The Palace Tiger

by Barbara Cleverly

‘Stop this!’ he said firmly. ‘I’ve heard jackals make sweeter noises on a kill!’

  His blunt remark calmed tempers sufficiently for Joe to rise to his feet and extend an arm, unconsciously his own claw-raked left, and seize Ajit’s bunched fist. ‘Ajit, Edgar’s right. This is no place for arguments. We must have Bahadur taken back to camp. You and I will need to take statements from all who were here. A most regrettable accident and we must look into the circumstances of it and try to understand it.’

  Ajit nodded solemnly and, acting on the cue Joe had offered, began to stride about assigning duties to the servants and telling everyone to follow Colin back to camp and to remain in their tents. They were instructed not to emerge until asked to do so by either Ajit or Commander Sandilands.

  A slow and mournful procession trailed after a bier hurriedly assembled from saplings, bearing the body of Bahadur. More saplings were cut to transport the bodies of the tigers and these brought up the rear.

  Sir Hector, Madeleine and Stuart came out to meet them, eager for news. They had heard the shots and were expecting a triumphant appearance of successful hunters and their quarry. They were devastated by the grim cort`ege which wound its way into camp. Joe outlined as briefly as he could the events leading to the tragedy and silently they absorbed the horror of their situation.

  The doctor was the first to recover his aplomb. ‘Look – take the boy to my tent, will you?’ he said. ‘There’s a large table set out in there . . . well, you never know . . . I was prepared for incoming wounded.’ He looked at Joe’s arm. ‘And I see it was not in vain. You’d better come along, Joe.’

  Joe followed Sir Hector to his tent and watched as Bahadur was laid by the bearers on the table. The doctor dismissed everyone and the two men were left alone with the body. Hector opened his black bag and took out a tray of gleaming silver instruments. ‘The living before the dead, I always say, however important the dead may have been. Show me your arm, Joe. Mmm . . . you’ve had a lucky escape but you don’t need me to tell you that. So far. Have to hope it doesn’t go septic in this heat. Always the danger.’

  To Joe’s surprise, he uncorked a bottle of Swiss mineral water and poured it over the wound, flushing away the dried blood and dirt into a copper basin. Joe winced and gritted his teeth and waited for the next part of the process.

  ‘Now the gore’s gone I see that it’s not too formidable. I think we can get away without stitching it if I bandage it carefully but it will need to be disinfected. You’ll have another interesting scar to impress the girls with, Joe.’

  He took a small phial of yellow liquid from his bag, broke off the top and trickled the viscous contents over the tears in the flesh.

  ‘What’s that?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Haven’t the faintest idea! I get it from Udai’s court physician. Works a treat – much more effective than potassium permanganate,’ he said confidently and proceeded skilfully to bandage up the arm. ‘Now, before the body gets snatched away from us and started on the undertaking process, why don’t we have a look at it?’

  ‘I’ve had a look,’ said Joe repressively. ‘Throat torn out by a tiger. Small throat. Large claws.’

  ‘All the same,’ Hector persisted, ‘indulge my professional curiosity for a moment and approach with me, if you will, Commander.’

  With dire memories of Madeleine making just the same formal use of his title before the enquiries into Prithvi’s death, Joe accepted the change in his role. No longer the patient, he was now the police commander being invited to witness an autopsy. Reluctantly he went to stand on the other side of the pathetic little corpse and watched as, with a face devoid of emotion, the doctor selected a slim instrument and proceeded to examine the wound.

  ‘Yes. No doubt about that. Tiger killed him with one, possibly two blows right to left diagonally across the throat. Death from immediate gross loss of blood. There’s something here . . . sand . . . bits of vegetation . . .’

  ‘From the paw,’ said Joe, impatiently.

  Hector glanced quickly at Joe. ‘Yes . . . paw. I say, didn’t Colin tell us last evening that tiger kill their prey with their teeth?’

  Joe was impressed by Sir Hector’s perception. ‘Yes, he did. And so they do, I understand. Water buffalo, large deer and so on. But Bahadur was hardly prey – more in the nature of a small, fragile nuisance who’d blundered by mistake into the tiger’s thicket and disturbed his midday snooze. Swatted him away.’

