by Nev March
Neither elephant replied, so she stomped back down the clanging stairs with Adi at her elbow. Her Ayah smiled apologetically and followed, as did the groom.
Alone on the gallery, I saw it now at dusk, one half in the tower’s slanting shadow, the other golden from a dying sun. Why did this place hold Lady Bacha in its thrall? Why deceive her household and come up here with Miss Pilloo as her only companion? The silent stones nursed their secret in the still, sullen air.
Descending with careful steps, I caught my breath by the time I reached the carriage. Adi, Diana and her Ayah sat in stiff silence. Unwilling to crowd them and glad, if I was honest, to avoid the awkward tension between siblings, both of whom I admired, I called to our carriage driver, “Hoy, Ganju!” Signalling him to make room, I hauled myself painfully up beside him.
Gaslights threw a golden mist over the white gate of Framji Mansion as our wheels crunched gravel. At the house, amid purple shadows of dusk, bougainvillea boughs cast dappled shapes and swayed, rustling softly.
Burjor and his wife met us on the stairs, their relief warm and heavy as a hot monsoon day. Mrs. Framji embraced Diana. Her children both began to speak, while Burjor’s voice rumbled his thunder. Uncomfortable with the to-do, I held back.
When he’d gone a few steps, Adi called, “Captain!”
I resisted, reluctant to give evidence against one or the other. Needs must when the devil drives, I thought, and followed him.
The tableau looked like a court-martial. Diana stood at the window, fingers clenching her skirt. Adi prosecuted before a wide, squat desk where his father leaned forward on thickset arms. Mrs. Framji slumped on the settee. My concern growing, I waited by the door.
“All right, Adi, say it!” Diana burst out. “You were worried. I’m sorry!”
“Diana, you can’t do this. You can’t go off by yourself.” Palms wide, he sought his father’s agreement.
Burjor rumbled, “Diana, your mother and I … You don’t know what it is, to lose a child.”
“That’s why I went! To help. To find out why.” Diana pleaded, “Am I to stay indoors, is that it? We can’t invite anyone because of mourning. Now I can’t go anywhere either?” Frustration shredded her voice.
Only in such moments did I realize how young Diana was. Her poise and steadfastness made one forget. Now her words seemed strangled with emotion. I paused. Where had I heard that poignant note before? Somewhere in my childhood I’d heard a woman weep like that.
Before I could place it, Diana burst out, “No one else is imprisoned like this! Why, girls in London go to the theater, ride in the park, with just a chaperone.” Catching sight of me, she cried, “Captain, tell them!”
She wanted a champion. But I’d seen Adi near the end of his tether today—his headlong dash from the rolling carriage, his cry as he ran up the coiled stairs.
Clearing my throat, I addressed Burjor. “Miss Diana was in no real danger today, with her maid and Ganju, the driver, to accompany her.”
When Adi glared at me, I added, “Gurung and he were with a Gurkha regiment. They’re scrappy fighters, sir.”
“Captain!” Adi protested, “Would you let your sister ride about like that? After what’s happened?”
After the deaths of his wife and sister, and my recent ambush, he meant. I drew a breath and considered. “Perhaps, with a larger escort, she’d do all right.”
“Burjor,” said Mrs. Framji, rising to go to his side. As she conferred with her husband, Diana dropped into the settee. The storm had passed.
She’d been gone six hours. What had Diana learned from the children? As if reading my mind, she caught my glance, then shook her head almost imperceptibly. Not now. Don’t remind them of my disappearance.
I’d seen her “speak” to Adi just so and marveled, their discourse mysterious and incomprehensible. Now I heard as though she whispered in my ear. When I dropped my chin a half inch, Diana drew a relieved breath. I will tell you soon, her eyes promised.
Could she read my mind? It was impossible to look away.
A clock began its eight o’clock chime, bringing me back to the present. My train to Matheran departed at six in the morning, and I had yet to collect my valise from my rental.
I asked Adi, “If there’s nothing else, sir?”
There was not, so bidding them goodnight I trudged to my lodgings, still musing about that silent conversation with Diana. Something had changed between us, but I could not tell what.
