The public had gathered in great numbers at the Court of Justice on Mayo Road. Bombay’s high court was a wide, four-storied building near the university, sheathed in stone and embellished with Gothic grillwork. Four turrets surrounded a high central roof, giving it the appearance of a castle. On either end stood staircase towers wearing pointed hats. A notice on the door said that Adi’s case would be heard by Chief Justice Charles Sargent.
“What’s he like, Justice Sargent?” I asked a Parsi lawyer in a tall shiny hat.
He gave me an assessing look, then said that though elderly, Sargent gave unbiased, incisive judgments. Bystanders chimed in, offering a mix of intelligence and rumor.
Standing with the multitude under the pointed arches, I spotted the tall spike of Rajabai clock tower. There, two years ago, Adi’s bride and his cousin had fallen to their deaths. My first case. This time, Adi wasn’t the bereaved widower, but the accused. Gut churning, I searched the swarm of civilians and black-robed barristers. There.
Wearing a jacket over his dhoti, the witness Pritam Dutta climbed the courthouse steps, peering around. My appearance at his home with altered instructions had disturbed him and now he seemed unsure how to proceed. To accuse an Englishman was a far cry from his earlier task. I hoped he would seek out his employer and beg to be let off. When that did not work, he would demand additional moneys for this, more dangerous job. As he wove through the crowd, I followed, hoping to discover the “lawyer” who’d framed Adi.
Failing that, I needed to discredit Dutta’s testimony, but would Smith cooperate?
The first part of my plan went awry immediately. I should have known the perpetrator, the bada vakil, would not be around where Dutta could approach him. The heavy court doors swung open. Keeping Dutta in sight, I shuffled through with the throng.
When Adi’s case was called, Dutta hurried into a seat, casting anxious glances at the packed mezzanine floor above. At the head of the room, two defense attorneys sat beside Burjor. The older partner in gold-rimmed glasses gazed straight ahead. The younger one consulted his stack of papers and whispered to Burjor at intervals. If he’d been calm, I’d have had more faith in him.
Diana and Mrs. Framji’s arrival caused a commotion. Newspapermen lobbed questions from the door. Baton-wielding constables pushed reporters away.
Both ladies were pale, though Diana had worn a cheerful peach sari and her mother was in buttercup yellow. Parsis do not wear black, even in mourning. Mrs. Framji’s pale silk would not have looked out of place at the fire temple. I recalled that she’d worn it on her birthday, when the Framjis had been ousted from their place of worship.
Wearing a neat dark blue suit, Adi came in with his guards, his white collar as crisp as the pleat of his trousers. He met Diana’s gaze and smiled. She stood and waved her reply, tossing decorum to the winds. Message received, I thought.
Mrs. Framji fluttered a white kerchief, her face encased in smiles. As Adi climbed to the dock, Burjor gave him a nod. I uncurled my fist and tried to breathe.
Adi cast a look about, a line appearing between his eyebrows. He was looking for me, I thought, feeling a spike of remorse stab my chest. I’d had no time to tell him my plan. When at last he spotted me, he flinched. His face fell.
Immobile, I held his gaze and prayed that he understood my message.
A voice hailed our attention. As the courtroom rose to its feet, the judge entered and the court began its formalities at a glacial pace. The clerk droned on in a tone so slurred from repetition that he seemed to be speaking gibberish.
Two British officials led the prosecution. The senior lawyer Burjor had hired accepted statements that were admitted into evidence. The bank manager and medical examiner were told they would testify another day. Although each step of the court’s proceedings ran painfully slowly, Adi took a keen interest, as though it were a particularly engaging play. Diana listening attentively, a notebook open on her knee.
Next, Pritam Dutta was called to the witness stand, a seat across from the dock. Licking his lips as he was sworn in, he peered up at the judge’s bench.
The lead prosecutor was a dashing Englishman with a thick mustache. He established right away that Dutta had met Satya in the past when he sought to be hired by him. However, the pay did not satisfy, so Dutta had declined and found work as a clerk in a store instead.
I thought the whole thing improbable, since the only man who could verify his words was dead. After some prompting, Dutta described an argument he’d overheard, reciting the damning words in an undertone. He was made to repeat them loudly.
The prosecutor then showed that although it was dark, the two men had been arguing under a streetlamp. That was mighty convenient, I thought.
With a flourish, the prosecutor flung out his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Dutta. You’ve been very clear. Please point to the man you saw arguing with Satya Rastogi.”
At this point it should have been a formality. The prisoner stands in the dock for all to see. Dutta leaned forward and pointed.
Shock held the courtroom still for a moment. Then it erupted into waves of consternation, because Dutta was pointing at me!
McIntyre had been suspicious, even affronted, when he found me at the prosecution’s table, but he’d arrived too late to do anything about it. I had no idea how Smith got the crown’s counsel to agree. As I had requested, I sat at the prosecutor’s table, wearing a grey suit with a blue kerchief.
