A communiqué had been out to say the reward was being increased from five to ten thousand rupees. Immediately before he went in to the conference, I had collared Bennett and told him of my experiences among the snake men of Howrah. Bennett had heard me out politely, but had not taken a note, and when I finished, he said, ‘This snake charmers’ uncle . . . don’t you think he sounds rather mythological?’
‘He might hold the key,’ I said.
‘The key to losing another twenty-five rupees, would that be?’ Bennett said, lighting his pipe. I nearly asked whether the common krait was not becoming rather too common on the trains of the East Indian Railway. I was becoming rather sick of Bennett. His charm had worn thin, and who was St bloody Julien anyway?
I said, ‘You have a few leads of your own, I suppose, sir?’
‘I’d rather not say just now, Jim.’
All this enigmatical stuff wouldn’t wash. It stood to reason that if he was closing in on the culprit, he wouldn’t have increased the bloody reward.
An hour later I was looking over some papers in the office when I heard – by the banging of some doors – that Fisher himself had pitched up. A little while later I heard muffled shouting, followed by Jogendra Babu’s raised voice: ‘Fisher sahib, kindly shut up!’ A door opened, and now the voices were clearer. Fisher said, ‘Any more of that, pal, and you’ll be out on your bloody ear.’
‘As for rudeness,’ Jogendra Babu said, ‘I recommend to read your own Bible, and story of mote and beam.’
‘Yes,’ said Fisher, ‘I’ll go off and read it now. Nothing I like more than thumbing through the bloody Old Testament.’
‘Parable of mote and beam is in New Testament.’
The gloves were off between these two. Another door was slammed, then another; then Fisher came into our office with papers under his arm. He sat down, lit one of his Trichinopoly cigars, and began leafing through the papers. After a while, I said, ‘You saw Khan yesterday in the Writers’ Building?’
Fisher nodded.
‘Me too. What did you make of him?’
‘Typical bloody Indian, wasn’t he? Trying to blame Europeans for everything that goes wrong in his bloody country.’
‘He tried to blame you?’
‘Wanted to know why I thought it was dacoits. I said, “How about this? They were known to target that stretch of line. The thing had all their hallmarks, and we saw one of them clearing off on his horse.”’
‘What did he say to that?’
‘Not much. Then he said, “You’re the masters now, but we’ll be running the show before too long.” I said, “Good luck to you, pal. I’ll be long gone by then.”’
‘And where will you be?’
‘I don’t bloody know, do I?’
I noticed a singular sort of squirming happening beneath his brush-like moustache. To all appearances, he had now abandoned his interest in the shooting of John Young. As for the snakes, it seemed he’d never had much interest in them in the first place.
‘All set for tiffin?’ he said.
We were to have a meeting about our fact-finding with a chap from the Railway Board, and it was to happen over tiffin.
The fellow turned out to be called Ross Sinclair and to have one of those soft Scottish accents that nearly puts you to sleep. Our meeting took place on the veranda, beneath the creaking of a hand-pulled punka, and with rather inadequate shade. It was a rather rambling affair. The meal over, Sinclair suggested to us that the Railway would recruit a better class of employee if it advertised the posts in the railway journals.
‘Then you’d attract the railway hobbyists,’ I said, ‘. . . train watchers.’
‘Nutcases,’ said Fisher.
At this point Bennett joined us, together with his pipe.
I suggested a perimeter fence be erected around the railway lands of Howrah. I also put forward a theory I’d been developing about a certain type of twelve-ton covered goods van commonly used on the railway that had a small trapdoor in the side meant to allow a yard man with a torch to check on the contents . . . but which also allowed easy access to those contents for any suitably skinny villain.
‘Fair suggestions, Jim, but both a good deal too expensive.’
That was Bennett. He was definitely down on me, but he mustered a smile when Fisher started in on how he’d discovered that some storekeeper’s clerks were doing the job without pay.
