SEPTEMBER 1894
My boots rapped smartly on the cobbles as I strode through the murky Liverpool dusk, worrying about the telegram stashed in my billfold. I’d soon join my wife Diana and her brother in the rooms he’d taken to await the arrival of our ship. Blissfully astonished to see Adi again, Diana had not questioned his presence in Britain but had accepted that he was here on business. I’d said nothing.
Tucking the evening paper under my arm, I passed the usual fellows hurrying home—bank clerks and tradesmen, the odd typist, here and there a neatly dressed couple. Lamplighters had already come by, and tall streetlamps glowed in the late summer cool. The harbor’s briny stench wafted up from the Mersey like an invisible menace.
In fact, Adi had sent me an urgent cable: NEED HELP PLEASE COME. From calm, pragmatic Adi, those words were close to panic. It made his subsequent manner bewildering: why hadn’t he explained what it was about?
Was it because Diana was present? This also puzzled me—the Framjis were a tight-knit clan, with a staunch devotion to each other that I envied. I’d decided that if Adi said nothing, nor would I. Until I learned more, of course.
Otherwise the siblings talked incessantly; Adi’s eagerness to hear about our recent adventures at the World’s Fair in Chicago matched by Diana’s delight in sharing them. Knowing she’d get the truth out of him soon enough, I went about the business my employer, Alfred Dupree, had entrusted to me. I needed to wrap it up quickly, for I had the sense that when Adi did spill the beans, we might need to move fast.
I’d gone across the sweep of St. George’s Plateau to cable London. Leaving St. George’s Hall, a gargantuan marble palace, as I closed the distance to the London & North Western Railway Hotel in long strides, I passed a pair of mustached blokes in dark suits. Before I reached the entrance, a sharp voice behind me said, “Sir.”
I swung around to the pair in black coats. My pulse jerked a warning as I sized them up: middleweights both; identical mustaches, serge suits sagging at the knees, grey vests and black ties so dull as to be indescribable, yet almost a uniform.
The shorter man said, “Do you reside here?” An official voice, with the assurance of a policeman.
“Yes.” No point denying it, since the doorman had just touched his hat to me.
Introducing himself, the plainclothesman wrote down my name, then showed me something from his notebook. “Recognize this man?”
When I glanced at the photo and back in surprise, his gaze sharpened. His look said military. I’d known at twenty paces that he’d served in the tropics. What was it that marked me?
Raising the proffered paper to the lamp I asked, “Who’s this, then?”
“A person we’re eager to locate. Seen him around?”
I handed it back. “I’ve just come from New York.” That was true enough, though I had not answered his question. He withdrew, tilting his head to speak with his colleague as they turned away.
My heart banging like a locomotive, I said a word to the doorman about the weather and stepped through the hotel doors. On that scrap I’d seen a dismal photograph of Adi, my dearest friend and brother-in-law.
Last evening, when I’d invited him to the pub he’d declined with, “Thank you, Jim, but I think not.”
I’d protested. “They’re just old pals from the regiment. Sure you won’t come?”
“Quite,” he’d said, his mouth tight, his taut shoulders square under a trim, tailored coat with neat lapels. It’s how he’d stood when I’d first met him two years ago in Bombay. A newlywed who’d lost his wife and adopted sister in peculiar circumstances, he’d hired me within an hour of making my acquaintance. Later, when I courted his sister Diana against her family’s wishes, Adi stood by me, even against his own kin. I owed him immeasurably for that kindness.
An aged concierge straightened to attention as I crossed the foyer.
Greeting him, I asked, “When’s the next train to London, d’you know?”
The diminutive man bobbed his bald head with its fringe of white, then pulled out a Baedeker’s and a timetable. Consulting both, he pointed out maps in the back of the guidebook.
“Will the American gentleman want tickets?” he asked, referring to me in the odd way that old English retainers have. I had an urge to turn and look for an “American gentleman,” for I was Anglo-Indian. Like my name, James Agnihotri, I was half English, half Indian. Now an American by residence and employment, I used different names, usually Agney or O’Trey.
“He will indeed,” I said, glancing at the timetable. “But not just yet. May I keep this?”
He bowed. Thanking him with a bun penny, I tucked the booklet in my breast pocket.
As I rode the elevator up to our rooms I mulled over Adi’s reticence and the policemen’s closed expressions. This was Adi, the brother I’d never had, as dear to Diana as a twin. It must be bad, if he’d summoned me across an ocean. Now his manner held an ominous meaning: his refusal to join us in the dining room, his insistence on keeping out of the public eye. He was in hiding, and no, it would not do.
