The Empress of India

by Michael Kurland

  St. Yves clutched the handle of his dress sword. “I doubt if this thing’s sharp enough to do much damage,” he said. “B-but you show me which of Her Majesty’s civil servants you wish skewered, and I shall make the attempt.”

  “Really!” Margaret said, stepping back to examine her handiwork. “You are a pair of bloodthirsty gentlemen.”

  The viceroy took a pair of white cotton gloves from the pocket of his jacket and slipped them on. “But well dressed,” he said, “and with excellent manners.” He examined himself in the slender mirror in the wall behind his desk. “Thank you, my dear,” he said.

  “We should precede you into the hall,” St. Yves said.

  The viceroy lowered himself into the chair behind his desk and waved them into nearby chairs. “I must speak with you before we go in,” he said. “Please sit down.”

  “Certainly, Your Excellency,” St. Yves replied.

  Sir George nodded. “Two things,” he said. “The first is official.” He turned to Margaret. “It’s also confidential. I won’t ask you to leave the room, that would be rude, and we English gentlemen may be blood-thirsty, but we are never rude. So I will merely ask you not to mention it to anyone until, ah, until you reach England.”

  “Asking me to keep a secret is never ‘mere,’ ” she told him. “But”—she made the mark of a large X across her chest with her forefinger—“I solemnly promise that whatever secrets you may share with us will never be divulged by me. Never.”

  “Excellent,” Sir George said, smiling. He turned his gaze back to General St. Yves. “You are returning to England momentarily, I believe.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency. The Highland Lancers have been relieved, as you know. The men will be embarking on the troopship Egypt, probably at the end of this coming week. Most of the officers, particularly those with family here, will be taking whatever passenger ship leaves soonest after the Egypt.” St. Yves smiled a wry smile. “The passenger ship will be more comfortable and faster, but Her Majesty’s government will not pay for mere comfort for enlisted men. Or for officers, either, if it comes to that, but we can afford the passage. So we’ll p-probably be waiting on the dock for the men when the Egypt arrives.”

  Sir George leaned back in his chair and stared steadily at St. Yves. “In this case,” he told him, “you and your officers and some of your men will be traveling on The Empress of India. Rather fitting, all things considered. Her Majesty’s government will reimburse you, since you will be on the queen’s business.”

  “I see.” St. Yves thought this over, but no possible reason for this unexpected governmental munificence came to mind. “I sense that you are about to tell me something that I will not like,” he told the viceroy, “although what it might be exceeds my grasp.”

  There was a knock at the door, and a small young man in an oversized turban and baggy shirt and trousers came into the room.

  “Ah, Djuna,” the viceroy said, “there you are. Where were you when I was trying to fix this sash? Never mind, it’s done now; this charming young lady did it for me.”

  “So sorry this babu was called away, sahib,” Djuna said, bowing several times briefly, giving the general appearance of one bobbing for invisible apples. “So happy that the memsahib was able to help. The job of personal secretary to the sahib viceroy involves affixing cravat and sash, making tea, tending to visitors, beating shoe-wallah for not properly shining shoes, chasing away native job seekers and mendicants who would invade viceroy’s office pleading for baksheesh. All is time-consuming, and sometimes functions overlap. I sincerely abase myself.”

  “First of all, you’re my valet, not my personal secretary,” Sir George said crossly. “You can’t go around making up any title that pleases you. Last week it was—what was it?—social assistant. What on earth is a social assistant? Second of all, if I ever catch you beating the shoe-wallah—do I have a shoe-wallah?—I will personally beat you severely.”

  “Yes, sahib, you will,” Djuna agreed. “There is native person to see you. A merchant of some sort, perhaps; although there is something of the hill tribesman about him. He says he has news. I have put him in the waiting room to your office.”

  “At this hour?” the viceroy grumbled. “Tell him to come back during the day.”

  “He says it is important even now. He says, ‘To be or not to be.’ Is quote from famous English playwright-wallah Shakespeare.”

