by Nev March
I was a fool, for despite everything, I loved Diana. I knew it was hopeless. A fellow like me, a pauper and a bastard, had no chance at all. And yet it was there, that feeling inside me, a fist that hammered each time she gazed at me with those luminous eyes.
As the train plowed through the undulating hills and plains of Central India, I dozed, glad of Adi’s company but missing the boys’ chatter. Little Parimal and Hari were not with us. Summoned by Diana’s telegram, their parents arrived, anxious and hopeful. Keen to find an objection, some reason they could not take my lads, I had interrogated the farmer from Jalandhar and his wife, finally hitting upon a simple test: if the boys remembered their parents, I would release them. But if they had forgotten, I would not give them up.
It was all for naught. Parimal saw his mother and bawled. She rushed to him, caressing his face, enveloping him with kisses. The farmer wept and dropped to his knees to thank his gods. Before they took their children home, I held my boys in a bittersweet farewell, breathing in their scent of straw and soap and horses, aching. I’d grown fond of my scruffy band, now restored to their childhoods. All I had left were Chutki and the baby, whom we named Baadal for the impending monsoon.
“Captain?” Adi asked, noticing my malaise. “Once we get back, will you resume the investigation?”
I sat up. “Right, sir. Let’s take stock. Here’s what we know.” I put the events into chronological order. “Some days before October twenty-fifth, Lady Bacha met a man in the library. Apte the librarian saw him grab her wrists. That, and the fact that the ladies came to the tower in secret, suggests that they were being blackmailed. But by whom? And for what? We still don’t know.
“So what happened on that fateful day, October twenty-fifth? Francis Enty, the law clerk, saw two men arguing with Maneck but refused to identify them as Akbar and Behg. McIntyre said he went back on his testimony.”
Adi started in surprise. “He did? Didn’t know that.”
“Enty’s an odd fish—lied to me about his wife’s whereabouts, said she was in Poona. That’s a loose end I need to run down.” I told Adi about the letter I’d taken from Enty’s rooms, which revealed that Enty’s wife was not in Poona as he claimed.
Shaking his head, Adi asked, “Why would he lie about that?”
“It will do no good to ask him. He’s got something against me. Remember how upset McIntyre was? Enty’s the chap who told the Governor I was investigating the case.” Diana had discovered this while spying from the shadows. I said, “I should follow him, see what he’s about.”
Adi considered. “Hmm. That black thread and white bead you found on the gallery floor—can you connect them to Bacha and Pilloo?”
“No,” I said, sighing, “but I wonder if it has something to do with the black clothes the librarian found in the reading room. He recalled two men sitting in the reading room despite the commotion outside. Peculiar, no? Again, no one’s identified them.”
“What about the burglar?”
“Yes. Nur Suleiman, nephew to the Rani of Ranjpoot. McIntyre said he matched Akbar’s description.”
Adi frowned at that. “When I read that in your report, I could hardly believe it. Akbar who was named in Bacha’s trial is actually Prince Nur Suleiman of Ranjpoot? Our Toddy business depends upon Ranjpoot! Papa deals with the Rani and her family.”
“Yes. Could he have some personal grudge against you? Or your father? He was searching for something.”
Adi looked puzzled. “Can’t imagine what. If Akbar was blackmailing Bacha and Pilloo, he must have had something on them. But what?”
“Something the ladies feared. Read through Bacha’s papers again. Search for a photograph or document. Could be in a book, hidden in a newspaper, or behind a picture frame.”
Adi nodded. “Leave it to me.”
I went on. “Akbar also has dealings at the dockyards. I followed him there.”
“Before you went to Lahore.”
“Mm. And Maneck—I’ll have another go at him. He knows more than he’s saying. He led me to Kasim, and Doctor Aziz had some rather interesting remarks about Kasim.”
As I narrated Doctor Aziz’s intelligence, it seemed to me an investigator’s job was fairly methodical. Keep running down leads until they tie together. I had a few still: Maneck, the state of Ranjpoot … and that terrified Havildar. What the devil did he mean by getting into such a state? Next time I’d take Adi as interpreter.
