‘It is an insult even to suggest such a thing,’ Aggarwal protested.
‘We were not surprised when you asked the Maharaja for more than we had demanded,’ Jones said easily. ‘In fact, it was what we fully expected you to do.’
‘You did?’
‘Indeed. The assumption that you would be greedy, if given the opportunity, was built into our plan.’
‘I do not understand. You are talking complete nonsense and utter rubbish,’ Aggarwal said, realizing that he was starting to jabber.
‘Of course you don’t understand,’ Jones said agreeably. ‘Nor is your understanding necessary—at least for the moment. Let us move on to another matter on which I would like to hear your opinion. Tell me, Mr Aggarwal, if the Maharaja gave up his throne, and assuming his son was not there to take his place, who would be most likely to succeed him?’
‘I am a simple man,’ Aggarwal blabbered. ‘I know nothing of the ways of the high ones.’
Jones gave a slight nod, and Aggarwal felt a searing pain just above his left ear.
‘If you wish to avoid further punishment, I suggest you answer my questions truthfully,’ Jones suggested, as Aggarwal gingerly rubbed his aching face with his left hand. ‘Let me put it to you again—who would replace the Maharaja on the throne if his son were not able to?’
Aggarwal wanted to turn to look at the man who had hit him—and might yet hit him again—but he lacked the courage. ‘Well?’ Jones asked.
‘It cannot be known with any certainty,’ Aggarwal said, raising both arms in what he already knew would be a vain attempt to protect his head. ‘Please, do not have them hit me again. I speak nothing but the truth. There are many claimants, yet only one can succeed.’
‘Then who is the likeliest candidate?’
‘Prince Nagesh, His Majesty’s cousin.’
‘And he is a close friend of yours, is he not?’
‘No. I would not dare to be the friend of one of His Majesty’s closest rivals for the throne.’
‘Yet in the months prior to your departure from Chandrapore, you were seen to spend a great deal of time in Prince Nagesh’s company.’
‘That was on His Majesty’s instructions.’
‘Indeed?’
‘It is true. I swear to you it is true. His Majesty ordered me to befriend Prince Nagesh. It was my duty to discover if the prince was harbouring any disloyal thoughts.’
‘And you threw yourself into your duties with commendable zeal, didn’t you? Tell me, when Prince Nagesh comes to the throne, will you still be a humble secretary or will you be raised to a much more exalted position?’
‘I serve the Maharaja as his loyal servant. If Prince Nagesh ever came to the throne, he would probably banish me—along with all the others who were known to support his predecessor.’
‘You really must learn to give an honest answer to a straightforward question,’ Jones said, shaking his head almost sorrowfully.
The blow this time was so forceful that it knocked Aggarwal clear off his chair. The secretary hit the floor with some force, but was scarcely given time to assess the nature of his injuries before a pair of strong hands plucked him up and slammed him back down in his seat.
‘Ask me what the Afghans say about Sergeant Brown,’ Jones said.
So now Brown had a rank, Aggarwal noted, between waves of pain.
‘Ask me—unless you’d like more of the same treatment again!’ Jones threatened.
‘What do the Afghans say about Sergeant Brown?’ Aggarwal muttered, gasping with pain.
‘They say that though they pride themselves on their ability to inflict hurt, they take their hats off to him. Do you understand what that means, you snivelling little nigger?’
‘Yes, I—’
‘They say that never have they known so skilful and patient a torturer as Sergeant Brown—nor any man who seemed to enjoy that kind of work as much as he. And so far, the sergeant has inflicted no more than a gentle tap on you. That is why it would be wise of you to tell me what position you would hold if Nagesh were Maharaja.’
‘I would be his chamberlain,’ Aggarwal said resignedly.
‘How grand,’ Jones said in mock admiration. ‘But isn’t there a slight obstacle to you achieving your ambition? Even if the Maharaja loses his son, he is still a comparatively young man, isn’t he? It could be another thirty years before you achieve your ambition. Another thirty years of being what we English would call ‘the Maharaja’s dogsbody. Could you tolerate that?’
