Byram agreed to meet us that evening, so after a quiet lunch Adi and his father withdrew to their rooms for a nap. It was the practical thing to do in the tropics while the noonday sun blazed overhead, but I had not picked up the habit. In my army days, afternoons were for study, reading every book my commander, Colonel Sutton, could procure—history, biographies of Nelson and such greats, Shakespeare, and sentimental old Dickens.
So, I went in search of Diana and found her upstairs with her mother.
“Captain!” Mrs. Framji’s lined face creased in a welcome that lifted my spirits. Her brown eyes glowed, shockingly youthful in a tired face. Her sari palloo had slipped from her hair. Seeing the threads of silver pulled back in her bun gave me a curious sensation, a surge of protectiveness, of gratitude for her trust.
She pointed at a black, iron contraption. “Our new sewing machine. Such a troublesome thing. The thread breaks constantly, but Diana made it work!”
Deftly folding children’s clothes, she smiled at Diana, who had positioned a large swath of material in the machine.
“Mmm.” Frowning in concentration, Diana ran thread from a spool over and through the machine’s metal entrails, her dark eyes almost crossed with the effort.
I left them to it, saying I would be back by dinnertime.
Adi’s reticence had caused a churning in my gut. He knew something, blast him. But what? No, this was Adi, quiet, honorable Adi, who wouldn’t lie to save his life! He could not have a hand in anything so vile as murder.
Unable to settle on any plan, I walked around the house. My steps took me to the kitchen.
Here I paused, remembering that Chutki would not be inside. The young girl I’d found on the way from Lahore—the teenaged waif who’d called me brother, who had grinned and huffed and cooked rotis—was dead. For an instant I had forgotten, and the remembering brought a weight down on me, an ache of loss. I would never again hear the proud tinkle of her payals as she hurried to set the dinner table.
“Captain sahib!” said a female voice.
Jiji-bai, the old cook, came from the dark interior with a toothless smile. Befuddled with memories, I could not answer but only ducked my head.
She folded her hands, then brought a metal tumbler of water from the earthen pot, assuming in some unspoken fashion that this was what I’d come for. Perhaps the children came to her for water, and she was accustomed to it.
“Come inside, sahib. Don’t stand on the umbhar,” she said in Gujarati, handing me the container.
Thus bid, I stepped over the doorstop into the restful dark kitchen, feeling as though we’d never left Bombay. The cool metal felt smooth and reassuring in my hands, the water sweet and refreshing. Grateful, I returned the tumbler and asked after her family. Framji Mansion had opened once again to encompass me. In the kitchen garden stood the urn of tulsi and mint where I had given Chutki a blue-green sari, the first gift she’d ever received. A few weeks later, she was gone. I exhaled slowly, remembering her shy resolve, her devotion. She’d been cremated wearing her new sari.
Past the row of banana trees, the cool, shady mango orchard beckoned. Where were the guards I had trained? Had Burjor dismissed them? The grassy maidan behind the house seemed deserted as I reached the overgrown back lane. Brambles snatched at my trousers, and the rear gate was padlocked with a rusty chain. Creepers and bushes straggled over the stone wall.
The financial crisis had been harder on the Framjis than they let on. My stomach plummeted. Had their finances shrunk because I, a half-breed Eurasian, married their daughter? The theft of two thousand rupees from Adi’s account took on a new significance.
I crossed the irrigation trenches to the row of shady banyan trees, then followed the curved driveway to the front gate, my boots crunching on the gravel. I’d walked this path innumerable times as a bachelor.
That dire morning six weeks ago, Adi had probably taken a tonga. I headed down to the crossroads to trace his steps to Lloyd’s bank at the Esplanade, Fort. As the blazing sun crept overhead, the heat beat down on my head like a fist.
A canopy of banyan trees offered some shade where lines of one-horse tongas, closed Victorias, and narrow bicycle rickshaws stood at the Teen-batti crossroads, named for a large three-pronged lamppost nearby.
