by Arjun Gaind
“I take it you were not pleased that the Major had contravened your arrangement.”
“Of course not,” Mrs. Bates snapped. “I was, quite frankly, stunned. Johnny came home and told me to start packing up. He said the Major had agreed to send him on to Gandamak, and that too after all the times I let him…” Her voice choked with outrage, dwindling to nothing. A shadow played across her features, an intaglio of emotion so intense it dismayed Sikander. Was it guilt, or rage? He found, to his chagrin, that this once he could not quite tell.
“And that is why you sought him out at the ball, to try and dissuade him from transferring your husband?”
“Yes! I hoped to plead my case, and throw myself on his mercy, but before I could say a word, Major Russell made me a proposition. He told me unequivocally that the only thing that would keep Johnny in Rajpore was if I…if I let him have his way with me.” Mrs. Bates shuddered. “And then the brute tried to force himself upon me.”
“And you resisted?”
“Of course I did!”
“Let me see if I can deduce what happened next.” Mrs. Bates was looking very worried by now, and had started to chew restlessly on one dainty nail. “Your husband chanced upon you as you were locked in this tussle with Major Russell, and that, I am guessing, was the cause of their altercation, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yes, it wasn’t his fault, though. What man wouldn’t stand up for his wife?” Once again, those marvelous eyes settled on Sikander, tragic this time, brimming with earnestness. “I had nothing to do with his death, I swear it, and neither did my Johnny.”
“Very well, Madame,” Sikander said, making a great show of empathy, although he didn’t accept a word coming out of her mouth. “I believe you. However, there is still one small doubt in my mind.”
“And what is that?” she asked, rather too hastily.
“If you were merely a victim as you insist so vehemently, then why did you go to his house the very night before he was murdered?”
“I did no such thing,” she squeaked. This time the mask dissolved entirely, that carefully maintained demeanor of sophistication, and her eyes glazed with unmitigated panic.
“I have a witness, Madame, who saw you.”
“That can’t be. It was much too dark.” Even as those words escaped her lips, she realized her error, and clapped one horrified hand to her mouth, but it was too late. Sikander restrained the sense of triumph that flooded through him. He had her now. He could see it on her face, the hesitant patina of guilt, brittle, fragile, but to someone of his intellect, as clear as day. One more push, he thought, that was all it would take to break her, to get her to confess everything.
Sadly, before he could press home the advantage, a shrill voice rescued Mrs. Bates from the abyss at whose edge she had been teetering so precariously.
“Get away from her, you bloody darkie.”
Sikander turned to see who it was that had the gall to engage him so rudely. He was greeted by the sight of a gangly young man striding towards the gazebo. The Maharaja gazed at him in amused amazement, unable to decide whether to laugh or be taken aback, for he cut a truly peculiar figure. The first word that sprang to mind was a parrot, for this youth had that same strutting manner. The next adjective that he thought of was a word he had never quite had a chance to use until that instant. A popinjay. Lieutenant Bates, for this was undoubtedly Mrs. Bates’ much maligned husband, was the very epitome of what Sikander imagined a popinjay must resemble.
While the Maharaja was nothing if not au courant with the latest fashions, even his splendor paled before the lieutenant, who was, by all accounts, a true dandy. Sikander had expected him to be dressed as a Trojan with a breastplate and greaves and perhaps the inevitable plumed helm, but the young man had decided, it seemed, to come as a neo-classical Hector, for he was done up in a resplendent uniform, not unlike a cuirassier from Napoleon’s Old Guard, complete with a fur pelisse and a hairy shako shaped like a hoopoe’s nest perched on his angular head.
On a handsome man, the effect might have been striking, but sadly, Lieutenant Bates was extremely unattractive, as tall and gaunt as a stork. In fact, everything about him was birdlike—the way he walked in short bounding hops, the way his neck bobbed from side to side gave the immediate impression of a giant emu, trying eagerly to take to the sky but unable to get off the ground.