  Sir Hector looked more closely at the wound, adjusting his spectacles as he probed. With a grunt of satisfaction, he selected a pair of tweezers from his kit and took out a white object, dropping it with a plink into a small china dish.

  Joe peered at it. ‘Tiger’s claw?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The doctor looked up from his work, set down his scalpel and spoke thoughtfully. ‘Joe, I want you to go over the whole thing again. Everything. Sorry to be so tedious but I want to hear what happened from the moment you got into your tree until the moment you found Bahadur in the thicket. Miss nothing out.’

  To Joe’s further puzzlement, he took out a sheet of squared paper and began to draw a plan of the nullah, marking on it everyone’s position. He took a red pencil and, as Joe’s story progressed, he marked the paths the tigers had taken, the tigress moving in a straight line from right to left across the page, the cub lying up between the trees occupied by Bahadur and Claude and, having dispatched Bahadur, circling round to the south to attack Joe from behind.

  He asked one question: ‘Is there any chance that the old tigress could have made a detour and herself have killed Bahadur?’

  Joe considered this. ‘No. I would say – no. Ajit spotted her in the centre of the draw on her way down from the den. He tracked her as far as the next sector – Claude’s stand. From there she was in view tree by tree until I put a bullet in her.’

  ‘Thank you, Joe. You’re very patient. And clear.’

  ‘Sir Hector, is there a point to all this?’ Joe asked uncertainly.

  The old doctor came close to him and shot a swift anxious look at the door flap. He paused for a moment, listening, before he answered.

  ‘I think we’ve got another one of those, Joe,’ he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  This was the last thing in the world Joe wanted to hear and for a moment his mind refused to take in what Sir Hector was saying. He stifled the automatic objections that leapt to his lips and instead sat down, silently absorbing the doctor’s assertion, made carefully, unwillingly and fearfully. It was not an assertion he could dismiss out of hand.

  ‘You mean you’re not happy with the circumstances of the death as reported?’ he asked. ‘Surely nothing could be clearer?’ He pointed to the claw in the dish. ‘He even left his calling card.’

  ‘And there’s the problem,’ said Sir Hector. ‘Just follow a thought through with me, will you, Joe?’ He sighed and tugged at his moustache in his anxiety. ‘I’m sure you’ll say I’m being unnecessarily pedantic and after all, if you look at the line-up of witnesses closely involved – two top police officers, the best tiger hunter south of the Himalayas, the Resident, the maharanee, Sir George’s trusted hatchet-man . . . well, who am I to throw a spanner in the works and tell you you’re all deluded?’

  ‘And is that what you’re saying? Come on! Out with it! What have you seen?’

  ‘Unfortunately, I haven’t got my microscope to hand . . .’ He rummaged in his bag and produced a hand-held lens. ‘I use this for removing splinters and suchlike. It will have to do.’

  He leant over the table and examined the claw again with the aid of the glass. ‘Ah! Yes! I was not mistaken. Here, take a look yourself, Joe.’

  Joe looked and blinked and looked again.

  ‘Could you perhaps wash the rest of the blood off, Sir Hector? We need to be quite certain about this . . . Thank you. Yes, that’s even clearer.’ He spoke slowly. ‘To my inexperienced eye, this claw has a slight striation along the length of it which might be a split or
crack; it has a chip at what you might call the business end and the whole claw has a yellowed appearance.’ He looked up at Hector. ‘In fact it reminds me of nothing so much as my great-aunt Hester’s teeth in her declining days. Hector! This is the claw of an old tiger!’

  Hector nodded. ‘Colin! You must fetch Colin!’

  It was pitiful to see the change that had come over the old hunter in the last two hours. Like a man just hanging on to the threads of consciousness after a stunning blow to the skull, Joe thought. Colin was going through the remembered motions of polite response but his spirit was somewhere beyond reach. Blaming himself for the whole fiasco, Joe realized, and he acknowledged that in his place he would have reacted in the same way. He guessed that Colin would have seen in Joe’s eyes a reflection of his own pain and guilt had he been able to focus on anything other than his inner turmoil.

  He followed Joe without question back to the doctor’s tent. Joe handed him the magnifying glass. ‘Look at this object in the dish and tell us what you see.’

