Jane Steele

by Lyndsay Faye

  Augustus Sack snorted in contempt. “Jack Ghosh had his uses, but I should never have sent him alone, Miss Stone, not into that household—I should have been a fool for trying. An armed guard of Company officers to search the place whilst the occupants were locked in the cellar, on the other hand? I was organising just such a campaign.”

  Then I was only just in time.

  “Ghosh acted on his own recognisance?”

  Mr. Sack tilted his head back and forth, considering. “He has been in this office on many occasions and could easily have found Mr. Singh’s correspondence, so that is the most likely explanation. He was a brute and a snoop and the world is well rid of him.”

  The words were delivered so carelessly that they seemed altogether true. The waters I had dived into were far murkier than I had imagined.

  “What about John Clements? You said you no longer suspected Mr. Thornfield of murdering him—why?”

  “Poison simply doesn’t seem our dear Charles’s style, does it?” The diplomat sighed. “Clements had been looking into the circumstances surrounding David Lavell’s unfortunate murder in Amritsar, but my late colleague hadn’t the intellect God bestows on sheep. He was low over the project, over his lack of progress. Then he saw an old love of his briefly, and he sank further into melancholy. Honestly, Miss Stone? I believe he took the soldier’s way out. Now you will tell me where the trunk is.”

  The moment of truth could not have come at a worse time.

  “I cannot tell you where I have hid the trunk yet, Mr. Sack,” I demurred firmly, “not for lack of trust, but because I wish to know what you plan to give me as a finder’s fee.”

  Mr. Sack, far from looking miffed at my insolence, grinned. Rising, he approached me where I sat, rubbing his hands together like a benevolent uncle out of a Dickens novel. An equally avuncular glimmer came into his eyes as his hand rose, seeming about to whisper a caress of fingertips over my hair.

  Mr. Sack ripped the necklace from my spine.

  I shrieked briefly, but soon mastered myself. Had I been less frugal and bought a sturdier chain, I might have had my neck snapped—as it was, the metal gave before my bones did, and I was left a shaking huddle on the floor, battling not to whimper as I observed the first red drop of blood trickle from my shoulder onto the creamy carpet.

  Mr. Sack squatted, dropping his hand to lift my head. The fiery pain produced when my posture shifted was shocking, and I gasped.

  “Miss Stone, I do not think that we quite understood each other when I said this was a Company matter,” he hissed. “Here is what I propose: I assume the trunk is somewhere nearby. If by midnight tomorrow you supply it, and I find it contains what I am looking for, I will give you a gift. If you do not supply it, I warn you that I know every fence and pawnbroker in London, not to mention every ship’s captain who might be tempted to sail away carrying a mysterious female passenger. The Company owns this city, Miss Stone, and you have stolen from us—so now I own you. Your rooms will be watched, you will be followed, and when you have given me what I seek, my gift to you will be that I shan’t rip those earrings from your lobes.”

  Augustus P. Sack leant forward, close enough to bite me, close enough to kiss, laughing as I scrambled away. He tossed the bloodied necklace in the air, caught it, and put it in his trouser pocket. We stood facing each other, my breath heaving as more jewel-bright liquid seeped into the bodice of my dress.

  “Put your cloak on and lift your hood so that no one need glimpse any blood, least of all your own sweet self,” Mr. Sack suggested, ringing a bell to see I was escorted out. “Thank you for your visit. And, I assure you, I look forward to our meeting again with the very greatest pleasure.”

  • • •

  My hooded cloak served his purposes just as neatly as Mr. Sack had imagined, and I arrived at the Weathercock without a single glance of concern darting my way. This is not to suggest that eyes did not follow my progress; shadow-obscured figures trailed after me as I exited East India House, for I saw their doubles in the windowpanes, and when I had reached my lodgings, I peered through the curtains and saw men with hats pulled low, studying newspapers as they idled against the brickwork.

  These small impediments served solely to bait me.

  I called for linens and hot water. Viciously harsh with the key, I locked my door and pounded a single fist against it, unspeakably vexed both at myself and the badmash who had dared to treat me so.

