by Arjun Gaind
“It didn’t happen very often,” Munshi Ram said in a dead monotone, too ashamed to meet the Maharaja’s gaze. “Only when I did something wrong.”
He finally managed to look up at Sikander, his mouth twisting into a piteous smile.
“You have to understand, Huzoor, the Major Sahib was a demanding person. He was very set in his ways and could be short-tempered at times, but that does not mean he was not a good master most of the time. It was only over these last few weeks that he had been behaving erratically.”
“Why?” Sikander inquired with great interest. “What brought about this sudden change in behavior? Was he having an affair, perhaps?”
“I cannot say,” the man replied stiffly, as if he were deeply offended by the intimacy of this query. “My duties were confined to the City Palace, and I was not privy to the Major Sahib’s personal habits. For that, I think, you will have to speak with Jane memsahib.”
“Jane memsahib? Who in God’s name is Jane memsahib?”
Abruptly, a spasm of horror flashed across the Munshi’s wizened face.
“Oh no! I had forgotten all about her,” he exclaimed. “She is the Resident’s housekeeper, Your Majesty.”
“What?” Sikander hissed, sitting up with a start. “Where can I find her?”
“I do not know, Sahib,” the old man whined. “I have not seen her since I got here.” Even as he uttered those words, his eyes widened with dismay. “Hai Ram, you don’t think she has been murdered as well?”
Sikander cursed, springing to his feet. That was it, the source of the unease that had been nagging at him since he had first entered the bungalow. The Residency was far too neat to be a bachelor’s home. A woman’s touch was evident everywhere, from the roses in the parlor to the faded scent of jasmine hanging in the still air.
I really should have seen it sooner, Sikander chastised himself.
“You fool,” he growled at the Munshi. “You unmitigated idiot! How could you not have mentioned this before…?’”
“Forgive me, Huzoor. I forgot, I swear it. I barely know the woman. She only took up service with Major Russell a few months ago.” The Munshi slumped forward, his shoulders shuddering as he cradled his head in his hands. “Oh, no! It is all my fault. She is dead, just like the Major Sahib, I just know it.”
“Compose yourself, you fool,” Sikander barked. “We must find the memsahib immediately. She could be a vital material witness to what happened here.”
With a visible effort, the old man manage to pull himself together. Raising one skeletal finger, he pointed out towards the small cottage which Sikander had passed while exploring the grounds.
“The guest quarters, Sahib,” he groaned wretchedly. “There, just behind the main house. That is where she lives.”
Immediately, as if his very life depended on it, Sikander vaulted to his feet and dashed towards the front door, only to barrel straight into Jardine.
“Hie there,” the Inspector squealed, “what in blazes is going on here?”
“There is a woman who lives here with the Resident,” Sikander paused momentarily to explain. “His housekeeper, a Miss Jane. She hasn’t been seen since last night.”
Jardine may not have been very bright, but it did not take long for the full implication of the Maharaja’s words to dawn upon him.
“Of course,” he gasped. “I should have remembered about her. We must search the grounds immediately.”
“What a good idea!” Searching the grounds would keep the Superintendent busy and thus ensure he remained well out of the Maharaja’s way, which was exactly how Sikander preferred it. “Do that immediately.”
Even as the Superintendent lumbered away, barking out a string of urgent orders at his Havildars, Sikander broke into a run once more. Rounding the corner of the house, he put his fingers to his lips and let out a shrill, most ungentlemanly whistle. A moment later, as if by magic, Charan Singh materialized, dashing up from the direction of the stables, brandishing his kirpan menacingly in one immense hand.
“Oh, do put that away, will you, before you poke out someone’s eye?”
Reluctantly, Charan Singh sheathed the dagger at his waist and glowered at his master questioningly, as if to inquire why he had been summoned with such exigency.
“There is another victim,” Sikander growled. “A woman, the Resident’s housekeeper.”
The giant Sikh’s face hardened. Wordlessly, he fell into step behind Sikander as they hastened through the back garden and up the narrow curving path that led to the guest cottage. It was much smaller than the bungalow, a single-floored structure with a thatched roof and a front porch enfiladed by twin Palladian columns.
