Adi’s factory was a large shed, once part of an old bungalow that had fallen into ruin. Much of it was demolished, leaving a dismal footprint and assorted walls to show it had once been a home. The unattended gate hung open.
I followed Adi’s quick steps into a long building and glanced around at partially stocked crates, stacks of boxes, and packing materials in neat rows. Somewhere inside, a machine made a whirring noise.
Surprised, I asked, “You kept the firm running?”
“How would the men feed their families? But…” Lips compressed, he sighed.
I motioned at his inventory. “The loan you’d taken. Was that cash with Lloyd’s?”
Adi nodded, his mouth morose.
“So.” I swung an arm to encompass the room. “How are you paying salaries?”
A smile twitched over Adi’s face. “I’d put by some savings. Not much. I have to tell them it’s over, close up shop.”
He went to a table where instruments were laid out for packing. “I suppose I’m hoping for a miracle. Something’s got to sell, else it’s all scrap, every bit. They put their hearts into it, you see … we all did.”
Per my request, we’d driven the carriage past Lloyd’s bank. The factory was less than half an hour from there. I frowned. The timing of that morning still felt out of whack. “That morning, why d’you stay so long at Lloyd’s? It would take only a few minutes to tell you ’bout Satya, surely?”
Adi clicked his tongue as we walked through the hall. “Gupta kept me waiting. Well over an hour. Something about the quarterly reckoning, Jim. He’d said it was important, so I read newspapers and waited.”
The whirring had ceased while we spoke. I searched the empty hall. “All right, so where are they?”
We found his desultory employees under a banyan tree. A call from Adi roused the pair, who clambered to their feet and salaamed. Adi introduced Faisal, who had the look of a tired bulldog in the way he hung his head, with grey hair that spiked up and then drooped over his ears. The young accountant, Vishal Das, had a thin, sparse beard just coming in, and spectacles that enlarged his dark, curious eyes.
I asked to speak with them separately. Adi offered his office, saying he needed to inventory the supply room. “Shall we go inside?” I asked Faisal Khan, the older man who wore his worry like a cloak.
Settled across Adi’s desk, he told me he’d been at lunch with Vishal when Satya was attacked. When Adi called out, he rushed back into the factory. “With Vishal,” he insisted. “We entered together.”
“What did you see?”
Faisal’s face puckered like a frightened child’s. “Blood, sahib. A lot of blood.” He clutched the hair over his ears. Shaking as though he had a palsy, he repeated much of what I knew from Adi. I took down his particulars and he left in slow plodding steps, holding his elbows as though he was cold. Could he have stabbed Satya and then dashed back to the others without drawing attention? Unlikely. Or was that just the impression he wanted to give me?
On his turn, Vishal wiped his spectacles, insisting, “We both together, we found Adi-ji and Satya-ji. I told the police this already, sahib.” I recalled that Indians often added the suffix ji or sahib to denote respect, just as Mr. was used in England.
“Tell me too. Was there anything different about that morning?”
Frowning in thought, his head swayed, no.
To loosen him up, I tried a broader question. “What about your work, anything amiss?”
His head wobbled. “The accounts are in good order. I can vouch for that. But the business? There is no income. Only outgoings.”
“Did you hear an argument?” I asked. McIntyre had mentioned raised voices.
He grimaced, nodding. “I heard Satya-ji. No one else.”
Neither man inspired much confidence, each eager to know what the other had said. They clung together, holding their alibi as a shield, insisting they had returned to the workshop at the same time. Neither admitted being first to enter the room. Something about this troubled me, but I could not quite account for it.
They seemed … scared. Was it that simple? Was it only reluctance born from a natural fear of being questioned, of making a mistake? Or was there more to it? Why in blazes were they so united? Surely two men could not spend every second together? That morning, had neither seen or heard anything that could explain what had occurred? Or was there some agreement between them?
When Adi returned, they ducked their heads and answered without meeting his eyes, as though Adi had an incurable illness.
I understood. They thought him guilty, the shadow of the noose already over him. Yet they owed him some loyalty, for he was paying their wages, sums they knew he could ill afford. It put them in an awkward spot.
