Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) (26 page)

They headed into the hills, fir trees, eucalyptus, and casuarinas on all sides. Ahead, the hazy foothills of the Himalayas showed on the horizon, a series of scimitar peaks whose summits were sheathed in scabbards of snow.

At the place agreed upon for their rendezvous, a roadside shrine to the goddess Lakshmi, Anand eased the elephant to a halt and looked around.

Jani hurried across the patched tarmacadam, waving up at him and calling out, “Take the elephant into the jungle, Anand! We need to get away from the road.”

He stared down at her, and a second later started up the elephant and steered it through a stand of trees. Jani stood by the roadside, anxiously looking down into the town. Once the clockwork beast was hidden from view, she followed it through the ferns and trees.

“Jani-ji?” Anand called out with concern.

She climbed the cliff-face of the elephant’s hindquarters, using rivets, flanges, and piston-heads as hand- and foot-holds. Breathless, she arrived on the broad back and flopped down.

“Jani-ji?”

“I... I must have been followed from the warehouse,” she panted. “An Englishman invited me to tea.” She recounted her meeting with the bogus clergyman, his attempt to capture her and her escape.

“So they must have followed us here!” he cried.

“They know about the Mech-Man, obviously – but perhaps not Mel,” she said, patting its broad brass back.

Anand frowned in the dappled shade of the palm leaves. “We have one big problem, Jani-ji. On Mel we cannot make good speed to Rishi Tal and Nepal.”

She stared at him. “So what to do? Back at the warehouse you said you had a plan.”

Straightening his back proudly, he said, “So they know about Max... But by now, perhaps, they will have searched the warehouse, ah-cha, and failed to find us. That means that if I return, tonight, and leave with Max... then the job will be a bloody good one!”

She frowned at him. “Do you mean that tonight we will escape aboard Max, even though the British are aware of him?”

“You could say that,” Anand said. “You will find out later tonight, Jani-ji.”

“You’re speaking in riddles, Anand.” She reached out and gripped his hand. “I’ll come with you.”

“And run the risk of them capturing both of us? That would be foolish, Jani-ji. You stay here, and if I do not get back by dawn... then continue on to Rishi Tal and Nepal without me.”

They waited out the rest of the day in the shade of the palm trees and at eight, as the sun went down over the hills and filled the valleys with its golden light, Anand climbed down from the back of the mechanical elephant and made his way back to Dehrakesh.

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

Smethers to the Rescue –

To the warehouse – Confrontation with the Mech-Man –

“You must know your place...”

A
LFIE
L
ITTLEBODY SQUATTED
in the confines of the travelling chest, sweating inordinately and wondering if he would run out of air and suffocate to death.

Panic alternated with self-pity at his dashed ill-fortune. Things had begun to go wrong right at the outset yesterday, when his departure from the Delhi airyard had been delayed for thirty minutes – which should have been no problem as he was still scheduled to arrive at Dehrakesh well before Janisha Chatterjee’s train. Then, midway through the flight, the pilot had called out that he was experiencing trouble with the port engine and had diverted to the airyard at Rishi Tal for running repairs. In consequence he had landed at Dehrakesh at midnight, some six hours after the Delhi train was due in.

Alfie had rushed to the address of Mr Clockwork’s Dehrakesh warehouse on the edge of town, but found it locked, with no sign of the girl, her rescuer, or anyone else on the premises. As he was leaving the warehouse, however, he’d heard voices high above him.

Craning his neck, he had made out two small figures sitting up on the eaves of the building. In the moonlight he discerned a boy and a young woman.

Heartened, he’d returned to the centre of town, booked a room in a guest house, and in the morning bought a change of clothing. He’d affixed the parson’s dog-collar, then hurried to the warehouse.

No sooner had he turned onto the street where the emporium was situated than the Chatterjee girl, looking as enchanting in real life as she appeared in the photograph, had slipped from the warehouse and hurried along the street. He’d followed the girl into town and effected their ‘accidental’ meeting.

And it had been going so well until he’d fouled up with the chest.

Now, for perhaps the hundredth time, he strained with all his strength against the lid, but to no avail. The catch held fast. He wondered how long it might be before a cleaner entered the room. He was sopping with sweat and frantic with panic. The proprietor might elect not to have the room cleaned, as he was still in residence... or would they knock and enquire? But that might not be for hours yet – and how much air was left in the chest? He cried out; rather the ignominy of being discovered like this, he thought, than a horrible death from asphyxiation.

And even if he did get out before he suffocated, he would have lost the trail of the precociously bright Chatterjee girl. She would have flown like a bird and might be anywhere by now. He groaned aloud at his situation. He’d said he would contact Brigadier Cartwright as soon as he landed in Dehrakesh, and bring him up to speed – which he’d signally failed to do. How to explain the delay, and the subsequent failure of his lead, when he did get out?

