For now, Jacob had outsmarted the combined enforcement machinery of the Imperial Government of India, the Government of Punjab, the Thuggee and Dacoity Department and the Simla police. Without an arrest warrant in their hands, the police could do nothing as the train carrying him and the Imperial Diamond steadily made its way across the broad Gangetic plains to Calcutta.
Having seen the Simla police let their quarry slip through the net in Simla, the Bengal constabulary was taking no chances. Calcutta’s chief of police ordered dozens of officers to be deployed at the platform at Howrah station where the train was due to arrive and make sure every exit was guarded.
But when the train pulled up at the station at 8.30 a.m. on Monday, September 7, India’s most wanted man and the world’s largest brilliant were nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE PRICE OF JUSTICE
IN a quiet courtyard off one of Calcutta’s busiest streets lies a relic of Bengal’s proud literary past. The newspaper reading room of the National Library of India has hardly changed in a century. There are no computers or photocopiers and no air conditioners. There is one microfilm reader of Soviet vintage which sits on a chair, due to a shortage of tables. The card index is so small it could fit inside a shoebox. Large blocks of wood are spaced around a long central table to prevent the pages of newspapers being blown away by the grimy overhead fans. Parked next to the entrance is a rusty Willys jeep that looks like it hasn’t gone anywhere since the end of World War Two.
Almost every newspaper over a hundred years old is so brittle it is impossible to turn the pages without tearing the sheets. Whole decades of the Anand Bazaar Patrika, one of the most influential dailies in the late nineteenth century, have been reduced to frail fragments of parchment that would take a dedicated team of archivists years to put together. Only a few titles have been microfilmed.
I had come here to research the Imperial Diamond Case. So insatiable had the reading public’s appetite been for news on the court battle between India’s most famous jeweller and its richest Prince, that it received blanket coverage for months. On a scrap of paper, I wrote out a request for copies of the Bengalee, the Englishman, the Pioneer and the Statesman from September to December 1891, the period between the summons being issued for Jacob’s arrest and the trial’s dramatic conclusion. I watched as the librarian took out a huge flashlight, climbed some grimy metal steps and disappeared into the gloom. He emerged a few minutes later with several dusty leather-bound volumes which he deposited on the table with a heavy thud. An old gentleman wearing thick rimless spectacles sitting at the table opposite me raised both thumbs as a sign of victory. Such small blessings count for a lot in the world of the Bengali intelligentsia.
The warrant for Jacob’s arrest made headlines not just in India but around the world. The Chicago Daily Tribune portrayed him as ‘the biggest diamond dealer in India, supplying all the potentates with their precious jewels’.1 It described the Imperial as ‘one of the most famous diamonds in the world’ and reminded readers of his ‘strange history’ as published in Marion Crawford’s novel Mr Isaacs. ‘It is generally believed that Jacob has been made the victim of double dealing,’ the paper speculated. The Times wrote that the case promised to be sensational, 2 while the Pall Mall Gazette said the charges had come as a surprise ‘to the many thousands of Anglo-Indians and travellers of all nations who have had dealings with that exceedingly intelligent and original gentleman’. The circumstances of the case read like a passage from A Thousand and One Nights, the paper said, adding that Jacob was clearly the victim of ‘court intrigue and not guilty of criminal misappropriation’. 3
Jacob was aware of the effect that adverse reporting would have on his chances of clearing his name, let alone winning the case. If he was going to be arrested, humiliated and hauled before the court, he was going to do it on his terms. Anticipating that the police were waiting at Howrah station, he got down at the small town of Mokameh, 65 miles east of Patna. He then boarded the next train heading for Calcutta, arriving in the city midmorning unnoticed by the police.
