Read Online Ellis Peters - George Felse 09 - Mourning Raga by Ellis Peters - Free Book Online Page B

stringy Punjabi build made him look taller, and his immaculate western suit of dark grey worsted, and the springy black hair crowning his narrow head, accentuated the impression of length. His complexion was smoothly bronze, his features aquiline, and his age somewhere in the middle thirties. He looked every inch the city magnate, director of companies and arbiter of destinies, but with all his machinery temporarily thrown out of gear. His hands were wiping themselves agitatedly on a silk handkerchief, his thin features jerked with tension, and his eyes, confronted by three such unexpected and unaccountable people, looked dazed and a little demented.
    ‘You wished to see me? I am Vasudev Kumar. But this is a very inconvenient time…’ His voice was rather high-pitched, and would have been shrill if he had not been so intent on keeping it almost to an undertone.
    ‘Yes, I see it is, and I’m sorry, Mr Kumar.’ Dominic went straight ahead because withdrawal without explanations was now, in any case, out of the question. ‘I’ll try to be brief, and perhaps we can talk at more leisure another day. We have just come from your cousin’s house in Rabindar Nagar, Kishan Singh thought it advisable for us to come straight to you. We realise Mrs Kumar is ill, and certainly don’t want to increase your anxieties. My name is Felse, and this is Miss Barber. At her mother’s request we’ve brought your cousin’s daughter over to India to join her father, but now we find that he is not in Delhi, and has not received the letter which was sent to him. This is Anjli Kumar.’
    That was quite a bombshell, he realised, to drop on anyone, especially at a time when he was already beset by family troubles of another kind; but on the whole Vasudev, by the time he had heard this out to the end, looked considerably less distracted, as though one more shock had served only to concentrate his faculties. He did not, however, look any more friendly. His black, feverish gaze flickered from face to face, and lingered longest on Anjli. He bowed perfunctorily, with no implication of acceptance.
    ‘My cousin’s daughter? But we have received no communication about her, we did not expect…’
    ‘No, I realise that. Her mother’s letter to Mr Satyavan Kumar is still at his own house, you will find it unopened. I think that will make a better explanation than I can give you. We were expecting simply to bring Anjli over to join her father… permanently,’ he added, seeing no sense in softening anything. ‘Naturally none of us had any idea at all that your cousin had vanished a year or more ago. We heard that only this morning, from Kishan Singh. You’ll appreciate that in the circumstances the obvious thing to do was to bring Anjli to her grandmother, as her nearest relative here. In any case, Miss Lester had asked us to do that in case of any difficulty arising. But I’m very sorry that we should happen to turn up at such a distressing time for you.’
    Anjli, who had stood woodenly to be inspected, not much resenting the suspicion and hostility of a man she didn’t know and had no desire to know, asked now in a wary but determined voice: ‘Is my grandmother very ill?’
    ‘She has had two strokes since my cousin went away without a word.’ Vasudev’s high voice clipped the sentence off resentfully; and indeed he had a grievance, having been forced to step in and shoulder the whole abandoned burden of the family businesses, while never quite acquiring the status of managing director in the eyes of any of the Kumar employees and hangers-on. And then, into the bargain, the old lady’s illness, with its endless demands upon his patience and his nervous resources. ‘Yesterday, I am sorry to say, she had a third one. It is very bad. The doctors have been with her all morning. I do not know what I can do for you… it is very unfortunate…’ A momentary gleam of active suspicion flared in his eyes. ‘You can give me proof of the young