Taggart and Dawson were standing beside the windows which lined one side of the office. Judging by the storm that was Taggart’s face, whatever Dawson had said had unsettled him, and I feared that storm was about to head my way.
I had some sympathy for the commissioner. He and I went back a long way. We were both wartime veterans of military intelligence, though unlike Dawson, we’d spent our time at the Front, not with our feet up in India. Now Dawson stood next to him, whispering poison into the old man’s ear, telling him of my addiction. Years of hard-won trust destroyed in seconds.
Both men turned towards me. Taggart’s expression remained grave. Dawson’s was inscrutable.
‘There you are, Wyndham,’ said Taggart. He gestured to one of the two sofas arranged around a small table close by. ‘Take a seat, please.’
I walked over, steeling myself for the blow that was about to fall.
‘Colonel Dawson here has been apprising me of some rather troubling news,’ he said. ‘By the way, where’s that sergeant of yours?’
‘Sir?’
‘I understand he accompanied you here. He should hear this too.’
My stomach turned over. It was bad enough having Dawson in the room while the commissioner dragged me over the coals. Did he really need Surrender-not there too?
‘He’s waiting outside.’
‘Sergeant Banerjee,’ Taggart called towards the door. ‘Come in here, please.’
Surrender-not ventured in, saluted and sat down sheepishly beside me. Taggart sat on the sofa opposite while Dawson continued to prowl around behind him.
‘Now,’ said Taggart, ‘I understand you’ve both been rather busy tonight.’
‘Sir?’
‘Up in Barrackpore this evening. Dawson tells me you prevented a woman from being murdered.’
It was impressive how quickly Dawson had learned of that. Still, I wondered what relevance it had.
‘We were fortunate.’ I nodded. ‘We just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time.’
‘And you think the attack was linked to the murder of that nurse, Ruth Fernandes?’
‘Not just to hers, but to the murder of a scientist named Dunlop last night, and to that of a hospital quartermaster named Prio Tamang four nights ago.’
The mention of Tamang’s name evinced a flicker of something in Dawson’s eyes.
‘We gave chase,’ I continued, ‘but lost him in the hospital grounds.’
‘You saw his face?’ asked Dawson.
‘Yes.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Like a Gurkha.’
‘How old?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, rubbing the back of my neck. ‘In his forties, I think. You never can tell with orientals … at least I can’t. And it was dark.’
‘How did you know he’d decided to attack this nurse, Rouvel?’ asked Taggart.
Confusion gave way to relief as it began to dawn on me that maybe I wasn’t here because of my drug habit after all. I pulled the photograph from my pocket and held it out towards him.
‘I think he wants to kill the people in this photograph – most of them, at any rate. He seems to have spared one. And I think this man’s his next target.’ I pointed to the figure of Colonel McGuire.
‘What makes you say that?’ asked Dawson.
‘I think you know,’ I said. ‘I assume it was you who ordered him taken into protective custody.’ I turned to Lord Taggart and prepared to deliver my bombshell. ‘It’s to do with something that happened during the war, sir. A series of tests code-named Rawalpindi. Mustard gas experiments carried out on unsuspecting native troops. I think our man may have been one of those on whom the gas was tested. He’s exacting his revenge on the people who took part in his torment.’ I turned back to Dawson. ‘You need to go through the records of all the men who were test subjects at the facility. Find out which of them it is.’
I waited as the words sank in. Taggart and Dawson exchanged a glance, then Dawson came over and sat down beside the commissioner.
‘Tell him,’ said Taggart.
Dawson gave an almost imperceptible nod in response.
‘The commissioner knows all about Rawalpindi,’ he said, ‘including some details that you don’t yet know. It’s true that certain experiments were carried out under Dunlop’s aegis. As for the records, my men have already started going through them, but so far nothing useful has come to light.’
‘There’s more,’ said Taggart tersely.
Dawson hesitated. ‘Several shipments of mustard gas arrived from Britain in 1917, but not all of the stocks were used in the tests. The remainder was kept under guard in the arsenal at Barrackpore. Recently, an order was received for them to be transferred back to Britain. As part of that transfer, the remaining stocks were moved to Fort William to be made ready for the journey back home.’
He paused and shifted awkwardly in his seat.
‘Tell him,’ said Taggart once again, this time more forcefully.
Dawson coughed. The colour seemed to drain from his face.
‘It appears that during that transfer to Fort William two weeks ago, several canisters of the gas went missing …’
The words hit me with the force of a howitzer blast and for a moment I sat there, mute. Until now I’d assumed we were dealing with an insane Gurkha armed only with a kukri knife. Now it seemed he might have an arsenal of poison gas too. I felt the bile rising in my stomach. I’d watched poison gas decimate regiments of battle-hardened troops, and now Dawson was telling me that such a weapon might have fallen into the hands of a madman hell-bent on revenge.
