A Very Pukka Murder

by Arjun Gaind

  “Yes, yes,” he said impatiently, “I know all about that.”

  “No, Sahib, not the fight at the club. The Captain and the Burra Sahib, they exchanged angry words on the way back to the bungalow.” He paused, and looked at Sikander sheepishly. “They did not realize I understand English, Your Majesty.”

  “What was this argument about?” Sikander said, intrigued.

  “The Captain was very angry. He called the Major some rather harsh names.”

  “What kind of names?”

  “I would prefer not to repeat them, sir,” The Gurkha said, his mouth tightening with distaste. “Let me just say this much, if any man were to call me such names, he would not have long to continue in this world.”

  Sikander hid a smile. He was starting to like the doughty little man. The Gurkha had gumption, which was so rare a quality that it managed to take Sikander by surprise. Most people were terrified of him, and wilted in his presence, but for once, he found it refreshing to face a man who was not afraid to speak his mind.

  “Did the Captain threaten the Major?”

  “Yes,” the man grimaced. “He said that he would get even with the Major, if that was the last thing he did. I was about to halt the carriage and step in to stop their argument before it could become more heated, but luckily, we arrived back at the bungalow before I had to get involved.”

  “And after helping you escort the Major into the house, what did the Captain do then?”

  “He left, Sahib, without another word.”

  Even as he said those words, he betrayed a momentary nervousness, absently lifting one finger to rub at his scar, an unconscious gesture that he ceased as soon as he noticed it, dropping his hand back to let it rest uncomfortably at his side.

  “You’re lying,” Sikander said flatly.

  “I am not, Sahib, I swear it.”

  “Do you take me for a fool?” Sikander snapped. “I know when a man is lying to me. That was not the last time you saw the Captain, was it?”

  The Gurkha paused, clenching his jaw and gathering a deep breath, as if he was trying to find the strength to step across an invisible barrier, a Rubicon he was reluctant to cross.

  “No, Sahib, it was not.” His voice was sepulchral, barely more than a murmur. “It is my habit to oil the traces and the reins before I retire for the night. It normally takes me a little over an hour. As a result, by the time I was done currying the horses and polishing the Major’s tack last night, it was very late. I was about to return to my quarters when I heard noises coming from the direction of the Sahib’s bungalow, so I decided to check if everything was fine.” He hesitated, disinclined to say anything more. “I went up to the main house, and that was when I encountered the Captain Sahib, dashing down the driveway toward the gate, in a great hurry.”

  “Did you ask what he was doing here at such a late hour?”

  The Gurkha looked down at his feet shamefacedly. “No, I did not. It is not my place, Your Majesty, to question the Sahibs.” Gurung grimaced. “That is all that I know about last night, Your Majesty, I swear it on my honor.”

  Sikander fixed him with his most penetrating stare. The Gurkha held his gaze stolidly, not shifting an inch, even as the intensity of this scrutiny grew awkward to bear.

  “I find myself confused by you, Gurung Bahadur,” Sikander said, “You seem like a good man, but at the same time, I am nagged by doubts about your trustworthiness. Why should I believe you now, when you have already lied once?”

  The man frowned. “I did not mean to be deceptive, Sahib. It is just that it is best for someone like me not to get involved too much with the Burra Sahibs. That is something I learned in the army. When two elephants are raging, it is best for the ant to burrow deep into the ground and try not to be noticed.”

  Sikander furrowed his brow. He couldn’t help but agree with the Gurkha. Discretion was often the better part of valor, especially when it came to the English.

  “Very well,” the Maharaja said with a perfunctory wave of one hand. “You may go, but stay in the vicinity. I might have need of you later.”

  The Gurkha clattered to attention, as neatly as a clockwork soldier.

  “As you command, Sahib,” He offered Sikander another perfect salute before backing away with that rigid gait of man more accustomed to marching than walking.

  Sikander wrinkled his nose. Sadly, just like the cook, the Gurkha’s testimony had managed to leave him with more questions than answers. What had it been that Fletcher and the Major had quarreled over? Could it had been something so vicious that Fletcher would actually contemplate murder?

