“How do you think he found us in the first place?”
Before Charles could answer, he exclaimed,
“But of course! You gave your name to the innkeeper. I thought at the time it was unnecessary.”
“That’s easy for you to say now,” Charles replied.
“But you know as well as I do that, if he had thought us ordinary travellers, he would not have produced his best brandy, which you were only too delighted to pour down your throat!”
Jimmy laughed.
“Well, another time you should travel incognito. I can see only too clearly what happened. Jacobson learnt who we were and that we had taken Indira with us.
Your groom would have boasted in the stables where we were going. And we were near enough to Ardsley Hall to have everybody talking about the steeplechase.”
“You are certainly making some good deductions about what occurred in the past,” Charles remarked, “but that does not bring us any nearer to finding Indira in the future.”
“Do you intend to find her?” Jimmy asked.
“Of course I intend to find her. You know as well as I do that she can no more look after herself than can a babe in arms.”
“All the same,” Jimmy expostulated, “it was very clever of her to take the Marquis’s carriage to London and one of the maids as a chaperone to look after her.”
“How did you find out all that?” Charles asked curiously.
“I asked the butler and the housekeeper and I suspect that there had already been enquiries by the Marquis as to how she had left.”
“I think she might have told us what she was doing,” Charles complained.
“If you think about it logically,” Jimmy said, “you will realise that she was thinking of you and me and saving us from being mixed up with Jacobson.”
“Yes, that is true,” Charles agreed, “and there are very few women who would be so unselfish.”
Before Jimmy could speak he added,
“But dammit! I wish she had trusted me! I fear she will get into a lot of trouble if she is on her own and we will not be there to save her.”
*
The Marquis, as it happened, was thinking very much the same thing. Now that he knew Indira was not Lady Mary Combe, as she had pretended to be, it made him even more apprehensive about her than he would have been otherwise.
Although, as Lord Wrotham had said, she certainly did not look as if she had come from India, he was astute enough to realise that there were many things in England that were strange to her and that, what he accepted as a matter of course, she regarded with curiosity.
‘She is so young and so lovely,’ he thought. ‘It is impossible for her to be on her own.’
He wished now he had questioned Charles and Jimmy far more closely than he had, but he had felt slightly uncomfortable about revealing how very interested he was in Indira.
He also suspected that part of what they had told him had been untrue, although he had no logical reason for thinking so.
What had worried him ever since her arrival seemed now to grow more complicated and more puzzling, so that he went over every conversation he had had with her and at the end of it was only more bewildered than he had been at the beginning.
It seemed extraordinary that anyone as lovely and as expensively gowned as Indira should be travelling alone and, having appeared from nowhere, had vanished into nowhere without his being able to do anything about it.
As he had every intention of finding her, the Marquis concentrated his thoughts on her all the time he was travelling to London.
He had perfected a means of travelling with great speed when it was necessary.
He left The Hall, driving himself in a light phaeton with six horses. Only a Corinthian with his expertise could have managed such a large team on the main roads and driven until it was dark at a record pace.
He then had an excellent dinner which had been provided by his own chef at a Posting inn and, when he finished, a closed travelling chariot drawn by a team of four was waiting for him.
Driven by his most experienced coachman all through the night – fortunately there was a moon – the Marquis slept peacefully until dawn.
After a bath and breakfast he set off again, driving another phaeton with four perfectly matched horses, which reached London by one o’clock.
At Ardsley House in Park Lane, the Marquis changed his clothes before setting out again in another phaeton and with fresh horses for Whitehall.
He was not feeling tired after the long hours of driving and admitted to himself that the reason for his haste could be expressed in one word – Indira.
The Marquis had always tried to be honest with himself and his feelings.
In fact he had always known that he despised quite enough of what he found in the world about him and was therefore scrupulously frank when he faced his own emotions about anything or anybody.
Now he admitted, although with reluctance, that his search for Indira was serious to the point where not only his brain was involved but also his heart.
He supposed that he had really fallen in love with her when he had seen her come into the drawing room accompanied by Charles and Jimmy and thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his whole life.
Then, when he talked to her, he had found her so refreshingly different from what he had expected, but he had also been aware that she was in fear of something.
He had been intrigued to the point where he had found it hard to be aware of the existence of any other woman in the room.
He had known when his feelings for Lady Sinclair had altered so suddenly and completely that there must be some reason for it. At the same time it was something he did not wish to put into words, even though his instinct said it for him.
Now that he had lost Indira and she had vanished in that unexpected and unaccountable manner, he knew he had to find her again.
When, after breakfast on Sunday morning, he read the letter she had written to him, his impulse had been to rage at everybody in the house for not having informed him that one of his guests had left so suddenly.
But because he had exceptional self-control, when he sent for Mrs. Baker, he had appeared to accept with approval the arrangements she had made when Indira had told her she must go to London.
