The Mountain of Light (35 page)

“And what did you discover about me, Colonel Mackeson?” Lady Beaumont drawled from her corner. She had been smoking steadily all through, lighting each cigarette with the end of the last. She had her legs spread out in front of her,
crossed at the ankles, uncaring that Mr. Huthwaite, seated opposite, barely had any space to put his own limbs. “Did you enjoy running your dirty fingers through my underwear; put your face to the lace of my petticoats?”

“Not particularly,” Mackeson said mildly, and she flushed, red to the roots of her white hair. In the past few days, the lines on her face had become more deeply grooved, embedded into her flesh, and dark half-moons pulled her eyes downward at the edges. It was not a pretty sight. “But,” Mackeson continued, “it is not every day, as you say, that an officer has the opportunity of rummaging through a titled lady's drawers, and I did find some very interesting things. Gifts, did you call them?” He put up his hand and began ticking off on his fingers. “The
sarpech
ornament from the Raja of Sitarnagar; the ruby that adorned the wife of the Raja of Palampore; the thumb ring from Emperor Jahangir's rule in the seventeenth century, which belonged to the Gujarati merchant in Bombay—I hear you stayed at his house for a while and that he was indeed very hospitable. All these were reported missing by their owners. There was also a gold brooch with a picture of our Queen; it usually lies inside a glass-topped table in the Marble Hall in Government House in Calcutta. Four native servants were charged with its theft.”

Lady Beaumont spat on the floor. “They're mine; you can do nothing about this. I'm not”—she inclined her head contemptuously at the Booths, seated opposite—“
them,
nothing, nobodies. You might be able to peremptorily send back what they stole. But
I
did not steal; these were all given to me.”

“The SS
Indus
will leave tomorrow from Suez on her journey back to Bombay, and she will carry all these items with her. You must take care, Lady Beaumont, not to leave such a dismal impression of the Englishwoman in India—and not just to the natives, but to the Company and the men in the Civil Service. Gifts are things that are given by someone, not taken from them without their knowledge or permission.”

“You fool!” Lady Beaumont launched herself across the van and fell on Mackeson, pummeling him, kicking at his knee. When he felt that first kick, he knew that she had been the one—it was the same boot, that same intensity—who had kicked him in the state dining room and then dived to the floor. The others in the wagon did not move but sat still, watching as Lady Beaumont's petticoats rose and showed a glimpse of her lace drawers. Captain Ramsay stayed where he was also, still holding the gun, a bleak smile on his face. Mackeson struggled with the woman, and finally managed to run his arms around her flailing body. He dragged her to her seat and pushed her down. He went back to his own seat, slouching—the roof was curved tightly around the frame of the wagon and standing upright was impossible—hit his head against the lantern, and collapsed between Huthwaite and Wingate. A series of aches blossomed up his leg—she had managed to kick him everywhere other than his knee, and this he could manage.

“Don't move from there, Lady Beaumont,” he said starkly. “You can count yourself lucky that I didn't put you in the brig on the
Indus
.”

She clicked her tongue at him. “It doesn't have a brig, and even if it did, you couldn't imprison me. I'm going to have a word with the Prime Minister when I return, maybe even her Majesty.”

“You do that,” Mackeson said. “And I will explain my part.”

He knew that she would not dare to complain. Mackeson had only realized that these unsavory rumors had followed Lady Beaumont all around India when he opened her box. Every piece was frighteningly expensive, and small, and the losses had customarily been blamed on the servants—some of long and honorable tenures with their masters—but doubt had also, always, been cast upon Lady Beaumont. For she had descended upon obscure kings and nobles living outside the periphery of British interest, or sometimes even knowledge, because they had been known to possess this or that magnificent
piece of jewelry, priceless and irreplaceable. And invariably, after supping with them, riding their horses, visiting their
zenanas,
patting their children on the head, Lady Beaumont had left with their treasures.

“I say,” Martyn Wingate squeaked, “I didn't take your damn Kohinoor. And there are no skeletons in my
almirah
.” He laughed, an unpleasant, whining sound.

Of all of Mackeson's and Ramsay's tablemates, this boy was the only one who had been truly terrified by the events of the past few days. He had recognized that this was no joke, that the Kohinoor had to be found, that its loss had enormous consequences, and that if it were never discovered, suspicion would fall upon all of them for the rest of their lives. And his had barely begun.

