Irani’s office, according to the concierge at the Taj Hotel, was in a building in Backbay, a fifteen-minute walk away. It was nearly one p.m. by the time we got there though, what with Miss Colah’s insistence that I shower and shave and that she then accompany Suren and me to a discreet emporium on Breech Candy to acquire attire less likely to get us thrown out of high-class hotels or arrested for vagrancy. The absurdity of it wasn’t lost on Suren. A woman buying him clothes while he was on the run for his life. Still, if it kept him one step ahead of the hangman’s noose, he was happy to live with it.
The ever-compelling Miss Colah then insisted, like a force of nature, or a limpet, depending on your point of view, that she accompany us to Irani’s bureau under the premise that it took a Parsee to know a Parsee, and that anyway it was her car we were using and, by dint of purchase, her clothes we were wearing.
There came a point where further debate on the matter was moot and I decided to let her have her way. After all, he who fights and runs away, lives to lose another day.
Still, as Miss Colah’s car pulled up under the shade of a banyan tree, its garbled roots and limbs making a devastation of the concrete pavement, I ordered both her and Suren to stay with the chauffeur while I went up to interrogate Irani. Suren listened, Miss Colah did not.
The office was on the second floor of a five-storey building, at the arse end of a corridor and reached by a decrepit-looking lift or a stairwell that smelled of stale urine.
Miss Colah and I took the stairs. I wasn’t so much concerned by the state of the lift as I was by the health of the consumptive-seeming lift-wallah who sat inside, coughing into a yellowing handkerchief. And besides, I needed the exercise.
The door to Irani’s office was a thin sheet of wood with a panel of glass that might have been frosted or just covered in grime. I knocked, rattling the thing to its core, and turned the handle. If the door was flimsy, the woman on the other side of it certainly wasn’t. She was short, dark, dressed in a floral print blouse and as sturdy as the desk she sat behind. Around her neck hung a thin golden crucifix on a thinner gold chain.
Her look was more one of surprise than welcome, as though the Irani Trading Company Ltd didn’t receive many visitors.
‘Can I help you?’ she said.
‘We’re looking for Mr. Irani,’ I said.
‘I’m afraid he’s not in today.’
That was a shame, but not wholly unexpected. Gulmohamed had only arrived back from Calcutta in the small hours. Even if Irani had taken an earlier train, he couldn’t have been back long.
‘We had an appointment,’ Ooravis Colah pouted. ‘He told us to meet him here at 1 p.m. Do you know what time he’s expected?’
The secretary made a show of checking an oversized appointments diary which appeared devoid of appointments, then scratched at an earlobe. ‘I don’t believe he is coming in at all today. You are certain your meeting was scheduled for this afternoon?’
‘Positive,’ Miss Colah said, affecting an air of frustration.
‘What about tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘Will he be back then?’
She turned the page of the diary, more I felt for effect than for any real expectation of finding an answer, then looked up shamefacedly, as though the elusive Mr Irani’s absence were somehow her fault. ‘I’m afraid I cannot say, at the moment. If you leave me your card, I can try and get a message to him.’
I thanked her and we made to leave, Miss Colah once more making a show of frustration but reassuring the secretary that this was hardly her fault of course.
‘You are sure you don’t want to leave your card?’ she asked.
‘It’s quite all right,’ I said with a shake of the head. ‘I’ll just take my business elsewhere.’
Suren was leaning against the banyan, smoking a cigarette. Spotting us, he threw away the butt and walked over. For the first time in a week, his face wore that look of baseless optimism that he was so fond of and that reminded me of a puppy yet to acquaint itself with the boots of men and the general capriciousness of the world. God only knew why. He was still a wanted man, and other than a set of new clothes and the chance of a fresh bed, we had precious little to show for our efforts. Yet his hope sprang eternal.
He held out an open pack of cigarettes. ‘Well?’
‘He’s not there,’ I said, taking one. ‘It was always a long shot. We spoke to his secretary though.’
Miss Colah proffered her lighter, sparking a flame.
‘Did she say when he’ll be back?’ asked Suren.
‘She doesn’t know.’ I lit my cigarette and took a drag. ‘We’ll have to try the Taj.’
‘And say what? A businessman looking to do a deal would not just walk into the hotel looking for the man.’
Beside him, Ooravis blew a ring of blue smoke into the air. ‘There might be another way.’
We drove out of the bustle of Backbay and headed once more for the verdant seclusion of Miss Colah’s bungalow on Malabar Hill. She showed us to the drawing room, then excused herself.
‘I’ll need to make a telephone call.’
During the journey, she’d explained her alternative. A gentleman friend of hers, a businessman called Jehangir Panthaki, was, she said, hosting one of his regular parties at the racecourse that evening. It was generally a small, cosmopolitan affair, just a few hundred of Bombay’s upper crust, and she felt she could persuade him to invite Irani. The way she described it, for a man looking to do business in Bombay, an invitation to a Panthaki party was virtually a ticket to the top table.
‘He won’t be able to say no,’ she said. ‘Everyone will be there, from the governor and politicians, to businessmen, even the odd maharajah or two and a few writers thrown in for good measure. The great and the good like having a few cultured types around. It makes them feel they’re patronising the arts.’
‘And the writers?’ I asked. ‘What’s in it for them?’
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ she said. ‘They come for the free drink.’
She returned from her call with her face wreathed in the broadest of smiles and her hand around a gin and tonic.