Bennett said, ‘Perhaps you think some hidden advantage lurks in the holding of the appointment, Noel?’ Fisher had also come across a weighing machine inspector who owned a racehorse, and Bennett had a good chuckle at that: ‘Now I’d like to have a look at his post office savings account.’
But he was obviously still thinking of the snakes.
Ross Sinclair brought up the subject of Darjeeling. Fisher fixed his eye on me, and said, ‘You’re off up to the highlands, aren’t you?’
Bennett, re-filling his pipe, said, ‘It’s called having a change to the hills, Noel.’
I nodded.
‘Got your tickets yet, have you?’ asked Fisher.
‘Put in for them, yes.’
I’d put in for privilege bookings to Darjeeling through Jogendra, and they had been available to collect for some days since. It was the East Bengal Railway that ran that way, but it was possible to book for that line at the East Indian Railway booking office. And Jogendra had said it was regrettably necessary that I should go down to the booking office and pick up the vouchers myself, since they had to be signed for. It appeared that Fisher was yet to apply for his own booking, and he intended to do this directly and in person at the booking office.
‘Go down later and do the business together shall we?’ he suggested, lighting one of his Trichies.
It was just about the first instance of normal and friendly behaviour that he had shown towards me, and I didn’t like it one bit.
II
Mindful of what had happened the last time I’d set off on a railway journey with Fisher – that is to say, I had come close (I believed) to having my head blown off – I had resolved to travel apart from him on future occasions. But I had a morbid curiosity about his intentions. I could always make sure to stay awake in his company. And I would not be putting Lydia and Bernadette at risk, since they would be travelling separately.
Therefore, at three o’clock that afternoon, I was standing next to Fisher in the queue marked ‘Staff Tickets’ in the great marble booking hall of the East Indian Railway.
All the queues were long, the poojahs being in prospect. Most of the white sahibs waited in line with the Indians, but not all. Some would push to the front. They would say something like, ‘Excuse me there,’ but would not look at the men or women they had pushed past. If any Indian had objected, the queue jumper would have called in one of the two constables who stood in the doorway. They were Anglo-Indian, and they would side with the sahib, which was why folk of that persuasion would get short shrift from the Indians when independence finally arrived. If it did come to a row, the queue jumpers would not say, ‘I’m white so I must be allowed to go to the front.’ They would more likely say they were an officer from some important department, and it was essential for the smooth running of society that they get their ticket in double-quick time. I believed that, if Fisher had been in a hurry in the booking office, he would have shoved in front of a white as readily as a black.
He said, ‘When are you going up?’ and since he’d asked point blank it was hard not to give a straight answer.
‘I reckon next Wednesday,’ I said.
‘With the wife and the missus?’
‘They’re off up beforehand.’
I eyed him narrowly. Was he glad that I would be travelling alone?
‘Taken a house, have you?’
I nodded.
‘What’s it called?’
‘Can’t remember,’ I lied.
I asked Fisher, ‘Where are you putting up?’
‘Hotel,’ he said.
‘Got a name, has it?’
‘Hotel Mount Everest.’
‘Sounds cold.’
‘They should do me all right there. They have a French chef.’
There was a picture of the little Darjeeling train behind the booking clerks; it advertised Tickets Touristiques.
‘I wouldn’t bother with those,’ said Fisher, seeing where I was looking.
‘Why not?’
‘No roof on the bloody things.’ And I believe he very nearly smiled again. He said, ‘I was reckoning on next Wednesday as well.’
I didn’t believe him. He’d simply taken his cue from what I’d told him.
‘Glad we’re not in that bloody line,’ said Fisher, indicating the queue next along, which was hardly moving, and was for refunds. The rule on the East Indian Railway was: ‘For refund file an application at place of issue.’ It took an age to get a refund, but they were given in full up to twelve hours before the booked time of departure, so it was worth the effort. The fellow dealing with refunds was being assisted by another chap, and there was a notice in front of him: ‘Clerk under instruction. Your patience is appreciated.’ It was like the signs people put on their new motor cars: ‘Running In.’