Without bothering to knock or announce himself, as propriety demanded, Sikander marched up to the front door and tried to wrest it open, only to find that it was securely bolted.
“Well,” he turned to Charan Singh, “don’t just gawk at me. Break the damned thing down.”
“If you insist!” the Sikh said. Grinning wickedly, he raised one massive boot and brought it crashing down just above the lock. The door didn’t just splinter. Like cheap glass, it shattered apart, one half remaining locked, and the other flying open with a resounding crash.
Rather than waiting for his manservant to enter and make sure that the guesthouse was secure, Sikander pushed past the old Sikh and barged into the room beyond, nearly tripping over a table in his haste. A few heartbeats passed before his eyesight adjusted to the shadowy gloom within, and he was able to discern that they were in a small, sparsely furnished parlor. At the far end of the room, two closed doors led towards what he guessed were the bedrooms.
“You take the one on the left. I’ll take the right.”
Charan Singh nodded, tiptoeing across the room with laughable daintiness. Once he was in place, Sikander surged forward and shouldered open his chosen door at the same time that his manservant slammed open the other. Gritting his teeth, he barged into what seemed to be a storeroom piled high with old boxes. A moldy smell permeated the air, as if to suggest that it had obviously had not been occupied for some time, and Sikander let out a loud exhalation of relief, glad to discover that the place was quite empty.
Sadly, this reprieve was destined to be short-lived. A heartbeat later, Charan Singh called out, “Sahib, over here. I have found her.”
Outside the other room, the giant Sikh hulked, hunching his broad shoulders solemnly. When Sikander approached, he bowed his head, as somber as an undertaker. The Maharaja’s heart sank as he elbowed past and was greeted by the sight of a supine form lying sprawled on the floor in the distant corner. It was a woman, clad in a thin nightgown of cotton that left little to the imagination, barely able to conceal a figure so slender that Sikander thought that she could be little more than a child. Undoubtedly, this was the missing Miss Jane, and just as Sikander had feared, she had been murdered as well.
Since she was lying facedown, he couldn’t see her features, but he had no doubt they were distended by a rictus of anguish quite as horrible as the Major’s. Biting back a sigh, he approached her corpse, reaching out to turn her over gently, almost reverently. When he saw her face, the Maharaja let out a gasp. He had expected an Anglo-Indian ayah, but the housekeeper was an Englishwoman and a striking one at that. He realized he had been quite mistaken about her age. This was no callow child, no. On the contrary, she was very nearly his own age, well past thirty with cuprous hair cropped unfashionably short and a strong face so pale it seemed almost eldritch. And her body, while slender, was that of a woman in her prime, broad of hip and shoulder, with firm breasts that strained at the thin fabric of her nightdress and briefly caused Sikander to shudder as a frisson of desire ran through him.
The Maharaja pushed aside these entirely inappropriate thoughts, and reached out to take her wrist so that he could check for a pulse. That was when she surprised him. With an almost
imperceptible shiver, she let out a soft whimper and for an instant, her eyelids flickered open, revealing irises as green as cabochons, before fluttering shut once more.
“She’s still alive!” Sikander exclaimed.
“Are you sure?” Charan Singh leaned forward to stare down over his shoulder.
“Of course I am, you bullock. I have seen enough corpses to tell the difference between dead and alive. “
“Wahe Guru, it is the will of God!” The big Sikh made a gesture thanking the heavens, and then turned and shouted at the top of his voice. “Call for the horse ambulance. The memsahib is still alive.”
“There isn’t time,” Sikander said roughly. Sweeping the duvet off the bed, he wrapped the woman in the thick bed-cover to keep her warm. Then, as if she weighed nothing at all, he gathered her into his arms effortlessly.
Charan Singh tried to intercede. “Give her to me, Your Majesty,” he said, stretching out his massive hands. “I will carry the memsahib.”
“Leave it be,” Sikander snapped. Cradling the insensate woman close to his chest, hefting her as easily as a pile of laundry, he pushed past his manservant. Charan Singh began to follow after him, but a curt snarl stopped him dead in his tracks.
“You stay here! Secure the crime scene. Make sure nobody tampers with the Resident’s body, and ensure that my samples get to the palace.”
