Authors: Kim Wright
Your Majesty:
I turn to you in humble request. My stepfather, the retired
Secretary-General Anthony Weaver, has been unjustly arrested for the murder of my mother, Rose Everlee Weaver. Your majesty knows the details of my true father’s death. Mr. Weaver married my mother shortly after my birth, and he is the only man I have ever known as a father. A finer or more honorable man could not be found and thus I know he could not be guilty of such a crime.
I am traveling to Indi
a at once and shall be in route to Bombay by the time you read this. I am humbly writing to ask that you encourage the local authorities to welcome my intrusion into this matter and to assist me as I endeavor to prove my stepfather’s innocence.
With deepest humility,
Michael Everlee
The Queen folded the letter. “What do you make of that?”
Trevor's first thought was that any man who claimed to be humble three times in a row was probably anything but, and that nothing in the graceless phrasing of the letter suggested that the author was a Cambridge man, much less a rising star in political circles. But presumably the poor chap was in shock over recent events and, just as he said, rushing to pack and travel. So instead of critiquing the tone of the writing, Trevor took a different tack.
“The letter was obviously composed in haste,” he said cautiously. “And yet I am struck by what it does not say.”
“No mention of grief for his mother,” the Queen said.
“Indeed,” said Trevor. “And no insistence that justice should be done on her behalf. His only concern is freeing the stepfather, but even his defense of Mr. Weaver is rather oddly stated.”
The Queen slowly nodded. “He does not say that Anthony Weaver would not have killed his wife because he loved her. Instead he suggests this would be impossible only because Mr. Weaver is an honorable man.”
One motion Trevor had never seen the Queen make was a shrug; as the dominant monarch of the civilized world, it would never do for Victoria to show either indifference or uncertainty. And yet she came close to the gesture now, her shoulders rising and dropping ever so slightly. “I was not touched by this letter in the least, Detective,” she said. “The line about him trusting that I remember the details of his true father’s death was nothing more than a bully of the most direct sort. He all but said that his father was a decorated hero and thus that I must help him. I do not like to have my hand forced in such a manner.”
Now she did shrug. “The trouble, of course, is that his father was a decorated hero and thus I indeed must help him. I was about to compose a directive to the Bombay police this afternoon, but put the matter aside to grant you an audience. And now it strikes me that this seeming coincidence is not coincidence at all, but rather an indication that the Weaver murder has more wide-ranging significance than I originally understood.”
The Queen paused. “I recall Miss Bainbridge’s unique personality most specifically,” she softly added. “I can only assume that she too plans to depart for Bombay?”
“I imagine that she is packing now, your Majesty.”
“Do you further imagine that our Miss Kelly and the charming young doctor will accompany her?”
“Yes, Emma is Geraldine’s companion and Tom is her nephew so I feel safe in predicting that they are packing as well.”
“And so shall you,” said the Queen.
Even though Trevor had come to Windsor with just this intent, the swiftness of the Queen’s decision stunned him. “You wish me to go to India, Your Majesty?”
“Yes, and take the others. The clever Jew and that young bobby who looks like a choirboy. The report from Bombay was sadly limited, so it is impossible to predict what you will find when you arrive there, but something about all this is…it seems very queer, Detective. I shall write precisely the directive that Michael Everlee requested, but on your behalf. Informing the local authorities that your team will be conducting an independent investigation at my special request and instructing them to grant you every courtesy in your efforts.”
And won’t they just love that
, Trevor thought. The one thing the Everlee pup had gotten right was when he called British interest in an Indian crime “an intrusion.” But Trevor nodded to the Queen and, following her wave of dismissal, rose to his feet.
“Speed is essential, Detective,” Victoria said. “I doubt you shall be able to overtake Michael Everlee in his journey, but with any luck you shall join him in Bombay before he manages to do any real damage.”
“Damage to the case, Your Majesty?”
“Damage to the crown.” The Queen looked at the letter on the table beside her with distaste. “We do not trust him.”
Chapter Four
The Port of Suez
August 21,
1889
10:15 AM
Whenever the Queen of England takes an interest, matters begin to move with astonishing speed.
Within hours of Trevor’s audience at Windsor Castle, paperwork had been delivered to his quarters in the rooming house, detailing travel plans for six people, and by the next afternoon, they were all on the train. The morning of the third day found them at the port of Suez, preparing to board a steamer for Bombay.
As the rest of the group went strolling, determined to absorb the limited charms a working port has to offer and taking advantage of their brief respite between the train and the boat, Trevor remained behind. He found a bit of shade on the dock and leaned back against a wall of cargo, keeping an eye on the group’s trunks and valises as he waited. Trevor had spent his professional lifetime struggling to surmount the British mistrust of foreigners – a form of bigotry that he knew, despite his concerted attempts to dispel it, still flowed within his veins. From the moment of their arrival, this Arab port had struck him as utter mayhem, with any number of small, dark men darting about beneath the relentless Middle Eastern sun, babbling among themselves in an incomprehensible tongue.
