The Redhead of Rajastan: Chapter 3, The Case of Count Davidoff
Chapter 1: Introducing Timothy Akbar Patel
Chapter 2: The Case of Count Davidoff
Jasmine took a sip and coughed. “It doesn’t taste right,” she complained. “They must have put too much rum in it.”
“I must have your drink. I can barely taste the rum in this.” Count Nikolai Davidoff took her glass and after a cautious sip, gulped down half of it.
Count Davidoff first turned pale, then green. He began coughing. He bent over and vomited.
The Gurkha hurried over. “The honorable count is unwell? Would a cup of ginger tea settle my lord’s stomach?”
The count upchucked again.
“Yasmeen, go to the casino. Dr. Delaney is there. Ask him to come here,” the Gurkha requested in thickly accented Urdu.
As Jasmine hurried to the back room, Nikolai Davidoff collapsed to the floor.
A few minutes later, Dr, Seamus Delaney rushed from the casino. Jasmine followed him out. She stopped one of the waiters to request some ginger tea for herself.
Dr. Seamus Delaney took his names from his grandfathers, Seamus Hanrahan and Kevin Delaney. His complexion and features he inherited from his grandmothers, Anjuli Hanrahan and Vijayalakshmi Delaney.
On stage, Patel called to Motilal Tagore, the number one tabla drummer, to keep playing. Patel got up and went down to the dance floor to take charge of the situation. He stopped at the piano and whispered to Cynthia Jackson to keep playing.
“Shukria, Doctor,” Timothy Akbar Patel thanked him. “Should we move the count to my office?”
“I think the police would prefer if you did not.”
“The police?” Patel repeated.
“He is dead.”
“A heart attack? At his age? He is a decade younger than I am.”
“Without a more thorough examination, I cannot be sure, but I suspect poison,” Dr. Delaney admitted.
“Lower your voice. We don’t want to frighten the other guests. Excuse me, please, I shall telephone the police.”
The doctor removed a large red handkerchief from his pocket and draped it over Count Davidoff’s face.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I regret there has been an unfortunate incident,” Patel announced. “Please remain calm, and enjoy a beverage on the house.”
Cynthia stopped playing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” and after a hasty consultation with the band began playing “Nearer My God to Thee.” The band accompanied her without jazzing it up.
# * #* # *
Fifteen minutes after Patel hung up the telephone, Chief Constable Angus McGregor showed up at the door of Jackson’s Jazz Club. He had four uniformed police constables and a young European man in a gray suit and a tartan tie.
Patel smiled when he saw the young man. ‘He even has red hair. Their children will be beautiful,’ Timothy Akbar Patel murmured to himself. He strode forward to greet the chief constable and the young man in gray, as he wondered whether to give the British ambassador a bottle of aged Scottish whiskey or a bottle of wine as a thank you gift.
# * #* # *
To be continued …
[The picture above is from Wikipedia’s Wiki Commons, and is the closest facsimile to Nikolai and Jasmine I could find. Nikolai Davidoff would not be wearing a number pinned to his suit. He should be paler in complexion and his hair more blond. Jasmine should have light brown skin and raven-black hair. She is wearing jade jewelry in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.]