  “Ah!” the viceroy said. “Bring him some tea and have some food sent to him. Tell him I’ll be with him in a bit.”

  “To be or not to be?” Margaret asked.

  “It is a, ah, sort of password,” Sir George explained. “The native must be a member of what we call the ‘Scouts.’ They travel all over India and gather information in which the government might be interested. I’ll see him after the burra khana.”

  Djuna bowed. “You wish me to assist you with your sword before I depart?” he asked.

  “I am not wearing my sword.”

  “That is self-obviously so. You desire assistance putting it on?”

  “I am not wearing my sword, and I do not intend to wear my sword. You may put my sword away in the cabinet.”

  “Big painting on wall of dining room shows viceroy wearing fancy dress, gold stripes, sash with medals of many shapes and colors, and great gold sword.”

  “That was painted a hundred years ago. Lord Wellesley wore a sword. I choose not to.”

  “The hoi and the polloi at the burra khana will expect to see viceroy-wallah altogether decked out in full splendiferous costume,” Djuna insisted.

  “But without the sword, my young friend. Now get out of here before I either wallop you or dock your pay.”

  Djuna shrugged. “Okey-doke. But please for the wallop. My wages already insignificant enough.” He circled the desk, picked up the sword, and trotted out of the room.

  “So,” St. Yves said, “the hoi and the polloi are going to be among us at the dinner. Just how hoi, and which polloi, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Sir George dropped heavily back into his chair. “It’s my wife’s idea,” he said. “The common people must get a chance to mingle with their governor at least twice a year. Just not too common, and mostly European. The natives we invite are mostly of higher status than many of the Anglos.”

  “Very democratic,” Margaret remarked.

  The viceroy looked at her contemplatively for a moment, and then turned back to St. Yves. “Here’s the situation regarding The Empress of India,” he said. “I want you to pick, say, five of your officers and thirty of your most dependable men to sail back with you on her.”

  “To do what?” St. Yves asked.

  “As it happens, you’ll be guarding a treasure. Unofficially, or let me say semiofficially, but that’s what I want you there for.”

  “A treasure?” St. Yves asked. “What sort of treasure?”

  “The Empress has been refitted with a large strong-room,” the viceroy told him. “When she arrives here in the middle of next week, it will be emptied of the first shipment of a new paper currency that we are about to introduce. Then it will be filled with a great amount of gold bullion, to a value of some four million pounds, that is even now being assembled, under heavy guard, at Fort William. The gold is to be taken back to the Bank of England, where it will be used, among other things, to back the currency.”

  Margaret raised her hand to interrupt the flow of conversation. “If you don’t mind my asking what I’m sure is a silly question,” she said, “what is the advantage of taking gold away and issuing paper money, if the gold is going to be used to back the paper money? Why not just turn the gold into coins?”

  The viceroy shrugged. “It’s not a silly question,” he said. “It’s one I’ve asked myself. And the only answer I can give you is that the banking-wallahs say it’s a good idea. Something about convertibility. For every rupee’s worth of gold that we’re keeping in the vaults, we can issue ten or twelve rupees of paper. Don’t ask me why, but I’m
told we can do that. Not only that, but the gold can be loaned out and earn interest at the same time as it’s backing the currency; and even when it’s loaned out it never physically leaves the bank.”

  “Oh,” Margaret said.

  St. Yves leaned back in his chair and stared fixedly at the viceroy. “My question is: Why are we to guard the gold, and from what exactly are we guarding it?”

  “Another good question, and the answer is: I don’t exactly know. But come now, we must go join the, ah, crowd. It would never do for the viceroy to be late for his own burra khana.” Sir George patted his old school chum on the shoulder. “Return here after dinner and we’ll work out the details. All will be made clear to you. And perhaps even to me.”

  SEVEN

  WEST OF SUEZ

  Go on my friend, and fear nothing;

  you carry Caesar and his fortunes in your boat.

