Murder in Old Bombay

by Nev March

  “Diana, may I ask you a question?”

  I threaded my fingers through hers.

  When she said, “Thank heaven,” I could no longer hold back. “Diana, I love you. Marry me, sweetheart.”

  CHAPTER 61

  DISCOVERY

  Diana looked stunned.

  I hurried to explain. “I have some prospects now. McIntyre’s come through with the job. Wants me to take an exam next year. Try for a promotion. We’d be all right. Not as grand as this, but comfortable.”

  “Jim,” Diana said, breathing hard, a hand to her lips. “When Cornelia Sorabji’s father married a Christian lady and converted, his family cast him out. I’ve always been proud to be born Parsee. But now … I wouldn’t be allowed in the Fire-Temple. My friends won’t let me in their homes.”

  I had found a way to earn a living and finance our future, but if we wed, I would gain, and she would lose. How had I not seen this?

  I winced. “Does it matter so much to you?”

  “Jim, there’s more.” She struggled with the words, clutching my fingers. “What’s worse … is to care for someone who … lives dangerously. It eats at me, from the inside. I don’t know if I can live like that.”

  What was she saying? Was this about Lahore or Pathankot? Or even Karachi? No, this was about me being a detective, about boxing, she was talking about who I was. She thought I had an appetite for danger!

  So it was no.

  I’d not known I could hurt like that. Fool that I was, I’d convinced myself I did not hope, but I’d been lying to myself.

  She clutched my arm. “Jim. Look at me.”

  She wanted to see my pain? I met her gaze, hid nothing.

  “Jim, no! Don’t you see? Despite everything, I have to see you. I need to see you. We’ll find a way.” Her lips parted in a sad smile. “I care for you, too.”

  Incredible. Her softness filled my arms, my face against her hair, and for a while, words were unnecessary.

  Diana said, “Jim, when you attacked the burglar, I suspected. That you … cared. I couldn’t quite believe it. These last weeks, after we quarreled, I was miserable.” She glanced up, anxious. “I hoped, then. But Papa laid down the law. Jim, I felt so lost. Keeping up appearances, as though nothing’s happened. Pretending. It’s been awful.”

  Holding her close, I said, dryly, “Byram covered every soiree. Usually on page four … society matters. Described your dresses, whom you danced with.”

  Her head tucked under my chin, she chuckled at the idea of me scouring the gossip pages. Her soft laugh lifted like mist from a waterfall. We had a chance! Somehow, I had to convince Burjor, find some way to persuade him. Would Adi help me plead my case?

  “Jim, this will cause a huge to-do,” Diana said. “When we tell my parents—I dread it. If only it was just the two of us. But it will affect everyone.”

  Her delicate face mirrored each emotion. I nodded, feeling reluctance reflected in her grip. Like her, I wanted to preserve this precious moment, place fortifications around it, secure it somehow—it was so new, so fragile.

  “Let’s keep this for us, Jim. Just for a while, until I’m … not so afraid?”

  “Afraid?” I asked. That dratted letter still hung over the Framjis like a specter. Was there something else as well?

  “Jim, when we tell them, it will all blow up. Then there’s the boxing match. With Akbar. Must you do it? It terrifies me. When you fought him on the balcony, I couldn’t breathe. I stepped through the door and you were just feet away. I heard every punch, the sound of it, like a butcher’s shop!” She shuddered.

  I winced. “Sweetheart.”

  It was far too late to pull out of the fight, but Chief McIntyre would arrest Akbar and call it off. That was the plan. Perhaps I would not need to fight, I thought, remembering the speed, the heft, the weight of Akbar’s blows—he was an ox.

  Diana’s words sparked a memory—Akbar’s shadow passing my window. No hesitation there. He’d known where to go. But what was he actually doing? I’d feared he intended to harm Diana, thought him mistaken, because he stopped at an unoccupied bedroom. But what if Kasim told Akbar where to find that letter? Kasim’s hiding place … must be in easy reach. How would he escape notice getting to it?

  “Pilloo used to hear monkeys on the roof?”

  Diana’s brow puckered. “Jim, are you feeling all right?”

