Young Small growled. Singh retreated a step and spluttered, “But I can give you that! Listen to my tale, sahib. In the north there is a rajah—very rich, very rich—he has always been loyal to the British, but he would shed no tears, I think, if all of you were slain. So what did he do when the mutiny broke out? Should he aid the British, knowing that if his countrymen triumphed, they would treat him as a traitor? Aid his countrymen, knowing the British would do the same? No. He has stayed out of it, waiting to see who wins. To safeguard his position, he has divided his treasure. All of his gold and silver remains in the north, with his countrymen. If they should triumph, he is still a wealthy man. All his gems and his true treasure, he has sent to British territory, so that if they triumph he still is wealthy. That treasure is coming here, tonight. He has an agent—a false merchant who uses the name Achmet. We have devised that his guide will be my foster-brother, Dost Akbar. He is bringing Achmet to this very door, within the hour. Achmet—oh, it pains me to say it—Achmet must die this night.”
“Oh,” said Young Small, as if someone had just invited him to a Christmas party. “You want me to help you kill him? Is that it?”
The young man holding Small’s rifle burst into tears. “I really don’t want to do it!”
Mahomet Singh nodded vigorously and said, “My people are not comfortable with… well… murder.”
“It’s hard to even say it,” his tearful companion confirmed.
“Now, there is one item in the treasure chest which must be destroyed,” said Singh. “But what will happen to the rest of the treasure, though, eh? Do you see what I am saying?”
“I think I do,” said Young Small. Every trace of fear was gone from his features now, replaced by cocksure bravado. “So… you, me, this fellow here, and your foster-brother, eh? That’s four of us. So, I’ll do it. No problem. So long as I get a full quarter-share of the treasure!”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Singh’s companion silently mouth, “Only a quarter?”
“Um, sure! A quarter. Whatever you say, sahib,” said Singh. “But you must swear loyalty to us. You must swear to keep our secret and to let us destroy the black heart of that treasure. Look: here is paper and pen, sahib. My brotherhood calls itself ‘nine’. You must write the number ‘9’ on this paper and sign your name beneath, to show you are one of us!”
“All right,” said Small. He scratched away for a few seconds, then stood back, beaming.
Singh looked over his shoulder. He gave a frustrated sigh. “That is the number ‘6’.”
“Is it?” said Young Small, looking somewhat chastened. “I’m sorry. I… uh… I always was all right with my letters, but numbers is another thing, you know? Six… nine… It’s hard to remember if the bumpy part goes on the top or the bottom. Right?”
“It’s the top,” said Singh.
“Sure. Sure. Sorry about that.”
Small crumpled up the sheet of paper and threw it onto the little fire that burned in one corner of the guardroom. Mahomet Singh handed him another sheet of paper and Small scratched away for a moment. When he was done, Singh looked over and said, “That is a capital ‘P’.”
“Argh! But you said the bumpy part goes on top!”
“Yes, but the other side of the top.”
“Goddamn it!” Small roared. He crumpled up the second sheet and threw it into the fire.
With trembling hands, Singh held another sheet of paper out towards Small.
“Careful,” he said. “This is my last piece.”
“Well, it’s hard!”
From the corner of the room, Singh’s companion suggested, “Perhaps, if sahib is better with letters, he could write ‘the sign of nine’ instead of… you know… that shape we use as the sign that means nine.”
“Could you do that?” Singh wondered.
“O’course I could!”
“Good, then. All right. Do that.”
Jonathan Small bent to his task one final time. When he was done, Mahomet Singh heaved a deep sigh of relief and said, “Good. You are one of us now, Jonathan Small. You are our brother. This is my partner, Abdullah Khan, and we are glad to have you with us.”
“So glad!” said Khan, handing Small his rifle back. “Oh my God, so glad!”
But Small looked down at his rifle with disdain. “No good,” he said. “A shot’s the signal that will bring the garrison. Here, we’ll use this…”
He went to the fire, rummaged in a bag of cooking supplies for a moment, then came up with a long, serrated bread knife. He held it up for his companions’ approval. In the firelight, it gleamed a dull, ominous orange. Mahomet Singh grew very pale.
