Chapter 3 #2
“Adam!” Constance called out to where she could see his battered fedora near the entrance to the chemist’s.
Adam pushed back to them, weaving nimbly through the crowd.
“We need to split up. Find out which way he’s gone,” Ellie determined.
“Neil and I can head back toward the Jagannath temple,” Constance declared. “You two take the other way. Come on, Stuffy!”
She pulled Neil with her, moving against the current of the crowd. Here and there, she tried to push up on her toes to look for Borthwick over the heads of the people packed around her.
A Christian missionary railed about the evils of the “Juggernaut.” A family cracked coconuts open against the curb for good luck. A shower of sweets rained down from a passing chariot, carrying the blessings of the god to his devotees.
Neil spoke up from behind her. “I’ve got him!”
The motion of the crowd jostled him into her back. Constance lurched at the impact, and Neil caught her by the shoulders.
Her awareness of the chaos around her was briefly overwhelmed by the press of warm hands through the fabric of her blouse.
Neil quickly let her go, pointing up the road. “Over there!”
Constance glimpsed a khaki cap and cropped silver hair—then grabbed Neil and whirled him about as Borthwick started to turn.
Risking a sideways glance, she saw the colonel’s attention snag on her fashionable blue hat before he looked away again.
“Blast it,” Constance cursed under her breath.
Her mind whirred furiously—and locked on a nearby cloth vendor’s cart.
She yanked off her hat, tossing it at the old man inside. He caught it instinctively, blinking with surprise.
Constance snatched a length of richly patterned cloth from the shelf. Shaking it loose, she tossed it over her head, whipping the end over her shoulder.
She studied Neil with a frown, then grabbed his hat as well.
“Hold on!” Neil protested.
“We need to blend in—quickly!” Constance hissed.
With another assessing look, she grasped the end of his bow tie and yanked it.
The strip of fabric came loose, whipping out from under his collar.
Neil blinked at her.
“Put this in your pocket!” Constance ordered, shoving the unraveled tie into his hands.
She plucked a scarf from one of the wooden poles over the cart and threw it around Neil’s neck. The shimmering fabric fell over the lapels of his jacket in a wave of gleaming saffron.
Constance quickly took in the overall effect—mussed light brown hair, round spectacles, gray tweed, and golden silk.
“It’ll do,” she concluded, tossing a generous handful of coins to the vendor and dragging Neil back into the crowd.
Borthwick had turned ahead of them, cutting across the road. Constance quickly mapped out a trajectory to intercept him, spotting what looked like a less-packed area in the sea of people that lay between them.
Neil stumbled in her wake as she tugged him after her. Music grew louder in front of them, the quick pulse of the tabla mingling with the twang of strings.
She reached the thinner spot she had been aiming for—and skidded to a halt.
The people there were dancing.
Some were members of a troupe dressed in traditional costumes. Others looked like festival goers who had joined on impulse.
The energy was electric—stomping feet and twirling bodies, all moving in sync to the rapid beat of the music.
Constance spotted Borthwick’s straight-backed figure on the far side.
The dancers sprawled across half the road. The gathering was too broad for her to go around and hope to still find Borthwick when she got there.
A spray of golden flower petals burst from one of the balconies above, raining down like a fall of sun-stained snow.
Bugger it, Constance decided—and plunged into the dance.
Neil skidded to a halt at the edge of the crowd. “What are you doing?!”
“Just bounce along!” Constance shouted back to him. “We’ll blend in well enough!”
She followed her own instructions—and found it surprisingly easy. Her hips swung with the rhythm of the drums, her arms rising up in time with those dancing around her.
“I don’t know the steps!” Neil protested.
“Neither do I!” Constance retorted impatiently, eyes locked on where Borthwick had briefly paused on the other side of the dancers.
“Then how are you doing them!?” Neil pushed back wildly.
Constance realized that he was right. Her feet were pounding in perfect sync with the other dancers, her wrists twisting with a flourish. The music itself seemed to tell her how to move as though the tune was infectious and the dance an irresistible symptom.
Instead of answering, Constance grabbed the ends of Neil’s scarf—and hauled.
Neil stumbled into the dance with a look of panic on his face.
“Keep moving!” Constance ordered as her feet continued to pound to the rhythm.
Neil muttered an unusually vibrant curse under his breath as he lifted up his arms—and started to move.
His shoulders pulsed with the stomp of his feet, body twisting in perfect time with the music.
He shot her a wild look through his spectacles—even as his hand rose to his head, elbow swinging. “How am I doing this!?”
Constance’s wrists flicked as she circled her hips. “Does it matter?!”
Neil answered by clasping her hand and throwing her into a spin.
Constance whirled on the toe of her boot. She fell back—and hung there, suspended at the end of Neil’s grip… just like three dozen other women around her.
The song froze.
Her eyes locked with Neil’s surprised green look as they remained perfectly balanced, her back hovering halfway to the ground.
Goodness, she thought with an odd hitch in her chest. I’m rather enjoying this.
The beat of the silenced music carried on in the thud of her pulse. One… two… three…
The drum pounded, and Neil hauled Constance up. She caught herself against him, her hands going to his chest as his arm circled her waist.
