are you on or not?’

Joe was already banging his way through the door.

Chapter Twenty-five

«^»

Wouldn’t quite do,’ said Troop, indicating the pair of horses in the hands of a patient syce, ‘for the distinguished police commander at the King’s Birthday Parade on the Horseguards. Probably not quite what you’re used to.’

Strong and sturdy, the two horses kicked and fretted, shaking their heads to rid themselves of flies. Joe thought they looked likely enough.

‘I feel like the Colonel’s son,’ said Joe swinging himself into the saddle. ‘Do you remember?

‘The Colonel’s son has taken a horse and a raw, rough dun

was he,

A heart like hell and a mouth like a bell and a head like a

gallows tree.’

‘Can’t get away from Kipling,’ said Troop as they clattered out of the yard on to the Naldera road. ‘We’re twenty minutes astray,’ he continued as they trotted on together. ‘But that won’t be the end of the world. We won’t go by the road. I very much doubt if Rheza knows this bit of country as well as I do. I’ve shot and hunted over all this stretch of land, taken picnic parties, sightseeing parties, shikari parties – this is Edgar Troop’s back garden, you know. We’ve got to intercept them before they can get to the Zalori Pass – and taking a very large number of short cuts we ought to be able to do just that.’

Edgar Troop had roused himself. Depressions and doubts seemed to be at an end. Looking at his companion’s suddenly alert eye and flushed face Joe was aware of a further reason for Troop’s eagerness to lead the pursuit. Perhaps the prime reason.

‘This man,’ thought Joe, ‘is a hunter! What’s that awful phrase? – “the thrill of the chase”. He’s in its grip.’ And much more arousing to him than any tiger or leopard hunt was the challenge of tracking a clever and dangerous human being through the wilderness. A manhunt. And just for once, Edgar Troop could appear on the side of the angels.

‘Tell me, Troop, why is the Zalori Pass so important?’

‘Ah, I forget you know so little about local politics! It marks the southern extreme of Rheza Khan’s tribal territory. His princedom – I suppose you could call it that – has never been an easy neighbour for the British. Rheza’s father, the rajah, is ambitious. Oh, he pays lip-service to the Raj, he enters into treaties, plays polo with the military top brass, his wives have entertained the Vicereine and all that. His son gives every appearance of being Westernized – Rugby-educated, suits from Savile Row, all the charm in the world – but underneath all this surface gloss they’re on the boil! The old rajah broke out a few years ago and it looked for a moment as if he had it in mind to try conclusions with the army. Just after Amritsar, so everybody put it down to an upsurge of righteous indignation and merely banned him and his men from making an appearance – other than on a courtesy call, of course – south of the Zalori Pass. Very generous reaction when you think about it. Some might have thought a more punitive riposte was called for, considering what he owes the British.’

‘Any particular reason for owing them special allegiance?’

‘No doubt about it. This part of the world was in considerable uproar when the British decided to settle in Simla. Gurkha Wars, you’ve heard of that? When this pushy tribe edged its way down from the north-west, aiming to fill a vacuum it found hereabouts, the British went along with it. Signed treaties and all the usual stuff.’

‘And what was in it for us?’ asked Joe.

‘ “Divide and Rule” of course. The other tribes around here are mainly Hindu. Rheza’s mob are Muslim. The theory is they’ll be so busy watching each other it won’t occur to them ever to join forces against the British. Seems to work. And so long as they do as they’ve been told and stay north of Zalori, no problems.’

‘So we pick them up before they’ve a chance of acquiring an escort?’

‘Right. And, Sandilands, if we fail to do that we must abandon the chase altogether. Any welcoming party, and I’ve no doubt that’s what they’ve got arranged, will be well-armed and hostile.’

‘Well-armed?’ Joe’s suspicions were beginning to crystallize. Drip by drip the information was filtering from Troop and none of it was pleasant.

‘Up to the minute service rifles. Best Europe has to offer. In huge quantities.’

‘And are you going to tell me how they get their hands on this armament?’

Troop snorted. ‘If you are running the country’s largest trading company with access to all its logistical arrangements there’s no problem. ICTC convoys are on the roads everywhere. Most of them are carrying legitimate goods, carpets, brassware, spices, Western imports, but a percentage of them going north are carrying arms. .303 rifles mainly.’

‘But how do they get their hands on them in the first place?’

‘I tracked them down to source. Chap called Murphy. Armourer-sergeant and quartermaster. Crooked as they come! Condemns a batch of rifles as faulty and sends them away to be disposed of. Paperwork looks good. Only thing is – the rifles aren’t faulty. And they find their way on to an ICTC mule train before they can be destroyed. One or two Murphies about, I should imagine.’

‘He’s been using Alice as a front for all this. Was she aware, I wonder?’

Troop shrugged. ‘How can you ever tell with Alice?’

‘It must have been a shock for Rheza Khan when Lionel Conyers turned up on his way to Simla to take over the business,’ said Joe slowly. ‘I assume he wasn’t quite ready to move aside. Half-way through his operation – no time to be welcoming a new boss who might start looking into the accounts. Lionel was an older man, an ex-soldier, experienced and not (for all Rheza Khan knew) prepared to take what he found at face value. No. Rheza had every reason to stop him getting to Simla.’

‘Right,’ said Troop and added mildly, ‘Feller smokes Black Cat cigarettes, you know. Heard you were enquiring.’

While they had been speaking, with unerring and steady speed Troop had begun to wind his way through the thickening forest, now following the course of a roaring mountain stream, now turning aside to follow a forest track over a spur of the advancing hills, now pausing on the saddle to look back at Simla and forward into the mountains.

‘The road’s over to our right,’ said Troop after they’d ridden for about an hour, ‘behind that hill. It sets off in quite a loop there. We can make up a bit of ground. They say in these parts, “Follow the bowstring, don’t follow the bow,” and that’s just what we’re doing. And we can afford to spare the horses, indeed, we must spare the horses. We’d look an impressive pair if we ended up with a lame horse on our hands.’

As he spoke the track took a dizzying plunge down into a jungle-clad rift in the hills. The ravine stretched straight as a die for over five hundred yards and Joe followed Troop as he made his way along a forest path formed by the tramp of herds of chital deer which made a glancing appearance as they passed. Joe thought he caught sight of a band of langur monkeys and the tall trees were alive with the spring songs of birds. The hidden valley as they descended had a climate all its own. On a southern slope of the foothills, it retained the day’s heat and Joe breathed gratefully the wafting sharp scent of the white star-shaped flowers of the box bushes. At the end of the valley he heard the plashing sound of a waterfall. His horse pricked up its ears and danced a few steps sideways.