and he stepped within. After a moment he put his head back out to breathe the word “Stairs.” The door shut, and as soon as the arguing voices had faded, I exploded at a whisper.
“What on earth were you thinking? God knows why they didn’t spot us!”
“The one was looking away, the other’d been staring into the fire. The only way they would have noticed us was if we shone a torch at them.”
And so saying, he gave the torch in his hand a brief flash, illuminating a run of worn stone steps. I touched the revolver, for the hundredth time that night, and crept on his heels up the concave surfaces, pausing at the top; the hall-way to the left glowed faintly, as at a tiny candle. As we came up on it the light proved to come from an oil lamp set in a wall niche. Another lamp burned thirty feet along; halfway between the two and facing them was a ramshackle table, on which sat an equally bashed-about tin box.
Unfortunately, the guard sitting behind the table looked remarkably strong and healthy, and far from slumbering at his post, he studied the walls, bored for something to do.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when a loud Hindi voice rang down the stones, and even Nesbit jerked. “Oh my brother,” it called. “I hunger for your wife’s good curry.” My husband’s voice, sounding strong and sure; I felt a thickness take over my throat. Not that I had been worried about Holmes, not really. But my body had been.
The bored guard raised his head to reply at the door nearest the first lamp, “Quiet, old man. It is too early.”
“And yesterday night and the night before, did I eat before our master called me to work my magic before him? I did not. He called me and I laboured, and pleased him, yet when I returned, cold and hungry, I found your good wife’s food gone cold and her chapatis dry to leather. It is not a great thing to ask, my brother, that you set my dinner before me now. It is there, to be sure—I can smell it rising from the air below.”
I doubted he could smell anything but the mustiness of The Fort, but his suggestion got the guard thinking, and in a minute he stood up and put his face to the small barred window. “Very well, old man. I shall bring your food now, and you shall show me the trick with the coin.”
“It is agreed, my brother. I shall show you all manner of wonders, if my strength permits.”
The guard chuckled at the feeble bribery, and marched down the hallway, to my relief in the opposite direction. When he came to the second wall-lamp, he paused to glance briefly through the small barred window set into its door, but his look seemed a gesture of no great interest, merely habit. His feet scuffed down the hall; the moment he cleared the first curve, I was dashing for the tin box with the key.
The door opened, and there was Holmes, black clad, bareheaded. I threw myself at him. And my undemonstrative husband, disregarding our audience, responded with a reassuring vigour, his arms circling mine, muscles drawing tight as if he intended never to let me move away, his right hand pressing my head to his shoulder, fingers moving against my skull.
“I’m sorry we took so long,” I babbled. “It took me days to get out of the country, and then we couldn’t get here yesterday night, and I was afraid that tonight, too . . . But how did you know to send the guard away?”
“The lamps shift when one of the lower doors goes open. I thought this a likely time for it to be you. Did you bring what I asked?”
Reluctantly, I stood away, although my hand lingered near his, and his grey eyes studied my face as if it had been months, a smile playing across his mouth. “We did, but we won’t need them, now that the guard’s gone.”
“And the key?”
“It’s—” But the key was not in the cell door, and when I looked for Nesbit, I found him at the other door, drawing it open, standing back.
His face was alight with the intensity of his pleasure, and he thrust out his hand with only a degree less enthusiasm than I had embraced Holmes. The prisoner of the second cell emerged into the dim light, his hand preceding him out of the door.
“Captain Nesbit,” said a low voice, its English lightly accented. “I am so very pleased to see you.”
“Mr O’Hara.” That was all, but he might as well have dropped onto his knee and said the words “My Lord.” All the love and respect of a student for his tutor welled into Nesbit’s voice, relief and affection and just a hint of amusement, that they should find themselves in this place.
The hand-clasp ended, and the man turned to us, curiosity enlivening the pale face—I had altogether forgotten that Kipling’s lad was not a native, that both parents had been Irish. He was a clean-shaven, black-haired Irishman going grey at the temples; kept from sunlight for nearly three years, his skin had faded to a sickly shade of yellow. But the dark eyes danced as they sought out Holmes, and as he came up, he stopped to place both hands together and bow over them. Holmes returned the gesture, then grinned widely and grasped the smaller man’s shoulders.
“By God, Mr O’Hara, it’s good to lay eyes on you.”
“And you, my brother Holmes. The Compassionate One has smiled upon you, it appears.” And with that, the Irishman’s gaze slid to one side, and took me in, and if anything the grin widened. He moved over to look up into my face, and I studied with interest this phantom we had been following for all these long weeks.
He was dressed as a monk, in dark red robes that left his arms uncovered, and now that I was standing in front of him I could see that his facial hair was not shaved, but had been laboriously kept plucked. Aside from that tiny detail, his features could have been those of a fellow passenger on a London bus. The face before me was remarkably unlined, so that he appeared younger than his forty-seven years, the dark wells of his eyes calm, peculiarly open and unguarded. He did not look, I thought, like a man long held prisoner. His eyes reminded me of something or someone, although before I could hunt down what or whom that was, his light, amused voice addressed me.
“And you, appearances to the contrary, can only be Miss Russell.”
I suddenly remembered how I looked, and abruptly understood both his laughter and Holmes’ fingers exploring my scalp—in the extremity of the moment, I had forgotten that I was Martin Russell, not his sister. But this middle-aged Irishman saw what the maharaja had not, and accepted the disguise for what it was.
He continued, “I am grateful to God that I have lived to see this day. I call your husband brother now, but in days gone by he was my mother and my father, and I rejoice that my eyes can see the woman who pleases him.”
I was so confused, all I could do was look at him. And even more confused when he turned and walked back to the door of his cell. “But now you must be on your way, before Sanji returns with the supper.”
Both Nesbit and I started to protest, but Holmes took over. “Russell, there’s no time for discussion. The guard takes at a minimum fourteen minutes to get to the kitchen and back, and we cannot count on this being one of those times he stops to gossip. Listen to me. Did you bring the drug?”
“Here,” I said, fishing it from my pocket, along with the small vial of skin dye Nesbit’s kit had provided. The purloined climbing rope was best left around Nesbit’s waist until we needed it.
As Holmes secreted the bottles and needle away, he said, “The one thing you must understand, and accept, is that Mr O’Hara has given his word that he will not make any attempt at escaping Khanpur.”
“That’s ridiculous—” I started to say, but Holmes cut me off sharply.
“We have no time, Russell. O’Hara has given his word. Absolutely. If you want him out of here, you shall have to carry him.”
“What, we drug him and carry him down the stairs?”
The man standing in the doorway of the adjoining cell spoke up. “Drugging shall not be necessary. My vow merely said that I should not attempt escape; there was nothing whatsoever about resisting abduction. If you choose to remove me from this place, so be it. I shall not take one voluntary step towards the border to assist you; however, neither shall I raise my voice in protest.”
“This is lunacy,” I said.
“Nonetheless,” O’Hara said placidly, folding his hands and standing patiently just inside the door to his cell.
“You can’t mean it.”
“I’m afraid he does,” Holmes said.
“Nesbit, do something,” I said. “Order him.”
“Would it help if I ordered you?” Nesbit asked the recalcitrant prisoner.
“Not in the least,” O’Hara said cheerfully.
