The Deceivers (14 page)

A face, pale and long, rose before him, and he drew back the whip. The face was Chandra Sen’s. He gasped, and in the effort of holding his stroke fell off his horse. ‘Chandra Sen!’ he cried as he fell.

The travellers closed in over him, the cavalry swirled all around, hoofs thudded and clashed. Chandra Sen stooped over him; a knife shone in his hand; his eyes stared down into William’s. William had been sure that the patel had recognized him in that instant before, when he had held the stroke of his whip; but that could not be; Chandra Sen was going to stab him. He cried again, through someone’s smothering, sweaty hand, ‘Chandra Sen! It’s Savage!’

The patel paused, and his long bloodhound face set in amazement. Then he stood back, dodged a thrusting lance, and shouted, ‘Friends, stop fighting! It is our most excellent Collector-sahib from Madhya, and my friend! What have we done? Stop, stop!’

The travellers rested their arms and closed in round Chandra Sen. The cavalry surged among them, the horses’ long manes tossing and the lancers shouting angry words and hitting the travellers on the heads with the butts of their lances. Rikirao jumped down from the saddle.

‘Are you hurt? Harrison-sahib will not forgive me.’

William rose wearily. ‘No. I’m not hurt. Tell your men to let the travellers be. I’m terribly afraid that we have made a mistake. My fault though. Don’t you worry.’

Lance-Daffadar Rikirao said, ‘It’s no mistake. Look at their discipline! I’ll search them, and then we’ll take them all back to Khapa. Some loot may be in their baggage.’

William himself was too shaken in his judgement to have given the order; but he could not countermand it once Rikirao had spoken. The lancers pushed the travellers into a line at the edge of the ploughed field and began to search their belongings. The travellers wailed in protest, and William looked at them individually and closely for the first time. As his eyes moved from man to man his heart began to bump. Two certainly, and perhaps three, tallied closely enough with he detailed descriptions given by the ferrymen at Chikhli and with the vaguer recollections of informants in the villages north of Taradehi.

Chandra Sen stood aside between two servants who had been carrying his kit. William recognized one of them as the surly watchman Bhimoo and was momentarily surprised. A village watchman was an employee of the community, not a personal servant of the patel. Then he recollected that watchmen usually shared their duties and their salaries with members of their families. There was no reason why Bhimoo should not accompany Chandra Sen on his regular winter travels.

The patel urged his fellow travellers to be quiet, not to worry, and to do what they were told. Somehow, without moving, he had changed sides, and by the force of his personality and appearance was now to be numbered with the lancers. The troops called him ‘lord’ respectfully. Rikirao saw and heard. His hard-bitten little face tightened; he said harshly, ‘You! Fall in with the others.’

Chandra Sen raised his eyebrows deprecatingly, looked at William, and said, ‘The Collector knows me, Daffadar-sahib-bahadur.’

All the spectres of official disapproval sprang back on to William’s shoulders. Rikirao’s mouth was set in a thin, hard line. Chandra Sen waited in passive dignity.

William said, ‘I’m sorry, Chandra Sen, but someone might have hidden something in your kit without you knowing.’ A shadow, something vague and new, something between a hurt and a threat, clouded the patel’s face. He bowed courteously at last, and Rikirao himself began to untie the bundles the servants had carried on their heads.

Soon every unwounded traveller stood behind his spread belongings. The lancers had dismounted and stood opposite; the troop horses were tethered in groups to trees in the jungle beyond. One soldier lay dead in the field and two others were hurt. Four travellers sat on the ground, moaning over bruises and lance stabs. Everyone was exhausted and short-tempered. The sun had dried their wet clothes and steam rose from them.

William got up stiffly and began to examine the baggage. He did not hope for much. Even if some of these men were robbers, they had had ample time during the long fight to throw away the evidence. He found that their baggage did not contain any disproportionate collections of valuables, nor did a search of their persons bring more to light. Rikirao ordered his men to probe each traveller’s rectum, which was a common hiding-place for gems. Chandra Sen turned white with anger when he heard the order given, and William intervened to save him from this last indignity. With a touch of malice, remembering the vicious dogs, he did nothing to help the watchman. The hubbub from the travellers rose to a crescendo of outrage as they undid their loincloths and bent over.

