The Empress of India

by Michael Kurland

  “How well?”

  Moran tapped the ash off the end of his cigar. “What would you say to twenty thousand pounds?” he asked.

  “I’d say that, invested conservatively, it could bring you an income of six hundred a year. And you could live quite well on six hundred a year. But then there would be my fee to consider, if I agree to help you.”

  “You misunderstand me, sir,” Moran said. “The twenty thousand would be your fee.”

  Moriarty polished his pince-nez and replaced them on the bridge of his nose. “You jest, sir,” he said.

  “I never jest about money,” Colonel Moran told him. “And I tell you in all honesty, since, if we are to do this, there should be no secrets between us, at least not concerning the task at hand, that my share will be five times that. I hope you have no problem with that.”

  “None,” Moriarty told him. “But in that case I will make sure that if there is any exceptional risk to be run, you will do the running, Colonel.”

  “Fair enough,” Moran agreed.

  Moriarty considered. “Two questions,” he said.

  “You want to know who has the statue now and where it is?” Moran said.

  “That will come later,” Moriarty told him. “Why is it worth so much to the current maharaja, and how do we know he will redeem it for the agreed-upon fee?”

  “Ah!” Moran said. “As to the first: during the hundred years or so that the statue was in the temple, it became known variously as the Goddess of Lamapoor, the Luck of Lamapoor, the Lady of Lamapoor, and the Queen of Lamapoor. You would pray, if you were so inclined, to one of its various aspects to achieve some worthwhile goal. The Goddess of Lamapoor was adept at providing relief to infertile couples. The Luck of Lamapoor assured success in business ventures. The Lady of Lamapoor answered questions and gave advice, by various forms of divination.”

  “Lovely!” Moriarty commented. He leaned back and closed his eyes. “And the Queen of Lamapoor?”

  “In her aspect as the Queen of Lamapoor the lovely Pati protected the maharaja and his subjects from harm.”

  “Ah!” Professor Moriarty said. “And has she been successful in this endeavor?”

  “Until her disappearance, she performed her job quite well. Lamapoor had a hundred years of prosperity and relative tranquillity while she reposed in her niche in the inner temple wall. The area produces pottery and rugs, both of which are of high quality and highly prized throughout India. After the theft, the country rapidly went to whatever the Hindus think of as perdition. The Sepoy War itself took its toll on the local population, with both sides behaving in a most un-civilized manner—if I do say so myself, as a British officer.”

  “And since the mutiny?”

  “One of the principal dyes used in the rug manufacture suddenly became unobtainable. It was made from some shellfish or other, I believe, and the bloody things died out. And the local clay used to make the pottery was becoming increasingly contaminated with, I believe, sulfur, which was difficult to remove and produced weak and unsuitable table-ware. And the migrating waterfowl began avoiding the local lakes. This was of only minor import to the economy, but was considered a bad omen.”

  “Indeed,” Professor Moriarty said. “I myself would consider it a bad omen. I can see why he wants the figure back. How do we know that he’ll pay for it?”

  “I went to school with the present maharaja. St. Simon’s Academy. It was where Westerby Mitchell, the Scottish engineer that contrived the, ah, device, had gone, and the maharajas of Lamapoor have been sending their male children there ever since. The present maharaja was one form behind me. ‘Little Pook,’ we called him. His older brother ‘Big Pook,’ was about eight years ahead of us. He was the direct heir, but he died in a tiger hunt. So ‘Little Pook’ is now the Maharaja of Lamapoor. Who would have guessed?”

  “So you’re counting on friendship to get paid?”

  “Friends? He was one form behind me, and he was a wog,” Moran said. “But we respected each other. He was, after all, an extremely rich wog. He had some trouble with, ah, hazing, from some of the more thickheaded students, which he solved by paying me to look after him; and I believe I did a good job. He invited me back to India with him before I took my commission. I spent over a year in Lamapoor, at the royal palace mostly. It was a changeabout, you see. There he was of the ruling class—quite literally—and I was, effectively, the wog. Taught me a lot, that year did.”