Take this fellow, for example. He was approaching the heap of eleven bags, all piled into a rough crate, which had accompanied them so far on their trip. One for each man, two for Emma, and the remaining five crammed with any number of improbable items which Geraldine had solemnly declared to be “necessities.” Judging from the shape, one of them apparently held a violin. Trevor did not wish to insult the dockworker, who moved about the cargo with the agility of a boy and the face of a grandfather, but he could hardly help but stare when the man pulled from his pocket, of all things, a paintbrush. Dipping it into a nearby can of black paint, he marked the side of the crate with four English letters: POSH.
“Never thought I’d see the day when the likes of us would be called posh, did you, Sir?”
Trevor tilted his chin in the direction of the familiar voice. “You decided to cut your walk short, Davy?”
“Not exactly a stroll through Covent Garden, is it, Sir?”
“That it is not,” Trevor agreed, reflecting that it was probably nerves about boarding the ship as much as the smell and clutter of the port which had driven the boy back. It was well known throughout the group that Davy suffered from seasickness.
“We won’t be on the open sea for long, lad,” Trevor went on, his eyes never leaving the man with the paintbrush, who had now moved to mark the same four letters on the other side of the crate. “We’ll be sailing a strait with land in view on both sides for at least half the journey.”
“I know, Sir,” Davy said, although he hardly sounded convinced. “Miss Emma showed me the map.”
“And you know what this means?” Trevor asked, gesturing toward the crate with his pipe. “This POSH?”
“Stands for Port Out, Starboard Home,” Davy said promptly. “So we’re to be in the best cabins, both coming and going, which means those located on the shaded side of the ship. Although whether we’re to thank the Queen or Miss Bainbridge for our favored position, I can’t say, Sir. Can you?”
“Probably Gerry,” Trevor said. “She seems to have a knack for plucking out small strands of luxury, even in the most ghastly of circumstances.” It was barely past ten in the morning and the heat on the dock was already oppressive. Trevor could scarcely bear to think what it would be like in the early afternoon, with the sun directly overhead. A shaded stateroom would be worth rubies in such a situation. Trevor had heard of the term “posh,” of course, but had never known the precise derivation of the word, or that it was meant to describe those who could afford to travel even the tropics in relative comfort. He sent up a silent prayer of thanksgiving, hardly his first, for the fact Geraldine was both rich and generous. In the future he would oversee her five bags with less complaint.
“But you know what I don’t understand, Sir?” Davy asked.
“I cannot imagine, for you seem to understand a great deal, Davy. Often more than Rayley and myself combined, I should venture.”
The boy flushed with pleasure. Or perhaps he was simply flushed. Hard to tell in this heat, and Trevor made a mental note that once they were finally in Bombay he must shuck these purgatorial tweeds and purchase himself a white linen suit. He had always considered such garments the height of ostentation – practically a shout to the world that one was well-traveled – but he was already beginning to see their usefulness.
“The Indian manservant?” Davy said. “The one who was killed with the old lady? Didn’t the report say he’d been her servant nearly the whole length of time she’d been in India?”
“It did indeed. Years upon years in her service.”
“So how old was the fellow?”
Trevor sighed. “Gone past seventy, just like his mistress. I know where you’re heading with this and I quite agree. Keeping such an elderly man as a bodyguard is a ridiculous notion, even though the report says this quite pointedly. Pulkit Sang was not a porter or a butler, but the bodyguard of Rose Everlee Weaver. We can only assume that the position was a bit of an honorarium. A way for a trusted servant of long standing to keep his hand in the game, retaining the title more than the duties. I can’t imagine a woman like Mrs. Weaver would need much protection, can you?”
“And yet she was murdered,” Davy said matter-of-factly.
“And yet,” Trevor admitted. “You obviously have a thought, so by all means, state it cleanly.”
“This woman was the wife of a retired Secretary-General,” Davy said. “Living in comfort in a big home in Bombay. Probably all she had to do all day was ride back and forth to her social club. What did the report call it?”
“The Byculla Club,” Trevor said. “Apparently the hub of all British activity in the city. Are you asking why such a woman would need a bodyguard?”
Davy shook his head and the two men stood back to allow a contingent of the Arab porters to surround the ponderous crate which held their bags. Lifting it to their shoulders, much like pallbearers with a coffin, they proceeded toward the gangplank.
“I think you’re on to it, Sir. That the reason she had a bodyguard now was because she didn’t want to sack an old man who’d been in service to her for so many years. I guess what I am wondering is why she would have needed a bodyguard in the first place. All those years ago, when the lady first hired the fellow, what was she afraid of?”
