by Arjun Gaind
“Actually, as it turns out, it seems that his sister was one of Madam Krasnivaya’s whores, and the Major beat her half to death.”
Sikander quite enjoyed the look of astonishment that crept across Ismail Bhakht’s face when he disclosed this revelation. “He is a Gurkha, by the way, a thoroughly dangerous-looking specimen.”
Ismail Chacha arched one doubtful brow. “I think that you are grasping at straws. I do not know the man personally, but I doubt any Gurkha would stoop to using poison. As a breed, they prefer to face their enemies head-on. If he did indeed have a vendetta against the Major, then I am sure he would have tried to hack his head off with a kukri. But poison, no, I think he is not your man.”
The conviction with which he made this declaration caused Sikander to frown. Ismail Chacha’s words were, as always, brutally logical, and had managed to steer uncomfortably close to his own doubts. Could the old man be right? Was there more to the case than it seemed? Was the Gurkha just another false lead?
“What do you suggest my next move should be?”
“You never were much of a chess player, my boy. If you were, you would know that you must always look to the rook. There is one man who was privy to all the Major’s secrets, one person who he trusted implicitly above all and who had both the access and opportunity to easily administer a dose of poison. Honestly, if I were you, I would take a good long look at the Major’s vakeel.”
It took Sikander a minute to grasp exactly who the old man was talking about. Surely he could not mean Munshi Ram? What earthly reason could Ismail Bhakht have to point a finger at him, of all people?
“I have already interviewed the Munshi,” he responded, not bothering to conceal his doubts. “He seems harmless enough.”
The old man let out a sniff, the briefest of exhalations that managed to speak volumes.
“There is an old pahari saying, Huzoor. You can always trust a villain to be villainous, but never trust a man who seems innocent at first glance.”
This cryptic comment only served to rouse Sikander’s curiosity even further. “What are you not telling me?” he groaned. “And do stop trying to be so mysterious.”
The old man rolled his eyes, annoyed that Sikander was refusing to play along with his little game. “The Munshi is not, as they say, pukka,” he said rather stiffly. Ismail Bhakht pursed his ancient lips, until they were almost invisible. “From what I have heard, he is in the habit of taking baksheesh.”
Sikander scowled, mirroring the old man’s disapproving expression. Baksheesh was a peculiarly duplicitous practice imported to India from Persia. In layman’s terms, it quite simply was a bribe, or rather, if one wished to be more polite, a gratuity, a gift to ensure that certain favors were performed. As a practice, he knew all too well that it had become endemic to British India, particularly in the Princely states. Personally, Sikander took a poor view of such rampant corruption. He was a sincere believer in the enlightened state, and had always felt that the role of civil servants was to serve the populace, not fleece them to line their own pockets. As a result, he had tried his best to discourage the practice, but in spite of his most assiduous efforts, it continued to flourish in the English quarter, to his dismay.
“I understand your disdain for such things, Chacha, but surely the willingness to take a bribe or two does not make a man a murderer?”
“Tell me, my boy, how much do you know of the Munshi’s past?”
Sikander furrowed his brow, trying to recollect what he could, which turned out to be abysmally little.
“Not much, other than the fact he was employed here at the palace some years ago, wasn’t he, when Lal Singh was on the gaddi?”
The old man dipped his head, a stork-like gesture of affirmation. “Yes, he was indeed a clerk for some years, until I was forced to adjourn his position due to an excessive display of moral ambiguity.”
“You mean he tried some sort of fiddle, but you caught him with his hand in the kitty?”
The old man shot Sikander a look of profound consternation, as if to chastise him for interrupting. “Of course, I made it a point to keep a close eye on the man, especially when he entered British service. Let me just say that this very moral ambiguity is a quality that has served the Munshi exceedingly well while working for Major Russell. Since his promotion to the Resident’s vakalat, he has made quite a fortune for himself.”
