"But I don't understand … it's all mad! Why should Jawaheer want to kill me? He don't even know me—barely met the fellow, and he was tight as Dick's hat-band!" An appalling thought struck me. "Why, they weren't his people—they were the Maharani's! Her slave-girls! They lured me to that bloody bathroom—they knew what was to happen! She must have ordered them—"
"How dare you, sir!" So help me, it's what he said, with his whiskers crackling. "To suggest that she would .. What, after the … the kindness she had shown you? A fine thing that would be! I tell you those Kashmiris were bribed and coerced by Jawaheer and by Jawaheer alone—those were his villains down there, sent to silence the girls once you'd been disposed of! D'you think I don't know 'em? The Maharani, indeed!" He was in a fine indignation, right enough. "I'm not saying," he went on, "that she's the sort of young woman I'd take home to meet mother … but you mind this, sir!" He rounded on me. "With all her weaknesses—of which you've taken full advantage—Mai Jeendan is a charming and gracious lady and the best hope this god-abandoned territory has seen since Runjeet Singh! You'll remember that, by thunder, if you and I are to remain friends!"
I wasn't alone in my enthusiasm for the lady, it seemed, although I guessed his was of a more spiritual variety. But I was as much in the dark as ever.
"Very well, you say it was Jawaheer—why the devil should he want to murder me?"
"Because he wants a war with the British! That's why! And the surest way to start one is to have a British emissary kiboshed right here in Lahore! Why, man, Gough would be over the Sutlej with fifty thousand bayonets before you could say Jack Robinson—John Company and the Khalsa would be at grips … that's what Jawaheer wants, don't you see?"
I didn't, and said so. "If he wants a war—why doesn't he just order the Khalsa to march on India? They're spoiling for a fight with us, ain't they?"
`"Sure they are—but not with Jawaheer leading them! They've never had any use for him, so the only way he can get 'em to fight is if the British strike first. But dammit, you won't oblige him, however much he provokes you along the border—and Jawaheer has gotten desperate. He's bankrupt, the Khalsa hates and distrusts him and is ready to skin him alive for Peshora's death, they hold him prisoner in his own palace, his balls are in the mangle!" He took a deep breath. "Don't you know anything, Mr Flashman? Jawaheer needs a war, now, to keep the Khalsa occupied and save his own skin. That's why he tried to put you out with the bath water tonight, confound it, don't you see?"
Well, put that way, it made sense. Everyone seemed to want a bloody war except Hardinge and yours truly—but I could see why Jawaheer's need was more urgent than most. I'd heard the Khalsa's opinion of him that after-noon, and seen the almighty funk he was in. That's what he'd meant, by God, when he'd pointed at me and yelled that the British would have cause to come—the evil, vicious bastard! He'd been lying in wait for my arrival … and suddenly a dreadful, incredible suspicion rushed in on me.
"My God! Did Broadfoot know that Jawaheer would try to kill me? Did he send me here to —"
He gave a barking laugh. "Say, you have a high opinion of your betters, don't you? First Mai Jeendan, now Major Broadfoot! No, sir—that is not his style! Why, if he had foreseen such a thing …" He broke off, frowning, then shook his head. "No, Jawaheer hatched his plot in the last few hours, I reckon—your arrival must have seemed to him a heaven-sent opportunity. He'd have taken it, too, if I hadn't been on your tail from the moment you arrived in the durbar room." He blew out his cheeks in disbelief. "I still can't get over that damned bath! You won't linger among the soap-suds again, I reckon."
That was enough to bring me to my feet, reaching for his decanter without even a by-your-leave. God, what a tarantula's nest Broadfoot had plunged me into! I still couldn't put it straight in my mind, numb with the whirlwind of the last few hours. Had I fallen asleep over Crotchet Castle and dreamed it all—my balcony acrobatics, Mangla and Jawaheer and the dazzling spectacle of the durbar room, the drunken ecstatic coupling with Jeendan, the horror of the descending stone, the furious bloody scramble in which five lives were snuffed out in a bare minute, this incredible tartan Nemesis with his Khyber knife and Yankee twang,22 eyeing me bleakly as I punished his malt? Belatedly, I mumbled my thanks, adding that Broadfoot was lucky to have such an agent in Lahore, He snapped my head off.
