The Deceivers (11 page)

In Madhya, Mary went to the bungalow and William took their prisoner direct to the tiny mud-walled jail. He called the jail watchman and took from him the keys of the cell used for dangerous criminals. The gallows stood in the courtyard outside the barred window. William did not have the power to award sentences of death; the gallows were a relic of the stern days of martial law eight years ago, when sometimes twenty Pindaris at a time had been hanged here and afterwards displayed in chains on the roadsides.

He pushed the man into the cell, followed, and locked the door from the inside. The watchman protested, but he told him curtly to be quiet and sent him away.

Surveying the lopsided man closely and in a better light, he confirmed his first impression. The man -- Hussein, he’d said -- was quite nondescript. He had no particular features except that small inclination of the head. On entering the cell William had been triumphant and angry. Those emotions were already evaporating. He remembered something this man had said in the forest near Kahari: ‘There’s nothing in the world more important for you -- Gopal.’ It had been the truth. But it implied that Hussein had
then
expected murder, and that Hussein had
then
known he was not Gopal but an English official.

Hussein squatted on the floor and kept his eyes down. At last William said quietly, ‘That Sikh and his son were murdered. You left them just before they fell in with their murderers at the grove by Kahari.’ He dared not mention anything about himself yet.

Hussein looked up. ‘There was someone with me that night. After I left the Sikhs I saw a man hurrying through the jungle. I followed him. He did not walk quite right. Later I went close to him. I have sharp nostrils. Weavers cannot afford to smoke expensive cheroots, so that the after-smell lingers around them.’

William thought slowly. Hussein was trying to corner him, make him admit that he had been Gopal. Why? He said, ‘That’s very interesting. If you did meet such a man, why did you take him to see murder committed? And afterwards, why didn’t you come here and tell me, the Collector, what had been done?’

Hussein half turned his shoulder and seemed to be wrestling with himself.

William continued quietly. ‘You’re a jewel carrier, at least part of your time, aren’t you? Don’t you realize those murderers are still at large? That one day they may rob and kill you. Help me to catch them and bring them to punishment. I will keep your professional secrets, if you are innocent of murder. If you are one of the band, turn informer.’

The gallows stood stark against the gathering darkness. Hussein could not see them from where he squatted on the floor with the window high behind him. But the last of the light threw the shadow of the upright on to the wall opposite him. As darkness swept down the shadow lines of bar and scaffold faded. The man nodded his head slowly.

‘It is an omen. Kali’s? Who knows?’

William did not speak, not being sure what the man was talking about. When Hussein spoke again William jumped, for the voice was not the same. A load of fear weighted it now, and an inner purpose fought against fear to hold it steady, and it was not obsequious.

Hussein said, ‘Do you fear our gods?’

William thought, and shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Then how can you rule us, know us? I must speak in riddles because until you fear our gods you cannot understand me -- or believe me. The goddess Kali, who is the Destroyer-Goddess of the Hindus, has given the roads of the world, and all who travel the roads, into the hands of her servants. Her servants must love no other than her. I was one of them, until my band fell in with a girl, the most beautiful I have ever seen or hope to see. Kali gave her omen, which was an order to kill the girl and her companions. All night I struggled with myself, and in the morning I knew I was not a true servant of the goddess, though I had eaten her sugar of communion. I loved the girl more than I loved Kali. I did not want the girl to die. I tried to save her. The band would not agree. Then I fought for the girl’s life, and the band broke my neck, and killed her, and left me for dead.’

The little man’s voice was low and far away, not a whisper. William said, ‘I don’t understand. What band? How did Kali order you to kill the girl?’