“Is that so?” From his dress and demeanor, Sikander had not taken the Munshi to be particularly well off, little more than an average government employee. If what Ismail Chacha was saying was true, then that was a sham, a carefully orchestrated mask.
“Yes. From what I have been told, he is quite well known for being a speculator.” The minister’s voice hardened as he said the word speculator, crisping with contempt.
“What sort of speculations do you mean?”
“Land mainly,” Ismail Chacha replied dourly. “Some years ago, during your dear departed father’s tenure, the English asked us to grant them some acreage south of the city so that it could be allotted to widows who had lost their husbands in the Afghan Campaigns. As I recall, your father was exceedingly generous, and signed over close to four thousand hectares.”
Sikander let out a low whistle. That was a handsome allotment indeed. Generally, one hundred hectares was the equivalent of one square kilometer, and four thousand, that was a piece of land roughly the size of the old city, if not larger.
“Sadly,” Ismail Chacha continued, “the widows never actually received their grants. Instead, even as the awards were delayed interminably by the Resident’s office, the hapless women in question were approached by intermediaries and offered small settlements if they agreed to sign the land over to another agency. Can you guess who was in charge of making the allotments, and who was no doubt sending out these middlemen?”
Sikander gave the old man a sour grin. It was the oldest bundle of them all, a good old-fashioned land grab. In Rajpore, given its prime location and abundant harvest, every hectare was as good as gold, and whoever it was that had appropriated the land in question, he was bound to end up as prosperous as a zamindar.
“It was the Munshi, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, I am sure of it,” the old man said with a scowl. No wonder he was offended, Sikander thought. Not only had the Munshi been derelict in his duty and tried to use his position for profit, both of which were anathema to a man as unimpeachably honest as Ismail Bhakht, but then he had compounded his sin by preying on the helpless.
“Why didn’t you intervene, Ismail Chacha?”
“Surely you are joking, Huzoor. It was an English matter, and as you well know, we have no jurisdiction in the English town.”
Sikander nodded. He was right, of course. If he had tried to make a complaint, he would only have been rebuffed, a polite refusal no doubt, but a rejection nonetheless. The English were sticklers when it came to keeping Indian noses out of what they perceived as their business. It wasn’t just a matter of ego; it was unsubtle racism at its worst. The gora Sahibs believed themselves to be far superior to the natives, even though the culture of the Indus had been flourishing while they were running about, painting their faces blue with woad, and beating each other on the heads with clubs made of bone.
So, it seems the Munshi was building a handsome little empire of his own, Sikander thought, furrowing his brow. But why would that compel him to kill the Major? No, he was missing something. The scenario just did not make sense, unless…remembering what Jane had revealed about their squabbling, suddenly, Sikander saw it as clearly as one of Fibonacci’s hidden patterns.
“I think that perhaps we have this backwards,” Sikander said. “What if it was the Major who was the brains behind the whole operation, the puppet-master pulling the Munshi’s strings?”
Ismail Chacha mulled over this proposition for a minute before offering the barest of nods. “It is possible
, yes.”
“In that case, would that not provide a fine motive for murder? What if the Munshi was afraid that the Major intended to make him his scapegoat, that he planned to throw him to the wolves to cover his own nefarious tracks? Would that not be enough of a reason to want someone dead?”
Another, even longer pause ensued while Ismail Chacha considered this hypothesis, before he let out a low whistle, as if he was impressed.
“By the stars,” he cried, “I think you might just be onto something.”
Chapter Eighteen
As he emerged from this rather perplexing encounter with Ismail Bhakht, Sikander nearly crashed headlong into Charan Singh. The enormous Sikh was lurking behind a nearby pillar, doing a terrible job of trying to seem inconspicuous. When he rushed forward to accost the Maharaja, Sikander couldn’t help but take note that the man had a real beauty of a bruise beginning on one cheek, a florid lesion that made him look like he had just gone fifteen rounds with a prizefighter.
Sikander hid a smile. His instincts had been dead on, it seemed. The little Gurkha had turned out to be a handful after all. “Did you get your hands on the syce?”