‘I am a patient man,’ Aggarwal said.
He realized his mistake the moment the words were out of his mouth—which was perhaps a tenth of a second before Sergeant Brown knocked him to the floor again. This time, however, it was worse than the previous occasion—far worse—because the beating did not stop even when he screamed, even when he pleaded…even when he soiled himself. But eventually the beating did stop, and the aching secretary was lifted back into the chair.
‘So you claim you are a patient man,’ Jones said meditatively, ‘a man who is prepared to wait thirty years to become chamberlain, if that is what it takes. Is that the truth?’
‘No.’
‘No?’ Jones repeated, expressing a deep surprise which he obviously did not feel.
‘Prince Nagesh is planning to seize power,’ Aggarwal admitted.
‘Seize power? Or assume it?’
‘What is the difference?’
‘Don’t play games with me! While the Maharaja lives, he must seize it. If the Maharaja dies of a sudden, mysterious illness, Nagesh has only to assume it. Which of the two will it be?’
‘Prince Nagesh will assume it,’ Aggarwal confessed.
‘In other words, he plans to kill the Maharaja?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘With poison.’
‘And you will assist him in this poisoning?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because the Maharaja trusts you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shall we get back to the question of the money, now?’ Jones asked.
‘What money?’
‘Why, the twenty thousand pounds the Maharaja handed to you as part of the ransom, but which now seems to have somehow disappeared. Where is it? And before you answer, think of the consequences of lying to me.’
‘I have placed it in a safe deposit box in the Lombard Street branch of the Anglo-Indian Bank,’ Aggarwal said.
‘And what did you intend to do with the money?’
‘I intended to give it to Prince Nagesh.’
‘In order to help finance his grab for power?’
‘Yes. Many will support him because they love him, but others will need to be bribed.’
‘Then if that’s your plan, we will certainly not stand in the way of it,’ Jones said. ‘In fact, after all the inconvenience we’ve put you through, I think that the least we can do is to assist you in your scheme.’
‘Assist me? How?’
‘We will help you to send the money to Chandrapore.’
‘You do not want the twenty thousand pounds yourselves?’ the secretary asked, totally confused.
‘No.’
‘Even though you know how you may easily lay your hands on it?’
‘You stole it, not us. You have the right to do with it as you please.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘No, you probably don’t,’ Jones agreed. ‘But you soon will.’
Thirty-Five
‘There was really nothing we could do, sir,’ Detective Constable Dyson said, looking across the desk at Black-stone and speaking in a tone which was half-explanatory, half-self-justifying. ‘The crowd came from out of nowhere. We could see Aggarwal being dragged away, but we just couldn’t get at him.’
‘It was like everybody had suddenly gone completely mad,’ his partner, Detective Constable Tasker added.
Blackstone nodded. ‘They’d been told there was a bomb planted in the Oval. If there really had b
een one—and it had gone off—it would have taken the Kennington gasometer and most of the surrounding area with it. Under those circumstances, most people would try to get themselves underground as quickly as they could.’
‘So, you see, sir—’ Tasker said.
Blackstone raised a hand to silence him. ‘I’m not blaming you,’ he said. ‘The kidnappers were three steps ahead from the very start, and there’s nothing you could have done about it. What I am interested in, is what went on in the bank.’
‘Well, sir, Aggarwal opened this attaché case he had with him and started fiddling inside,’ Dyson said.
‘And where was he looking while he was doing that? At the door?’
‘No. Into the bag. Whatever he was doing, he couldn’t man-age it just by touch. He needed to see what was going on.’
‘What happened next?’
‘He walked over to the nearest waste-paper basket, and dumped a load of stuff into it.’