We now arrived at the front of our own queue. I collected my bookings. When it was Fisher’s turn, the Indian clerk, having seen us talking, asked, ‘You gentlemen will be sharing?’
Fisher said, ‘Spot on, brother.’
So we were booked into the same first class compartment for the first leg of the journey: overnight to Siliguri, which lay at the base of the hills. On the second part – the little hill train – there could be no shared compartment, the carriages being saloons. So the trip to Siliguri was the worry. But at least there could be no anxiety about snakes. So far, they had all been on the trains of the East Indian Railway, operating from Howrah, and none had been on the East Bengal from Siliguri.
III
Fisher went off after we’d got hold of the bookings. I watched him as he headed towards Dalhousie, through the floating blue smoke made by the street vendors as they fried their multi-coloured foods. I then turned and looked towards Strand Road. There was a snake charmer near the Armenian Ghat. It was nobody I knew. He had an ordinary cobra. Alongside him was a sleepy-looking man selling cigarettes. If I were that man, I’d have moved a few feet to the left, but perhaps he knew the poison had been cut out of the snake. I returned to the office, where Jogendra came up to me with a form to fill out. Nothing unusual about that, but this was a form special to him personally: his written complaint against Major Fisher. It was so beautifully handwritten that I couldn’t bear to read it, but I caught sight of ‘ceaseless persecutings’. A complaint would be taken more seriously if another officer had witnessed the bad behaviour, and Jogendra was asking me to sign up as having observed the rudeness of Fisher. I decided to do so; Jogendra was certainly in the right. Fisher had regularly suggested he make a complaint, and it was now time to call his bluff.
After I had signed, Jogendra bowed. He then handed me two chits, as though by way of a reward.
The first was from Charles Sermon, the new acquaintance I had made at the Insty. He was sending me his best wishes, and the telephone number of a Professor Hedley Fleming herpetologist, of the Calcutta Zoological Gardens. Sermon had already had a word with Fleming, and he would be willing to speak to me, whether on a formal or informal basis, in connection with the train attacks. Sermon said he couldn’t think why Fleming hadn’t been called in up to now, since he was ‘the top snake man in Bengal’.
The second chit concerned the other investigation I wasn’t supposed to be pursuing. It was from the churchman who’d been on the Jamalpur train: Canon Peter Selwyn. He had something to tell me – something that might have been ‘nothing at all’, but there seemed to be a degree of urgency attached, because the chit ran on: ‘Perhaps come to evensong at the cathedral this evening – it’s a short service! – and we can go over the road after to my club, the Bengal.’
I sent a runner to say I would be there.
IV
The service of evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral was not short. As on my visits with Lydia to York Minster, I marvelled at the way the choir managed to make the Magnificat – nine short lines on paper – last a quarter of an hour. The cathedral was white and cool. The congregation was black and white, mainly the latter. The presiding vicar – not Peter Selwyn – was white. A curious feature of the cathedral was that it was full of bright green birds. As the congregation took its place they had been swooping about all over, and I somehow thought they would be well-mannered enough to stop when the service began, but they did not, and their swoops became ever more daringly low over the vicar’s bald head. He ignored them; everyone ignored them except me. I spotted Selwyn halfway through the service. He looked slightly bored, and was fiddling with the silver crucifix on a long chain around his neck. I walked up to him in the cathedral compound after the service. We shook hands, and he asked whether I had enjoyed the service. I said I had enjoyed the birds: ‘I thought they were beautiful.’
‘And you mean the Reverend Fuller is not?’
On his home ground, the fellow was more like his true self. He had it all laid on here. Close at hand were all the best things in Calcutta: the cathedral, the Victoria Memorial, the maidan . . . and the bar of the Bengal Club. This was a stately place of wicker sofas, potted palms, and flitting, white-turbanned bearers. The chiming of several clocks harmonised pleasantly with the tinkling of glasses as the pegs were served. Selwyn knew our white-turbanned bearer very well, and seemed on the best of terms with him. He took his whisky with soda and ice, which was not considered good form in India – only water was meant to be added. Selwyn said, ‘They say ice spoils the taste of the whisky, but then I don’t much care for the taste of whisky.’ He leant forwards, ‘Left entirely to my own devices, I’d have it with lemonade.’