“Yes, Sahib.” The big Sikh’s fingers reached instinctively for his cheek, caressing the bruise. “He is awaiting your arrival, in the dungeon.”
In truth, the dungeon was rather a grandiose name for what was little more than a guardhouse abutting the barracks of the Royal Guard. In Lal Singh’s time, there had been a proper bastille deep within the bowels of the killa, an ominous place where his enemies had been locked away, even tortured, but Sikander had made it a point to brick the place up the instant he came to power. Now, the kotwali was housed in a tall turreted tower at the distant corner of the east wing, used mainly to detain soldiers who had enjoyed rather too much to drink for their own good, and the occasional servant who decided to be a little too light-fingered. Even the interiors were more like an inn than a prison—instead of cells with chains and bars, the dungeon contained a number of neatly decorated rooms, simply furnished and kept immaculately clean. The only visible hint that this was a place of detention was the fact that each room was protected by a thick door reinforced with metal bands, and guarded by a sizable contingent of handpicked soldiers, who took turns patrolling the tower’s immediate environs in pairs.
The Gurkha was being held in a cell at the base of the tower. His hands and legs were manacled, and he was being watched over closely by a Daffadar Sergeant, a fit-looking young Sikh who resembled Charan Singh so much that Sikander guessed he was yet another of his innumerable sons.
“Leave us,” Sikander commanded. “I think your father and myself can handle this fellow.”
With a bow so sprightly that it nearly decapitated the Maharaja, the boy hurried away. Sikander nodded at Charan Singh, who shut the door and latched it securely, before crossing to stand behind the Gurkha, folding his arms across his chest and glowering down at the smaller man. Meanwhile, Sikander retreated to a narrow bench at the opposite side of the room and sat down, taking his time to dust his trousers and to carefully smooth back his hair before finally fixing his undivided attention on Gurung Bahadur.
How was he to break the man? Beyond a doubt, he would be a tough nut to crack. Gurkhas had a formidable reputation, not just as soldiers, but for personal toughness. There was a saying they were said to revere—”Kaphar hunnu bhanda marnu ramro”—“Better dead than live like a coward.” No, it would take a lot more than the mere threat of violence to loosen the syce’s tongue. One only had to cast a glance at his face to confirm that suspicion. Sikander had seen dockyard brawlers who looked less battered. If Charan Singh seemed knocked about, this fellow looked even worse for wear. His scarred face, already ugly to look at, was now positively villainous, like something from a nightmare, with one eye swollen almost shut and a nose so caked with blood that Sikander suspected it had been broken. Still, he looked uncowed, watching the Maharaja defiantly, without missing a blink.
Perhaps that was where the key to interrogating him lay, Sikander thought, and with this flash of insight came the realization of what approach he needed to adopt. If he was going to get to the Gurkha to talk, he would have to turn his very strength, his toughness, into a weapon and use it against him.
Sikander leaned forward, fixing the man with a stare that was nothing short of baleful. “I am very disappointed in you, Gurung Bahadur. I thought that your people were famous for their honor, but you are no true Gurkha. You have no honor, I see that now.”
As he had expected, this castigation made the man flinch far more readily than any blow could ever have. “Why do you say such a terrible thing to me, Sahib?” Gurung’s outrage was palpable with each word.
“You ate the Major Sahib’s salt. You swore an oath to him, did you not?”
“I did, and I obeyed it.”
Sikander let out a theatrical snort. “Lies! The first chance you had, you betrayed him. You betrayed your oath!”
“I did not.” The Gurkha clenched his teeth, rising to the bait, exactly as Sikander had hoped. “I swear it, by all that is holy.”
“Did you think I would not find out about your sister?”
Even as Sikander asked this question, the Gurkha’s demeanor changed. In the blink of an eye, his diffidence vanished, his face growing cold, so relentlessly adamant that Sikander felt a shiver run through him. At that moment, for the first time, Gurung Bahadur looked truly dangerous, the sort of man who could kill in cold blood and not lose a moment’s sleep over it. A quick glance to his right told him Charan Singh, who had drawn in his breath imperceptibly, had seen it too. This was it then, the tipping point, the crescendo of any interrogation. The next moments were make or break—would the man crack, or would he try to bluster his way out?
