He wasn’t going to translate any of the Brahmi.
The newcomer stepped into the room—and at the sight of his face, fear solidified in Neil’s gut like a shard of ice.
Not Dawson, he thought with cool, blinding panic as he stared at the only man who had ever actively threatened to torture him.
A man it was impossible to bluff.
A man who would kill him without being put off his tea.
Mr.Jacobs wore his usual black suit and bowler hat.Rain dripped from the brim.
“Ah,” he said in a dry, even voice as he met Neil’s panicked stare.“I was wondering when you’d turn up.”
“Blast,” Constance bit out in a very English and female voice.
Everyone’s heads snapped around as though seeing her for the first time.
She bolted for the desk—and the manuscript.
Borthwick’s whip fell into his hand.The coiled leather lashed out toward Constance’s reaching hand with a crack like a gunshot.
She dodged away with barely a breath of space to spare.
Neil reacted on instinct.He shoved the page into his pocket, grabbed the bewigged statue of Mr.Clive from the plinth, and chucked it at Borthwick and Jacobs.
Jacobs ducked, momentarily prevented from aiming the pistol he had just torn from his coat.The statue crashed against the wall, forcing Borthwick to flinch back from the shards of stone.
Constance was still running.
She hit Neil in the chest and shoved him backwards through the open window.
He fell into a curtain of pounding rain.Borthwick shouted.A pistol cracked, and Neil felt a burn against his flank.
Terror jolted him wildly at the notion that he was about to plummet headfirst to the ground—until his back slammed against a solid surface.
The ledge, Neil blankly recalled.He had landed on the narrow band of stone that circled the upper floor of the building.
A rifle blast thundered, and chips of stone peppered down onto Neil’s spectacles.
Constance’s solid weight came down on top of him.Gripping the lapels of his jacket, she rolled—and they tumbled over the side.
Neil crashed into the thick, woody hedge that framed the building.
Branches tore at his face, the smell of flowers choking him.He spilled out of the shrubbery onto the gravel drive, soaked, battered, and dizzy.
Constance grabbed his sleeve, hauling him up.
“Run, Stuffy!”she shouted, and yanked him into the blinding wash of the rain as the rifle fire behind them mingled with the crack of thunder.
?
Nine
Ellie absorbed theexpression of blank surprise on Mr.Chowdhury’s face as he stood in the doorway to the hotel suite.She decided that it was fully justified.
Her evening dress was torn at the shoulder and smeared with bat guano, her hair half falling from its pins.Adam was covered in guano as well, stripped to his shirtsleeves and waistcoat.His feet were bare and muddy.He currently held a sixty-pound dog like a baby as it quivered with relief at being reunited with him.
That was still better than Constance, who had lost her entire dinner ensemble.She was dressed like an Indian servant—one who’d had an intimate encounter with a shrubbery.Pieces of bush were still stuck in her cockeyed turban.