  “Who’s next?” Sikander turned to the Havildar, who had been watching the Gurkha’s little performance unfold with a look of disapproval writ on his ugly face.

  “You should be wary of that man,” he volunteered. “Never trust a Gurkha, Sahib. They are too clever for their own good.”

  Sikander frowned, annoyed by this unsolicited piece of advice. How dare the man speak out of turn, and with such overt familiarity? An ember of irritation flared inside him, and he gave the constable a stern glare, a look so vituperative that the man involuntarily took two quick steps backwards.

  “What is your name?”

  “I am Jha, Sahib. Uttam Kumar Jha of…”

  “It would please me, Jha,” Sikander said, cutting the man off before he could launch into a detailed description of his genealogy, “if you kept your opinions to yourself, and brought in the next servant immediately.”

  Havildar Jha’s face tightened. He bristled at this rebuke, squaring his shoulders before stalking away with an air of wounded dignity.

  The next witness turned out to be the Major’s valet, Ghanshyam. Sikander recognized the boy as soon as he entered the room. He had been a servant at the palace until a few years earlier, a cheeky cretin with sticky fingers who had been caught trying to pocket a pair of silver spoons and thus dismissed from his post. Since then, he had taken service with the Resident, although Sikander suspected he had been placed there deliberately by Ismail Bhakht to serve as a spy.

  Ordinarily, the boy was as brash and cocksure as a bantam rooster, strutting about as if his closeness to the Resident made him invulnerable, but now, he seemed surprisingly timid. As soon as Jha relaxed his grip on his shoulder, he immediately collapsed to the ground in an untidy heap, to grovel at Sikander’s feet.

  “You have to protect me. Please, you are my only hope.”

  “Protect you from whom?” Sikander exclaimed, alarmed by the child’s desperation.

  “I know, Huzoor. I know who killed the Major.”

  Sikander’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Who was it? Tell me immediately.”

  Ghanshyam let out an immense groan, his pockmarked face slack with fear except for his thin lips, which had contorted into a rictus of pure horror.

  “It was the churail, Sahib,” he moaned. “She cursed him, and now he is dead.”

  “What churail?” Sikander said with a frown, unable to make sense of this incoherent rambling.

  “Day before yesterday, Sahib, on the night that there was no moon, I saw a ghost, a woman in black. She was wandering in the mist, as if she were searching for someone.”

  Sikander looked down at the boy, trying not to let his skepticism show. As a rationalist, he had no patience for the supernatural, and found it difficult to accept such a far-fetched story at face value.

  “Where? Where did you see this churail?”

  “Just behind the guest bangla, Sahib. It was very late, well after midnight. I had woken to go into the bushes to do my business. That was when I saw her. She came up the hill and stood beneath the large peepul, watching the house like a hawk. That was how I knew she was a churail, you see. It is well known they haunt peepul trees, that they lie in wait beneath their shadowy branches to pounce on unwary travelers and suck out their eyes.”<
br />
  “She just stood there…?”

  “Yes, Sahib, she walked back and forth for some time, talking to herself in a low whisper. I was hiding of course, cowering behind a bush. I decided I would wait until she had left before I tried to make a run for the shelter of the stables, because I did not want her to see me and eat my eyes as well. But I think she must have heard me, because all of a sudden, she looked in my direction, and then floated away with great haste.”

  Sikander rolled his eyes. What a ludicrous tale! Most likely it had been a trick of the light, or a hallucination where the boy’s overactive imagination had turned the shadows cast by the trees into something infinitely more fanciful.

  “Are you sure that she wasn’t one of the Major’s lady friends? Perhaps a late night visitor?”

  “Oh no, Sahib. She was a churail. I am sure of it.”

  The Maharaja pursed his lips, his doubts wavering in the face of such staunch insistence.

  “I want you to describe this apparition to me,” he urged.

