Unbound (15 page)

But the globed had been turned.

"What on earth?" Goddard whispered.

The Black Sea, not India, now loomed beneath the circular lens. The word CRIMEA sat in the very center, bold and blindingly obvious.

"Son of Crimea," John Crimson whispered.

Then he showed Goddard the scarf, and the thread from the window hasp.

Part One

Months of agonizing travel followed.

Crimson spent most of it alone in his meager cabin, dividing his time between attempts to unravel the mystery of the color-shifting scarf and studying everything he could find about Major William Sleeman. The scarf proved stubborn, remaining blue since leaving the abandoned hotel room. As for Sleeman, the man proved a prolific writer, leaving no shortage of material to pore over on the journey. Yet for all he learned about colonial politics and the murderous Thugee Cult, he could not imagine why Malena Penar--or whatever her name really was--had done any of this. The whole endeavor defied logic, and so he'd quickly given up trying to comprehend it. The answers waited in the jungles of central India, it seemed. He hoped so, anyway.

Between the frayed nerves of Goddard's wife and the impending birth of their child, plus the pin in the globe that seemed aimed for John Crimson himself, it had not taken more than an hour for the two policemen to agree that it should be Crimson, not Goddard, who would board an East India Company steamship bound for Alexandria. They had learned, later on the same day that the modified globe had been discovered, that a Mona Pendisio had booked passage to India the day after the robbery. She'd taken a sail ship on the slower course around the Cape of Good Hope. Crimson, it was decided, would steam for Egypt, ride hard overland to the Suez, then sail on to Bombay. With any luck he'd present himself at Sleeman's home several weeks before the woman had even set foot on the subcontinent. Then he would wait for her, and confront her.

"She may never arrive at all," Goddard had said, "but learning her motives is not the primary purpose of this journey. You are my representative to Sleeman. Learn all you can from him. Write down everything, because this time next year you'll be training our whole department in his techniques. Understood?"

What ate away at Crimson's confidence was the fact that this seemed to be exactly what Malena wanted. The scarf, the pin, Sleeman's stolen letter. These clues had been deliberate. She wanted him to follow, of that he felt absolutely sure. And she'd given him the chance to arrive ahead of her. Had their meeting on Old Kent Road been planned as well? He thought very probably so.

It was the why of it that gnawed at his gut, churning with each mile of sea and land he left behind him until finally, after almost six months, the sprawling skyline of Bombay appeared on the horizon.

* * * * *

He spent only one night in the teeming, sweltering city. Hundreds of miles of overland travel still awaited him, and yet his only safe option--to embed himself in an army regiment bound for Sleeman's province--would not work. No suitable dispatch would happen for another four weeks, and Crimson's intuition told him time was of the essence.

A rail line made close approach to Jubbulpore, leaving a manageable fifty miles of foot travel. However, Crimson quickly learned the trains were not running due to a tunnel collapse three days prior, so that path was moot.

That left two alternatives. The first was to travel with a merchant caravan. A logical choice, as common sense said there was safety in numbers. Yet Crimson had learned much from reading Sleeman's letters over the last few months, and the Major devoted a significant amount of his words to the methods employed by the Thugee. It seemed they preyed upon this very notion of safety in numbers. They posed as merchants, trickling in to caravans in the days leading up to a departure, then traveling alongside them for days or weeks. They made friends, they dined with their traveling companions, shared stories and supplies. Then, somewhere out in the vast rural plains or forests or jungle, the Thugee would strike. They were not brigands who waited at blind curves in the road. No, the cunning bastards earned the trust of their victims. They traveled alongside, then struck in unison when least expected. Through some complex and silent system of hand signals, the Thugs would spread among the other merchants, slip rolled-up scarves around their necks, press one foot against the lower back, pull, and twist. A coin knotted into the center of the scarf would press against the windpipe, resulting in suffocation. The hair on Crimson's neck pricked up every time Sleeman mentioned this sinister technique.