Trevor looked at Davy in surprise. “You are quite right, Davy, of course you are. Perhaps her husband – either the first or the second, who can say – insisted she take on protection. I would imagine that many of the British did so in the years surrounding the mutiny of ‘57, when fears were running high. Who knows, as the widow of one high-ranking officer and then the wife of another, she might have been a likely target for kidnapping or some other form of extortion. I shall check when we arrive and see if any specific threat might have been made, long ago, that convinced Rose or someone close to her that she needed a bodyguard.”
“And Sir?” Davy ventured.
“Yes, lad?”
“While you are asking, try to find out why the lady would have chosen an Indian bodyguard. Seems more probable, under the circumstances, that she’d have wanted British.”
***
Bombay - The Terrace of the Byculla Club
1:49 AM
“To be honest,” Hubert Morass said, tossing back the last of his gin and tonic, “I struggle to understand why the death of an old lady and her servant should cause so much excitement.”
“Is that so?” Henry Seal asked drily, gazing into his own glass. Gin and tonics were the drink of choice among the elite of the Raj, and the cocktail was claimed to be popular for its medicinal value. The tonic water was dosed with quinine to offset the chance of malaria and the limes, so generously squeezed that the bottom of his glass was awash in pulp, were known to prevent scurvy. The gin itself, Seal could only suppose, was to calm the nerves. And judging by how freely it was poured, the British in Bombay must be nervous indeed.
Seal had only been in Bombay himself a few months and was struggling to get a grasp on the duties of his post. Although he reported straight back to London instead of to the field office in Bombay, apparently he rested more or less on the same level of authority as this crass buffoon Morass. The man had clearly gained his own middling status through some cousin or in-law or old school friend, for he most certainly had not earned the position through his intelligence or social deftness. He had made it clear at more than one turn that he not only had few theories about the murder of Rose Weaver, but he even lacked the most rudimentary curiosity about the matter. Seal had been troubled at first, when he learned that the Presidency would be investigating the case as well as the Viceroy’s office. Under any civilized system of government – that is, anywhere other than in India – either he or Morass would be considered a redundancy. But apparently sending two men to do the work of one was the norm on the subcontinent and thus Seal had almost immediately begun to view Morass as more of an annoyance than a competitor.
His real problems lay elsewhere. On a steamer, in fact, somewhere between Suez and Bombay. The fact that a contingent from Scotland Yard was coming to investigate a domestic murder in a normally tranquil region of India was unexpected – and troubling. Part of Seal’s mind argued that their presence was merely a result of the relative celebrity of the deceased and the accused. But another part of his mind – the darker part, which erupted to the surface on those nights when the heat made sleep an impossibility – saw the intrusion of the London detectives as proof that someone, somewhere, at some point in the long and serpentine chain of command which stretched from London to Bombay, had concluded that Henry Seal was not up to the task at hand.
“She was not just any old lady,” Seal said to Morass, putting his glass on a nearby table and pushing to his feet. “As evidenced by the fact that the Queen herself has sent a directive and as evidenced by the fact I asked you here today. The Scotland Yard chaps are going to expect us to deliver them something when they disembark on Thursday. And these bodies are now going into their tenth day on ice.”
Morass raised a bushy eyebrow but said nothing.
“In other words, they’re decomposing,” Seal said irritably. Could the man deduce nothing at all? “And it’s safe to venture that the extremities are going first. I suppose you know what that means?” Without pausing for a response, which he knew was unlikely to come, he answered his own question. “It means any possibility of collecting useable fingerprints is dwindling daily.”
“Fingerprints?” Morass said with a frown.
“Impressions, usually in wax or ink, taken from the tips of –“
“No, I know what they are, but why the devil should they be of use in this case?”
“I don’t know,” Seal admitted. He had begun to pace but Morass was still seated, lightly twirling his tumbler of gin. “But if the Scotland Yard fellows ask for them and we don’t have them….if we have in fact let the window of opportunity pass and they arrive to find the bodies too deep in molder…”
“Why do you fear Scotland Yard so much?” Morass asked, delicately fishing a wayward lime seed from his drink and tossing it into a nearby bush. The two men were seated on a distant section of the Byculla Club terrace. They had been greeted with a reasonable degree of courtesy when they entered and had even been offered luncheon, which they readily welcomed. Morass may have come from the military side and Seal from the Viceroy, but civil servants, no matter what their branch or level, accept food whenever it is offered. But both of them, for separate reasons, had noted that they had been escorted to a highly undesirable table. Seated nearly in direct sun, far from the umbrellas where the other diners were clustered.
We shall let you in
, the table location seemed to suggest, because the paperwork you carry demands it.
But we shall not make you welcome.
“I do not fear the Yard,” Seal said.