A Very Pukka Murder

by Arjun Gaind

  “Did he ever do more than just make advances? Did he ever try to actually accost you?”

  “Of course not,” she scoffed. “The man was full of hot air. A big windbag, that’s all.”

  “I wish you had told me sooner!”

  “The day I need help to handle a connard like your Major, mon chéri, is the day I join the nunnery.” She snorted, “Bah, morceau de merde! Fils d’une putain! Il peut brûler en enfer!”

  “I am sorry, my love. If only I had known!”

  “You don’t have to apologize for him, Sikander,” Helene said. “I have met many men like that, pompous morons who think women are merely objects to be used to satisfy their basest needs and who refuse to take no for an answer.”

  “You should have had your bearers throw him out on his ear. That would have taught the cheeky bugger a lesson.”

  Helene’s lips narrowed, the barest hint of a smile. “You would not believe how often I had the very same thought, how many times I was tempted to ban him from entering the Imperial, just so that I wouldn’t have to endure his crude approaches week after week.”

  “Why didn’t you do it then?”

  “Well, for one thing, I couldn’t afford to offend the Sahibs. Most of my customers are English, and you know how they already look at me with suspicion because I am French. Added to which, the Major was much too powerful to trifle with. If I had thrown him out, he would have made no end of trouble for me. You know very well that he was that kind of man.”

  Sikander nodded in understanding. Helene was perfectly right about that. It was obvious to anyone who had ever met him that the Major had been exactly the sort of person who felt no shame or reluctance in abusing his power to seek retribution against someone he felt had slighted him. No, she had made the smart choice by not pushing the issue until things came to a head. If she had, the Major would probably have gone out of his way to harass her even more.

  “Maybe it is time we found you a husband, just to keep you safe.”

  Sadly, this jest misfired badly. Instead of being amused, Helene’s mouth warped into an injured scowl. With a mercurial toss of her hair, she pulled away from him, but not before giving him a glare so imperious it could have fitted on the face of any empress.

  “Do you think me so undesirable that there are no men who want me? I’ll have you know, you cad, I have received three invitations of marriage just this last month, not the least of them being an overture from the Nawab of Deogarh.”

  It was obvious she was trying to make him jealous, but Sikander was too canny to rise to such blatant bait.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and accept?” he countered. “I am sure I could scratch up a suitable dowry for you, and Deogarh is a fine-looking fellow, if you like men with crossed eyes and horse teeth.”

  This remark only served to antagonize Helene even further. She shivered, and stood up angrily, stamping one petite foot down so hard he thought she was about to kick him.

  “You know, Sikander Singh,” she gasped, “you really are the most infuriating man.”

  With that proclamation, she turned and stormed away, slamming the door so hard behind her that it made Sikander’s teeth ache in his jaw.

  Shaking his head, he let out a frustrated sigh. As always, he had managed to put his foot squarely in his mouth. Why was it that he could deduce the most complex of mysteries from the most innocuous of clues, but when it came to saying the right thing to women, he still always managed to behave like a rank novice?

  He was tempted to go after her, and try to apologize, but he knew Helene too well; in her current mood, any words of conciliation he tried to offer would merely be rebuffed, perhaps even violently.

  Instead, Sikander lay back, using this lull to plan his next move. Closing his eyes, he went over a checklist in his mind. First and foremost, he had to parse what was rumor and hearsay from what was fact. For that, he guessed, he would have to pay a visit to Miller at the Gazette to see if could substantiate any of the information he had managed to gather about Major Russell.

  Who else did he need to talk to? The elusive Captain Fletcher for one, the man who had last seen the Major alive the previous evening. He was said to be one of the Major’s closest confidantes, but Lowry had cast a shadow on that relationship, with his hint that the Major and the Captain had lately been at loggerheads. What could have caused this rift? Sikander wondered. There was yet another answer he would have to uncover.