Later that evening, I visited the home of Faisal Khan, the elderly Mohammedan, and learned that he was married and with a family of four.
Seeing me on his doorstep, he started, then recovered and led me to a small parlor. It was furnished in the Indian style, with carpets, bolsters, and cushions around the sides. On a low table at the center, an incense holder held a pair of smoking joss sticks. Smoke wisped upward, scenting the room with the fragrant tones of sandalwood and attar.
His hair stuck out under his prayer cap, curling over his ears. Seating me near a window, he hurried away and returned, carefully bearing a cup of tea. He remained standing until I invited him to sit.
The cup and saucer did not match, but they were scalloped porcelain, perhaps purchased at different times from Chor bazaar, the well-known market of thieves. Blowing on the tea to cool it, I asked again about the day Satya died.
Sitting crisscross, he said, “I could not find a tonga that morning, so I walked to work. Around eleven thirty when I arrived, I saw the carriage leave.”
That puzzled me, Adi had been at the bank until that time. “Did you see Adi?”
“Not in the workshop. But he is often working with machines in his office.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You thought he was in the building?”
Faisal’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes. I do.”
But Adi claimed he had entered the factory at noon, only seconds before Satya died. I sipped the dark aromatic tea and considered my host.
Outside, a pack of stray dogs set up a howling protest. Perhaps the bread-walla or postman had cycled past, escaping the horde who snapped at his feet. The barking of strays was a common nuisance during hot afternoons. Outside the window, sunset rays twinkled on trembling leaves.
As though uncomfortable with the silence, Faisal said, “The watchman also said Adi sahib came in the carriage.”
“Really? Why tell you?”
“Not me, sahib. I heard him telling the Angrez policeman.”
The gateman must be mistaken, I thought. I knew from prior investigations that people often confuse the sequence of disjointed events. In the quiet chamber, Faisal gazed at me expectantly, one hand gripping the other. Why was he so anxious?
“Tell me,” I prompted, “when you arrived, did you see the watchman?”
“Yes. A bhisti was giving him water.”
“And you are certain it was Adi Framji’s carriage?”
He reared back. “Of course! I know it well.”
His insistence was curious. McIntyre would believe him because he had no apparent reason to lie. I gestured for him to continue.
He said, “I had to sharpen and pack thirty pieces that day. But Satya-ji did not find the forceps satisfactory. He asked me to reset all the hinges.”
“Is this common?”
He shrugged. “I’ve worked there only three months. What’s common, not common, I don’t know. Each day Adi sahib, Satya-ji, they assigned my tasks.”
“Did you see both that morning?”
“I am telling you. Only Satya-ji. He came and went from the supply room, the workshop, his office.”
“What about Vishal?”
“He was in the supply room.”
“Hmm?”
“He does accounts, sahib. Some coal was delivered, so he went outside to the cart. I could hear him.”
“What time was that?”
Faisal frowned, thinking. “After I had just reached there.”
Since all this was well before noon, I did not really care, but I wanted to know how closely the employees noted each other’s movements.
“After eleven thirty,” I prodded, “the cart approached—did Satya go to it?”
He spread his hands. “Don’t know, sahib.” His face took on a troubled look.
“But he should have been there?”
He wobbled his head in agreement. “They are the owners. Must have been busy, sahib.”
I checked my notes, then asked, “Was he with someone at the time?”
No answer. I caught Faisal’s perplexed gaze.
“I did not see anyone enter,” he said demurely.
“Did you hear anyone?”
He winced. “The machine, it is very loud. The sharpening machine.”
“You were using it?”
He nodded, hands folded. I’d heard a scraping hiss when Adi and I entered the factory. Instead of joining Adi and myself, Faisal had gone out to the garden with the accountant Vishal. Perhaps the machine obscured distant voices.
“What happened then?”
“We worked till almost noon. From the workshop I called to Vishal. He brought his tiffin and we ate in the bagicha.”
“The garden?”
“The bungalow once had a fine garden. Our factory used to be the adjoining stable.”
