The Durham Deception ta-2

by Philip Gooden

  Marmont paused for a mouthful of food and half a glass of Sauternes and to catch his breath. Tom thought, old Mackenzie said I’d enjoy meeting the Major and listening to his tales and he was right.

  ‘The going was straightforward at first,’ resumed Marmont. ‘We had to cross a canal at the point where it met the Gumti River but we already knew that the sepoys had damned the canal so that a stretch to the south would flood and make it harder for any relief to get across with their heavy guns. We crept across the nullah — that’s their word for the canal — which was little more than a dried-out depression in the earth at that point. It was eerie. There was no one about but we imagined sepoys waiting to jump out at us from behind every palm or pepul tree. They weren’t expecting any trouble in the eastern quarter but only from the south, you see, which was why they’d flooded the canal down there.

  ‘Anyway, Lal and I made our slow progress to east and south. When we began to go parallel to the line of the nullah between Dilksuka and Char Bagh Bridges, which were half submerged, we could see what little moonlight there was glinting on the flooded plain. There was the occasional spark of a campfire on the far side. Eventually we arrived at Char Bagh itself, which was a kind of landmark no more than a couple of miles from our destination. Char Bagh was another walled-off area. That part of northern India is full of gardens and secluded areas. This one, though, was in a dilapidated state, its walls broken down in places because of the fighting which had already occurred there.

  ‘Lal and I had been on the move for about three hours now and I suppose we were growing a little tired and careless. Because we had so far encountered no trouble, we’d forgotten that we were crossing what was literally enemy territory. I was even regretting that I hadn’t had anything to eat before we started. I spotted a gap in a wall and, with gestures, indicated that we might rest up for a few moments. I scrambled through the gap. Lal followed, only more quietly. I walked forward and stepped on something soft, something that squealed. At first I thought it was an animal but the squeals were soon followed by curses and a man rose up before us in the open space beyond the wall. He must have been sleeping and was as surprised to see us as we were to see him.

  ‘I was frozen not with fear exactly but with uncertainty. I did not know what to do next. But Lal did. The moment he heard the noises he’d started to circle round the man and was now on his far side. The man opened his mouth — he was about to shout, to scream, to call for help — I could distinctly see the black hole of his mouth and a raggedy circle of teeth, dark as it was. He was about to shout, I say, and bring down ruin on both of us, when Lal clapped one hand over his gaping mouth and with the other seemed to punch the unfortunate fellow between the ribs. The man arched forward and toppled on to the ground, and Lal almost fell on top of him. He continued to strike at him and I realized that he was using not his fists but the dagger. The dagger with the ivory handle.

  ‘After a time the man lay still and Lal scrambled to his feet, though not before he’d wiped the blade on the dry grass. He was panting hard and muttering some words I couldn’t make out. I sensed rather than saw the fresh blood on his garments. We looked down at the prone body. I said something like “Well done.” He said that he had not meant to kill the man but that the dagger had a mind of its own. That’s how he expressed it, a mind of its own.

  ‘I glanced at the corpse. It crossed my mind that this might have been not one of the rebel sepoys neglecting his duties as a sentry but an innocent who’d lain down to sleep in the wrong place — a peasant or what they call a ryot over there.

  ‘But he was no innocent. From the far side of the wall there came cries of alarm and within moments we saw shapes on the other side of the gap. Lal and I took to our heels, dodging among the trees and looking for another way out of this enclosure. I risked a glance back and saw a few of them, now equipped with flaming torches, gathered about the fallen body of the sentry. There was a collective cry of rage and grief. We knew that if we were taken by the sepoys they’d show no mercy, particularly as my companion, a fellow Indian, was covered in the blood of the one he’d killed.

