A Very Pukka Murder

by Arjun Gaind

  Inside, the building was stuffy and claustrophobic. There were portraits everywhere, as was expected, a massive one of the Queen looking like a jowled carthorse just opposite the entrance, and on either side of her, a row of erstwhile Residents, all of whom seemed to share the same equine superciliousness. Overhead hung a massive wrought-iron chandelier, and when he angled his neck backwards to look up, he saw that a flock of adventurous birds had made their nests in the high eaves. One squawked at him disdainfully and let loose a derisory stream that barely missed his head.

  Ordinarily, the Residency was as busy as a beehive, teeming with innumerable chuprassies and vakeels and petitioners, not to mention dozens of guards, almost all of whom would have reacted with suspicion had the Maharaja of Rajpore turned up unannounced. But Sikander had timed his visit carefully. He had taken a measured guess that the large majority of British staff would be at Mrs. Fitzgerald’s brouhaha, thus leaving the path clear for him to pursue his investigations.

  To his relief, his calculations seemed to be spot-on. Exactly as he had hoped, the Residency was deserted, and Sikander walked right in, Charan Singh by his side, without being challenged once. There were only two guards on duty in the atrium, thankfully both native Havildars, and they were busy at a game of dice, squatting on their haunches directly opposite the main entrance, chattering and arguing, so caught up in their gambling that they did not even notice they had company until Sikander cleared his throat rather pointedly.

  Immediately, they jumped to their feet, trying not to look utterly surprised. Their appearance and demeanor only served to reinforce his already low opinion of Jardine. The Havildars’ uniforms were slovenly and unkempt, and their rifles well out of reach, propped up listlessly against a pillar. To his delight, Sikander realized that he knew one of the men. It was none other than Jha, the rat-faced constable who had assisted him at the Major’s bungalow just the day before.

  Sikander offered him a resplendent smile. “Well, Havildar Jha, we meet again. How are you, my good man?”

  The Havildar’s mouth fell open, taken aback at the unexpected warmth of this greeting, and it took him a minute to gather himself well enough to offer the Maharaja a delayed salute, although the best he could manage was a grunt and a sort of half wave, as if he was trying to swat an imaginary fly.

  “How may we be of service, Huzoor?” Jha asked unctuously.

  “I am here to speak with the Munshi. Where may I find him?”

  Thankfully, rather than making a fuss, Jha had the good sense not to argue. “He is in the Major Sahib’s office.” He gave the Maharaja a bow. “It is the last door…”

  “I know where it is,” Sikander said. Pulling a fistful of coins from one of his pockets, he handed them to Jha absent-mindedly. The Havildar let out a gasp, his eyes goggling at such largesse. Even as he began to genuflect with gratitude, the Maharaja forged past the man. Charan Singh made to follow, but Sikander delayed him with a curt nod. “You wait here. Make sure that I am not disturbed, in case our friend Mr. Jardine shows up.”

  Leaving the big Sikh to watch dolefully as Jha and his colleague resumed their wagering, Sikander made a beeline for the Major’s office, located at the far corner of the City Palace. It comprised a suite of three rooms, first an anteroom crowded with moldering filing cabinets, then a rather chintzy waiting room that smelt of mildew and tea leaves and was packed with low wooden benches, and beyond that, the Major’s private sanctum, hidden behind a teak door so thick it seemed to have been wrought from an entire tree.

  Sikander had been hoping to catch the Munshi by surprise, apprehend him without warning at his desk, but when he entered the office, he found he was quite alone. He let out a curse, lamenting his luck. What a complete waste of time, he thought crossly, to have come all this way only to find that the Munshi had flown the coop! Frustrated, he spent a restless minute poking about aimlessly through the papers on the Munshi’s desk, but found nothing useful, little more than a heap of requisitions.

  Just as he was about to leave, much to his surprise, a strident cacophony assailed his ears, making him wince. At first, he took it to be the sound of a stray cat in heat, screeching its heart out as it searched for a mate, but after a moment, he realized it was a man’s voice, belting out a shrill and tuneless refrain. Curiously enough, Sikander thought he could recognize the song, even though it was being mangled quite thoroughly. It seemed to be the Major general’s song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance of all things, and what the singer lacked in rhythm, he certainly seemed to be making up for in tenor.

