by Nev March
Darkness descended.
CHAPTER 14
DOCTOR JAMESON’S REVELATION
I awoke in a battleground of pain. I tried to move and my head exploded, a full volley of cannons. My shoulder shrieked a violent protest. Elbow, ribs and knee fired in rapid staccato.
A voice behind me said, “Nice to-do, was it?”
I said, “Go to the devil,” and heard a chuckle.
“Not dead yet? Well, young man, you’ve certainly given it a go.”
That required no reply. A physician stood over me, sleeves rolled up baring forearms. He probed my ribs, grumbled and proceeded to bend each of my joints in a most unfriendly manner.
“So,” he said, when he’d turned my head a few times and peered into my eyes, “what happened?”
“Mph.” My left eye throbbed and I flinched away from his grip. What did happen? Images scattered in my mind: an angry grimace under a wide brown turban, dark limbs, a wooden pole cracking down on my shoulder.
“I’ve seen fewer broken bones on a corpse,” the medico said.
That brought me up cold.
“Not that bad, surely?” I knew the pain of a broken limb, the awful weight of it. Neither shoulder nor elbow seemed quite that bad. Was it my knee then?
The doctor’s smile broadened. “No, but you’ve collected some nice bruises.” He tapped my ribs, thumb kneading the knots on my breastbone. “These mended when you were a lad, I take it? Your forearm is more recent. And the shrapnel?”
“Seen many soldiers, Doctor?” My voice slurred. I could avoid speaking of Karachi, even thinking of it, but that grisly history was etched into my skin.
“Hmm.” The physician made some notes, and instructed an orderly to bind my elbow.
The door opened briskly. A thickset English officer in regimental uniform stomped in, filling the infirmary with his presence.
“So this is the blighter!” he said.
Although still groggy, I felt an urge to snap to attention, but my limbs would not obey.
“Name? Rank?” the officer demanded, chin forward. “Regiment?”
Blast. My dratted mustache shouted “army,” no matter where I was.
“James Agnihotri, Captain … retired. Fourteenth Light Cavalry.”
His lips tightened, a common reaction when Englishmen heard my name and realized I was Anglo-Indian. Mixed blood, and all that. Frowned upon by one and all.
On my other side, the doctor greeted him, “Good morning, Chief.”
So this was Chief Superintendent McIntyre who had investigated the ladies’ deaths. Good heavens.
“Jameson,” said McIntyre, irate, “this fellow has been causing trouble all over town. University, Ripon Club.” He scowled at me. “Agnihotri, eh? What’re you after?”
I made no reply. My brain was slowing, wheels chugging to a halt while the engine puffed weary gusts.
His sandy mustache bristled. “The Governor’s sent me a note, sir! ‘Why is army looking into a police matter?’ You’ve caused an almighty cock-up! What do you mean by it?”
The Governor of Bombay Presidency knew about me? God Almighty.
“My apologies,” I said, wheezing.
“I’ve a fine mind to arrest you,” he growled. “Who d’you work for?”
“Brown and Batliwala.”
“Solicitors!” he said. “Doing what?”
“Messages, mostly,” I invented. That should get the situation to Adi.
“What d’you know about the clock tower, eh? The clock tower deaths?”
I remained silent. If ever discretion was advised, now was the time.
“Tread carefully, soldier!” said the Superintendent of Police. “Where were you, on the twenty-fifth of October?”
October twenty-fifth. The day Lady Bacha and Miss Pilloo died. I stared at him as well as I could with one eye, since the other was nearly swollen shut, and said, “Poona Cantonment Hospital.”
He asked more questions, but sleep beckoned. I closed out the thunder of his voice and tried to welcome it.
“Right, Jameson,” the Superintendent growled and stamped away. Silence billowed in his wake, with the pungent smell of carbolic.
The good doctor fidgeted with my bandaged knee, then urged me to sit up so he could bind my shoulder. His attentions swept away the cobwebs of slumber.
“I was on the Framji case, young man, the clock tower deaths,” he said conversationally, as he spooled a bandage across my chest. A jolt went through me.