“Very well, Sahib.” The Gurkha offered Sikander a curt nod. “I confess. I am guilty.”
It was that simple, an admission so direct and unadorned that it managed to leave Sikander at an utter loss for words. While the Maharaja had certainly been hoping for a confession, what he had not expected was for it to be so forthright, so very straightforward. It was unsettling, to say the least.
“You would have liked my sister,” the Gurkha murmured. “She was very beautiful. Not just pretty, but as lovely as the moon on a winter night. And so innocent, barely more than a child.” He smiled wistfully. “When I was a boy, I always tried to protect her, to keep her safe, but then, when I came of age, I joined the Regiment, and had to leave her unguarded.” He let out a muted groan, a sigh so heartfelt it was almost a sob. “It is my fault, Sahib. I am responsible for what became of her. I do not deny my sister was a whore, but it was not her choice. My father sold her into servitude to the zamindars to pay off his debts. They forced her…they…”
His voice tapered away, too thick with sorrow to continue. Sikander watched the man silently, more than a little taken aback by such an open display of emotion from such a taciturn man. To his astonishment, he realized that some small part of him could not help but sympathize with the Gurkha. He had heard such stories before, of landlords taking possession of the children of serfs when harvests failed. It was little more than indentured slavery, and he had done everything in his power to stamp out such lamentable practices within the domain of his own kingdom, but outside Rajpore, he knew only too well that such things were woefully commonplace.
“You should have brought her to me. I would have helped you find justice.”
The Gurkha let out a sarcastic snort, halfway between a laugh and a gasp. “Justice, Sahib! Surely you are too wise to believe in something quite so naïve. There is no justice to be had against an Angrez of the Major’s standing, especially not for beating an Indian whore half to death.” He fixed Sikander with a mournful sneer, a grim deaths-head of a grin that looked like it belonged on a skull. “Besides, it is too late for my sister to hope for justice. She took her own life,” he explained. “She th
rew herself into the gorge not six weeks after that bastard ravaged her.”
This piece of information shocked Sikander. No wonder the Gurkha had been so eager to see Major Russell dead. He found himself at a loss for words, struggling to offer the man some measure of reassurance, but what could he say? What would it be but little more than cold comfort? No platitudes could make up for the loss of someone you loved, no matter how heartfelt.
The Gurkha seemed to sense his hesitation, and his lips split into a bitter grimace. “There is a story my mother told me when I was but a boy. Once there was a village that was being threatened by a savage monster. Each night, it would come and steal away their children, and eat them, leaving the bones behind to be found the next morning. The villagers were too scared to stop the monster, except for one boy who dreamed of being a hero. ‘I shall slay the beast,’ he announced, ‘and save all of you.’
“The villagers were overjoyed, and they gave him three gifts, a spear made of silver and a shield made of glass, and a rope made from the hair of a hundred virgins which would never break.
“The boy was scared, but he marched deep into the lair of the monster. ‘Come forth,’ he shouted a challenge, ‘and face me,’ brandishing his spear and clapping it against his shield to hide the sound of his knocking knees. In reply, the monster descended upon him, roaring with rage. It was horrific, a nightmare come to life, with the head of a lion and the body of a snake, and a mouth filled with teeth like glinting scimitars.
“‘You dare to challenge me, foolish boy,’ the beast roared. ‘I shall kill you slowly, until you beg me to die.’ With a growl, he swooped down, but before he could bite, the boy threw up his glass shield, and the sun reflecting from its shiny face blinded the beast, making him blink. Immediately, the boy leaped forward and quickly looped his rope around the beast, binding him up in knots that he simply could not break. The beast was stunned. He roared and raged, fighting the knots, but try as he might, he simply could not escape.