  Then there was the brash Lieutenant with whom the Major had almost engaged in fisticuffs the very night before his demise. On the face of it, that meant the man had an immutable motive to want the Resident dead, but what was the real story? And what did his wife have to with the whole affair? The answers to both those questions, Sikander concluded, could only be found at the Rajpore Club, where the whole confrontation had unfolded in the first place.

  Helene chose that moment to come back into the room. Like a whirlwind, she barged in to glower down at him with her hands on her hips, obviously still sulking.

  “Changed your mind, have you?” Sikander said. Smiling, he leaned back on the bed and waggled one foot at her in lewd invitation. “I thought you might be back. I really am quite irresistible, aren’t I?”

  In response, Helene snorted, rolling her eyes. “Oh, get up, you pompous scoundrel, and put on some trousers. The funny little doctor, he wants to see you right away.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Dr. Roy was waiting in the parlor, pacing back and forth impatiently.

  At first sight, he seemed more a shopkeeper than a physician, with his rotund pot belly and a pair of thick spectacles that made him squint short-sightedly at everything and everyone. But appearances, as Sikander knew only too well, almost always conspired to deceive. Beneath this placid, unassuming exterior, Roy was rather an extraordinary fellow. Not only had he been one of the first Indians to graduate from the Imperial College in London, but he had been the very first to be invited to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Sadly, his reputation had become irrevocably tarnished when he became involved publicly with the National Congress, resulting in his being unfairly disbarred from practicing medicine and forced to return to Calcutta in disgrace. In Sikander’s opinion, that had been a truly gross miscarriage of justice because, regardless of his political inclinations, Roy was the finest surgeon the Maharaja had ever met, better even than the twenty-guinea physicians whose clinics lined Harley Street.

  When Sikander entered, the doctor’s avuncular face broke into a wide smile, but he made no effort to genuflect, as was traditional for most people when the Maharaja granted them an audience. Curiously enough, Sikander did not press him to observe any formalities. After all, Dr. Roy had once pulled a bullet from his chest, and as Sikander saw it, that liberated the man completely from having to bow and scrape like a common khidmutgar.

  “How is the memsahib?” Sikander asked. “Will she live?”

  “You were quite lucky, Your Majesty,” the doctor replied. “I managed to get here just in time to save her. I have administered an emetic of my own devising to induce vomiting, a concoction of ground charcoal mixed with a powder of root of ipecac. And I have pumped her stomach completely. Luckily for us the poison was mostly diluted.”

  “So she will recover?”

  “I believe so, yes. She shall be weak for a few days, but after that, she ought to be as right as rain.” Dr. Roy frowned. “She was very fortunate, this young lady of yours. By some miracle, the dose of poison she imbibed was too weak to be fatal. Still, it will be a few days before she is able to regain her strength. I advise bed rest and soup, I think, lots and lots of chicken broth, but no chillies, please. I find they create too much heat in the body to aid a patient’s recovery.”

  “I shall have her taken to the palace. She will be safe there.”

  “I hope so, sir,” Roy clucked. “The poor child has had a very nar
row escape. The only reason she is still alive is because you found her when you did and managed to get her to me in time.”

  “Well done, Doctor! As always, you have managed to work a marvel.”

  Roy waved a hand dismissively, even though his grin betrayed that he was secretly flattered by these words of praise.

  “Oh, it is nothing. A trifle, that’s all.” He gave Sikander a hopeful glance, his voice betraying an almost ghoulish eagerness. “Would you like my help with anything else…? I hear the Resident was murdered. I could dissect the body if you wish?”

  “I tried, Doctor, but they refused to oblige. It seems they insist that Dr. Mason be tasked with that unseemly duty.”

  Roy winced, crestfallen by this bit of news. “That hack! For God’s sake, Your Majesty, the man still believes in leechcraft.”

  “Nonetheless, he is the coroner of record, and we must strive to accommodate the English as best we can, yes?”

  “Do we have a choice?” Roy rolled his eyes so sarcastically that Sikander could not help but chuckle.