I needed a break in the case soon. It was almost June—three months since I started working for Adi, confidently claiming I’d get to the bottom of this in six months. That burglar, Prince Suleiman, what was he looking for? It must be valuable to warrant such a risk.
The two sides of my investigation met in the princedom of Ranjpoot. I would go there. First, I’d meet Maneck, who’d sent me after Kasim in the first place. It was time he said what he knew.
CHAPTER 44
MANECK’S STORY
Next morning, dressed in a clean white kurta, I walked to Maneck’s boardinghouse on Ripley Street. A maid-servant took my card at the door, bid me wait, and returned with Maneck’s landlady, who invited me into a small parlor. Although dressed in Western clothing—modest grey dress and cap—she was undoubtedly Indian. No longer young, she had an arresting face, wide forehead and pointed chin, her wrinkles framing a sharp gaze. She gave an impression of self-reliance and endurance, of being weathered by responsibility.
“Do you want lodgings?” she inquired, fingering a clutch of keys at her waist.
“I’d like to call on Maneck Fitter.”
A shadow crossed her face, the sort of caution I’d seen in Diana when she was hiding something. Maneck’s landlady looked worried—for him?
“He is not here.”
“Does he say when he will return from Matheran?”
“Oh,” she said, “is that where he is?”
“Madam, I’m Captain Agnihotri,” I said. “I met him there some weeks ago.”
“Did you?” she said, her color rising. “I’m not supposed to say where he is.”
So she knew! I said, “I mean him no harm. He’s had a rum time of it.”
“Ah.” She paused, undecided. “Is there a message?”
If she was in a position to send him a message, then had he returned to Bombay? She seemed about to speak. When her gaze dropped, I felt a moment of sympathy. He was here.
The landlady’s anxiety puzzled me. Did Maneck mean more to her than a lodger? It came to me then, why he was afraid, and whom he was trying to protect.
I said, “Maneck knows me. Give him my name, if you would? I’ll return tomorrow.”
“Captain.” Maneck stepped from behind a curtain.
I started, then shook his hand, saying, “You’re a dark horse, aren’t you.”
Neatly dressed, clean-shaved, unsettled and agitated, with the wiry build that most people underestimate, he paced with the caged frustration of one cooped up too long.
Needing to speak to him alone, I asked the landlady for a cup of tea. When her footsteps receded, I gave Maneck a hard look. Catching his arm, I pulled him to a halt.
“What’s her name, your lady?” I asked.
Maneck gave a start. He went quite pale, so I propelled him into a seat. “Yes, lad, it’s obvious. You don’t want to put her at risk. But you can’t get anywhere this way, can you?”
He groaned, buried his head in his hands. “Please, just go. Leave me alone.”
“You mentioned Kasim, remember? I followed his trail all over India, even went to Lahore. Now I need the whole story.”
He winced. “I swear I had nothing to do with Bacha, all right?”
I absorbed that. “Did Miss Pilloo ask for your help? It’s time you came clean.”
He looked away, saying, “I can’t put Alice at risk too.”
So I was right. In the next room someone stirred a teacup.
“Shouldn’t you alert her, let her know what this is about?”
As the landlady’s
footsteps approached, Maneck tensed. She set down her tray and saw his drooping face, exclaiming, “Maneck, what’s the matter?”
I pressed my advantage. “Miss Pilloo asked you for assistance. What did she say?”
As Alice perched on the chair, Maneck looked distressed, even angry that I’d put it out in the open like that. I’d have to get Alice away from this mess before he’d help me. I said, “Madam, is there somewhere you can go for a few days? Family elsewhere?”
Puzzled, she said, “Me? A few days … why yes. A week?”
“Perhaps two would be advisable.” I wasn’t as confident as I sounded, but she must be safe, else Maneck would never speak.
“For a couple of weeks, I suppose. I’ll go to my cousin. My cook knows what to do, and if you take the rents…?” she asked Maneck.
He brightened. “Of course. Would you be safe there?”
Alice chuckled, a low confident sound that reminded me of Diana. “My cousin’s married to a Colonel and lives in the middle of Poona Cantonment. If it’s not safe there, why, there’s nowhere safe at all!”