The bodies were looted, then grotesquely-yet-expertly mutilated so the limbs could be folded in such a way that a full bleed-out would occur within hours. Buried in shallow graves, yet drained of fluids, the bodies would rot into the earth without notice. Because of the crude infrastructure of the country, it would be weeks or even months before anyone even realized their traveling merchant relative had failed to return. Before Sleeman these disappearances were attributed to the supernatural, or simply the deliberate removal of oneself from an unwanted marriage or overbearing family. Disturbed and disgusted by the Thug's techniques, Crimson couldn't help but admire the cleverness of the system. They were rarely caught, at least before Sleeman took his interest in their activities. Indeed, as far as Crimson could tell the Thugs were essentially tolerated by the larger population. To be killed by them was to have been duped by their methods and their deities, and thus the fate deserved.

Thus John Crimson could not travel with merchants, though part of him almost wanted to just to confront these killers firsthand. It seemed almost a test of investigative skill to see if he could spot them before they struck. The problem, however, was that he would be hopelessly outnumbered. He could see himself standing in a jungle clearing, pointing and shouting "Aha! I knew you were Thug!" even as fifty or sixty of them surrounded him, the rest of the caravan dead or dying. These were people who made murder and robbery a way of life, starting as young as eight years old. Fine inspector of the Yard or not, he'd be no match for them.

So he rode, alone, eschewing even a guide. The police warrant book he carried had no pull whatsoever with the colonial force, so he purchased a horse for a considerable sum from a regimental stablemaster with an understanding of reimbursement if Crimson returned the animal in good condition at the conclusion of his “ill-advised adventure.” Again common sense seemed to run against reality. Everyone he spoke with while provisioning himself seemed to think traveling alone in India was suicide. He should wait, travel in a large group, surely!

He couldn't blame them. To cling to the common wisdom, no matter the evidence right in front of one's nose, was an affliction as old as love.

Each night he made camp well off the roads, which were little more than well-beaten game trails in truth. His skittish horse, bearing the unoriginal name Bucephalus, neighed at anything that came within twenty yards. He ran well enough during the long, blisteringly hot days, but at night the animal seemed to sleep with an eye open and that suited Crimson just fine. From the very first night he slept like the dead.

Fifty miles outside Bombay the foot traffic all but vanished. When Crimson did come upon other travelers he stormed past them at a gallop, eyeing each of them as a potential Thug, though he knew this was likely incorrect in every instance. Most ignored him anyway, uninterested in the goings-on of the British.

For a week straight he pushed the horse across a landscape of shocking variety and beauty. Endless dusty plains and dense jungles. Villages and their denizens alive with a riot of color and sound. Ancient temples half-consumed by vegetation. Forgotten monuments to uncountable Gods. He rode past all without so much as stopping to eat, and by the end he found that, more than anything, he craved human contact. Relief washed over him as the white spires of Hindu temples finally poked out about the dense trees, and the town of Jubbulpore came into view.

* * * * *

The town was no more than dirt roads woven through a scattering of low buildings, some in the native style and some clearly built since the East India Company arrived.

He visited the garrison house first, intent to stable Bucephalus and continue on foot. But the ranking officer took pity on the dusty ruffled man before him and offered to send a runner up to Sleeman's estate on the north edge of town. Crimson was afforded a hot bath, a hot meal, and a sideroom in which to make himself presentable.

Word quickly came back that Sleeman and his wife, Amélie, had gone out on one of their “expeditions” and may not return for several days. As the town had no proper hotel, Crimson was offered a soldier's bunk in the garrison house or, if he preferred, a place to pitch his tent in the vast drilling yard behind. Beyond that the only option seemed to be staying at one of the temples, an idea Crimson disliked because it seemed somehow blasphemous. He decided not to decide, asking instead where Sleeman had gone. He would meet the man today even if it meant hiking until dusk.

But neither the officer nor the runner had any inkling of where their superior was. The runner offered to go back and ask at the house, but Crimson shook his head. "I'll go myself, if that's all right. Tell me the way."

On the dusty main road through town, he tried to imagine himself living here, among such poverty and ragged wilderness. He became so lost in thought he almost missed the beggar who had spoken to him. The words trickled into his head as if come from a dream. "She fell in the well."