  “Thank you for your help, my dear fellow, but I am afraid that I must excuse myself. I think I shall go and have a few words with the girl now.”

  He spun, about to head for the bedroom, but Roy moved with a speed that defied his girth to obstruct him.

  “It would be best if you waited for a while, sir,” he said with a stiff shake of his head.

  Sikander glowered at the man, his nostrils flaring with irritation. “I need to see her immediately. I have questions that need to be answered.”

  “I am afraid I cannot allow that. She is very weak, and needs to rest.”

  Sikander was not accustomed to being defied, and fond as he was of the doctor, this impertinence was pushing him perilously close to the edge. “Get out of my way, you damned fool!”

  Roy’s face fell at this rebuke. He opened his mouth to object but the forbidding look on the Maharaja’s face warned him it would be pointless to insist.

  “Very well,” he said, shaking his head mulishly, “but if she takes a turn for the worse, you shall be entirely responsible.”

  Indicating that Sikander should be quiet, he eased open the door and tiptoed into the bedroom. Jane seemed to be fast asleep, tucked away in a large four-poster bed which dwarfed her diminutive form. Roy let out a theatrical cough to announce his intrusion, but she remained motionless, as still as a corpse. Other than the slight rise and fall of her chest and the barely audible murmur of her breathing, she could well have been a statue carved from cold marble, so peaceful that for a moment Sikander felt guilty disturbing her.

  He waited patiently as the doctor approached the bed, reaching into one capacious pocket to pull out a vial of smelling salts which he fanned beneath Jane’s nose with a practiced gesture. She came awake with a loud gasp. For one long moment, her eyes remained vague, unfocused, darting nervously around the richly decorated room, visibly taken aback by the splendor of her surroundings

  “Who are you?” she gasped as her gaze came to settle on Sikander. “Where am I?”

  “I am the Maharaja of Rajpore,” Sikander explained with a slight bow, “and this is my suite at the Imperial Hotel.”

  Jane goggled at him, her face slack with disbelief, as if he was speaking a foreign language and she couldn’t understand a word he was saying.

  “Don’t worry,” Sikander said gently. “You are safe here, I promise you.”

  “I am…I am not dead.”

  “No, I am glad to say you are going be just fine. We managed to get to you just in time, but I am sorry to say that your employer wasn’t quite so fortunate.”

  “The Major?” Her eyes widened even farther until it seemed to Sikander that they would split apart at the seams and turn inside out.

  “He is dead,” Sikander announced as solemnly as an undertaker.

  This revelation made Jane wince, as if he had struck her, and then, her face crumpled. With a soft moan, she broke down. A torrent of voluble, voluminous gasps of sorrow poured from her lips, wracking through her willowy frame, a grand mal of regret.

  “That’s quite enough,” Dr Roy exclaimed. “As I feared, the ordeal has been too much for her. Your questions will have to wait.”

  He tried to shoo Sikander away, but the Maharaja remained unmoved, offering Roy an indignant frown. “You may depart, Doctor. I shall send for you if you are needed further.”

  Roy flinched when he heard the inflexible note of finality in Sikander’s tone. While Jane’s welfare was uppermost in his mind, he was pragmatic enough to realize that he could not afford to offend his patron, the very person upon whose good graces he was entirely dependent. Besides, he was cognizant enough of the Maharaja’s moods to know that it was pointless to debate with him when he was determined to have his way; no matter what words of dissent he might offer, in the end, once Sikander had made up his mind, he was as obdurate as stone.

  “If you insist,” he said reluctantly, beginning to bow before realizing what he was doing and then stopping in mid-motion, like a broken jack-in-the-box. “Please, I beg you, do not tire her too much, or it may be detrimental to her well-being.”

  With that warning, Roy beat a retreat, carefully shutting the door behind him to leave Sikander alone with Jane.

  By then, she had managed to curtail her sobs and was warily watching the Maharaja over the rumpled edge of the quilt that enfolded her. Sikander pulled up a high-backed chair and sat down directly opposite the bed, leaving enough distance between them so that she would not feel hemmed in.