“Her Ladyship was thinking of your Lordship,” Mrs. Baker said, “and I said to her it was very considerate and many ladies’d want sympathy and condolences and would be thinking of no one but themselves.”
She thought the Marquis looked approving and went on,
“Although I were worried, my Lord, that anyone so young and so beautiful should go off alone in such a manner, there was nothing I could do but send Johnson with her ladyship and I asked for one of your Lordship’s most reliable and ablest coachmen, knowing he would see there was no trouble on the journey.”
“That was very sensible of you, Mrs. Baker,” the Marquis said. “But her Ladyship did not tell you exactly where she was staying in London?”
“No, your Lordship. But the coachman’ll know where when he gets back.”
“Yes, of course,” the Marquis agreed.
He knew that, having deposited Indira, he would have taken the horses to the stables behind Ardsley Hall.
As he was changing his clothes, he sent a footman to the Mews and when he came downstairs it was to find Jackson, a middle-aged man who was an excellent driver, waiting for him in the hall.
“Good afternoon, Jackson.”
“Afternoon, my Lord.”
“Did you have a good journey up from the country?”
“Aye, my Lord, very good. We’ve just arrived and them new bays be shapin’ up well.”
“I am glad to hear it,” the Marquis answered. “Her Ladyship was not upset by the journey?”
“Nay, my Lord.”
There was a little pause before the Marquis asked,
“Where did you put her Ladyship down, Jackson?”
“It so ’ap
pens, my Lord, that ’er ladyship asks me to leave ’er at some livery stables on the outskirts of London.”
The Marquis stared at Jackson in astonishment.
Then he asked,
“What was the reason for that?”
“I’ve no idea, my Lord. ’Cept that’s what ’er Ladyship asks.”
And when you left her there did you just drive away?”
“Aye, my Lord.”
The Marquis did not speak and after a moment the coachman said,
“I ’opes I done right, my Lord, I only done what ’er Ladyship asks.”
“Yes, yes, that was quite right.”
The Marquis walked to the front door and outside to where his phaeton was waiting.
As he climbed into it, he thought despairingly that Indira was determined to cover her tracks and that it was going to be more difficult than he had expected to find her again.
However, he drove to the Colonial Office and asked to see Earl Bathurst, who agreed to see him immediately.
The Marquis was aware that the various territories acquired by the British over generations were administered partly by the Secretaries of State for War and for the Colonies and partly by great Chartered Companies.
The Earl, who was the Colonial Secretary of State, rose at his entrance and exclaimed,
“I am surprised to see you, Ardsley. I thought you were in the country.”
“I have just come back to London,” the Marquis replied, “and I have one or two questions I would like to ask you.”
Earl Bathurst smiled jovially and settled himself comfortably in his armchair.
“Ask away.”
“First,” the Marquis said, “is the Earl of Farncombe dead?”
“Dead? Of course not! He is very much alive and doing exceedingly good work in India.”
“That is what I thought,” the Marquis said as if to himself.
“Strange man, all the same. Spent most of his life in the East, and came into the title unexpectedly as the last Earl had no son.”
However, the Marquis was not listening and, as Earl Bathurst stopped, he asked,
“Have you ever heard of a man called Rowlandson in India?”
The Earl stared at him.
“Do you mean ‘Rajah’ Rowlandson?”
“Rajah?”
“A nickname,” Earl Bathurst explained. “They tell me it is very apt because he is so rich, so important, that even the natives think of him as a Prince.”
The Marquis leant forward in his chair.
“Tell me more about him.”
The Earl laughed.
“That is going to take a while. He is one of those phenomena that crop up now and again and defy all the laws of averages.”
“In what way?”
“Well, let me think – what can I tell you about Rajah Rowlandson?” Earl Bathurst asked. “He has made himself the biggest private ship-owner in the East, the biggest conveyor of cargos of all sorts and descriptions. He provides anything and everything anybody wants with a speed which leaves all his rivals gasping and he is indispensable to the Army, the Navy, and anybody else you like to mention.”
He saw the incredulous look on the Marquis’s face and added,
“You look surprised, Ardsley, and I don’t blame you. But what I am telling you is the gospel truth. Rowlandson is a law unto himself and there is nobody quite like him – or was. I suppose you know he is dead.”
“I had heard that,” the Marquis murmured, as the Earl was obviously expecting an answer.
“Died quite recently on the voyage home,” Earl Bathurst went on. “I received the information only two days ago. It is a tragedy, a great tragedy, and God knows we have no one to replace him.”
“Do you mean to say that we used him – the British?” the Marquis queried.
“Of course we did!” Earl Bathurst replied. “If our Armies anywhere in the East wanted cannons, guns, tents or boots, Rowlandson could get them there quicker than anyone else could provide them! The East India Company, with whom he originally worked, found him invaluable.”
