by Caro Peacock
‘Tom.’
Tabby was behind me. Amos came thundering back downstairs and pushed her aside. By then, I’d pulled back the blanket and was kneeling beside him.
‘Oh Tom.’
His eyes opened and looked straight into mine. Strange eyes, full of night. Then his forehead creased as if the lamplight hurt him and his eyes closed again. Amos was kneeling beside me.
‘Doped,’ he said.
‘Is he dying?’
‘No. Long as we can wake him up and keep him that way.’
‘Coffee,’ I said, remembering.
‘Yes, there’ll be a kitchen. Can she make coffee?’
He glanced towards Tabby.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to do it.’
‘Wait while I go downstairs and tidy up a bit, then I’ll give you the word.’
We waited. Shuffling sounds came down from the hall, then Captain Smith’s voice raised in useless protest. Even so, it sounded stronger than the quavering tones of Mr Tillington had been. A door slammed. A key turned in the lock.
‘All safe,’ Amos called up.
The kitchen was in the basement, in a state of bachelor disorder. If there’d been domestics in the house, they’d been turned away some time ago. Luckily there were a spirit lamp, coffee beans in a tin, a grinder. I set Tabby to grinding the beans. It seemed an age before the kettle boiled.
‘So who is he?’ Tabby said, gesturing upstairs with her chin.
There was no sound from the room where Captain Smith was imprisoned. Men tied up and gagged by Amos were guaranteed to stay quiet. All the same, we both jumped round when the door to the kitchen suddenly opened. Chandrika was standing there, Tabby was gaping at her as if she were the genie from the lamp.
‘Have you found him?’
‘Yes. You were supposed to stay with the horse.’
From the gesture she made, she wouldn’t have minded if the cob had taken wings and flown away.
‘Where is he?’
‘Upstairs, not well. Open that cupboard and see if you can find a clean cup.’
When I went upstairs with the tray, they both followed me. Amos had managed to get Tom sitting up in a chair, but his eyes were still closed, head flopping. I poured water into the coffee to cool it and held it to his lips. He drank a drop, shook his head as if he resented the efforts to wake him. Chandrika was kneeling on the floor, looking up at him.
‘Tom,’ I said. ‘Tom, please.’
His eyes opened and fastened on Chandrika’s.
‘You? Here?’
His eyes stayed open. He drank. For a moment, an ignoble feeling of annoyance hit me. Who’d found him, after all? For that matter, who’d brewed the coffee? But the knowledge that he was going to live swept it aside.
‘Yes, we’re here,’ I said.
Chandrika and I stayed there, feeding Tom sips of coffee, until he was capable of standing and walking. He wanted to ask questions, showing particular concern for his poor friend, Mr Tillington. He thought somebody must have broken into the house and attacked them both, drugging him and doing goodness knows what harm to the old man.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘He’s alive and being well looked after.’
In fact, Amos had looked in to check on him before driving the gig away so that he could bring back a more robust vehicle. In a whispered conversation on the landing, Amos told me that he’d removed the gag long enough to give our prisoner a drink of water, then left him securely tied with the door locked. I’d no idea what to do with the man. If we’d taken him to the local police station with our story, they’d probably have released him and arrested us.
‘Leave it till later,’ Amos had said. ‘It’ll sort itself.’
By the time Amos drove back in a two-horse closed carriage, Tom was far enough recovered to be demanding some answers.
‘The fact is, he’s not Mr Tillington,’ I said. ‘He’s The Soldier, Captain Smith that was. And he’s certainly not your friend. He was the one who drugged you.’
I’m not sure he’d have believed me, but Chandrika told him I was right and he wasn’t to waste his strength in talking. If she had faith in me, and he in her, that would have to do for a while. At least it worked well enough to get us all downstairs. As we passed the locked door on the ground floor, I glanced a question at Amos.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back for the goods once I’ve dropped you off.’
We were almost rolling, until I remembered something.
‘Where’s Tabby?’
She’d been with us when we were looking after Tom, then at some point she’d disappeared. I’d been too occupied to worry. Amos came back into the house with me.
We searched the basement kitchen and the two upstairs floors. No sign of her. I was beginning to think she’d disappeared again when I noticed a ladder leading up to the loft. The opening above it looked too narrow for Amos’s shoulders, so I went up. Faint daylight was coming through a skylight in the roof. As my head came up into the opening I saw Tabby. She was sitting on the floor in a thin shaft of light, unmoving, hands linked round her drawn up knees. She was staring at something sprawled on the grey blankets of a narrow divan bed. A hand was hanging drown from the bed, the sleeve that flopped over its wrist set hard as plaster with dried blood. The iron smell of blood hung over everything. When I pulled myself through the opening and stepped towards the bed, congealed blood pulled like tar at my shoe soles. The body was on its back, eyes closed, face as white as the underside of a flounder. Mr Cyril Eckington-Smith MP.
‘Like that when I found him,’ Tabby said.
