wondering if Holmes was there, wondering if he had heard the aeroplane go overhead and known that I had returned.
The maharaja was not present to greet us, having taken a party out into the hills after a panther that had mauled a villager the previous day. We were greeted by the major-domo, whose tongue stuttered briefly into silence when he saw my familiar female features in their new, male setting, but he was too experienced at dealing with his master’s varied acquaintances to betray more than a moment’s bemusement before pulling himself back into the role of professional dispenser of honours. And we were given honours beyond those that Mary Russell had received—Nesbit’s quarters comprised three spacious rooms complete with balconies overlooking the inner gardens, while mine down the corridor were not much smaller. The pig-sticking fraternity, it seemed, was of higher rank than stray Americans brought in for amusement.
When we had overseen the stowing of gear in the wardrobes and splashed the dust of the journey from our faces (and I, in the glass, checked that the adhesive was secure on my slim and excellently crafted blond moustache), Nesbit, with the familiarity of the regular guest, took me on a tour of The Forts, showing me all the nooks and corners that I had not even glimpsed as Mary Russell. Naturally, he included the zoo, a must-see for a first-time visitor to Khanpur, and again I wandered the white gravel paths, greeting the orangutans and lions, admiring the ostriches and crocodiles. We continued our circumnavigation of New Fort, through the stables and back to the main road, where we turned south, strolling between the two halves and looking up at the eastern half of the fortress.
“You’ve never been inside that?” I asked Nesbit in a quiet voice.
“No, although this past week I tracked down an eighteenth-century description of it, written by a Frenchman. It wasn’t terribly detailed—he was more concerned with the inlay and gilding in the
“A ready-made prison.”
“Or simply a place so inhospitable it isn’t worth keeping up.”
“Holmes has to be somewhere.”
“There are acres of possibilities in the New Fort alone.”
That was true, I had to admit, although it made my heart sink to consider the task of sneaking through the fortress’s endless and well-attended corridors in search of one itinerant magician.
We emerged into the sunshine again, and as if our reappearance had been a signal, there came a shout from behind us. Turning, we saw a body of horses trailing down the road from the north. Even at a distance, the heaviness of their stance and movements spoke clearly of having been ridden hard; nonetheless, the distinctive Arab at their head was kicked into a trot, then a canter, and in a moment the maharaja’s voice rang out from the depths of the defile.
“Nesbit! So glad you could come, we’ve been holding the pigs for you—I got news of a giant among beasts up where you lost the horse last year. Rumour has it that the thing measures thirty-eight inches, not that the peasants know anything, but still.”
He had been shouting happily all the way down the pass, and the moment he came into the sunlight he allowed the horse to slow. It came to a halt within half a dozen paces, so tired was it, but its rider seemed unaware of its distress, merely dropped to the ground to greet his fellow enthusiast.
“Had any good rides lately?” he asked, pumping my companion’s hand.
“Been saving it for the Cup,” Nesbit replied, slipping into the easy banter of old companions, revealing nothing of the strain he had to feel at suspecting this long-trusted comrade capable of acts ranging from kidnapping to treason.
“I’ll take it from you again this year, I can feel it. And this is—
His astonishment was so great, his English fled. He peered under the brim of my topee, his eyes telling him that he was looking at the young woman who had escaped his hospitality the week before, his brain insisting that this was someone else. The shadow from my topee obscured the upper half of my face; the wax I had stuck along my back teeth made my face squarer and more masculine; the thickened eyebrows, steel-rimmed spectacles I wore (hastily manufactured in Hijarkot), and a moustache said: man. Blessedly, the marks from the pig-hunt had faded, and the bruised fingernails on my left hand, ripped on my downhill climb from the gate, had been done since he’d seen me last.
“Martin Russell,” Nesbit offered, into the silence.
I thrust out my hand, its palm roughened overnight with sand, and greeted the maharaja with an officer’s drawl pitched lower than my usual voice. “Even if I didn’t know she’d been here, Your Highness, I’d have guessed from your reaction that you’ve met my sister.”
The vigorous shake of my hand loosed the prince’s voice. “The resemblance is truly extraordinary.”
“Yes, Sebastian and Viola, I know. They say Shakespeare got it wrong, that identical twins have to be, well, identical. But as you can see, it sometimes happens that a brother and a sister come pretty close to being cut from the same mold. We’re even both short-sighted and left-handed. However, I assure you that I’m half an inch taller, have a better sense of humour, a superior seat in the saddle, and can beat her at darts any day of the week. I’m also not nearly half the trouble she can be. I don’t suppose she’s still here? Her husband’s having the devil of a time finding her; he’s peppering me with telegrams, sending me chasing all over the country.”
The dark face was busy re-evaluating the person in front of him, trying to shape me into this new form. I left an amiable look on my face, and prayed that my moustache would stay in place.
“No,” he said at last. “She left here a week ago precisely. Vanished during the night, taking a few articles and leaving a note to ask that we forward the rest of her things to an hotel in Delhi. Which I believe we did.”
“Oh, you did, all right. That’s what set a burr under the old man’s tail, Mary’s bags showing up without her. Not that it’s the first time she’s pulled a disappearing act. Last time it was Mexico; she spent the better part of a month with the wife of Pancho Villa, or girlfriend or sister, some damned thing. ‘She only does it to annoy, because she knows it teases.’ Nesbit invited me here more to escape the telegrams than because I thought she’d be here. You have any luck with your panther?”
“Panther? Oh, yes. We got him, although we had to use a gun to do it, unfortunately. He came for me out of some rocks, and I was ready for him but he had one taste of the spear and decided he didn’t like it much. He turned tail, swiped a chunk out of one of the beaters, then took to a tree and wouldn’t come down. We’d have set fire to it to bring him out, but the field was too dry, it would have burnt the village with it.” During the telling, his attention had shifted from me to Nesbit, the one who might appreciate the tale. I was glad to see the shift, because it indicated a degree of acceptance that, unlikely as it seemed, Martin Russell might be who he appeared.
I didn’t ask after the wounded beater. Mary would; Martin wouldn’t.
The others began to catch us up, their horses plodding and stained with sweat, and we went through the same shock of introductions with the four of them who had met Mary. With the maharaja’s acceptance, however, the lead was down for them to follow, and I slipped into the role of visiting male friend without great difficulty. One of the young women, a newly arrived friend of the novelist Trevor Wilson, even batted her eyelashes at me.
We met for drinks on the terrace, with the sun slanting low over the rooftops behind us and the talk circling about the panther, its ferocity and speed, the bravery of the men approaching it with nothing but sharp sticks. At one point the animal itself was paraded through on a sort of decorated stretcher for our approval. Its sleek hide had been sponged to remove the gore, but I thought that, while the pair of gashes in its shoulders should prove easy for a taxidermist to stitch into invisibility, the great hole in its chest might prove more of a problem, particularly if, as the maharaja clearly did, one regarded a bullet as somewhat shameful.
Perhaps damaged skins were set aside to upholster more furniture.
The sun retreated up the walls, and a thousand small oil lamps were lit for our festivities, tiny earthenware saucers with floating wicks that added an incongruous touch of romance and tradition to the evening. A passing servant asked if I would like another gin and tonic, but I turned down his offer, knowing that we would shortly be off to our rooms to dress for dinner.
However, the maharaja had a surprise up his sleeve. With a flourish, not of trumpets but of his arm, he raised his voice and called us to attention.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have for you a small entertainment, a performance for your amusement and your mystification.”
That was all the warning I had before the tall, black-clad figure of my husband was escorted in from an unlit
