Mourning Raga

Kumar, after you left, Tossa and I were walking round by Claridge’s. We saw you leaving together by taxi…’

Ashok’s eyebrows had soared into his hair. ‘Kumar?’ he said half-aloud, astonished and mystified.

Kamala laughed gently. ‘Yes, I see that we made difficulties for you. After all these years we still prefer to dine together when we can. Krishan is a serious character actor, I am, let’s face it, a fashionable star. Never in our whole married life have we been able to play together in the same film. We are both contrasuggestible. The whole pressure of our work drives us apart. That is why we spend all the time left to us together.’

‘Krishan?’ Dominic said, confounded.

‘Married life?’ repeated Felder, slowly sitting upright in his chair. ‘I didn’t even know you were married…’

‘No, darling, of course you didn’t. We have a theory. The least publicised marriages are the most durable ones, and we happen to like being married to each other. And after all, you’ve known me only a little while, and only as one of a company at work.’

‘But to Kumar here…?’

‘Oh, no darling, not Kumar. How confused you are, I’m so sorry I’m not making myself clear. No, my husband is Krishan Malenkar, and if I may say so, a very good actor indeed. If you should ever be casting a film with an Indian business background, the Swami tells me he made a most appealing, as well as convincing tycoon.’

‘But if he’s not Kumar,’ persisted Felder feverishly, ‘then who is?’

Anjli looked all round the ring of astonished faces, and suddenly rose from her place, unable any longer to subdue the blaze of joy and achievement that shone out of her. She crossed the room to where Girish sat, and put a hand possessively on his shoulder, and he smiled and drew her down beside him.

‘This is my father,’ she said proudly, as if she found it incomprehensible that they could ever have been in doubt.

‘I knew him as soon as I saw him driving after us. I knew he would come for me.’

All eyes had turned upon the Swami. ‘But why?’ demanded Felder on behalf of them all. ‘Why was it necessary to conceal the fact that her father was right here with you? I don’t understand what sense it makes.’

‘Oh, come!’ protested the Swami mildly. ‘You do yourself less than justice, Mr Felder, I’m sure. It cannot be so difficult to see a good reason for suppressing Satyavan’s identity, since circumstances made it possible. I did not then know which of you, if any, could be trusted. Satyavan, since he left home, has indeed been a law unto himself, and like everyone else, I have seldom known for long where he could be found; but at various times he has been working in several of the Mission’s projects, and from time to time I have been in touch with him. At the time of his mother’s death I had no idea where to find him, and he did not read the papers regularly, and only learned of her death too late to be present at her funeral rites. As soon as he did hear, he came. To me! We drove together to his house, it was his intention to begin at once to set his affairs in order. You,’ he said, turning his mild, bright eyes upon Dominic and Tossa, ‘know what we heard and saw when we came to Rabindar Nagar. Should I then have produced him and named him to you, whom we did not know, you, who had been in charge of the child and might be involved in her abduction? No! It was the strength of Satyavan’s position that he had not been seen in Rabindar Nagar for more than a year, that many of his neighbours were new, that he returned now straight from the field, not a Delhi businessman but weather-beaten and dressed for work, and driving the Mission car… He wished to remain in the background, unknown and free to move as he would, for it was his daughter who was at risk. From that moment, therefore, we watched you in everything you did, and equally all those who had contact with you. It seemed that any demands for ransom must come through you, and so it turned out. And after the first payment failed to produce Anjli, I judged it necessary to provide another father, a convincing father of the right type, and to have him emerge into the limelight and take charge.’

‘But why?’ insisted Felder. ‘I still don’t see the purpose of it.’

‘Oh, a very specific purpose. His job was to insist on seeing Anjli alive before more money was paid. For, you see, until then we had no means whatever of being sure that she had not been killed. Yes, yes, Mr Felder, you were horrified at that suggestion, I know, nevertheless it is common form in these cases. But when my good friend Malenkar played his scene, insisted on seeing with his own eyes – and incidentally with ours, too! – that she still lived, and when there was no demur, then we had a certain degree of security. A fairly substantial degree, in fact. Enough to make plans. For Satyavan, apparently a servant, and therefore virtually invisible, was free to observe and to act. On his behalf no one ever made any bargains. These are my reasons for acting as I did. Was it well done?’

‘Yes!’ said Dominic and Tossa together fervently. ‘Very well done!’

‘And that is why I could not let Mr Kabir come upstairs and join us here last night. I cannot say whether he actually knows Satyavan by sight, though I thought it a possibility. But I did know that he is very well acquainted with Malenkar, and would most probably have given the show away on the spot.’

‘To which one of us?’ Dominic asked very gently.

The Swami’s mild eyes sharpened upon him almost alarmingly, if there had not been in the brief, brilliant glance a suggestion of distinct approval.

‘Ah, I did not then know of the activities of Govind Das. I was still acting on the assumption that the director of the affair might be any one of you. It seems now that the whole thing was planned and carried out by this one man.’

‘A bad business,’ said Felder soberly.

‘As you say, a bad business. It turned out so for him.’

‘Small part actors don’t make much money. Probably here they don’t get too many parts, either. Or anywhere, for that matter, these days. I suppose seeing temptation trailed in front of his nose like that was too much for him – the daughter of a milllionaire and a film star, and only two students new to India taking care of her. It must have looked easy! Well, thank goodness it’s over! The poor wretch who planned and did it is dead. He’s paid. That’s the end of it.’

A long, communicated sigh went round the room, and subsided into a deep and thoughtful silence.