At home, I opened my old valise and rolled up a brown jacket for my trip. It felt oddly lumpy. Had I left something in the breast pocket? Mindful of the need to preserve evidence, all my papers were kept at Adi’s. So what was this crumpled sheet?
I smoothed it open on the bedroll. Atop the page, I read, “Dear brother Francis.”
Francis? Francis Enty, the clerk at Lloyd’s, was the key witness I’d interviewed last week. Called away by a child’s voice, he’d left me for a moment. Before he returned, I’d seen a discarded wad of paper—out of place among neat piles of letters—and tucked it into a pocket. Since I’d not had occasion to wear the brown jacket, here it had remained.
I brought the discarded note to the gaslight and read.
As I wrote you last month, it is my dearest wish to care for my sister Jasmine, but you know I have three young ones myself. Now you ask whether I can care for your two sons as well. Francis, please excuse me as I cannot. My mother-in-law is unwell at present, and Raymond is away, so it is all I can do to manage. Please convey my dearest love to Jasmine, and my prayers for her recovery. Francis, you did not mention what exactly is her ailment? Perhaps I can ask the local vaid about it.
It was signed, Mary Dmitry, Poona Cantonment.
I stared at the crumpled page and knew I’d been deceived. Enty’s wife was not in Poona with her sister as he claimed. He’d lied to me after all.
CHAPTER 19
NIGHT MENACE
I assembled my beat-up valise in short order and looked about the dusty room for my new notebook, having lost the first in my skirmish on Princess Street. There was not much to search. The space I rented was a warehouse of sorts, with sacks of grain along one side, my bedroll and few possessions on the other. Where had I left that notebook?
Realization dawned and, with it, consternation. Of course. It lay by my bed in Adi’s home. His frantic search for Diana had dragged me in its wake. Adi saw my ambush as a warning, an ominous message. No wonder his sister’s disappearance had struck such a blow. It was not just grief that drove him, but fear.
And what about Enty? Why had he said his wife was in Poona? I should follow him and investigate. But first, I’d visit Maneck in Matheran. Byram had taken a room for me in the hotel where Maneck resided. Dammit, I needed that notebook with my questions. Packing my uniform and a pair of pajamas, I returned to Framji Mansion.
The house was quiet so I slipped upstairs. In the guest chamber the aroma of meat and spice greeted me. Someone, likely Mrs. Framji, had sent up a plate to await my return. Ever since she learned about my childhood, or lack of one, she’d taken it upon herself to feed me. Perhaps she thought a fellow my size needed sustenance, or was moved by my injuries. Not one to complain, I polished off lamb stew, still warm, and fried dumplings called pakoras.
As I climbed into bed, hot wind snaked through the window, brushing my skin with prickles of heat, promising a dire summer. I worked my stiff shoulder as long as I could bear, then unbound my knee to find it bruised and angry. A shot of whiskey might help, but presently I had none.
I had turned down the lamp, but my throbbing shoulder would not let me settle one way or another. Diana had wanted to help with the investigation. What else did she know? She’d watched me with a searching look. A bloke might take that as a mark of interest—I was not fool enough to, was I? Something lay heavy about my mind as well, an ache I could not define. Adi’s terror haunted me. The distress in Diana’s voice left me feeling raw, unpeeled somehow.
The pattern of darkne
ss in my room shifted. Something had moved. Puzzled, I searched the shadows. Servants often hurried back and forth on the outer balconies, so I only looked to see who it was. Beyond the tiled verandah a branch swung in the moonlight.
My chamber was on the men’s side of the house, between Adi’s, which faced the front, and his parents’ apartment toward the back. Three guest rooms formed the middle, and I had one of them. The women’s wing lay on the other side of the building, connected to ours through a passage behind the house, and with a back stairway for servants to bring up hot water.
I heard movement on the balcony. A man’s shadow passed my window, headed toward the rear. That height, those sloping shoulders? That was no servant of Adi’s. My blood leapt into a rhythm I’d felt before, under fire.
