NINETEEN
I fell asleep just before dawn. During the war, I’d learned to function on two or three hours’ shut-eye, and it had been a habit I’d been forced to maintain ever since. In Calcutta, waking up wasn’t exactly a problem. Anyone who’s spent a night there could tell you that the city likes to wake you by attacking all of your senses at once: the cries of the cockerels and pariah dogs, the stench of the drains, the bed bugs feasting on your flesh. They all combined to render your alarm clock an irrelevance.
Sambalpore was different. It was quieter and it smelled better too, but that had its drawbacks. The silence meant I awoke with the suspicion that the sun was already far too high in the sky.
The flu-like symptoms had returned with a vengeance: pounding head, watering eyes. I’d gladly have paid a month’s wages just to be able to turn over and lie there for another hour, but then I remembered Golding. I’d agreed to meet him at eight o’clock. I checked my watch. It had stopped at a quarter to three.
I wrenched myself out of bed, threw on a shirt and trousers and ran out of the door and down the stairs. The clock in the hallway read ten to eight. Breathing a sigh of relief, I walked out into the compound in search of the accountant.
The sky was overcast, the air heavy. A native in white shirt and turban was busy raking gravel near the compound gates.
‘Ji, sahib’ He smiled. ‘Golding sahib very nice man. He is coming yesterday only.’
‘Have you seen him this morning?’ I asked.
‘No, sahib’ he replied with a regretful shake of the head.
I walked up to the gates, lit a cigarette and waited. After twenty minutes, the humidity and my headache became too much to bear and I headed back inside. There’d been no sign of the man. It was possible he was running late, but he didn’t strike me as the sort of person who was ever late. If anything, I expected him to be early, especially as last night he seemed anxious to unburden himself of something. But then he’d had a skinful to drink. Maybe he’d sobered up and thought better of it. Or maybe he was sleeping off a hangover. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t going to get off that easily. I would question him today whether he liked it or not.
Back at the Residency, Surrender-not was in the dining room having breakfast.
‘Have you seen Golding?’ I asked.
‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ said Surrender-not. ‘Hasn’t he shown up?’
‘It would appear that he hasn’t,’ I said.
‘He did have rather a lot to drink last night. Maybe it slipped his mind?’
‘Maybe,’ I said. I helped myself to a cup of black coffee from a porcelain pot on the table and pulled out a chair opposite him.
We heard a car pull into the compound and minutes later, Colonel Arora walked in.
‘Would you care to join us for breakfast, Colonel?’ I asked.
The colonel shook his head. ‘Thank you, no.’
‘You didn’t pass Mr Golding on your way here, did you?’ I asked. ‘We were supposed to meet at eight. Maybe people have a more liberal interpretation of time out here in the sticks,’ I added hopefully.
The colonel gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Not our Mr Golding. He’s always most punctual.’
‘And what are you doing here so early?’ I asked. ‘I thought you’d be here at nine?’
‘Maybe I have been learning from you English?’ He grinned. ‘Anyway,’ he said, changing the subject, ‘I come bearing invitations. There is to be a small wake held this evening. His Highness the Maharaja has requested your presence. I’ll send a car at seven to pick you up.’
‘Very well,’ I said. I checked my watch. Golding was now half an hour late. It didn’t look like the man was coming. ‘Where’s Golding’s office?’ I asked.
‘In the Gulaab Bhavan,’ replied Arora. ‘The floor beneath yours.’
‘In that case, we should get going. Maybe we’ll track him down there. Either way, there’s plenty to do and we need your assistance.’
A thin smile appeared on his lips. ‘I’m at your service.’
Forty minutes later, we were back in our temporary office overlooking the gardens. We’d stopped by Golding’s office on the first floor but it was locked. Now I took in the view as Surrender-not and the colonel discussed the list of people we wanted to interview.
‘Out of the question,’ said the colonel vehemently. He rose to his feet, towering over Surrender-not. ‘Prince Punit – fine, that can be arranged; but Adhir’s widow, the Princess Gitanjali, that flies in the face of all protocol. The maharanis and princesses, even the royal concubines, cannot be approached, and especially not by you, Wyndham.’
‘Me?’ I replied.
The colonel sat back down and clasped his hands together.
‘In two hundred years of our dealings with the British we have had to accept many things, but the one thing that has always remained inviolable is the sanctity of the zenana. Not just in Sambalpore, but throughout the princely states. The royal women must remain untainted. The late prince was not only my master but also my friend. Nevertheless, I would not request the Maharaja’s permission for you to interrogate a princess of the royal household, even if I thought she’d murdered him herself.’
