“We really couldn’t accept, Mr. Prinsep,” Miss Minchin twittered. “It’s quite impossible.”
The damsel who had lain in a soggy bundle on the deck was gone. She had transformed into this fluttering figure, gazing wide-eyed at Mr. Prinsep, as she organized the removal of our luggage. Though she was refusing something, her eyes signaled she badly wanted to accept.
“We couldn’t impose on you, Mr. Prinsep.”
“Oh I say,” protested her savior, “call me Charlie.”
“We just couldn’t,” she persisted.
“Least I can do. Hospitality to strangers. All good folk mucking together in the Empire and all that.”
“What’s this?” my aunt inquired, bustling up behind us all as we stood on deck, awaiting the coolies who would unload our luggage on to the docks. For you see, we had arrived at Bombay! The gateway to India and a whole new continent of adventure.
“Mr. Prinsep … Charles … is so generous,” Miss Minchin replied. “He has offered to put us up. He is engaged as tutor to the young Maharajah of Baroda and he has a whole lodge in the palace grounds at his disposal.” I hadn’t seen so much pretty color in her face for the whole voyage. “Of course I’ve told him it is quite impossible for us to accept.”
“Providential. We’re heading to Baroda anyway. Save on hotel bills,” Aunt Hilda announced. “Has the Maharajah sent his carriage for you?”
“Er yes, I believe I’ve a two-horse … tikka gharry,” Prinsep replied, pronouncing the words unsurely. “His Highness has also been so good as to send me the Royal Carriage on the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. The very latest word in modern colonial travel.”
“Splendid.” Turning round, Aunt Hilda shouted for a coolie to convey our boxes to Mr. Prinsep’s carriage and so the thing was done. Poor Mr. Prinsep. He had wanted his damsel in distress. Well, he had got her. He’d also got Aunt Hilda, Father, myself, Rachel, Isaac and Waldo. Rather more than he’d bargained for. From our point of view the offer was providential, for the archaeological treasure my father was interested in had been unearthed in the grounds of the Maharajah’s palace.
“The heat, Kit. I don’t know how I am to stand it.” Father appeared, looking even woollier than usual. I took his hand reassuringly, than quickly released it—too damp and sweaty.
“You could take that off,” I said, indicating his tweed jacket.
“Really?” he asked surprised.
Soon the stewards were ushering us off the ship. What an explosion of color, noise and smells greet us. Swarming coolies and crying babies. Friends and relations of the passengers waiting on the docks, penned behind bars like cattle. There was no hiding from the sun, it bathed everything in white, fierce heat. My clothes were clinging to me with perspiration and a fly had settled on my face. Swooping in and out of the crowd, with a flutter of ebony wingbeats, were a flock of carrion crows. Their harsh caws mingled with the babble, pressing confusion on us from every side.
Odd and unnerving though this was, I was exhilarated. Of course, I had been to Egypt, but this was an utterly different land! India—this vast, teeming, spicy continent! A fever of excitement coursed through my veins. My friends felt it too, even Rachel. Our senses quickened, our minds were alert. Only father stared round with bewildered eyes, clearly more at home in the library. I would have to take care of him in this strange continent. My first task, though, was to find Champlon and his Indian.
All around us on the docks were clumps of travelers, saying emotional goodbyes to the ship-board friends. My way was blocked by Mrs. Spragg who was saying a prolonged farewell to at least a dozen bosom friends. Her cambric handkerchief fluttered at her eyes, tears flowed down her plump cheeks, but finally she moved aside and I saw something so strange I stopped dead in my tracks.
White-jacketed stewards had cleared a wide path through the crowd of passengers. A special ramp had been laid from the ship to the dock. Now as we watched, more sailors came and formed a human shield, blocking any hope of getting beyond their lines. At the end of the ramp waited a tikka-gharry with darkened windows. Before my amazed eyes two wheezing figures in wheelchairs, bundled in layers of blankets despite the heat, were pushed down the ramp. Following them was a hobbling individual, whose face was so bandaged up with linen that he looked like a walking mummy. Last of all came an Indian. A splendid figure dressed in a gold-and-white footman’s costume.
I had just a moment to study the Indian. He had a sallow face with a proud beak of a nose and pop eyes set in shadowed sockets. His mouth, curved now in a sneer as he glanced neither left nor right, was full and sensual. Just a glimpse was enough to convince me that here was a man of deep selfishness, one who put his own pleasures above all else. This was not the face of a servant.
On his shoulder perched a small, gibbering thing. Its face was trimmed by a ruff of white fur. Its eyes, black points in flaring yellow, peered left and right with wicked intent.
The monkey!
It looked straight at me and I saw that in the center of those beady pupils there was a pinpoint of white light. I could have sworn that the monkey was laughing at me. No, worse, it was looking down on me.
“Who are they?” I burbled to my aunt, clutching at her sleeve. “Where did those people come from?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps they were in the sick bay.”
The sick bay! I had never thought of that. I’d foolishly reckoned I’d known all the first-class passengers aboard ship. I’d never imagined the people I was looking for could be hiding among the diseased. That man with the swaddled head was passing me by now, so close that if I could have got past the naval security cordon, I could have ripped off his bandages. A waft of scent hit me in the nose. A sickly mixture of jasmine and musk that was all too familiar. Champlon claimed it was cologne-water for use after shaving, but anyone else would call it by another name.
Perfume.
The turbaned Indian was walking right by me. He turned his head and gave me a sideways look. I believe he too was laughing at me. Then he was gone and the passengers in wheelchairs were being helped into the tikka-gharry.
Aunt Hilda had also smelt Champlon’s perfume, for suddenly her expression changed. A stillness came over her face and she raised her nose to the air and sniffed. She looked, for all the world, like a hound scenting a fox.
“Champlon,” I gasped.
“The cad!”
We acted at once; surging through the cordon of sailors guarding the “sick passengers,” as my friends and father gaped in astonishment. We caught the sailors off guard. I got through and ran toward the tikka-gharry but a sailor had caught hold of my aunt. The doors, black-painted like the rest of the carriage, were closing. My prey was safely inside, but I wasn’t finished. I grasped the door handle and wrenched it open. I had a fleeting glimpse of astonished faces, then the Indian raised his cane and slashed me viciously. Just in time I raised my hands, which took the brunt of the blow.
“Ouch!” I yelled, clutching my throbbing hand.
“To Bori Bunder,” the Indian shouted at the driver. The brute slammed the door of the carriage in my face. With a flurry of whips and wheels it was off.
“Stop!” I yelled, but a sailor-guard had caught up with me and was grasping me roughly by the arm.
“What you playing at?” he shouted. “Are you a lunatic?”
“I thought I saw a friend,” I mumbled.
“No friends of the likes of you. Them’s very important passengers. You’re lucky I’m not arresting you for creating a nuisance. Off with you now. Go on, get lost!”
I sped away, back to my friends. Whoever they were, the mysterious strangers clearly had a lot of power, for the traffic had been cleared for their carriage. Bullock carts, rickshaws, tikka-gharries, tongas—all sorts of strange rickety vehicles—moved to one side. It was like the seas parting. Their black-and-gold tikka-gharry sped off. After it was lost from view, the traffic surged round them.
The villains had escaped.
My hand was stinging, and a weal was purpling my flesh where that man had struck me with his cane—but this was no time for self-pity.
“What’s Bori Bunder?” I asked my aunt.
“The train station.”
“Quick! We have to follow them.”