  It dawned on the Maharaja that this caterwauling was emanating from inside the Major’s private office, which he had assumed was locked. Wondering who it was that could be responsible for this awful racket, he tried the door, and when it yielded to his grip, he eased it open gingerly, careful not to alert whoever might be inside and send him scarpering. To his disbelief, the source of this unearthly din was none other than the Munshi. There he was, seated in a leather wing-back chair, his dhoti wracked up to reveal his bony knees, his bare feet planted squarely atop the Major’s Ceylonese cherrywood writing table.

  From the looks of it, he had been in the midst of enjoying one of the Major’s choice cheroots, puffing away contentedly amidst a cloud of pungent smoke while gulping down a decanter of what looked to be a rather gritty port.

  “What have we here?” Sikander exclaimed, unsure whether to be amused or appalled by such an unexpected sight. “Was there a celebration to which I was not invited?”

  His voice took the Munshi utterly by surprise. The old man let out a yelp of dismay. Like a jack-in-the-box, up he leaped, astonishingly spry for a fellow of his advanced years. Shooting a panicked look at the Maharaja, he divested himself of the cigar with the utmost haste, tossing it into the wastepaper basket that flanked the table. Sadly, this served only to ignite a small fire, which he then proceeded to try and stamp out, dancing from one bare foot to the other as haplessly as a buffoon in a Punchinello show.

  Before the scene could devolve completely into a nautanki, Sikander crossed over to snatch up a jug of water from a nearby sideboard, and poured it over the conflagration before it could flare out of control.

  The Munshi remained motionless, frozen stiff, as if he had come face to face with Medusa herself. Abruptly, realizing perhaps that no explanation could justify being caught taking such loathsome liberties, he bolted. Like a rat scurrying for its hole, he tried to edge towards the door, but Sikander had no intention of letting him get away so easily.

  Before he could make good his escape, the Maharaja planted himself squarely in his path. “Not so fast, Munshi!”

  The old man recoiled, backing away so violently that he nearly toppled off his feet. “Forgive me,” he stammered. “I am deeply sorry for my behavior, Sahib. I am a fool.”

  Sikander ignored this apology. “You are a very talented liar, Munshi. You had me good and fooled, and I am a very difficult man to dupe.”

  “I have never lied, Huzoor,” the Munshi squealed haplessly. “I am an honest man, I swear it.”

  “It’s no use,” Sikander said. “I know all about your land manipulations. Stealing from war widows; you should be ashamed.”

  This declaration made the Munshi’s eyes widen with shock. Realizing that he was cornered, he made a most unexpected move. From somewhere deep within the voluminous folds of his dhoti, a gun appeared. It was tiny, a pocket pistol barely larger than his hand, not unlike the weapon used by Booth to assassinate Lincoln. Sikander could not tell the make, but it looked to be a single shooter, what the Americans called a derringer and the Brazilians a garrucha.

  A lesser man would most likely have wet himself, confronted by the barrel of a gun pointed directly at his face, but Sikander did not even flinch. If anything, the Munshi seemed more terrified than he did. The old man’s hand shook horribly, wavering as he tried to keep his aim steady. “Stay b
ack,” he screeched as shrilly as a woman. “I am leaving, and if you try to stop me, I will shoot.”

  Even as he made this threat, the Maharaja reacted automatically. With one nimble hand, he swept up the nearest thing he could reach, a heavy blown-glass paperweight shaped like a very buxom mermaid astride a prancing seahorse, which he snatched from atop the Major’s table. As a boy, he had been quite a David with a slingshot, especially when it came to knocking down partridges. Thankfully his aim, it seemed, had not deserted him. Flicking his wrist, Sikander flung the paperweight at the Munshi. It connected exactly where he had intended, hammering into the man’s shoulder with a meaty thud,

  The glass cracked, splintering into shards as sharp as shrapnel. The Munshi let out a wail. The derringer faltered just for an instant. It was the briefest of moments, but more than time enough for the Maharaja to sweep forward in a blur of carefully composed motion. Even then, he was almost too slow. The Munshi must have involuntarily pulled the trigger, because the gun went off with a dull crack and a puff of acrid smoke, followed by a sharper thunk as the bullet slapped into the wood paneling behind Sikander’s back, missing him by just a few inches.

