The Empress of India (25 page)

“What do you mean, ‘Anybody can go see it’?” Pin inquired, frowning.

“Just that. There’s a corridor which goes by the vault door, and it’s lit by these here electrical lights which is on all the time. And the outer
vault door is open all day and closed by the captain—name of Iskansen—his very self every night.”

“Open?” the Pup said incredulously. “You mean you could walk right in amongst the gold?”

“Not walk in,” the Codger explained. “There’s an inner door what is kept locked, but it’s made of bars what you can see between and see what’s inside, which is the gold. So you can sort of like peep in. And there’s even a couple of those electrical lights in the vault itself, so you can see it real good, if you see what I mean.”

“You’re making me see-sick again,” the Pup complained. “So one can peer between the bars and stare at the gold,” Pin mused. “Most peculiar.”

“Did I mention the guards?” the Codger asked. “There’s a couple of British soldiers on guard outside the door all the time—day and night. And they carry loaded rifles, so I understand.”

“Have you seen this yourself?” asked Pin.

“I walked by the vault. But, like I said, the outer door’s closed while we’re in port. And it’s the sort of door what would look comfortable on any bank vault you’ve ever seen. And them two soldier-boy guards is standing there nonetheless, spick and span, rifles gleaming. The rest of it I got from a couple of gents at the bar, who told me all about it.”

“Well, now,” said Cooley the Pup. “What do you suppose the professor is planning to do about it? How’s he going to squeeze that gold out of that there vault when it’s being watched all the time?”

“That’s right,” the Codger agreed. “Not only by the soldier boys, but by any random passenger who happens to wander by.”

“Several possibilities occur to me,” said Pin. “Which one exactly Moriarty and his henchmen will adopt remains to be seen.”

The Artful Codger looked quizzically at him. “Moriarty has henchmen? I’ve never heard that he works with a crew. Don’t he usually just mastermind a job for a piece of the action, and let someone who has a mind to boss the operation? That’s the way I’ve heard he works the business.”

“I heard the professor says he don’t like to give orders, ’cause he knows so few people capable of following orders,” said Cooley the Pup. “That’s what I heard.”

Pin Dok Low looked at his companions with distaste. “It really doesn’t matter, gentlemen, what the relationship between Professor Moriarty and his—let us call them helpers, aides, assistants, slaveys, lackeys, attendants, auxiliaries, lieutenants, followers, troops, or associates—is, our problem is to discover how he and his, ah, men intend to purloin the gold, and prevent them from doing it.”

“Well, it should be a cinch to keep an eye on the gold the way they’ve got it set up,” the Codger remarked.

Pin looked from one to the other of them. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd,” he asked, “that they keep the outer door to the vault open all day? They’re going out of their way to keep the gold on display.”

“Perhaps they want everyone to know it’s really there,” the Artful Codger suggested.

“Perhaps so,” Pin agreed. “And perhaps that is because it isn’t really there at all.”

The Pup looked startled. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice squeaking out from between clenched teeth. “Where do you think it is?”

“I’m not sure,” Pin said. “Perhaps it’s going on a different ship, and this is just a bluff. Perhaps it’s in a different, sealed compartment. Or perhaps it’s there after all, and I merely suspect everyone else of having as devious a mind as I.”

“Perhaps we’d best make sure,” the Pup said. “We don’t want to be guarding the wrong hole and let the rat slip through somewheres else, do we?”

“We don’t,” the Codger agreed. “Indeed we don’t.” He turned to Pin. “You think of the damnedest things.”

“Thank you,” said Dr. Pin Dok Low.

_______

Peter Collins knocked on Margaret’s stateroom door shortly after breakfast. She opened it to find him leaning against the opposite wall of the corridor, his white linen suit spotless, his face scrubbed, and his hair kempt with care. “Morning,” he said, pushing himself off the wall and giving a slight bow. “Your father tells me you’re coming along on this expedition to see the elephant, so I thought I might, ah, as it were, accompany you. With your permission.”