I pulled the arm up by the sleeve. The arm was stiffening, the wrist slashed almost to the bone. When I made myself touch the neck above the stiff collar it was cold. She was right. He’d been killed hours before Tabby or the rest of us arrived at the house. She looked up at me and must have seen that I believed her, but it didn’t bring her any satisfaction. Grief and reproach were on her face.
‘It should’ve been me that killed him,’ she said.
TWENTY-FOUR
‘And then you killed your brother,’ the Rani said to The Soldier.
She made it sound like the least of his crimes. In her eyes, perhaps it was. Two days after our forcible entry into Smith’s house, we were assembled in the main room of the Rani’s cottage in Richmond. That was Amos’s doing. Faced with the problem of what to do with a bound and gagged Captain Smith, he’d simply kept on driving and delivered him to Richmond, along with an ex-pugilist acquaintance of Amos’s with orders to see he didn’t stray. From Amos’s report, the Rani and her prime minister had reacted as if such things were a matter of course. Now Amos and his friend were keeping watch outside, just in case Smith should try to make a run for it. It didn’t look likely. Anybody looking into the room would have thought this was nothing but a slightly unorthodox social gathering, with everybody on best behaviour. The Rani was at the centre of it, Mr Patwardhan standing beside her, daughter Chandrika sitting demurely on her pile of cushions in the corner, the very picture of a dutiful daughter, except that her eyes kept straying to Tom. Tom’s attention was divided between her and the man he’d known as Mr Tillington. When Tom understood, he’d been furious at Smith’s trickery, more so with himself for bring tricked. That was unfair to himself, I’d told him. That cool and ruthless old man had known exactly how to take advantage of Tom’s isolation to keep watch on what followed Griffiths’s death.
Even now, he was sitting back in his chair looking at the Rani as if she were putting some doubtful business proposition to him.
‘My poor brother killed himself,’ he said. ‘He had suffered recent personal and financial troubles.’
‘He had more than ten thousand in East India shares,’ I said. ‘As your nominee, of course. He’d become greedy and wanted to keep them for himself. He knew or guessed you’d killed Mr Griffiths, so thought you couldn’t argue.’
Smith ignored me completely. He’d been doing that ever sin
ce we came into the room. He was sticking to the line that he was an innocent man, attacked and taken prisoner and would have the law on all of us.
‘It’s possible that you didn’t intend to kill Mr Griffiths,’ I said. ‘What you wanted was to know where he’d put the jewels he and McPherson had stolen from you . . .’
‘They didn’t steal them. They were restoring them,’ the Rani said.
‘Captain Smith saw it as stealing. Those jewels had been in his possession since he came back from India all those years ago . . .’
‘Stolen from me,’ the Rani said.
‘. . . he’d kept them safely hidden, disguised as a chest of opium, in the vaults of the East India Company. Possibly, he’d even paid in the chest of opium as security for a loan. McPherson somehow found out about that, but it suited him to keep quiet. Maybe he and The Soldier knew too much about each other.’
At first, Smith had simply tried to deny that he was The Soldier, until one look from the Rani settled that issue.
‘Then McPherson and Mr Griffiths both came back to London and the whole picture changed,’ I said. ‘Mr Griffiths knew he was a sick man and he was determined to get the princess back her jewels, if it were literally the last thing he did. He learned from the Rani that McPherson didn’t have them and Smith did. But McPherson’s financial survival depended on his creditors believing they were in his possession. So Mr Griffiths summoned McPherson and put to him a simple proposition – steal the jewels from Smith and give them back to the Rani, and I’ll let the world believe you have them. McPherson had very little choice. He knew his way round East India House and probably how to bribe some of the staff there. After all, nobody there knew there was a fortune in jewels in the chest. As far as they were concerned, it was just another consignment of opium. As instructed, he took the chest from the vault and delivered it to the Rani. That was why he made that late night journey out here on the Sunday.’
The Rani nodded. ‘He kept faith. In that respect, at least.’
For once, Chandrika glanced at me instead of at my brother. The jewels were an anxious subject for her. She and her mother had managed to make peace after Chandrika’s sudden absence, but it wouldn’t last if the Rani ever found out that her daughter had been willing to sacrifice the whole chest of jewels for Tom’s life.
‘Smith found out or guessed what had happened,’ I said. ‘He went to Mr Griffiths and demanded to know what he’d done with the jewels. He lost his temper, probably started shaking him. Mr Griffiths fell and hit his head. He was probably dead already when Smith put him in the bath and slit his wrists.
Smith spoke directly to the Rani.
‘I hope you don’t believe this.’
She stared at him for several heartbeats. It was as if the rest of us had ceased to exist and something that had happened between the two of them a long time ago was as raw as it had ever been.
‘I’d believe anything of you,’ she said. Her words were like a judge’s sentence, and for the first time Smith dropped his head and wouldn’t meet her eyes. She let a few more heartbeats pass before adding: ‘In any case, we have a witness.’
She picked up a small silver bell and rang it. This was her idea entirely, the danger point. A door opened. Anil came into the room, neat in white tunic and trousers, put his palms together and bowed to the Rani.
‘Look at this man,’ she said, pointing to Smith. ‘Do you recognize him?’
‘Yes, Rani.’