  Moriarty surveyed the colonel wordlessly while Moran stared at his highly polished boot, pondering what he had learned. “The maharaja is a man with an extreme sense of honor,” Moran said. “If we return the Queen of Lamapoor, we will be paid.”

  “Why,” Moriarty asked, “did the maharaja pick you to retrieve his statue?”

  “Direct, aren’t you?” Moran set his cigar carefully in the tray. “Well, if the truth be known, he didn’t, not exactly. He let it be known that he would pay a reward for the return of his, ah, luck. I heard of the reward. And, purely by chance, I caught the merest hint of the location of the missing lady. I took leave from my regiment and traced down the rumor through the Anglo-Indian army. I traveled to outposts in Kashmir and Baluchistan, and the scent grew stronger. It was a jeweler in Madras who gave me the final clue. I booked passage back to England on the Star of Belfast just as she was leaving port. Once here, I proceeded north to Kilmarnock in Ayr to confirm what I had learned. I was right, although I had guessed wrong in one respect. I sent a telegram to His Majesty to tell him that I might have found the object, and that I might be able to retrieve it, and asking him to confirm the reward. He replied—ah—he replied . . .” Moran dug through the various pockets in his jacket and pulled out a carefully folded bit of paper. “Here it is, his reply.” He passed it over to Professor Moriarty.

  MORAN: ANGLO-INDIAN: LONDON

  REWARD AS STATED STOP PLUS EXPENSES STOP USE NO VIOLENCE

  BREAK NO LAWS IN OBTAINING OBJECT STOP QUEEN OF LAMAPOOR

  MUST REMAIN UNBLEMISHED STOP GOOD HUNTING STOP

  LITTLE POOK

  Moriarty raised an eyebrow. “I see your dilemma,” he said.

  “Indeed,” Colonel Moran agreed. “A little smash-and-grab, no problem. Cosh a couple of skulls in the process; part of the game. One of ’em dies, well, that’s the breaks. I mean, it would have been difficult anyway. Deucedly difficult. But possible. I might have come along to see you and asked for a spot of advice, but I wouldn’t have had to bother you to the extent of asking you to become part of the operation. No, sir.”

  “Break no laws, eh? Interesting problem. I assume you can’t just buy it from whoever has it, or you wouldn’t be here. Well, where is this little trinket, and how are you planning to get at it?”

  “As to the getting at it, well, that’s going to be your department, Professor, if you accept this little assignment. As to where she is . . .” Moran took a long draught on his cigar and slowly blew the smoke out. “She’s now in the possession—I might say she’s the mascot—of the Duke of Moncreith’s Own Highland Lancers. She is placed to the side of the ranking officer at the head of the mess table every evening, and the Lancers drink a toast to her immediately after toasting the queen. So much I learned. While the regiment is at home, she never leaves the officer’s mess at their barracks at Castle Fitzroberts in Kilmarnock. Well, a bit outside of Kilmarnock. But the Duke’s Own is back in India at the moment, and so the Lady is closer to home than she has been at any time in these past thirty years. In effect, she’s being guarded by sixty officers and twelve hundred men. There is no amount of money, nor any inducement that I can think of, that would cause them to part with their lady.”

  “Do they know what they have?”

  “Apparently not. They call her the ‘Lady of Lucknow.’ The story is that their regimental sergeant major, McQuist by name, came across her in a cart that had been abandoned by the side of the road while the regiment was engaged in the assault and recapture of Lucknow in March of 1858. Somehow, between her
disappearance and her discovery she had been brass-plated. Who put her in the cart is anybody’s guess. She immediately, or so the story goes, saved the lives of the sergeant major and two subalterns.”

  “A busy little statue,” Moriarty commented. “And just where is she at the moment? Where are the two brigades of the Duke of Moncreith’s Own messing down? Kashmir? Delhi? Afghanistan?”

  “In Calcutta by now, I believe,” Colonel Moran told him. “The officers and men of the Highland Lancers have come in from showing the flag somewhere upcountry, and are gathering to return to England. They will be in Calcutta for a month or so, and then board a steamer for the trip home.”

  “A troopship?”

  The men and horses will go by troopship, but most of the officers usually choose a higher degree of comfort, especially as many of them have their families with them. So they’ll be on one of the civilian steamships—first class, of course.”

