The Swami, a benevolent stage-manager, set them all an example by seating himself calmly, and composing himself for as long as need be of nerveless waiting. ‘We are all of one mind, and all informed about what we have to expect. We have taken all possible steps to deserve success, let us then wait decorously and expect it. We are contemplating an exchange which will be to the advantage and convenience of both parties, there is therefore no need to anticipate double-dealing. It would be worth no one’s while.’ His practicality sounded, as always, unanswerable; but Kumar, even when he consented to follow his friend’s example and sit with folded hands, was tense from crown to heels.
‘If the call does come,’ ventured Dominic, ‘should I answer? And hand it over to you, sir, if it’s the same man?’
The Swami approved. ‘The number is your number. And there could, of course, be some quite innocent call. Yes, please answer in the first instance.’
It was barely twenty minutes to eight, and the scene was set already. There was nothing now to look forward to but the gradually mounting tension that was going to stretch them all on the same rack until the bell finally rang. Except that they had barely set their teeth to endure the waiting when they were all set jangling like broken puppets, as the innocent white handset emitted its first strident peal of the evening. Never, thought Tossa, huddled in her corner, never, never will I live with a telephone again. Better the telegraph boy at the door every time.
Dominic picked up the receiver. There was sweat trickling down into his eyebrows, prickly as thistles. A voice he hardly knew said distantly: ‘Hullo, Dominic Felse here!’
He should have known it was too early, he should have known the damned instrument was going to play with them for the rest of the night. A gentle, courteous, low-pitched voice said in his ear: ‘Good, I was afraid you might all be out on the town. I looked in the dining-room, but not a sign of you there. This is Ashok Kabir, I’m down in the foyer. May I come up? I brought a little present for Anjli.’
Distantly Dominic heard himself saying, like an actor reading from a script: ‘I wondered why we hadn’t heard anything from you. Have you been out of Delhi?’
‘Ever since the unit left for Benares. I had three concerts in Trivandrum and Cochin. I’m only just back. Am I inconvenient just now? Maybe you were getting ready to go out. I should have called you from Safdarjung.’
‘Anjli…’ Dominic swallowed whatever he might have said, looking round all the intent faces that willed him to discretion, and unhappily giving way to their influence. There was only one thing to be done. ‘Wait just a moment for me,’ he said, ‘And I’ll come down to you.’
He hung up the telephone, and they could all breathe again. ‘It’s Ashok,’ he said flatly. ‘He’s just back in town after a concert tour in the south, and it looks as if he doesn’t know anything about Anjli being missing. He’s brought a present for her, he’s expecting to see her. I said I’d go down to him. Now what do I do? Tell him the truth and bring him up here to join us?’
Very placidly, very gently, very smoothly, but with absolute and instant decision, the Swami Premanathanand said: ‘No! ’ It was impossible to imagine him ever speaking in haste, and yet he had got that ‘No!’ out before anyone else could even draw breath.
‘We are five people here already,’ he pointed out regretfully, as all eyes turned upon him, ‘who know the facts. Five people with whom the vendors have to reckon. I think to let in even one more is to jeopardise our chances of success.’
‘I am absolutely sure,’ said Tossa, ‘that Ashok is to be trusted. He is very fond of Anjli. I know!’
‘And I feel sure you are right, but unfortunately that is not the point. He could be the most trustworthy person in the world, and still be enough to frighten off the criminals from dealing with us.’
‘He is right,’ said Kumar heavily. ‘We are already too many, but that cannot be helped. We
Anjli was his daughter, and he was proposing to pay out for her whatever might be needed to bring her back to him safely. There was nothing to be done but respect his wishes.
‘Then what do I do? Go down and get rid of Ashok? Tell him Anjli’s out? Supposing he’s already questioned the clerk on the desk?’
‘He would not,’ said the Swami absently but with certainty. ‘He would question only you, who had the child in charge. Yes, go and talk to him. Tell him Anjli is not here this evening.’ He adjusted his glasses, and the great eye from behind the thick lens beamed dauntingly upon the unhappy young face before him. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘and I will tell you what you shall say to him, if you require from me an act of faith. Put him off for tonight, but invite him to come for coffee tomorrow evening, after dinner… with you, and Miss Barber here, and Anjli.’
Dominic staring at him steadily for a long moment, considering how deeply he meant it, and realising slowly that the Swami never said anything without deliberate intent. It might not, of course, be the obvious intent, but serious, final and responsible it would certainly be. The only way to find out what lay behind was to go along with him and take the risk.
‘All right!’ he said. ‘That’s what I’ll tell him.’ And he turned and walked out of the room and down the stairs to the foyer where Ashok waited.
It was then just twelve minutes to eight.
Ashok unwrapped the little ivory figure from the piece of grey raw silk in which the carver had swathed it, and set it upright in Dominic’s palm. She stood perhaps four inches high, a slender, graceful woman latticed about with lotus shoots and airy curves of drapery, her naked feet in a lotus flower, and a stringed instrument held lovingly in two of her four beautiful arms. Ashok’s expressive, long-lashed eyes and deeply-lined gargoyle face brooded over her tenderly.
‘It is a veena, not a sitar, but Anjli will not mind. This is Saraswati, the mother of the vedas, the goddess of the word, of learning, of all the arts. Perhaps a good person for her to consult, when she finally faces her problem. I found her in a little shop I know in Trivandrum, and I thought Anjli would like her. I am sorry to have missed her, but of course I gave you no notice.’
‘I’m sorry about that, too. But if you’re free, could you join us here tomorrow night for coffee? About eight o’clock or soon after? We shall all three be very happy to see you then,’ he said, setting light to his boats with a flourish; and he did not know whether he was uttering a heartless lie which must find him out in one more day, or committing himself to an act of faith to which he was now bound for life or death. At that moment he did not know whom he trusted or whom he distrusted, he was blind and in the dark, in a landscape totally unfamiliar to him, in which he could find no landmarks. Yet there must, for want of any other beacon, be a certain value in setting a course and holding by it, right or wrong; thus at least you may, by luck rather than judgement, set foot on firm