‘Is he the man who visited Griffiths sahib?’
‘Yes, Rani.’
‘What did you see him do?’
‘I saw him put Griffiths sahib into the bath. I saw it from the landing, through a crack in the door.’
‘Was Griffiths sahib alive or dead?’
‘He looked dead, Rani.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I don’t know, Rani. I ran away. I was scared he’d kill me if he knew I’d seen.’
The Rani turned back to Smith.
‘I’m sure you’d like to kill this boy too. I promise you, that if any harm comes to him I shall with my own hands cut out your heart and feed it to a dog.’
Unwise to try a line like that unless you mean it. The Rani meant it, and Smith knew it. He admitted defeat in the words that came most naturally to his miser’s soul.
‘How much do you want?’
The answer turned out to be ten thousand pounds worth of East India Company shares to the Calcutta orphans, gifted in the name of the Rani. Mrs Glass, knowing nothing, was ecstatic. I didn’t like it. My wish would have been to see Smith answering for Mr Griffiths’s death in the dock, but then we could hardly ask Anil to perjure himself in court. He’d done well as it was, showing almost as promising a talent for amateur dramatics as The Soldier himself. I hope the Rani rewarded him well. But at least there was something I could do. I sent a polite note requesting a meeting with McPherson. This time he left his usual territory in the City and came all the way across town to my office in Abel Yard. If this were some sign of humility, the rest of his bearing was as arrogant as ever.
‘So what do you want from me now, Miss Lane?’
‘To reassure you. It’s over.’
And I gave him a severely edited version of what had happened.
‘And who else knows about this?’
‘Nobody, except those who were there. As I said before, your secret is safe with me – conditionally.’
‘Still conditionally?’
‘Yes, if you do what we’re asking. You know how to ruin a man?’
‘Ruin a man?’
‘Yes. I’m sure a business gentleman like you will have done it several times over.’
He took that as a compliment. A brief smile came to his bruiser’s face.
‘So what’s your condition?’
‘Just that. Ruin Smith.’
A month later, Mr Disraeli cantered up to me as I was riding in the park.
‘I dare say you’ve heard from your brother about the latest doings among our East Indians.’
‘What?’
‘Eckington-Smith’s brother has been hammered. He’s had to flee across the Channel to escape his creditors. A boarding house in Boulogne, so I’m told.’
The way he said Boulogne made it sound like a cooler suburb of hell, which was probably how Smith would see it.
‘And that rogue McPherson seems to be flourishing again, in spite of not getting his compensation. Useful things, jewels.’
‘Very useful,’ I said, wondering as usual how much Mr Disraeli guessed. Quite a lot, judging by his next question.
‘Odd business about the brother, don’t you think? I’d have said Eckington-Smith was too shameless to kill himself.’
‘Yes.’
‘But then, no man’s death is entirely regrettable if it produces an interesting by-election.’
‘In his case, not regrettable at all.’
‘I agree. As ever, a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lane. Please give my best wishes to your brother.’
As he raised his hat and turned away, I said: ‘And is there still going to be a war against China?’
‘Indeed. Quite settled.’
And off he cantered.
Two days later, I went down to Gravesend to see Tom off to India. His departure had been delayed for two weeks because he was to sail with the Rani and her party to see them safely back home. He’d spent a fair part of those two weeks showing Chandrika around London, with myself in the unusual role of chaperone. He was head over heels in love, for the first time in his life. Goodness knows how it would end, but when I remembered Chandrika on the night of the rescue I knew he hadn’t fixed his love unwisely. The idea that she was Griffiths’s daughter seemed to him to give his old friend’s approval to their love. I didn’t hint to him, and never would, that on my reading of Griffiths’s story, she might equally well owe her getting to The Merchant or The Soldier. Some questions are better left unanswered. The day before they left, the Rani had given me a bracelet
set with small diamonds and rubies. When I’d told her that Smith was financially ruined, she’d smiled.
‘I’m glad to hear it. He betrayed me twice over.’
From her face, I knew it was no use expecting more.
At Gravesend, our party took a launch out to the boat that was to carry them to India. Tom saw everybody safely settled below then came up on deck with me. The launch was waiting to take back to shore those of us who were not sailing. We stood side by side, looking at the bustle on the quayside. It was hard to find words.
‘I’ve given Tom Huckerby Mr Griffiths’s manuscript,’ I said. ‘He’s going to shorten it into a pamphlet against the opium trade.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Liberty . . .’
I waited. He was still looking towards the quay.
‘I’m sorry for some of the things I’ve said. You’ve made a life. It might not be the life I’d have wished for you, but I think our parents would have been proud.’
I couldn’t talk. Tears were running down my cheeks. He hugged me suddenly, very tightly.
‘You’ll think of coming out to see us, Libby? Not to stay I mean, if you don’t want to.’
‘I’ll think about it, yes.’
The launch blew its steam whistle. He watched as I joined the other passengers on board. As we drew away, Chandrika came and stood beside him at the rail. His white handkerchief and mine fluttered back to each other until they were no more than dots in the bright dazzle from the water.