He was a young man, younger than Sikander had expected, not more than twenty or twenty-one, for he still had a smattering of adolescent acne on his cheeks. This general air of inexperience was only added to by his affectation of a patchy little mustache that drooped deplorably at its tips, and made him seen somehow louche, almost Continental. If it had been his intention to cut a military swash, Sikander thought, the fellow had failed miserably, for all the uniform, albeit well tailored, managed to do was make him look comical, a parody of a soldier with an over-large sword at his waist that clanked against his knees with every footstep he took, threatening to entangle itself in his legs and trip him over.
From the determined scowl pasted on his face and the stern set of his shoulders, the Maharaja could tell that here was a fellow bent upon violence. Ordinarily Sikander would have spared no time putting someone like him squarely in his place, but to his surprise, this once, a pang of sympathy for the man stirred in his gut. He realized he had to shoulder at least some of the blame for the Lieutenant’s ire. He could only imagine how it looked to him, to find his beautiful wife hidden away in a secluded nook in the company of another man, and an Indian to boot.
As a result, he decided to adopt a conciliatory stance rather than a confrontational one, in spite of the Lieutenant’s unforgivable crudity.
“I mean no harm. I was simply talking with your lovely wife, my dear fellow.”
Sadly, ignoring this attempt at conciliation, the man refused to be mollified. “Shut your bloody mouth, you insolent wog.” He exclaimed, and shook one fist at Sikander.
Rather reluctantly, Mrs. Bates sprang to the Maharaja’s defense. “Don’t be rude, Johnny,” she objected weakly. “We were just talking.”
All this explanation served to do was make the Lieutenant even more livid. “Shut your mouth, you filthy strumpet,” he growled, so vehement that the memsahib recoiled, paling with barely disguised terror. “First you go sniffing around that old fool of a Major like a bitch in heat, but I turned a blind eye, because at least he was one of us. But now you are cozying up to this dirty nigger, and that too in plain sight of half the damned town. How could you do that to me?” He shot her a murderous glare. “I’ll see to you shortly, by God, I will.”
This was just too much for the Maharaja to tolerate. While Sikander had been willing to give the young man the benefit of the doubt and dismiss him as one of that lamentable breed with too much beef in his diet, to hear him lambasting his wife with such viciousness set his hot Sikh blood aflame.
Nevertheless, in spite of his exasperation, he made one last, valiant attempt to reason with the boy. “Calm yourself, Mr. Bates. Let us…”
Unfortunately, before he could finish his sentence, the Lieutenant pulled a glove from his belt, and with immense theatricality, flung it down at the Maharaja’s feet. Sikander could barely believe his eyes. Could the boy mean to call him out to a duel? No, he had to be joking, or else half-mad. It was laughable, to be issued a challenge so brazenly in this day and age. To the best of Sikander’s knowledge, the last known British duel had been fought some five decades previously, in 1852, between two Frenchmen, quite ironically. Since then, it was ludicrous to think of settling arguments by single combat, but this young brat, it seemed, was in a mind to reenact the old practice.
“Have you taken leave of your wits?” Sikander said incredulously, unsure whether to be horrified or amused.
“Silence!” the Lieutenant sneered. “You have slighted my honor, and I will not rest until I have had reparation. Face me, you
brown bastard, or admit you are a cowardly cur.”
He was serious. The silly bugger really expected Sikander to actually fight him. The Maharaja let out an enormous chuckle. He had thought the boy a fool, but what a monumental fool he could never had imagined, not in a dream. Not only did the Lieutenant have the temerity to talk to a Maharaja like he was a mere jemadar, but he had failed to take the measure of the man he was challenging so openly to a duel to the death. Little did he realize that Sikander could kill him in the blink of an eye, with or without weapons. The only thing holding him back was that killing someone as inexperienced as this callow boy would have been little better than murder, and the Maharaja found he had no appetite for murder that afternoon. He was too tired, for one thing, and much too sober.
“Oh, grow up! I am not going to fight you.” Shaking his head, he tried to brush past the Lieutenant, but Bates blocked his passage.
“Have you no honor, or is it that you are craven?”
Such barefaced insolence, it was very nearly the final straw. Sikander struggled to contain his shock. He had thought the man reckless, even foolhardy, but was he really daft enough to imagine he could get away with publicly assaulting an Indian of Sikander’s rank? Was there no end to his stupidity?