With that final command, Sikander turned and dashed through the door, grimacing beneath the weight of his unconscious burden.
A few meters away from the front gate, very near where the Rolls was parked, Lowry was lurking beneath the leafy shelter of a jamun tree, enjoying the attentions of the ladies of the Rajpore Garden Society. Abruptly, one of the women let out a scream, a strident shriek of pure horror. Immediately, the buzzing hum of conversation died out, withering to a stunned silence. En masse, Lowry and the rest of the Garden Society turned to be greeted by the shocking sight of the Maharaja of Rajpore tramping towards them, his face red with exertion from the effort of carrying an insensible Englishwoman in his arms.
“Your Majesty,” the Magistrate squeaked, aghast, gazing down at the girl with barely repressed dismay, “what on Earth is going on…? Is she…is she dead?”
“Not yet,” Sikander grunted, “but she soon will be, if I don’t get her to a doctor.”
Brusquely, he brushed past Lowry and made for his car, struggling to shoulder a path through the assembled mass of curious onlookers surrounding the Rolls-Royce. Unaccustomed to anything but servility from native Indians, they drew apart, slowly at first, but then beating a hasty retreat to give him a wide berth, as if he were the carrier of some deeply infectious plague. A scandalized murmur ran through the crowd as the Maharaja lowered the unconscious memsahib into the passenger seat of his car, handling her as gently as if she were made of glass. Then, vaulting into the driver’s seat himself, Sikander pushed the gear lever into reverse, but before he could move an inch, Superintendent Jardine marched up and planted himself directly behind the car, standing squarely in his intended path of egress, as squat and immobile as a block of granite.
“Stop right there!”
“Out of the way, you baboon!” Clenching his jaw, Sikander reversed the Rolls directly towards the Superintendent with a shrill screech. Jardine’s eyes widened as he realized that the Maharaja had no intention of slowing down. Even though he was a large man, he managed to move with surprising speed. As nimbly as a dancer, he backed away from the path of the car, but sadly, he wasn’t quite quick enough. One of the flapping royal pennants caught his arm with a glancing blow and, like a falling redwood, Jardine reeled, collapsing backwards with a surprised yelp that quickly turned into a howl of agony as his large rump settled squarely onto a patch of thorny nettles.
Sikander did not spare him a second glance. Once he was clear of the gate, he performed a reckless turn and crunched down on the throttle so hard that the lever almost broke in two. The Rolls sped away, quickly racing to its maximum speed as it hurtled down through the English town towards the Cantonment.
Next to him, the girl had slowly started to recover her wits. Her eyelids flickered slightly, and each time the car juddered over a pothole, she let out the faintest of groans.
The Maharaja shot her a sidelong glance, his face stiff with concern.
“Hold on, girl,” he growled. “Don’t you dare die! That’s an order!”
Chapter Eleven
There were two hospitals in Rajpore.
The first was the British-run Royal Hospital adjoining the Cantonment which tended largely to the soldiers and the English populace. The other was the newly constructed Rajpore Sanatorium, built on the outskirts of the native town. It was a free hospital, set up by Sikander in memory of his mother, and managed by a fine doctor from Calcutta, Dr. Roy, who had been barred from practicing in Bengal because of his involvement with the National Congress.
At first, it had been Sikander’s plan to drive the girl straight to the latter, but then, as he drew closer to the center of the English town, it occurred to him that it wasn’t really safe to take her to a hospital at all. Rajpore, particularly English Rajpore, was a small place, and the news that a memsahib and, as such, the only witness to the Resident’s murder, had survived being poisoned would spread like wildfire through the Cantonment and the club. It was much too salacious a piece of gossip to go unnoticed, and in his heart of hearts, Sikander knew that he had to keep Jane’s survival a closely guarded secret because the murderer, who had already proven to be very clever, would certainly come after her again when he found out that she was still alive.
Added to that, he was certain that Jardine would be on the warpath as well, and that if he left Jane alone for even one moment, the Superintendent would move immediately to place her in British custody.
And once that damned fool gets his sweaty hands on her, he thought crossly, I can kiss goodbye any chance of questioning her.