“And then?”
“We heard cries. Someone crying out. We rushed back and—hai baba! What a sight. Adi sahib holding Satya-ji. So much blood on him. Adi sahib kept talking to Satya-ji, but he was choking.” He grimaced and swiped at his eyes.
He’d been barely able to speak about it that morning. I waited, assessing him.
Faisal said, “We tried to stop the bleeding, but Satya-ji … it was no use. After some time, the doctor arrived. Vishal brought the police.”
“Did someone ask Vishal to do so?”
“Yes. Adi sahib.”
I wrote quickly. It was a fairly clear account, but that troubled look in Faisal’s soulful eyes held me like glimpsing the barrel of a gun in the bushes.
“There’s something you haven’t told me. What is it?” I said quietly and waited.
He fidgeted. It was something he did not want to share or wasn’t sure about.
Secrets are like balloons. Silence pumps air into them. The more one wants to shy away, the bigger they loom. Now Faisal had waited too long to fob me off.
“It’s nothing, sir,” he mumbled.
I raised an eyebrow. Sir, not sahib, as before.
“Tell me anyway,” I said, in an informal tone.
His eyes darted around as though seeking an escape, so I cleared my throat to prompt him. Diffident, barely audible, he said, “His family, sir, you should ask them.”
“Why?”
He looked ambivalent. “Sometimes Satya did not go home. After work. Many times, he stayed in the factory. He asked the gate man to buy food.”
“Didn’t Adi also work late? They were inventors, no?”
“Yes. Yes sir, you are right,” Faisal said gratefully, swinging his head in agreement. He seemed relieved to have unburdened himself and eager to have his concerns dismissed. Curious, I thought. He’d pointed me toward Satya’s family, but it seemed that he had not wanted to.
I asked him if there was anything else, but he insisted there was not.
I departed, heartened to know that it was Adi who’d summoned the police. It further strengthened the case for his innocence.
But Faisal’s testimony also indicated that someone else was speaking with Satya when the supplies were delivered. Was that Adi, or another visitor? Why did Adi insist that he had only just arrived at noon, when two witnesses, the watchman and Faisal, claimed to see his carriage leave earlier that morning? His denial put him in an awkward spot.
Faisal’s testimony echoed what Adi had said about the gateman’s. I searched my memory of the morning’s visit, but could not recall seeing anyone at the gate. Had he been dismissed? Strange that Adi had not mentioned it.
On my return, I discharged my huffing bicycle-rickshawala at the base of Malabar Hill and walked up to Framji Mansion. Dusk had dropped over Bombay while I traveled, and purple twilight filtered through trees. Here and there lamps glowed, announcing gated driveways, their great houses hidden behind tall yew hedges or stone fences. An orchestra of crickets followed me, a chorus of frogs rounding out the bass.
At Framji Mansion, a pair of guards sat smoking before the gate. I smelled the acrid scent of native beedees as I approached.
Then one asked the other, “What of the gora sahib, the ghar jamai?”
Hearing the slur, I paused. The servants thought I had returned broke, to mooch off my in-laws! My face felt warm, though I wondered, why should I care? Yet I did. Dammit, I was no longer the penniless soldier whom Burjor had taken under his wing.
“Gurung,” I called to the older man, my tone sharp. “Why is the gate open?”
He leapt to his feet and saluted, then hauled the gates shut. While he was occupied, I quizzed the younger man. “Your name? What’s your job here?”
“Bhim, sahib. I’m the new sais,” he said, shifting nervously on his feet.
“You drive the carriage? What about the day Satya Rastogi died? Do you remember it?”
Eyebrows drawn together, he nodded. Gurung must have grasped that these were no idle questions, for he stood at a distance, watching. I asked the new groom, “What time did you drive Adi sahib from this house?”
His mouth dropped open. Then he said, “Sahib, I did not take him. I drive Burjor sahib every morning.”
I squinted at him. Adi could not have taken the carriage. Was Faisal lying, as well as the factory watchman? Or had someone else visited that morning in a carriage that both men mistook for Adi’s?