  Before the man could squeeze off another shot, Sikander’s fingers closed over the gun and he twisted with all his strength. The outcome was inevitable. The old man could not have weighed more than fifty kilos on a wet day, and while Sikander was thin and wiry, his frame was corded with lean muscle. Added to that, his hands were as calloused as teak, hardened by daily training. The Munshi however was as soft as pudding, weakened by far too long spent sitting behind a desk and shuffling papers, and when Sikander jerked his hand downwards, the old man’s wrist snapped, cracking like a brittle twig.

  The Munshi let out a shrill squeal and let go of the gun, subsiding nervelessly to the ground, cradling his injured arm to his chest. Sikander held on to the weapon, snapping open the breech to make sure its chamber was clear, before tucking it into one of his pockets. Absently, he realized the shot the Munshi had gotten off had been even closer than he had realized. It must have creased his shoulder, leaving a ragged rent in the padding of his tunic that made him scowl.

  A perfectly good outfit ruined, he thought sourly, feeling the onset of a dreadful exhaustion as the adrenalin that had been coursing through his veins began to ebb. At his feet, the Munshi was sobbing, mewling with agony, trying to move his hand but unable to do much more than flop around, like a bird with a broken wing.

  Sikander stared down at him, his face a dispassionate mask. “Have you had enough?”

  The man bared his teeth. Instead of replying, he hawked a gobbet of phlegm and spat violently at the Maharaja’s boots, a futile, almost clichéd display of resistance that made Sikander want to roll his eyes.

  “Very well,” he said with a resigned smile, “if that is how you want to play the game, my friend…”

  Without a hint of warning, he brought the same boot that had so recently been spat upon firmly down on the Munshi’s broken forearm, pressing down with all his weight, grinding the shattered radius and ulna against each other. The old man screamed, a guttural cry of pure agony. Sikander did not even blink, remaining as unemotional as a statue. While he did not relish torture, he was not squeamish about it, pragmatic enough to understand its value as a interrogatory tool.

  He knew that pain was the only language that someone like Munshi Ram would ever respect. Sadly, before he could test this theory further, at that precise moment, the door burst open, and Charan Singh came crashing in, followed by the bumbling pehradars from downstairs. Bewildered, they came to a stop amidst the room, taking in the sight of the Munshi cowering on the floor with something akin to disbelief.

  “Are you hurt, Sahib?” Charan Singh inquired breathlessly.

  “I’m fine.”

  “See, this is exactly why I cannot leave you alone for even a minute!”

  Sikander silenced the old Sikh with a scowl. “Pick him up,” he commanded, pointing at the sniveling Munshi.

  The guards had the good sense to obey without question. Ignoring the old man’s complaints, they hauled him roughly to his feet and dragged him across the room to deposit him unceremoniously on the nearest chair. The Munshi tried his best to wriggle free, but the Havildars each clamped a hand down on his shoulders, keeping him pinned firmly in place.

  “Help me!” he pleaded. “The Maharaja Sahib has gone mad.”

  This desperate ploy was so pathetic that Sikander did not even deem it worthy of a cutting retort. Instead, he studied his fingers, wrinkling his nose in consternation when he realized, much to his disgust, that the old man’s histrionics had caused him to chip a nail.

  “You know, Munshi, most of my friends would have had you hanged by now. After all, you did try to shoot me!” His voice remained benign, as if he were discussing the weather, not holding the man’s very life in his hands. “But I am nothing if not fair, and therefore, I have decided I will let you choose your own fate.”

  He smiled, a grin so entirely devoid of mirth that it made not only the Munshi shudder, but also the two Havildars flanking him shiver as well.

