“Turns out the fellow’s got a reputation as a sporting maharaja, travelled the world taking all sorts of big game, but he’s getting tired of the local varieties, the buffalos and tigers and such. So he’s started his own zoo, been buying up breeding stock of game animals from around the globe—lions from Africa, emus from Australia, panthers from South America. That’s why he was in Russia, to arrange for some wild boar to juice up the local variety. Any rate, he’d heard somewhere that bison were great sport. And as luck would have it, a friend of my pal could get his hands on three cows and a bull.”
Mrs Goodheart broke in. “And since Thomas here arranged it, the maharaja’s invited us to come and spend some time with him. In his kingdom,” she added, lest we think they were to be shelved in some Bombay hotel. “Khanpur is its name.”
A mild expression that might have been annoyance flitted across Tom Goodheart’s face, irritation at having the climax of his story snatched away, but before he could respond, a hugely contrasting swirl of pink and white merriment came dashing up the deck to confront us.
“Oh! Mrs Russell, how super! Have you ever played shovel-board? On a boat? You shove the little puck down the deck and it’s going perfectly and then the boat tilts a little and—oops! There goes your nice straight shot, so then you try to compensate on the next turn and the deck tilts the other way and there goes your shot to the other side. Oh, it’s ever so funny!”
“Sunny, this is Mr Russell,” her mother told her.
“Oh!” the girl squeaked. “So pleased to meet you. Your wife is such a darling, and such a sense of humour!”
“Oh yes,” Holmes agreed gravely. “Quite the joker is my wife.”
The girl turned to me again. “They’re going to have an egg race next. Wouldn’t you like to come and join?”
There was very little I would enjoy less than a shipboard egg race, but since one of those lesser pleasures was the idea of remaining within reach of Sunny’s mother and brother, I made haste to stand before we could be assigned some other task. “I won’t participate, but I shall come and cheer you on.”
Holmes would have to manufacture his own escape.
The old-fashioned egg race was every bit as fatuous as I had expected, the girls shrieking and giggling and bouncing on their toes for the benefit of the onlooking officers. One side of the deck had been roped off for the games, but the participants were somewhat thinner on the ground—or rather, on the boards—than they would have been during the autumn migration. Still, the girls made up for it in self-conscious enthusiasm during the first two heats of the P. & O.’s quaint idea of fun. After those, however, the paucity of numbers brought about a defiant change of house rules, and the relays became co-educational. The baritone voices were accompanied by a shift in the merriment to something resembling true competition, and if the men looked even more ridiculous than the women had in racing down the deck with spoon and teetering egg, everyone had a splendid time, and there was plenty of opportunity for jovial banter and a certain degree of innocent physical contact.
The change in noise, however, attracted the parental authorities of those girls young enough to view the game merely as pleasurable exercise linked with mild flirtation instead of early negotiations in the serious economic business of matrimony. Repressive suggestions were made, Mrs Goodheart decreeing that Sunny looked quite flushed and a rest might be in order before it came time to dress for dinner, and the egg-race orgy died a natural death. The young men straightened their collars and went back to their corners; the young women recalled their sophistication and lounged off for a cigarette, illicit or open, depending on the smoker’s age. Holmes and I seized the opportunity for retreat.
We made for the less occupied reaches of the deck, up where smuts drifted from the steamer stacks and the vibration from the engines far below bounced one’s feet on the boards. I had a coin in my hand, to practice flipping it across my knuckles. My fingers were remembering the drill and becoming more supple, the motions more nearly automatic.
“Why on earth did you wish to speak with those people, Holmes?”
“That is ‘Mr Russell’ to you.”
“Holmes.”
“I merely wished to examine the phenomenon of a wealthy and educated young American who embraces the cant of the Bolsheviks. I have some familiarity with his British counterpart, but I was interested to see if there were regional differences.”
“And were there?”
“None of import. The aristocracy amuses itself in many ways, among which is the pretence of being a commoner. You will note, however, that rarely is the claim accompanied by a renunciation of status or wealth.”
“I suppose it’s a harmless enough flirtation. Better than yanking a variety of exotic animals from their homes and shipping them halfway around the globe in order to shoot them.”
“Having granted them a long and prolific life before their demise,” he pointed out mildly. “And by comparison with the extreme behaviour of some of the native princes, the attitude of young Goodheart’s maharaja seems fairly tame. The boredom of the aristocracy reaches new highs amongst India’s hereditary rulers, and the lengths to which some of them go to escape it—well, let us say merely that ancient Rome might learn a few things about depravity.”
I might have explored that interesting topic, but a sudden thought made me glance apprehensively at the dancing boards under my feet. “You don’t suppose those beasts of his are in the hold of this ship, do you?”
“This is a P. & O. liner, Russell. They don’t even permit lap dogs.”
That was a relief. I had seen bison, and did not like to imagine what an irritated one could do to a ship’s hold.
We took our evening meal in our rooms, as well as breakfast on Monday, and by making immediately for the more insalubrious portions of the decks during the middle of the day, we avoided the Goodhearts until Sunny caught us strolling down the stairs at tea-time, her brother ambling along behind her.
“Oh! Mrs Russell, I’ve missed you so. I hope you haven’t been ill, I was looking for you at lunch. Hello, Mr Russell.”
“We’ve just been elsewhere,” I told her; Holmes murmured something vaguely apologetic and pulled a vanishing act. “Did you need something?”
“Oh, yes, I just wanted to ask if you were thinking of going ashore at Port Said tomorrow. Tommy and I are skipping off to see Cairo and the pyramids by moonlight, although Mama says it’s too strenuous a jaunt for her. The purser says we’ll rejoin the ship in Suez, he absolutely promises. Please, won’t you come?”
Moonlight? I thought. The moon would be but a tiny sliver, handsome enough in the desert sky but short-lived and less illuminating than a candle. Little point in saying anything to this young lady, however—the shipping line might not permit lap dogs, but Sunny was doing her best to make up for their absence, endearing herself to all and polishing off whatever odd scraps were put on her plate. I stifled an impulse to snap the order to
“No, thank you, Sunny. I may go ashore in Aden, but not here.” I had not yet seen the pyramids, but I did not wish to do so for the first time on a rushed day-trip in the company of a shipload of tourists. Call me a snob, but I prefer to take in the world’s grand sights when I can at least hear myself think. Not that I was killjoy enough to say so aloud.
Her round little face fell in disappointment. “I’m so sorry. Tommy was looking forward to it.”
Tommy, I thought, cared not a whit if I came, although at the memory of the fellow’s bland and disinterested mask, I experienced a vague stir of disquiet. Before I could pursue the thought, Sunny perked up again. “Well, maybe you’ll join Mama? There’s a group going ashore to buy pith helmets and such, sounds ever so fun.”
I rather doubted that, and could only imagine the sort of solar topees on offer at a shop catering to lady tourists fresh from England. Holmes would go ashore in Port Said to send a telegram to Mycroft; I’d ask him to buy me a sun-hat while he was there. “No, I’ll wait, thanks. You have a good time. And, Sunny? Please call me Mary.”
Her face blossomed again, simple soul, and she chattered for a while about maharajas and camels before bouncing off to consider the proper wardrobe for pyramid-visiting. I smiled at her retreating back: It would not be long before the one-woman fishing fleet was reeling in a whole school of handsome young officers on her line.
