The Case of the Indian Curse (Andrew Tillet, Sara Wiggins & Inspector Wyatt Book 8)

by Robert Newman

  “You mean it still does exist today?” said Andrew.

  “Yes, my young friend. It still does, even under the British rule. Or at least it did until just a short time ago. It went on for centuries under our own native rulers. And why not, when the profits from this religious killing were so enormous that protection could be bought from the highest authorities? It was not until Lord William Bentinck became governor general in the late 1820’s that truly vigorous efforts were made to stamp it out. He thought it important enough to establish a Department of Dacoity and Thuggee as part of his government. And it was an agent of this department, Captain William—later Sir William—Sleeman who was able to end this criminal activity by penetrating the organization with several companions. Through their testimony and that of informers, more than three thousand Thugs were identified, brought to trial, and either imprisoned or hanged.”

  “Three thousand?” said Tucker.

  “Yes, sergeant. That will give you some idea of the size of the organization. It’s impossible to be certain how many victims this dreadful and murderous sect claimed, but Captain Sleeman estimated that for the previous three hundred years the Thugs killed about forty thousand men and women a year.” He looked around at them. “You are shocked?”

  “Shocked is not a strong enough word,” said Wyatt. “Speechless would be more accurate. I knew something about the Thugs, but even I am astonished.”

  “But how did they do it?” asked Sara in an incredulous, horrified voice. “How could they do it, kill forty thousand people a year and not be caught?”

  “First of all, they did not operate in the cities where there was a certain amount of law and police protection. They operated in the countryside, and their technique was simple. Individual members of a Thug gang would pose as guides, soldiers, priests—either Muslim or Hindu—anything that might be useful to a traveler. As I told you, the word thug means deceiver. The leader of the gang—in whatever role he had chosen—would offer his services to a merchant or rich traveler, involve other members of his group as porters, mule or camel drivers, cooks, or servants. Then, when they were in an isolated spot, they would kill their victims, bury them, and divide their money and goods.”

  “This killing,” said Tucker, “it was done by strangling?”

  “The police officer’s interest in method, the modus operandi,” said Bannerji with a slight smile. “No, sergeant. Though they were called the Stranglers, they did not always kill by strangulation. The ritual rumal, or noose, was actually a silk scarf. Silver coins were knotted into one corner of it to give it weight. When a skilled bhottote, or strangler, used it, he would whip it out of his belt with one fluid motion. The weight of the silver coins would carry it around his victim’s neck and, with a practiced twist, the Thug would break his victim’s neck, killing him instantly.” Then, as Tucker looked significantly at Inspector Wyatt, “Did you have a special reason for asking that question?”

  “Yes,” said Tucker. “I’ll tell you why in a little while.”

  “You began by saying that you wanted to talk to us about our friend, Beasley,” said Andrew.

  “I did. And I will now get to him,” said Bannerji. “By the late 1830’s the Thugs had virtually been wiped out. But their roots went so deep that it was difficult to destroy them completely. About ten years ago there was a revival of their activities. Their operations were not nearly as extensive as they had been before, but enough murders were being committed to alert the authorities. They did what they had done so successfully before—found someone who could penetrate the Thug organization as Captain Sleeman had and bring its leaders to justice. Again the tactic was successful, and a little over a year ago several hundred important Thugs were brought to trial and either executed or imprisoned.”

  “And who was the man who penetrated the organization this time?” asked Wyatt.

  “We do not know,” said Bannerji. “At least, I don’t. It is generally believed that he was an Anglo-Indian, an Englishman who was brought up in India and could pass as either a Hindu or a Muslim. But aware of the danger he was in—for any remaining Thugs would have sworn an oath to kill him—the authorities kept his identity a secret. He testified wearing a mask and under an assumed name. Not only that, but when the trial was over, he and a man who worked closely with him—a Muslim named Amir Ali—were at once sent out of the country.”

  “Where are they now?” asked Sean.