‘I can’t explain yet. You have to learn to fear our gods -- fear Kali ... For a year since then I have lived in fear and have had no place. The servants of Kali think I am dead, and it is better that they should. I was with the Sikhs when they came to the grove. I saw who was there already, so I slipped away. It was not my old band in the grove, and those men would not, perhaps, have recognized me -- my home is not near here -- but they might have, and I do not take risks. I slipped away. Then I saw the man hurrying through the jungle.’ He looked up intently. ‘I saw him stop and examine a leopard’s pug mark. I followed, and followed, and learned that he too did not want to let a woman die; that he would even do wrong to save her, for lying is wrong; and that he was not Gopal the weaver. He was an Englishman. Watching him, it came to me that only the English have the power to fight the servants of Kali, and put me in a safe place, and protect me. And it came to me that they had the power because they did not fear our gods, but that they could achieve nothing until one of them, at least, learned that fear. I made a plan quickly. I asked the Englishman to promise to say nothing, do nothing, whatever he saw. And I showed him the servants of Kali. And didn’t he break that promise, and spoil my plan, and nearly get me killed, and send me on the run again?’

‘But, Hussein, there were only about six of them. If you had come to me -- the Collector -- afterwards, and told me what you knew, we would have caught the murderers by now and hanged them in Sagthali, and you would have nothing to fear.’

‘Six?’ Hussein laughed shortly. After a long silence he said fretfully, ‘How can I make you understand? None of you understands, yet it’s all round you, always has been. You’re blind, because you have no fear as we have fear.’

He stood up slowly, shaking his head. His hands moved, something soughed in the air and locked round William’s neck. A hard knot pressed under his ear. He could not speak, and opened his mouth to breathe but found no air. Hussein’s eyes were close to his. He hit out with his fist, and Hussein stepped away. The grip on his neck loosened, he sucked in breath and fought down a dizzy nausea.

Hussein squatted on the floor again and said evenly, ‘I’m sorry. I had to show you. I should have been behind you, really, so that you couldn’t have punched or kicked or stabbed.’ He tucked a large square of cloth away in his waistband. ‘That’s how it is done.’

William stopped the trembling in his legs and began to swear, but Hussein cut in, ‘Listen. I have thought of something. We can begin again, as we were at the Bhadora ferry, only this time you’ll know more. I should have told you then, but I hadn’t time. I still can’t explain everything, because you do not fear our gods. You have to move forward, a pace at a time, and come to understand before you can act. Do you remember a group of travellers who passed on the road today while you were arresting me?’

William thought back. The little convoy -- the two riders, the five men on foot -- which had been behind them, had come up while he was questioning Hussein. He had a vague picture now of an inquisitive, rather self-satisfied face passing behind Hussein’s shoulder. Hadn’t the grooms waved the party curtly on?

He said he thought he recalled them. Hussein sniffed in the darkness. ‘You
think!
You ought to know. That is a rich man, a thakur from Moradabad. He came through here four seasons back and must now be repeating his journey. He likes the world to know that he is an important fellow. But he is not so rich or so important that his disappearance would cause much remark. He and his party will rest tomorrow here in Madhya. Have them observed, noting carefully the colour and distinguishing points of the horses, the shape of their saddlebags, the pattern on the charm round the thakur’s neck. It is held up by a flashy necklace of gems. They are stones of the fourth grade, I saw, but not everyone will realize that. Observe, note down. When they leave here, follow at a day’s march behind. No closer, or nothing will happen. Do not take a large party, but take your memsahib. She has a sharper eye than you, and a quicker mind. And let me go. Already I can feel the breath in my mouth.’

William said, ‘What’s going to happen?’

‘Murder.’

‘But who’s going to murder, who’s doing to be murdered? And how do you know?’

‘The thakur’s going to be murdered by some servants of Kali. I don’t know, but it’s very likely. That will give you a start, and a little understanding. But you’ve got to let me go. I must find out something. I want to know where Gopal the weaver really is. I’ll come back, then we can take the next step.’

William said shortly, ‘I cannot let the thakur be murdered, and I cannot let you go. You don’t seem to realize that you are under suspicion yourself, and everything you say makes it worse.’ For a long time the man on the floor was silent. Twice he began to say something, and twice cut it short with a groan. At last, as if he had found a new line of argument, he said, ‘Why do you think I am doing this?’

William did not answer. He had no idea.

