Barbara Cleverly - The Palace Tiger

‘Here’s your hock. A good one, I think. Seltzer for you? No? Why don’t you bring it through to the drawing room? I hear you have quite an eye for architecture, Commander, and you must be curious to see the interior. It does not disappoint!’

It didn’t. Joe thought he could live out his life in this pretty house and count himself blessed. By Indian standards the rooms were, indeed, small but Lois had chosen to furnish them appropriately in pieces lighter than the usual Western, overstuffed, oversized, dark wood relics of the Victorian age. Unusually for a memsahib, she had introduced one or two items of Indian workmanship; a long low white upholstered sofa was scattered with piles of silk cushions in lime, purple and magenta and in pride of place was a white-painted grand piano.

Joe walked over to it and ran a hand over the keys. ‘Do you play, Mrs Vyvyan?’

‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘Not well, but with more skill than you, apparently. What was that? I didn’t recognize it.’

‘Not entirely sure the composer would have either,’ said Joe. ‘“Elite Syncopations”. Scott Joplin. .’

‘Ah. I’m not familiar with jazz,’ said Lois. Her tone made it quite clear that she sought no greater familiarity.

Joe turned his attention to the ranks of framed photographs methodically lined up on the piano. Some were in sepia, some in black and white, all were formal portraits. In prime position on the front row was an army man so like Lois, Joe asked without hesitation, ‘Your father?’

She smiled sadly. ‘Killed in France. He should have retired years before but,’ she shrugged a slim shoulder, ‘you know how it is with military men, Commander. When your country needs you, you make yourself available. And my father was army to the core.’

Her pride was evident. Joe looked more closely at the uniform, trying to identify the rank. ‘Brigadier-General, I think? Your father did well.’

‘At whatever he attempted,’ was the brief reply.

Joe’s eye was caught by a distracting detail of the Brigadier’s uniform and he turned his face away from Lois, unwilling to reveal his fleeting expression of interest and surprise. Could he have this right? he wondered and checked again discreetly. Yes, it was small but there was no mistaking the insignia.

He could have commented on it, shown an informed interest in the wreath of oak leaves surrounding the letters RFC, asked a polite question, but he decided, on impulse, to keep his observation to himself. Enough to note that Lois didn’t consider it worthy of comment.

‘Your rank intrigues me,’ Lois went on. ‘Commander? It has a naval ring to it?’

‘Yes. And quite deliberately so. You are intended to be impressed by it. You are intended to think, “My goodness! If such a young and dashing chap can attain the rank of Commander, he must be of high ability and of some consequence in the force.”’

He had attempted a light, self-deprecating tone but Lois was ready, as usual, with her barbed comment. ‘Or perhaps, “Here is a young man who has stepped into dead men’s shoes”? Many gaps in the ranks after the war. Too many green young colonels in the services. I suppose it was the same with the police?’

In all his time in India, Lois Vyvyan was the first to question him about his rank. She seemed genuinely interested and well informed, if annoyingly rude. Did she choose deliberately to ruffle his feathers? Joe was reminded strongly of a little Angus terrier he had owned before the war. It had hated strangers and would approach them, tail wagging with every sign of good humour but the moment a hand was extended in friendship, that hand would receive a nasty nip. Joe knew the dog couldn’t help it. He set out to be welcoming, he knew he ought to be friendly but he just had to bite first.

‘Well, I left the army a green major,’ said Joe, ‘and not being a dyed-in-the-wool military man I was very ready to transfer to the police force.’

‘Strange decision?’ said Lois. ‘Wasn’t it? Did no one advise you against it? Pounding the beat and apprehending small boys stealing apples must have seemed rather tame after four years of battling the Kaiser?’

‘Delightfully tame,’ said Joe with a broad grin. ‘I was never a career soldier. But I was promoted quickly from apple-scrumping arrests. There are in normal times two commanders for the London area. I was appointed a third with special duties.’

Lois was listening with genuine interest so he carried on. ‘After the war, many officers were turned loose on the civilized world to make their way in it again. Many had had their lives destroyed, their position in society usurped, their wealth dissipated, their fiancées stolen. . And what were they left with? With a carefully nurtured ability to kill and to survive and a coarsened sense of morality on which to base their future existence. You will be shocked but perhaps not surprised to learn that some of these trained killers took to a life of crime and violence.’

Lois nodded.

‘And who was there to apprehend this new breed of villain — the upper class crook? Not a bumbling, bluecaped bobby, wobbling along on a bike! Imagine, will you, arriving at a large country house or at a flat in Albany to put a question or two to the Right Honourable Fruity Featherstonehaugh. A bobby would be expected to present himself at the tradesmen’s entrance, wipe his boots and, if he was lucky, the butler might inform his master of the presence of the Law below but in the meantime he would be welcome to a cup of kitchen tea and a slice of cook’s Dundee cake. .’

‘Naturally. But a commander, well-born and educated, arrives at the front door able to speak de couronne en couronne to His Grace or whoever is suspected of some dastardly wheeze. .’ said Lois with a flash of insight and enthusiasm.

‘Exactly! I have a department chosen by me and a wandering brief from the Commissioner, Sir Nevil Macready — who, by the way, is a close friend of Sir George and very like him in style.’

‘I see it all,’ smiled Lois. ‘But what on earth are you doing in India? I’m sure you are much needed in London. How can they spare you?’

‘I was lent to Sir George for six months to advise and train the Calcutta Police,’ said Joe. ‘A two-way process as it turned out! I learned as much from them as they learned from me. But my secondment seems to have stretched beyond the original spell. Sir George keeps finding me cases to clear up.’

‘And is that what you’re doing here?’ asked Lois with a sweet smile. ‘May we expect you to drag one of us away in manacles?’

‘No. I’m off duty. Sir George has granted me a week’s leave to watch a tiger being bagged.’

‘Oh, I think you’re planning on doing more than watch, Sandilands,’ came Claude’s voice from the door. ‘I’ve seen your gun! You could shoot the eye out of the Man in the Moon with that! Don’t be deceived, Lois, by this chap’s modesty. I had someone check his file for me — I’m a careful man, Commander! — and he’s quite a fire-eater. Watch out, Lois! If you’ve been cheating at bridge, he’ll find you out!’

This was the first time Joe had seen the Vyvyans reacting with each other and he was intrigued to note the sudden gentleness in Lois’s tone as she enquired about her husband’s morning. Her expressive face could not hide an unspoken question underlying the words and Claude responded to this with a reassuring smile and an imperceptible nod. He answered succinctly and lightly, involving their guest in his replies, and his eyes, Joe noticed, followed his wife as she moved about the room. He would have said their relationship was one of respect and affection.

With Claude’s sunny presence, the conversation, which had been limping along, took on a lighter tone and a faster pace. After a while Claude said hesitantly, ‘I don’t believe you’ll mind, Sandilands, if I tell Lois the news of our little ceremony with the ruler earlier? So much to do as a consequence of all that, I haven’t yet had time to inform her of his decision! My dear — it’s Bahadur!’