  Colin studied the claw and then said with a note of puzzlement creeping in, ‘A claw. Tiger claw. Well worn . . . chipped . . . judging by its colour I’d say from a mature if not aged beast. What is all this?’

  Joe and Hector looked at each other. ‘That’s what we thought. Would it surprise you to hear that I’ve just extracted it from the boy’s throat wound?’

  ‘Yes, it would. The old tigress went nowhere near the thicket where Bahadur was found. He was killed by the cub,’ said Colin patiently. ‘And, anyway, I’ve never come across a claw being left in a wound before. Just doesn’t happen.’

  ‘Colin,’ said Joe gently, ‘that’s a claw I’ve just witnessed being taken from Bahadur’s throat.’

  Colin was beginning to rally and recover his old sharpness. ‘Something wrong here . . . I think we should have another look at the wound, don’t you? Sir Hector, would you . . .?’

  They gathered around the body, taking care to leave elbow room for Sir Hector as he retrieved his instrument. Joe held up the magnifying lens in position for him as he worked. Suddenly he stopped and grunted. ‘Pass me that probe, will you? Third item from the right, top row . . . There it is. I’m sure I’m not mistaken. Oh, good God!’

  ‘There’s what?’ hissed Joe.

  ‘Deep wound to the jugular. Severs the vein. And not delivered by a tiger’s claw. Much, much deeper than a claw could penetrate. It’s straight . . . slim. Insignificant surface entry marks and these camouflaged by subsequent laceration administered by the claws. Two sharp edges, clean cut. The skin has retracted over the mouth of the exit making a very small wound indeed. Very easy to miss. Stiletto? Isn’t that what those Italian blades are called? Went in at an angle, so delivered by someone taller than the victim. But then, who isn’t?’

  He put down his probe. ‘I’d say the lad was killed by a stab to the jugular. It could have been delivered from behind. There’s the faintest bruising on the jaw. Here, Joe, kneel down for a second, will you?’ He demonstrated, advancing on Joe from behind, grabbing his chin and holding his head firmly. ‘Not a good idea to pull the head up too far – you can lose the arteries behind the windpipe but that’s not generally known. We’ll assume our man pulled upwards. Such a small throat, he wouldn’t have had a problem.’ He raised his scalpel and Joe cringed as he brought it down sharply, the point hovering over his exposed throat. ‘Clear run at the neck, you see, and that way the jet of blood is directed away from you and you don’t emerge from the undergrowth covered in blood. There would have been a lot of blood . . . And the boy was standing at the time, as you see from the blood trails on his clothing.’

  ‘But the claw wounds, Hector? What are you saying about them? Were they inflicted before, at the same time as or after the insertion of the blade? Did the tiger come across him as he lay dead? Can you tell?’

  Sir Hector sighed. ‘Speaking generally, post-mortem wounds are diagnosed by the absence of signs of vital reaction. If a wound is made while the victim is still alive, tiny blood vessels are ruptured and the heart – if it’s still beating – forces blood into the tissues around the damaged area. The blood clots and it’s difficult to remove by washing. Pass me the water and that sponge over there. I’ll see what I can do.’

  He worked on, muttering about microscopes, white cells and leucocytes, only half expecting Joe to follow. Finally, he put down his instruments and washed his hands, saying thoughtfully, ‘Difficult to believe but the claw wounds seem to have been inflicted at the same time as, or as near as makes no difference, immediately after, the stab to the neck.’

  Hector shook his head. ‘The poor chap appears to have been mangled as he was dying by an elderly tiger with a loose claw but that’s as far as I can go with the medical evidence. Beyond this point I’m out of my territory. Sorry, but it has to be over to you and Colin now. I’ve done all I can and probably said more than is warranted – or safe.’

  ‘Hector, thank you! You’ve been most meticulous. No one else would have noticed there was anything wrong and what fools we would have been. Look, can I ask you both to say nothing of what we’ve seen for the moment?’

  Colin and Hector nodded their agreement and Joe went on, ‘And I’m sure you’d understand the reason if I were to suggest that the next step might be a second autopsy?’

  Hector began to look affronted but Colin nodded. ‘I see where you’re going with this, Joe. You wouldn’t have been about to call for an autopsy on a tiger, would you?’

