Death at the Durbar

by Arjun Gaind

  Jitendra flinched, as if he had been splashed with a bucket of cold water. “You’re right, of course. Why desire what you can never have?”

  He looked so hangdog that Sikander could not help but feel a twinge of sympathy.

  “Fret not, Jit! There are plenty of fish in the sea. Come, let me introduce you to Miss Cavendish. You will like her, I think. She is a redhead, and you know what they say about women with red hair, don’t you?”

  Jit reacted to this suggestion with a withering frown. “I thought you had a romantic soul, Sikander,” he said. “I thought you, of all people, would understand.”

  With that, he staggered away unsteadily, almost as though he were in a daze.

  Romance, Sikander thought cynically, Oh, you poor, naïve boy! He wanted to follow Jitendra, to shake some sense into him. There was no romance in the world, no love. Those were merely words, invented by long-haired poets desperate for meaning and purpose. There was only one indivisible truth about life, and that was the certainty of pain and suffering and ultimately death. No, Sikander had neither the time nor the patience for romance. He had seen far too much of mankind’s depravity, too much degeneracy to believe in something quite so intangible.

  The pensiveness of his reverie was interrupted by a familiar voice.

  “Your Majesty, I am sorry to bother you,” Captain Campbell said. He was in full uniform, shiny shako, whitened puttees and all, and, for a change, looked very serious, his face devoid of its usual half-smirk.

  “Campbell,” Sikander said expansively, “what an unpleasant surprise! I was not aware you had an invitation. Tell me, what brings you here? Have you uncovered yet another wild goose chase to lead me upon?”

  This barb failed to elicit any response, other than a slight tightening of his jaw.

  “If you have a moment, sir, the Viceroy would like a word.”

  “Of course! I always have time for Lord Hardinge.”

  “In that case, this way, if you please?” Campbell turned crisply, indicating that Sikander should follow him.

  “What is this about?” Sikander tried to inquire, but the Captain refused to offer any further explanations. Instead, he held his tongue, silently leading him out of the Indore enclosure altogether, and then across the wide expanse of the Princes Road. On the far side, about fifty metres from the camp, a car was waiting, half hidden behind a towering oak. Even though it was a temperate evening, its canvas roof was up, and the windows shuttered, obscured by thick linen curtains, as if the occupants within were trying to stay incognito.

  Sikander recognised the vehicle instantly. It was the Viceregal Standard, the very same one that Campbell had commandeered to transport him to the King Emperor’s camp. Had it only been a day and half earlier? God, Sikander thought wearily, it felt like a whole month had gone by.

  “In here, sir.” The Captain stepped forward and swung open the passenger door open for him. “And, might I say, good luck!”

  Upon entering the vehicle, Sikander found it was occupied by the same quartet of gentlemen he had encountered at the King Emperor’s camp. Lord Hardinge had the seat opposite him, looking even more morose than usual. Next to him the Great Dane languished, flashing him a smile. To his left sat O’Dwyer, very poised as always, and next to him, Commissioner French, who gave Sikander a sneer.

  “Gentlemen,” Sikander tucked himself into the seat, leaving as much space as he could between himself and O’Dwyer, “Isn’t it a bit crowded in here? Why don’t we head inside and talk over a nice glass of Bollinger?”

  This suggestion was greeted by absolute silence.

  “Good heavens!” Sikander quipped. “Why so serious? Has someone else died?”

  Once again, this jest fell flat, with the exception of Lord Dane, whose mouth quirked into the slightest of smiles.

  It was Commissioner French who asked the first question. “Have you gotten anywhere with finding the nautch girl’s murderer?”

  “I have been making every effort—” Sikander started to say, but O’Dwyer interrupted him before he could finish his explanation.

  “Answer the question, Mr. Singh. Are you close to solving the case?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have made some substantial progress. I have accumulated several suspects,” Sikander replied, struggling to keep his voice calm, “and devised several theories to explain what happened.” He directed this assertion at Hardinge, ignoring O’Dwyer altogether. “I just need a bit more time, that’s all.”