‘How?’ I asked. ‘Surely they must have been under the tightest security for the transfer?’
‘They were,’ said Dawson. ‘We have no idea how they were stolen. All we know is that 126 canisters left Barrackpore and 123 were checked into stores at Fort William. That was when Section H was called in. Our investigations focused on the staff overseeing the transfer. We eliminated the British officers at both Barrackpore and Fort William and our suspicions fell upon the quartermaster’s assistant, Tamang. We believed he might be trying to sell them, either to the Russians – both the Reds and the Whites have their agents in Calcutta looking for whatever they can use in their civil war – or worse, to one of our home-grown terrorist groups.
‘Four nights ago, one of our operatives trailed him to an opium den in Tangra. Believing he was meeting his contact, possibly to receive his pay-off, our man called for additional support. Unfortunately, our units have been stretched by Gandhi’s wearisome agitation and weren’t in place to mount a raid in time. So we called in the assistance of your Vice Division. They got there in time to find Tamang’s body, but not his contact. At that point, we feared the trail had gone cold and that we might never recover the canisters. But then your nurse was killed in Rishra and Dunlop was murdered in his bed.’
‘How difficult would it be for him to deploy the gas?’ I asked.
‘It would be relatively straightforward,’ said Dawson. ‘The canisters each have a small rubberised sealed aperture under a screwed-down lid. A resourceful military man could figure out a way of decanting the gas into smaller, home-made bombs, or …’
‘Or what?’
‘We’ve no way of knowing what else he’s smuggled out. He may have explosive detonators.’ He clasped his hands together. ‘We need to stop him before he sets off those canisters. Our one hope is that he goes after McGuire and the remaining members of that photograph before he does so.’
I shook my head, scarcely able to comprehend what Dawson was saying.
‘Twelve hours ago you didn’t want us anywhere near this case. Now, you’re suddenly spilling everything?’
Dawson looked queasy. ‘We’re out of options,’ he said quietly. ‘We have to stop him before he uses those canisters, and you and your sergeant are the only ones who can positively identify him.’
I turned to Taggart. ‘And you knew about this?’
‘The wartime tests, yes. The theft of the gas canisters, no.’
Beside me, Surrender-not stirred. ‘If he has the gas,’ he asked, ‘why hasn’t he used it already?’
Dawson checked his watch. ‘Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, arrives at Howrah in four hours. In less than twelve hours he’ll be attending a reception at the racecourse followed by a garden party at Government House. Half of white Calcutta will turn out to greet him …’
His voice trailed off, as though he was unable to bring himself to finish the thought. I didn’t blame him. A man with a grudge against the British was on the loose with several shells’ worth of mustard gas. The consequences of him carrying out a gas attack on civilians didn’t bear thinking about.
‘Cancel the prince’s engagements.’
‘Impossible,’ said Taggart. ‘Can you imagine the uproar if we were to admit that the heir to the throne of the empire isn’t safe in the premier city of the Raj? The Congress Party would have a field day and the international press would chalk it up as a victory for Gandhi and Das. It would kick new life into their failing non-cooperation movement.’
‘Then claim he’s sick,’ I said.
Dawson shook his head. ‘Again, it would be taken as a sign of weakness. He was in perfect health yesterday in Benares but falls ill the moment he gets to Calcutta? The Indians would claim it was a fiction. They’d say the Prince of Wales was too scared to show his face in the city. Besides, the risk isn’t to the prince – we can protect him, both at the town hall and the garden party at Government House. It’s the crowds coming to the town hall that are the problem.’
‘And not just the whites,’ added Lord Taggart sombrely. ‘I expect Das will have cajoled his Congress-wallahs to come out in force to protest the visit. They’ll be there too.’
‘No doubt,’ said Dawson. ‘Our sources believe he’s planning a gathering on the Maidan followed by a march to the town hall.’
Taggart turned to me. ‘You need to go and speak to Das. Remind him he’s under house arrest. Tell him if he attempts to leave the premises he’ll be arrested and brought to Lal Bazar. And double the guard on his house. His non-cooperation movement is nearly dead. If we can get through the prince’s visit, the odds are it’ll collapse under the weight of its own expectations. Once you’ve done that, head to Fort William. For the next twenty-four hours, I’m placing both you and Surrender-not under Dawson’s command.’
I made to protest, but the commissioner silenced me with a wave of his hand. ‘There’ll be no discussion of the matter, Captain. You’re on remarkably thin ice as it is.’
I sat back on the sofa.
‘That’s better,’ he continued. ‘The major has a plan which we hope will smoke out your Gurkha friend.’
From the inside breast pocket of his uniform, Dawson extracted his pipe, taking several moments to light it with a match, and then puffed gently as the tobacco gradually began to smoulder.
‘We’re going to use Colonel McGuire as bait,’ he said.