  I touched the pesky curl that bounced by her ear, brushed her soft cheek with the back of my fingers. Was Kasim’s hiding place on the roof?

  If I found that blasted letter and ended this business, wouldn’t Burjor relent? I cupped Diana’s cheek, reluctant to break this sweet moment. Here in our secret nook it was just the two of us, a haven sheltering us from the turmoil outside, the storm we’d need to face—could I find a harbor for us?

  “Diana, sweetheart, being here with you—it’s the happiest I’ve ever been. Now there’s something I must do. Give me a moment, will you?”

  Smiling at her astonishment, I traced the softness of her jaw. “Meet me in the morning room. And fetch Adi.”

  I hurried up the rear stairway to the outer corridor, where I’d fought Akbar that night. His hand had been over the doorframe.

  Reaching up, I traced along the curved terra-cotta tiles and felt something move. One was loose. It came away easily. My fingers touched something cold and square. Metal. Pulse hammering, I lifted out a rectangular purple box inscribed with the words Mackintosh’s Toffee De Luxe.

  CHAPTER 62

  THE MISSING LETTER

  Miss Pilloo’s purloined letter? Lady Bacha had kept household cash in just such a tin box. Curious that both ladies chose similar containers for their valuables!

  My pulse thrummed as I slipped the box into my pocket and returned to the morning room. There, Diana and Adi appeared in the midst of an argument. Seeing me, they broke off. Ah! It was about us, Diana and me. Would Adi also oppose our union?

  He gave me a wry smile. “I’ve known for a while, Captain. I spoke to Papa again, but it’s no use. My parents dread another scandal.”

  I knew this, but hearing it ached like a blow upon a wound that was not quite healed.

  “Ah. Well, this will interest you.” I handed him the purple box. “It was hidden under a tile in the roof—Miss Pilloo’s letter, perhaps?”

  “Jim,” he breathed, “You’ve read it?”

  I shook my head. “Found it a minute ago.”

  Hinges rusted from many monsoons, the box would not open. Adi used a letter opener to pry it apart. His fingers shook as he extracted an envelope. Fixing his glasses firmly on his nose, he said, frowning. “But … this has nothing to do with Pilloo or Bacha! It’s from our grandfather to Pilloo’s papa, my uncle. Jim, our grandfather died thirty years ago!” He pressed open the folded paper, then looked up. “It’s in Gujarati … faded … I can barely read this. Diana, call Papa. And Mother too. They need to see this.”

  Shortly after, Burjor hunched over the letter, scouring each page, the letters washed out with age. Mouthing words as he read, he translated for us with painful care.

  Two hundred mutineers we called to assembly,

  My brothers came, and lined up proper.

  They had rifles but no cartridges from ordnance that day.

  The command was given. We turned and fired.

  Like soft wax, they dropped, limp, still in their ranks.

  The rest we tied to cannon, and tore to shreds.

  All along the Gwalior road, we marched and no one spoke.

  Each tree bore a terrible burden.

  My dear, I hope to never see such a thing again.

  The mutineers, men, boys, Sepoys, some still wearing our uniforms.

  Hung each upon a tree, swaying.

  We walked under them, mile upon mile in silence.

  “What does it mean?” Diana whispered. “The army? Rebels? Who hanged them?”

  His brow creased, Burjor touched the delicate pages. “My father served in the Britis
h army during 1857 and ’58. It was a terrible time, Diana.

  “In Meerut, the Thirty-fourth Bengal Native Infantry rebelled and shot their British officers. Other regiments joined the uprising! Bombay remained loyal to the British, but in Jhansi and Awadh thousands of farmers joined the rebel Sepoys. They asked the old Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah, to lead them. The Rani of Jhansi brought her army … Jagdishpur too. A Peshwa general brought his Maratha army, determined to take back control of India. My father’s regiment, Sixty-third Lancers, was dispatched to hunt down these rebels.”

  He tapped the pages, frowning. “He’s written of the things he saw and did. Awful things. He says the army caught sixteen thousand men and boys,” Burjor said. “My father calls the mutineers ‘my brothers.’ He served in the regiment who executed them. Civilians … entire villages, he says, townsfolk who pleaded, weeping like babies. Shot, point-blank. He … mourns them. This is a sort of a confession.”