He chuckled. “Interested, are you? Yes, they consulted me about it. I’m Patrick Jameson, by the way.”
Damnation! Here was a heaven-sent opportunity and I was ill prepared for it.
“Ye … es, indeed,” Jameson said cheerfully, as he prepared a needle with my dose. My aching body demanded the medication, but his words were compelling.
“Were you the Medical Examiner?”
“One of five, actually,” he said, reaching into a cabinet. “Dawson, the Chief M.E., testified at the trial. Three Indian medicos and I also attended. Big case!”
“Were the women assaulted?” I blurted out. I was not at my best in that moment.
“Hmm.” Jameson leaned over me. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but no, there was no … evidence of crime.” His needle pierced my forearm. “The Indian doctors disagreed about the ladies’ bruises, but one thing was clear. Both young women were … of the species Virgo Intacta.”
I stared at him. So they had escaped molestation. That was good, was it not?
Tradition dictated an early wedding, but Miss Pilloo had not moved into her husband’s home. It explained her innocence.
But Lady Bacha? The question shot through my mind. She and Adi had been married more than a year. Was this what she was hiding? Was my charming and erudite client, in fact … homosexual?
Doctor Jameson swabbed my knee, then had me turn while he bound it.
Awash in pain, I scarcely noticed his ministrations, as my mind roiled at his disclosure. I’d wondered whether Lady Bacha was being blackmailed. Now I questioned whether her marriage was a sham.
Sodomy was a crime across the British Empire, punishable by imprisonment, banishment or worse. Was this what Adi’s father was afraid I’d uncover? Lady Bacha would be desperate to preserve such a secret. If found out, Adi would be a social pariah, a laughingstock, an object of derision and hate.
What was Holmes’s famous line? “When you remove the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” I considered my client: intense, resolute … and reserved. Had he wrestled with indecision, determined to hide this fact but desperate to know whether it was the cause of his wife’s demise?
All right. If Adi bore that sad secret, what of it? He’d done nothing wrong, that I knew of. To have married a charming lady and failed to bed her, well, it injured no one. By all accounts, she and Adi had been happy together. Yet that might be the problem. If someone learned Adi’s secret and threatened his reputation, well, Lady Bacha and the Framjis could lose a great deal. Here, at last, was reason for blackmail.
Jameson was saying, “… not too bad, but careful with that shoulder. Take a few days’ rest, soldier.” He motioned to someone behind me. “Get him dressed.” An orderly helped me into my trousers, now sadly torn and muddied. Ribs aching with each breath, I complied.
The Framjis came with a clatter of footsteps, scattering my sleep like a puff of smoke. Diana burst into the sick room and spotted me with a cry. She and Adi hurried to my side.
“What happened, old chap?” he asked, taking in my appearance.
“I’m all right.” For all his quirks, Jameson was competent enough. I’d lost the round, but broken nothing that wouldn’t heal.
“Let’s get you home,” said Adi.
“Ah … to my own place,” I mumbled, peering at Adi with one eye, since the other, bruised and swollen, had now closed.
“Your rooms, where are they?” Adi demanded, and I told him.
But we
had not reckoned with Diana. She promptly overruled the “little room behind a bakery,” and went off to arrange my release.
Since I was not to be detained, I tried to stand. Pain flashed with the bite of a whip and my knee buckled. Strong arms supported me. Jameson barked orders. Then his sedative lifted me away.
CHAPTER 15
DAMNED PERSONAL QUESTIONS
I awoke in a large room, dimly lit, to the scent of sandalwood. My fingers touched white scallops embossed on grey wallpaper and drew me from odd dreams where dark objects hurtled toward me. Heavy curtains kept the morning to quiet shadows. The smell of frying wafted from the kitchens. Adi and Diana had brought me to their home.
“Captain, please stay. At least until you recover,” Adi’s father said, somewhere above me. Clad in a brocade dressing gown, Burjor’s girth moved by my bed. How long had he stood there? “Rest now,” his low voice rumbled.
