The Serpent's Shadow

IN the end, Peter decided to approach Gupta privately, rather than going through Maya first. If Maya's chief servant and oldest friend did know something regarding Maya's safety, he might be more willing, rather than less, to talk to Peter about it without Maya present. If this ploy didn't work, he could always backtrack and go through Maya anyway.

As a consequence, he shut up his shop during the early afternoon when he knew that Maya would be at the Fleet clinic, and took a 'bus to her home. There had been a dramatic change in the weather at long last, with much lower temperatures and frequent rains. It was now a normal, ordinary English summer in all respects but one. The heat wave had broken, but now thanks to the rains and coolness, fogs marched through the streets at night, and with the fog, came more of the mysterious deaths. Simon Parkening was still missing, and although Peter would have been perfectly pleased if he never appeared again, his continued absence boded little good. And at any rate, although the man was a bounder and a cad, even Peter wouldn't wish him dead.

The narrow little street in which Maya lived, heavily overshadowed by the buildings on either side with the dome of St. Paul's looming over all in the distance, was remarkably quiet today. The only vehicle on the pavement was a milk float returning empty to the dairy. There were some small children, toddlers, playing together on a doorstep, but other than that, no other people were about. There was traffic and the sounds of people two or three streets away, but not here. Peter rang Maya's bell and it seemed unnaturally loud in such quietude; after a moment, he heard Gupta's footsteps within, and the door opened.

Maya's chief servitor appeared within, his white tunic and bloused trousers spotlessly correct, even though he must have been working in the kitchen all morning. 'The doctor will be—' Gupta began, and stopped, a look of surprise on his weathered face, when he saw who it was, for Peter should have known (as in fact, he did) that Maya was not in this afternoon.

'I didn't come to see Doctor Maya, Gupta,' Peter said, before Gupta could gather his wits. 'I came to see you. May I come in and speak with you?'

'Of course, sahib,' Gupta said politely, a mask of calculated indifference dropping over his features. Peter wasn't worried. This was only Gupta's public face. He thought it was likely that once Gupta was in a place where he felt comfortable and in control, the mask would come off again.

So when Gupta hesitated between going in the direction of Maya's office and her conservatory, Peter smiled disarmingly, and said, 'Why don't we go to the kitchen?'

The mask flickered for a moment. Then Gupta bowed his head and turned to lead the way to his sanctum.

With the break in the weather, the kitchen was now cozy rather than stifling, and Gupta acknowledged Peter's appreciative sniff at the scent of baking bread with a slight smile. The mask was beginning to crack.

Gupta nodded at a stool, and Peter sat himself down beside the kitchen table, scoured spotless, scored with the knife cuts and marks of the preparation of many, many meals. Gupta poured two cups of tea from the kettle he always had ready, and offered Peter the milk and sugar, though he himself took neither.

Peter waited until Gupta took a second stool before he spoke; he put his tea down on the table and looked straight into the old man's eyes, and asked, 'What enemy is it that has followed Maya from India?'

Gupta started; the mask shattered. 'What is it you know?' the old man demanded harshly—and now Peter saw, thinly veiled, the warrior that hid within the butler and servant—the bodyguard that Peter had always suspected he truly was.

Peter took a sip of tea, as if he had not seen so much when the mask came off. 'I know that when she came here—and I discovered her—she had done her best to create defenses against something. I know that you were certain she needed those defenses. And I know—' he hesitated, then plunged in further. '—I know that there is something in this city now, that kills by night, crushing the breath from men. These are all pukka sahibs, Englishmen, many officers of the Army who once dwelt in your homeland and, I presume, did harm to your people there. Or at least, whoever sent this thing to kill them, thought that they had done harm.'

Gupta's eyes widened at this last intelligence, and he sucked in his breath in a hiss. 'And it comes— when?' he asked urgently. 'In the hot night?'

Peter shook his head. 'In the fog,' he said. 'Always with the fog. The fog creeps in, and men die alone, suffocated, as if something had crushed the life from them.'

And that opened the floodgates.

Within the next hour, Peter got all of Maya's life history, as well as that of her mother and as much of her father's that Gupta knew. He also got the history of the woman he supposed must be regarded as Maya's aunt—the devotee of Kali Durga, the sorceress Shivani, who had sworn eternal enmity with her own sister when she married an Englishman, and presumably was still the enemy of Surya's daughter.

All of this poured forth in a torrent of mixed English and Urdu that taxed Peter's knowledge of the latter to the limit. Sometimes he had to make Gupta stop and explain himself. But in the end, he knew as much as Gupta did—and had just as much reason to be alarmed.

And yet—'Do you think our defenses have stopped her?' he asked doubtfully. 'I've taught her all I know about shields, and there are some things that she knows that are as good or better than