Death in Kashmir Read Online Free PDF

other people can—may—mean a great deal. Well, some months ago the department we work for picked up a…’
    She paused, apparently searching for a word that would not commit her too far, and finally selected an ambiguous one: ‘A trail——’

2
    Sitting by the fire with her sensible, schoolgirlish hands spread out to the blaze, and speaking in a carefully controlled voice that was pitched to reach no further than Sarah’s ears, Janet Rushton told how she had been sent to Kashmir to contact and take her orders from a Mrs Matthews, who, since it might cause comment if an unmarried girl were to live alone, would pose as a relative so that the small houseboat on the Dal Lake near Srinagar, that had already been taken in Janet’s name, could be moored next to Mrs Matthews’ much larger one. How between them they had found out what they had been sent to find out: only to discover with horror that it was no more than the tip of a submerged and deadly iceberg whose presence no one had even suspected …
    The situation was not one that they were equipped to deal with, and the enormity of the lurking menace had made it necessary for them to pass on the details of their discoveries to someone in higher authority. Yet their orders specifically forbade them to make any move to leave the State without the permission of their department. Since none of their various Kashmiri contacts operated at a sufficiently high level to be entrusted with such potentially lethal and unstable dynamite, Mrs Matthews had sent off the equivalent of a ‘Mayday’ call for help—though she was well aware that it would not be easy for anyone of their own nationality, or any non-Kashmiri for that matter, to arrive in Srinagar and get in touch with them without being noticed and talked about: for the simple reason that by then the year was drawing to a close.
    The hordes of summer visitors had all left long ago, and the fact that she and Janet had been able to remain without exciting remark was because both had a talent for sketching in water colours, and November happens, to be among the loveliest of months in the valley, as it is then that the snowline moves downward to meet the forests, the chenar trees put on every shade of red from vermilion to crimson, and willows, poplars and chestnuts blaze yellow and gold.
    As painters, this annual transformation-scene had provided them with an impeccable reason for staying on when all the other visitors had left. Just as it had previously given them an admirable excuse not only to drive, ride, walk or be paddled in a shikara * to any spot they cared to see, but to fall into casual conversation with innumerable strangers who would pause to watch the artists at work, linger to ask questions and offer advice, and finally squat down beside them to talk. An end that had, according to Janet, played no small part in their selection for this particular assignment.
    It was during this period, when the last of the leaves were falling, that Mrs Matthews had sent off that ‘Mayday’ call and sat back to wait for the help that she assured the anxious Janet would not be long in arriving. But four days later the Civil and Military Gazette, one of India’s best known daily newspapers, had carried a small paragraph reporting the accidental death of a Major Brett who had apparently fallen from his carriage on the Frontier Express, en route to Rawalpindi: ‘Foul play was not suspected, and the police were satisfied that the unfortunate man had at some time during the night, and while still half asleep, opened the side door of the carriage by mistake for the bathroom door…’
    The accident was clearly not considered important enough to rate the front page, and had been tucked away on an inner one among a rag-bag of assorted news. But according to Janet, Mrs Matthews had read and reread it, looking uncharacteristically shocked and upset.
    â€˜I’d never