He was remembering the scene at the door of the dining room the previous evening, the last time he had set eyes on Rathmore. Joe tried urgently to conjure up the expression on Rathmore’s face as he spoke to Lily. He had only had time to get out a few words before Iskander placed himself between them but his face had spoken volumes. Joe had not been able to interpret the emotion in that context but, looking back, he felt it had been one of triumphant complicity directed at Lily. Complicity. Joe, with a flash of insight, began to see how Iskander might have managed his conjuring trick – the disappearance of Rathmore. But did the conjuror have an assistant? Grimly, Joe decided he had a hundred hard questions to put to Miss Coblenz.
Their deliberations were cut short by the entry of Betty. Tense and pale, she stood for a moment, silent in the doorway. ‘Lily,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for Lily. Anyone seen her this morning? Anyone know where she is?’
‘Oh, she’ll be around,’ said James, ‘somewhere. With Grace maybe? Having a bath? I don’t know. You, Joe?’
‘I don’t know where she is,’ said Joe suddenly alert, ‘but I do know where she isn’t and that’s under my care. Oh, dammit! Bloody little nuisance! I’m getting a bad tremor out of this. Little earthquake about to happen? But – for a start – have you looked in her room?’
They ran upstairs to find Grace standing by the open door of Lily’s room.
‘She’s gone, James! Lily’s not there!’
Chapter Ten
With dreadful predictability a third pristine, unslept-in bed greeted them. James called for a havildar and ordered a complete search of the fort. Miss Coblenz was to be brought to him directly no matter where she was found or what she was doing. Betty and Grace went off to help in the search and, left alone in Lily’s empty room, Joe and James looked at each other in silent despair. They could no longer do other than accept the truth – that Lily too had disappeared at some unknown hour the previous night.
Looking yet again at Iskander’s letter although he knew every word by heart, James said, ‘He mentions one hostage. Rathmore. He doesn’t say he’s taking Lily and, as you know, Joe, that’s not the Pathan way. He wouldn’t harm or inconvenience Lily or any woman. Oh, hell! The trackers are out. Eddy’s gasht left ten minutes ago. I’ll run another one in an hour and another an hour after that. I’ll shake these hills until Iskander and his bandits fall out! For the moment, that’s all we can do, I think.’
‘Not quite all we can do, James, surely?’ said a confident voice from the doorway behind them and Fred Moore-Simpson stepped into the room. ‘I understand from Betty that our Afghan friends have bunked off in the night and you want them found? If there’s some urgency about it I can probably help.’
Joe and James looked at each other and Joe nodded. Briefly James laid out the problem for Fred and handed him Iskander’s letter, adding as Fred finished reading, ‘And as well as Rathmore they seem to have carried off Lily Coblenz, so all in all we have the makings of a situation with which these hills will still be resounding in a hundred years’ time.’
‘And, in the meantime, I expect you’re planning to fall on your sword, James?’ said Fred shrewdly. ‘I can see why you would. But look, we’ve got some days to play with and it seems to me – oh, tell me to shut up if you like – that we can attack this problem on two fronts. Firstly, we have to try to contact these brigands and that means locating them. You’re obviously doing all that you can on the ground but isn’t it time you moved into the twentieth century? What about a little air support? There are some spotter planes based at Miram Shah down in Waziristan. We could telegraph them via Peshawar and have a plane sent up. One pair of eyes can cover many square miles from a thousand feet, see things you can’t see at ground level. These planes are so small they could land on the football pitch here if you clear the goalposts – or the road, even the road would do.’
James turned an anguished face to them. ‘Now why the hell didn’t I think of that?’
‘Medieval thinking, my boy,’ said Fred. ‘Not surprising in this bloody medieval country!’
‘That would be a help indeed,’ said James. ‘Thank you, Fred! I’ll get someone to take you over to the communications room. The lines are still working – they at least didn’t cut the wires – and you can liaise straight away with Peshawar. Oh, by the way, I sent a signal to the fort at Landi Kotal – that’s half-way down the Khyber, Joe – to watch out for and detain the Afghanis when they try to pass through. Nothing seen of them so far but they’re going to wire us every hour on the hour with news or a nil return. But you mentioned two fronts, Fred?’