Maneck’s head came up like a plant revived after a drought. She patted his hand unselfconsciously, telling me theirs was a long association. I glanced at them with sympathy. So Maneck too had a forbidden love. Few would support an intercommunal match between a young Parsee man and an older Christian widow.
I urged him, “Maneck, we have a chance to end this! Tell me, what’s this about?”
A long minute he stared at me, then said, “His name is Seth Nur Akbar Suleiman. We met last year. He’s some nabob down south, near Mysore. He tried to get Bacha to meet with him, but she wouldn’t. Then he told me he had Pilloo’s letter, that he could destroy the Framjis—utterly devastate them! The way he spoke—it turned my stomach. He’s … terrifying.”
“I’ve met him,” I said. So this was the man I’d fought on Diana’s balcony—that fiend had a letter belonging to Miss Pilloo, a mysterious letter that he’d used to blackmail the ladies. Here at last was confirmation of my theory!
“He said he wanted to speak to her. That was all! So I agreed—to take a message to Pilloo. Diana and she were childhood friends of mine. When she went to her dressmakers’, I waited outside and told her about it.”
Diana had called Maneck a “lamb.” I focused on his tale, imagining how Akbar had terrified Pilloo with his summons. “And? How did she react?”
Maneck moistened his lips, clenching the arms of his chair. “Captain, Pilloo burst into tears. Said ‘I knew it! It’s all my fault!’ She was terribly upset.”
Excitement thrummed within me. So Kasim had reached Ranjpoot, possessing an unfortunate letter from Pilloo, something she felt guilty about. Somehow, he’d fallen in with Akbar and Behg, and together blackmailed young Miss Pilloo. Was Akbar still searching for that letter at the Framjis, months later?
“What’s in the letter?”
Maneck shook his head. “Never saw it.”
“All right. You told Miss Pilloo. She was upset. She went to Lady Bacha for help?”
“Yes. I met them outside the library. It was entirely respectable,” he assured Alice.
“On the university grounds, by the jambul tree?”
Maneck froze. “By God, Captain. How on earth do you know that?”
“Some children saw you, gave a pretty clear description. Go on.”
“Bacha went inside the library. I waited with Pilloo until she returned. Don’t know who she met or what he said, but it frightened Bacha.”
It was where Bacha had met the man in the ornate green coat. If Green Coat was Akbar or Behg, my case against him was on solid footing. I sighed—I’d need to make that link, and prove it to Superintendent McIntyre.
Bringing Maneck’s attention to the fatal day, I recalled the children who’d witnessed his argument with Akbar and Behg before the two girls arrived. “You were there before them, were you not?”
Looking glum, he said, “Akbar sent me to summon a victoria and hold it at the south entrance. I protested, since I’d told Pilloo and Bacha I’d stay with them. How could I know it would go so wrong? It was afternoon, and in the middle of university.”
“You set up the exchange,” I guessed. “Miss Pilloo’s letter for, how much money?”
Maneck gaped. “How…?”
“A deduction. Three children saw Bacha’s quarrel with Pilloo after you left. I had deduced the ladies were being blackmailed. How much?”
“Five hundred rupees.”
So the housekeeping money, missing from Lady Bacha’s writing table, had gone to pay blackmail. “Right. You left to get a carriage. What time was this?”
“Three fifteen or so.”
“But not before you had an altercation with Akbar and Behg.”
His pale brown eyes were determined. “I refused to go, but Akbar shoved me.”
“And tore your jacket. You were on the first-floor balcony.”
“Yes.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“The children saw this, too.” I read from my notebook: “A ruckus, two men with Maneck at the first-floor parapet. Tore your shirt … or coat, not clear which.”
“Tore the collar of my coat. There were witnesses?” His voice reached a place deep within me. I knew that sense of utter despair, of overwhelming darkness, where a glimmer of hope felt so elusive in the tapestry of gloom you doubt it’s really there.
I held the thread of the mystery tight, following it carefully. “You left to secure a carriage. The women arrived and went up the clock tower. So what went wrong? Why didn’t they pay and retrieve the letter?”