  My requested supplies arrived well before an hour had passed, and I barricaded myself in again and stripped all away, sinking into the bath. Gingerly, I cupped my hand and splashed at the line Mr. Sack had torn through my skin, which had already stiffened into a fiercely throbbing counterpart to the tear in my scalp. I then lay back to wash all clean.

  Soaking, drifting, I sifted Mr. Sack’s fresh details in my mind. Some were valuable wholly in the sense that I loved Charles Thornfield, others in the sense that I wanted him safe. Sack’s words could have been false, I told myself, but they had not sounded like any sort of prevarication I had ever encountered—what, therefore, would it mean if they were truths?

  Nothing to the good, I thought at first. My feelings upon theorising that Sardar Singh was a liar were, in ascending order: shame, hurt, and dismay. I hesitate to tell you that lies, reader, are a very easily learnt knack, so I did not for an instant marvel over whether he could have retained possession of the precious trunk, crossing oceans with it no less, without confiding in anyone.

  Yet I could not reconcile what I knew of Mr. Singh with the fresh sketch which had been inked—and neither could I reconcile his epistolary posturing with his obvious chagrin at Mr. Sack’s visiting Highgate House, his love for Sahjara Kaur, and his fury that Mr. Thornfield might have exposed her to evil influences.

  At the thought of what Mr. Thornfield must have seen on the battlefield, his childhood love blown apart and swept ashore like so much river flotsam, I was tempted to weep.

  No weeping, I thought furiously. Thinking is more useful than weeping.

  I allowed my mind to drift farther afield; after all, this whole mess had begun in the Punjab.

  Who is to say the key to it could not be found in the Punjab?

  Lest one mistakenly consider me a close reasoner, I am only a close observer of human nature, my own being defective. On this occasion, however, I had lit upon a valid idea. Streaming bathwater everywhere, I leapt out of the tub, hastily drying myself before throwing a dressing gown over my shoulders. The steam had become soporific, and I needed to wrest nagging hints from the hind of my brain to the front.

  After an hour’s chaotic sprawl in my bedsheets, I thought I had got somewhere. It was hardly evening, and yet the sunlight had utterly decayed, winter’s dreary gleam just visible through my curtains.

  Eagerly, I hastened to write a letter to one Inspector Sam Quillfeather.

  Solving the murder of Jack Ghosh was irrelevant, for I had killed him; solving the murder of John Clements was impossible at the moment. A grisly trail of blood across the continents, however, had been left behind by those associated with Karman Kaur’s vast fortune, and I thought that, all other avenues being barred, I might glean some leavings from an earlier—much earlier—misdeed.

  I had to solve the murder of David Lavell—in Amritsar, all those years hence.

  It is of the utmost importance that I see the papers regarding Mr. Lavell that Mr. Clements was studying… .

  This I wrote to Inspector Quillfeather, followed by:

  If I am correct in my conclusions, I must confess to you that I have committed a terrible crime, and must be brought at once to justice.

  THIRTY

  I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them. And now I thought: till now, I had only heard, seen, moved—followed up and down where I was led or dragged—watched event rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but now, I thought.

  It’s a lucky thing I left my card, isn’t it, Miss Steele?”

  The sun had lo
ng since set, the eleventh hour dolefully chimed, and Mr. Quillfeather’s bright hazel eyes were creased with fatigue as he passed me paper after paper from a battered black case. Some were written in Punjabi, which I placed in a separate pile. Others were reports from Lavell’s superiors, however; some were letters writ in my native tongue; and a few were journals written by Lavell himself, which I snatched up eagerly.

  “You were very frank with me, Mr. Quillfeather, and you seem a true friend to Mr. Thornfield, so I must learn to be at ease in your company. Thank you for bringing these so quickly—you’ve no reason to trust me, after all.”

  “I have reason to trust myself, Miss Steele, and you have always struck me as a most scrupulous young woman?”

  Smiling at this outrageous compliment, I touched the black buttons at the neck of the high-collared coral dress I had donned to hide my fresh battle scar. I had always thought Inspector Quillfeather remarkably affable for a policeman, and it was shocking to realise that speaking with him felt like conversing with an old friend.

  “I will thank you for saying so by taking you entirely into my confidence—for I need you, Mr. Quillfeather, both you and your police wagon.”