  “Ah!” Moriarty said. “And the statue will, I assume, travel with the officers.”

  “Of course. Then you’ll help?”

  “Quite possibly. It is an interesting challenge, and the reward is sufficient to the task. I need more information. I’ll make you a list of what I need to know. Are you in communication with someone in Calcutta?”

  “I have an agent there,” Moran told him. “An old messmate, actually. Cashiered out over some trouble involving a deck of cards. It seems that some, ah, marks had been added to the backs.”

  “I’m shocked,” Moriarty said.

  “Yes,” Moran replied dryly. “I thought you would be.”

  Professor Moriarty rose to his feet. “If we do this, we’ll have to act immediately.”

  “And do what?”

  “Leave for India. We must get there before the Lady of Lucknow starts on her trip home.”

  “And then what?”

  “If we go the fastest way possible, it will take us three weeks to get to Calcutta. That gives me three weeks to think of something.”

  Colonel Moran stood up and saluted Moriarty. “Right-oh, Professor,” he said, pulling on his overcoat and clapping his hat firmly on his head. “I’ll pack. It’s good to have you on board.”

  “I’ve been meaning to go to India for some time,” Moriarty remarked, rising and walking Colonel Moran to the door. “I understand that the records of the Indian astrologers go back many centuries, and there are written observations which comment on the supernova which appeared suddenly in the constellation of Taurus in 1054. I’d like a chance to peruse some of their sky charts from that time which might show the exact location of the star.”

  Moran stared at Moriarty for a second, afraid that he was being made the butt of some obscure joke. But he decided the professor was serious. “Whatever it takes, Professor,” he said, tipping his hat. “Whatever it takes!”

  FIVE

  THE ENIGMATIC

  DR. PIN DOK LOW

  Fate sits on these dark battlements and frowns,

  And as the portal opens to receive me,

  A voice in hollow murmurs through the courts

  Tells of a nameless deed.

  —Ann Radcliffe

  The boy’s long nose and protruding teeth were set in a face as white as whey, and his large ears protruded abruptly from the sides of his head. He was called Rodent by everyone who knew him, except his employer and mentor, Dr. Pin Dok Low. Dr. Pin called him “Charles.” It was a name that had been given him by Dr. Pin, no more his real name than was “Rodent,” but then neither he nor anybody else knew whether he had actually had a birth name, or what it might be. He was also necessarily vague as to his age and his birthday. He thought he might be fourteen, but he looked younger. Most children of the London slums, through malnutrition, lack of exercise, and a paucity of sunlight, looked younger than their age until, suddenly, they looked much older.

  He had been called Rodent for as long as he could remember. “Hit’s not as hif I minds the name,” he told Dr. Pin. “I don’t—not weally.” And indeed, among his comrades, Gimpy, Spits, Fingers, Warty, and the others, his name was not remarkable.

  A short while after Rodent and his friends had entered Pin Dok Low’s employment, Dr. Pin had taken him aside and regarded him thoughtfully. “From now on,” Pin decided, “you will regard ‘Charles’ as your given name.”

  “My given name?”

  “Yes, because, you see, I gave it to you.”

  “Ah, I see,” Charles said, although he didn’t—not really.

  “If you want others to respect you,” Pin told him patiently, “you must respect yourself. ‘Rodent’ is not a name to engender respect. And”—Dr. Pin Dok Low prodded the boy’s chest with a long forefinger—“you will be much more useful to me if others trust and respect you.”

  “Yessir,” Charles said doubtfully.

  Pin sighed a patient sigh. “We have a long way to go before we reach that particular sunny upland plateau.”

  Charles was meeting with Dr. Pin in the small warehouse on Bank End Wharf where Pin maintained a—what? Residence? There was no sign that Pin actually lived there. Hideout? But everyone who mattered knew that this was where Pin was to be found. Office? If Pin conducted any business out of the warehouse, it was not evident. It was, Charles supposed, Dr. Pin’s place, his spot. Everyone had to have a place, and this was Pin Dok Low’s.