  —Julius Caesar (as quoted by Plutarch)

  The boat train from Calais pulled into the Gare du Nord at three-fifteen in the afternoon, and a cloud of visiting Anglais and returning Francais flowed out to the platform and quickly dissipated onto the streets of Paris. Professor Moriarty and Colonel Sebastian Moran were among the last to leave the first-class carriage, acting on the years of experience that had taught them that caution is most valuable when there is no apparent need.

  After a few moments, they were joined by Mummer Tolliver, Moriarty’s servant and “midget of all work,” accompanied by a blue-jacketed porter pushing a hand truck. “This gent assures me that if I give him the baggage ticket, he’ll bring us our luggage,” Mummer said. “Either that or I have two sick dogs in the handbag of my aunt. He seems to be speaking some foreign language, which I am trying to follow along as best I can out of thissere book.”

  “French, perhaps?” Moriarty suggested.

  “That’s what he’d like us to think,” the mummer said darkly, “but can we be sure?”

  Moriarty sighed and shook his head. “Give the porter the baggage tickets,” he told Mummer. “We’ll take the risk.”

  “As you say,” the mummer agreed, and he handed the flimsy documents over to the porter, who shrugged a fatalistic Gallic shrug and headed off in the direction of the baggage car.

  “Now, my friends, comes the moment of decision,” Moriarty said. “Mummer, when the porter returns with the baggage you’ll have to have him take them to the salle des bagages so the French authorities can signify their approval of our possessions. Then check them in the cloakroom—the sign says consigne—and join us.”

  “Course I will,” the mummer said with a tip of his hat. “Who says I won’t? Join you where?”

  Moriarty thought for a second. “The Café du Chien Soured, I suppose, on the Rue de Maubeuge, about a block away to the right.”

  A light snowfall welcomed them to the street, and the air smelled of coal, wood, and charcoal fires; and wet horse from the row of carriages pulled up outside the station. Moriarty and Colonel Moran belted their greatcoats, pulled up their collars, settled their hats firmly on their heads, and braved the block and a half to the café. They settled at a table by the window where they could watch the snow falling against a background of grimy train station. Moriarty ordered a cappuccino and a plate of bread and cheese. Moran, a whiskey and soda, “and that will do me nicely, thank you.”

  Moriarty spread open an Indicateur Chaix, the French version of a railroad timetable, and stared down at it with amused intensity. “One can devote one’s life to studying the innermost mysteries of the universe,” he said, “or the intricacies of a French railroad timetable, but not both. Not in the same lifetime.”

  “The British are not much better,” Moran observed. “And the Anglo-Indians have a certain quality of operatic intensity and futility about them. They make dramatic promises that one knows they’re not going to keep.”

  “Well,” Moriarty said, “this one seems to claim that if we are at the Gare d’Est at eight-seventeen tomorrow morning, we can board the Express d’Orient. Although, it assures us, it would be of the preference of the railroad and the simplicity of the traveler if we purchased our billets simple from La Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits at their offices in the Rue Savoyard, or at the Gare, or through the concierge of any major hotel in advance of our attempting the voyage.”

  “It says that, does it?”

  “Even so. This will put us in Munich the morning of the second day, and Vienna early the morning after. And then on to Budapest, Bucharest, and Giurgiu.”

  “Giurgiu?”

  “It’s on the Danube. We detrain at Giurgiu.”

  “Why?”

  “Evidently because there’s no bridge. We take a ferry across the Danube to a city-town-village or whatever called Ruse, which is in Bulgaria.”

  “Serveuse!” Moran called, waving his empty whiskey glass in the air. “I can see,” he told Moriarty, “why I’ve always taken a ship. It may take an extra two weeks, but it’s less athletic.”

  “In Ruse,” Moriarty continued, flipping a page in the Indicateur Chaix, “we hop back on a train, which is a continuation of the first train, so the chef de train will see to our bagage, and after seven hours we find ourselves in Varna, which is on the Black Sea.”

  “The Black Sea? So after this we take a ship?”

