Jameson spotted me at the door and snorted as he choked on his afternoon toddy.
“Agnihotri! Back, are you?” He chortled, setting down his glass.
I grinned and shook his hand. “Like a bad penny. How are you?”
A bit more silver glimmered in his brown hair. He’d parted it on the side and slicked it back—to cover a bald spot? I would not have thought him in any way vain. His clothing was more formal than in previous years—a grey vest over buttoned-down shirt. In my memory he was almost always rumpled, collar open at the neck, sleeves rolled to his elbows.
He waved me to a chair. “How is the charming Miss Framji? Ah! Pardon me, the missus.”
“Glad to be back with her family,” I replied, then waved at his attire. “You’re mighty fine today. So, who is she?”
“Me?” He scoffed. “Who’d have an old sawbones like me?” He spoke lightly, but his pink cheeks told another story. He chuckled, leaning back. “Matrimony’s not so bad, eh? You’ve filled out a tad.” His eyes narrowed. “Broken any bones lately?”
I shook my head, but my hand covered the scar on my forearm, a deep gouge I’d won in Chicago that had taken a while to heal.
“Show me.”
Taking off my coat, I snapped off a cuff and pushed up my sleeve.
He put on a pair of wire-rims and hummed over my forearm, poking and pressing. “Neat job of sewing. Lucky, though, missed the brachial artery by a hair. Cut some of the extensor carpi ulnaris. Any closer and you wouldn’t grip anything for a while!”
“My aim’s shot,” I said, showing him a fist. “Old days, we boxed without gloves.”
He tut-tutted over my hand, pulling and twisting like a happy Torquemada. Taking in his snappy attire, I had an idea. Diana had been miserable over those declined invitations. She’d called the medico “darling man” … and I had never really thanked him for playing Cupid.
“Jameson, you wouldn’t care to visit Framji Mansion?” I asked. “Small do, next weekend. They put on a nice spread.”
“They must do! Since you’re looking well-fed,” he said. “Moneybags having a soiree? I’d be happy to! When d’you want me?”
I gave him the day and time, then came down to brass tacks. “This business about Adi, you know about it?”
“’Course!” He tapped my arm. “No more knives, yes? You were in the army, the constabulary, and now … what d’you call it?”
“Operative.”
“She lets you fight fellows with knives? Can’t you find another job? One that doesn’t risk dismemberment?”
I grinned, sorely tempted to tell him Diana’s sobriquet for him, but that would have ruined his earnest scolding, so I said, “She’s got a flair for it, too. Gets the sense of people quicker than anyone I know. Likes to poke around, makes deductive leaps with almost nothing to go on. And not above getting into the fray.” I grumbled as I restored my cuff and buttoned it, “Followed me to Chicago and into a real brawl, she did.”
Remembering my panic when I’d been unable to find her, a chill still dripped down my back.
He chuckled, looking smugly satisfied. “That’s a novel method. Canny little thing.” He steadied his gaze upon me. “About young Mr. Framji. What’d you need?”
I gave him a grateful look. “He’s innocent, of course. You know the type. Won’t tell a lie to save his skin. But … someone did kill Satya Rastogi, and I aim to bring him in. Any idea who’d do it?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Suspects? That’s your department. Seen McIntyre? He’s dead set on your man. You know, young Framji came to me, couple months ago, showed me his scalpels. Nice tools. I sent him over to medical ordnance, but you know how it is, fellow’d already got someone for the job. Now if young Framji was selling blankets, we’d have taken a thousand—new hospital in Madras.”
I let him run his course, then asked, “Who? Who was he buying from, your army chap?”
His bushy eyebrows twitched. “Fellow by the name of Howard Banner.” He rummaged in a drawer and passed me a card. “That’s him. Been around almost a year, I think.”
Howard Banner lived on Ash Lane, off Esplanade Road, a quiet tree-lined neighborhood of modest homes. It surprised me that he’d already acquired property, since by Jameson’s account he was a fairly recent arrival. A shrewd operator? Or did he come from the bosom of landed gentry in Great Britain?
A tall native servant took my card with alacrity—It gave my name as James O’Trey, Dupree Detective Agency, Boston. Although in India I preferred to use my original name Agnihotri, as yet I had no calling cards proclaiming it. O’Trey would have to do, for now.