  “I can tell you where Amir Ali is,” said Bannerji. “As I’m sure Inspector Wyatt can, too. He’s in the British cemetery in Alexandria.”

  “You mean he’s dead?” said Sara.

  “Yes. Somehow the remaining Thugs discovered his true identity and the one under which he was traveling. They caught up with him when his ship stopped in Alexandria, killed him there.”

  “And the Englishman?” asked Andrew.

  “Disappeared. Until that time he had been relying on the authorities to keep his identity hidden and protect him. When his friend and associate, Amir Ali, was killed, he must have thought that he could no longer count on the authorities. That he would be better off on his own. So he dropped out of sight, disappeared without a trace.”

  “I still don’t see what this has to do with Mr. Beasley,” said Sean.

  “Don’t you?” said Bannerji. “I venture to suggest that Inspector Wyatt does.”

  “I think I know what you have in mind,” said Wyatt. “You think that this mysterious Anglo-Indian agent came here to England, got in touch with Beasley, and Beasley helped him hide, disappear. You think further that all these strange things have been happening to Beasley because members of the Thug gang, who are now here in England, believe this too and have been trying to find out from him who this Mr. X is and where they can find him.”

  “Exactly. You have hit the nail squarely on the head, as I thought you would.”

  “The reason I asked before just how these Thugs killed,” Tucker said to Wyatt, “is because during the past week we’ve had three murders in which the victims were robbed. In each case, though we called them garrotings or stranglings, the victim’s necks were broken.”

  “I suspected that,” said Bannerji. “If there were Thugs here in London and they needed money, they would obtain it exactly as they would have in India.”

  “Yes,” said Wyatt. “May I ask what your relationship with Beasley was—when and how you met him?”

  “Of course,” said Bannerji. “And in this Mr. O’Farrell will bear me out. I happened to walk past his shop about three weeks ago, saw a statue of Kali in the window, and immediately went in to talk to him. I asked him if he knew what it was. He did and he also knew that it was old and authentic, but he refused to tell me where he had gotten it. Is this true, Mr. O’Farrell?”

  “As far as I know, it is,” said Sean.

  “I then told him a little about Kali’s—or Bhowani’s—connection with the Thugs and warned him that it might be dangerous to show it openly as he had been doing. He shrugged, clearly skeptical of what I had said, and I left. When I stopped by again about ten days ago, however, the statue was gone. He would not tell me what had happened to it, and he was clearly a very frightened man.”

  “What do you think happened in the meantime?” asked Wyatt.

  “I think that during that time the unknown Anglo-Indian you called Mr. X arrived in London and, for some reason, got in touch with him. I think that Beasley helped him in some way and, if nothing else, knows who he is. The Thugs who are here in London trying to find Mr. X must have suspected this, too, and have been trying to find out exactly what Beasley knows. When Beasley finally realized the danger he was in, he decided to disappear in order to protect himself.”

  “I don’t know all the details of his disappearance yet,” said Wyatt, “but how do you know he went off on his own? How do you know that the Thugs have not captured him?”

  “That is a possibility. I did not mention it because I do not like to think the worst in any situation. And this would be t
he worst. For if the Thugs have indeed captured him, after they have learned what they want to know from him, they will kill him.”

  “Then we’d better hope that your first thought was the correct one,” said Wyatt. “Thank you very much for coming here, Mr. Bannerji, for your interest in this matter, and for the information you have given us. I can reach you at the East India Company on Leadenhall Street?”

  “You can, sir,” said Bannerji, rising. “I am on my way there now.”

  “I am not yet back officially,” said Wyatt. “But I will be tomorrow, and I will then go into the whole matter very thoroughly. If I turn up anything that I think will interest you or I need your help again, I will get in touch with you.”

  “Thank you, sir. It was a pleasure—and an honor—to meet you.” And bowing politely to all of them, Bannerji left.

