The Maharajah's Monkey (2 page)

He was right. A little later we saw the Minchin tripping down the stairs, though she was far too preoccupied to notice us. My, what a transformation, though hardly for the better! Her hair was done up in a bun
from which she'd teased little tendrils of hair to cascade down her scraggy and powdered cheeks. Two patches of what I suspected were beetroot juice stood out like spots of fever against the white cheekbones. Her frame was squeezed into the tightest corset possible, under a rose damask tea dress. She looked like a girl going to her first ball, until you noticed the set, almost desperate, gleam in her eyes.

“I don't think it's very kind to mock Miss Minchin like this,” Rachel said quietly, as we watched her clack unsteadily downstairs.

“Why ever not?” I demanded. Underneath my bluster, though, I was a little disturbed. It was only a joke and there had been such a glitter in the Minchin's eyes.

“Miss Minchin is nearly thirty years old.”

“Why should I care?”

“At her age she is unlikely ever to get married.”

“So what?
I
don't want to get married. Not
ever
. Aunt Hilda isn't married and she has a fabulous time.”

“Miss Minchin hasn't the money to go exploring, Kit.”

I was silent for a moment, as I realized that lack of money might mean taking on an unpleasant job. Like being a governess to me. Then I rallied. I simply could not give in to Rachel's preaching:

“Why does everyone talk of marriage as if it is the only thing a girl can do? It just means exchanging the
orders of a father for those of a husband.”

“When did your father ever order you around?” Rachel asked, raising her eyebrows in mock astonishment. “You're the only person who gives orders around here. Apart from your Aunt Hilda, of course.” But I'd had enough of Rachel. Ignoring her I called out to my real friends.

“Come on, Waldo and Isaac, let's go to the Randolph Hotel.”

“What for?” Waldo asked.

“Don't you remember? Aunt Hilda and Gaston Champlon are announcing their new trip. The formation of the first Anglo–French Exploration Partnership. They might be going to Africa or even Outer Mongolia. There's bound to be newspapermen and everything, a terrific fuss!”

The others followed me, Rachel dragging her heels as usual. Why was I lumbered with such a goody-two-shoes best friend? Rachel needs no lessons in kindness, but what had happened to her sense of fun? Can't a person have a joke now and then? Did she always have to look at me as if I were a particularly thoughtless slug? My mind was whirling with resentment against my friend as we thundered down the stairs, but I suddenly drew up short.

Two burly strangers were lounging outside the drawing
room. The faces were burned raw and they wore army uniforms. They brought a whiff of heat and dust into our home. Where could they have come from?

“Hello, miss,” one of the men greeted me.

“Who are you?”

“We're with the Memsahib,” he replied. I was puzzled for a moment, till I remembered memsahib was the name for the British ladies who helped rule our Empire in India.

I heard my father's voice through the door, calling out to me. I went in to the drawing room and there he was, Dr. Theodore Salter, perched on the sofa in his oldest trousers and a moth-eaten jacket. Opposite him was a skinny lady, with prominent eyes and a neck like a camel. Clearly the Memsahib. I couldn't keep my eyes off her neck. When she talked, her Adam's apple rolled up and down like a restless cricket ball. Slumped next to the lady was an angelic boy, with shoulder-length hair—shining golden curls—framing a pale face.

“Who are those men outside?” I burst out as I rushed into the room.

“Our protectors!” the skinny lady replied, raising her eyes to heaven.

“Pardon?”

“Our lives are threatened. We are guarded by the Crown's soldiers day and night.”

“Kit,” my father put in. “This is Mrs. Spragg. She is recently returned from India with her son Edwin.”

“My husband is the Resident—that means Queen Victoria's personal representative, you know—in Baroda, India,” Mrs. Spragg informed us. “Poor dear Edwin suffers so much with the heat and the mosquitoes we've decided to educate him here in Oxford.”

My mind boggling, for I couldn't imagine why this woman needed to be guarded, I glanced at Edwin. He was sallow as a bowl of whey, in his velvet sailor suit and looked as if he had never been out in the sunshine in his life, never mind the heat of India. I
instantly
decided Edwin was a drip. I hoped he would not be joining us for lessons. Just our luck to be foisted with someone even less fun than Rachel.