On the verandah I caught a glimpse as he disappeared around the back of the house. I followed, running barefoot in the gloom. At the next corner, the tall figure turned onto the women’s balcony. He reached for Diana’s door.
I cannot explain what happened next. A rage such as I have never known erupted within me. I ran at him full tilt, my only thought to crush, to utterly obliterate the fiend.
At the last second a glimmer warned me, light reflecting where none should be. I swept his arm aside and slammed into him. It felt like I’d hit a tree. We went down hard. Angry sinew twisted under me.
I scrambled to my feet. We exchanged blows and kicks in the night. He moved fast. Pain exploded at my temple. A jab hit my throat and I reached out in desperation. Cloth tore under my fingers. Here he was!
I swung, felt my punch land on solid muscle. The impact blasted pain into my shoulder.
My assailant grunted. He dove over the parapet and crashed into the ferns below. Feet scrabbled on gravel and he was gone.
Someone exclaimed behind me. Shadows moved and fell away.
In the light of an open doorway, Diana stood ten paces away. I had misjudged her chamber. The door behind me was not hers. My knees buckled, and I sank to the tiles. I heaved, choking and deaf, my heartbeat a train blasting through my chest.
“Captain.” Adi helped me to my feet. He rattled the nearest doorknob but it would not open. The chamber I’d defended was locked.
“In here,” Diana said, behind me.
Adi half dragged, half carried me into her room. Dropping onto a couch, I leaned back upon soft velvet. In the distance, Burjor’s furious voice boomed out, marshaling servants.
“What happened?” asked Adi.
I shook my head, unable to speak, eyes closed to the bright lamps.
Diana answered, “I heard a terrible yell and a thud. It brought me straight up, like a nightmare. I heard … God! Thuds and groans, Captain Jim, fighting in the dark. I turned up the lamp. When I went out, the Captain was there.”
I heard a click, a familiar sound, like the safety of a revolver. Diana tucked something into a drawer as Burjor’s frame filled the doorway. Others entered, a younger son and Mrs. Framji. Whispered questions, eyes wide and shocked. I had well and truly woken the house.
“Are you all right?” Adi asked, placing the quilt from the bed over me.
I nodded and swallowed. A sharp pain stabbed my temple just then, proving me a liar. I touched a hand to my head, saw blood on my palm.
“Adi,” I said.
His head snapped around. He spotted the blood and said, “Papa. Call the doctor.”
“No,” I choked, “check the floor. Knife.”
A blade was found, a wicked little thing that could be concealed in a waistband or turban. I’d cut my hand on it, thrusting it away. If I had not, I would have run into it. Colonel Sutton, my old Commander, would be livid at such folly.
“Captain, are you hurt?” Burjor demanded.
I shook my head. With my bruises from Princess Street, I could little tell what ache was new. Fatigue overcame me. Distantly I heard Burjor send the carriage to fetch McIntyre. I bitterly wanted rest, but now I’d get none until the matter was reported. Wrapped in Diana’s flowered quilt, I closed my eyes.
In the pause Diana said, “Reminds me of when Pilloo complained about monkeys.”
A sentry in my brain cried, “Halt!” I put out a hand to grasp that thought, and rasped, “Was that Pilloo’s room? The door he tried to open?”
Silence stilled the chamber. Diana stared. Burjor straightened up, hands on his hips, and said, “Captain, what did you see?”
My throat unlocked at last, I described the man I’d followed: about six feet—as tall as me, and as wide. Not military, no, but there was something familiar about him. I’d run at him, then seen the knife.
Adi glared. “Damn fool thing to do.”
I agreed. “He was strong, and trained,” I said. “Wore a turban. Escaped over the parapet. Can someone check the bushes?”
“We’ll see to it. Go on,” said Burjor.
“I hit him.” I recalled the solidness of it, how it jarred my shoulder.
The intruder was strong and nimble. Nothing like the three short, lithe men who’d ambushed me in Princess Street. I was accumulating foes, but had no inkling who they were.
“Why did you charge him?” asked Adi. “Why not just shout and scare him off?”
