The Deceivers (7 page)

He reined in his horse. ‘Chandra Sen, this is the place -- I think.’

Chandra Sen raised his torch, holding reins and naked sword in the other hand, and looked across at him with -- what? compassion? Damn them all, it had happened, just as he described.

The riders josded forward, and the horses blew softly through their nostrils and bit one another’s necks. A man coughed, another cleared his throat of dust, spat, and swore under his breath. Sher Dil said officiously, ‘Silence!’

William thought this was the place. He did not know what to say or do now, and was silent, tongue-tied.

Chandra Sen cried, ‘You three, go back down the road, all the way to Madhya. Tell the police daffadar what has happened. Bhimoo, Sher Dil, accompany the Collector-sahib and me. I think the villains may have gone on, sahib, and crossed the river.’

‘They won’t have used the ferry, anyway,’ William said dully. ‘It will be closed down.’

‘Yes, but the merchant might have lied to the Sikh about the direction he was travelling in. He might have crossed the river earlier in the day. And the man, the Mohammedan who had been with the Sikh, he crossed with the Sikh and his son apparently. Let us go and find out what we can.’

Chandra Sen swung round and, followed by William and Sher Dil and the grim watchman, galloped for the ferry. They reached the west bank of the river in a few minutes and did not pass anyone on the way. The bank was deserted and silent;

the houses of Bhadora opposite were dark; a single small light burned in the ferrymen’s hut. Chandra Sen shouted, and shouted again, and at the third time a surly voice grumbled across the water in answer.

‘Who the devil are you? Wait there and sleep till morning. Any man who travels at night is a damned fool.’

‘It is Chandra Sen, patel, who speaks, and with him is the Collector-sahib from Madhya,’ said Chandra Sen in a quiet, high voice that carried over the dark water and echoed back from the houses. There was a long pause. Then the ferryman, his voice a loud whine, ‘I come, your honour. I come as fast as I can.’

Listening, they heard him swear at his sons, heard their grunts and oaths. The lamp moved, water slashed and gurgled, the faces floated closer across the river. When the bow touched bank the ferryman came, stooped forward. He peered shortsightedly at them, amazement written on his coarse face.

‘It is indeed the Collector and the honoured patel. But -- but -- how has the sahib been hurt? Is it --’

‘Never mind that,’ Chandra Sen answered curtly. ‘There has been foul murder committed near here. The sahib saw it done.’ He gave the futile descriptions of the men. ‘Do you remember any of those people crossing in your boat today, yesterday?’

‘Yes, your honour!’ The ferryman grew voluble. His sons stood behind him, eyeing William. ‘The Sikh and his son crossed an hour before sunset -- I remember them. He was tight-fisted and gave us a miserable baksheesh. And now he’s dead!’ He sighed sententiously, his bloodshot eyes vindictive and triumphant in the guttering torchlight.

‘Yes, he’s dead,’ William snapped angrily, ‘but not before he told something of your little ways which will be of interest to my police. Now, about the lopsided man, the fat merchant, the others -- do you remember them?’

‘We don’t remember, sahib,’ the ferryman whined, clasping his hands together and bowing his huge, knotted shoulders. William noticed how the ‘we’ shared with his sons the blame for what had not been remembered, while the ‘I’ of the previous sentence assumed all the credit for remembering the Sikh. This ferryman of Bhadora was an unpleasant person. ‘We don’t remember --’

Chandra Sen interrupted, ‘Very well. Try to recall the men we have described. If any of them come this way, seize them.’ The ferryman began to protest, whining. What could he do against murderers? He was afraid. He was a man of peace. Chandra Sen said gently, ‘You have four sons, do you not? Your boat rests its bow on my land now, does it not? Do you want to be driven away from here?’ The ferryman clasped his hands and was silent.

William and Chandra Sen and the two servants turned away and rode back a little distance. William sat his horse, the others surrounding him, and thought. Where might the murderers have gone? What had they done with the bodies? If he could find those it would at least dispel the doubts he saw behind the patel’s politeness -- doubts of his sanity. The watchman too was looking at him as though he had gone out of his mind and must be humoured. Sher Dil was worried for him. Those two did not know just why or how he had seen the murders. They never would. Upstream the little fire at the burning ghat had gone out. The woman was there, waiting.

