The glassy lake rippled delicately as the gondola slipped through the water. The fashionable young woman in the fashionable white hat lay on the deck. She gazed up at her Indian manservant.
"It's all so... perplexing, Lalit."
"Yes, memsahib."
The tinkling of the water took Philomena back to the previous night.
It was the zenith of the monsoon season and the rain was criss-crossing the land with fleeting streams. Philomena and the house's lodgers had been in the drawing room. Ernest had just turned away an old woman in a blue paisley shawl, collecting donations for the local school.
Nine minutes passed. The door rapped again.
Outside stood two native bearers, drenched to the bone. Ernest gave an expectant look. The rain was beginning to blow inside.
"Sahib. There is a dead man..."
"What?"
"A man in a white suit. He has been attacked by a tiger."
"Just now?"
"Yes, Sahib. He hired us to take his luggage up on your railway car."
Alfred Maunder, the house's patriarch, rolled up beside Ernest. The tyres on his wheelchair squeaked on the tiles.
"Why, that sounds like Ronnie Plant! He was due to come and stay with us tonight."
"Yes, a trombone player?" one of the bearers said.
Alfred gazed down at the floor. "Trumpet. From New York. Philomena was quite close to him. He was a frequent visitor when she was younger."
"I'll phone the police," Ernest announced.
The inspector entered with Veronica, another lodger. They had arrived at the same time and so rode up together.
He painted a gruesome picture, apparently the tiger had been lured into attacking Ronnie who had been baited with a hunk of raw meat stabbed into his back. This happened as he exited the funicular railway carriage, the only access route to Maunder House. He had travelled up alone.
The beast itself was nowhere to be found.
A quiet wind stroked Philomena's cheek.
"Alfred said it must have been an Indian monsoon ritual. Apparently the knife used to pin the bait to poor Ronnie was dazzlingly bejewelled," she said.
"There is no such ritual, memsahib," Lalit replied, his strong arms propelling the gondola around the lake.
"Oh, of course not. Still, it's a strange way to murder someone, luring a tiger in to do the dirty work. It's almost as if the murderer couldn't pull themselves to do it all the way through..."
The lunch earlier that afternoon was meant to be roast lamb, but both legs the cook had set aside had vanished. They instead dined on a roasted, hastily slaughtered chicken.
The woman unabashedly gave Lalit a sulphurous look as she announced this. She had never been a fan of native help.
"There will be none of that, thank-you," Philomena said plainly. The cook lifted her chin, sniffed, and receded into the kitchen.
Alfred looked up from his carrots and spoke to Ernest. "So, my boy. How's that theatre lark doing for you? Eh?"
"Well, we're rehearsing for a play at the moment."