No, he frowned, I shall have to take her somewhere where I can protect her, somewhere secure where no one will think to look for her.
The only logical choice that remained was the Imperial Hotel.
Located at the distant end of the Silent Lake, some four kilometers from the outskirts of the English town, The Imperial was the most discerning of the handful of establishments that catered to visitors who happened to pass through Rajpore. Unlike the Grand which prohibited Indians entry, and the Ross Common, which was patronized largely by boxwallahs and tradesmen, the Imperial was an exceedingly civilized establishment, catering only to travelers hailing from the upper classes. Many of them were visiting rulers of other Princely States, who made it a point to visit Rajpore each summer in time for the hunting season, since it was widely acclaimed that there were few finer places to shoot wild fowl than in the marshy fens surrounding Ranibagh, seventy miles north of the capital.
The Imperial had begun its life as the Star of Punjab, the grandiose dream of a Scotsman, George Campbell, who had made a fortune in prize money while campaigning against the Rohillas and come to Rajpore with the intention of founding an establishment that was a homage to the Savoy. His timing had been impeccable. For a brief while in the 1840s, Rajpore had enjoyed an economic Renaissance, and had become the center of the cotton trade in North India, particularly as the Civil War in America had reduced their own cotton exports to a trickle. Sadly, this boom had not been destined to last long. With the cessation of hostilities between North and South in the United States, the cotton bubble had burst and soon the deluge of visitors to Rajpore had reduced to a trickle. This left the unfortunate Mr. Campbell to watch his dream crumble, along with his grand hotel, until in the end, overcome by grief and failure and a mountain of mounting debts, he had chosen to take his own life the same year that Sikander’s father had inherited the throne.
After its owner’s death, the hotel had remained deserted, dwindling slowly to a ruin until the Maharani, Sikander
’s mother, had purchased the property on a whim, and done a remarkable job of renovating it and turning it into one of the better establishments east of Suez. The Imperial was the tallest building in the city, an astonishing triangular-shaped structure built entirely of iron beams that had been molded in the same foundries that had cast the frame for the Crystal Palace. The results were quite striking, a complete contrast from the rest of Rajpore’s traditional architecture—a modern building constructed in the neo-classical style, five floors each fronted by arched plate-glass windows elaborately embellished with ornately wrought art nouveau details. Of the forty rooms, ten were suites with private balconies overlooking the placid waters of the lake. At the center of the hotel was a glass-roofed atrium that housed a fine ballroom and a theater and what the Maharaja considered unarguably to be the best restaurant in Punjab where diners could enjoy both French and Indian cuisine.
Sikander had inherited the hotel when he had taken the throne, but had held onto it very briefly, choosing instead to give it away for the princely sum of a single rupee to its current owner, Madame Helene Beauchamp, who unbeknownst to most people also happened to be his long-suffering mistress. A narrow smile played across the Maharaja’s lips as he thought of Helene. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since they had first met. Sikander had been just a callow boy then, trying to live incognito in Paris and pass himself off as a penniless student. That was when he had first met Helene’s sister, Camille, who had been a dancer at Le Chat Noir. He had fallen head over heels in love, only to lose her when she had been murdered under mysterious circumstances. That had been his very first case, and though he had ultimately managed to apprehend Camille’s killer, he had nearly ended up half in the grave doing it, had it not been for Helene’s tender ministrations.
She was the one who had nursed him back to health, and slowly, his respect for her had grown into something deeper, a mature affection quite devoid of the breathless ardor that he had felt for her sister, but somehow more fulfilling, as immutable as bedrock. Over the years, their relationship had settled with time into a comfortable détente, a very discreet, almost dispassionate involvement that they both accepted with equanimity. Helene knew he occasionally pursued other women, a fact she tolerated resignedly, not because she was too meek to stand up to him, but because she genuinely loved him, and knew that while he was capricious enough to crave the new, in the end he would always come back to her. As for Sikander, Helene was one of the few people he trusted implicitly and his only real confidante. With her, he was neither prince nor polymath, merely a man; she was the only person with whom he felt truly at peace, with whom he did not need to play a role, and it gratified him immensely to know that she was nearby, close enough for him to protect and keep safe from any threat.