  “Sixteen thousand?” Adi’s hushed voice broke in. “I’ve never heard of this!”

  Burjor replied. “It’s not widely known. Thirty-four years ago the army was run by the East India Company. After this, the Crown took over.”

  Diana said, “Thousands of people were slaughtered, Papa? Was there a trial? Was anyone held responsible?”

  Burjor shook his head. “Indians don’t speak of it.” He straightened, looking at me. “Perhaps it’s time we did.”

  Finding myself in the position of defending the army I had served, I said, “Wait. That’s not the whole story. Officers used to talk about this. The Rani of Jhansi and the Peshwa army attacked a British camp at Cawnpore. Nine hundred British soldiers, their families and servants … three weeks they held out, then surrendered. They were given safe passage. But while they were boarding the boats to safety, the rebels fired on them. Many died right there. Survivors were clubbed to death.”

  Mrs. Framji shuddered, fingers pressed to her lips.

  I continued, “The women and children were taken to Bibi-ghar, imprisoned there, two hundred of them. Then the last straw … just as General Havelock’s troops approached to rescue them, the mutineers butchered the women—with swords and sabres, children too, their bodies thrown into a well. It devastated the British soldiers.” I sighed into the shocked silence. “That’s why the reprisal … was so harsh.”

  Diana winced. It was easy to denounce one side as the enemy, when one did not have all the facts. Harder when both sides were vicious, inhuman in their callous slaughter. How did one pick a side then? Diana looked peaked as she caught my glance, a question in her haunted eyes. Were the rebels patriots or cruel fiends? How could they be both?

  Burjor nodded. “Such violence on both sides. But this—” He tapped the letter. “Indians need to know what happened. It was hushed up.”

  “Papa,” said Adi, on his feet, eyes wide. “It’s worse than that. This contradicts the army’s version of events, that the mutineers were shot while trying to escape. Grandpa’s called the official story a lie! This letter is … sedition!”

  Treason.

  The word hung between us, an unexploded shell.

  The Framjis turned to me, the ladies worried, Adi questioning. Did he really expect me to jump up with a cry of “traitors”?

  When I simply met Adi’s look, he nodded, understanding that I stood with him.

  Thick eyebrows knotted, Burjor cleared his throat to say, “My father wrote this to tell the truth, to leave some evidence of what really happened.”

  I asked, “Did he come back? After the mutiny?”

  “No. He died of malaria on the campaign. I was fifteen years old. My older brother, Pilloo’s father, took Papa’s place. During the influenza epi-demic he must have given the letter to Pilloo, as Kasim said. He would not want this”—he tapped the letter—“to fall into the wrong hands. That’s why he warned her to keep it safe.”

  I asked, “Miss Pilloo could read Gujarati?”

  Adi nodded. “We were all taught. She might have read enough to be worried about its meaning.”

  Diana asked, “Did she think Grandpa joined the mutiny? That he was a rebel?”

  Adi said, “Perhaps. But when she showed the letter to Kasim, he took it from her!”

  I nodded. “It’s possible. He surely understood its value to Pilloo.” I frowned. “So why did Kasim leave it behind? Why not take it to Lahore?”

  Burjor cleared his throat. “Because I gave him no time. When I told him I was sending him to the brick factory in Lahore, he made a fuss, became rather violent. So I … decided not to delay. Sent him off to Lahore that very afternoon.”

  “And Akbar?” asked Diana, “What did he want with it?”

  I said, “It was bait, I think. Although the letter was still hidden under that tile, Akbar pretended to have it to lure the ladies into his trap.”

  “He killed my girls,” Mrs. Framji said bitterly. “But that night … did he come to find this letter? Why?”

  “So he could blackmail Papa!” said Diana. “Any of us!”

  I wondered whether Akbar might have had another motive. I’d met him in Ranjpoot, though he did not recognize me. What had he said? “Bloody British, who needs them?”