Handing his luggage to a porter, he walked down to the Hooghly River, crossed it by a floating bridge, and took a carriage to the Great Eastern Hotel. His first priority was securing the diamond which he had hidden in a secret pocket sown into his vest. After depositing his luggage he walked down Hastings Street, turned left at the Strand and entered the imposing edifice of the Bank of Bengal. There, he met the Bank Secretary William Cruickshank and deposited the Imperial in a safe box. His next priority was to visit the offices of the law firm Morgan & Co. to get a legal team in place. A few days earlier, the Nizam had taken the unprecedented step of engaging every leading member of the Calcutta Bar to fight his case. So far, Jacob had managed to engage only one barrister, Thomas Alexander Apcar, a member of the city’s small but successful Armenian community.
Prior to Jacob’s arrival, Apcar had written to the firm of Sanderson & Co., who had been retained by the Nizam, asking if the execution of the warrant could be delayed by a day to give Jacob time ‘to personally instruct us and surrender himself without the indignity of being arrested’.4 Sandersons said they weren’t responsible for the execution of the warrant, but would refrain from taking any steps to have it executed provided they were told where he was staying, what his movements were and when he intended to give himself up. Meanwhile, Apcar went to the Presidency Magistrate asking for an agreement whereby his client would not be arrested until 10 a.m. the next day. The request was turned down.
At 4.30 p.m., on Monday, September 7, Superintendent Johnson of the Calcutta police and his assistant arrived at the Great Eastern. After identifying themselves to the hotel manager, they were taken to Jacob’s room. He had been anticipating this moment for days, but it still came as a shock to be served with a warrant and taken into custody. His only consolation was that, as a European subject, he did not suffer the indignity of being chained and handcuffed for the short ride to the Magistrate’s Court.
Apcar, who was waiting for him at the court, had already prepared a bail submission. Addressing the Chief Presidency Magistrate, he said Jacob had shown his willingness to cooperate with the police and there was no evidence on his part of any desire to abscond. His client was the first one to take action in the matter by referring the entire case to the Foreign Office. He also lodged a formal complaint with the Magistrate about the manner in which the warrant was executed in Simla. The entire contents of Jacob’s house and shop had been seized and sealed, and his precious brood of Tibetan terriers had been taken away. There had been no need for such action, Apcar argued, as the diamond was in Calcutta and all his client’s books and papers were on their way.5
The Magistrate, however, refused to grant bail. After reading out a lengthy charge sheet he committed Jacob to stand trial on nine counts of criminal breach of trust and one of criminal misappropriation. He then called Albert Abid, whom the Nizam had delegated to be the complainant in the case, to identify Jacob.
It was a bitter reunion. Just three months earlier, they had been one word away from closing the biggest diamond deal in history. It is easy to imagine each man’s demeanour—Jacob would have struggled to contain his rage, Abid would have been edgy and afraid. Both had a lot to lose: Jacob his liberty, reputation and a great deal of money; Abid, possibly the most lucrative posting ever held by a non-Indian in a Princely court.
After Abid left the court room, the Magistrate turned to Jacob and told him he could spend the night in a police cell rather than in Presidency Jail. He expressed regret at what had happened in Simla but said it was outside his jurisdiction to interfere.
Jacob wasn’t prepared to give up so easily. As soon as the Magistrate rose, he instructed Apcar to go to the High Court to lodge an appeal. Though it was already early evening, Apcar managed to arrange an out-of-sessions hearing before Justice H. Beverley. Addressing the judge, he summarized Jacob’s versions of events, argued there had been no attempt at criminal decepti
on and repeated his client’s willingness to cooperate with the authorities. Justice Beverley, however, refused to overrule the Magistrate, saying that he could only do so in exceptional circumstances and those had not been proven.
Jacob’s first night in custody felt like the longest in his life. He faced a lengthy and costly court battle. The Nizam had assembled a formidable legal team. His case rested on proving there had been a secret deal with the Nizam to buy the diamond at a discount. He had no witnesses and Abid was clearly unwilling to support his version of events. His only hope lay in the Nizam’s being brought before the court or Abid’s buckling under the pressure of cross-examination. He then pondered how he had got into this situation. Greed had got the better of him. He wished he had never seen that accursed stone.
