Madeleine rolled her eyes and sighed.

‘And how do you rate the Third Her Highness as I suppose she’s called?’ Joe asked hurriedly before Madeleine could snap back a reply.

‘The Princess Shubhada?’ Madeleine fell silent for a moment, considering her response. ‘I hardly know her. We’re not exactly bosom pals. I’m American and what I do is flying. She’s Indian and what she does is hunting. She was educated in England and hobnobs with the aristocracy and the royal family. You should have seen her showing off when the Prince of Wales visited last winter! “Oh, Eddie darling! Do you remember that soirée at the Buffington-Codswallops in Henley Week? Pogo was so smashed I thought he’d drown when we chucked him in the Thames!”’

Her imitation of upper-class flappers’ slang was unnervingly good.

Joe nodded seriously and replied in the same accent. ‘What a perfectly ghastly stunt! Poor Pogo! Too many pink gins aboard?’

Madeleine laughed and squeezed his arm. ‘You’ve got it! But you can imagine that we haven’t got much in common. Her natural milieu – as she would put it – is the polo field and mine’s the flying field. Hurlingham meets Kitty Hawk? Never!’

Their road led onwards and upwards and they caught occasional glimpses of the little train as it chugged along in their wake.

‘What are those hills ahead?’ Joe asked.

‘Outrunners of the Aravallis,’ said Edgar, turning and pointing. ‘And the reason for Udai’s wealth. Those unimpressive – and if we’re being honest we’d say downright ugly – bleak hills are a gold mine. Well, better than that – they’re a precious gems mine. They’re full of minerals from onyx up to the finest emeralds. Millions of pounds’ worth of gems have found their way into the Ranipur treasure house for generations. The city’s up there. It’s not at a great height but enough to lower the temperature a few degrees. Now prepare yourself for a surprise when we round the next bend!’

What Joe saw in the distance was the fabulous palace of Ranipur. A cliff of fretted, carved and decorated pink stone seemed to extend for a hundred and fifty yards on either side of a grand central entrance and to rise upwards and backwards in a cascade of balconies and pavilions, of garden, dome and temple and, over all, pencil-slim cypress stood on guard on every hand. At its feet frothed and surged a small town, the houses painted white or pale blue. Joe was enchanted. Without an instruction given, the car drew to a halt and the chauffeur put on the brake.

‘A thousand rooms!’ declared Edgar. ‘Udai says he’s been in every one of them but I bet he hasn’t.’

‘Who lives here?’ Joe asked.

‘Well, the state rooms are kept for use only on special occasions. Udai has more sense than to live here himself. You’ll see the New Palace in a minute. He’s got a large family. Aunts, uncles, sons and daughters, his wives if it comes to that. They all have their apartments. Each apartment has its servants and I could go further and say that each servant has his servant. The last time the Ranipur army went into action each fighting man was accompanied by two armed retainers. You need a big house if you’re going to accommodate that size of entourage, and pension them and feed them. There must be upwards of three thousand people living within the palace walls, each as careful of his or her dignity as it is possible to be, quarrelling, tale-bearing, eating, stealing I shouldn’t wonder, plotting and planning . . . Sounds awful, doesn’t it, but really, on the whole, I think they have a pretty good time. But I don’t think it would suit me.’

‘I don’t think it would suit me either,’ said Joe.

‘Damn sure it doesn’t suit me!’ said Madeleine with feeling.

Edgar ignored her. ‘Doesn’t always suit Udai. I’ll show you the state apartments tomorrow. In the meantime, the idea of a bath is beginning to appeal to me.’ He turned to Madeleine. ‘Shall we continue?’

‘Sure. But first, prepare yourself for another surprise!’ said Madeleine. ‘You’re about to get a welcome, Texas style!’

She pointed up to the sky above the flat foothills separating them from the town and palace where a small aeroplane appeared to be lazily circling. Catching sight of them, the pilot turned and made towards them at speed. He swooped low and everyone in the car ducked as the plane sheered the dusty air only feet above their heads. Joe squinted into the sun as it passed over to the west behind them. In the two-seater plane the front passenger seat was empty, the clearly silhouetted figure in the rear position raising an arm in salute.

‘Who the hell’s that?’ Joe shouted, startled.

‘Best pilot in India or America or anywhere,’ said Madeleine with pride. ‘That’s Captain Stuart Mercer, ex-Escadrille Américaine. My brother.’

‘Your brother? What’s he doing in Ranipur?’

Madeleine’s eyes never left the small Curtiss Jenny as it began a series of stunts. ‘Well, I’ll never know for sure whether it was me or Stuart that Prithvi fell for!’ she said with a smile. ‘He met us on an airfield . . . well, it was more of a cow pasture . . . in the States where we were performing. Came backstage at the end of the performance, you might say. We have – we had – a family business. We’re barnstormers. Ever heard of the “Airdevils”?’

Joe nodded. So that was what she was – a wing dancer in an aerial circus! Had Sir George got it wrong deliberately? He’d heard of many flying circus acts, even seen some of those that made the trip to Europe. Their suicidally daring exploits left him breathless. The young pilots, many of whom had survived service in the war, had been turned adrift in a dull and unrewarding world which had no appreciation of their talent. What they craved was some way of earning a living using their flying skills and they soon caught on to the entertainment value of those skills. People would pay to see them perform, even pay to go up for a flight themselves. Joe shuddered at the idea. But, inevitably, as the public grew used to the spectacle, they became jaded and pilots had to devise ever more daring stunts to keep their attention. Death drops, flights into the heart of Niagara Falls, leaps from racing car to low flying-plane, even leaps from one plane to another in mid-air, they were all attempted with the aim of making money from their audience. Some of the daredevils got rich but most had trouble raising meal money and some died.

‘Planes were going for six hundred dollars when Stuart got back home. No shortage. They were stockpiled all over the States. The military were glad to get rid of them. Spares were no problem either. So he bought a couple and cannibalized one of them to get the plane he wanted and we set up in business. Dad helped with the mechanical side and I soon learned that too – I can fly and maintain an aircraft as well as dance on the wings.’ Madeleine spoke with pride and a touch of challenge.

Joe guessed she had probably run into much male criticism for involving herself in such unladylike pursuits. She would hear none from him; he was fascinated. Madeleine Mercer was a very unusual and attractive girl, he acknowledged, and it was no wonder to him that she should have caught and kept the undivided attention of a maharaja’s son. He tore his own attention from the smiling, chattering girl at his side and looked up again at the pilot, who was performing a manoeuvre which Joe had never seen before. ‘I thought being a policeman was dangerous,’ said Joe, ‘but it’s nothing compared with this!’

‘It’s dangerous but it’s safer than flying the mail routes,’ said Madeleine laconically. ‘And it beats liquor smuggling over the Mexican border which is what we were doing as a sideline before we left the States.’

Joe smiled. ‘Do I gather you and your brother were one step ahead of the law when you skipped off to India?’

‘Something like that . . . Some would say, “Captain Mercer, dashing young air-ace with twenty kills chalked up on his fuselage, accepted the job of personal flying coach to his brother-in-law and accompanied him home to Ranipur. The maharaja’s second son, international socialite Prithvi Singh, is said to have in his stable a collection of no fewer than ten aeroplanes all of which he is able to fly.”’ Madeleine was obviously quoting from a society magazine. ‘See what he’s doing now!’