The searchers found nothing suspicious anywhere. Jewels there were, in reason, and when William asked about them the travellers said, ‘This is mine . . . this is my wife’s . . . that one I bought two weeks ago ... it is the money for my return journey.’ He could not disprove what they said.

When the search ended he questioned each man separately, asking who he was, where he had come from, where he had spent the last four nights and with whom, and where he was going. He spoke first to Chandra Sen.

The patel said he was on his way to visit his eldest brother in Nagpur. ‘As you know, sahib, it is my custom to visit my kin at this season. The village clerk has always borne my responsibilities well during my absence, has he not?’ Continuing, he said he had left his house a week before, travelling to Khapa by way of Tendukheda, Patan, and Shahpura, where he had stayed the night with friends. His tone, though polite and calm, carried a hint of commiseration. William’s sense of futility increased.

The patel glanced about while giving evidence, and, having made sure he could not be overheard, broke off to mutter, ‘Sahib, I pray you be careful what you do. I do not know how many of these travellers are men of influence. I fear that the pleaders in Khapa will get at them if you take them all back there in arrest as I heard the daffadar suggest. They will all think they have cause for suit against you. There will be much unpleasantness. Mr Wilson will come down from Sagthali as he did in the case of-’

‘These others,’ William interrupted doggedly. ‘Where did you meet them?’

The patel shrugged. ‘Some down the road this very morning. That one, certainly, and those two who look like brothers’ -- he pointed with his chin. ‘Most of the others in Khapa. That little fat fellow, he says he is a silversmith; he joined me in Shahpura.’

‘You crossed the Nerbudda there?’

‘Certainly, sahib. I have told you I came through Patan, and where else could I cross?’

William groaned inwardly. Chandra Sen, his only reliable witness, had not used the Chikhli ferry, and therefore had not come down the steep path from Taradehi where the murders had been committed. Still, he was glad he would not have to take the patel back to Khapa -- or Madhya, perhaps -- to give evidence of recognition of other travellers.

‘Thank you, patel-ji,’ he said. ‘Please stay here until we finish this, in case we need your help. Then continue your journey. And I am very sorry we had to stop you.’

His questioning of the other prisoners centred on the three whom he had recognized from descriptions given at Chikhli or beyond. He breathed more easily when each in turn denied that he had crossed the Nerbudda at Chikhli. All three said they had used the busy ferry at Barmhan, where three boats were in continuous operation. William’s uncertainty and embarrassment began to evaporate. These men had been positively described and would be positively recognized by the witnesses who had given the descriptions. They had come down through Taradehi and crossed at Chikhli. They said they hadn’t. If they were innocent, why should they lie about their route?

Seeing that they were not going to be executed on the spot, the three began to protest with growing anger -- they were busy men, they could not wait, they had important affairs to attend to. William held to his determination and, in the face of Chandra Sen’s worried headshaking, took the three into formal arrest. The other travellers he released. They packed their belongings as quickly as they could and hurried away south. Chandra Sen and his servants were the last to go. William waved in suppressed triumph to them, and the patel shook his head and waved dejectedly back.

Late in the afternoon, after a party had buried the dead soldier, William and the lancers set out on the long journey back to Khapa. Three of the weary horses had to carry prisoners as well as lancers. Soon after the start Rikirao reined in with a cry.

‘Something bright there! Buldeo, go and get it.’

A lancer slipped down at the edge of a patch of tiger grass beside the road, gave his reins to a comrade to hold, and walked forward. The grasses waved, and he came out with a disappointed look on his face.

‘Only a pick-axe, Daffadar-ji. Shall I throw it away?’

He held it up, and Rikirao’s charger shied from the bright sparkle of steel close to its eye. William called, ‘No! Bring it here.’

The lancer gave it to him. It was bright and clean and patterned like the other. He could not tell whether the two were exactly the same or only generally similar. He would check when he got back to Khapa. He tucked the haft between the holsters on the front of the saddle and rode on.