  “Time is exactly what we don’t have.” O’Dwyer shook his head. “The King arrives tomorrow morning. We must bring this matter to a conclusion now.”

  “I must concur!” Commissioner French agreed. “We cannot afford to waste another moment.”

  The two men exchanged a surreptitious glance. At once, Sikander understood what was going on. While he had been running about trying to apprehend Zahra’s killer, the two of them had teamed up and slowly but steadily, whittled away at the Viceroy’s resolve until ultimately, they had prevailed upon him to reconsider his decision.

  Hardinge frowned, his eyes swiveling toward the Great Dane. “And what do you think, old friend?”

  Sikander gave him a hopeful glance. Surely Dane would take his side? He was a reasonable man, and would not be swayed quite so easily.

  “Much as I would like to find the girl’s assailant, I’m afraid I have to agree.” Louis Dane offered Sikander a commiserative shrug. “I don’t see what other choice we have in this instance. We can’t risk even a hint of scandal, not with the King’s arrival so imminent.”

  “So be it.” Hardinge’s frown deepened as he turned back to face Sikander. “You are to cease and desist your investigations, Mr. Singh. I regret to say that the young lady’s murderer will have to be permitted to go free.”

  Sikander gasped. “You cannot be serious. I can catch Zahra’s killer, sir. I will catch him. Just give me one more day.”

  “That is out of the question. You will drop the matter, Mr. Singh. From this moment forthwith, no more poking around.” Hardinge’s face hardened, as obdurate as granite. “This is not a suggestion. If I find out that you have disobeyed me, there will be hell to pay. Is that clear?”

  His tone was adamant, patently unwilling to brink any refusal. One look at his craggy face was enough to tell Sikander his mind was made up, and that any argument he tried to offer would immediately be shot down by O’Dwyer and the Commissioner, nipped in the proverbial bud.

  “I take it we have an understanding,” Hardinge repeated.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “You do not. Mr. O’Dwyer, will you see that the girl’s body is disposed of respectfully? A discreet cremation with a minimum of fuss.”

  “She was Muslim,” Sikander interjected, dull-voiced, “of Kashmiri origin.”

  “Very well,” Hardinge looked at him contemplatively, “a burial then, out of the public eye.”

  “Consider it done,” O’Dwyer replied, but not before he took a moment to offer Sikander a triumphant look, as if to gloat over the fact that it was he who had won their battle of wits.

  “Very well.” Hardinge, glad to see this last loose end wound up, said, “Let us consider this affair closed.” He gave Sikander a brusque nod. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Singh. I shall remember your valiant efforts, even if they have come to no avail.” He turned to address the Great Dane. “Let us have Rajpore’s salute upped to fifteen guns, shall we? That should keep you happy, eh?”

  It was an obvious bribe, intended to entice him to keep his mouth shut, so overt that he was insulted. Sikander was tempted to refuse, to give Hardinge a proper piece of his mind, but he was astute enough to grasp that this was neither the time nor place to make his true feelings known. It would do Rajpore no good if he alienated the most powerful Englishman in India. That was the only reason he held back his pique, and managed to offer the
Viceroy a slight smile.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, feigning a graciousness he did not feel. Opening the door, he stepped out of the car hurriedly before his self-restraint could crumble.

  As the Standard departed, Sikander just stood there, silently simmering. A tumult of emotions assailed him. First came a terrible fury, a wave of resentment crashing against him, like a tsunami. How could Hardinge allow such a grave miscarriage of justice? Sikander wanted to rave, to scream at the top of his voice. Zahra had been a person, a miracle, living and breathing, wrought by God, by nature. How could they allow someone to just snuff her out, to extinguish all that she was, and then walk away unpunished? What was wrong with these damnable English?

  It did not take long for his anger to turn to indignation. Failure was not a sensation Sikander was accustomed to. It ached at him to leave a mystery unsolved, especially one so personal. It was frustrating, to say the least. And with this frustration came guilt, a dreadful, all-consuming sense of despair. He had failed Zahra utterly. He had promised himself he would obtain justice, and yet again, he had been unable to keep his word. Years ago he had allowed her mother’s killer to escape, and now, in a macabre repeat of history, it was his fault that her murderer also would go scot-free.

