“Er, no. That one’s there to remind me to be humble.” He threw us a boyish grin. “Big job, that. No, the broken one’s from the ’22 Cup. The first day, I’d flushed a big ’un, run it across the fields a mile or more, right at its heels when it jinked back in a flash and came for my horse. Which very sensibly shied, dumping me top over teakettle. Somehow I landed on my own spear and took a great hunk out of my arm. Nearly the end of my career.”

“So, what, did you shoot the creature? Or did it run off?”

“Good Lord, no,” Nesbit said, affronted. “One doesn’t carry a gun when pig sticking. And once a pig’s decided to fight, it generally doesn’t quit until one or the other of you stops moving. No, one of the other fellows took the beast. And the Cup as well. Native chap—maharaja in fact, though nothing like what you think of at the title. That’s him in the photo. He nearly had the Cup from me last year, he’s that good. ’Course he should be good, he has enough practice going after any kind of game you can mention. African lion, giraffe—you name it.”

Sports; maharaja; exotic animals: The unlikely conjunction rang some bells in my mind, but Holmes got the question out first.

“What is the name of this maharaja?”

“They call him Jimmy. Rum chap, a bit, but a great sportsman. He’s the ruler of a border state named—”

“Khanpur.”

Nesbit’s eyes locked onto Holmes over the top of his cup. Then, calmly, he took the last swallow, placed the cup and saucer on the tray, and stood. “Shall we go and look at the garden?”

“Looking at the garden” seemed to be a common ritual in the Nesbit establishment. At any rate, the ground was clear for a circle of thirty yards around the two benches he led us to, benches located in the shade of a tree which had recently been thinned so its inner structure could hide no person, benches facing in opposite directions to cover all approaches. A low fountain played nearby, obscuring our voices.

“You seem to have an interest in the maharaja of Khanpur,” he said as soon as we were seated.

“Not directly, but the name has come to our attention.”