‘And you say the guns were different?’

‘Yes. I think Merl’s brother would have had a comment to make on that too.’

‘Killings were only a year apart – he’d have used the same rifle. Merl’s brother went through the whole war with the same gun. God! – he knew the sensitive parts of that bloody gun better than any woman’s. Still he did sleep with it for four years.’

‘So what I’m saying is that the first murder was done by Rheza Khan. It’s his style. A first-rate shot, arrogant sod! A hard target – the head – and only one shot necessary. We know he was five feet ten or thereabouts – a couple of inches shorter than me I would guess – and that he smoked Black Cat cigarettes. His motive was strong. I don’t think he did it with Alice’s knowledge though, let alone her approval. I’ll swear she was genuinely surprised when Troop and I brought it to light in her presence. I’ll go further – I’d have sworn she genuinely put down both killings to her blackmailer, whoever that was.’

Joe paused for a moment, his thoughts on the last few minutes he had spent with Alice, his nostrils seared with cordite, his ears singing from the gunshot echoing in that small stone room and, above all, he remembered her saying over her shoulder before she jumped: ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe.’ He remembered her almost proud insistence on the fact that she had never lied to him. He had set this aside in the face of the one enormous outrageous lie of her impersonation. But suppose she had been telling him the literal truth all along?

He spoke aloud her farewell sentence, changing the emphasis. ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe,’ became, ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe.’

‘But did you ask someone else to kill for you, Alice?’ Joe asked.

‘Listen, Maisie! How does this sound? Lionel gets killed without Alice’s knowledge by Rheza for the reasons we know. Now, a year later, Korsovsky is expected in Simla. Alice wants him dead.’

‘To protect her identity? Couldn’t she just have done a bunk with her ill-gotten gains? She had plenty of warning – the theatre had booked him back in November. All she had to do to avoid being recognized was stay in bloody Bombay in April. Doesn’t wash, Joe.’

‘That wasn’t the reason she asked for his head on a plate. No. There was a darker reason. Revenge. She hated him with all the fury of a woman who had truly loved him and been rejected, deserted. I know she was capable of this. I’ve seen her kill a man for the same reason. The moment she discovered Rheza had cheated and betrayed her he was lost. I watched her face as she shot him. I even pleaded with her not to do it. She didn’t hear me. She was set to kill: concentrated and unswerving. And she smiled while she shot him.’

Joe shuddered. ‘And then she turned her gun on me. I’ll never know why she didn’t kill me.’ He described the last few charged minutes before Alice escaped.

Maisie snorted. ‘There’s two reasons and neither of them is that she was overwhelmed by your masculine allure! You were a good insurance policy, Joe! There was no point in upsetting Sir George by gunning down his guest and agent and she left you feeling flattered — aren’t I right? – that she’d kindly not pulled the trigger. Just in case you ever met again your last memory of her would be that she had – I can’t say saved your life – but had failed to take it. You owe her one, Joe. She knows that. You know that.’

‘And the second reason?’

‘Drama. Playacting. Showtime. Takes one to know one! That’s what Alice or Isobel or whoever she is has really been doing all the time. If you’ve got it right she spent five or six years whoring her way through France and, by God, you learn to put on a performance on that kind of stage!’ Her face clouded for a moment. ‘I’ve known one or two tarts who could have played Drury Lane if they’d had the vowels. And this one had. I always thought there was more to Alice Sharpe than the virtuous veneer. God! Think about it, Joe! That sugar-icing, touch-me-not respectability underpinned by a tart’s skills in handling men – it’s an unbeatable combination!’

‘It certainly had all the men in Simla twisted round her little finger.’

‘And she made the most of it! Playing a part – that’s what this woman is all about. I bet she doesn’t know who she really is, she’s been through so many changes of mask!’

Joe remembered his first sight of Alice, in the spotlight, tears streaming down her face for a lost lover, he remembered her body pressed shivering against him, her breath warm against his cheek as she whispered that his life was in danger and melodramatically gave him her gun. He saw her framed in the embrasure at the Red Fort before she leapt towards freedom. ‘Playacting all the way,’ he said sadly. ‘You’re right, Maisie.’

‘Still – acting’s one thing, killing’s… well, that’s a bit real-life, like. This Korsovsky – it was such a long time ago. 1914, that’s eight years. I was deserted in the war and if I ever set eyes on the bugger again I’d shake his hand and thank him for the forethought! Would any woman still want to kill a deserting lover – even the love of her life – after all that time?’

‘Alice would. In fact, I’ll go further,’ said Joe feeling his way through his argument. ‘We know from Korsovsky’s papers that he was due to appear in the Roman theatres of Provence shortly after the Beaune rail crash. Was it a coincidence that Isobel Newton was travelling to the south of France at that very time? This was the first time he’d returned to the place where they met since his desertion. The first chance she’d had to get close to him again and, perhaps, even to kill him. The rail crash intervened and she had other things on her mind but, waking or sleeping, I don’t think the overpowering need to be avenged ever left her.’

‘And you’re saying that she asked – or blackmailed – she could have blackmailed, Joe – somebody in Simla to gun him down? Some feller who happened to be the same size as the first assassin was known to be and who smoked the same cigarettes – everybody had heard, on the quiet of course, a description of the chap they were looking for first time round.’

‘She would have had to find someone the right size, yes. That would have been tricky to fake – but the cigarettes?’ Joe smiled. ‘That was a fake! I think she sent a non-smoker! A non-smoker armed with a pack of the same Black Cats. The killer puffed unenthusiastically at a couple of fags and stubbed them out. We worked out from the timing of Korsovsky’s arrival in the Governor’s car that there hadn’t been time to smoke more than two cigarettes and that would account for one of them being put out hastily and half smoked. But not both! Those stubs were left there for us to find as were the spent rounds and the deeper than necessary scrapes where boots and elbows had rested. So the bumbling police would assume that the maniac sniper had struck again. And then Alice spreads the rumour that it’s a deliberate political provocation – quite a credible theory in the present climate.’

‘But who, Joe? Who shot Korsovsky? You know, don’t you? Are you going to tell me?’

‘No.’ Joe smiled irritatingly. ‘Are you ready for Act 3 of this performance? I think it’s time for the killer to speak.’

Chapter Thirty

«^

The jazz quartet had pressed on with its rehearsal, gathering strength and gathering an audience. All deck chairs within earshot of the ballroom were now occupied and white-jacketed stewards slipped to and fro at speed delivering long iced drinks in bright colours, the green of menthe, the fiery orange of grenadine and the yellow of citron. The group broke into a fast-paced ‘Broadway Rose’.

‘Maisie,’ said Joe, ‘look at those two nuns over there. Tell me what you see.’