“I am so glad I don’t have to do it,” Abdullah Khan said. “That fellow can have as many diamonds as he wants!”
There was nothing left to do but wait. After about half an hour, the sound of labored breathing came to the ears of the three conspirators. They all sprang up and made ready. Through the doorway, Small could just make out the shapes of two figures, struggling along the wet riverbank. Between them they bore a chest made of heavy, filigreed iron.
Whispering as loud as he could, Singh challenged them. “Who goes there?”
“Dost Akbar,” one of the figures said. “I am here with the merchant, Achmet.”
“Good, good! Come inside.”
The two men hauled the chest past Small, dropped it in the middle of the guardroom, and stood panting, brushing the rain from their clothes.
“Ah, thank you,” said the merchant Achmet. “And who is this fellow?”
“One of the soldiers, Jonathan Small,” Singh said. “He is here to convey you directly to the colonel.”
“Very good.”
Everybody stood about for a minute.
“Go on…” Singh urged. “Conduct our friend to the… you know… colonel…”
“Eh?” said Small. “Oh! Yeah. Right.”
He then laid a savage kick against the side of the merchant’s knee that broke it in a single blow. As it sagged sideways, the old man drew a breath to scream, but Jonathan Small clapped his left hand over Achmet’s mouth. With his right he reached back, withdrew the bread knife from the back of his waistband and plunged it through his victim’s throat. Dost Akbar’s eyes went wide with horror and revulsion. Mahomet Singh gave his foster-brother a little nod, as if to say, “You see? I told you I’d find the man we needed.” Abdullah Khan lost all veneer of self-control and began to sob loudly.
“Which, I believe, would make five,” said Lestrade, jotting a quick note.
“Dat was a good one,” Grogsson opined.
“Quick,” said Singh, “put him in the corner, where he can’t be seen from the door. The chest is locked; he must have a key somewhere.”
The four conspirators rifled through their victim’s pockets, but found no key.
“Bastard probably swallowed it for safekeeping,” Young Small opined. “Well, it won’t work!”
With that, he plunged the bread knife into Achmet’s torso and began sawing.
“Bloody hell!” cried Dost Akbar, Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan, Warlock Holmes, Vladislav Lestrade, and myself.
“Any man woulda done the same!” present-day Small shouted.
“You da worst,” Grogsson told him.
Though he was a small man, Abdullah Khan nevertheless managed to produce about two gallons of vomit, along with a fresh burst of tears.
Young Jonathan Small sat digging about in Achmet’s abdominal cavity for a few minutes—squeezing this bit of intestine, poking at the organs, looking for the key—until Dost Akbar at last said, “Ah! Here it is! In his turban.”
“Huh,” said Small. “Shoulda thought of that. Oh well! Let’s see what we got, eh?”
Three of the men—for Abdullah Khan was still… occupied—crowded round the chest. The lock yielded to the key. The lid swung open. And…
Just…
By God…
It was like something out of a children’s book about pirates.
Or dragons. Or some finance minister’s greedy, secret dream.
There was the golden cup, with six huge pearls embedded in it. It rested atop a mountain of gems. There must have been hundreds. And the size of them! Some were only gem-sized, of course, but a number were simply preposterous. The Hope Diamond, the Star of India, the Black Prince’s Ruby—each of these might find a home within that chest of wonders, but none of them could command pride of place. This was a treasure the like of which the world had never seen.
So it rather surprised me when Mahomet Singh and Dost Akbar began piling it unceremoniously onto the floor. They continued for some minutes, digging about in the wealth of ages with mounting anxiety, until Singh at last gave a cry of triumph.
“Here it is, my brothers! We have done it!” He pulled forth his treasure to display to his confederates.
“Oh dear…” said Holmes.
In Mahomet Singh’s upraised hand sat a blackened iron disc. The coin. The relic of greed. One of the nine fetishes that had the power to command the wills of men.
“This is it!” Singh cried. “The source of our unhappiness! This is why the foreigners come to our land! Let us destroy it, my brothers, and be rid of them forever!”
“I don’t know…” said Dost Akbar, dolefully. “We may have to destroy the Hieroform as well.”
