“A brilliant plan occurred to me. In my youth I was the backstage assistant to a magician called Laces the Magnificent. He did, as part of his repertoire, a trick of the name ‘The Bullet Catch.’ He had retired and was now living in a villa in Provence. I went to him for assistance.”
“You were going to catch the bullet?” Margaret asked.
“The essence of the trick,” Demartineu told her, “is that the gun goes off, with a cloud of smoke and even a recoil, but a bullet is not really fired.”
“Ah!” Margaret said.
“Laces had a pair of matched percussion-cap pistols especially made for performing this trick. Very beautiful weapons they are, too, with ivory handles and silver chasing on the barrels. And the trick mechanism is so carefully hidden that a committee of experts can come on-stage to load the guns, and to examine them carefully, and they will pronounce them genuine.”
“Ah!” Margaret said.
“I borrowed the pistols. On the appointed day we met on the Champs de Mars. The guns were loaded in front of my adversary. He suspected nothing. He picked one, and I took the other. We paced off the distance and turned. On the referee’s word, we both fired.”
“Honor was satisfied,” Lady Priscilla said.
“Acting on some caprice, I know not why,” Demartineu continued, “perhaps to somehow get even with Professor Hanoutaux perhaps due to some deeply submerged urge to perform, I grabbed at my chest, staggered, and fell to the ground.”
“You didn’t!” the dowager duchess exclaimed.
“For a few long moments I lay there, silent and still. I don’t know what I expected to hear,” Demartineu said. “Perhaps exclamations of shock, perhaps some words of remorse. What I heard instead from Professor Hanoutaux was a gloating laugh. This was too much! I rose to my feet. ‘You,’ ah, ‘dirty person,’ I yelled at him, approaching him and shaking my fist. This had an unexpected result.”
“I’m not surprised,” Margaret murmured.
“The professor, you understand, thought that I was dead. When he saw me rise and stalk toward him, it was a tremendous shock to his system, as I soon discovered. Clutching his heart, Hanoutaux gasped and fell over. His seconds attempted to force cognac down his throat to revive him, but it was no use. Within a few moments, he was dead.”
“Oh, my,” said the dowager duchess.
“My sentiments precisely,” Demartineu told her. “The gods, they were laughing at that one.”
“What happened?” Margaret asked.
Demartineu paused while the dinner plates were removed, the table was scraped, and finger bowls were put at each place. “Word of the duel spread quickly,” he said, “but it changed in the telling. By the time the story got back to me, I was a villain dyed in the black. I had, it seemed, performed some devious and underhanded trick designed to efficate—is that the word?”
“Effectuate?” Margaret suggested.
“Yes? But is not ‘efficacious’ a word?”
“It is,” Margaret agreed. “But efficate is not.”
“English!” Demartineu shrugged. “It is almost as bad as French.”
“The duel,” Lady Priscilla reminded him.
“Oh yes. Well, it was said that I had somehow, ah, caused the death of Professor Fernand Hanoutaux. This was not rational, and the French claim to be the most rational of peoples. On this point they lie.”
“Pardon me,” Lady Priscilla said, “but how was this not rational? I mean, it was mistaken, but might it not have been true? We have only your word that you did, ah, what you did, by accident.”
“Ah, you see,” Demartineu said, wiggling a finger in her direction. “Even you, and knowing only my side of the story, have your doubts. It is that I have not the honest face, yes? Well, you see, it is this: Recollect that we were having a duel. We were using trick pistols, to which only I knew the trick. If I had wished simply to kill him, would I not have simply shot him dead? I would have needed neither the hocus nor the pocus.”
“Oh,” Lady Priscilla said. “I guess. . . .”
“Such things do happen in duels occasionally, even in France. People do, by some chance, get killed. It is a regrettable accident. Sometimes, in the actuality, it is murder, but to the face, it is a regrettable accident. You see?”
“I see,” Margaret said.
“So, had I wanted a regrettable accident, I would have done what, as it happens, Professor Hanoutaux was planning to do to me. Only I would have done it first.”