“Do you know who you are talking to?” he said coldly, unable to believe the gall of the man.
“I know bloody well,” the boy mocked, “a jumped-up bloody chuprassie who needs to be taught his place.” The Lieutenant held up one clenched fist, shaking it at the Maharaja. “And I am just the man to teach that lesson.”
“Oh, Johnny,” his wife wailed, “that’s quite enough.” She tried to interpose herself between the two men, giving Sikander a look of desperate entreaty. “Stop this madness, I beg you.”
“Just you wait, you wanton slut. You are next, once I have put this kaffir in his place.” With that imprecation, the boy struck a fighting stance, raising both fists in front of him in a rather limp pugilistic guard.
“Come on then,” he growled, hopping back and forth with such agility that it would have made the Marquis of Queensbury blush. “I will have you know, I was the class champion at Sandhurst, I was.”
This time around, Sikander just couldn’t quite hold back his amusement. It came pouring out of him, a vast torrent of laughter. “Oh, give it up, you foolish twit, before you hurt yourself.”
The Lieutenant ignored this sage advice and waded in, flailing his fists so wildly that he nearly knocked out his own wife. First, a roundhouse, then a clumsy swipe at Sikander’s chin, then an even more desperate hook, all of which the Maharaja evaded effortlessly, swaying away from the boy as sinuously as a reed confronted by a windstorm. He tried not to scoff. In spite of his claims of championship prowess, the boy was as unpracticed and slow as a novice.
Sikander’s eyes narrowed as the boy’s assaults grew more and more frenetic. It took a lot for him to resist the urge to hit back, to put Bates flat on his back, but the last thing he wanted was to cause this ridiculous situation to escalate. Instead, he satisfied himself with pirouetting away from every one of Bates’ increasingly desperate assaults, until at last, the boy could swing his arms no more, gasping and huffing for breath.
“Are you quite done?” Sikander turned to the memsahib, who was watching him warily, unsure whether to be afraid of him or impressed by his agility, and made a deep bow. It had been his intent to saunter away, but before he could take more than a couple of steps, the Lieutenant summoned up a last gasp of energy and made one final sally.
This time, his rage bordered on incoherency. It was like he had lost all sense or reason. Sikander was stunned by such naked aggression. The first two times the boy had attacked him, he had suppressed the urge to retaliate. But this time, faced with Bates bearing down on him, screaming like a bashi-bazouk, his warrior instincts kicked in like clockwork.
Time seemed to slow down. Before Sikander knew it, his hand had shot out, the heel of his palm connecting solidly with the Englishman’s face. With a brittle crack, the lieutenant’s nose broke. Immediately, he let out a howl and fell to his knees, his hands scrabbling to his face to try and stifle the gouts of blood erupting from his damaged nostrils.
As Bates began to sob like a child, to Sikander’s chagrin, it dawned on him that their fracas had managed to attract an audience. As if by magic, in that unique way that can only be seen in India, a crowd of onlookers had gathered around the gazebo, a sea of white faces, paramount amongst them Mrs. Fitzgerald, who made no move to intervene, but was instead watching the whole sordid tamasha unfold with a look of patent delight writ on her face.
Sikander bit back a curse. To his dismay, it occurred to him that somehow, he had managed become the villain of the piece. It was the boy who had been the instigator, who had attacked him first, but still, it was obvious from the panoply of scowls gazing up at him that the whites perceived him as the one to blame. Rage flowered inside him, then embarrassment. How could he have permitted things to get so far out of hand? Why had he allowed himself to lose his equilibrium in such a public fashion?
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Charan Singh was waving at him, trying to clear a path through the multitude. Squaring his shoulders, Sikander marched down to meet his manservant, ignoring the glares directed towards him as he pushed his way through the crowd.
Behind him, the Lieutenant had managed to regain his feet, tottering upright with his wife’s assistance. “Go on, then,” he shouted after Sikander, “run away, you coward.”