‘You saw what it was that he dumped, I hope.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Dyson said. ‘When Aggarwal left the bank, Tasker followed him, but I went straight over to the bin and took out the contents.’
‘And were the contents at all illuminating?’ Blackstone asked, without much hope of a positive response.
‘No, sir. The whole bin was full of rectangular pieces of paper. I thought they might have had writing on them, so I handed the basket over to one of the cashiers and told him to take care of it until we returned.’
‘Which is what we did after we’d…after we’d…lost Aggarwal,’ Tasker said.
His partner shot him a black look. ‘After circumstances dictated that we could no longer, follow Aggarwal,’ he amended. ‘Anyway, we took the pieces of paper into one of the offices, and we examined them. They were blank. All of them. We thought maybe someone had written on them with invisible ink, but we held a few under a flame, and nothing showed up.’
‘Was this paper thick or thin?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Thick, sir,’ Dyson said. ‘Top quality. I’ve got a sample on me, if you’d like to see it.’
‘Perhaps that might be a good idea,’ Blackstone agreed.
The constable reached into his pocket and produced the rectangular piece of stiff plain paper. ‘This is it, sir.’
‘It’s roughly the size of a banknote, wouldn’t you say?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Might be, sir,’ Dyson agreed. ‘But I wouldn’t know for sure. I’ve never actually seen a banknote that close up.’
***
Aggarwal had experienced a certain nervousness when he’d been placing the twenty thousand pounds in the safe deposit box the day before, but it had been a nervousness which had sprung from excitement.
A lesser man would have taken the money and disappeared, he had told himself. He, on the other hand, being a superior creature, had seen beyond short-term greed to a longer, more golden future. For why should a man choose to live like a lord when, with but a little patience, he could live like a king? And that was how he would live! As Nagesh’s most trusted adviser, he would enjoy all that the new maharaja enjoyed. Perhaps even more—since he himself was a highly intelligent man, while Nagesh’s intellect only just fell on the right side of stupid.
Yes, that was how he had felt closing the box.
Opening it again, less than twenty-four hours later, was a different matter. This time the nervousness stemmed from fear.
‘We will not be able to see you while you are in the strong-room,’ Jones had told him, ‘but once you emerge we will have you in our sights again, and if you do not do exactly what we have told you, you will he a dead man.’
And Aggarwal believed him—believed that not only would Brown kill him but that the evil sergeant would make sure it was a slow painful death.
The box was open. With clumsy fingers, Aggarwal transferred the notes from it to the leather attaché case which had quickly become so much a part of his existence.
‘Do you wish to replace the box now, sir?’ the clerk said, laying perhaps not quite as much emphasis on the last word as he would have done if his client had been a white man.
‘Do what you will with the box,’ Aggarwal said dismissively. ‘I have no further use for it.’
The clerk consulted his ledger. ‘But you paid a year’s rental for it only yesterday,’ he said, clearly scandalized at even the possibility of such profligacy.
‘I do not care if I have paid rental for a thousand years,’ Aggarwal said. ‘I have done with the box.’
‘Then perhaps you would return the key to me,’ the clerk said, holding out his hand.
Aggarwal dropped the key into his palm. The clerk put it, together with the bank’s key, into his waistcoat pocket.
‘And now, if that is your wish, I will escort you off the premises?’ the clerk said.
If only he could leave! Aggarwal thought. If only that were possible!
‘I have other business in the bank,’ he said miserably. ‘I wish to open an account.’
The clerk took Aggarwal to the appropriate counter, then beat a retreat in search of other customers who might, perhaps, have a little more of the gentleman about them.
‘So you wish to open an account,’ the counter clerk said. ‘And how much do you intend to deposit in it?’
His sneering tone suggested that he expected Aggarwal to say a guinea, though he would not have been surprised if it were as little as a shilling.
‘I wish to deposit twenty thousand pounds,’ the secretary said.
The counter clerk’s jaw fell. ‘How much?’
‘Twenty thousand pounds,’ Aggarwal repeated.