“Then so we shall! So we shall!” said Singh. “But that is a work for another night and it does not lessen this victory. Quick! Abdullah! Get the tools; there is not much time!”
From the corner of the room, Abdullah Khan fetched a rag-wrapped bundle. He unrolled it in the center of the floor to reveal a battered set of blacksmith’s tools. Mahomet Singh did not hesitate. He grabbed up a metal chisel and a heavy hammer. He placed the coin on a flagstone, positioned the chisel in its center and brought the hammer down as hard as he could. The chisel sparked and rang, but left no mark upon the surface of the coin. The second blow fared no better. The third cracked the flagstone beneath.
“Too much noise!” Akbar hissed.
“And yet we cannot fail,” Singh insisted. He took the coin to the little fire in the corner of the room and threw it in. From the pile of tools he selected a small bellows and a few lumps of coal. He arranged the coal just over the coin and began working the bellows feverishly. In the few minutes it took the coal to burn down, Abdullah hurried over with a small anvil and a wedge, designed to separate hot metals. With tongs, he withdrew the coin from the fire. It smoked a great deal more than I thought it ought to, but did not glow. Sure enough, when he placed it on the anvil and struck it with wedge and hammer, no mark could be seen upon its surface.
They made a pretty good dent in the anvil, though.
“Noise!” Akbar hissed.
“I don’t care!” Singh shot back. “It does not matter if we are taken! It does not matter if we are killed!”
“Eh?” said Jonathan Small, looking up from a slightly-more-than-a-quarter-share-sized pile of gems he’d been making. “Yes it does!”
“We must destroy it!” Singh insisted.
But Akbar shook his head. “You are not going to. Look at it, my brother, look. It is clear we do not have the art. Your efforts may serve to bring the fury of the white man down upon us, but it is clear it cannot serve to destroy this wicked coin. We must find another way.”
Mahomet Singh looked as perfectly heartbroken as I have ever seen a man. Finally, though, he nodded his assent.
“Quickly!” said Akbar. “Everyone! We must hide what we have done. Is the room ready?”
“What room?” Small wanted to know.
“Just down the corridor, in a room with a ruined wall,” said Khan. “We have dug a hole in the floor to hide Achmet’s body. Perhaps there is room for the treasure as well. When the mutiny is over, we can return to claim what we wish—and to destroy the coin. Until that day, we must do our best to hide our crime and to discover a way to break the spell that curses our efforts.”
“What? But I want my diamonds now!” Small protested.
“Oh yes?” said Singh. “And how do you intend to explain them to your fellow soldiers? You shall have your prize, sahib, but not until it is safe to take.”
The four conspirators busied themselves piling treasure back into the iron chest. Yet, as they did, a strange thing began to occur to the body of Achmet.
He opened his eyes.
He sat slightly upwards—as much as his severed abdominal muscles would allow.
He pointed one finger forward; at what, I cannot say.
And he let loose a great sigh. A thick, whitish green vapor escaped between his gray lips. Though none of the living men was looking in Achmet’s direction, Dost Akbar and Abdullah Khan made faces of distaste. Apparently, even in this atmosphere of murder and vomit, the change in smell was apparent.
“Ah,” said Holmes. “I should have guessed it. There she is.”
“She?” Lestrade wondered.
“The entity that would become known as Mrs. Sholto,” said Holmes. “A greed demon, drawn strongly hither. And is it any wonder? Look at the size of that treasure. See the fresh murder that has been done in its name? And in the presence of the black coin, no less—a magical focus so potent, it represents and controls mankind’s collective desire for wealth. How could she not have felt its call?”
“That’s Mrs. Sholto?” I asked, pointing at the reeking mist.
“That’s her right now,” said Holmes, with a shrug, “but it may be some years before Sholto arrives to claim the treasure. If she spends the interim thriving off the power of the black coin, who knows what she’ll look like by the time he gets here?”
The corpse of Achmet closed his eyes and sagged back to rest. The stinking fog began creeping towards the Agra treasure. Tendril by tendril, it seeped into the chest. Yet, if the four conspirators noticed it, they paid no heed. Only Jonathan Small wrinkled his nose and complained, “By God, that corpse stinks!”
