“The maharaja and his friends, in search of entertainment.”

“Ah. And you?”

“The time has come for Mary Russell to return to her husband.”

“And time for her to disappear as well, do I take it?”

“It would be best. The maharaja dislikes . . .” I did not know the Hindi word, so I used the English. “. . . ingratitude.”

“Interesting. Fortunately, I have a good supply of walnut dye.”

“Holmes, it is best if we depart the city. Its prince might think to look again tomorrow, and it would be easier if he were to find you gone.”

“And O’Hara?”

“I have a few ideas on that,” I said. “However, it’s complicated, and I think we should get on with doing my skin. Oh, but Holmes, remember when Nesbit made mention of a report that the maharaja had been buying large quantities of cotton? I found it.”

Say one thing for Holmes: He always appreciated the little gifts I brought him, and this no less than any. He even permitted me to tell the story properly: creeping past the inhabited buildings at the air field and to the silent godowns; the makeshift pick-locks I had fashioned from hair-pins; the discovery of no fewer than three of the big triple-engined Junkers planes, awaiting assembly; a disconcerting number of machine-guns and light artillery; and (best for last) the biggest godown with its store of cotton bales, floor to ceiling, and neatly arranged beside them, drums of the other materials one would need for making explosives.

Oh yes; Nesbit was going to love this.

The more, perhaps, if we could find him Kimball O’Hara as well.

We slipped away from the serai during the night, again disguised as a pair of itinerant Moslem magicians, and headed west into the broad plateau that formed the centre of the state, a rich source of pulse and cane, wheat and vegetables. I had been, I thought, remarkably patient; no more.

“Holmes, it is your turn. What happened after you left Simla?”

“Remarkably little,” he replied. “Quite odd, really.”

“As a narrative, Holmes, the statement is by no means sufficient.”

“No? I suppose not. Very well. Bindra and I left the hotel early. I had decided that the train out of Simla being unlikely to provide a rich source of information concerning that itinerant monk O’Hara, we should walk out of the hills.”

“Walk? That must have taken days—what was Bindra’s reaction to that?”

“He was not pleased. I did offer to provide him with a ticket back to Kalka, but for some reason the boy decided he would rather stay with me. So we walked, and caught rides on bullock-carts and tongas, and stopped regularly to thaw ourselves out in wayside hostelries, drinking tea with the locals and gossiping about this and that.”

“Monks, particularly,” I suggested.