‘What about Sergeant Banerjee?’ I asked.
Both he and the colonel stared at me.
‘He’s not an Englishman,’ I said, ‘even if he does sound like one. Maybe he could interview the princess? With you in attendance, of course.’
The colonel shook his head. ‘No. It would be impossible without the Maharaja’s express permission, and he would never accept it.’
Surrender-not squirmed in his seat. ‘If I may, sir. It would be inadvisable to ruffle—’
I cut him off.
‘At least ask him.’
‘Why do you want to question her anyway?’ asked the colonel.
Given his rather fervent opposition to the idea, it seemed unwise to tell him that our request was based on the gossip of a rather tipsy Mrs Carmichael, so I did what any good detective would do. I lied.
‘The Yuvraj received two notes, both of which were left in his apartments in the palace. Someone in the royal court was trying to warn him. Maybe his wife knows something about that. We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t speak to her.’
The colonel sighed, but didn’t protest. That at least seemed like progress. ‘In the meantime, I’d like to examine the prince’s rooms,’ I said. ‘I want to see exactly where the notes were left.’
‘Very well,’ he replied. ‘I’ll organise it. Anything else?’
‘There is a rather delicate matter,’ I said. ‘It’s come to our attention that the prince was having a relationship with a memsahib, a Miss Pemberley. Were you aware of that?’
Arora’s expression darkened. He stared at me and for a moment he had that cold look in his eye, the one I’d seen when I’d first met him on the steps of Government House in Calcutta.
‘Of course I was aware of it. Whom do you think he charged with paying her bills at the Beaumont?’
‘You didn’t think to mention it to us?’ I asked.
‘It was irrelevant to your investigation. And the whole subject is frankly distasteful.’
‘You disapproved of the relationship?’
He paused.
‘You can speak frankly,’ I said.
‘His Highness’s actions were not in the interests of the kingdom,’ he said finally. It was the answer of a diplomat. ‘Now if that’s all,’ he said, rising to his feet.
‘There’s one more thing, Colonel,’ said Surrender-not, hastily retrieving a slim file from his satchel. He opened it, removed the photograph of the assassin’s gun, which was now in an evidence locker at Lal Bazar, and handed it to Arora.
‘Have you seen a revolver like this before, sir? It’s five chambered with a folding trigger that only appears when you cock the pistol. It’s quite distinctive.’
The colonel gave the photograph a cursory glance, then handed it back. ‘It’s a Colt,’ he replied. ‘A Colt Paterson. Obsolete, but effective.’
‘You’ve come across it before, then?’ I said.
He gave a short laugh. ‘I should think so. I used to carry one. For many years they were standard issue to all Sambalpori officers. They were only replaced when we received modern weaponry from the India Office in 1915.
‘Prior to that, your military wasn’t too fond of providing the native states with arms, so we had to procure our weapons from other sources. The United States was one of them.
‘I believe a stock of a hundred of these were purchased in the last century from the Americans. I understand that they once belonged to the Army of Texas, before that state became part of the union. Thereafter, they were used in the American Civil War, before becoming surplus to requirements and eventually being sold to Sambalpore.
‘When the Great War broke out and the maharajas began raising regiments for the British war effort, your government naturally reconsidered its previous policy vis-à-vis arming the native states and replaced all our antiquated firearms with up-to-date weaponry. The Colts were supposed to be handed in, but a significant number went astray.’
‘The smoking gun,’ said Surrender-not quietly.
‘What?’ asked the colonel.
‘This weapon was found on the assassin,’ I said. ‘We think it was the weapon used to murder the prince. That ties the killer back here to Sambalpore.’
It also suggested that either the assassin or whoever had recruited him had some connection to the Sambalpori militia, or had acquired the murder weapon from someone who had.
‘Do you have any idea how many went missing?’ I asked.
‘I can’t say, but there is one man who could tell you.’
‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘Mr Golding.’
The colonel smiled. ‘He’s quite fastidious about stock takes.’
‘See if you can find him,’ I said. ‘Even if he’s changed his mind about speaking to me, I still want to speak to him.’
There was little else we required of the colonel for the present. He made some notes, then left, agreeing to inform us as soon as he’d set up the relevant interviews and arranged for access to the Yuvraj’s quarters.