  “She was very beautiful, Sahib, as slender and lissome as a young girl. Her skin was pale like a corpse and she was clad from head to toe in blackest black, darker even than the night.”

  “Her face, did you see her face?”

  Ghanshyam hastily made a gesture to ward off the evil eye. “She had no face, Sahib. Nothing but two shiny eyes which burned like coals. Everything else, it was black, like a shadow.”

  He uttered a shrill whimper which made Havildar Jha gulp and take an involuntary step backwards. Sikander shot him an annoyed look. What a pair of superstitious ninnies! More likely that she had been wearing a veil, a scarf wrapped around her face perhaps, to obscure her features and hide her face from sight? That made more sense than this description of a faceless wraith.

  “Stop being such ignorant fools, both of you! There are no such things as churails, or curses for that matter!”

  “But…but I saw her,” Ghanshyam objected piteously. “I swear it, I did!”

  “Oh, just take him away!” Sikander snapped.

  Reluctantly, Havildar Jha complied, shuffling forward to pull the boy up bodily to his feet, but not before his saturnine face twisted into a grimace, as if to illustrate how unwilling he was to even touch Ghanshyam, terrified that his talk of churails would somehow contaminate him.

  As the boy was marched away, Sikander mulled over what he had revealed. Churail indeed! What a load of nonsense! It was patent, even to a child, that what Ghanshyam had seen was certainly not an apparition. No, there was a straightforward explanation to be had, and a logical one at that. Quite obviously, the so-called churail had to be a woman, and most likely, an Englishwoman, judging by the boy’s description.

  Who could she be? he wondered. And what in God’s name was a memsahib doing skulking about in the middle of the night like a thief?

  Frankly, it made no sense.

  Not unless she was the one who had poisoned Major Russell.

  Chapter Ten

  Choking back a weary groan, Sikander pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to gather his strength for one last interrogation.

  When the Munshi limped into the room, he could not help but feel a pang of sympathy for the old man. He looked haggard, on the very brink of collapse. His once spotless dhoti was now bedraggled and stained by dirt, his lined face wearing an expression of stricken exhaustion, as if he had seen too much for any one man to endure.

  “Hello, Munshiji,” Sikander offered him a compassionate smile. “Come, sit down for a moment.”

  He pointed toward a nearby chair. Wide-eyed, the Munshi hesitated, terrified perhaps of taking such a liberty in the Maharaja’s presence. A long moment passed before he realized that this overture was not a request, but a command, and hastened to obey, shuffling over to take a precarious perch on the chair’s very edge, as if he were afraid that it would collapse under his scant weight.

  “Lowry Sahib said you wished to speak with me, Your Highness,” he said, his voice wavering with barely repressed emotion.

  “Indeed, I do, Panditji.” Sikander decided to use this honorific to put the man at ease. “I understand that you have had a terrible shock today, but I have a few questions and I would appreciate it greatly if you would answer them.”

  “As you wish, Huzoor. I am your loyal servant.”

  “I am glad to know that. I have heard much about you, Munshiji. You are said to be an honest man. Is this true? Are you indeed as trustworthy as they say?”

  This comment seemed to rouse the man’s spirits, and he sat up straighter, as proud as punch.

  “My reputation is well founded, Sahib. From East to West, it is known that Munshi Ram Dev is as pukka as a Swiss clock.”

  “Bravo! Then I can trust you?”

  “Of course!”

  “Excellent! Tell me then, if you will, about your master.”

  At this mention of Major Russell, the old man’s enthusiasm waned visibly.

  “What would you care to know, Huzoor?” He said, unable to hide his reticence.

  “Let us begin with how long you have been his clerk, shall we…?”

  “Some four years. Before that, I was a chuprassy in the employ of your father, but when Russell Sahib arrived, I was seconded into his service, and he trusted me enough to make me his Munshi.”

  “And what was your opinion of him as a man?”

  Another hesitation, before he answered, selecting his words very carefully.