Mackeson had found a few half-finished love letters in Wingate's box, badly written, without sentiment, just barely on this side of illiteracy. The girl was half-Indian; Wingate promised her love, but not money, not marriage. He had no intention of besmirching his own bloodline. Or letting his father know about this affair. Mackeson had read the letters with distaste, only because he'd had to. If there was one person among this sleazy lot who would return the Kohinoor to him, it was this boy, Mackeson thought. He would have taken it unthinkingly, and then not known what to do with it, and would try to slip it back into Mackeson's luggage at some further date.

“Your father is the publisher of the
Bombay Herald,
” Mackeson said softly, “and I know you're here to follow the Kohinoor to England, but you will never write about this, or talk of it to anyone.”

Wingate bridled, the spots on his face blooming red. “I say—”

“Is that clear?”

“Perfectly,” Wingate said, gulping, “sir.”

“I hope,” a pious voice said at Mackeson's elbow, “that
you will not cast your eye upon me, Colonel Mackeson. I am a man of God. I could hardly . . . Well, who will look after the poor natives at Cawnpore?”

Mr. Huthwaite's luggage had revealed, surprisingly, a sack full of banknotes which had added up to some five thousand pounds. That he too had stolen this somehow, Mackeson didn't doubt, perhaps skimming church funds or donations. And so, he too was a suspect, although Mackeson could not see how a provincial clergyman in India—or as he had been, a provincial lad in England—could possibly sell the Kohinoor. Somewhere, he too had gone wrong, despite his Cambridge education, his position as Second Wrangler, the honors heaped upon him because of his merits. In the end, the inducement to steal had been too much for him. So why not then take the Kohinoor?

The only person in the van who had not spoken yet was Arabella Hyde. She had had a box full of love letters also, and the complaints in them from her lover showed her to be selfish, demanding, fickle. She had some pieces of jewelry that weren't of much value, and underclothing that was tattered and much darned, belying her aura of wealth. Mrs. Arabella Hyde was going back to England, and she would never again return to India—her husband would not have her. If she had indeed bought a passage to England on the
Indus
in the last few days before departure, it was only because she wanted a glimpse of the Kohinoor. Nothing more. She was the one who had asked him about the diamond at the table.

The Arabella Hydes of this world would always live in half-finished ambitions—an affair would have been jolly good fun, so she had one and didn't think of the consequences; a look at the Kohinoor would have been the making of her in the village to which she was returning, so she'd booked a ticket. It wouldn't strike the empty Arabella that she could actually steal the diamond—her brain was small, her belief in her abilities even smaller.

The van stopped at the midway point, eight hours into the journey, and Mackeson stepped out beyond the shack into the warm desert night. A pale moon, two days from fullness, hung in the sky, bleaching the flat land, creating dense shadows of the few sparse trees and the boulders strewn around. When they reached Alexandria, the moon would be full.

Since the day when he had discovered the Kohinoor stolen, Mackeson and Ramsay had sat alone in the saloon at mealtimes, grim and quiet, away from their fellow travelers. The ship and its passengers had been searched, every cabin, berth, desk, and box. But the diamond was not to be found. At Aden, where the
Indus
docked to take on coal, Mackeson had not allowed the six of them to disembark, even though the coaling had taken seven long hours. At Alexandria, he intended to have them followed into every bazaar and every souk. He did not allow himself the luxury of wondering what would happen if he landed in England without the Kohinoor. Self-pity had never been one of Mackeson's strong traits.

Besides, he already had a notion about who it could be.

•  •  •

And so they reached Cairo, and from there, at midday, a few hours after they had climbed out, weary and bone-tired from the van, they boarded the barges that would take them up the Nile. The barges were towed by horses on the banks of the river—the steamer tug being out of commission—and this took them finally to the Mahmoudieh Canal, which cut its way from the Nile to Alexandria.

Some two days after the
Indus
had docked in the Suez, the passengers bound for England straggled into Alexandria, and settled into L'Hotel d'Europe, in the Frank quarter of town, to await the boarding of their luggage on the SS
Oriental
. The mail boxes had been delayed, since the camel convoy had
broken down in the desert. So the travelers had an extra day in Alexandria before the ship sailed to Southampton.