  “Your Majesty, could I have a word?”

  Once again, it was Campbell who had interrupted him. Rather than leaving with Hardinge and the others, he had elected to stay behind, and was watching Sikander patiently, waiting to speak with him.

  “Oh, what is it now?” Sikander snapped. “What more could you people possibly want from me?”

  “I only wished to thank you.”

  This declaration caused Sikander’s fury to abate considerably. It would be exceedingly churlish, he reminded himself, to take out his frustration on Campbell. Not only had the man tried his best to help him unravel the mystery of Zahra’s murder, but over the last two days, he come to like the Captain quite a bit. In spite of his cocksure manner and sometimes abrasive need to insert himself into every facet of Sikander’s investigative process, his instincts were sound. If only he could learn to hold his tongue, Sikander thought, then he had the makings of a first-class detective.

  “I am sorry things are ending so unsatisfactorily,” Campbell apologized. “It has been a proper pleasure, sir, to assist you, however briefly.”

  “The pleasure has been mine, Captain.” Sikander broke from character by offering Campbell his hand. “Take care of yourself, and remember, here in India, a man is what he is brave enough to make of himself, nothing more, and nothing less.”

  “I will try to keep that thought uppermost in my mind at all times.” Campbell’s face flowered into a comradely smile. “Good-bye, Your Majesty. It was fun while it lasted.”

  “No,” Sikander said, matching his expression with a grin of his own, “this is not good-bye. We shall meet again, I am sure of it.

  “If you ever decide to give up on the regiment, why don’t you come down to Rajpore and seek me out? I am sure we can find some way to keep you entertained.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “What’s wrong, sahib?” Charan Singh inquired when Sikander returned to the car. “You look even more depressed than usual.”

  “I am sorry to say that we have been ordered by the Viceroy to cease our investigations.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad, huzoor, especially considering that I have found you another clue.”

  “What clue?” Sikander growled. “Are you trying to be funny, you old goat?”

  “Not at all,” the old Sikh’s face broke into a vast grin. “It just so happens that I, Charan Singh the master detective, has found your elusive picture wallah.”

  “You have?”

  “Indeed, huzoor. His name is Charles Urban and he has rented a haveli near the Sadar Bazaar, very close to the Dariya Ganj.”

  Sikander’s dudgeon faded. His mind raced as he contemplated his next move. As far as he could see, he had two choices. He could obey Hardinge’s command and return to the Majestic with his tail between his legs, or he could defy him, and carry on with his investigation. It took him less than a minute to make up his mind. If he could find something useful still, he thought, maybe the Viceroy would not be put out too badly.

  “Take me there,” he said, “and make it quick.”

  “Of course, huzoor.” Charan Singh gave Sikander a knowing look. “I knew you would say just that, which is why I have already given Ajit Singh the proper directions.”

  Their destination turned out to be a compound not far from the Turcomani gate. It was here that the film wallah had taken two adjoining bungalows and set up shop. Charan Singh had made a few discreet inquiries about the man. Mr. Urban was an American, who had made a fortune off footage from the Boer War, and had opened a studio on Wardour Street. His company had attained some renown for its scientific shows at the Alhambra, and he had shot a documentary about the people of London that had been well received. Also, it was said that he had developed a new process to bring color to the screen that was said to be revolutionary, something called Kinemacolor, and that the King was a great aficionado of his work, which was why he had been assigned the honor of chronicling the Durbar for posterity.

  Sikander considered him a modern man. He took pride in being open-minded, especially when contrasted with the attitudes of some of his peers in the Chamber of Princes, who were still so backward in their mentality as to be very nearly medieval.