  “All right,” said Wyatt. “Our young irregulars here, Sara and Andrew, gave me the short version of everything that’s been happening. I’d like them to go over it again in more detail, and I’d like you to add anything you think necessary, Sean.”

  They did as he asked, and occasionally, as Wyatt had requested, Sean interrupted or added something. Again Wyatt listened quietly, asking only a few questions. One of them concerned Dr. Reeves. He wanted to know if he had come up with a firm diagnosis of Beasley’s condition. When he heard that, as far as Sara, Andrew, and Sean knew, he hadn’t, he told Tucker to make a note that he wanted to talk to Reeves. The other question concerned the room in the St. John’s Wood house in which Beasley had been staying before he disappeared. Was there anything strange or different about it, he wanted to know.

  Andrew, Sara, and Sean looked at one another, thinking about it.

  “The one thing that seemed a little odd to me,” said Andrew finally, “is that when he asked Sean to open a window, he only wanted him to open one window and tie back one curtain.”

  “That’s true,” said Sean. “When I wanted to open a second window and tie back that curtain, he told me not to.”

  Wyatt nodded, swinging his chair around and looking out the window at the Thames where a tug was pulling a string of lighters upstream. Sara studied him, frowning.

  “There’s something rum about this,” she said. “Beasley was your friend long before he was ours. You introduced us to him and we know you like him, but somehow you don’t seem terribly upset at what’s happened to him. Is it because you know something that we don’t?”

  “What can I know when I just got back to London?”

  “I don’t know,” said Andrew, “but Sara’s right. You either know something or you’ve guessed something. I’ll bet you know what’s happened to him, maybe even where he is.”

  “That’s very flattering. Do you think I’m a magician, a psychic, or the Sleuth of all Sleuths?”

  “If you mean by that, the best detective in England, the answer is, yes. Sometimes.”

  “I repeat, that’s very flattering, and it’s nice to be appreciated by two such illustrious colleagues, but—” He broke off at a knock. Tucker went to the door and came back with a telegram, which he gave to Wyatt. Wyatt read it and put it in his pocket without commenting on its contents.

  “I believe I promised you lunch, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did,” said Sara.

  “Well, it’s getting late. Why don’t the two of you go ahead to The White Stag and get a table for us—the one in the bay window if possible. I want to talk to Sean and Sergeant Tucker; Sean and I will be along soon.”

  Sara and Andrew looked at him, then at Tucker and Sean. They did not look at one another, but each knew what the other was thinking. Then they got up and left.

  11

  The White Stag

  The White Stag was one of Wyatt’s favorite restaurants. Sara and Andrew had been to it several times with him. They left the Yard by the rear entrance, the one notables or officials who don’t want to be seen and recognized used, and walked up Cannon Street toward Bridge Street. Frank, one of the waiters who knew them, saw them come in.

  “Is the inspector back?” he asked.

  “Just got back. He’ll be along soon,” said Andrew.

  “Ah. He’ll be wanting his old table then.”

  Moving quickly, he cut off four Foreign Office types who were on their way to the table in the bay window, explained that it was reserved and, after turning them over to another waiter, settled Sara and Andrew there.

  “How many of you will there be?” he asked.

  “Four, I think,” said Sara.

  “And you’ll want to wait till the others get here before you order.”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Don’t mind at all. Tell the inspector we’ve got steak-and-kidney pie today. If he’s just back from foreign parts like I think he is, that’s what he’ll want after all that fancy, saucy, garlicky food.”

  “Probably. It’s what I want anyway,” said Andrew.

  “And I do, too,” said Sara. “All right,” she continued as Frank went off. “Go ahead.”

  “With what?”

  “What you were saying. I agree with what you said so far. I don’t think your honorable stepfather is as worried about old Beasley as we’ve been, and I think the reason he’s not is because he’s got a pretty good idea of what happened to him.”

  “I know I said that, and I think it’s true; but I’ll be dashed if I know how he knows.”