Heavily he said, ‘Shall we rest here till dawn, patel-ji? Then we’ll go to the grove and look for the bodies. We’ll want the rest of your tenants probably.’

Chandra Sen told Bhimoo the watchman to return to the house and bring the larger party on as soon as it was light enough. ‘Ohé!’ William called as the man trotted out of the torchlight. ‘Make sure they bring all the picks and shovels they can. We may have to dig.’

William and Chandra Sen dismounted, tethered their horses, and lay down to rest. Chandra Sen seemed to sleep soundly, wrapped in his loose clothes, but William could not sleep. The lap of the drifting stream hurt his head. Sher Dil stood on guard and murmured with the ferryman and his sons. They had built a fire, and the light played on the tangled leaves above his head. Their low voices rattled in his skull.

He thought of Mary. Damn, he ought to have sent word to Madhya. He had a patrol of eight mounted police there, under a daffadar. He did not think quickly enough. He remembered then that Chandra Sen had done it all, and he turned over painfully on the hard ground. As he stared at the fire and the men hunched round it, it became another fire and they, other men. The Sikh boy who was dead stood beside him, offering him food.

The murderers formed a dangerous band, and they had come into his district at a time when travel was at its peak. Scores of defenceless travellers were at their mercy. The band could not survive uncaught for long -- or could it? The jungles of his district were wide and contained many places of refuge: forgotten water holes, caves among the hills, deserted Gond villages. He prayed suddenly that the murderers would leave his district and go into someone else’s. He bit his lip and tried to think of Mary again.

A more terrible idea flowered in the mesmerizing fire. Murder was difficult enough to punish in India even when the murderer was taken standing over the corpse with a reeking knife in his hand. But it might be years before another such chance as last night’s would even cause anyone to think that murder had been done. On the road none knew where a traveller came from or where he was going to. A man left his home to visit relatives, a two-month journey, to stay there three months and return. At his home they would not become alarmed until a year had passed. Then they might make enquiries. But how? There was no way. They could only accept that the traveller had vanished -- snake bite, tiger’s fangs, cholera, something -- unless the missing man was a jewel carrier. Then the bankers would take a hand. What had happened to that fellow with his head on one side? Who was he? Who was Ali?

Chandra Sen stirred, and William saw that he was not asleep. He said, ‘Patel-ji, I can’t sleep.’

‘Nor can I, sahib.’

‘I was thinking about this Ali. I did not tell you that he’s someone’s brother. The lopsided man thought I was he. And the murderers were calling him when they were after me. We might be able to find out who he is because there are not too many Mohammedans in the district.’

The patel’s sad eyes turned away and looked at the fire. ‘I do not know. He does not live close to here.’ A long silence. ‘Sahib, you remember you told me that the Sikh said that a Mohammedan travelled with him to the ferry?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the Mohammedan left him about the time he entered the grove?’

‘Yes. We asked the ferrymen, don’t you remember? They did not recall him, and we don’t have any good description.’

‘I think he was the same man who led you to the grove, the lopsided man.’

William stared at the patel. It might be true. If it was, the lopsided man had crossed the ferry in company with the Sikh and his son. That mattered, because it would give the direction in which the lopsided man had been travelling.

He climbed to his feet and walked stiff-legged to the fire. The ferrymen stopped talking and stood up. He said to them, ‘I asked you about a lopsided man who carries his head on one side, remember? We think he may have been with the Sikh when he crossed in your boat. Now do you remember him?’ The old ferryman half closed his bloodshot eyes and screwed up his face in an ostentatious effort of memory. His hands trembled, and William thought he must have been in an opium sleep when Chandra Sen’s summons awakened him. At last he said, ‘I -- we’re not sure, lord.’

The eldest of his sons, a man of about forty, broke in, ‘I saw the man the sahib described. He was with the Sikh. I remember now, because he stood just in front of me in the boat. I’d forgotten him -- even his neck. He was so ordinary.’

William returned to his resting-place. Chandra Sen had heard the exchange. The lopsided man must be found.

In an hour light began to glint on the leaves and draw grey and silver stripes across the water. A low bank of mist covered the river, and brightening ripples showed where fish rose. The dawn breeze sent a horizontal streamer of smoke creeping along the grass from the fire. William got up and stretched. Chandra Sen was already afoot. Sher Dil stood by the smoking embers. The ferrymen had fallen asleep and lay like twisted corpses on the grass. A group of early travellers with a cart creaked down the opposite bank. William walked to his horse and mounted. Chandra Sen and Sher Dil followed him back along the road.