“Please to wait, sahib,” he said, then hurried away, his feet skimming across the tile. His swishing footsteps ceased. Some words were spoken, then silence. I waited, watching a lamplighter set up on the street outside. Banner must be finishing up a letter, that would explain the silence, but where was his man, then?
The door swung open, startling me. A young man approached on white rubber-shod feet, hand extended. “Tennis, yes? Capital! Did we say tomorrow, at the club?”
I shook his hand, trying to gain the measure of the man. Was this young dandy capable of killing off a rival for his business? Sandy hair drooped across his brow giving him a careless elegance. His white shirt was unwrinkled, despite the heat, sleeves rolled to bare muscular forearms. His fingers were stained with ink. Tennis? He’d mistaken me for someone else.
When I did not reply, he tried to extricate his hand. After a second, I let go, saying, “I’m not here about tennis.”
His bearer reappeared with a tray and glasses. Setting it down, he picked up my card from the tray and offered it to Banner, who read it and blinked as though he’d just been awakened. “Detective agency. Boston?”
“I’m investigating the death of Satya Rastogi. Did you ever meet him?”
His eyes steadied the moment I said Satya’s name. He said slowly, “Yes, I have.”
“When?”
He pulled in his lips and reached for a decanter. Pouring a peg without much thought, he glanced at me.
I shook my head to decline. The silence lengthened, grew heavier.
“Some weeks ago,” he said, at last. “But I don’t know what that has to do with—anything.”
That was his prudence emerging. When in doubt, withhold information, I thought. He’d dashed out, expecting a fellow sportsman. So he liked tennis, played at an Englishman’s club, and was looking for a partner or a fourth to make up the match.
He picked up my card again, eyebrows startled. Did I look so much older, then? I practiced McIntyre’s stare, keeping my face neutral.
“What’s this about?” he asked weakly. “I met Rastogi a couple of times. Wasn’t a friend or anything.”
“What did you speak about?”
He shrugged. “Just … London. He’d been to Oxford, studied science—chemistry.”
“That takes five minutes. Yet you met him again.”
“Umm.” He spread his hands, waved his fingers about, then apparently noticed his drink and clutched it. He took a sip, liked it, took another, and set down the glass. He might have wanted to down it, but perchance thought that would give away his anxiety.
“What’s this about?” he asked again.
“You met him at least twice. What was your business with him?”
I was reaching, but it seemed to shake Banner. Perhaps it sounded as though I knew something more. His lips opened a few times, then he said, “Look. We met in a hospital waiting room … it was purely accidental. We got to talking, just social, it was. That’s all.”
By his tone, I knew it wasn’t all.
“Met at his residence?” I could imagine the to-do that would have caused.
“No, here.”
Banner’s innocuous answer meant he had no idea what Rastogi’s home was like.
I asked, “Why?”
“Told you. Just chewing the cud. Downed a couple. Bachelors, y’know.”
I scoffed. “You invited him over for drinks. To play cards?”
He blinked, apparently assessing whether to admit to it. Fraternizing with Indians and all that. I would have liked him better if he’d thrown it in my face, saying, “Any law against that?” but he only shook his head.
“What, then?”
He blushed, like a schoolboy abruptly facing the headmaster. “Just—reminiscing, y’know? College men. Swapping stories.”
“So you were friendly with Rastogi.”
“No!” He backed away as though I’d accused him of something indecent. “Just polite, is all. Nothing more.”
Three denials—too much? Could Rastogi have been more than a brief acquaintance?
“He had no head for drink, see?” He tried a chuckle that didn’t convince me.
After a pause, I asked, “So what did you discuss?”
Sweat beaded on his forehead. “He was entering the game, see? Trying to sell to hospitals and such. I’m a medical salesman, so ah…” He spread a hand aimlessly, then went to a bureau and brought me his card: HOWARD E BANNER, MEDICAL REPRESENTATIVE, EVANS & WORMULL, SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS, LONDON.
“He came to you for business advice?” I let my question sound skeptical.
“Something like that. ’Cause we’d swapped a few stories and such.”
I asked, “Did he play tennis?”