Climbing into a tonga, I accepted the driver’s salaam and directed him down through the crowded streets of the old Bombay fort to Lloyd’s bank.
Wide stone buildings established the area as Bombay’s financial district, with molded cornices and carved heraldry over the doorways. The paved sidewalks had been so recently washed that a haze of steam rose from the pavers. A pair of dogs lay panting in the shade. Turbaned men hurried by, squinting from the glare. A water carrier bearing a leather sack over his back poured into a metal bowl for some passersby. In the heavy quiet of afternoon, the splash brought to mind Kipling’s army water boy: Of all them blackfaced crew, the finest man I knew, was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din. I’d known his like, a dozen-fold.
At the bank, a blue-and-white-uniformed guard salaamed and pulled open the heavy teak door. Stepping into the old marble portico, I asked for the manager.
A young Indian man in a smart suit came up at a brisk clip and invited me into a quiet chamber where we sat across a fine carved desk.
“I am Bisvas Gupta,” said the Bengali banker, his high forehead shining. “May I help? Your name, sir?”
He looked startled to learn it. Ah, he’d been told an Englishman was waiting.
No matter. “I’d like to open an account,” I said. Pulling out Dupree’s cheque for my last wages, I laid it on the glossy rosewood table.
Gupta hurried away and returned with a clerk carrying a large ledger. There I entered my particulars, giving my address as Framji Mansion, and handed over the cheque.
He mentioned international currency exchanges. Consulting another ledger, he said, “The rupee is strong, sir. But foreign currency is much in demand, so we will give you a special rate.” He entered a modest sum against my moniker. Since we had left no funds in Boston, and our friends the Lins lived off the bakery we owned together, a little over fifteen hundred rupees was all we had to our name.
Gupta went on, merrily describing financial transfers between continents, the collection of taxes due to Her Majesty, and more. Apparently content that he had established his bona fides as a wise old owl, he wrote out a series of notes that I might use to avail myself of funds, reminding me, “Each transaction is confirmed with a phone call. I will remind you that we met today, the hot, sunny afternoon of October eleventh. You will know me when I call?”
“I will,” I said, noting his Indian intonation. “Will you? I was with the Fourteenth Light Cavalry, on the northwest frontier.”
“Dragoons,” he said, in a hushed tone. “Yes, sir, I will be happy to assist you. Will that be all?”
“Not quite,” I said. “My wife was Miss Framji. If she requires funds, you will oblige without objections?”
His eyebrows climbed that noble forehead as he made some notations, saying, “Mrs. James Agnihotri will be most welcome.”
This brought me to my main purpose. “Do you know Mr. Framji? Adi Framji?”
He interlocked his fingers over his middle. “Of course.”
In a few moments he confirmed Adi’s statement about the morning of the murder. Mr. Rastogi had indeed withdrawn a large sum, and he, as manager, had thought it prudent to inform the other account holder. Young Mr. Framji had arrived, learned of the transaction, and departed shortly after.
I asked, “How did he seem, when he heard about the cheque?” After all, this was McIntyre’s entire case, that Adi was enraged at an embezzlement.
The manager gazed at me. “Seem, sir?”
“Was he calm, or agitated?”
He shrugged. “He seemed surprised, but not unduly so.”
I jotted it down exactly. “Now, mind, if anyone asks you to change that statement, you will let me know, yes?” I wrote the Framjis’ telephone number on a page and tore it out.
Handing it to the astonished banker, I asked, “What time did Mr. Framji leave?”
He scratched his eyebrow. “Uh. You are a captain in the army, sir?”
“Retired. What time?”
“I cannot exactly say. About eleven thirty? Perhaps later?”
“Good.” I wrote it down word for word, puzzled at the spike of fear I’d seen in his eyes. A suspicious man would wonder if Gupta had something to hide.
We said goodbye in the foyer. As I stepped out into the street, a voice hailed me, “Jim! Good Lord, it’s Agnihotri!”