  ‘As I’ve said, the Char Bagh wall was pierced in plenty of places and we slithered through the next gap we came to, fast as rabbits. I’d lost my bearings by now, as you tend to if you’re being pursued by a crowd with murderous intentions. In fact the only idea in my head, apart from not falling into the hands of the sepoys, was to get rid of the pouch containing the letters and maps which I could feel knocking against my own ribs as I ran. Before we knew it we’d reached the edge of the area that had been flooded by the damning of the canal. Unawares we’d turned back in a northerly direction, the opposite one to the Alum Bagh route. Too late now!

  ‘The water stretched in front of us for several hundred yards. By luck, there were no signs of sepoys on the far side of the floodwater, or at least no camp fires. Behind us were our pursuers, their torches like angry fireflies. We could hear them crashing through the grass and brush. There was a crack as one of them loosed off a rifle shot. We didn’t need any more encouragement to wade out into the floodwater. It was no more than knee-high at first and very spongy underfoot. Altogether I thought it would not prove much of a deterrent to those behind us.

  ‘But of course we were soon out of our depth. While we’d been wading in I unfastened my pouch and I half scattered, half thrust the documents into the water as soon as it got deep enough. I reckoned whatever was on ’em would soon be erased by the water — which by the way was turbid and foul-smelling. The sheets of paper floated away under the stars. But by that stage I had other things to worry about. Lal was floundering, his head bobbing on the surface. He couldn’t swim of course and he was in a muck-sweat. The only mercy was that our pursuers weren’t minded to follow us into the water. I could see them clustering on the edge. I’m no mean swimmer myself but it was a struggle to get hold of Lal and avoid being dragged down with him. I managed it, though, after swallowing and spluttering out mouthfuls of filthy water while I was ordering him to keep still and allow himself to be saved — if I could do it!

  ‘As long as we’d been in difficulties, the watchers on the bank had done nothing, neither shouted, nor loosed off any shots. Perhaps they could see the shape of our heads regularly dipping underneath the water and must have been expecting us not to reappear. But when I started to pull strongly with one arm, cradling Lal with the other, they realized we might get away. They began to shoot and run up and down, shouting to attract attention on the side we were heading for. It was our great good fortune that their shots went wide and that we were opposite a vacant stretch of ground. The only way across was to swim since the bridge at Char Bagh was impassable. Lal and I struggled out, dripping and exhausted, and crawled into the shelter of some trees.

  ‘We couldn’t stay there. It would be getting light in two or three hours. We retraced our steps although this time on the inner side of the flooded canal. Again we were lucky because it was that point in the night when everyone is least alert, even those who have been tasked with keeping watch. We reached the half submerged Dilksuka Bridge and then made a sweep north and west, skirting Lucknow. It might have been a dead city, there was no movement, no sound except for the barking of the pye-dogs. Just as the first streaks of light were creeping into the eastern sky, the two of us were also creeping under the steep embankment by Secunder Bagh, knowing that the sepoys had fortified that area.

  ‘We nearly got ourselves shot on the edge of the stronghold around the Residency. Each corner of the defended area had a battery dug-in. By now there was enough light for the guard to see two bedraggled figures in native costume staggering towards his battery. He raised his rifle and shouted out to his sleeping companions and if I hadn’t called out in English, giving my name and rank, we might have fallen to a bullet from our own side. Anyway we were welcomed back and were soon fed, washed and changed as best as our straitened circumstances would allow.

  ‘Our mission had been a failure, a complete fa
ilure. I must say that Inglis was very decent about it. He patted me on the back just as he’d done before I set out, and praised me for having the presence of mind to destroy the documents I was carrying. “No harm done,” he said. “No good either,” I might have replied. And within a day or so, a second volunteer did manage to reach Alum Bagh to guide in the next relief column. He was a civilian although a soldier’s son, a fellow by the name of Thomas Kavanagh. He received a medal for his achievement, and well deserved it was too. The relief column broke through to Lucknow under Campbell and then the Residency was finally abandoned.’

  Here Major Marmont paused and his expression took on the introspective look of earlier. Tom wondered whether he was thinking that that medal might have been his, if the mission had turned out right. But there was something else on his mind.