  “He was a good man, Huzoor. Strict, but fair, and not the sort of Sahib who was given to foolish or impulsive behavior. I had great hopes for him.” The Munshi paused, biting his lip. “I am not comfortable saying more. I have eaten his salt, and it would be most rude of me to indulge in bazaar gossip.”

  “I understand. You are a loyal man, Munshi Ram, to keep your master’s faith with such conviction, even though he has left us.”

  “Thank you, Sahib,” the Munshi said, preening. “From your exalted lips, that is a great compliment indeed. Who knows, perhaps someday I can serve you again, as I served your father before you? That would be an honor indeed.”

  Sikander smiled, brushing aside this lame attempt at sycophancy.

  “Tell me, Panditji, did the Resident have any enemies that you know of?”

  “Enemies, Your Highness, I cannot imagine anyone would think poorly of the Resident Sahib,” the Munshi said, feigning bewilderment, but Sikander could see that his bafflement was just a sham, as thin and unsubstantial as Lahori muslin. It could be a natural close-mouthedness, or perhaps the man was afraid, but whatever the case may have been, Sikander could tell he knew something, but had decided to keep it hidden.

  “Let me rephrase myself. Can you think of anyone who may have held a grudge against the Resident?”

  Instead of replying, the Munshi’s eyes flickered toward the door, as skittish as a lizard. Sikander realized the man was petrified, scared half to death of something. Or was it someone? The English, he understood with a start, the Munshi knew something important but was afraid to reveal it because of the English.

  “Go on, Munshiji,” he said, leaning forward. “Do not be afraid. You are under my protection, and nobody will cause you a whit of harm. As God is my witness, I promise it.”

  This pledge went a long way toward reassuring the Munshi. “The Captain, Your Majesty,” he said in a low whisper. “Fletcher Sahib had a terrible argument with the Resident some weeks ago. They almost came to blows.”

  Sikander sat up. “Can you tell me what they were arguing about?”

  Circumspectly, the old man nodded. “As a matter of fact, I happened to overhear their exchange.”

  The Maharaja hid a smile. The Munshi made it sound like a fortunate accident, but most likely he had been listening at the door.

  “The Captain was expecting to be raised to Major, you see, but his pr
omotion was refused.” Munshi Ram clucked his tongue. “He blamed the Resident for it. The Major tried to explain that the rejection had come from Simla, but the Captain was beside himself with fury. He threatened Russell Sahib, and promised he would get even with him someday, and now this…?”

  Puckering his brow, Sikander pondered this snippet of information. It could be a motive for murder, but where was the proof…? He knew the Captain socially, and while he did not like the man, thinking him rather too pompous and abrasive, he could not imagine him resorting to poisoning a man. No, Fletcher had an old-fashioned sense of honor, and if he wanted to kill someone, it would have been the route of grass before breakfast, not strychnine in a bottle of tonic. That seemed quite anathema to the man’s nature, not to mention too clever by half for someone of such limited intelligence.

  Unconvinced, Sikander turned back to the Munshi, who had begun to wring his wrists and rub at his arms tenderly. For the first time, Sikander noticed that the man’s wrists and forearms were covered with angry bruises. Most of them were old enough to be fading to yellow, but at least two looked freshly inflicted, still bright red.

  “Who did this to you?” he asked sternly. “Was it the Havildar?”

  The Munshi shook his head. He tugged at his sleeves, trying to hide his injuries, his wrinkled face coloring with guilt, as if he had been caught doing something wrong.

  Suddenly, a flash of insight struck Sikander.

  “It was the Resident, wasn’t it?”

  The Munshi did not reply. He bit his lip, staring pointedly at the floor, as if to hide his obvious discomfort.

  “Did he whip you?” Sikander said, his outrage mounting. If there was one thing he could not abide, not in the least, it was the mistreatment of an underling by his master. As far as he was concerned, there were few things more barbaric than a man grossly misusing his power to abuse someone powerless to resist, and though he had an inkling that such behavior was quite common, particularly amongst the British, who tended to treat their Indian servants like beasts of burden, being confronted with such blatant evidence of the Major’s viciousness made his blood boil.