  ‘Exactly that!’

  ‘Oh, er, I’m afraid you’ll have to count me out, old boy. Not my area of expertise at all,’ Hector demurred.

  ‘It’s all right, Hector,’ said Colin. ‘You’re looking at a world-class dissector of tigers! I always remove the paws, the head and the pelt, sometimes with nothing more than a penknife. It’s expected. No one will think anything of it if I go and do that right away. In this heat, the sooner the better. Will you come with me, Joe?’

  They found the tigers where the bearers had left them in a small clearing next to the supply tent. Many men had gathered round to marvel at the size of the beasts, to gossip and to commit to memory every detail of their deaths at the hands of the scarred sahib. And here was more excitement. The eagerly anticipated moment when O’Connor Sahib would skin them. Murmurs of encouragement greeted Colin and the freshly bandaged Joe as they approached to examine the bodies.

  ‘Start with the young one, shall we?’ said Colin briskly. Joe found he could in all honour not look away when all the eyes of the admiring crowd were trained on the swift silver knife as it worked over and through the body. He found it helped to concentrate on Colin’s matter-of-fact commentary delivered in Hindi and English. Off came the paws with a cursory examination. ‘Trace of blood on the right front. Healthy young beast. About three years old, I’d say. Not much wear on the claws. All five on each front paw intact and four claws on each of the hind paws.’ Catching Joe’s flash of interest, he added, ‘Tigers only have four claws on the back paws, Joe.’ He turned his attention to the head. ‘Do you want this prepared to hang over your desk at Scotland Yard, Joe? It’s yours by rights!’

  The head was set on one side to be collected by the palace skin-curer and the pelt followed, Colin rolling it up carefully. ‘They say a diet of human flesh is bad for tigers but I must say I’ve never found any evidence of that. Always seem to be in perfectly good condition. This one certainly was. The other one now?’

  He moved over to the tigress and the crowd murmured savagely under its breath. They knew who was the real villain. They knew it was the tigress who had become a man-eater and terrorized their villages for months, killing their children, their parents, their cousins. Teaching her cub to become a killer. Colin began methodically to carry out the same procedure, talking to Joe as he worked. ‘Always a good idea to do this when a man-eater’s involved,’ he commented. ‘Physical flaws can often explain why the creature’s taken to the unnatural habit of preying on men. I note that th
is one has been blinded in the left eye but I understand that is a recent wound and not the reason behind her change in diet.’

  Three paws were removed then, detaching the fourth, he held it up to the gaze of the audience. ‘And here you have it. Porcupine quills. Must have come off worst in a fight with a porcupine.’ He counted. ‘Eight, nine, ten quills have penetrated the paw to quite a depth. In fact some have worked their way in, hit the shin bone and done a U turn. Must have been painful and incapacitating. I think this tells us why she took to catching slower, feebler prey. All claws in all four paws in place and I would judge that she wasn’t all that old. More than ten, less than thirteen years perhaps? Weight? A good size for a tigress . . . I’d say 350 pounds or thereabouts. And the pelt . . . Fine coat rather ruined by two bullet holes. Looks as though Edgar got her in the side before you finished her off, Joe. Look, old man, would you mind very much if I offered this to the headman of the local village?’

  ‘I think that would be very fitting,’ said Joe and the pelt was carried off with whoops of triumph.

  They made their way back to Hector’s tent. All signs of the autopsy had been cleared away, the body covered in a white sheet, and Hector was sitting quietly on watch. He listened with raised eyebrows to Joe’s account and then said simply, ‘Well, your experts have given their forensic opinions and evidence, Joe. We can go no further. Nothing more we can do here. Does anyone have plans for the body? There’s no way we can get it back to the palace before dark today and you know they cremate their dead within twenty-four hours.’

  ‘It’s all right, Hector,’ said Colin. ‘Ajit’s dealing with that. A pandit has been summoned and the cremation ceremony will be carried out by the villagers at first light. We’ll take his ashes back to Ranipur to be scattered in the river.’

  He approached the body and looked sadly down at the torn features. ‘Poor, poor little scrap,’ he murmured. ‘And when someone dies, aren’t there always things you regret? Things you didn’t say . . . things you did say . . .’