‘I am a busy man. I have no time for jokes of such a nature.’
‘See for yourself,’ Aggarwal said, opening the attaché case. ‘Count it, if you wish.’
The counter clerk gaped at the contents of the case for a moment, then rang his bell to summon a messenger.
‘Fetch the manager,’ he told the messenger.
‘But it’s his day off!’
‘What does that matter? He’ll be in his apartment above the bank. He always is.’
‘He won’t like bein’ disturbed.’
‘Tell him it is vitally important that he comes at once. Tell him I will take full responsibility.’
The messenger shrugged. ‘It’s your neck,’ he said.
‘And my neck!’ Aggarwal thought, glancing across at the corner of the bank, where Sergeant Brown was pretending to fill in a form. ‘And my neck, as well.’
***
‘What do you make of it all, Patterson?’ Blackstone asked his sergeant, when he had dismissed the two detective constables.
‘I don’t know,’ Patterson admitted. ‘I’m like Constable Dyson in that respect. I’ve not seen many banknotes, either.’
‘I’d be worried if a man on your wages had,’ Blackstone replied.
‘I imagine you’d have to be quite a big spender to ever feel the need to carry one,’ Patterson continued. ‘For blokes like me, coins are usually enough to meet my wants.’
‘For blokes like me, as well,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘But what I really meant was, why did Aggarwal cut up the paper in the way he did?’
‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘We’ve no doubt that he was delivering the ransom when he set out this afternoon, have we?’
‘No doubt at all.’
‘Which means that when the Maharaja told me yesterday that he didn’t have that amount of money in cash, he wasn’t exactly being truthful with me?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Then consider this. When the Maharaja told me how much the ransom was, I noticed his secretary suddenly looked shifty. And at the same time it struck me that one hundred and twenty thousand pounds was a rather odd figure for the kidnappers to ask for.’
‘Odd?’
‘Very odd. Think about it, Patterson. If you fancied throwing away your money on the horses, would you place a bet of one and fourpence ha’penny?’
> ‘Of course I wouldn’t.’
‘Why not?’
Patterson grinned. ‘Because it’s an awkward amount. I’d bet either one and threepence or one and six.’ The implications of his own remark sunk in. ‘So what you’re saying, sir, is that the kidnappers would have asked for either a hundred thousand pounds or a hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds?’
‘Yes, but the secretary decided to lie about it. And since I can see no reason why Aggarwal would round the figure down, my guess is that the kidnappers asked for a hundred thousand.’
‘And Aggarwal planned to keep the rest for himself?’
‘Exactly. But having once decided that, he gets to the tricky part. The money was probably in some kind of safe in the Maharaja’s suite. Agreed?’
‘Agreed. With all those armed men around him, it’d be a waste of time putting it in a bank.’
‘So the Maharaja gave Aggarwal permission to remove a hundred and twenty thou. But when should he remove it? What would happen if he only took a hundred thousand with him when he went to meet the kidnappers?’
‘He’d be running the risk that the Maharaja would have the safe checked while he was out, and realize he hadn’t taken the full amount.’
‘So when he returned, he’d the problem of explaining away why he hadn’t taken the whole ransom with him. And even if he got away with that, he’d have no excuse to remove the other twenty thou’ later.’
‘On the other hand, if he took a hundred and twenty thou with him, there’s a good chance the kidnappers would relieve him of the lot!’ Patterson said.
‘So what did he do?’
‘He removed the twenty thou beforehand.’
‘But to avoid it being noticed, he took all the money from the centre of the bundles and replaced it with pieces of paper. The only problem that left him with was that he couldn’t let the kidnappers see the paper, or they’d start to ask questions.’
‘So he ditched the paper in the bank on Lombard Street. But if that’s true, where’s the extra money now?’
‘A very good question,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘Where is the bloody money now?’
Blackstone and the Great Game (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 2) Page 18