Back in Simla, Henderson was closely watching the legal proceedings in Calcutta. For the Special Branch chief, Jacob was at last where he wanted him—remanded in custody and about to be put on trial. ‘The last I hope we hear of this case,’ he cabled Winter Atwell Lake, assistant to the Inspector General of the Punjab Police, after Jacob’s first court appearance.6
His optimism was misplaced. The Government of India had a huge stake in ensuring that the dispute went in favour of their most important ally in India, the Nizam of Hyderabad. No matter how hard it tried, it could not avoid being dragged into the affair. Sanderson & Co. was sending streams of telegrams demanding to know whether the accused had put his case before the Foreign Office, whether the Maharaja of Patiala had been offered the diamond, and what was in the statement Jacob had given Durand on August 29 regarding the affair.
‘The Foreign Office is ill-adapted to this sort of work,’ William Cuningham complained.7 Henry Mortimer Durand, his superior, went further and categorically rejected Sanderson’s request for a copy of Jacob’s statement. ‘We have only one copy of statement and would prefer not to send it, especially as this would have the effect of interference by the Foreign Office against Jacob in the course of legal proceedings.’ Moreover, it was ‘very undesirable that the Resident should divulge what passed between him and the Nizam at a private interview’.8
For Jacob, the only glimmer of hope in those first few days came when he managed to engage the brilliant Dacca-born barrister Monmohan Ghose, who had taken up numerous causes including the rights of indentured farmers and the demand for Home Rule. When Ghose reapplied for bail the next day, however, the Magistrate again refused, but agreed to send a telegram to Simla stating that the police had no right to take possession of any of the accused’s property. He then ordered the prisoner to be remanded in the Presidency Jail. His only concession was that Jacob could get his meals delivered from the Great Eastern Hotel.
The Nizam’s retention of most of the leading barristers in Calcutta raised eyebrows in legal circles. The Indian Jurist quoted one lawyer as saying that the way senior barristers had been lured to compete with their juniors ‘under the temptation of large fees’9 was no compliment to the legal profession. ‘There is much force and a good deal of truth in the observations of our contemporaries, and in the interests of justice and the high traditions of the Calcutta Bar, we must ask the leaders to put a stop to this practice.’
Tremearne’s influential newspaper Capital also took up Jacob’s cause with a strongly worded editorial criticizing the Magistrate’s actions. The tenor of the editorial was not surprising given that Tremearne had his 100,000-rupee commission to protect. The weekly noted that, based on reports so far, it was extremely difficult to form a clear idea of the precise facts on which the charges against Jacob were based. ‘Indeed, the relations between the parties, as described by the witnesses examined, are of so complicated a character, that anyone but a Solomon might well shrink from the task of saying what legal consequences are involved. The Magistrate does not seem to have felt any difficulty in coming to the conclusion that there was prima facie evidence of a non-bailable offence having been committed. It does not necessarily follow that he is Solomon.’10
Jacob’s biggest breakthrough, however, was to retain John Duncan Inverarity of the Bombay Bar. Inverarity was one of India’s most formidable lawyers. Born in Bombay in 1847, he became a barrister in 1870 and practised for the next fifty-three years until his death in 1923. Over the course of his marathon career, he developed a reputation for being a fearless practitioner who rarely turned down even the toughest of cases. He was known for his ability to cross-examine a witness without referring to notes and to remember exactly what that person had said days or weeks before. He was also a skilled shikari, bagging more tigers than almost any other hunter in India.11
Despite his legal experience, Inverarity knew that defending a man of Jacob’s reputation against the most powerful Prince in India was a tough challenge. Never had a ruler thrown so many resources into one case. Never had the amount of money involved been higher, and never had an article of such value been at the centre of a dispute. As his performance in court would show, it was a challenge he accepted with relish, stalking his prey—in this case, the Nizam—with all the skill he brought to bear when hunting wild animals.