We sat back.
I asked, ‘What exactly is a canon?’
‘Well, first of all, it is spelt c-a-n-o-n, not two ns in the middle, yes?’ I nodded, sipping my drink. ‘It’s just that you sent your chit confirming this appointment to “honorary c-a-n-n-o-n Peter Selwyn”.’
‘Thanks for pointing that out,’ I said. ‘I’ll know next time.’
‘I think perhaps there had better not be a next time. Nothing against you personally Captain Stringer, but we don’t want to seem to be conspiring.’
‘Conspiring about what?’
‘Well, I don’t think there’s any point having a conspiracy unless it’s against someone.’ He was grinning. ‘I refer to your peculiar friend Fisher. He never comes here, does he?’ he added, looking about.
I shook my head. ‘His club is the Tollygunge. For the golf.’
‘How grotesque.’
‘He’s only a temporary member.’
‘Yes, because he would certainly be blackballed if he applied to become a full one. There is a vestige of civilisation, even among the committee men of the Tolly.’
Selwyn was now signalling to his friend for another peg. ‘I’m essentially a half-retired vicar with certain administrative duties in the cathedral chapter. I still do the odd bit of preaching . . .’
‘Which is why you were on the train to Jamalpur Junction.’
‘. . . Which is what I want to talk to you about. I formed the impression you didn’t quite see eye to eye with Major Fisher even though he’s a colleague of yours, and I thought you might like to know about something I saw when the train was at stand and everybody was wandering about in the flipping desert.’
‘I would.’
‘It’s very simple. Fisher had something in his hand; he dropped it into the dirt, and kicked some more dirt over it. After he was so rude to me, I was naturally very keen to catch him in some indiscretion – anything would have done really, but ideally something that implicated him in the crime . . .’
‘And would get him hanged.’
‘Well . . . no. Something that would emba
rrass him, I suppose, because I don’t think he could really have shot the poor man, do you?’
‘I don’t know. I certainly don’t see why he would. I don’t think John Young had an enemy in the world, except possibly . . .’
‘Who?’
‘It doesn’t matter. But what did Fisher drop?’
‘When he’d moved away, I went over to see if I could find out, but perhaps I’d misjudged where he dropped it . . . Anyway, I could find nothing, and by now he was watching me.’
‘Do you think he knew you’d seen him drop it? Whatever it was?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘what do you think it was?’
‘I think it was some sort of canister, a silvery metallic tube. That mean anything to you?’
‘Not immediately, no. What size was it?’
‘Perhaps six inches long . . . half an inch in diameter.’
‘You’re sure he was hiding it? Not just throwing away some bit of flotsam.’
‘Pretty sure he was hiding it.’
‘And you never mentioned it in your statement?’
‘When that statement was being taken down at Jamalpur, he was sitting about six feet away. Anyway, I’ve said my piece now; I shan’t do any more about it.’
I said, ‘Have you been interviewed by an Inspector Khan of the C.I.D.?’
‘Who?’
He had not, then.
We discussed the shooting for a little longer; we then moved on to the snakes. Selwyn said that suspicion must fall on a railwayman, somebody who often rode on the network, or at least knew it very well. I told him something of my encounter with the snake men of Howrah, in company with Deo Rana.
‘Snakes – nagas – are symbolically important to the Hindus,’ Selwyn told me. ‘Of course you know Lord Shiva wears a cobra around his neck.’
‘I did not know that.’
‘And of course you know that the serpent, Shesha, is the king of all nagas. Lord Vishnu rests on him.’
‘Is that so?’
Night Train to Jamalpur Page 11