But I misjudged my abilities. My husband had gone too far into the abyss.
A couple of weeks later he made me a participant in another unspeakable sin. He procured a dead woman from someone and forced me to strip and lay down with it. It was terrible. To lie close to a dead body, in the cold embrace of its lifeless limbs. It pinches my heart to even think of that night. You cannot imagine how I managed to brave that torment. But my agony had just begun. Since then, it became a ritual, my husband got a body regularly and satiated his carnal pleasures with the corpse and I had to bear witness and participate in the act. All the bodies here are for that purpose. That is the secret of the crypt.
I could not tell this to anyone. But I could also not continue to let this happen, it was wearing me down. Making me ill and queasy. I love Charles far too much to leave him. He is not a bad man. In fact, I am sure you have not met a man capable of loving someone more than him. But fate has been cruel to him. He loved Camilla dearly, and losing her left its mark. But I was sure I could cure him, he might be a doctor but this time it was he who needed treatment, he was sick. For a long time, I could think of nothing. Then a month ago destiny came to my aid and I found out Rattan Singh’s little secret.
Rattan Singh has been the caretaker of this house since before we shifted here. Though he behaved respectfully with us, I had long suspected that he did not really want us to be here. There was something in his manner which told me that he would much rather prefer us to leave. I found the reason soon enough. Rattan Singh wasn’t just a caretaker of this house. He was running a successful smuggling syndicate from the compound.
The other side of the house opens to a bare stretch of land beyond which lies the Kali River. Before we were here, Rattan Singh used the empty house as a hold out for gold, silver, and other items which he then shipped stealthily through the Kali River to the harbor. There is a warehouse somewhere under the compound where all his goods are stored. Our shifting here had caused him a lot of problems and he obviously did not wish us to stay here.
I proposed a plan to suit us both. We had to force Charles to give up this wretched city and this godforsaken house and shift back to Calcutta. I was sure that if I could manage to do that, I would succeed in making him forget Camilla and the sick habit that he had cultivated. But the job was harder than we had thought.
Initially, we just sent little notes. Threatening to reveal his secret if he did not close his practice in Cardim and returned back to Calcutta. Rattan Singh wrote them and pushed them to Charles, slip them in his newspaper or pay the peon of his University to stick it on his office door. We wanted to scare him. But that did not have the effect we desired. Then one day, two weeks ago, Rattan Singh came to me and said that the bodies that Mr. Bernard brought were nicked from the graves. Using bodies stolen from graves for dissection was a serious offense. We told this to him in the third note that we sent, but even that did not have any effect. So, we were forced to pull off the final trick. I felt it was quite dramatic, to be frank. Rattan Singh came up with the idea. We decided to put the dead body of his supplier, Mr. Bernard, in front of Charles’s eyes to wrench him from his stupor. The trick did have some effect. I have never seen him so restless as since that night. He fears someone will know of his illness.”
“But why was Bernard’s grave empty?” asked Maya.
“Because Bernard never died. We only feigned his death.”
29
The Raid
The cobbled track which Ernst had followed for close to half an hour, disappeared abruptly into a wide expanse of coarse black sand. The Kali River was visible in the distance, flowing slyly and silently, sensitive to the nature of the dealings about to happen in the area.
Ernst disembarked from the carriage and looked into the looming darkness. There seemed to be no activity at the river bank. A couple of canoes dawdled in the dark river, with fishermen balancing upon them, casting their nets. But there was nothing to show that a huge smuggling transaction was underway. Horace Ibrahim must have been misled. There was no smuggling going on in the area. It gave Ernst distinct pleasure to think that his director had made a mistake. The High Guard resolved to let him know that, to pass a sharp quip at his chief when he saw him, harmless at the outside but packing a sharp edge. The sort of quips that the director had a reputation for.
Ernst decided to explore a little before leaving. He needed to be sure if he wanted to confront his director. He motioned the two elderly Longstaffs behind him to follow quietly. The three bent down so that the weeds growing in the sandy bank would hide them from the eyes of any boatmen or criminals keeping a watch. Slowly as they drifted closer to the bank, Ernst realized that there was some merit in the information that the director had received. The river was actually littered with a large number of boats, some big and others smaller canoes. They had been hidden until now in the wild undergrowth which cloaked the bank. There were no less than 30 boats pegged to the bank and their owners were keeping very silent. They sat upon their boats and looked into the distance without making a sound. It was not possible that they were all fishermen, something was happening here.
Ernst stopped fifty yards from the huddle of boats and sat down upon the sand. He wanted to observe the surrounding for some time before making a move. If these boatmen were indeed here to transport cargo to the harbor, why were they sitting idle? It was close to midnight and only a few hours remained before daylight. Surely they would have planned to lug the cargo to the harbor and put it into the ship before dawn. But there was no sign of any loading going on. In fact, Ernst didn’t see any cargo at all. What was happening?