Margaret was silent for a long moment, unsure how to reply. A tiny voice deep inside her wanted to shout out, “Yes, yes, of course. Wherever you go, I shall follow!” But she dare not. Her self-respect, her upbringing, her sense of dignity would not allow it.
Why this man,
she thought,
out of all the others?
He was good-looking, but she had known better. He seemed to like her, but others had seemed more deeply smitten. He seemed to be quite bright, but time would tell. She knew—
knew
—that he had all the attributes she required of a man: kindness, a cheerful disposition, a loving nature, a willingness to share, a willingness to value her opinions, the desire and ability to put her above all other women or men, as she would put him. . . .

What
was
she thinking?

How could she know all that, or any part of it, about this man she scarcely knew?

She must keep her head firmly in control of her heart. If this was love at first sight, she wanted none of it. She would have to step back and take a long, hard second look before she allowed herself to be swept away.

And yet . . .

The moment was stretching on, and Peter was looking increasingly nervous. “Have I said something?” he asked. “Was I too forward? Shall I abase myself?”

“No, no, not at all,” she told him, gathering her thoughts and putting them aside. “I was considering what to wear. I tend to stare off into space a lot, as you’ll see. Usually I’m considering what to wear.”

“Say no more,” he told her. “My great-aunt Dorothea spends copious
amounts of time considering what to wear, although she always ends up clad in black taffeta and a hat that resembles a blancmange. A black blancmange. Actually a noirmange, I suppose.”

“I think it would be great fun to join the expedition to Elephanta,” she told him, “although I know nothing of it save that it’s an island. Is there actually an elephant?”

“So I understand. Professor Moriarty, the chap that’s arranging this outing, says there’s a giant statue of an elephant. It would seem to be why the Portuguese named the island thus, although there are no actual living elephants. The local name for the island is Gharapuri.”

“Gharapuri? That means fortress town, I think.”

“If you say so,” Peter agreed. “Unexpectedly useful, learning a language with a military phrasebook. Although I don’t think there are either a fortress or a town on the island. Just a giant elephant statue. But since an elephant is pretty big to begin with, a giant elephant should be impressive. And then there are the caves, full of religious sculptures which were apparently carved out of the solid granite in the sixth century. Dedicated, I think, to the god Shiva.”

“I tremble with anticipation,” Margaret said. “Give me a minute and I’ll be with you. I’m just about ready.” She withdrew inside the cabin and, true to her word, reappeared in just over a minute, adjusting an oversized straw sunbonnet to just the right angle on her head.

“What of Lady Priscilla?” Peter asked. “Is she joining us?”

“Lady Priscilla and her beau, a Lieutenant Welles, have decided to wander about in the bazaars of Bombay,” she told him. “A Mrs. Bumbery, a respectable lady who must be in her fifties, is to accompany them as chaperone.”

“Ah, well,” said Peter. “If the respectable Mrs. Bumbery is in her fifties, then she will certainly countenance no sort of immoral behavior. But can you be sure that she isn’t merely forty-nine?”

“What a shocking idea,” Margaret said.

Oh busy weaver! Unseen weaver! Pause! One word!
Wither flows the fabric? What palace may it deck?
Wherefore all these ceaseless toilings? Speak,
weaver! Stay thy hand!
—Herman Melville

G
harapuri Island is a slab of basalt roughly two miles square squatting in the Sea of Oman six miles north east of Bombay Harbor. Sometime in the fifth century, possibly during the reign of Chandragupta II, the greatest of the Gupta rulers, skilled artisans hewed a series of interconnected caves, both great and small, into the native rock of the island 250 feet above the sea. Pillars to support the caves’ high ceilings were carved in place. Images of the god Shiva in many of his aspects, warrior and farmer, creator and destroyer, corporeal and inanimate, male and female, were sculpted in high relief on all surfaces. Visually powerful and undoubtedly beautiful, the Gharapuri caves had for over a millennium evoked awe and reflection among all who visited.