  “Well, he can only know it from what we told him, so let’s go over it. What were the things he seemed most interested in and asked questions about?”

  “The first one was about the note Beasley got the afternoon before he disappeared. He wanted to know if we’d seen it, knew who it was from, or what was in it.”

  “And of course we didn’t see it,” said Sara.

  “Right. The other thing he was interested in was Beasley having Sean tie back just one curtain, but—” He broke off. “That’s it.”

  “When you put the two things together like that, yes. I think it is. The note must have been from someone who said, if you want to get away and need help, signal me by tying back one curtain in your room. He did signal him, and whoever sent him the note did help him get away, so the chances are he’s safe somewhere.”

  “Chances are. But we can’t be sure of it. The next question is why he sent us here and kept Sean there.”

  “Because he wanted to talk to him and didn’t want us around when he did.”

  “That’s obvious. But why? Sean doesn’t know anything that we don’t know. At least, I don’t think he does.”

  “I don’t think he does either. That means Peter must have wanted to tell him something. Was it something he wanted him to do?”

  “Probably. The question is, what was it? And who helped Beasley?” They stared at one another. “Come on, Sara, think! If Peter was able to figure it out, we should be able to.”

  “That’s not true. He is a little older and more experienced than we are and, since he’s at the Yard, he may have information that we don’t have.”

  “That’s so. And I suppose we ought to allow for the possibility that he may be just a little smarter than we are.”

  “What are you saying?” said Sara with pretended incredulity.

  “I know,” said Andrew, smiling. “I don’t really think that’s possible either, but … you know what? Tomorrow, just for fun, I’d like to see if we can’t do a little more about this—either find Beasley or figure out what it is Peter wants Sean to do.”

  “Peter won’t like it. That’s probably why he didn’t want us around when he talked to Sean.”

  “He didn’t tell us to stay out of it, did he?”

  “He probably thought we’d have sense enough to know that without his saying anything about it. Those Thugs sound like an awfully scary crew. Still, I suppose if we’re careful.…”

  At this point Wyatt and Sean came in, and they talked no more about it. They all had steak-and-kidney pie as Frank had thought they would, and then Se
an left to go back to the shop.

  Wyatt and the two young people took a four-wheeler home where, under Verna’s supervision, their bags were being unpacked so that she and Wyatt could begin distributing the presents that they had brought home—not just for Andrew, Sara, and Mrs. Wiggins—but apparently for almost everyone they knew.

  That evening Lawrence Harrison, the manager who had produced all the plays in which Verna had appeared, came for dinner with his wife and was regaled with tales about the trip, which seemed to have been everything that everyone had expected it to be.

  When Sara and Andrew went up to bed, the travelers had only reached Venice in their account—with their stays in Florence and Rome still to come.

  12

  The Dust Yard

  The next morning Andrew dressed carefully: carefully in the sense of thoughtfully, rather than in the sense in which the phrase is usually used. For he put on his oldest clothes—a pair of patched trousers and a jacket he had outgrown more than a year before. And instead of his school cap, he put in his pocket a deplorable tweed hat that he sometimes wore in the rain.

  Verna would have had something to say about the way he was dressed if she had seen him, but she never came down for breakfast, and Wyatt was too busy reading the morning Times and getting ready for his first official day at the Yard to notice. Sara, on the other hand, looked as neat as she always did. But after Wyatt left—and after she had told her mother that she and Andrew were going out and would not be home for lunch—she told Andrew to go ahead and slipped upstairs. When she joined him walking toward Wellington Road, she was wearing a dress that was a little too small for her and very faded from many washings.

  “I remember that dress,” said Andrew. “It’s the one you wore when we went boating in Regent’s Park and you fell overboard.”

  “I never fell overboard,” she said indignantly. “I got wet from the way you were rowing. And when we got home, Mum told me it was time I got rid of it and to put it in with the things she was sending to the Salvation Army.”

  “But you didn’t.”