•  •  •

Night fell on the city, and a large moon rose and washed the skies with its hoary glow, blotting out the stars, painting deep and dark oblongs where its radiance did not touch. Golden lights sprang around Alexandria's semicircular harbor, and at one end, in the old, dilapidated lighthouse, the aged keeper doggedly lit his lamp. There was a newer lighthouse on Eunostus Point, one that approaching ships used to get their bearings and skirt around the border of land, but this older one had a history that went back many centuries, all the way to the occupation of Alexander the Great.

At Rey's, more formally the L'Hotel d'Europe, the passengers from the
Indus
slept in their rooms, knowing they would be awakened before the first glimmer of dawn to find their way through the darkened streets to the harbor and, from there, onto the SS
Oriental
. The hotel was at the end of a large street. It was built around a central courtyard, with a verandah running along the bottom and the top floors into which all the doors of the rooms opened.

As the moon climbed into the heavens, its face was blotted by a few stray clouds, like a veil drawn over a woman's pearl-like face. It sent its silver rays down on the city, over the flat rooftops, and into the room where a man sat in the darkness against a wall, just out of reach of the glimmering light.

Colonel Mackeson glanced over at the bed, jammed into one corner in the shadows. The rounded curves of the pillow made a very satisfactory image of a man sleeping. He did not smoke, although he yearned desperately for a cigarette. He had been sitting, and waiting, for three hours now, as the noises in the city quieted down, as doors slammed in the
hotel, as the lamps in the courtyard were doused and carried away to be cleaned.

The door to his room opened so gently that he would not have heard it if he hadn't been listening for it. A man came in, his bare feet making no noise on the thick rugs that covered the floor from wall to wall. Mackeson did not look up; he knew who it was and why he was here. With his gaze still fixed on his hands in his lap, Mackeson heard the small creak of hinges as his box was opened, a rustle when his clothing was moved, and a little thud when the lid was shut again and the latch locked.

The man at the box then glanced toward the bed and turned slowly around, looking into each corner of the room. He found Mackeson, came up to him, and sat down on his haunches.

Mackeson now pulled his cigarettes from the pocket of his shirt and offered one to the man, his hand moving out of the dark into the square of moonlight streaming in through the window.

The man grunted, took a deep breath, and moved his own callused hand to accept the cigarette. When Mackeson lit the match and carried it to the man's face, he saw that it was calm, his movements unhurried as he bent to accept the light, his eyes closed when he took that first drag.

“Why did you do it, Multan Raj?” Mackeson asked quietly.

“Can I tell you a story, Sahib? A short one, indulge me.” Multan Raj's voice was suddenly hoarse, as though he spoke in great pain, the words tumbling out in a rush.

“I have all the time in the world now.”

“Many years ago, a man left his fields outside of Lahore and went to seek employment in the court of a great king, the Maharajah Ranjit Singh. For a long time he worked in the basest jobs, unworthy of his caste, but he did not mind, since they brought him into the service of a king who was a
lion, a warrior, a just sovereign. Even the smallest job—like cleaning out the privies in the fort—was a pleasure to this man. And then, a few months later, the Maharajah went on campaign to Peshawar and this man was taken along as part of the entourage.” Multan Raj stopped, put the cigarette to his mouth, and took in a lungful of smoke, which set him coughing. He coughed lightly, in short bursts, allowing his frame to shake as little as possible. “I'm sorry, Sahib, there's so little strength in these cigarettes of yours.”

When Multan lowered his hand, Mackeson noticed that it was trembling, the glow from the butt skittering around in a small circle. “One night, while the Maharajah slept in his simple white tent, this man saw some hooligans sneak in under the flap. The sentries were all asleep, and these men were crafty and silent in their movements. He slithered in from the back himself and saw one of the men with his arm raised above Maharajah Ranjit Singh's bed; in his hand he held a long, curved sword. The man leapt at the nearby table, found a dagger, unsheathed it, and threw it across the tent, where it plunged into the murderer's heart. His dying cry woke the Maharajah and his sentries, and very soon all the other men had been captured and taken away. They were put to death outside the tent, immediately, with no trial, no attempt at mercy. The Maharajah had the dagger pulled out of the man's heart, and he handed it, still bloodied, to the man who had saved his life.”