A few moments later there was a knock on the door. I assumed the colonel had forgotten something. Instead, in stumbled Carmichael.
He was sweating, which wasn’t abnormal given the humidity, but it was the look on his face that worried me.
Surrender-not offered him a chair but he seemed in no hurry to sit down.
‘What can we do for you, Mr Carmichael?’ I asked.
‘I’m afraid there’s a problem,’ he stammered. ‘It really is most distressing.’
He took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and began to mop his brow. ‘I’ve received a cable from Delhi,’ he panted. ‘You have been ordered to leave Sambalpore and return to Calcutta immediately after the cremation today.’
I’d been fearing just such a development ever since Carmichael had informed us of the cable he’d sent. The fact that it had arrived from Delhi, however, and not from Calcutta, offered a glimmer of hope.
‘And does it relate to both of us,’ I asked, gesturing towards Surrender-not, ‘or just me?’
‘It simply says that Captain Wyndham is to be considered persona non grata in Sambalpore and is to return to Calcutta forthwith.’
‘But the Maharaja has asked for the captain’s help,’ Surrender-not protested.
‘I’m only telling you what it says,’ replied the Resident.
‘From whom?’ I asked.
‘What?’ he asked, flustered.
‘Who sent it?’
‘The secretary for native states, of course.’
‘I see,’ I said.
The telegram’s wording, and its source, seemed damning. But I saw a possible way out. The cable had come from the secretary for native states, a man who was part of the Viceroy’s inner circle. He was one of the top men in the Indian Civil Service. However, neither I nor Carmichael reported to the ICS. As an officer of the Imperial Police Force, I reported to my superiors in Calcutta, and he, as British Resident to Sambalpore, reported to the India Office in London.
‘Well,’ I sighed, ‘it certainly looks like you’ve got a problem there.’
He stared at me as though I’d just suggested he run through the palace grounds naked. ‘I have a problem?’ he exclaimed.
‘As I see it, what you’ve got is a cable from someone in the ICS, someone neither you nor I report to. I’m here on holiday and, as you know, the Maharaja himself has invited me to indulge my professional curiosity during my stay and observe Sambalpori policing methods.
‘My leaving now would be construed as a gross insult to His Highness, the Sambalpori royal court and possibly the whole Sambalpori nation, especially when I have received no orders from my superiors to do so.’
Carmichael’s shoulders sagged and he finally slumped into the chair that Surrender-not had placed behind him. He looked queasy, as the true nature of the situation dawned on him. I didn’t blame him. He was a career diplomat, a man used to a lifetime of following orders from faceless men on the other end of a telegraph machine. What was he supposed to do when those orders came from someone outside his chain of command and were actively questioned? Carmichael fell back on his training and, like any good diplomat, fudged the issue.
‘I’ll seek clarification,’ he said, ‘but in the meantime, I must insist that you vacate the Residency.’
That was fine by me. Assuming they had any available, the rooms at the Beaumont Hotel were probably a damn sight more comfortable, not to mention the fact that they had electricity.
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘If you’re agreeable, we’ll move our possessions out this afternoon, after the Yuvraj’s cremation.’
‘Yes, well,’ he blustered, ‘I suppose that’s acceptable.’
‘Now, if there’s nothing further, the sergeant and I have work to do. I’m sure that you must be quite busy yourself. I imagine you’ll be keeping up the British end at the funeral.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he replied, rising from the chair. ‘As you say, I best be getting on. I’ll bid you both good day and see you there.’
‘It seems someone on high isn’t keen on you being here,’ said Surrender-not, once Carmichael had left.
He was right, and there were two obvious candidates: the Viceroy, who had never really trusted me after the Sen affair the previous year, and the spies of Section H, who to be fair, never trusted anyone. But which of the two – and why – was a mystery. Once again, it suggested that there might be more to this case than religion or local Sambalpori politics. And that was troublesome.
‘Well,’ I replied, ‘we’ve bought ourselves a reprieve, but it won’t take Carmichael long to report back and get the matter clarified. If it’s the Viceroy who’s behind it, I doubt it’ll take even a few hours for him to send the requisite orders to Lord Taggart ordering me back.’
In truth, part of me was almost relieved at the prospect. My failure with cooking the O the previous night had left my nerves rather fraught. The thought of spending a prolonged period in Sambalpore, away from a secure supply of opium, was something I found myself shying away from contemplating.
Surrender-not, though, had other ideas. ‘There might be a way of forestalling him, sir . . .’