  However, if there was one technology that dismayed him, it was cinema. When it came to moving pictures, Sikander found himself distinctly unimpressed. It was an irrational antipathy, of that he was quite aware. He had been there that cold morning in 1896, seated in the audience when the Lumière Brothers had screened their film in the garden of Watson’s Hotel in Bombay. Unfortunately, rather than thinking it a revelation, he had found it disappointing, little more than a parlor trick, a gimmick. As far as he was concerned, the cinema was just another form of voyeurism. There was no mystery to it, no soul. It was fickle, an illusion with no real substance. And while he could see how people were easily enticed by the lure of the moving image, entranced by what seemed almost to be magic, somehow, to him, it symbolized an entropy, the death of imagination.

  No, he much preferred a good book. There was something deeply reassuring about a book that a moving picture could never possess, that tangible intoxication of dust and ink, the solace of paper, its smell and its substance.

  Still, regardless of his opinions about the medium, Sikander could not help but feel his spirits lift as the Rolls trundled southward, his moroseness being replaced by that familiar euphoria he knew so well. He had thought the game over, but, thank the heavens, it was still properly in play.

  By the time Ajit Singh slowed the car, Sikander was positively brimming over with nervous energy.

  “The lights are off, sahib,” Charan Singh said, peering out at the film wallah’s residence, which was surrounded by a high wall topped by spikes and an ominous-looking wrought-iron gate. “I think, perhaps, the bird has flown the coop.”

  “Let us take a look anyway,” Sikander suggested, hopping off to make a slow recce of the environs, before pausing in front of the gate, which was chained and padlocked.

  “You cannot be serious,” the big Sikh’s eyes goggled. “That would be breaking and entering, huzoor.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, old man. We are on the Viceroy’s business, after all.”

  “Are we?” Charan Singh inquired, smelling a lie, but it was too late. Sikander had already vaulted over the gate, as agile as an acrobat. Leaving his manservant to struggle after him, he strode up to the front door of the haveli shamelessly. Sikander rapped on it once, then twice, but there was no answer. He tried the handle next. It seemed to be locked, but that was no great obstacle, not to someone with his varied and somewhat picaresque skills. From his turban, he pulled out a pin, a sliv
er of metal about two inches long. He examined the lock with one eye. It looked straightforward enough, a simple Yale and Towne mortice that should be easy to defeat. Sikander licked his lips and bent the pin almost into a P, which he then inserted into the keyhole. He pulled the door toward him and jiggled the pin in a complicated maneuver up and around, and voilà, the lock clicked open.

  “Hold on, sahib! This a very bad idea.”

  “Oh, come on. You always say that.”

  “And you never listen,” the Sikh groused as Sikander eased the door open, and tiptoed in. Inside, it was very dark, and a distinct smell of ammonia hung in the air, mingled with something else, a bitter odor not unlike burned hair. Squinting, he tried to get a sense of his surroundings, but just as his eyes were beginning to become accustomed to the shadows, one of the electric lamps blazed to life, and he found himself confronted by a red-faced man advancing toward him, brandishing a saucepan as if it were Excalibur itself.

  Sikander studied this apparition, unsure whether to be amused or befuddled. He was very short, perhaps an inch under five feet, but with broad shoulders and a hunched back. Sikander put his age around forty, although he could have been older, judging by his sideburns, which were flecked with gray. As for the rest of his head, it was perfectly bald, shaved as bare as a monk’s, an impression accentuated by the fact that he was clad in a tattered bathrobe and a pair of threadbare long johns.

  “Who are you?” he squawked, with a distinctly northern accent. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing here, eh?”

  Behind Sikander, Charan Singh came barging in, ready to charge into the fray, his fists clenched. Sikander gave him a subtle nod, to warn him to hold his ground.

  “I’m sorry.” He decided to play played the hapless dolt. “I am here to see Mr. Urban.”

  “He’s not here, is he?” He spared one long moment to eye Charan Singh, looking him up and down, which was why he decided to hold on to his saucepan, although he did make the concession of lowering it, if only a few inches. “He’s gone off to Bombay to film the King’s arrival, he has.” His eyes narrowed. “Say, how did you get in here, anyway?”