The finger bowls were taken up and replaced with little dessert dishes, each supported by a little fork and a little spoon. A silver bell was rung for silence, immediately aided by a dozen or so spoons clinking against the sides of a dozen or so wine glasses. The room quieted, and the viceroy rose and spoke. It was traditional for the viceroy to speak during the dessert. It was expected, if not looked forward to. The viceroy himself did not look forward to it, but what must be done must be done, as he had said back in his office. Tonight the speech was unusually perfunctory. The viceroy introduced General St. Yves, and the other staff officers of the Lancers, who were suitably scattered about the room, spoke briefly of the British burden in administering and educating a subcontinent full of natives, some of whom welcomed the administering and many of whom seemed to resent it, and then sat down. Gradually the chatter in the room began again.
“Finish your story, Professor,” Margaret said, turning back to the table.
“I thought it was fairly well finished,” Demartineu protested.
“Oh, no, Professor,” Lady Priscilla told him. “Why, you were just getting to the good part.”
“Really?” Demartineu asked, looking at her innocently. “And what part is that?”
“The part where everyone in Paris thought you’d deliberately murdered that Professor What’s-his-name.”
“Hanoutaux,” Demartineu said. “It wasn’t everyone in Paris. It was, perhaps, ten or twenty people. But the story followed me back to Languedoc, and the université was not so happy with me as once they were. So I left and commenced to wander about the world, here and there, which is something I had always wanted to do in any case. And so”—he shrugged a great gallic shrug—“here I am.”
“And where will you be going next, Professor?” Margaret asked.
“Ah! As to that, I am done with professing, I have decided. I am instead reverting to my old profession. With the aid of my new friend, Mamarum Sutrow here”—he smiled over at the little man from Kalat—“we are going to astound audiences all over Europe with performances of the astounding legerdemain and prestidigitation. In a word, a magic act.”
“You are going to become a magician?” Margaret asked.
“No, no, I am going to regain my old position of backstage person extraordinaire, but my friend Mr. Sutrow here . . .” He waved a hand grandiloquently at Sutrow. “He will emerge on the British stage—we are going to work first in England, as the audiences there are less critical—as the world-famous Indian fakir Mamarum the Great! Note you that he has the presence, he has the temperament, and, although short in stature, he has the bearing to be a great personage on the stage.”
Sutrow contrived to look embarrassed.
“But is he world-famous, then?” asked Lady Priscilla. “Are you, Mr. Sutrow? Should I have heard of you?”
“Alas, no,” Sutrow acknowledged.
“Why would anyone choose to become famous as a faker, Professor Demartineu?” demanded the dowager duchess.
“Not ‘faker,’ your ladyship, but ‘fakir,’ ” explained the professor, drawing out the final syllable to emphasize the difference in pronunciation. “A fakir is a beggar, a street performer, like the omnipresent snake charmers, or one of the religious mendicants who scarify themselves for the pleasure of their god and the amusement of the crowd. But through some sort of linguistic transformation, it has come in Europe to signify Indian magicians or other sorts of exotic Asian entertainers. These magicians perform the swords-through-basket trick, which would n
ot fool a small child, and talk about the Indian rope trick, which would be a true miracle if anyone could do it. Actual Indian magicians, able to perform many miracles and held in high repute by their countrymen, are known as jadoogars. My friend Mr. Sutrow here comes from a respected family of jadoogars. Is this not so, my friend?”
“I have that honor,” Mamarum Sutrow agreed. “I will be the first jadoogar in my family to bring his skills to the fabled West,” he said, with a serious expression in his dark eyes. “I shall have much to live up to. I will do my humble best.”
“You’ll have them standing on their seats begging for more,” Demartineu told him.
“Oh, I sincerely hope not,” said Sutrow anxiously. “The theater owners would surely object!”
NINE
THE PHANSIGAR
What’s past, and what’s to come is strew’d with husks
And formless ruin of oblivion.