"I'm not his confounded agent! I'm his friend—and so far as my duty to the Maharaja allows, I'm sympathetic to British interest. Broadfoot knows I'll help, which is why he gave you my watchword." He restrained himself with difficulty. "Inadvertently, by jiminy! But that's all, Mr Flashman. You and I will now go our separate ways, you won't address or even recognise me henceforth except as Gurdana Khan —"
"Henceforth? But I'll be going back—man alive, I can't stay here now, with Jawaheer —"
"The devil you can't! It's your duty, isn't it? Just because the war isn't going to start tomorrow doesn't mean it won't happen eventually. Oh, it will—and that's for years—and even he wouldn't have the hard neck . . You're sure he's a Broadfoot man? And no beard, eh? Well, we'll see! Jemadar, find the orderly, tell him the husoor wants him, double quick—and if he asks, say I'm out at Maian Mir. You sit down, Mr Flashman … I suspect this may interest you."
After the events of the night, I doubted if Lahore could hold any further surprises—but d'you know, what followed was perhaps the most astonishing encounter between two men that ever I saw—and I was at Appomattox, remember, and saw Bismarck and Gully face to face with the mauleys, and held the shotgun when Hickok confronted Wesley Hardin. But what took place in Gardner's room laid over any of them.
We waited in silence until the jemadar knocked, and Jassa slid in, shifty as always. The moment his eye fell on the grim tartan figure he started as though he'd trod on hot coals, but then he recovered and looked inquiringly to me while Gardner viewed him almost in admiration.
"Not bad, Josiah," says he. "You may have the guiltiest conscience east of Suez, but by God you've sure got the brazenest forehead to go with it. I'd never ha' known you, clean-shaven." His voice hardened to a bark. "Now then—what's the game? Speak up, jildi!"
"None o' your goddam' business!" snaps Jassa. "I'm a political agent in British service—ask him if you don't believe me! And that puts me outside your touch, Alick Gardner! So now!"
Said in Pushtu, I'd have held it a good answer—reckless, from what I'd seen of Gardner, but about what you'd expect from a Khyberie tough. But it was said in English—with an accent even more American than Gardner's own! I couldn't credit my ears—one bloody Yankee promenading about in Afghan fig was bad enough—but two? And the second one my own orderly, courtesy of Broadfoot … if I sat open-mouthed, d'you wonder? Gardner exploded.
"British political, my eye! Why, you crooked Quaker, you, if you're working for Broadfoot it must mean he doesn't know who you are! And he doesn't, I'll bet! No, because you're before his time, Josiah—you skipped out of Kabul before the British arrived, and wise you were! Sekundar Burnes knew you, though—for the double-dealing rascal you are! Pollock knows you, too—he ran you out of Burma, didn't he? Damn me if there's a town between Rangoon and Basra that you haven't left a shirt in! So, let's have it—what's your lay this time?"
"I don't answer to you," says Jassa. "Mr Flashman, if you care for this, I don't. You know I'm Major Broad-foot's agent -
"Hold your tongue or I'll have it out!" roars Gardner. "Outside my touch, are you? We'll see! You know this man as Jassa," says he to me. "Well, let me perform the honours by presenting Dr Josiah Harlan of Philadelphia, former packet-rat, impostor, coiner, spy, traitor, revolutionary, and expert in every rascality he can think of—and can't he think, just? No common blackguard, mind you—Prince of Ghor once, weren't you, Josiah, and unfrocked governor of Gujerat, to say nothing of being a pretender (it's the truth, Flashman) to the throne of Afghanistan, no less! You know what they call this beauty up in the high hills? The Man Who Would Be King!" He came forward, thumbs in his belt, and stuck his jaw in Jassa's face. "Well, you have one minute to tell me what you would be in Lahore, doctor! And don't say you're an orderly, pure and simple, because you've never been either!"