The High Guard waited for a couple of minutes before losing patience and getting up. He took out his service pistol and motioned the other men to keep their batons handy. He didn’t think the men on the boat would prove much danger but it never hurt to take precaution. The three men ran the final few dozen yards to the bank to take the boatmen with surprise. But it seemed like they were alert to any such possibilities. Most boats weren’t pegged at all and as soon as the owners saw the three men running towards them, they sensed the danger and pushed the boats back into the water, out of reach of the approaching men. Seeing others leave, a few panicked fishermen left their boats and jumped into the river, while others ran away along the river into the darkness. The Longstaffs, however, managed to catch hold of three men. When the chaos had settled down, the three were presented to Ernst who sat down upon one of the canoes still left pegged at the bank.
They were all native fishermen, dressed in dhoti and a cotton vest. Two of the three men could speak nothing. They did not know English or Hindustani and babbled with each other in a frantic illegible tone. The third captive, though, had some crucial information and he did not need any coercing to part with it.
“Why were all of you here,” asked Ernst to him.
“We get money to come here,” said the man with hands joined in polite submission, “load boat with cargo and take to Old Harbor and load it back in ship.”
“So why were you sitting idle. Why did you not do anything?”
“One man was to come here and take few men with him to go down to get the cargo here. That man never come.”
“You mean to say that the cargo is stored somewhere nearby?”
“Yes sir, I never been there but friend tell me it is inside ground, big place. Not far from here.”
“Do you have any idea where it is,” asked Ernst again.
The man shook his head.
Ernst left one Longstaff to keep an eye on the captured men while he took the other to explore the area around. It seemed so desolate that it was a surprise that there was a warehouse nearby. The two men split, Ernst took the western part while the Longstaff scoured the eastern part. The ground under his feet was marshy, it appeared that during the high tide of the sea, the river swelled to fill in this area. The High Guard forded through the mushy terrain, his boots heavy with mud. The area was littered with tamarind trees and brambles, n
ot a single human structure around. It seemed like a futile exercise, there was no way that he would be able to find the entrance to a secret warehouse in the night without any source of light.
He stopped under a tamarind tree to remove the nettles which had clung to his trousers. Behind him, there was no trace of the other Longstaff, Ernst had moved too far inland to even be able to see the silhouette of the river. He turned to move back towards the river once he had removed the nettles. It did not seem safe to roam around in the wilderness, there was no shortage of snakes in this part of Cardim. He could come back tomorrow to find the secret warehouse. Ernst stepped back on the trail but he stopped short. Something was not right. His foot, instead of stepping on the soft ground, had landed on something much more solid. He bent down to observe it closely in the moonlight.
It was a rail track.
Ernst brushed aside the dirt and leaves with the muzzle of his revolver to reveal the cold black surface of the iron rail. He moved a few feet away and felt the ground to locate its counterpart.
A railway track in this wilderness? That was absurd.
30
A Wife's Rage
“Obviously,” exclaimed Cecilia Melcrose, “we could not kill a man for our little scheme. Bernard was in possession of an artifact, not sure what but something he had stolen. He had sold it to Rattan Singh’s syndicate and this was to be smuggled to America. That was how Rattan Singh came to know that he was a grave robber and supplied stolen bodies to Charles. He confronted Bernard when he was digging a body from a grave and made a deal with him to take part in our little act. Bernard readily agreed. He had, in any case, decided to give up grave robbing, so it did not matter if Charles thought that he was dead. So, Rattan Singh went to Bernard’s room, put some color on his head and neck, put him up in a box, and kept the box near the basement door with the final note. When Charles told him to bury the body, Rattan Singh only buried Bernard’s clothes.”
“And where is Bernard now?”
“He is in Rattan Singh’s underground warehouse. The police are after him, so it was best that he was kept in the house.”
Maya suddenly became conscious of another figure in the room. Glancing towards the door she found the doctor lumbering towards them, a pistol in hand. He had not sobered up and banged into the first basin on his way, half drowning in the liquid and spilling a mugful on the floor. Cecilia did not like the appearance of her husband and she backed towards Maya pushing into her till the two stood flanked by the wall. The doctor meanwhile had regained his footing and was walking threateningly towards them.
“You betrayed me, Cecilia,” he said with a noticeable lisp from the alcohol in his body, “you are not Camilla’s sister. You cannot be.”
“No Charles dear,” said the woman pushing further into the wall, “I only wanted to cure you.”
“I am not ill!” thundered Charles Melcrose.
“No, you’re not,” Cecilia tried to placate him, “It’s this city. This dammed city will ruin us let’s go back to Calcutta.”
Dr. Melcrose was finding it difficult to keep his balance. He held the edge of a basin to support himself but failed to continue for much longer and buckled upon the floor. The pistol slipped from his hand and clanged upon the floor. He tried to reach for it but failed, then fell back, unconscious. Maya quickly rushed towards him to claim the pistol even as Cecilia moved to examine her husband. She took his limp head into her hand and kissed his forehead.
“Why can’t you forget her, Charles,” she sobbed.