These pick-axes were of a strange pattern and size, and unusually well cared for. He had never seen any like them before, and now he had found two within a few days. He thought of the broken bodies, and the pits dug for them, and looked at the tool more closely.

They reached Khapa at noon the following day. George’s court chuprassi took the prisoners and led them off, loudly complaining, to the local jail. A pair of lawyers’ touts woke up from a doze in the courthouse compound and ran after them. The commotion died away down the street.

Mary came out from George’s bungalow. Of a sudden William was very tired and rocked on his heels as she held out her hands. He patted her arm clumsily. ‘I’m all right. Did any of the other parties catch anyone?’

‘Yes, six. You’ve got to lie down. What happened?’

‘We had a little battle, and it turned out to be with Chandra Sen.’ He frowned down at her. ‘Did you say they’d arrested six more? I have three. We don’t have adequate descriptions for nine people. Some of them must be innocent.’

Four described at Chikhli. One -- say, two -- beyond. Four and one make -- nine? The ground trembled under his feet and the steps were very steep. Mary supported him until he reached the chamber behind the courtroom and flopped into a chair.

George and the cavalry colonel were waiting for him. They looked concerned, and he heard them speaking but could not understand clearly. The damp heat of the Nerbudda valley brought the high ceiling down to oppress him and squeeze his head. They all talked, he with them, and the talk went in no direction and achieved no object.

They held nine travellers on the strength of descriptions given for five or six. He would have to see them all, but the situation would not change, because he knew that some of the men would look alike. They would have an averageness, so that two fitted every description. The descriptions themselves overlapped; it was not quite clear, now, whether in each case one or two men had been meant.

Of the nine prisoners, only three said they had used the Taradehi cliff road and the Chikhli ferry. The searchers had found no incriminating loot on any of them, or among the parties they had been with when arrested. The horses of the murdered thakur and his relative had disappeared.

William’s head rolled forward of its own weight. Again and again he ran his hand carefully over his hair.

Mary said, ‘All we saw of the thakur’s kit in Madhya was what he wore or displayed. We must find out exactly what jewels and valuables he left his home with and would have kept concealed in his baggage. Then we can compare the list with what these people have in their possession.’

George shook his head. ‘It will take six months to do that. And how are we to prove the thakur didn’t sell some of his jewels along the road? We can’t hold anyone six months on no evidence, can we, William?’

A small angry fire began to warm the pit of William’s stomach. He was not clever, and that was well known. But if he thought a thing out, and held to himself through every discouragement, and if Mary held to him, he would be proved right.

He said, ‘Six of these men have sworn they did not use the Taradehi road. I am going to take those six back up that road. They’ll be recognized -- some of them. Those I am going to hold in arrest. I am going to do what Mary suggests. I am going to find out everything about them, if they have to sit in my jail for a year, and I am going to find out everything about the thakur.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ George broke in quickly, leaping to his feet. ‘And you’ll keep the prisoners in Madhya and hold the trial there, what?’

‘Yes, that seems the sensible -- ‘

‘I thought trials had to be held in the district where the crime was committed,’ Mary said in a hard voice.

George said with brittle mockery, ‘You’re quite right, ma’am. You do know a lot about civil regulations! But, for one thing, these men have to be taken over the road to Madhya anyway, so that the witnesses can identify them. And, for another, a District Magistrate can always ask for a case to be transferred into or out of his jurisdiction for good and sufficient reason.’

The colonel picked up his schapska and blew the dust off the top. ‘Talky-talky finished? I take it you want me to provide an escort to Madhya for these rascals?’

William nodded wearily, and the colonel strode out of the room.

William dragged himself to his feet. ‘Got to . . . examine the three who don’t deny . . . they came through Taradehi. Think I’ll ... let them go. They might be murderers too, of course ... not worth following up . . . this time . . .’

Mary took his elbow and shook her head firmly. ‘Mr Angelsmith can do that for you. You’re going straight to bed.’

William was too tired to argue, too tired to notice the sharpening of George’s expression. Leaning on his wife’s shoulder, he walked slowly out into the heat.