She was vaguely conscious that everyone around them was doing the same thing, the entire crowd still locked in sync by the music—but only vaguely. The rest of her attention was consumed by the feeling of Neil’s heart pounding against the surface of her palm.
Constance’s cheeks flushed with summer heat and exertion. A bead of sweat slid down the line of Neil’s jaw. His chest was firm under the light fabric of his jacket.
That’s right, Constance thought distantly. He is quite fit under all that tweed.
Cold water blasted over her skin, dampening her blouse and kissing the heated skin of her neck. The packed festival goers broke out in cheers, raising up their arms to catch the moisture against the sultry afternoon.
A pair of young men held a fire hose nearby, aiming it out over the crowd as their friends furiously worked the pump.
Constance grabbed Neil’s hand and dragged him through the roaring, cheering audience packed against the edge of the dance.
He caught her by the shoulders, whirling her to face him. “We just danced like we knew what the devil we were doing!” he burst out, pitching his voice over the roar of the crowd. “How could we possibly have done that?”
“Maybe that’s just how it works in India!” she shouted back.
“Dancing when you shouldn’t know how?”
Neil’s spectacles were splattered with droplets. He released his grip on her to yank them off, wiping them quickly on his handkerchief.
More water—mingled sweat and damp—glistened on his skin above the vivid saffron of the scarf.
Constance’s eyes locked there.
Neil put his glasses back on. “Connie?” he asked worriedly.
Constance shook off the odd fugue that had taken over her brain. Must be the music, she thought distantly.
A glimpse of silver and khaki flashed through the crowd ahead.
Borthwick.
“I have him!” Constance plunged forward as another cheer rose from the crowd.
Her pulse kicked up as she drew closer to her quarry, Neil pushing along in her wake.
Got you now, she thought with a burst of triumph.
Through the handful of people that separated them, she saw the colonel reach into his coat. He pulled out a slender wooden box, richly carved and accented with mother-of-pearl. It looked old.
Constance grasped Neil’s arm, nodding to the box. “Could you fit a manuscript in there?”
“I… yes?” he answered uncertainly—and then caught her as she started to push forward. “Where are you going?”
Constance pulled her elbow free of his grasp. “He has the Ramacharitamanas with him! I’m going to get it!”
She turned for Borthwick. Neil’s voice called at her back, low and urgent. “We’re only meant to follow him, Connie!”
The carved box drew Constance like a lure, glowing in her mind. They could win their prize right here and now, before Borthwick even knew they were coming. How impressed would Vijay be then?
See, Uncle? I told you we could manage it…
“If I can just get a little closer…” Constance squeezed up to the final line of people that separated her from the prize.
A firm band snagged around her waist, hauling her back against a wall of tweed and saffron silk.
“Stuffy…” Constance seethed in warning.
Her hands dropped to his arm. She could break his grip if she wanted. She had practiced against just such a hold in her jiu jitsu classes—though admittedly Neil was broader and firmer than the Irish shopgirl who had tried to restrain her then.
His arm was stronger too, hard and immovable against the curve of her abdomen.
Neil’s voice was a desperate rasp at her ear. “He is surrounded by police.”
At Neil’s words, the proliferation of khaki uniforms cracked through Constance’s singular focus on the box. There had to be nearly a dozen men around the colonel, waiting to receive their orders.
As though sensing her attention, Borthwick turned toward her with a frown.
Neil swung them both around to face the dancers, the distant beat of the drum throbbing through the air.
“It isn’t safe,” Neil pleaded as the crowd shifted, forcing them even closer together. “Please, Connie.”
The words were taut with worry—for her. Because she’d been about to try to pickpocket a ruthless spy chief in front of a full detachment of constables.
When one stopped to think about it, that did seem perhaps a bit over-risky.
“Fine,” Constance conceded with a huff.
The pressure of his chest against her back shifted with his sigh of relief. His arm fell away from her waist.
“Follow me,” he muttered.
He led her around Borthwick’s coterie instead. Their pace was slow, Neil’s body threaded with careful tension.
They stopped by a handful of worshipers conducting a fire puja by a roadside shrine.
With a deliberate touch at Constance’s waist, Neil steered her to look as though she were watching the ceremony—and an English voice drifted to her ears in a no-nonsense baritone touched with gravel and accustomed to command.
“And see this back to my safe at the club.”
Constance risked a slight turn of her head—just enough to see Borthwick pass the antique box to an officer mounted on a black horse.
“Which club, sir?” the man returned in clipped tones.
“Which do you think?” Borthwick snapped impatiently in return. “Puri Beach.”
The colonel dismissed the man with a wave, turning to another officer waiting nearby. “I want a dozen more men in front of Gundicha Temple.”
The mounted constable jerked his head to two other men on horseback, and the three rode away. The crowd scattered to avoid their hooves.
Borthwick stalked off in the opposite direction, and Constance was torn by a moment of indecision, her heart still pounding with the thrill of the chase. Which way should she go—after the spy chief or the horses?
She was just coming to a decision when Ellie and Adam burst through the close-packed bodies, their dog scrambling along at their heels.
Ellie caught her brother’s arm. “Did you find him?”
“Puri Beach Club,” Neil blurted out automatically. “That’s where he sent the manuscript. Wherever that is.”
“Probably on the beach,” Adam returned with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.