—William Shakespeare
It was past ten in the evening when Margaret and her father returned with the viceroy to the library. “Now, about this gold we’re to be guarding,” St. Yves said. “Why does it need to be guarded, and why us?”
Sir George settled into his easy chair and waved General St. Yves and his daughter to seats. “It is in the nature of gold to be guarded,” he said.
“True,” St. Yves admitted. “And there must be some more usual means for guarding it.”
“This is an extraordinary case,” the viceroy explained. “I received a telegram from the governor of the Bank of England, a chap named Bergarot, claiming that an attempt might be made to steal the gold. When or where, he doesn’t know, except that it will be sometime before the gold is put into the bank’s vault.”
St. Yves pursed his lips. “Insufficient information,” he said. “I’m not altogether sure that I want to be responsible for four million pounds’ worth of gold, not with five officers and thirty men. Not, for that matter, with ten times five officers and thirty men. Four million pounds is enough to . . . well, it’s enough to b-buy a small country and make yourself a king.”
“A good point,” the viceroy said. “And let me reassure you. Technically you won’t be responsible for the gold. Although we both know that it won’t do your career any good if someone should make off with it during your watch. The bally gold is my responsibility until it’s loaded aboard the ship. And then the ship’s captain signs for it. He is, by maritime law and usage, responsible for anything and anyone on his ship, from the smallest belaying pin, whatever that may be, to the most valuable cargo. His responsibility doesn’t end until the cargo is off-loaded at Queens Dock in London.”
“So we’ll merely be helping the captain guard the gold,” St. Yves mused.
“Just so,” the viceroy said. “And let me say that I don’t really expect any trouble. Bergarot is being overly cautious. Not that I blame him; his job, after all, is to see the gold safely into his vaults. No, I believe you’ll have an uneventful voyage home. My daughter Priscilla will be on the ship with you. Her mother wants her in London for the season, and I certainly wouldn’t let her go if I thought there was even the slightest danger. Although I will admit that the knowledge that there’ll be thirty of your Highland Lancers on board will make me sleep even easier during her voyage.”
Sir George swiveled around as the door burst open suddenly and Djuna flung himself into the room. “In the name of Krishna, sahib, you come, come quickly, come!”
“Krishna?” the viceroy asked.
“Any god you like, sahib, but please come, come now!” And Djuna flung himself back out of the room.
“I suppose we’d better follow the little beggar,” Sir George muttered, coming to his feet. “Probably nothing; these people are so excitable.” But the speed with which he hurried to the door belied his words.
Djuna trotted down the corridor head up, arms at his sides; the gait of someone who is in a great hurry but doesn’t want to be seen running. The others managed to stay close behind without quite breaking into a run. The group turned the corner and there, ahead of them at the end of the corridor, were the great bronze doors of the viceroy’s office. As they approached they could see that the polished dark-wood door to the right of the bronze doors stood open, and one of the ubiquitous footmen stood next to the door in a stiff approximation of attention, but his exaggerated posture and the hint of panic in his eyes strongly suggested that he would rather be somewhere else.
Djuna stopped his quick walk at the open door, and the others narrowly avoided piling into him. “In there, sahib,” he said, pointing.
The viceroy took two steps into the room and stopped. “God—bless me,” he said.
Margaret peered around the doorway. This was the anteroom to the viceroy’s office. It was about ten or twelve feet wide, and half again as long, and lit by two gas fixtures in the wall which were turned low, leaving the corners in palpable darkness. The walls were covered with a wallpaper the color of desert sand. There were two small desks to the right, and a row of file cabinets behind them. Several glass-front display cases to the left were fairly crammed with artifacts from the various peoples and places on the Indian subcontinent that the British had roamed over in the two-hundred-plus years they had been there.
There was a man in the room, presumably the native who had been waiting to speak to the viceroy. In his yellow cotton kurta jacket, baggy trousers, and brown turban and sandals he looked to be some sort of merchant. Not a street vender, but perhaps someone with a stall in the bazaar. He lay on the floor inside the doorway, with his head at an unnatural angle and a long white scarf twisted around his neck and knotted. His eyes bulged from his head, giving him a look of great astonishment. Even from where Margaret stood she could see that the whites of the eyes were filled with jagged red marks, like frozen lightning bolts, circling the sightless pupils.