  “Yes, for fourteen hours. And then we find ourselves in Constantinople.”

  Colonel Moran stared at Professor Moriarty. “There is an overland route from Constantinople to India,” he said. “But it is only negotiable by camel, goes through, among other places, Afghanistan, which is not a good idea at the moment, and it takes many months.”

  “Fond as I am of riding on the backs of camels, we will forgo the pleasure,” Moriarty said. “From Constantinople we can either take a train to southern Greece and a ship across the Mediterranean, or we can try for a ship to Port Said directly from Constantinople. This timetable is of no use for either of those possibilities. At Port Said we can embark on the next British passenger ship headed through the canal to India. If we can make reasonably quick connections, we will save over two weeks on the passage to India. If that’s what we want to do.”

  “And why shouldn’t we do that?” Moran asked.

  “We probably should,” Moriarty told him. “But it’s a bit risky. If we miss connections, we could be stranded for a week in Varna, or even Constantinople.”

  “And the option?” Moran asked, smiling broadly at the proprietress, who was bringing him his second whiskey and soda. With a great effort of will, she did not retreat hastily from the table. Colonel Sebastian Moran’s broad smile had been known to stop a band of marauding hill tribesmen in their tracks and cause them to seriously consider taking up sheep farming.

  “One option would be to proceed directly south from here and see if we can intercept an outgoing ship at Naples or Palermo—which would also involve a ferry ride. That way we will save a week at most, but we’re more sure of getting a ship.”

  Colonel Moran pondered for a second. “I say go for broke,” he said.

  “Broke it is, then,” Professor Moriarty agreed. “We can put up for the night at the Hôtel Gerard on Rue des Brigadiers—they know me there—and send the concierge out for our billets.”

  Moran’s white teeth flashed in a brief grin. “Here I am in Paris, and on my own, so to speak,” he said. “I do have to send a telegram to my agent in Constantinople, make sure nothing’s gone astray in the past week. I’ll have him reply to Munich. And after that, I fancy I can find a useful way to spend a night in Paris on my own, Professor, if you’ve no objection.”

  Moriarty raised an eyebrow. “None, my good man, as long as you make it to the train in the morning.”

  “Never fear,” Colonel Moran said. “I never allow pleasure to interfere with my obligations.”

  EIGHT

  THE JADOOGAR

  And who, in time, knows whither we may vent

  The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores

&n
bsp; This gain of our best glory shall be sent,

  T’enrich unknowing nations with our stores?

  What worlds in th’yet unformed Occident

  May come refin’d with th’accents that are ours?

  —Samuel Daniel

  The burra khana was held in the Presentation Dining Room. The largest of several, it was spacious enough to hold a small circus with its menagerie, elephants and all, and a good bit of its audience. The walls were covered with elaborate brocade hangings, and three rows of crystal chandeliers, like great opalescent squid, filled the room with the bright light of hundreds of recently installed gas mantles.

  Small tables were spattered about the room with a random hand, to create a casual, informal feeling to the banquet. The guests likewise had been spattered among the tables with reckless intermingling, the better, as the viceroy’s wife, Lady Montague, put it with an expansive wave of her gloved and bejeweled hand, to make new friends and experience new ideas. Although anyone who expressed truly new ideas would certainly not have been invited to the viceroy’s February burra khana.

  Margaret’s father was sitting up with the viceroy at one of three tables at the front of the room, an area which had the floor raised just enough so that one could tell that people at the tables there were above the common herd, metaphorically as well as physically. Margaret was at a six-person table somewhere near the middle of the room, with two other women, two men, and an empty chair. The man to her left had a full mane of graying hair, a trim beard, and a thin, wide mustache, turned up at the ends and twisted to fine points, along with piercing blue eyes and a wide nose that was, unfortunately, a bit too red to suggest a life of total sobriety. His dinner jacket fit him precisely, but the lapels were a bit too wide, and the tips a bit too pointed for a proper English cut. And did not his shirt have just a few more pleats on it than an English gentleman would have thought proper?