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Gurgaon for proper medical attention, but he had brushed her away. While they had somehow made it back to Jaungarh, the car was in no shape for the long drive all the way to Gurgaon and back.
    Moreover, Vijay’s mind was still occupied with the mysterious emails from his uncle and what he had been trying to tell him in the last moments of his life.
    ‘Please don’t bother getting up,’ Bheem Singh said, as Vijay began rising from the sofa with a visible effort. He walked over to Vijay and introduced himself and his companion. ‘Bheem Singh from Rajvirgarh and this is Greg White, professor of archaeology and history at Boston Unversity.’
    Vijay’s jaw dropped as he introduced his companion and White walked over to shake his hand. In his last email, his uncle had instructed him to speak to Greg White! He had spent a long time trying to find out who, among his uncle’s acquaintances, bore that name, but had drawn a blank. He had never imagined that the answer to the riddle would walk through his front door, in person.
    Recovering his composure, he extended his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Professor.’
    ‘Greg, please,’ White responded. ‘Good to meet you, too, Vijay. Your uncle was a good friend. I was shattered to hear the news.’
    ‘Yes,’ Bheem Singh joined in, as White sat down next to him. ‘Very unfortunate, indeed. I can’t claim to have known Vikram so well, but we were...well, we moved in the same circles, you see, and I had met him several times. He was a good man.’
    Vijay stared hard at Greg White. There was something familiar about him. But they had never met before. Then it struck him.
    ‘You were on my flight from O’Hare to Delhi, three days ago. I was in 2B. American Airlines.’
    White frowned, trying to remember. ‘Three days back. Yes, I was on that flight. 3H. Courtesy Bheem’s generosity. He’s funded my trip here. But I’m sorry I really don’t recall seeing you.’
    Bheem Singh cleared his throat, visibly uninterested in whether Vijay and White had noticed each other during the flight to India. ‘I saw the car outside. What happened’? He glanced from Vijay to Colin, and back, taking in the tense, harrowed look on their faces, the cut on Vijay’s cheek and the gouges on the wrists of both the men.
    Vijay shook his head. ‘Somebody rammed our car when I was bringing Colin home from the airport and then kidnapped us.’
    The Maharaja’s face registered shock. He glanced at White, who looked horrified as well.
    Vijay launched into a narrative of the events of the previous night, culminating in their escape, but left out the part about the key.
    ‘You were very, very lucky,’ the Maharaja mused. ‘These people sound like dangerous criminals. But, why kidnap you? What did they want from you?’
    Before Vijay could answer his question, the butler appeared at the door of the sitting room, followed by a policeman.
    ‘Myself inspector Raunaq Singh,’ the policeman announced as he entered the room. He was a middle-aged man, with a thick moustache and teeth blackened by years of chewing tobacco and betel leaves. ‘I’ve come about the missing persons report. Who’s missing?’
    Radha rose. ‘I had called the police station. They were missing all night.’ She indicated Vijay and Colin.
    ‘But they are back now. You should have informed us instead of wasting my time.’ The inspector frowned and made to leave.
    ‘Wait a minute.’ Bheem Singh rose and drew himself up to his full height. ‘I am Maharaja Bheem Singh of Rajvirgarh. These two men were kidnapped last night. Are you not going to do anything about that? They escaped with great difficulty and a lot of luck.’
    Raunaq Singh stopped in his tracks. He had heard of Bheem Singh. He knew the Maharaja was a prominent politician and rumours of his power and influence had reached even the little police station in Jaungarh. He decided it was better not to rub the Maharaja the wrong way.
    ‘You were kidnapped?’ He