Damn the girl! He cursed himself, yelled out again and thumped the wood above his head. The chest felt more and more like a coffin with every passing minute. He subsided, tried not to shed tears of self-pity, and in due course his thoughts returned to the Chatterjee girl.

He had to admit that she was something of a corker. He had always thought high-caste Indian women were amongst the most beautiful in the world, and to complement her looks Janisha Chatterjee had a piercing intellect and a comely manner. He’d found himself, as he’d sipped tea with her and traded thoughts, entirely smitten.

One thing that puzzled him, though – and one thing he could not have asked her outright – was why she had not turned herself in to the safekeeping of the police? That, to his way of thinking, would have been her obvious course of action after being saved from the heinous Russian pair. Why had she embarked on this perilous flight, in the belly of a mechanical man, all the way to Dehrakesh?

What, he asked himself, was she fleeing?

Into his mind’s eye came the image of her smile, dazzling white against her brown skin, and something swelled within his chest. Her eyes were the biggest, brownest eyes he had ever beheld in his life, brimming with wit and wisdom.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening, followed by a male voice. “I say, Littlebody? Where the bally hell are you?”

His heart kicked. He didn’t recognise the voice – but, whoever it belonged to, he was saved.

“In here!” he cried.

“In where? Dash it all, man, what the blazes are you playing at?”

“Here!” he yelled again, thumping the lid of the chest.

He heard fingers fumbling with the clasp and a second later dazzling sunlight flooded in as the lid was lifted.

“Am I glad to...!” The words died on his lips as he gazed up at the thin, sardonic face staring down at him.

“Oh,” Alfie said, his heart sinking. “Colonel Smethers.”

Smethers – or Sadean Smethers, as he was known in the Officers’ Club – was perhaps the last person on Earth Alfie would have wanted to liberate him.

“What the bloody hell,” Smethers said, pulling up an armchair and seating himself very precisely upon it, “what in the name of blessed creation, Lieutenant Littlebody, are you doing locked in a travelling chest dressed as a padre?”

Alfie knelt in the chest, sweat dripping from his face, gripped the rim and stared out at Smethers. “I can explain everything,” he said pathetically.

Smethers nodded. He had a thin, rather cruel face, a lipless mouth, and ice cold eyes – the entire ensemble tailor-made to convey withering sarcasm. “This,” he said, “should be interesting.”

Alfie mumbled something approximating an abject apology.

Smethers held up a languid hand. “But first,” he said, “why the fancy dress costume, Padre?”

“It isn’t...” he began. He inserted two fingers behind the strip of white card he’d utilised as a dog-collar – an invention he’d been rather pleased with at the time. “You see, it was intended to gain her trust. No one suspects a vicar.”

Smethers made a show of screwing his eyes shut, opening them and shaking his head. “Let me get this straight. In order to apprehend the Chatterjee gal, you dressed up as a vicar?”

“And it was my intention to incarcerate her within the chest – for her own good. You see, the Russians are intent on...”

Smethers raised a hand. “I know all about that pair.”

“For some reason,” Alfie continued, “she decided against seeking our help. I thought it best to use a modicum of force, rather than suggest she come into our custody of her own accord.”

“And Cartwright didn’t tell you why the girl’s on the run?” Smethers asked.

“Not a word,” Alfie said. “Do you know?”

“Let’s just say that she’s received something we would rather she hadn’t, Littlebody. And thanks to your blithering incompetence, she’s given us the slip.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Oh, just wait until Brigadier Cartwright finds out about this!”

Alfie froze. “You... I mean, is there any need for him to know?”

A calculating look came into Smethers’ Arctic eyes. “I suppose,” he began, “that that depends.”

Alfie felt a smidgen of hope. “Depends?”

“On how you conduct yourself over the course of the next few days as we attempt to track down the gel.”

“We...” Alfie gulped, “we’re working together on the case?”

“Well, you don’t think I’m going to toddle off back to Delhi, put my feet up and let you exhibit the same level of incompetence as you’ve shown so far, do you? Of course we’ll work together. And if you buck up your ideas, obey my every dashed order, mind your Ps and Qs and all the rest, then I might show a little lenience. But one step out of line, old boy, and I’ll tip the wink to Cartwright and the old boy will make your life merry hell. Do you get me drift, Littlebody?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Excellent.” Smethers smiled sweetly. “Now, be a good chap and get out of that damned chest, why don’t you? Oh – one further question: did you haul the chest all the way up here with the express intention of imprisoning the girl?”

Alfie stood, his muscles protesting. “No, sir. I... The idea came to me when I booked the room and saw the chest. It seemed the perfect way to detain her, sir.”

Smethers shook his head. “When in fact what happened was that the slip of a thing turns the tables and incarcerates you.”

“I... She took fright, sir; I overbalanced, and she pushed me.”

Smethers stared at him. “I hope you feel as foolish as you look, Lieutenant?”