Read Ellis Peters - George Felse 11 - Death To The Landlords for Free Online Page B

closely.
    ‘I see the Bessancourts made it,’ Larry said.
    There they sat among the butterfly passengers, he in his sober grey suit and Panama hat, she in her black
shalwar
and grey and white
kameez
, with a white muslin scarf over her pile of black hair. They looked about them at the strange and beautiful world of the Periyar Lake with wide, attentive, appraising eyes; and when they saw their young acquaintances in the small launch they did not wave, but inclined their heads with the tightest of French smiles, as on an after-church promenade in Combeaufontaine or Oulchy-le-Chateau.
     
    They were drawing near to the final inlet that would bring them back within sight of the hotel, when they met the smart white launch, as small as their own, but newer. Mr and Mrs Mani sat installed among its cushions in jubilant state, beaming like gratified children; and Mrs Mani, though somewhat taken aback at recognising her acquaintances in a private boat when she had certainly taken it for granted they were passengers among the rest in the communal launch, nevertheless fluttered a silk handkerchief at them graciously, and achieved a very accomplished smile for their benefit. Sushil Dastur sat in the stern of the boat, very neatly and nervously, his knees drawn up, hugging the inevitable briefcase that went with him everywhere. And opposite the Manis, lounging along the whole of one seat with a cushion at his back, sat a tall, bulky man in a tussore suit and a snow-white shirt, grey hair curled in tufts over his ears, and the sunlight glinting blindly from the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses. They saw him briefly in passing as a sculptured mask in bronze, without eyes, with a heavy mouth and jaw and a thick, pale throat.
    Romesh exchanged the smallest flick of a hand with the other boatman, and grinned to himself. When he laughed he looked even younger, and childishly mischievous.
    ‘So that’s the wealthy and distinguished business contact,’ Dominic remarked, when the other boat was out of earshot. Romesh looked up brightly from the wheel. ‘You know him, sahib?’
    ‘Never saw him before. Never heard of him until last night. His guests told us they would be sharing his boat today, that’s all. Do
you
know him?’ He added with interest: ‘He has a house somewhere here on the lake, hasn’t he?’
    ‘Quite close, sahib, over there, not far from the road.’ He was shaking gently with suppressed mirth. ‘I am laughing because Ajit Ghose, that boat-boy, he is new here one month only, he does not know!
I
was on list to take that boat today, and this Ajit, he thinks to himself, this client is very rich man! So he gets list changed, to have that boat for himself. I saw what he want, but I let him do it. Me, I know this Mr Mahendralal Bakhle. He is rich, but he is not generous. It will not be so fat a tip as Ajit thinks.’
    ‘
What
did you say the man’s name was?’ Patti asked sharply, turning to stare after the diminishing boat with abruptly quickened interest.
    ‘Mahendralal Bakhle. You know that name, memsahib?’
    ‘Not exactly – it just sounds familiar, somehow. I think I’ve read it somewhere,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t there something about him in the papers – about trouble on his farms, and some labourers who were killed? I’m nearly sure that was the name.’
    ‘It is possible. He is a big landlord, own much land down in plains, near Sattur.’
    ‘But surely,’ Dominic objected, ‘there’s a limit to the amount of land any one person can own now – twenty-five acres, or something quite modest like that.’
    ‘Oh, yes, sahib, that is true, but there are ways. Some landlords say that they part with their land, give it to their womenfolk, but often it is not true. Mr Bakhle, he still controls everything, all that land.’ Romesh’s English failed him, and he waved a frustrated hand, and addressed himself to Lakshman in Malayalam.
    ‘He says,’ Lakshman reported, ‘that Bakhle was mixed up not long ago