“I’ll stay with him,” said Diana’s voice.
He consented and the scent of sandalwood, laundered linen and soap departed. I winced. Just my luck. Graced with Diana’s presence, and I was barely capable of coherent thought.
I recalled the doctor’s words and felt weighed down with forebodings. I’d suspected that Lady Bacha’s death might revolve around some error of her youth, or Miss Pilloo’s. But this was no dusty riddle from the past. Her secret still menaced her husband and I was loath to be the instrument of Adi’s disgrace.
The attack had taken me by surprise. My inquiries had disturbed, no, threatened someone. I felt a spurt of satisfaction, a sense of having achieved something: the murderer was uneasy. I smiled and my mouth stung, bringing forth an oath.
“Do you need anything?” Diana moved into sight.
I’d forgotten her! “Where’s your brother?” I whispered.
She bent to me. “At lecture. He was here this morning. You were clean bowled, Captain.” Her smile brightened the chamber. “We had to carry you into the house. My God, you weigh a ton! It took four bearers to lift you.”
Daunted by neither my silence nor, apparently, my injuries, she shook out a newspaper.
“What’s the news?” I asked, tilting my chin at her paper. That set my head aching so I closed my eyes. For the next hour she read out the headlines and, upon my nod, the accompanying article. At some point I stopped listening to the words, carried by the ebbs and flows of her voice.
Sometime later Adi arrived with the scent of leather and expensive cologne. He greeted me warmly, inquired after my health, then parted the drapes to reveal a burst of red in a gulmohur tree outside. I was in a guest suite somewhere upstairs. The outer rooms of Framji Mansion had an external balcony abutting a palisade of trees, which I glimpsed behind the gulmohur’s crimson cascade. This clever configuration let servants run to and from individual apartments without traveling through the house and disturbing other occupants.
Adi dropped into the bedside chair, his mouth set in a grim line. “One of Byram’s reporters heard about you—he sent us word. I’m sorry, Captain. I didn’t think you’d get hurt.”
Gripped by affection, I cracked a smile at his mournful demeanor.
“It’s nothing,” I said, then sobered as Doctor Jameson’s words echoed in my ears. Adi was my friend, my only friend outside the army. The good doctor had revealed that Adi’s wife died a virgin. Was that it? The secret she died to protect?
Yet I hesitated to wound my friend. Would my damnably personal question end our association? But it must be done.
“May I speak with you … privately?”
Puzzled, Adi said, “Of course. Diana, would you give us a moment?”
She rose to leave, then stopped.
“No,” her voice rang out, clear and strong, “I won’t. I’m part of this, Adi.”
I shook my head. Impossible to speak in her presence.
Adi remonstrated, but Diana would not budge.
I cursed my impatience. If only I’d waited to broach this awkward matter.
“It’s all right. Whatever it is.” She perched on the foot of my bed.
That honest, determined look, those intelligent eyes. Now I would lose Adi’s friendship, as well as her own good opinion.
“Captain,” Adi began while I fumbled for an opening, “do you want to stop? Should we cease this … inquiry?”
“God no!” burst from me.
His surprised laughter joined Diana’s chuckles.
Now, I thought, I must ask now. I caught his forearm. “There’s something … forgive me.”
“Of course! There’s nothing to forgive, Captain.”
“Forgive the question. Have you … lied to me?”
Adi went still. “No. What’s this about?”
“You said … you were happy. Lady Bacha and you. Was that true?”
Silence froze the air between us. I pushed forward anyway, once more into the breech.
“The Medical Examiner confirmed … both ladies were virgins.” My throat ached, dry and painful.
Diana cried, “Thank heavens.”
Slowly Adi said, “And you’re asking me why. Why was Bacha … untouched?”
“What?” Diana said, shocked.
“Hush now, Diana,” said Adi. He met my gaze without hesitation, “You’re asking … am I impotent? Or do I prefer … men.”
Although Diana looked appalled, I nodded with regret. One didn’t speak about homosexuals, even in the army. But it happened. I tried to explain. “Lady Bacha was hiding something. If we knew what it was, we might know why she died.”