“Don’t know. His hand was on the door, the other on the overhang above.” A tall man, ensuring he would not bump his head in the dark. I could not explain why I’d found this so menacing. I had feared it was Diana’s door, but that I would not admit. I sighed. Would the dratted constable never come?
Diana had just said something about Pilloo, and monkeys.
“Monkeys?” I asked.
Diana gave a surprised chuckle and curled herself into a chair. Chin resting on her knees, she looked like a child with rumpled hair in a striped blue pajama and jacket.
“It was a great to-do. Almost every week, remember?” she said to Adi, who slouched beside me. He’d had the presence of mind to wear a burgundy bathrobe and was perfectly respectable, like his father. I pulled the quilt over my chest.
“When Pilloo first came to us,” Adi recalled, “she had nightmares.”
“And she heard monkeys on the roof!” Diana said. Her smile faded as she drew a breath.
“What is it?” Adi said.
“Last week … I heard something. On the roof. At first I thought it was jambul fruit, rattling down the shingles. But jambul doesn’t ripen ’til monsoon—or at least May. Then I thought it might be monkeys. Such a nuisance, so I called the servants to shoo them away.”
Monkeys or jambul fruit rattling on the roof. Something, no, someone. And Diana, alone on the dark balcony in her nightgown. I felt chilled. A long shadow seemed to reach from the clock tower toward Malabar Hill.
Burjor stomped to Diana’s rolltop desk and extracted a sheet of paper. Lowering himself onto her tiny white chair, he began to write.
In the silence, Diana bit her lip. “It seems disloyal to say this—Pilloo was really headstrong. Yet she couldn’t bear a quarrel.”
Just like that, a question popped into my addled brain. Who knew Miss Pilloo better than the sister she wrote to?
I said, “Miss Diana, she wrote you in England, didn’t she? May I read her letters?”
She fumbled. “Oh dear. They can’t be … anyway, I burned them … after she died.”
Diana was a terrible liar. It was one of the things I liked best about her.
“Before you burn them,” I said, “may I read? It may be important.”
With bright pink cheeks she fetched them from her dressing room in a show of good faith. I accepted the bundle and assured her that she would have them back.
“Did they quarrel,” I asked, “Miss Pilloo and Lady Bacha?”
Adi and Burjor looked at Diana in silence.
She groaned. “Yes, all right. They did. I don’t know what it was about. Neither one said! It was a month before they died.”
I cannot explain why I knew this was key. Excitement rose fast, billowing sails in a gale. Some event led to the ladies’ disag
reement, then Lady Bacha tried to fix the problem. I had the thread of an answer in my fist, and must clamp tight to unravel it. But when I leaned forward, the room rocked. Not now, I wanted to shout. The answer was before me, if only I could see.
“That was Miss Pilloo’s room next door?”
“No, her room is on the other side of this one.” Adi replied. “The first is Bacha’s, followed by Pilloo’s, then Diana’s, a guest room, and lastly the children’s.”
Why did someone want to break into that empty chamber?
Monkeys on the roof of Pilloo’s room. The thief was searching for something in Pilloo’s chamber. But he did not know which it was.
“Has this happened before?” I asked. “A burglary, I mean.”
“No.” Adi replied.
So why now? First the attack on me, with a well-planned departure in the victoria cab, then this attempted burglary. What had I done, to set this in motion? For I knew with utter certainty that I had caused it.
“Well, Holmes?” said Adi, with a pained look.
We were up against a decisive, well-organized foe. I tried to raise a smile.
It did not work, and Adi grew concerned. “What is it? What’s coming?”
I shook my head and winced. Would that pounding never cease? I eased carefully through a maze of fact and deduction.
“The killer is afraid, because I’m asking questions. He needs, they need something from Pilloo’s room. This thief, tonight … that’s very quick after Princess Street.”
“Go on.” Burjor’s voice rumbled from the chair.
“I’ve been too … visible. Now they need something that’s hidden here.”
I had wandered further than I intended. As a boy I’d chased fireflies in a deep blue field, hands outstretched to the twinkling lights. The answer glimmered, just so, beyond my fingertips.
“They need to find it, before…”
“Before you do,” Diana said softly.