“Darling Edwin is so advanced. Such a marvelous little prodigy. You know, Professor Salter, he learned to read when he was just four years old!” Mrs. Spragg said to my father.

Papa, who was probably reading Latin in the womb, didn't respond.

“As you can imagine, we all realized that we had someone really special on our hands.”

“Why?” asked Papa, who is sometimes very slow on the uptake. Without bothering to reply, Mrs. Spragg, world authority on Edwin, went droning on.

“You never saw such a reader as Edwin. My, how he devours his books. He can read a whole book in an evening. Not childish amusements such as story books, any more. At the moment he's in the middle of that historian. What's his name? Thomas Carlyle. Such an elegant writer, Edwin always says!”

“Do you not find Carlyle a little emotional?” my father asked the boy, interested.

Darling Edwin mumbled a reply, which I could not hear.

“I must say I favor Gibbon,” my father went on. “By the way, do you want a macaroon?”

Papa held out a tray of the treats. Cook makes them especially well, with plenty of sugar and soft, flaked coconut. Edwin reached out his hand greedily, but Mrs. Spragg snatched the tray away.

“Edwin couldn't possibly,” she gasped. “His digestion is so delicate, you understand. Just a little of the wrong thing leads to the unmentionables.”

“Why unmentionable?” Papa, who was being more than usually slow, asked the boy, who replied with relish:

“Looks like hot chocolate.”

“Pardon?”

“Diarrhea.”

Mrs. Spragg hurried on, talking loudly over their voices: “Of course after all the trouble in India we couldn't leave
Edwin in that heathen country a moment longer. I won't stand for violence! His health is so delicate it would be—”

“What violence?” I interrupted, aware that my friends were hovering, restless to be away.

“Didn't you hear about it? The Maharajah of Baroda, that wicked man, he tried to poison my husband! He invited us all to the palace for tiffin. The bearers brought out the cakes and sherbet, a lovely spread. But the rotter had put arsenic, diamond dust and copper in my husband's lemon sherbet. A wicked concoction.”

“How dreadful,” I gasped.

“That isn't the worst of it. Poor dear Edwin took the cup laced with arsenic, he nearly died! He lay on the floor, foam coming out of his mouth!”

They didn't need arsenic to kill Edwin, I thought, glancing over at the pale boy on the sofa. A puff of wind would do it.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“Edwin took weeks to recover and I fear still—”

“I don't mean Edwin,” I interrupted. This woman could talk of nothing but her son. “The Maharajah, the poisoner—what was his name?”

“Malharrao? I'm convinced he is a madman. Well the British arrested him, of course. He was charged with attempted murder. He was brought to England by steamer to stand trial. But the horrifying thing is—” she
stopped dramatically.

“Yes?” I prompted.

“On arrival at Liverpool, Malharrao was put in Walton Jail.”

“A fearsome place,” my father said. “Impossible to break out of.”

“But
he
did. He simply walked out of his cell—it was found by the warder with the door swinging open, empty!”

“Extraordinary,” I breathed. “But how did he escape?”

“It is a complete mystery. But one thing is for sure—” she paused dramatically.

“What?” I asked.

“He must have had outside help.”

“Perhaps he was a lockpick,” I said. “There are people like that—think of the great escapologist John Nevil Maskelyne.”

“Absolutely impossible,” Mrs. Spragg insisted. “No, there is the stench of corruption about this case! The jail authorities found a single gold sovereign under his bunk. The jailers must have been bribed. There is money at the back of this.
Someone
with money—someone who could pull strings wanted the Maharajah out of that jail.” Mrs. Spragg glanced around warily, as if even here there might be spies, listening. “We've been warned that Malharrao might come after us. That is why we
have to be so very careful with Edwin.”

Edwin shivered and Mrs. Spragg moved protectively closer to him. I felt a rush of sympathy for Edwin and his mother—and chided myself for judging them so fast. It is one of my greatest faults—making judgments on people I hardly know. How frightening to be pursued by this mad Maharajah.

I wanted to hear more, for it was an intriguing tale but Isaac was tugging my arm. My friends were impatient, if we didn't go we might miss the fun at the Randolph. We said our goodbyes and were leaving when Rachel burst into screams. How she screamed! Such shrieking must have roused the whole house. I rushed over to her. She was clutching her neck, where I could see a large red mark, the kind a particularly vicious wasp or a snake might make.

