Страница 52 из 61
Chapter Twenty-One
They all stood and watched Midge walk slowly back through the street, dragging her heels and pausing to cast a last reproachful glance back at Dickie before she turned the corner.
‘Are you really the guardian of that bundle of trouble?’ Joe asked.
‘Not exactly,’ said Andrew. ‘Midge wouldn’t understand the distinction but I am Prentice’s executor and trustee. People in India die quite often and quite suddenly, especially the military. It’s safer to name an official by his position and there’s always a Collector of Panikhat. And, for the moment, I am he.’
The calm that followed the tornado of Midge’s appearance was welcome to all. Andrew called for another pot of coffee and, as though by agreement, they settled themselves at the table on the verandah. Discreetly, Andrew took charge of the coffee and dismissed the servants.
‘Joe,’ he said, ‘if I read your expression correctly, you have something to tell us.’
Dickie Templar stirred uncomfortably and started to get to his feet. ‘Look, if you chaps are about to have a conference or something, I’ll make myself scarce for a while…’
‘No!’ said Joe abruptly. ‘It is important that you stay. What I have to say concerns you, your future and your past very closely.’
Dickie looked puzzled. Nancy and Andrew exchanged glances.
Joe produced his notebook. ‘Templar, I have a list here of names which I copied from the mess records last night before the Manoli binge. They refer to the night of the 17th of March twelve years ago. It was a Saturday and it was the night the Prentice bungalow burned down. There were five officers of Bateman’s Horse dining that night. Their names are: Carmichael, Forbes, Simms-Warburton, Somersham and Templar.’
Nancy sat up with a jerk and Andrew put down his coffee cup very carefully. Neither spoke.
‘Take your time to remember and tell us exactly what happened that night. As I say, it is vitally important.’
Dickie was silent, his expression grave. Finally he said, ‘Important for whom? For you?’
‘For me, yes, certainly, but mostly for you yourself.’
‘Well, this is all very mysterious. And, quite honestly, it’s not something I have any pleasure in thinking back on. But if you have to know I’d better tell you, I suppose… It’s Prentice, isn’t it? Has he been talking? Has he asked you to rake all this up again? Is he trying to use this as a wedge between me and Midge?’
Joe shook his head. ‘Prentice has said nothing to me. As far as I am aware he has never spoken of it to anyone. Just try and recall the events of that evening if you can.’
Dickie paused for a moment, focusing on the past.
‘There were five of us dining in the mess that night. Most of us had cried off going to some awful Panikhat Week event – a midnight picnic, I think.’ He shuddered. ‘Being eaten alive by mosquitoes while you ate cucumber sandwiches and drank tepid champagne wasn’t my idea of fun. All the same, I wish now I’d gone… There we all were in the mess, some of us pretty drunk – no, I have to say, somewhat paralytic. I was not. In fact I was fed up with the rest of them. I didn’t like the Greys officers and they didn’t like me. They’d adopted the terrible practice of not speaking to junior officers and not expecting junior officers to speak unless spoken to. A lot of regiments used to be like that and cavalry regiments especially. I got fed up with them. “Snobbish, conceited, ill-ma
‘Well, you can believe it or not but what they were intending to do about it was absolutely bugger all! Oh, sorry, Nancy! Ticked me off for mentioning it! Junior officers were not expected to rush in a
‘ Carmichael was the senior officer present. And he’d drunk more than any of us. Could hardly move.’
‘Five glasses of port,’ said Joe.
‘Was it? Hmm… And you can add the claret he’d drunk earlier. He loathed Prentice and couldn’t see any reason for rushing to save his bungalow. “Stay where you are,” he said. “It’s not our job to go ru
‘And so we stayed where we were, for precious minutes – perhaps for as long as a quarter of an hour – and finally I could bear it no longer and Philip Forbes, the regimental doctor, backed me up and we went down there. The rest trailed down after us. I wouldn’t be surprised if, over all, we had wasted half an hour.’
Suddenly his tone changed and, haunted afresh by the memory, his face stiffened as he resumed, ‘You asked if I remembered. Of course. I shall never forget. And when we got there, the dacoits had got away and Dolly Prentice was dead. And Prentice’s bearer was dead, apparently going to the rescue, brave chap that he was. And it was only by the mercy of Providence and the brilliant improvisation of Midge’s ayah that she wasn’t killed too! Those buggers were high on hash. They’d have put anything white – man, woman or child – on the bonfire if they could. And…’
He stared vacantly around the company for a moment. ‘… it might so easily have been Midge. She was on the menu all right!’
There was a silence which Nancy broke. ‘But you were there. You saved her. That’s what’s important.’
Dickie looked gratefully up. ‘That may be,’ he said, ‘but perhaps I could have done more. I could have got them going earlier! I could have shouted at them! God knows, for a long time after it happened, I could think of nothing else. And now all that you’ve told me brings it back again.’
‘I must ask you, Dickie,’ said Joe, ‘if Prentice was aware of your – the group’s – negligence? Because negligence it would seem to have been.’
‘He knew. Oh yes, he knew. He went a bit barmy when he got back from Calcutta and they told him the news. He just sat about and wouldn’t speak to anybody. Cut himself off completely and wouldn’t be doing with words of sympathy from anyone. Then he pulled himself together and started making enquiries and we were all waiting for the wrath to descend on us. But it never did. He decided apparently to take it out on the people who were really responsible and set off on a punitive raid after the dacoits. He knew who they were – he’d been rousting them out of village after village for months. His information was always of the very best. This time he made a thorough job of it and cleared out the whole rats’ nest. But I could tell from the way he looked at us – he knew. Hard to pin down and it could just be my conscience enlarging on it, of course, but I thought I caught his eye on each of us at one time or another… Ever looked a cobra in the face, Commander, eye to eye?’