“We must hide it, sahib! We must hide the treasure!”
“All right, but not in the same hole, yeah?” said Young Small. “I don’t want dead-guy juice all over my diamonds.”
Older Small shook his head. “I shoulda known. The whole situation smelled damned rotten, and it went damned rotten.”
And suddenly, with a quick blast of buzzy-fuzz, we stood in the fort’s open courtyard. There before us were the four conspirators, bound in chains. Khan looked tearful; Akbar looked fearful; Singh looked like exactly what he was—a man who had come so close to achieving a holy purpose, only to have it crumble to nothing at the last minute. Small looked defiant. On a raised platform before them sat the regimental colonel, two majors, and an angry-looking fellow in a turban.
“How do you explain it, Small?” the colonel asked.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, sir, with all due respect.”
The colonel bristled. He pointed a finger at the Indian man on the platform with him and said, “This is Mr. Sanjja. He is here to meet the merchant, Achmet Ras, who was last seen in the company of a guide named Dost Akbar. Mr. Sanjja saw them approach this fort by way of the riverbank last night. Do you still claim to know nothing?”
“Sorry, sir. It just don’t ring any bells.”
“Well that’s a funny thing, Small, because we checked the guardroom where you were posted last night. Do you know what we found? Some missing blacksmith’s tools, a tear-soaked pile of vomit, and one rather impressive bloodstain. Still not ringing any bells?”
“Perhaps somebody tripped, sir.”
“Hmm. Yes, perhaps. And all their blood came out. So much blood, in fact, that it wasn’t hard for us to follow the trail of it to a shallow grave just two rooms down. But perhaps somebody tripped, sustained a fatal wound, then had the courtesy to drag themselves to a pre-dug shallow grave and bury themselves, to spare us the cleanup?”
“Anything’s possible, sir.”
“And here’s a funny thing—what with our limited laundry capabilities—a few of the boys c
ouldn’t help but notice one or two little spots of blood on your uniform this morning.”
“It’s been a rough week, sir.”
“And we seem to have acquired an entire extra person in the night. None other than Dost Akbar, who was traveling with the murdered merchant. Hello, Mr. Dost Akbar! Do you have any idea what happened to Achmet Ras?”
Akbar shook his head, sheepishly.
The turbaned fellow next to the governor leaned forward and said, “Unacceptable, I fear. I am very interested to know about the last moments of my cousin and… uh… his belongings.”
“Look, we haven’t got time for this,” the colonel spat. “I told you, I’ve got a caravan of refugees and supplies coming in from Cawnpore. They’ll never make it unless we send a relief force to retrieve them. I am sorry, but this is simply not the matter of the day! What do you think, gentlemen, have you heard enough?”
The two majors nodded, then drew close to the colonel to discuss the specifics of their judgment. It took less than a minute to reach agreement. The colonel waved them aside and proclaimed, “Dost Akbar, Mahomet Singh and Abdullah Khan: you have committed a crime of a most serious nature in a time of war. You are hereby sentenced to life imprisonment.”
The three men shuffled their feet and looked down. Then again, if there was anything surprising about the sentence, it was its leniency.
“Private Jonathan Small,” the colonel continued, “you are a British citizen and soldier; your conduct has been most disappointing. Furthermore—as it is clear you were responsible for the actual killing—I hereby sentence you to die for your crimes. May God have mercy upon your soul!”
“Hey now!” Small protested. “Nobody saw nothing! You can’t prove I—”
But the colonel cut him off. “There is blood up to your elbows. Good day.”
“Any man woulda done the same!” cried Young Small and present-day Small together.
“A pity,” said Holmes. “And so, they killed you?”
“No,” said present-day Small. “I guess a few of the lads who remembered what I’d done at Shahgunge had a word with the colonel. Got my sentence reduced to life, just like the others’. We spent the rest of the mutiny at Agra, then some time in Madras, and finally off to a prison colony on Blair Island. And that, gentlemen, that is where my fortunes took their second great turn.”
Warlock Holmes--The Sign of Nine Page 28