I nudged my horse over until I was knee-to-knee with the Survey man. “Look, Nesbit, chivalry be damned, and uncomfortable questions can be dealt with. The maharaja won’t kill me once he sees I’m a woman. You two make for the border and I’ll strip to my under-shirt, take off the moustache, simply tell him I’m Mary Russell and not her brother. He’ll be angry, but he’s a Kshatriya—he might slap a woman, but anything more than that would go against his warrior’s ethic. If he doesn’t have me dumped immediately over the border, you can have the Viceroy send a delegation to fetch me. The only thing we lose that way is my pride, and a few days.” His set jaw told me what he thought of that idea. “For God’s sake, man,” I urged, “use your head! If I go, the guards—”

“Ninety,” the maharaja interrupted. “Ready, Nesbit?”

In answer, the blond man kneed his horse away from my side and loosed the reins. His horse, somewhat puzzled at the lack of any pigs in this pig-hunt, obediently pricked its ears, and I cursed.

“Nesbit, you fool,” I hissed, but then, “One hundred!” and the man was off, straight as a loosed arrow, his posture sure, every inch of him an officer on the hunt, his game—

I froze, ice beginning to flood my veins—and then caught myself: Don’t be ridiculous, Russell. Of course Nesbit knows that’s Holmes. He said as much when . . .

But as I went over our exchange in my mind, I could not lay my hands on any scrap of conversation that proved Nesbit had connected the maharaja’s pet magician with the Holmes he had seen in gaol.

I gave myself a smart mental slap. Don’t be a vaporous female, Russell! How could Nesbit not know? For heaven’s sake, the man wasn’t blind. And he wasn’t stupid enough to be fooled by the turban (the black turban that shaded Holmes’ face as he got down from the cart, the turban he hadn’t worn before in Nesbit’s sight . . .) or by the boots or the renewed dye on the prisoner’s skin. Nesbit was a professional. Certainly he’d known who the magician was the night we arrived. Hadn’t he? We didn’t speak Holmes’ name, of course, for fear of listening ears, but still. . . .

But dear God, the man looked determined on that horse, galloping full-tilt towards the running figure, looking for all the world a man making the best of an unpleasant but necessary task. I gathered my reins to take off after them, but the maharaja’s voice stopped me.