  I cleared my throat and said, “I think … he wants to raise support against the British, even stage another uprising. That would require funds, yes. But it would also need something to catch popular interest, set people afire! A cause to rally around—this letter could do it! Sixteen thousand Sepoys and farmers killed without trial, the murder of prisoners, all hushed up. Kasim must have grasped enough from reading this letter. Akbar knew it could be a useful weapon.”

  Burjor stared. “Uprising? Captain, you’re calling him a nationalist! A patriot!”

  “But he abducted women!” Outraged, Adi scoffed. “His own countrymen, sold them into slavery! What kind of patriot is that?”

  Was Adi, like many educated young men these days, thinking about Indian home rule and independence? Akbar, however, was far more impatient. More, he was a law unto himself.

  I said, “Akbar’s sort believes the end justifies the means. He wants a return to Indian monarchy.”

  “Pshaw!” Burjor scoffed. “The question is, what should we do?”

  Mrs. Framji spoke for the first time, her voice strained. “Do, Burjor? With the letter?”

  “We have a duty to the truth,” Burjor said. He pointed at the small recess in the wall. “Our dharam—our religion bids us so.”

  “Burjor, no!” Mrs. Framji whispered.

  Adi sprang to his feet. “Papa, if this gets out, you’re finished. It wasn’t our doing, but we’ll all be called traitors.”

  Burjor shook his head slowly. “Even that is small, compared with the truth.”

  Silence stretched and held as father and son faced each other, one pale and frantic, the other pained, but resolute. Searching for a middle ground, I went to the alcove where Burjor made his offerings—a silver chalice lay there, containing wood and ash. This I brought to the table and placed between Adi and his father.

  Religion. It was central to life in India, with all its festivals and rituals, but I had never seen it put above one’s livelihood, or loved ones, or their very life.

  Adi said, “Papa, let’s weigh this. It’s one man’s word against scores on the other side. And thirty-five years too late to help those mutineers.”

  “What should I do?” Burjor muttered.

  “Destroy it,” said Diana. “Papa, if you want a voice on the Governor’s council, this cannot come out. Burn it. Right away, so it can’t be used against us.”

  Shoulders hunched over the letter, Burjor contemplated the paper on which his father’s spidery handwriting was fading.

  I said, “Sir, Akbar may try to get hold of this letter again. He may have told others about it. As long as it exists, it’s a threat. It’s my job to protect you—let me do that.”

  I searched the faces of the Framji clan. I had come to care for them, each in a different way: Bur
jor, the patriarch, tormented by the choice before him; Adi, fists clenched, pleading; Mrs. Framji, imploring her husband; and Diana? Diana smiled at me.

  “No,” Burjor said at last. “I cannot burn it. But I will lock it up, until a time when all of this is past. Someday, your children’s children have a right to know.”

  “If we ever seek independence,” said Adi, “it should be for the future, not over the past.”

  Burjor agreed, saying, “Captain, you’ve been a friend. Protecting us, even from me!”

  The surprise in his voice broke the tension among us. Diana’s laugh rang out like bells welcoming the New Year.

  The mysterious letter found, now all that remained was to arrest Akbar, the devious princeling.

  CHAPTER 63

  PURPLE MILKWEED FLOWERS

  On the Saturday of the match I came early to the boxing hall. My friends were already gathered in the room set aside for contestants. Having been my second many times, Major Smith was in his element as he sat me down to knead my neck and arms.

  Superintendent McIntyre repeated his instructions. “Your job is to get Akbar talking. We’ll stay out of sight, listen for twenty minutes—that’s all. Think you can do it?”

  “I’ll give it a damned good shot.”

  Seeing my opponent’s carriage arrive in the courtyard, my companions hurried out the side entrance, leaving me alone. Akbar entered with his entourage, saw me and stopped dead.

  His attendants hurried past, laying out his things. One put a garland of purple and red flowers on the table, preparing for victory. At the other end of the long room, I rolled my head right and left to stay limber.

  “You!” Akbar sneered, thunderous eyebrows and kohled eyes giving him the look of a dacoit prince. In a red satin robe belted with gold rope, all six feet of him was untamed muscle and pride.