  “The way I see it, you have two choices. Either you can decide to cooperate with me. Or, if you should choose to remain recalcitrant, I shall have to hand you over to my man here.”

  He nodded at Charan Singh, whose face twisted into a brutish grin. Unbeknownst to the Munshi, this was a well-practised routine. Sikander played the carrot and the old Sikh the stick, and they had rehearsed it so many times they had it down to an art form.

  The big Sikh made a great show of loosening his shoulders and cracking his knuckles, as if limbering up for a particularly strenuous bit of exercise. “I am feeling my age today, Sahib,” he said, giving the Munshi a withering frown. “Let us just give him to the Afghans! That should be entertaining, to say the least.”

  “What a capital idea!” Sikander exclaimed. “Well, Munshi, how does that sound to you? I hear the border tribes stake murderers out on a hill and cut open their stomachs, and leave them there for the crows and vultures to feed on. God only knows what they would do to a flatulent fool like you, and that too a Hindoo?”

  The old man’s face paled as he finally began to comprehend exactly how dire his plight was. “No, Sahib, please! Have mercy! Please, I beg of you, I have children, grandchildren!”

  Sikander moved to loom over the old man, who shied away, holding up his injured arm to fend him off, as if he were terrified that the Maharaja would strike him again.

  “Then stop lying to me, you worm, before I decide to take out my wrath on them!”

  That was the final push the Munshi needed. The last vestiges of resistance leached out of him. His shoulders slumped, and he subsided forward, a broken man. “I admit it. I am guilty of misappropriating the land, but I am not the one to blame. It was the Major. It was all his idea. It was his scheme. I was only a pawn. Everything I did was at the Major’s behest, I swear it by all that is holy!”

  The old man began to blubber, breaking down. “I am not greedy by nature, Sahib, but you cannot fault me for wanting more than what I have? Why should I not make a profit, when everyone else is? Surely you cannot blame a man for taking what is offered freely, can you?”

  He looked up at Sikander, but if he was hoping for sympathy, his hopes were cruelly dashed, for all he received was a frown so fierce it made him shudder.

  “You think I am corrupt? Compared to the Major, I was a rank amateur.”

  He sucked in his breath through his teeth. “So what if I stole a little, if I embezzled a few annas here and there, if I altered the books? I thought I was being clever, that I was covering my tracks, but I did not realize what a shaitan the Major was. He was on to me from the very beginning, watching, waiting to make his move.”

  The old clerk groaned, a bitter exhalation of breath. “I made the mistake of becoming involved with a syndicate, and my gamb
ling debts, they kept mounting until I had dug myself in too deep. They would have killed me, Sahib. You don’t know what villains these Balochis are, Sahib! They are animals, with no hearts!”

  “That was when the Major coerced you into the land swindle?”

  The old man nodded mournfully. “Yes! What choice did I have left? He promised me that he would pay off my debts and keep the scandal secret if I helped him with his plan. He called it his retirement scheme. The Major Sahib had grand dreams. He was accumulating a nest egg so that he could return to England. He was going to buy a Lordship and a country manor, and live like a nabob, and he told me he would take me with him, to be his faithful retainer.”

  His sobs grew even more plaintive.

  “At first it was just the land misappropriations, but then, I became his creature, body and soul. He made me into his procurer, Huzoor, me, a Kayastha brahman, reduced to being a pimp.” He shook his head sadly. “A better man would have spat in his face, but I am weak, Sahib. He paid me well, and I took his money readily, which makes me just as evil as him.”

  A moan escaped his lips. “Oh, the things he did to those poor girls! How he debased them! And then when he was done, he would expect me to dispose of them, as if they were dirty laundry, to be used and throw away.”

  “And that is why you poisoned him, isn’t it, to be free of him?”

  “Oh no! Never! I admit, there were times I thought about being rid of him, when I prayed that he would be struck down, but I did not kill him. Like I said, Sahib, I am a weak man. Ask yourself this question. Why would I destroy the very creature who gave me my status, who was responsible for my wealth? Without the Major, I am nothing. While he was alive, I was a man of consequence, a personage of power and influence. Why would I jeopardize that? You must think me a fool!”