  ‘Before any of this happened, the relief and so on, I was back on my feet and ready to do my part in defending the depleted population in the Residency. But Lal was not so fortunate. He was a fit young man but he must have picked up something in that filthy canal as we were floundering across it in our escape from Char Bagh. I went to see him in the makeshift infirmary on the first floor of the Residency. I felt an obligation to him — I might have saved his life in the water, even if only for a brief time, but he had preserved mine first of all by killing the sentry. It was the end of the day when I visited the infirmary and the sun was a great ball of red above the horizon. The light burned through the tattered muslin screen over the window which was meant to keep out the bugs.

  ‘Lal was lying on a narrow cot, shaking and sweating profusely. His skin was a queer greenish tint and his eyes were wild. The doctor shook his head at me as I looked towards him. The doctor was a civilian but could have passed for a soldier for he had a brisk, clipped manner and used as few words as possible. Mind you, we never said much to each other. This doctor was no friend of mine. I mentioned to you, Mr Ansell, that my wife Padma was Indian. She was the girl I met in Lucknow. The doctor fancied himself a rival to me for the hand of this beautiful girl. Padma means lotus flower, you know. Thank God, she chose me — but that was later.

  ‘Anyway, on this occasion the doctor didn’t have to speak. Anyone would have known what that head-shake meant. It might have been different in a well-appointed hospital but here we were, under siege, without medicines.

  ‘I bent over Lal to offer him some words of comfort. He didn’t recognize me at first but then he seized my wrist and gabbled some words I couldn’t understand. Eventually I made them out. “It is fate,” he was saying. “It is deserved.”

  ‘At the same time he was struggling to untie the cord which secured the sheath and dagger that still hung about his neck. It might seem strange that no one had removed — or stolen — the dagger with its strange ivory handle but it is a measure of those desperate days that we all had other more important things on our minds. He pressed sheath and dagger into my hand. I thought he wanted me to examine them again and reluctantly I withdrew the weapon from its sheath. It’s not fanciful to say that the blade seemed to gather to itself the furious red light of the setting sun, as if it was once more steeped in blood. I made to return it to Lal but, no, he wanted me to have the dagger. He pushed it back with all his strength. It was a gift, a dying gift if you like. He whispered, “It is yours. May it bring you better fortune, Lieutenant Marmont.”

  ‘Naturally I didn’t know what he was talking about and nor was I to find out because he was seized with a worse bout of shaking, amounting almost to a convulsion. I stood there, helpless. At length the doctor more or less ordered me from the room. Lal had subsided into an exhausted sleep or something deeper.

  ‘When I had a moment to myself I looked more carefully at the dagger. It was a fine piece of work, no doubt, but I would have been glad to return it to Lal. I don’t know why, but there was some quality to it which made me uneasy. It had been used recently to kill a man, and had very likely despatched other men in the past. But it wasn’t that exactly. After all, we were surrounded by carnage in Lucknow and any weapon you touched might have been used to kill and maim.

  ‘But I was the possessor of the dagger whether I liked it or not, Mr and Mrs Ansell. Lal died a few hours later, and his last words to me had been a request, a command even, that I should take the thing. There was a witness too in the shape of the doctor. He had some more unwelcome information, which was probably why this medical man took pleasure in passing it on to me. It seemed that Lal had been talking half lucidly during his brief sickness, and that he had referred to having left his father’s house in disgrace. In fact, he appeared to be some kind of fugitive. I remembered that he had mentioned his background before we set off on our mission and that I’d been surprised he came of princely stock. Perhaps it wasn’t true, perhaps it was all fantasy. But plainly there was some sinister association with the dagger. Why else should he have said, “May it bring you better fortune”?

  ‘I learned later that the dagger was indeed cursed. One of Lal’s brothers had died while he, Lal that is, was wielding it in what was supposed to be a playful tussle and the young man had fled his family home in shame. Hearing all this, I examined the dagger carefully and, imagination or not, it took on a very malevolent aspect. A weapon with a mind of its own, Lal had said, as if the spirit of Kali dwelt within the thing.’