My old friend, Major Stephen Smith, stood before a carriage, solar topi in hand, gazing at me in delight. He paid off the fellow, who watched, amused, as Smith shook my hand vigorously.
Smith cried, “What luck to find you! We’re back, did you know? Nine months in godawful Africa and even this hellhole looks like heaven! Where’re you billeted?”
He didn’t know. I slapped his back and grinned. “Married her, old chap.”
He gawked at me. “Miss Framji? Bloody hell! What d’you do that for?” Then he guffawed and punched my arm. “Can’t say I blame you, lad. Found a ‘soft spot,’ have you? Married old moneybags’ daughter!”
Soft spot? Was that what my comrades believed, that I’d married Diana for her money? Thus reminded why, in younger days, I’d often been tempted to sock Smith a good ’un, I chuckled and asked where he’d put up. He was in Esplanade House by Victoria pier, so, agreeing to meet up with the lads soon, we said our goodbyes.
I left Smith standing by the bank, looking after me, and remembered that he had almost always been in debt. Had he come to collect funds remitted by his aging pater, or to try to wheedle a loan?
Framji Mansion was quiet when I returned. Ganju admitted me, the knees fraying on his uniform. Of Burjor’s considerable staff only Gurung, Ganju, and a new youth remained. What of Jiji-bai’s son and daughter? What of the Bengali cook and her husband, and the gap-toothed boy who’d served the family two years ago? Had they been pensioned off or sent away?
I recalled Smith’s gleeful laugh. He’d cheerfully assigned me the role of money-grubber. It made me want a long, cleansing bath.
The household was not yet astir, so I sat down in the morning room with my notebook and my musings. Much had changed in two years. We’d left a prosperous bustling household. Though recovering from the tragic deaths of two beloved young women, they’d given the impression of forging ahead with promise and energy. Now the home seemed depleted, troubled, and burdened with secrets.
Thrusting away these dismal thoughts, I began to construct the steps of my investigation. I needed to see the place where Satya was killed and meet the factory staff, the witnesses.
Sona—that meant gold. Na becho … don’t sell it. No, I thought, that wasn’t it. Na beych-ney doh. Don’t let them sell it. Don’t let who? And what gold?
I recalled banker Gupta discussing the impending transfer of India’s gold to Britain—a great deal of gold, to secure India’s “home charges against British administrative services”—a pretty euphemism for the taxes India paid to the royal exchequer. Ever since the mutiny of 1857, the Crown had taken charge of the Indian subcontinent from the erstwhile East India Company, so funds went directly to the British treasury through the India Office.
My company sepoys had been sons of laborers and tradesmen, and much given to cursing their local zamindars and landowners. But weren’t those the very folk paying taxes? When the crown demanded its due, landowners in turn squeezed their dependents. The bullion accumulated at the British treasury paid for all Her Majesty’s Government desired: New ships? Why not! British officers’ salaries and pensions, upkeep of Her Majesty’s several palaces and the war in Africa, all funded by tradesmen like the Framjis and sweating Indian farmers.
Gupta had mentioned transfers of gold—could there be a connection to my case? The possibility seemed remote. I returned to the matter at hand. Who else would know what Satya was up to? His parents, siblings? Was he married? I examined my page, surprised. Except that he was Adi’s schoolfriend and came from a family of jewelers, I knew nothing about the victim.
Shortly after this, Diana entered carrying a wad of notes.
Waving these at me, she said, “Seems we’re not good enough for Mrs. Mehta! She’s declined my invitation. The Petits, and the Sureewalas! They are ‘otherwise engaged’! I wanted to introduce your pianist from the ship, John Raman, to Bombay society. He’s brilliant, dear, but we can’t help him. We’re back, Jim, and nobody wants us. We’re nobodies. And Adi—they’re staying away, as though they think he’s guilty!”
She blinked, trying to hide the hurt in her eyes, but I saw. And could find nothing to reassure her.