He recognized the grove at once and turned into it. The fire had been there; he had lain here, with the lopsided man beside him; one of the Brahmins’ fires had been there, another there. A dozen men trudged up the road, digging tools in their hands.

‘This is the place?’ said the patel.

‘Yes. Here.’ He pointed out where everything had taken place. Chandra Sen called, the tenants crowded close and sucked in their breath and muttered, ‘Horror!’

‘Let them spread out,’ William said to Chandra Sen. ‘Let them search the whole grove for signs of recent digging. The bodies must be buried here somewhere. And look for marks where they might have been dragged into the jungle. Let them search well.’

The party split up at Chandra Sen’s quiet direction and walked through the grove, peering at the ground. William went to the place where the big fire had been and put down his hand. Someone had scattered earth loosely over the ashes. He picked the earth away with his fingers until he had uncovered the ashes. They were still warm.

The light grew, and the tall trees began to throw shadows across the grove. The searchers came back one by one. Nothing, nothing, no sign. William stared past them. They were waiting for his next orders. There was only one place anyone could have dug here and not left a trace.

‘Dig under the fire, here.’

‘Very good, sahib,’ Chandra Sen said. ‘As you wish.’ He indicated the fire with his toe and repeated, ‘Dig here.’

‘Here?’ asked Bhimoo the watchman. ‘Under the fire? They have thrown earth on the ashes, which is a wise precaution at this season against jungle fires. But no one has disturbed it otherwise, except the sahib just now.’

William hesitated. They were looking at him oddly. Sher Dil’s face was loud with anxiety that he should not make a fool of himself. He said shortly, ‘Dig here, dig deep.’ He flushed and turned his back.

Chandra Sen’s body-servant spread a roll of carpet and brought out and prepared a hookah. William and Chandra Sen sat together, puffed in turn at the hookah, and watched the men digging. The patel pushed away the mouthpiece. ‘That man with the twisted neck, sahib -- I think he is the key to this. I wish we knew more about him.’

‘Yes.’ William thought back. ‘All we know is that he’s a Mohammedan, if this Ali is his brother. Besides, the Sikh said he was, supposing your theory’s right, and he is the fellow who accompanied the Sikhs as far as the grove and then vanished. But’ -- he stopped and put his head in his hands -- ‘all the murderers were calling on Ali as their brother, and they were certainly all not Mohammedans. The fat man was a Hindu, a chaudhri.’

‘You know, sahib,’ the patel said quietly, ‘sometimes people use the word “brother” as a greeting to a friend.’

‘Yes, of course. Well, this lopsided man -- the Sikh suggested he was a jewel carrier.’

‘Ah, that’s very interesting.’

In the preceding sixty years of anarchy, jewels, especially diamonds, had increasingly taken the place of other currency. As the gem market fluctuated in different parts of India, bankers and brokers sent jewels around the country. They employed professional jewel carriers for the purpose. Although scores had died or been robbed on the road, no one had ever heard of a jewel carrier betraying his craft.

Chandra Sen continued, ‘Do you think he saw through your honour’s -- h’m -- disguise?’ He handled the words like delicate china.

‘I don’t know. He might have. He seemed to suspect I wasn’t Gopal.’

‘Men of that profession survive only by keeping their eyes open. But they usually also keep their mouths shut.’ The patel sighed lightly and called to the diggers, ‘Have you found anything yet? How deep are you?’

‘Three feet and more, patel-ji, and nothing yet. The earth hasn’t been turned here though, not for a long time.’

William set his face and limped to the edge of the hole. As he watched, a man swung down with his hoe. The earth came away cleanly and showed white beneath. Men ran up and crowded round the hole. The earth flew; every few minutes fresh diggers jumped down to- replace the men in the pit.

They handled the bones reverently as they uncovered them and placed them out in a row on the grass. William stared down at them with a sense of fright. These bones were dead and grey-white, picked clean by worms and ants. The diggers found vestiges of cheap leather shredded into the soil; and discoloured patches of cloth, already half earth, which crumbled at the touch; and five cold skulls; but no hair, no skin, no flesh.