“Who was he before he started on this strange career?” the Marquis asked.
The Earl laughed.
“You may well ask. The Rowlandsons are a distinguished and respected family in Northumberland. For generations they have gone into the County Regiment and Rowlandson’s father actually became a General! But when Rajah went out to India as a Subaltern, the disorganisation and inefficiency of the ships which brought in the requirements of the troops made him start off on another career.”
The Earl paused before he added,
“I believe he borrowed the money from some Indian Nabob and multiplied it a thousand times when he paid it back. Anyway, he is a man who will be greatly missed, not only by a great number of people in the East but also by ourselves.”
“Do you know anything about his family,” the Marquis asked, “or his relations and where they can be found in England?”
The Earl shook his head.
“I have not the slightest idea. When I heard that Rajah Rowlandson was coming home, I was surprised. He has not been back for years.”
There was a long silence.
Then the Marquis said in a tone that was surprisingly anxious,
“Do you happen to know the name of Rowlandson’s bank?”
The Earl smiled.
“Now that’s an easy question. Of course I do! It is called the Oriental British Bank. You will find it in Lombard Street. In fact he owns it!”
Chapter 7
Indira was frightened.
Sitting in the Manager’s office at the Oriental British Bank, she found that things were not going as she had expected.
The carriage she had hired from the livery stable had moved depressingly slowly, but it had given her time to think out exactly what she should do. In fact she had been turning it over and over in her mind ever since leaving Ardsley Hall.
She felt sure that the Bank Manager, who had been appointed to the bank by her father, would be able to help her in every way and first of all to find her somewhere to stay.
She was well aware that she could not stay in a hotel alone and she thought that perhaps he would be able to recommend some respectable woman or perhaps even a lady, who would take her in until such time as she could contact her relations, who again she hoped would be known to him.
However, she felt that she was constricted at every turn by the fact that her father had communicated everything he wished done in England to his Solicitors and she recognised that she must have the bank’s support to help her to deal with Jacobson.
When she arrived in Lombard Street, she told the carriage she had hired to wait with her luggage and entering the bank she asked to be taken immediately to the Manager.
There seemed at first to be some doubt as to whether he would see her. But when she gave her name, a clerk, realising who she was, bowed her obsequiously into a large important-looking office, where the Manager was seated behind a large desk.
When she looked at him, Indira felt her heart sink, for he was an Asian.
She thought it was what she might have expected, remembering that her father had always maintained that, when it came to the handling of money, there were none more intelligent and quicker brained than the Asians. Yet she had never envisaged that the Bank Manager in England would be one and she knew that in consequence he would be unable to help her to find suitable accommodation.
Having lived in the East so long, she knew that Asians and Europeans seldom visited one another in their private houses and it would be impossible for her to stay with one as a guest.
The Manager, having commiserated with her over her father’s death, expressing most eloquently the consternation and distress it had caused in the bank, Indira then said,
“Now, Mr. Mendi, I need your help.”
“You must be well aware, Miss Rowlandson, that it will be a pleasure to help you in every possible way I can,” the Manager replied.
“The first thing I want is a list of the names and addresses of my father’s relatives.”
The Bank Manager looked surprised before he answered,
“I am afraid I cannot help you there, Miss Rowlandson. I always understood your father directed all his personal affairs through his Solicitors, Lawson, Cruikshank and Jacobson.”
“That is true,” Indira replied, “but for reasons I will explain later, I do not wish to communicate with them at the moment.”
“That makes things very difficult,” Mr. Mendi said, “but I will certainly look in your father’s files and see if there is anything in them that might be of help.”
It took some time to find the files and, when they were brought in, there were so many of them that Indira thought despairingly that it might be days or weeks before she had an answer to this question alone.
As she watched Mr. Mendi turn over the closely written pages, which she could see across the desk all concerned money, she began to think frantically that time was passing and she had no idea where she could stay the night.
Mr. Mendi put down a fat file and took up another.
“I regret, Miss Rowlandson,” he said in his precise manner, “that what I have here appears to be concerned only with your father’s transfer of monies from one place to another and there are no personal details of any sort.”
This was what Indira was already certain he was about to say and she was trying to formulate in her mind exactly how she should ask him where she could go when she left the bank, when the door opened and a rather flustered-looking clerk said,
“There is a gentleman who insists on seeing you, sir – ”
Before he had finished the sentence, the gentleman in question, who was behind him, had pushed his way into the room.
Indira looked round indifferently, somewhat annoyed by the interruption.
Then, when she saw who was there, she gave a little cry of unrepressed joy and without thinking she jumped to her feet and ran towards the Marquis, putting out both her hands towards him.
He felt her fingers tremble in his and he knew that she was afraid in the same way she had been the first time he had touched her when she came to Ardsley Hall.
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