Hussein burst out, ‘You’ve been in a uniform all your life -- red coat, fine hat, sword! You’ve been one of a band! All the English here are a band. You’ve had a place in the Company, been sure of friends, sure of help when you wanted it. So was I, until a year ago. Since then I’ve had no company, no friends, no place. I want to be with other people and like other people. I suppose it was that which made me desert the goddess for the girl. I
can
go back to Kali, but I don’t want to. I am afraid. Please understand. I want a red coat, I want to.be safe in it. And I can’t be unless you help. That’s why I followed you in the forest. It was only an idea then, and I wasn’t sure of it. Now I am. Now I have a plan. You must let me go. I’ll come back after the thakur’s been murdered, I promise.’

William paced up and down the narrow floor. He’d have to have time to think about the thakur, and what to do. He’d have to talk to Mary. He’d like to trust this man all the way and let him go. There was something very ordinary, and therefore genuine, about him. The sort of murderers he had mentioned, ‘servants of Kali’, could not be ordinary.

Then Mr Wilson’s stern presence looked over his shoulder. ‘Releasing an accessory to murder! Wasting six months chasing moonbeams! Letting slip the one vital witness when he was at last caught! ‘

He said unhappily, ‘I can’t let you go, Hussein.’

The lopsided man sighed unexpectedly and seemed resigned. He said, ‘Very well, you can’t . . . What is the pay of a chuprassi at your courthouse?’

‘A chuprassi? Four-eight a month.’

‘And the red coat and red sash -- does he get them provided or does he have to pay for them himself?’

‘The Company provides the first ones. After that the chuprassi has to keep them up for eight years and three months out of his pay, and mend them when necessary. Then they are supposed to have become worn out by fair wear and tear and are replaced free. But what on earth -- ’

‘Have we not been talking about red coats?’

William had thought before that the man spoke in symbols and wanted any form of security. But he saw now that this was a direct and very literal mind, and that all the great abstractions of security, peace, a place among fellow men, were for him enclosed in a red coat and a red sash.

Oddly moved, he unlocked the door, slipped out, and relocked it, leaving the lopsided man squatting on the floor in the cell. He hurried down the smoke-scented street past the guttering lights in the shops to his bungalow. Mary was in the dining-room.

‘Well,’ she said eagerly, ‘what did he say?’

‘He has a rather frightening story. It isn’t a story, either; it’s just hints, “through a glass, darkly”! It’s difficult to believe him, but somehow it’s more difficult not to. It’s not only his words, it’s an atmosphere or something.’

He ate, and between mouthfuls related what he had been told in the jail. Mary said, ‘Servants of Kali . . . ordered to kill . . . something we don’t know about and will never understand unless we learn to fear their gods. It is frightening. Or it’s a rigmarole of lies to get him out of jail. That’s what Daddy might say.’

‘I know. I couldn’t write a sensible report on it.’

And yet the lopsided man’s short sentences, spoken under the twilight loom of the gallows, were like a dim lamp suddenly lighted behind a curtain. The light itself showed nothing, but it threw shadows, and the observer could guess at the shape of substance from the shape of shadow.

Mary said, ‘I understand why he wants a red coat, somehow, without understanding anything else. I think you ought to let him go.’

William nodded. That was what he really wanted to do. In Mary’s tone was the unspoken addition, ‘Do what you think is right. It doesn’t matter what Daddy thinks.’

When Mary spoke again she came round the table and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘And, my dear, you’ll have to do what Hussein said about the thakur. Otherwise we will never find out anything.’

‘We will be murdering him.’ William pushed his chair back and stood up, his hands at his sides. Mary did not answer. Her eyes were wet. William saw the young Sikh boy’s face, blackened and dead in the ashes of the fire. He said curtly, ‘All right. I’ll let Hussein out of jail in the morning, but I won’t let him go. We’ll take him with us when we follow the thakur. I’ll put someone to watch that party at once. Sher Dil!’

‘Huzoor?’ Sher Dil ambled in.

‘Send the boy down to fetch Daffadar Ganesha, please.’

In the early morning William awoke to the urgency of a man’s voice calling in the compound. He heard the word ‘escaped’, jumped out of bed, and pulled on his boots and shirt and trousers. He had not slept well, and the thakur had haunted his dreams. Was it the thakur who had escaped from the death lying in wait for him, and from William and Mary Savage, his murderers?