Margaret took several deep breaths, closed her eyes, and attempted to swallow. It didn’t work. She could hear the beating of her heart. She took several more deep breaths and stepped back until her shoulders were against the wall on the far side of the corridor.
St. Yves knelt by the body. He cut the scarf off with a small silver pocketknife and put two fingers on the man’s neck to feel for a pulse. “He’s dead,” he said. “Not that there was much doubt, but I thought, you know, just in case . . .”
“Yes,” the viceroy said, “quite.” He looked down at the body for a long moment and cleared his throat. “Djuna, go to the card room and get Chief Constable Parker. He should be there by now. Bring him here. Tell him what happened—but only him. Don’t mention it to anyone else. Keep your mouth closed—hear me?”
“Yes, Viceroy sahib,” Djuna said. “I go now.” And he raced off down the hall.
“Strangled,” St. Yves said, coming to his feet. “Right here in your office, while the building is full of military officers and civil service officials. I’ve never heard of anything like it. Looks like a Pathan tribesman, but the clothes—”
“Perhaps he dressed up for his visit to the city—or perhaps he didn’t want to be recognized,” the viceroy suggested.
“Could well be, something of the sort,” St. Yves agreed. “Some sort of local dispute, I would imagine, or a robbery. Perhaps the chap was carrying something of value and the other chap knew it. But the b-bally nerve of the killer, coming right into Government House to do his deed.”
“Not robbery, surely,” said the viceroy. “There are several articles of considerable value about the room”—he indicated the display cases with a wave of his hand—“and none of it’s been touched. Besides, the chap still has his purse tied to his belt.”
“Not robbery, then,” St. Yves agreed.
“I don’t think it’s any sort of local dispute, Father,” Margaret said, slowly crossing the corridor toward the doorway.
“Eh? What’s that? Margaret, I’m not sure you should be looking at this, m’dear.”
“Well,” she said practically, “it’s too late to worry about t
hat now, isn’t it? I think I’ll be all right.”
“What did you mean, you don’t think it was a dispute?” Sir George asked.
“That scarf with the knot in it,” she said, pointing. “I’ve seen pictures of it.”
“What’s that? Pictures of this scarf?”
“Well, I mean ones like it. It’s the sort used by the Phansigar. I read a book about them.”
“The Phansigar?” St. Yves asked. “Peg, m’dear, what sort of books have you been reading?”
The viceroy stepped back. “The Phansigar—of course. The Thuggees!” he said. “By Jove, I think she’s right, about that scarf at any rate.” He picked up the scarf and examined it. “She is right,” he said. “There’s a small knot at each end of this thing—here where the ends are tied together and each of the knots has a coin tied into it.” He pulled one of the small knots loose. “A silver coin. It’s the ritual killing-scarf of the Phansigar.”
“Rumal, I think it’s called,” Margaret said. “That’s the scarf they wore around their waist and used to dispatch their victims.”
“That sounds right,” the viceroy agreed. “We have a small museum of Thuggee artifacts downstairs, and there are a few scarves like this in it.”
“I’ve heard of the Thuggees,” St. Yves said. “But I thought they were all killed off forty or fifty years ago.”
“Perhaps not,” said a voice from the doorway.
Margaret looked up and saw a British army officer standing in the doorway, peering into the room. He was a tall young man with a face rather too rabbity to be truly good-looking, immaculately turned out in the dress uniform of a lieutenant in some regiment with which she was unfamiliar: blue regimentals with two thin red stripes running down the trousers, and a double-breasted jacket with wide, red-trimmed lapels and oversized gold buttons. He appeared to be taking a considerable interest in the proceedings. His words, “Perhaps not,” had been uttered in a flat tone intended to impart information rather than shock or alarm, but Margaret found them all the more alarming for their matter-of-fact delivery.
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