An hour later, I faced McIntyre, feeling blood suffuse my face. “But you saw it! Blighter didn’t know Adi Framji from a monkey in a banana tree!”
“Control yourself, Mr. Agnihotri,” McIntyre barked, his brogue thick as he demoted me to a civilian. “If I’d known you were up to this farce, you’d not ’a got me to let you come. And you!” He stabbed a finger at Smith, sitting stiff as a taxidermist’s masterpiece. “You turned the court into a sham! The pair o’ you! Visiting a witness, bribing him!”
I protested, “Three rupees, which he accepted as advance payment on a promised sum. He was bought, can’t you see? I could buy a dozen witnesses to swear Satya Rastogi was dancing in a temple yesterday. Only cost me eight annas each!”
Smith sat at attention while McIntyre made a low gargling noise in his throat that warned he would not send for constables to have me removed, but might well do it himself.
In a more reasonable tone, I said, “The witness, Dutta, is bunkum. Complete codswallop. Fellow never set eyes on Satya. Or Adi Framji!”
McIntyre snarled, “And I’m to take your word for it?”
“Please. Release Adi. You’ve got to.”
His reply was to curl his lip and sniff. I had never liked him less.
I cried, “You don’t have the slightest wisp of evidence against him!”
McIntyre stiffened. “The trial has begun, Mr. Agnihotri. If he’s acquitted, he’ll be released. Not an hour before.”
“Surely you can release him on bail? You know the Framjis.”
“And have him hop the next boat to Canada? Not a chance ’a that, laddie.”
I glared at him, then groaned. Adi would have to undergo the trial after all. They had no case against him, but I’d tossed pie in their face, so the court would doggedly continue its work. The only glimmer of hope was that once exonerated, the double indemnity rule would prevent Adi from being tried again for the crime.
I returned to Framji Mansion in a blue funk. The family had gathered in the morning room where Diana perched on a corner of the couch. Mrs. Framji lay back, supported by pillows. Eyes closed, she pressed a kerchief to her temples.
Diana was explaining to her parents what the law clerk had announced in his monotonous drone. “There’s no jury selection, Papa, because there will be no jury. Since an Indian was accused, the judge determined that a native jury could not be trusted to deliver a fair verdict. That’s what the announcement was about. This trial will be handled in a different manner—Jim, can you find out about the judge, his reputation? Does he dislike Indians?”
Feeling grim, I said, “He ruled on the communal riots, last year. Seems a fair man. Tough on both Hindus and Muslims, so he’s got a reputation for being racially unbiased.”
She said, “All those legal terms, ugh! Anyway, as long as there’s no evidence incriminating Adi there’s a good chance he’ll get off. There’s no witness that he did it.”
“Acquitted for lack of proof,” Burjor growled. “Like Manek. And what’s happened to him, since then? No one will employ him. Can’t show his face at the temple, not even for his uncle’s funeral.”
Diana said, “Jim, thank heaven you got rid of that lying witness, that worm.” She gave a strangled laugh though worry etched her tight face. Dabbing a cloth in the bowl nearby, she leaned over to place it on her mother’s forehead.
“It’s eau de cologne. Mama has a terrible headache,” Diana whispered, adjusting the satin rajai around her mother.
“Can I help?” I asked, matching her low tone. “Carry her upstairs, if she wants?”
“No, beta,” said Mrs. Framji in a faint, rasping voice. “I will be all right, in time.”
Diana bent and replied, then rose to her feet with a finger on her lips. With a few words to me, she went to attend the children, so I took out my notebook and studied it. Burjor’s lawyers had asked to speak with me in the morning.
Jiji-bai brought a platter of small chutney sandwiches. Since no one had any appetite, she left them on the table. At ten that night, they were still sitting there, Burjor hunched in his chair, his great shoulders bowed, staring at his slippered feet, his wife buried under a satin blanket like an insubstantial bird in layers of plumage.
Diana was quiet as we prepared for bed. In silence she turned down the lamp. Later, gazing up at the darkness, I knew she was awake. And I knew with conviction that she did not want me to speak.
What would I have said, if emotion had not closed my lips? That I had tried to get Adi released, and failed? That surely he must be acquitted, for no one who knew him would believe for a moment in his guilt? All that had been said.
Adi would now face a verdict from a man who did not know him, but who would put such things aside, even if he did. Justice Sargent would decide purely on the circumstances of the case—the employees’ testimony and the mali’s translated statement. The bank manager would testify about Adi’s visit that morning. Would that be enough of an alibi?
Adi had brought Diana and me together. Yet when he needed me most, I’d made a mess of it.
The night was long. I’d learned during my years in the army to confront what loomed over me, to stare my fears in the eye, though my heart might be cowering inside. I’d learned to give it words, to acknowledge the worst. And it was this: Diana was losing faith in me, perhaps even regretting her daring choices.