Crimson spun, walked a pace back. The man looked at least seventy years old, limbs like bones covered in old, untreated leather. His face was a pinched landscape of wrinkles all surrounding a toothless smile. "What did you say?"

The man just grinned and held out his bowl.

"Repeat yourself," Crimson rasped. "Who fell in a well?"

The beggar only nodded, his bowl bobbing up and down in unison with his head. He mumbled something in the local tongue.

Crimson, annoyed, moved on, feeling once again on the ignorant end of a cruel joke.

A native met him at the outer gate to Sleeman's estate. The home, a vision of dignity and taste surrounded by squalor, stood back a good hundred feet from the ivy-covered wall. The servant, immaculately dressed and impossibly thin, spoke perfect, accented English.

"What is this expedition the Major is on?" Crimson asked, after making introductions that elicited no reaction.

The dark face scrunched up. "No place of mine to say, sir. You may wait inside if you wish, though I know not if they will return on this day."

Crimson tried another tack. "I'm here on behalf of Henry Goddard, whom I believe the Major was expecting. Goddard could not make the--"

The small man interrupted him. "Oh! I see! We were not expecting another so soon."

"Another?"

"The Major is so sorry for your loss. He will want to speak with you immediately."

"Explain yourself, man. What are you talking about?"

"I speak of the woman, of course. The one who vanished."

* * * * *

Over chai in the parlor, and with infinite patience, Crimson drew the story out.

On the surface it all had the air of truth. Nearly six months ago a woman had arrived in Jubbulpore, going by the name Pendisio. She had a letter of introduction, supposedly penned by Goddard himself, stating she was his apprentice and requesting that she be allowed to 'shadow' Sleeman for as much time as needed to learn the details of his investigative techniques. After two months she had concluded her work and left with a caravan bound for Bombay. The caravan, Major Sleeman learned weeks later, had never reached its destination.

When prompted the manservant provided Crimson with a perfect description of Malena.

He sat back in the deeply cushioned couch, too stunned to speak. He'd traveled the fastest possible route, only days after she'd fled London. It had taken almost six months. And yet Malena had been here, by all evidence, just days after leaving England on a boat that most likely was yet to even reach the subcontinent.

"She must have a twin," Crimson muttered. No other explanation made sense. Even so, why do this? And how could the pair have coordinated any of this over such a distance? Even a simple letter could not arrive any faster than he had.

"Sir? A twin?"

"I need to find Sleeman, and I need to find him right now."

The thin man nodded, and gave directions.

In a jungle clearing less than two miles away Crimson found them. How strange, in that verdant place of color and beaming sunlight and clouds of insects, to find a proper English couple studying the mud.

Sleeman matched Crimson's imagined portrait almost exactly. Tall and proudly upright. A bald pate, with brown hair above the ears that flowed down to frame his cheeks in long, fashionable sideburns. He wore his military uniform, immaculate save for muddied boots. At present he stood with one foot atop a fallen log, pointing at a dark cavity in the wood.

The woman with him was Sleeman's wife Amélie, whom Crimson knew to be the daughter of a French Count who had fled that nation after Napoleon's coup. Even from this distance her beauty was obvious. She crouched, boots as soiled as her husband’s, and rooted around in the notch on the tree trunk with a gloved hand. The two were talking quietly. Equals, Crimson could plainly see. He stepped into the clearing and spoke. "Major Sleeman?"

The pair came instantly alert, Sleeman's right hand moving to the hilt of a small sword worn at his belt. Amélie stood and moved a step to be at her husband's side, not behind him. Her eyes brimmed not with suspicion but curiosity. Crimson liked her already.

"Announce yourself, young man," Sleeman said.

"I am Police Inspector John Crimson of Scotland Yard."

Sleeman gestured to the dense foliage surrounding them. "A bit far from your jurisdiction, isn't it?"

"I believe we're looking for the same person," Crimson said. "And I fear some scheme, which I cannot yet explain, has been hatched against you."