A wasp? In February?

Something was glinting on the floor, I bent down and picked it up. A tiny thing, no bigger than the tip of a sewing needle. It shone in my palm and I stared at it uncomprehendingly. What on earth was it? A fragment broken from the housemaid's pins? A sting from a strange wasp? Was this the thing that had caused Rachel's wound?

“THIS WILL NOT DO.” Mrs. Spragg sprang up from the sofa and raged at Rachel. “You'll UPSET poor Edwin.
His nerves cannot stand hysterical behavior.” She turned to my father. “Professor Salter, unless you can control your pupils we cannot have Edwin join you.”

“As you wish,” Father said mildly.

I stared at the thing in my palm and in flash I understood. Tiny and deadly, it was the dart from some strange oriental blowpipe. Just as I realized this I caught Edwin's eye. He was smirking at me quite openly, as his mother raged at Rachel for scaring her poor delicate boy. Edwin must have picked up the blowpipe from India. Perhaps from one of the native bazaars. Mrs. Spragg's angel had just attacked my best friend.

Sometimes you should trust your first impression. Here I was berating myself for being too hasty to judge people—when I was right to dislike Edwin. There was a wicked imp under that angelic exterior. Well, this time he had picked the wrong person to play tricks on. If we had not been late for Aunt Hilda's conference I would have taken my revenge there and then.

As we left I scowled at the boy. He caught my eye and a glance of perfect understanding flashed between us. We were at war! And this golden-haired poppet was thirsting for the battle. I'll pay you back for this, Edwin, I promised myself, just you wait and see.

“I need my eyesight tested,” Waldo sniggered as we made our way through the throng at the Randolph Hotel. His eyes were fixed on my aunt and he was grinning away unpleasantly. “I'm seeing things.”

“Spectacles would bring out the color of your eyes,” I replied, in mock sympathy, knowing that my friend was far too vain to consider them.

“Your aunt. She looks almost … handsome!” he snickered. “Like a man in fancy dress.”

I scanned Aunt Hilda, dominating her audience from the heights of a massive podium. At first glance she looked like her usual self, a cross between some sturdy heathen statue and a good old British bulldog. At second glance there was something odd. Was that a bow in her hair? This wasn't right. She was wearing a lilac gown with a pretty white lace collar. Too pretty! The lace frothed and tumbled over her dress in a waterfall of feminine frills. I would never wear such a collar. What on
earth was my aunt doing in it? Where were her famous check waistcoats? Those pantaloons that confused small children into thinking she was a man?

My gruff, mannish aunt—the woman who had forced the fearsome Tartars of Omsk into giving up the jeweled diadem by sheer willpower—was dressed like the Minchin. Like a flighty young lady dolled up to impress her beau. What on earth was going on?

Then a thought struck me. Champlon. The French explorer must have coaxed my aunt into dressing up like a Gallic poodle. There was definitely something Parisian in the cut of her lilac gown. Monsieur Gaston Champlon was a great dandy, with his waxed mustache, Malacca canes and embroidered sateen waistcoats. Now he'd turned my aunt into an advertisement for the fashions of the Champs Élysées. Why, together, Hilda Salter and Monsieur Gaston Champlon would make a most ridiculous pair of adventurers!

Ignoring Waldo, I settled myself on to a bench. Unfortunately, I knocked into a man in an awful tartan jacket, who scowled at me. Then Waldo stamped on my foot, making me wince in pain.

“Watch out, you clumsy oaf!” I snapped, turning on him.

“What have I done?” Waldo replied, good-humoredly, but I was still upset with his remarks about my aunt.

“You stood on my foot. I'm a girl not a Turkey carpet!”

“Oh, you're a girl, are you? I didn't realize.” His blue eyes tried to gaze into mine, but I looked away. “If you're a girl,” Waldo went on, “why don't you behave like one?”

“What, you mean preen and simper and drop my handkerchief,” I retorted. “No thanks!”

“No one said anything about simpering. Just try and—”

“You'll never be satisfied till I ask your permission every time I want to sneeze!”