The Portuguese acquired the island from the Sultan of Gujarat in 1534, and found a giant stone statue of an elephant by the landing site. And so they renamed the island Elephanta, as though a thousand years of history could be blotted out with the change of a name. The elephant fell and broke into pieces when the British tried to ship it to England in the 1860s and by the end of the nineteenth century it lay by the shore in several great chunks.

The steam launch
Efrit
was a side-wheeler with a mango-orange funnel, a cabin that took up most of the deck, and a great hoop of a wheel amidships on the port side, the like of which hadn’t been seen in European waters for a quarter century. She maneuvered among the dhows, ghanjahs, baghlahs, caïques, sloops, and assorted other vessels moored around the island and pulled alongside the dock. The deafening whine and clatter of her ancient walking beam engine died down, only to be replaced by a not-quite-as-loud hissing sound as the captain vented a great dollop of steam, a reflection of his joy at having made one more trip without mishap.

Twenty-two people of assorted sizes, ages, sexes, and costumes came ashore and gathered about their de facto group leader and expedition organizer, Professor James Moriarty, at the foot of the steps going up the side of the hill leading to the caves. Shortly thereafter a squad of dhoti-clad native porters emerged from the innards of the boat, six of them carrying large wicker picnic hampers and two lugging a sheet metal camp stove suspended on poles between them. The squad started up the steps, accompanied by a small man in a brown-and-white-checkered suit. Right after them came three men from the
Empress
’s dining room staff, clad in oversized immaculate white jackets, carrying carving knives, whisks, ladles, serving forks, and other impedimenta of office.

“Our lunch goes ahead of us,” Moriarty said, gesturing to the passing hampers and crew. “We shall follow shortly.” He took a breath and struck a lecturing pose. “Although this is known as the ‘City of Caves,’ there are but eight main caves on the island,” he told the group. “They
form an intricate complex of courtyards, grottoes, shrines, inner cells. I have read intensively about them, and I’ll try to give you a brief explanation of what we see as we go along.” He adjusted his pince-nez and peered around the group. “I see there is a gentleman here who, by his native garb, is possibly better able to expound on the religious meanings of these images than I. Perhaps he would like to comment?”

The small, dark-skinned man in the white kurta and dusky red turban performed a graceful half bow as the others turned to look at him. “I have the honor to be Mamarum Sutrow, a humble fellow passenger on this voyage of discovery,” he said in a high, clear voice. “By religion I am Zoroastrian, and know little of the icons of the Hindi gods, except that they express and represent deep religious and philosophical concepts encompassing history, art, and morality.”

“Where is your colleague, Professor, ah, Demartineu?” Peter Collins asked.

“He is upset of the stomach,” Sutrow explained. “He wished greatly to come, but felt not upworthy of the effort of such an expedition.”

I see,” Peter said.

“Poor man,” said Margaret. “This is certainly upworthy of anyone’s effort.”

Moriarty clapped his hands together three times, in the time-honored way of dispelling demons and attracting attention. “Let us head up the path now and commence our visit to the caves,” he said. “I will not entreat you to stay together; you are not children, wander where you like. I will, however, remind you that the picnic lunch will remain with the main party. And when you hear the boat whistle in four and a half hours it would be a good idea to return to the dock with reasonable speed.”

Margaret and Peter made their way slowly up the steps not talking, allowing other people to pass them on the way up. They found that they had a lot not to talk about. Margaret held Peter’s hand as they climbed the stairs and wondered about the rightness of things. She had held the
hands of many a young man—well, fairly many, although she wasn’t sure what the standards were—and they had felt cold and clammy, those that didn’t feel hot and sweaty. But Peter’s hand felt strong and secure and friendly (friendly?), and it felt somehow right that she should be holding it. She had walked beside an assortment of young men and had felt, at best, a vague sort of interest in those aspects of life, and physique, and attitudes, and thought processes that made them different from young women. But she felt an almost desperate desire to know all there was to know about this rather rabbit-faced young man who climbed the stairs beside her whistling “With Cat-Like Tread,” from
The Pirates of Penzance.