Tossa and Dominic came to his side and stood looking down with him as the Swami clambered majestically but athletically into the lofty front passenger seat, which had something of the throne about it. As Girish closed the door a large taxi came prowling into the patio from the drive, and its headlights focussed directly upon the Rolls. Girish moved at leisure round to the driving seat, head raised to free his vision from the momentary glare. Felder uttered a sudden sharp moan of astonishment, and leaned out far over the balustrade.
‘Oh, no! It can’t be…!’
‘Can’t be what? What’s the matter?’ Dominic asked in alarm.
‘That fellow… Look! The driver…“ At that moment the headlights swerved from Girish, and left him to climb into the Rolls in shadowy obscurity, and so start up his noble vehicle and drive it away.
‘Girish? What about him? He’s the Swami’s regular one… at least, he’s the same man who was driving him when we first met him.’
‘He’s the hillman who stopped me outside the temple this afternoon,’ Felder said with certainty, ‘and asked me the way to Birla House. That’s who he is! The guy who took my attention off the pay-off briefcase just long enough to get the contents swopped over.’
‘
‘I’m sure! I’d know that face again anywhere. Now you tell me,’ said Felder savagely, ‘why a man who can drive his boss about Delhi smartly enough to be worth his pay should have to ask his way to Birla House? Go ahead, tell me! I’m listening.’
After which, it was hardly surprising that a conveniently anonymous taxi, with three people aboard besides the driver, should sit waiting for the arrival of the plane from Madras, at something after noon the next day at Safdarjung Airport. The passengers didn’t care to venture out on to the tarmac, because the ancient Rolls was there in all its glory, with Girish lounging at the wheel, and the Swami Premanathanand had gone briskly through the airport buildings to the landing frontage, to wait for the emerging travellers. Instead, the taxi parked in a convenient position to watch the new arrivals proceeding towards their town transport. The Sikh driver, efficient, intelligent and uninterested in his freight, had taken out the newspaper he had bought half an hour previously, and was reading the news pages. He skipped the agony column; which was a pity, because one of its small ads. began: ‘Anjli: Am interested in your merchandise. High price if delivered in good condition…’ Felder had bought a paper, too; so they knew exactly what the advertisement said. But the dignified and faintly disdainful Sikh didn’t look at all like a probable kidnapper.
The passengers from the Madras flight were coming through. A bustling lady in a sari and a woollen coat, with a child in one hand, and transistor in the other, a bandylegged little husband in a Nehru cap and European suit following with two suitcases; a blasee girl, either English or American, worn-out with sight-seeing and pursued by two porters; a quiet, sensible couple, probably Australian – there must really be something in that legend of easy- going democracy – talking placidly to their one porter as if he lived next door back home, and giving the pleasant impression of effortless enjoyment; and then the flood of southern Indians, small-featured, delicately-built, golden- skinned, alert and aloof, good-humoured people balancing curiosity and self-sufficiency like acrobats. And finally, the Swami Premanathanand, pacing at leisure beside a tall, erect, haughty Punjabi – no mistaking those lofty hawkish lineaments – in the most expensive and yet unobtrusive of tailorings in a neutral tan. They came out through the glass doors talking earnestly, totally absorbed. The stranger was thicker-set than many of the Punjabis Dominic and Tossa had seen, with something of the suavity and goldenness of the Bengali about him, but the jutting nose and flaring nostrils were there, and the fastidious, full-lipped mouth, and the hooded eyes. Bengali eyes have a liquid softness, they suggest reserve but not reticence. These eyes were proud and distant, even, at first encounter, hostile. He had beautifully-cut black hair, crisp and gently wavy, and the sophistication of his movements was what they had expected. The manner of his conversation, urgent, quiet and restrained, tended to bear out everything they had heard or thought of him. He was so well-bred that he might as well have been English.
‘That’s it!’ said Dominic flatly. ‘Not much doubt.
The new arrival was brought up standing at sight of the Rolls. It would not have been surprising to see him insert a monocle into his eye to survey it more closely, but he did not. Delicately he stepped up into the back seat, presumably not merely cleared of grain samples for this occasion, but dusted as well; and the Swami mounted beside him as nimbly as ever, twitching the skirt of his robe clear with an expert kick of one heel.
The Rolls turned ponderously, and swept superbly away towards the centre of Delhi.
‘All right, driver,’ Felder said, at once resigned, puzzled and uneasy. ‘Back to Keen’s Hotel.’ And when they were in motion, not too close to the resplendent veteran sailing ahead: ‘Back to square one! It looks like him, and it must be him. Anybody could check the passenger list, after all. So where do we stand now? Don’t tell me that driver of his is on the level!’
They didn’t tell him anything, one way or the other; it remained an open question all the way back into town.
The Swami brought his friend to Keen’s Hotel punctually at half past seven in the evening, apparently deeming it necessary to allow them half an hour for the social niceties before the stroke of eight, when they would all, almost certainly, freeze into strained silence, waiting for the still hypothetical telephone call. Felder, in fact, was the last of the party to arrive, and came in a great hurry from the Connaught Circus office, with a much-handled script under his arm.
‘Not that I’m thinking of leaving,’ he assured them all, with a tired and rueful smile, ‘not until this business of Anjli is cleared up. But I must do a little work sometimes. I hope and pray I’m going to be able to fly back to Benares soon with a clear conscience.’ It was easy to see that in spite of his poise the strain was telling on him. He turned to the stranger and held out his hand, not waiting to be formally introduced. ‘Mr Kumar, I’m Felder. I expect you know the score about all of us already from the Swami here. I needn’t tell you that you have the sympathy of every one of us, and we’ll do absolutely everything we can to help you and Anjli out of this mess.’
‘I understand from my friend,’ said Kumar quietly, ‘that you have already done all and more than I could possibly have asked of you. I’m very grateful, believe me. We must set that account straight as soon as possible. But you’ll forgive me if my mind can accommodate only one thought at this moment.’
He stood in the middle of Dominic’s extravagant hotel sitting-room, immaculate in his plutocratic tailoring, a curiously clear-cut and solitary figure, as if spot-lighted by his deprivation and loneliness on a stage where everyone else was a supernumerary. He was not so tall as they had thought him to be, but his withdrawn and erect bearing accounted for the discrepancy. The patina of wealth was on his complexion, his clothes, his speech, his manner; but that was neither his virtue nor his fault, it was something that had happened to him from birth, and if it had one positive effect, it was to add to his isolation. He was a very handsome man, no doubt of that; the gold of his skin, smoother than silk, devalued whiteness beyond belief. Maybe some day they would get used to that re-estimation of colour, and realise how crude the normal English pink can be.