Adi had not replied. A tide of sympathy swept over me for this lad who held himself so upright and met my glance unshaken. He drew a slow breath.
“Neither, Captain,” said Adi. “I do not … prefer men. Bacha and I, we barely knew each other when we wed. She was so young, a tiny thing. I thought we had time to … get to know each other. I thought we had the rest of our lives.
“Women die in childbirth, Captain, because they’re too young.… I didn’t want Bacha to be one of them.” His voice trailed off as his look turned inward.
Silence clenched its fist over us, rebuking me. A drop of light from the window reflected on Diana’s moist cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Adi nodded absently and left the room. Diana departed soon after. With her went the quiet comfort of that morning, the sense of being safe and cared for. As I feared, my question had thrust a wedge into our trio.
Setting aside the throb in my shoulder, I considered that Adi’s answer rang true. My question haunted me, and his response. I had done what needed doing. So why did regret clench my throat, and curse me for a brute?
CHAPTER 16
AN OLD FRIEND
The next morning, Gurung helped me bathe and redress my bandages. Needing clean clothes, I sent him off to my room on Forgett Street and made comfortable with a towel around my waist in the Hindustani style.
While I waited, the gap-toothed servant, Ramu, retrieved my files from Adi’s chamber. I settled down to add recent events to my record.
Adi and Diana arrived at nine, with a bearer carrying breakfast. I was glad to see them. Despite my insensitive probing yesterday, Adi did not seem stiff or withdrawn. So, I was relieved to discover, I was not to be cast off.
Were there lines on his forehead that I had not noticed before? He greeted me cordially enough, moved some papers and directed the servant to set down the meal. Somewhat poked up at being found in such a state of undress, still swollen and bruised from yesterday’s ambush, I sat up to return his greeting.
Diana took one look at me and said, “Oh!”
While I shrugged a nightshirt over my towel and bandages, Adi said, “Captain, you should be in bed!”
Gurung brought my clothes, but, ravenous since I’d not supped the previous day, I waved him away and sat before the laden platter.
Loading a plate with eggs, I said, “Those thugs took my notebook.”
Adi frowned. “Notebook? For the case?”
<
br /> I tried a grin. “They won’t get much. It’s in French. My French is terrible.”
His guffaw took me by surprise. Not for anything would I break this moment, this mending of our tattered bond.
Diana moved a stack of newspapers and sat in the window seat. Her face flushed, she moved in a business-like manner this morning. I gathered that she had not forgiven my tactless questions last night.
She asked, “Did they get anything else?”
“Money?” Adi inquired.
“Didn’t have much.”
“Good heavens,” said Adi, appalled, “I haven’t paid you.”
“Haven’t needed it. You provide breakfast and dinner.” I pointed to the tray with a fork.
“Captain, who did this? Did you recognize them?” asked Diana.
“No.” A snatch of memory came to mind. A bare-skinned assailant—was it two?—wearing a checkered cloth over mouth and chin. Another man with angry eyes, thick eyebrows and a round turban. I flexed fingers that felt stiff and bruised from those punches I’d landed. I’d not done too badly.
“Thieves, then?” Diana said. “You were dressed like a toff.” Her hands flat on her long grey skirt, she wore a crisp white shirtwaist, sleeves buttoned at her elbows.
“Can’t say, Miss.” I shrugged. My shoulder protested, but Jameson had assured me it would mend. I rotated it and snapped out a quick punch. That hurt, so I settled down to finish scrambled eggs, jam and toast.
Brother and sister conferred on the balcony while Gurung helped me dress. They returned, saying that my statement to the Constabulary could be made from the house. A message would be sent to that effect.
We discussed what little I remembered, then Adi said, “Carriage driver and hoodlums must be in cahoots. The victoria distracted you so those thugs could creep up.”
“Perhaps. I’d planned to try my luck at the raceway. Probably passed them in the street.”
“You came from the Ripon Club. Could they have followed you?”
