“Apart from our unwillingness to commit to the Socialist cause, no.”

“Very well. You two are in a unique position, one that would take a Survey agent months to duplicate. I realise that you have spent the last weeks in perfecting your travelling-magician disguise, but I would like to ask you to drop that disguise and take up your friendship with the Goodheart family.”

“No,” Holmes said flatly.

“What friendship?” I said simultaneously.

“Acquaintance, then,” Nesbit said, choosing my objection as the less intractable. “I believe you more than capable of ingratiating yourselves into their lives to the extent that they would invite you to accompany them to Khanpur. The girl seemed particularly fond of you, Miss Russell. She mentioned you this morning, with no prompting on my part, I should add.”

“Fine,” Holmes said. “Russell will change back into an Englishwoman and observe the palace from within. Bindra and I will take the more circuitous route, and we shall meet in Khanpur.”

This time it was Nesbit and I who spoke at the same instant.

“I don’t think—” he began.

“Look at me!” I demanded. “I’m dark as a native—I even blacked my eyelashes, for pity’s sake. And my arms have burn scars all over them from the cursed fire-toss.”

“—that it’s a good idea for you to . . . Fire-toss?”

“The dye will come off, Russell.”

“Yes, along with most of my skin.”

“Suffering for the sake of enlightenment, Russell?”

“And who is Bindra?” Nesbit asked, to no effect.

“I never asked for enlightenment. Apart from which, it’s my skin that needs enlightening, not my soul.”

Nesbit finally decided to return to his original objection, and inserted firmly into our bickering, “I don’t know that it’s the best idea for the two of you to divide up. It might not be entirely safe.”

“Holmes,” I said, distracted by his remark, “have we ever had a case in which you and I did not go our separate ways at one point or another?”

He paused to reflect. “I believe we spent most of the Colonel Barker spy investigation in each other’s company.”

“A minor investigation, nine years ago,” I said. “No, Captain Nesbit, we generally work separately at some point in an investigation.”

“But this is India, and I shouldn’t like to think of a woman—”

I froze the words on his tongue with a gaze as flat and icy as the Simla Skating Club rink. Holmes threaded his fingers together over his stomach and studied the ceiling. Nesbit cleared his throat and tried again.

“I am sure you are remarkably competent, Miss Russell, but were anything to happen to you—”

“Captain Nesbit, what sort of demonstration would satisfy you?”

Holmes murmured sotto voce, “Swords, or pistols at dawn?” but Nesbit did not hear him.

“I do not require—”