This gave Banner a footing, which he grasped like a man who’d been slipping into a bog. “He knew the game, tennis, I mean. He’d played, but the clubs—well, you know how they are.”
“Hmm?”
“Won’t let in a darkie. Rastogi didn’t mind. Didn’t make out like he minded, see? He was a quiet bloke, respectful, yes?”
Immobile, I said, “You liked him.”
“We were polite. Cordial,” he retorted, taking another swig.
“He was a competitor. He made equipment like yours. And you gave him a hand?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I … just. He was a college man,” Banner mumbled, his eyes dashing about like ponies.
I glanced around the room. “So you’ve been here six months—”
“Nine,” he said.
“Nine months, selling to hospitals, army, clinics, surgeons. What’s the rent for this place?”
He reddened, swallowed, then went quite pale. “What’re you accusing me of?”
His rough tone surprised me. “One might say you’re worried about something, Mr. Banner. I haven’t accused you of anything. But something’s on your mind, isn’t it?”
He groaned and dropped into a chair. He could have asked me to leave, but perhaps he thought that would look guilty. He poured himself another tot and spilt some golden liquid on the tray.
“Dash it,” he cried, looking up. “I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of!”
“All right,” I said, and took the chair opposite him. “So what’s rattled you?”
“Rattled me? Nothing. I’m not … rattled.”
I suppose, living in the States, some of its language had rubbed off on me. I’d worked with some tough blokes who wouldn’t give a bite of their apple to a starving grandma.
Gentling my tone, I said, “Mr. Banner, something’s troubled you. It’s best to tell me now, before things get, ah, complicated.”
He abruptly made up his mind. “All right, here it is. Rastogi asked me for a loan. I declined. Had to. I don’t have—I’m not made of money, all right? I told him so. My old man gave me a start,” he said, waving at the molded ceiling, the white cornices over the window.
“How much?” Seeing his startled look, I added, “How much did Rastogi want?”
“A thousand rupees! A thousand. Madness!”
That was six months’ wages as an inspector of police, my old job. Almost a year’s wages in the army. Banner tugged at an invisible thread in the tapestried chair. I could have left it there, but some instinct demanded I push further. “You refused. Said you didn’t have it? The sole agent for medical equipment and supplies. The sole agent.”
He went beet red, then slumped. “All right, I could have raised it. But he wasn’t my brother, see. He was a pal, not blood.”
“Just a friend.”
He nodded, looking glum.
“There’s more, yes?”
Looking sick, he said, “I, ah, I didn’t know what he wanted it for. He wouldn’t say. Kept on about paying suppliers, just a temporary problem, he said.”
“But you didn’t think he could pay it back.”
“Yes! Yes, that’s it. I wasn’t sure!”
He’d grabbed my answer so readily it made me pause. “No … something else. What was the trouble?”
“I told you. His business might not … it might not fly—then where would I be?”
“Having funded a competitor, you mean? In fact, you hoped it would not succeed. Why would you help him?”
Color ebbed from his face as he sat up, angry again. “That’s not true. I’d help a fellow in a spot, if I could. Even a chap that’s selling against me.”
I believed him. It was the sort of mad thing an Englishman would do, the honorable thing, even against his own interest.
“So, why’d you refuse?”
“Because”—he winced—“not to speak ill of the dead, Rastogi, he just seemed—odd. It isn’t done. To borrow a thousand rupees off a bloke his own age. And not say why.”
I understood. His caution had prevented it. “It reeked.”
“Yes,” he admitted unwillingly. “I don’t know what he was up to, I swear it. Just … that he was up to—something.”
“All right,” I said. “How did he seem, when he asked for the funds?”
Banner frowned. “Agitated. He kept talking. Went on and on.”
“Desperate?”
He agreed with that assessment, his eyes worried and sad.
I asked a few more questions, then gestured toward my card on the table. “Right. If you learn anything, remember anything, would you call me?”
He agreed, so I pulled out a fountain pen and jotted down the number for the Framji residence. Then, picking up my hat, I shook hands with the mystified young man and left.
Satya Rastogi had tried to borrow a large sum from the young Englishman. He’d been desperate. Why? Having been refused, he’d emptied Adi’s account without telling him. But for what purpose? And where was the cash? Banner was right. It reeked.