  “Don’t worry, Madam,” he said in his most disarming tone of voice. “I am not going to hurt you.”

  Jane sat up, crossing her arms across her chest.

  “The Major is really dead?” She fixed him with a suspicious glare, as if to suggest she did not trust him one bit. “You aren’t lying to me, are you?”

  Fiercely, she glowered at him, giving him a stern school-marmish look he might have found intimidating if she hadn’t seemed so weak and pale that he was afraid she was about to faint once again. Sikander found himself studying her face, revising his first opinion of her age. She was older than he had guessed, nearer forty than thirty, and there was a hardness to her, particularly around the eyes and lips, that intractability which only a lifetime of adversity can evoke. She wasn’t beautiful, he decided. Her hair was too short, almost ascetic, and her nose much too pert. In spite of that, Sikander found to his surprise that he thought her quite attractive. This realization shook him a little. He had never liked his women working-class, with rough skin and drab manners. No, he much preferred them primped and oiled and rouged like courtesans, clad in Parisian silk and smelling of the finest perfumes, but to his dismay, as he noted that Jane had a smattering of freckles on her cheeks, something tugged at his heartstrings and made him instinctively feel drawn towards her.

  Sikander hesitated. How was he to treat her? Was she to be a suspect, someone to be interrogated rigorously? No, he thought, if anything, she was a victim, the only true innocent in this whole unholy mess, and he would behave with only equanimity, not suspicion.

  “Why would I lie, Madam?” He said, holding her eyes with his own, trying to convey a sense of utmost sincerity. “What have I to gain from it?”

  Jane clenched her jaw, considering his reply, and then, slowly, with immense gravity, she exhaled and averted her gaze, pulling the duvet up to her neck to swaddle herself, almost as though she was trying to conceal herself from his penetrating gaze.

  “I have no wish to cause you any further anguish,” Sikander said gently, “but I need your help, Madam, if I am to find who murdered the Major and very nearly took your life as well.”

  Once again those eyes turned back to settle on him contemplatively, their corners ringed with a startling umbra of gray that seemed to darken almost to purple as she nodded, gritting her teeth. “I shall try m
y best to accommodate you,” she said bravely, her face so determined that Sikander felt an absurd flicker of pride.

  “Thank you,” he said, vastly relieved. “Let us talk then about the events leading up to last night.” He fixed her with a hopeful smile. “Tell me, how did the Resident seem yesterday?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I spoke with him earlier, Mr. Lowry mentioned that the Major seemed rather sour-tempered yesterday. Would you happen to agree with such an observation? Was he behaving quite normally, or was he indeed out of sorts?”

  “Oh, he was rude, aggressive, abrasive to the point of being intolerable, but no more so than usual.” Her lips split into a tentative smile. “Or perhaps I had just become inured to his many unpleasant qualities. Like a blister on the heel of your foot, after a time, you forget exactly how painful it can be.”

  Sikander chuckled, glad to see that Jane was feeling a little better. “How about visitors? Did the Major have any callers yesterday?”

  “Yes, he did, now that you mention it. He had three, if I remember correctly.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “The first was Mr. Lowry. He came by quite early, just after ten-thirty. I remember, I was in the garden pruning my roses at the time.”

  “Lowry,” Sikander mused. “I didn’t know that he and the Major were close.”

  Jane pulled a face, as if to signify her distaste for the Magistrate. “I doubt they were, sir. It struck me that Mr. Lowry was rather a thick-skinned man, in more ways than one. He often came by but always without being invited, inevitably seeking favors from the Major. In fact, the Major had me turn him away on several occasions.”

  “And yesterday? Did he refuse to see him yesterday?”

  “Not quite. You see, when Mr. Lowry came calling, the Major had already departed for the City Palace. I asked Mr. Lowry if he cared to wait but he declined, saying he had only come by to leave Major Russell a belated Christmas gift.”

  “A gift? What manner of gift?”