  “Yes, you mentioned having committed a crime?” Inspector Quillfeather’s prominent brows wriggled in disbelief. “Surely you do not expect me to believe—”

  “Let me tell you the story from the beginning. You first called Charles Thornfield to examine the body of John Clements because you knew Clements had been studying Lavell, and that all these men were acquainted in the Punjab?” He nodded. “Would it shock you to learn that Mr. Thornfield has taken me into his confidence regarding that subject?”

  “Certainly not.” He sniffed. “Forgive my candour, Miss Steele, but may I remark that Thornfield seemed quite, er, aware of your presence, very aware indeed?”

  My heart leapt skyward at this, but I forced myself to focus. “And you still have no suspects regarding the Clements poisoning?”

  “None, though I am convinced that a man in the midst of an investigative effort is very unlikely to commit suicide.”

  “Then may I ask whether you know the story of the lost trunk?”

  “That has rather an air of romance, doesn’t it? I fear I do not.”

  I thought of Mr. Quillfeather losing Vesalius Munt’s lust diary in a fireplace, steeled myself, and heaved a great breath.

  “If I were to tell you of a mistake that Mr. Thornfield and Mr. Singh made long ago in the Punjab, would you hold it against them? If what they did to protect someone they loved was not … entirely legal?”

  The tufted brows now swooped like carrion birds towards his nose. “Charles Thornfield is the very best of men, and any friend of his, especially for so long a period, must be exceedingly well chosen. Please continue?”

  Telling the tale of the trunk took us to the midnight hour. Mr. Quillfeather, positively twitching with interest, paced as I sat painting a crimson picture of a bloody history for him. When I had nearly concluded, after confessing all my prevarications at East India House in an effort to protect my unlikely friends, I began unbuttoning my frock, and he froze in astonishment.

  “This is what Augustus Sack did when he saw even a taste of what he thinks is coming to him,” I said, revealing the ugly stripe.

  “The brute!” he exclaimed.

  “We haven’t time for outrage,” I protested, quickly righting my attire. “Without your help, I am lost, Inspector, and I have an intuition that the trail, though cold now, leads back to Amritsar and David Lavell’s demise. You see why I must help you to solve it, and before midnight tomorrow? I’ve only a day, and the pieces don’t fit. Please say you’ll assist me.”

  Mr. Quillfeather flung a long arm out, palm up. “Miss Steele, can a man make a greater blunder than to ignore the intuition of a woman? When our mutual friend has been wronged unspeakably, yourself injured, and a child shamefully abused? I am your man to the marrow!”

  “We have only until tomorrow,” I breathed, “and if you make an enemy of Mr. Sack, you could—”

  “Sleep is for the weak, and what is an East India Company bureaucrat to a seasoned peeler?” He landed in the chair opposite, somehow still conveying the impression he was in motion. “We begin work at once, and I shall tell you all about these documents, and we shall see what we can accomplish.”

  I opened a bottle of claret, Mr. Quillfeather finished emptying the case, and the clock ticked inexorably onward.

  So commenced a strange stretch of hours during which I consulted with the man I had once feared as I do the gallows. Inspector Quillfeather saved me time reading by detailing what the officers’ reports contained, outlining the contents of the Punjabi documents, and summing up the early diaries. David Lavell, it seemed, was every bit as thoroughgoing a scoundrel as his crony Augustus Sack. His superiors commended his ruthless ability to worm his way into any society he wished whilst revealing, even in their compliments, their distaste at his complete lack of principles. The Company men relied on his insinuating ways as well as his connections to Karman Kaur’s family: between them and the Thornfields, the few scattered politicals north of the Sutlej when the fighting broke out were still kept in French wine and aged Scottish whiskey. Lavell’s throat had been cut in his own rooms, which led the Company to imagine that one of his many dalliances had grown jealous of Karman, or that a Sikh acquaintance had been fleeced one too many times at the tables.

  “The domestic setting means it is extremely unlikely that Lavell should have been killed by a stranger?” Mr. Quillfeather thrust his jutting chin as if to inquire whether I agreed.

  I did, and we continued. Lavell had bled out quickly, and there were no witnesses; he was found cold in his bed a week before the Battle of Sobraon.

