I excused myself to go and change for dinner, but I did not go directly to my rooms. Rather, I walked, deep in thought, through the dusk-washed gardens. The mild exercise helped loose my muscles, and the distraction loosed my mind as well, because as I bent to smell a flower I abruptly remembered where I’d seen the face of Harry Koehler.

It was a trial. I’d been there by coincidence, meeting Holmes for dinner (he in a frivolous mood, with a gardenia in his lapel—Ah! The memory had been freed by aroma), and as we left the court-room where he’d been watching a trial, we’d got caught up in the press of people leaving the next room. At their centre had been Koehler, testifying for the defence in a case involving the sex-lives of aristocrats and the embezzlement of a great deal of money. Holmes had pointed him out to me, with the dry comment that the man was one of the best-paid witnesses in London.

So what was he doing in Khanpur?

I stirred myself from my thoughts and was picking my way through the dark garden towards the lighted walls of the palace when the darkness nearby suddenly moved. “Who is there?” I asked sharply.

In response, a flame snapped into being, settling at the end of a cigarette being held by Gay Kaur. “Oh, Miss Kaur, you startled me.”

“Sorry, I was just enjoying the garden. Care for a smoke?”

“Thanks, no, never got the habit.” I felt for the edge of the bench her flame had illuminated, and eased down beside her.

“I hear you made a great success at the pigs,” she said.

“Purely by accident. And I’m black-and-blue all over.”

“Yes, it’s a fairly ferocious sort of entertainment.”

“Your cousin is very good at it.”

“People like us have to be good at something.”

There are a number of ways to approach a statement like that, but in the end, I decided to let it lie, and come in at an angle, trusting to the darkness to encourage confession. “The maharaja seems to have a variety of friends. I mean to say, men with single-minded passions often surround themselves with people of similar interests. But here I’ve met a novelist, a playwright, two avant-garde artists, and of course the Goodhearts.”

“Jimmy’s pets.”

“Pardon me?”

“Jimmy likes to collect interesting people. Animals, too, of course—he’ll probably show you his zoo tomorrow, although he prefers to take people there under a full moon—but he’s forever bringing home some odd character from his travels and giving him a job. Usually something the person is most unsuited for. I suppose it’s more amusing that way.”

“I don’t think I understand,” I said, although I was beginning to catch a glimmer.