The two women shifted the doctor’s body outside the crypt, near his table. The decaying smell of the basement had become unbearable and Maya decided to escape from the suffocating place. Cecilia Melcrose, though, seemed to have something else upon her mind. She picked up a long iron bar lying in a corner and strode back angrily towards the crypt. Maya followed her but stopped at the door to watch the angry woman wield the rod upon the glass coffin of her sister. She brought the bar down in ineffable anger upon the case which cracked immediately. Water poured forth in numerous tiny streams from the case. But Cecilia was not done, she brought the bar upon the case till it was shattered and the pale body of her sister, preserved for two years, slipped out of the case and onto the bed of glass shards spread upon the floor.
“Why don’t you leave us,” Cecilia screamed at her dead sister bringing the bar upon the corpse’s stomach. She hit the body mercilessly as if she could scare it into leaving the memory of her husband.
Maya would have done something to stop the raging Cecilia but something else had occupied her attention. As she listened carefully, her ears rung not just by Cecilia’s angry outburst but other distinct voices. Screams and arguments and something which felt unmistakably like laughter. The sounds were coming from the crypt, muffled at the moment but certainly present. Cecilia was too caught up in violence to have noticed it but Maya could no longer ignore the alien voices. She moved closer to the end of the crypt where the sound seemed to be coming from.
But she never made it there.
A few yards into her foray, a loud blast shook the basement, throwing her back towards the door.
31
Secret Warehouse
The railway track extended for a good quarter of a mile. For the most part, it was covered by dirt, dead leaves, and brambles, either it was used very infrequently or it was hidden painstakingly after every use. The track had gradually gotten harder to traverse, the brambles had grown thornier and the darkness more intense. The High Guard had not bothered to take any Longstaff on his impromptu excursion, for one, he doubted if any of the two would have consented to follow him into the dark, snake-infested bushes. He also did not want to go back towards the river bank to call them, he was not sure if he would have been able to find the track again in the dark.
Ernst supposed that the track was used to support some sort of trolley to transport goods from the warehouse to the river bank from where the load was taken to the harbor. How such a blatant operation of smuggling went on unnoticed, he had little clue. Perhaps the local High Guards had a commission in the dealings.
The track ended abruptly at a small hovel. The brick structure, built in a clearing in the middle of the forest was barely taller than Ernst. The High Guard explored the area. The door to the structure was fastened from inside and there were no windows to peek through. He walked around the edge to find an alternate entrance and was soon rewarded by a trap door built into the ground. It opened to reveal a hole big enough for a grown man to enter, iron steps hitched into the wall led down the hole. Ernst took his pistol in one hand and slid down the hole. He had expected the hole to be darker than outside but it was brighter. A faint yellow glow seemed to be wafting from one of the inner chambers of the underground structure. The hole opened in a small stone-paved room. It was empty apart from a stool which Ernst suspected helped people climb onto the iron ladder. The light in the room poured in from the door which opened into a huge hall, bigger than any that Ernst had ever seen. It could easily swallow the Vasco Constabulary whole and still have space left. Even in the dim glow of the hall which was lit by a dozen gas-lamps hanging upon the ceiling, Ernst was shocked by the contents of the place. Its immense girth was overflowing with goods. Towers and castles of wooden crates lay stacked, all over the floor, interspersed with mounds of bulging jute sacks stitched at their mouth. Horace Ibrahim had been right, a large consignment was to be smuggled today.
But why hadn’t it been loaded?
Ernst wandered around the place, skipping past packaging material, rolls of jute twigs, sacks, and empty wooden crates, as well as mounds of iron nails. Some of the things hadn’t been packed at all, they lay on the floor, hidden by the rubbish or perched on top of the boxes. For all the mountain of artifacts present in the hall, it seemed queerly devoid of any living soul. Ernst moved carefully, gun in hand, to scour the place and look for any ambushing men but there were none. He could only reason that they had packed all the stuff in anticipation of
the delivery but had somehow gotten a sniff that the High Guards knew about their plan and so had postponed it to a more auspicious date. Ernst decided to explore the contents of the box. Most were full of precious metals, gold, and silver. Some had dried herbs and spices as well as ornamental porcelain. There were stuffed lion heads and animal skin. Some sacks even contained what seemed like gun powder. Ernst moved further into the hall exploring the contents when his eyes fell suddenly on a small wooden crate which was yet to be covered. The content of the box made his legs buckle down in excitement.
Lying inside the box on a luxuriant red rug was a skull much too large for any normal man, below the skull was a femur bone. The High Guard couldn’t believe his luck, he had stumbled upon the stolen skull of The Ladder. But that was not where the surprise ended. A few yards from the box huddled in an iron cage near the wall was the figure of a man. He was short in stature, did not have much hair on his head, and on his right cheek, there was a scar. The man exactly matched Odoi’s description of the thief! The evening was getting successively better for Ernst.
The man was sleeping now, huddled like a dog in the street. The cage was locked from outside and a plate of half-eaten food was kept inside the cage. Was he being transported as well?
Ernst walked over to the cage and rattled the iron bars with his gun. The man woke up with a start, “what,” he said sleepily, “is it time to move.”
He then realized that he was looking at a stranger with a gun in his hand. The man huddled back in fear looking aghast.
“wh..who are you,” he stuttered.
‘I am Captain Wilhelm of Vasco Constabulary, who are you, and what are you doing here.”
The Anatomist (Maya Mystery Book 2) Page 13