  Major Marmont might have had more to say but he was interrupted by Dilip Gopal and his nephews, the Major’s sons, arriving from their lodging-house nearby. It was time to go to the Assembly Rooms for that evening’s performance.

  Visiting the Chemist

  As Inspector Traynor and Superintendent Harcourt were returning from the South Bailey and on their way to the County Hotel, the London policeman surprised the Durham one by turning aside when they were nearing the market square. Harcourt suggested they might get a carriage but Traynor insisted on walking everywhere. The only true method, he said, of getting the feel of a place was from the feet upwards. It took him back to his days on the beat in Finchley.

  Then without a word of explanation Traynor suddenly entered a chemist’s. Brought to an abrupt stop and standing next to the plate-glass, Harcourt pretended to study the curling gilt script which announced the proprietor as FRED’K W. PASCAL. Then he fixed his attention on a poster for fresh leeches next to one extolling the virtues of arrowroot from Bermuda. Perhaps Traynor had been stricken with a sudden attack of something. Perhaps he had forgotten to pack some necessary medicine.

  Harcourt turned his back on the window and scanned the shoppers and idlers and passers-by. He was looking for a man fitting the artist’s image which was folded in his pocket. Doctor Anthony Smight should not be too hard to pick out from the mass of people, given his yellowish skin, his lined face and above-average height. Nor, presumably, would he speak with the local accent. It would be a coup if he, Frank Harcourt, was the one to detect him in the crowd. One in the eye for the representative of Great Scotland Yard.

  Privately, Harcourt thought it unlikely that this so-called Doctor was still in Durham, assuming he had ever been here in the first place. Neither did Harcourt consider that the danger to the Ansells was as great as Traynor had made out. The story of a man seeking vengeance for the suicide of a brother seemed too far-fetched and melodramatic. And those deaths of the London policeman and his wife, might they not have been an accident after all? Harcourt remembered witnessing the aftermath of a gas poisoning in a house over in Allergate, deaths which had been caused not by malice but by carelessness.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was Traynor.

  ‘How many chemists are there in the city?’

  Unlike the question about the number of constables, this was not one that the Inspector could answer straightaway. ‘Four or five, I believe. Are you in urgent need of some remedy, Inspector?’

  ‘No, no. I was showing the chemist the drawing of Anthony Smight. I asked if anybody resembling the picture had called in during the last few days — without result. Will you detail
one of your men to make a round of the other chemists in the city with the picture? It is a long shot but one worth trying. You recall that Doctor Smight is in thrall to opium. Your man is to ask if anyone of that description has lately purchased laudanum or opium pills.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘This is your town, Superintendent-’

  ‘Durham is a city.’

  ‘Of course. But like any town or city it must have its less salubrious quarters. To your knowledge are there places where opium is regularly smoked?’

  The two men had strolled down into the market square. For answer Harcourt halted and gestured at the market scene.

  ‘This is a respectable town — ah, city — Inspector. We may be built on coal but we have an ancient cathedral and now we have a university too. What with the men of the cloth at one end or those who toil away underground at the other, I do not think that Durham would provide fertile soil for that kind of activity. We are not a port city.’

  In his mind Harcourt associated opium dens with Chinese men in pigtails and white females who were either haggard or seductive. But Traynor was already thinking in a different direction.

  ‘How far is Newcastle from here?’

  ‘About twenty minutes by train. There is a regular service.’

  Traynor said nothing for a time. When he did speak, Harcourt was baffled by his words.

  ‘If I am pursuing a villain, Superintendent, I sometimes put myself into his shoes. I reach a fork in the road and, knowing that the person I seek has travelled this route before me, I do not choose for myself but ask which path he would take.’

  Harcourt turned to look at the stolid, average figure beside him. He was surprised that such a bland man as Traynor could display any power of imagination.

  ‘You think this man, Doctor Tony, is staying in Newcastle?’