“Oh God!” cried Maneck, jumping up. “I wish I knew! There were no cabs to be found! I ran up and down the street. At last I secured a barouche, begged the driver to wait. He argued, so I gave him ten rupees to do so!
“I rushed back. Imagine what I saw! Both girls, dead on the ground! I had assured them I’d be with them. Captain, it was a public place. Right by the reading room. Make the exchange and leave, we had said. Instead, people crowded around their bodies.” He tore at his hair in anguish, then dropped into the chair and covered his face.
Wide-eyed, Alice touched his shoulder in sympathy.
My pulse echoed in my eardrums. Maneck’s words clearly implicated Akbar and Behg in the ladies’ deaths. But wait! An important fact lay just beyond the horizon. There was more to this than blackmail. Why not take the cash and demand more later? Why did the women die?
Maneck raised his wet face. “I let them down. All I wanted was to help them through this thing. I even offered to make the exchange for them, but Akbar would not hear of it. It must be them, he said. Kasim deserved that.”
Kasim! Here at last was the link to Kasim. “What did he mean?”
Maneck shook his head. “He said Kasim was a servant boy who worked for the Framjis. That’s all he said, I swear! It’s because of Kasim that Akbar hates them.”
“The clock tower—who chose it for the exchange?”
Maneck’s face creased. “Akbar. I had suggested the reading room. More public, safer.”
“Instead he chose the clock tower,” I said, “and got you out of the way.”
Maneck said, “So it was revenge, wasn’t it? He never intended to give them the letter.”
I considered that. Something still did not fit. “Perhaps. But why attack me on Princess Street? Why sneak into the house the very next night?”
My words drew a gasp from Alice. Maneck gaped at me.
“This isn’t over,” I said, regretting my careless words. “I don’t think Akbar has the blackmail letter.” I looked at the morose lad. How many months had he borne being questioned in jail? He’d stood at the dock, tight-lipped through the hellish trial.
“Maneck, why didn’t you tell the police? Why go through the trial, accused of murder?”
“Because of that letter!” he cried. “Akbar said it would destroy the Framjis. I tell you, he could do it. Why else would Bacha agree to everyth
ing? To meet him, to give him the money he wanted. She agreed to the date, the time, everything! And I let them down so completely. Came back too late! Akbar had killed them both. Oh God, I could do nothing!”
I sat back, frowning. What was in that letter? Whatever it was, the Framji girls had died for it.
CHAPTER 45
HAVILDAR’S SECRET
Remembering the sight of Alice comforting Maneck, their heads bent close together, I returned to Framji Mansion. Did Maneck’s uncle disapprove of the match because Alice wasn’t Parsee? I hoped they’d find a way through the maze of social expectations.
I joined the Framjis as dinner was being served. Adi shook hands, inviting me to the meal. It was as good a way to report my progress as any, so schooling my manner with Diana to formal politeness, I accepted.
“Gurung!” Burjor signaled for a place setting. I greeted him, Mrs. Framji and Diana, answering Adi’s questions as food was heaped on my plate.
“Bao-di!” Chutki gasped, as she came in with rotis, still smoking from the stove. She beamed a smile, then hurried to her duties, her anklets tinkling.
As she placed a roti before me, I asked in Pashto, “Chutki, how are you?”
“I am well, Bao-di,” she whispered, smiling.
“Do you need anything?”
She twisted her lips, then said, “Some money?”
Handing her my billfold, I continued my account of Maneck’s story. The Framjis listened in rapt attention as I reported why the ladies went to the clock tower.
When I was done, Burjor looked solemn, pondering Maneck’s testimony, which confirmed our suspicions: Akbar had blackmailed Lady Bacha and Miss Pilloo. Adi stared at his plate, motionless.
“Took five rupees, Bao-di.” Chutki returned my billfold, stooping to touch my feet.
Uncomfortable, since the gesture is usually reserved for elders, I said, “Tsch! Chutki, what are you doing?” Sitting on the floor, she rested her cheek against my knee. No one spoke, so I touched her hair and asked, “Are you content here?”
