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lady. The pillows tossed about had a floral design, not unlike those Davy had observed in Geraldine
Bainbridge’s parlor, and the curtains had a rather defiant frilliness. As if Mrs. Weaver was saying
that she could not help what lay beyond the window, but she could control what was in this room, and
she was keeping it English right up to the screen. For when the frilly curtains were pulled back, Davy
found roughly woven strips of bamboo, jammed with bugs, their bodies so gummed together that it
was difficult to see the garden beyond.
Glancing about self-consciously, even though there was no one near to observe his
methodologies, Davy stretched out on Rose Weaver’s bed. Looked up at her ceiling with its great fan,
and was struck with the irony that while the woman had gone to such pains to fool herself into
thinking this room was somewhere in England, the first sight that greeted her eyes each morning stood
as irrefutable proof it was not. For this fan, gigantic and utilitarian, with the pulley and gears fully
evident, could only exist in India.
Davy sat up and viewed the room from the vantage of the bed. There was no table
nearby, so evidently Rose Weaver was not in the habit of reading in bed nor was it likely she took her
breakfast there. Once she was vertical, the first thing her gaze would fall on would be a portrait of
young man whom Davy assumed to be her son, Michael. It hung ponderously above the mantle, and
on closer inspection Davy saw that it actually was a photograph, but one that had been painted over in
a technique that was popular in some circles in London. He had never understood the logic of it
himself, for the overlay of paint always seemed to obliterate the individuality of the subject, turning
all British faces, no matter what their gender, age, or general disposition, into uniformly rosycheeked,
shiny-eyed children.
He would dust the mantle for prints, Davy decided, and the windowsill, the bedposts,
and the nearest table. But first he would look at the other bedrooms which clearly had been
occupied.
The Secretary-General’s room was across the hall and down two doors. This was a
little odd, was it not? Davy knew that not all husbands and wives chose to occupy the same beds,
especially those of the Weavers’ age and income level. No, the fact that Anthony and Rose no longer
slept together was not much of a clue at all, but his understanding was that married couples did
normally select adjoining rooms… and yet Mrs. Weaver was located a notable distance from Mr.
Weaver. There would be little chance of a nocturnal visit with this configuration. The retired
Secretary-General’s room was much as one would predict – leather armchair, bookshelf full of
military volumes, wire-rimmed spectacles still resting on a nearby table – but what struck Davy as
most significant was that the manservant, Pulkit Sang, evidently occupied the third bedroom. The one
that lay between Rose and Anthony.
Odd among odd it was, but irrefutable, for the third bedroom was as Indian as the other
two were Engish. A pallet rather than a bed. A bright carpet, great swaths of cloth tied across the
window, a bureau full of woven robes. And a bird cage, the small yellow creature within hopping
about excitedly until Davy obliged him with a handful of seeds from a nearby bowl and then covered
the cage to allow the creature to compose himself. The chirping almost immediately stopped.
He supposed it was possible Rose Weaver might opt to keep her bodyguard even closer
than her husband, but such a decision implied a heightened state of anxiety. Yet Anthony Weaver had
apparently insisted there had been no recent threats.
Even stranger, the room which had evidently been occupied by Sang was as large as that
of Rose and Anthony, implying he was treated more like a member of the family than a servant. Aside
from the bureau, the room was quite devoid of furniture, but Davy suspected that was more at the