  “Sahjara Kaur inherited, of course,” I mused.

  “Quite right, but inheritance could not have been the motive, even if the heir had not been a little girl. Despite her mother’s assets, her father had amassed considerable gambling debts?”

  “Was no one ever suspected?”

  Mr. Quillfeather drummed spindly fingers on the tabletop. “I don’t believe so? The housekeeper was questioned, and said Lavell had returned, after picking up another delivery of imports and contraband to buy the goodwill of the Amritsar elite.”

  The clock’s hands spun too swiftly, dizzying me. A second bottle of claret became necessary at three in the morning, and at six we called down for toast and kippers. Try as we might, we could find no clue—and if Lavell had died at the hands of an anonymous badmash, then I was wrong, and the murder in Amritsar meant nothing, and barring a miracle I would fall into Mr. Sack’s clutches upon the morrow.

  “We’re going about this wrong,” I sighed at nine o’clock, squinting balefully at the sunlight shearing through window. “We must consider who wanted Lavell dead.”

  “I fear there are too many options to narrow our choices?”

  “Any number of people hated him, but if unrelated to the trunk, they don’t help us, so we can discount them anyhow,” I answered, shuffling papers. “Mr. Clements could have had nothing to do with it, for he died trying to solve the crime just as we are. Mr. Sack needed him alive if he wanted to keep bleeding Lavell of Karman Kaur’s money. Mr. Thornfield had cause, but he was already at war. Mr. Singh …”

  My eyes flew open again as I gasped aloud.

  “Miss Steele?”

  No, it cannot be. My stomach fluttered weakly with horror.

  Yes, it can.

  “Lavell picked up a shipment of goods to use for bribes that day, you said. Did any of the officers’ letters mention what he employed to curry favour or with whom he did business?”

  “He did business with his wife’s family, naturally,” Mr. Quillfeather said as the colour left his gaunt face. “But by all accounts, Mr. Singh was in Lahore throughout the First Sikh War?”

  I thought about Sardar Singh—his history, his noble bearing, his monkish preference for a solitary life of few friends
, simple comforts, and quiet study; I thought of his almost casual celibacy. I thought of his distinctive handwriting, the paper Mr. Sack had thrust before my eyes reading, Your Company has raped my entire culture in systematic fashion; what is in my possession will remain there, and any attempt by you to retrieve it will result in your bloody death, and swallowed black bile.

  “I think I have it,” I whispered.

  “What is it, then, Miss Steele?” Mr. Quillfeather pressed.

  I told him, hoarsely but efficiently, precisely what it was. The policeman’s hollow chest leant towards me until I thought he should fall from his chair, and his hand ruffled his hair in appalled disbelief.

  “All this time?” he marvelled when I was through.

  “All this time.” I pressed my hand over my breast, for it ached beyond bearing. “Oh, Mr. Quillfeather, there is only one thing to be done.”

  “What is that, Miss Steele?”

  I held out my wrists. “I’m a hardened criminal—write a note to the nearest station house and have a police van sent round at once. You’ve a pair of darbies, about you, I assume?”

  • • •

  Plentiful hay littered the back of the wagon, which clanked as it traversed the ancient streets. There were also blankets and, though they smelled of mildew, I managed awkwardly to wrap one about myself with my hands shackled together, for my lovely blue cloak could not protect me from the freezing draughts gushing through the iron-barred windows. Once bundled, I fell to the straw and rested my head, for by now it was ten o’clock and, for all that I was strung tight as a violin, my eyes kept fluttering closed.

  So weary was I, and so overwhelmed, that no blackness resided behind my lids; rather, a kaleidoscope of colours whirled. My scalp ached and my neck throbbed, but these tangible discomforts were as nothing. I knew what must be done and loathed to do it; I knew what must be said, and the words pierced, cold as icicles in my throat.

  Oh, Mr. Thornfield, how little do you deserve all that has been done to you.

  Nature will have her way, however, and I did sleep for an hour despite being fettered and fretful. The scratch of rough wool and the whispers of the hay were crude lullabies, but comforts nonetheless, for they distracted me from the fear of failure and the near equal fear of success.