  The Rodent—Charles—was the leader of a group of street urchins called the Limehouse Coneys, who made a precarious living snatching blows, rozzers, and skins—handkerchiefs, pocket watches, and wallets—from such gentlemen as passed through their neighborhood who were well off enough to possess such fineries. He and his associates had recently accepted another sort of employment from Dr. Pin. “They are my eyes and ears throughout London,” as Pin had explained to the Artful Codger.

  “They’re nothing more than a bunch of dirty young hooligans,” Codger had responded.

  “Exactly!” Dr. Pin had smiled his crafty smile. “And as such they can go anywhere and see anything. They may be met with kicks or blows, they may be forcibly ejected from here or there, but they will incite no suspicion that they are any more than they seem to be. Sneak thieves, scamps, and hooligans, yes. Spies, no. Give someone something bad to think about you and he will be satisfied, and will seldom try to imagine something worse.”

  And the Coneys were performing their assignments well. For the cost of six shillings a week, Pin Dok Low had eyes and ears all over London. Such was the price of the souls of a dozen boys.

  “Well, Charles?” Pin Dok Low demanded, sitting on his high red chair behind his high ebon desk and staring down unblinkingly at the young street arab. “What have you for me today?”

  “There’s nuffing stirring at the Baker Street crib,” Charles replied, hat respectfully in his hands, feet together, eyes focused on the little ivory idol on the desk. “Mrs. Hudson, the landlady, she goes out and comes in ’bout twice a day. That Dr. Watson, ’e come there yesterday for a bit, kind of stared at fings in the study—you could see him fru the winder from the ’ouse across the street—and went away again. But no sign of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Welcome news,” Pin said.

  “And?” “And that professor cove in Russell Square—’e’s going away.”

  Pin Dok Low stood up and slapped his hands down on the desk with a sudden noise that made the Rodent jump. “Going away? What do you mean, going away?”

  “I means what I says,” the Rodent said, trying not to cringe as Pin Dok Low towered over him. “ ’E put this ’ere great trunk in a growler first fing this morning and sent it off to Victoria Station, didn’t ’e? And then ’e followed ’imself with another trunk in a second growler, didn’t ’e?”

  “Blast!” said Dr. Pin Dok Low. “Where on earth could the man be going?”

  “India,” Charles told him. “ ’E’s going to India. Calli-cutta, as ’e said.”

  “Indeed?” Pin sat slowly back down on his chair. “Calcutta, is it? And just how do you know that?”


  “Didn’t I follow ’im to Victoria Station? Didn’t I wisk life and limb by ’anging on to the back of ’is growler? ’E met another cove at the station, see, and I overhears their gab.”

  Pin leaned forward and fixed his gaze on Charles. “And who was the other gentleman?”

  “I didn’t ’appen to ’ear that, did I? They didn’t ’appen to mention ’is name. Big, ’eavyset cove, struts about like a soldier.”

  “And what did they do?”

  “They booked a first-class carriage on the Continental Express. They’re going to cross the Channel tomorrow morning, and take the boat train to Paris. Then they’re going to Calli-cutta.”

  “And how are they going from Paris?”

  “They didn’t say, did they? I mean, they ain’t going to discuss their entire aytinny-arary standing there in front of the station, just so’s I can overhear it, now, are they?”

  “And you heard nothing more?”

  “No, sir,” Charles said. “Well, not much. The professor, he said as how he figures that going as far as they can by train will cut a couple of weeks off the time, ’cause of ’ow a train’s faster than what a boat is.”

  “Ship,” Pin corrected automatically.

  “Yessir, ship. They wants to get there before the regiment sails.”

  “The regiment. Ah, of course—the regiment. Just which regiment would that be?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  Pin Dok Low leaned back and closed his eyes. For several minutes he said nothing, and the Rodent waited with his hat in his hand, unsure of what to do and afraid to make a sound. Finally Pin opened his eyes again. “Interesting,” he said. “But for now . . .” He leaned forward and lowered his head until his eyes were level with those of the young street arab. “You are doing well. Keep it up and don’t fail me, and you and your fellows will be adequately rewarded. Keep an eye on sixty-four Russell Square, in case Professor Moriarty should suddenly return. Keep watch on the house of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and regularly report who goes in and comes out.”