The siblings looked up as I entered, a welcome echoed in their intelligent dark eyes and dark hair, their well-featured faces. Adi held himself tightly, as though any movement might cause him to fall. The worry in his dark eyes sent a warning shiver across my skin.
“You’ve been cooped up all day,” I said. “A walk in the park, then? Plenty of time before dinner.”
Adi’s chin jerked and a feverish look entered his eyes. “Yes, let’s.” With quick, jerky movements he grabbed his coat and hat.
So! He didn’t know plainclothesmen were looking for him. All right, I thought, we’d find a quiet nook in the gentlemen’s lounge and have it out.
But I’d not reckoned on Diana, who frowned. “Adi, whatever’s the matter? You’ve gone quite pale.”
“Just … need some air,” he said, without meeting her gaze.
“I’ll come too.” Diana scooped her silks into her sewing box. “A walk will be nice. I can still feel the liner’s deck buzzing underfoot.”
Dash it, she knew something was up.
Adi’s glance held a tinge of desperation. Clearing my throat, I turned to Diana. “Why not pack your things, sweet? We leave for London in the morning.”
She paused, then pinned on her hat. “I’ll do it after dinner. But now, let’s find out what the problem is.”
I spoke slowly. “Problem?”
“That telegram you’ve been carrying around in your pocketbook.”
Damn. She’d found it, that telltale cable. She caught my stunned look and grinned, lovely and spirited, shedding her dutiful manner. Such moments reminded me of her youth: twenty-three years to my far older thirty-two.
Diana shrugged, her tone nonchalant. “You were in the washroom when the boy brought up our morning paper. I tipped him from your pocketbook. And yes, I read Adi’s telegram.” Her eyes widened. “You got it in Boston and never said! Is that why we sailed here?” She looked more surprised than offended.
I paused. This wasn’t how I’d hoped to tell her.
She gave a little shake, as though to dispel some disappointment, then turned to Adi. “Your cable sounds urgent. What’s happened?”
How intently she watched Adi. Growing up so close in age, they knew each other better than any other. I envied that closeness, that unassuming affection, the way they were so easy in each other’s company. But Adi had kept this from her, the mysterious reason he’d sent for me. Whatever troubled him was such that he did not care to have it known by his younger sister.
I knew Diana to be both competent and fierce. When I’d got mired in union trouble in Chicago, she’d packed her bags and hopped on a train to find me, and if needed, to rescue me!
Adi dropped his gaze in embarrassment. He was just two years her senior, but his manner and composure were usually those of someone older. Grief will do that, I thought, recalling the untimely death of Bacha, his bride. Two years ago, her tragic death had placed such weight upon him, the scrutiny of the press, their bizarre speculations. Under that avalanche, he’d been collected and resolute. Now he seemed fearful and distraught, his mouth tight with restraint, or even remorse. My pulse thrummed. What had he done?
I drew a slow breath and said, “Let’s have it, Adi. Whatever it is.”
As though my words cut some invisible strings holding him up, Adi slumped on the settee and tossed his hat on the table. “I’m in trouble, Diana.”
It did not surprise me that he addressed her, the one who held him in such high esteem. That was what he feared—to lose it. To lose her.
Diana perched on the edge of a Queen Anne chair. “Does Papa know?”
She thought he’d formed an unwise attachment! She was dead wrong there, I thought, for no such argument could make Adi quail. This was something worse.
Shadows around his eyes and under his cheekbones gave him a gaunt, haunted look. His voice scraped through the silent room. “Papa knows.”
Diana removed her hat and delicately reinserted the pin. “And Mama?”
His face creased in lines of pain. “I hope not.”
Brown eyes serious, Diana said, “Tell us.”
He shook his head, hand splayed in a helpless gesture that tore at me. “It’s just … Jim might know what to do.”
How the tables had turned! Working for him on my first assignment, I’d relied on his connections in Bombay, his knowledge of people, his unerring ability to acquire whatever I needed. Now he looked to me for aid.
A flush of pink tinged Diana’s face. She hated to be excluded for her gender. As worry bleached the fretful color from her cheeks, she said, “But … just ask Papa to set it right?”
“He can’t, Di! He sent me here.” Adi licked his lips and blurted, “If I go back, I’ll be accused of murder!”