When Inverarity arrived in Calcutta on Monday morning, he went straight to the Presidency Jail to confer with Jacob. Around 2500 prisoners were held in the jail, most of them European and Eurasian.12 It was considered the best facility in Bengal with almost three times as much spent on feeding prisoners as other institutions. On arrival, Jacob was provided with a cotton coat, a shawl, a pair of pants and a shirt, a cap, two blankets and a piece of gunny for bedding. Like other prisoners, he was allowed to bathe once a day at 11 a.m. Washing hands was permitted twice daily at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. While regular prisoners were fed a staple diet of dal, rice, maize and molasses, Jacob was getting his food delivered from the kitchens of the Great Eastern and tapping into his supply of Apollinaris water. For someone who had been fêted by Viceroys and potentates, such comforts were a minor consolation for the indignity of being held with murderers, rapists, thieves, extortionists and other common criminals.
The pace of justice in nineteenth-century India was much faster than today when it can take years for even the most trivial matter to get to trial. Jacob’s hearing had started the previous Friday at the Presidency Magistrates Court. The first day had been an anti-climactic curtain-raiser on what would be a long, tough and bitterly fought battle. Representing the Nizam was James Tisdall Woodroffe, one of the most senior members of the Calcutta Bar.13 Woodroffe came from a family of Irish Protestant clergy, but had converted to Catholicism. Early in his career, he had gained a reputation for courting controversy by foregoing his considerable legal fees when defending a penniless Irish soldier accused of murdering an Indian. The case had created a furore because of its racial overtones and speculation that Woodroffe had taken on the defence because the accused was a fellow Irish Catholic. The case did not interfere with his meteoric rise through the legal profession. He later became Advocate General of Bengal and a member of the Viceroy’s Council. His son John became the first European to study Tantrism.
Jacob was asked to identify himself and enter a plea. After declaring he was not guilty he was made to sit in the dock as various witnesses were called. The first to appear were staff from the Bank of Bengal who gave testimony on various transactions made by Jacob relating to the diamond deal. When it was Inverarity’s turn to address the Magistrate, he applied for bail, which was turned down for a fourth time.
Woodroffe resumed the prosecution’s case by examining Abid. The Nizam’s chamberlain recalled the first time Jacob had mentioned the diamond and told him that if he could convince the Nizam to buy the stone, he would never have to work in the palace again. After showing him the model of the diamond, Jacob had allegedly said that if he sold it, ‘he would be a big man and would give up his trade as a jeweller, and would go every year to Hyderabad to salaam the Nizam’. Abid also alleged that Jacob had begged him to replace the model of the diamond he had given the Nizam with another one he was carrying, claiming there w
ere some minor differences between the two models. According to Abid, the replacement model was slightly smaller and, therefore, closer in size to the Imperial. He then gave his version of events, of how the stone was rejected by the Nizam and of Jacob’s threat to sell it to the Maharaja of Patiala. He insisted there had never been any subsequent agreement for the Nizam to buy the diamond for 4 million rupees.14
By now, Jacob’s legal team had swelled considerably. In addition to Apcar, Ghose and Inverarity, he had retained Henry Burder and Charles Geddes. Jacob had also been busy raising enough cash for surety for the Magistrate to find it difficult to refuse bail. It was Geddes who made the application to the High Court the following day. He argued that his client’s detention made it impossible to receive instructions from him. He also argued that the High Court could overrule the Sessions and the Magistrate’s Courts and grant bail to an accused. Nor had it been shown that the accused would not surrender before the courts. Dismissing Woodroffe’s objections that a surety of 200,000 rupees was insufficient because of the large amounts involved, the judge granted bail. Instead of returning to the Presidency Jail, Jacob could now wait out the rest of the trial in the comfort of his room at the Great Eastern, Calcutta’s best hotel.
Over the next few days, the Magistrate continued to hear evidence from Abid and other witnesses relating to the purchase of the diamond. Abid continued to deny that he had had any conversation with Jacob about reducing the price of the diamond or forfeiting part of his commission. He was also questioned about the contents of the telegrams that were sent between Jacob, himself and Asman Jah relating to the return of the deposit and of Jacob’s threat to take the matter up with the Government of India if the Nizam refused to pay the balance of the money he owed.
The Mysterious Mr Jacob: Diamond Merchant, Magician and Spy Page 17