‘I spoke to Jehangir,’ she said. ‘He’s agreed to send a boy round to Irani’s suite at the Taj with an invitation for tonight. I told him it’s very important that Irani attends, so the boy is going to wait for an RSVP. I’ve got you an invitation too.’
‘What did you tell him, exactly?’
Ooravis let out a laugh. ‘Don’t worry. I didn’t tell him you’re a policeman, just that you were a friend of a friend from out of town and you were very keen to meet Mr Irani to discuss some shipping deal.’
‘He seems very accommodating, this Mr Panthaki of yours.’
‘He’s a darling,’ she beamed. ‘Jehangir is that rarest of creatures: a man with intelligence, a kindness of spirit and a bank vault full of money. I may have to marry him one day.’
She turned to Suren.
‘I’m afraid I didn’t get you an invitation. I hope you don’t mind.’
Suren took it graciously. ‘Please, think nothing of it. As a wanted man, it’s probably best if I cut down on the number of soirees I attend for the moment.’
‘You know, Suren,’ I said, ‘there’s an opportunity here.’
He gave me that look of his, the one he employed whenever he feared I was about to make a suggestion which might involve him doing a portion of the heavy lifting.
‘What kind of opportunity?’
‘If you’re not coming to the ball, Cinderella, well, there’s nothing stopping you from paying a little clandestine visit to Irani’s office.’
Suren seemed nonplussed. ‘You want to add breaking and entering to my charge sheet?’
‘Would it really make a difference in the grand scheme of things?’
‘True,’ he said. ‘I suppose they can only hang me once.’
‘And if you find something linking Irani to Mukherjee’s death, they might not hang you at all.’
‘Then it’s settled,’ said Ooravis. ‘Captain, you’ll accompany me to the Turf Club tonight, after which, Suren, I’ll send the car back for you. You can tell the chauffeur to wait while you visit Irani’s office.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked her.
‘Doing what?’
‘All this. Helping us, giving us money and shelter instead of kicking us out on our ear?’
Ooravis Colah smiled. ‘A girl needs something to do, Captain. And you and Sergeant Banerjee are the most unusual couple of strays that have wandered my way in quite a while.’
I left Suren to the tender mercies of Miss Colah and went off to the vestibule to telephone Annie. For once it was she, and not Anju, who answered.
‘Annie,’ I said, ‘it’s me.’
‘I had a visit from the police, Sam. Looking for Suren.’
I wondered how the police had come to suspect that Annie might have knowledge of Suren’s whereabouts. Maybe someone had seen her car idling on Premchand Boral Street the night we fled Calcutta.
‘What did you tell them?’
‘I told them I hadn’t seen him, and that anyway, the papers were saying he was in Bombay. They asked about you too. Said you hadn’t turned up for work yesterday, and that you might be assisting a fugitive. I said you were more likely nursing a hangover somewhere.’
‘That was good of you,’ I said. ‘Did you manage to contact Dawson?’
‘Eventually. His secretary, Miss Braithwaite, is a bit of a battleaxe but once she realised I was talking about you, she sorted things out quick smart.’
‘So you met Dawson?’
‘No. I met Miss Braithwaite. Your friend Dawson thought two women meeting for lunch in Park Street would attract less suspicion than him meeting me in person.’
‘And?’
‘And she gave me a new number for you to call. Fort William 437.’
Once more I wrote the details on my hand.
‘Thank you, Annie,’ I said, ‘and thank you for the introduction to Miss Colah. She’s been more than generous in her help.’
‘So you managed to charm some cash out of her?’
‘I doubt charm had anything to do with it. She just seems happy to help. Where’d she get so much money, by the way?’
‘Her father’s big in diamonds, and she’s the sole heiress. I thought she’d be the right person to go to,’ said Annie. ‘She’s a good woman.’
‘As are you,’ I said. ‘If it weren’t for you, Suren would surely be languishing in a prison cell right now, looking forward to a date with the hangman. When this is over, I promise I’ll —’
‘Don’t make promises, Sam. Especially under duress. Just do what you need to do and bring yourself and Suren home safely.’
I cut the connection, then waited before asking the operator for the number which Annie had given me.
Dawson answered on the first ring.
‘Wyndham?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘A few hours after I telephoned you from Watson’s, a couple of carloads of your Bombay friends showed up at my hotel. I barely made it out with the shirt on my back.’
‘You think my line’s tapped?’
‘I don’t see how else they could have known I was there. I suppose they could have the lines at Watson’s tapped, but that’s unlikely. They’d have to listen in to a lot of calls on the off chance they’d pick up something useful. The odds are it’s your line they’ve tapped.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ I said.
‘And Banerjee?’
‘Safe, for now.’
‘Did you get to Gulmohamed?’
‘We did. The results were… inconclusive.’
He paused. ‘So what do you propose to do now?’
‘I need you to do a little digging,’ I said. ‘Gulmohamed mentioned a man called Cyrus Irani. From Rangoon. Involved in shipping or trading. Suren thinks he saw him with Gulmohamed on the day Mukherjee was murdered. Does the name mean anything to you?’
‘Irani…’ said Dawson, mulling it over. ‘Can’t say I recall anyone by that name.’
‘Can you look into it? Maybe speak to your people in Rangoon. By the size of him, Suren thought he might be ex-army.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘How long will you need?’
‘Burma’s a foreign country, technically,’ he said. ‘It might take a day.’
‘I’ll call you tonight.’