It took all of Sikander’s strength to ignore the Lieutenant’s jibes. His cheeks burning with fury, he willed himself to keep walking. It would be so easy to turn and finish what Bates had started, for once and for all. From what he had just witnessed of the boy’s prowess, he was no match for Sikander. Whether pistol or blade, the outcome would be inevitable. Or better still, why did he even need to sully his own hands? All he had to do was whisper a word in the right ear, and the man’s career would come to a premature end. It would be so very easy.
Sikander shuddered. No other prince would have ever endured such obstreperous rudeness without retaliation. No, if it had been Patiala or Kapurthala the Lieutenant had crossed, Bates would be dead by now, cut down like a dog. But Sikander liked to think of himself as a more evolved specimen. While it infuriated him to have to endure such public humiliation, he reminded himself it was for a greater cause. Once he had unraveled the Major’s murder, then he could take his revenge on the cocky young fool at his leisure.
By his side, Charan Singh let out a strangled groan, mortified that anyone could dare to take such liberties with his master. “You have only to say one word, Huzoor,” he whispered murderously, more than willing to put the errant Lieutenant in his place, but Sikander shook his head.
“Leave it be, old man.” Grimacing, he clenched his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache. “Just go and fetch the car, will you? Frankly, I think I have had quite enough of British hospitality for one day.
Chapter Twenty-two
Charan Singh, long accustomed to his master’s moods, was wise enough to hold his tongue until the Maharaja was settled comfortably in the passenger seat of the Rolls.
“Where to, Huzoor? Back to the killa?” He spoke warily, choosing his words carefully.
Sikander was tempted to agree. Given the turbulence of his displeasure, the notion of returning to the palace and seeking refuge in the company of a bottle of Krug sounded like a first-rate plan. But it occurred to him how little time there remained before Simla’s investigator was due to arrive, so he decided the best move would be to finally track down the next person on his list of suspects, who happened to the Munshi.
“No,” he commanded gruffly. “Take me to the City Palace.”
As the vehicle lurched into motion, Sikander stripped off his pugree and loosened the neck of his achkan so that he could breathe more freely. Even though it was approac
hing eventide, the humidity showed no sign of abating. On the contrary, the sun insisted on shining down even more mercilessly, refracting off the whitewashed walls of the English bungalows as they flickered by, a haze so blinding that it caused his eyes to water.
Sinking back into the rich upholstery with a sigh, the Maharaja struggled to make sense of the disparate jumble of thoughts resounding through his skull. What a complicated muddle it was all shaping up to be! What happened to the simple murders, Sikander wondered, where the killer was as obvious as daylight to even the most bumbling of sleuths? But not this case! With each passing moment, with each new twist, it became more and more convoluted. An entirely uncharacteristic moment of self-doubt flickered through him. Could this challenge be beyond his capabilities? There were just too many questions and not enough answers, and his instincts told him there would be no quick endings in sight, that perhaps the answer to the riddle of who had poisoned the Resident might just be one that managed to defeat even his formidable powers of deduction.
It took all of Sikander’s strength to force these doubts from his mind as the Rolls-Royce drew up outside the City Palace. As always, the sight of the British headquarters managed to make him wince. While he did not consider himself much of an aesthete when it came to architecture, the City Palace was undoubtedly one of the most hideous buildings he had ever had the misfortune to set eyes upon. Perhaps his opinion was jaundiced given his travels in Europe, but the place seemed even more egregious than he remembered, a hideous brick pile that combined the worst elements of Baroque, Rococo, and High Victorian. His mother had told him the story about its origins once, how his father had hired an Englishman called John Butler to design the building, but the man had refused to travel out to India to supervise its construction, choosing to dispatch the plans by mail instead, only to have them misread by the local masons. As a result, the building had been built front to back, which in retrospect was a bit of a favor to good taste, Sikander thought, considering that the exterior was so dreadful it could move a poet to tears. It was obvious that the aforementioned Mr. Butler had been a great fan of William Butterfield’s School of Muscular Gothic, because he had chosen to design the entrance as a swirling labyrinth of plump pillars and ogee arches, between which were crowded enough grotesques to give any passing pigeons nightmares.