Bombay Mail, page 10
“Some of my friends think I’m crazy on the subject of modern plumbing, Highness,” Breeze continued. “They say I got a porcelain-bowl complex. Of course, they’re joking. But I have got my own theories on this problem, Highness. I’m not just a mercenary businessman. There’s a lot of idealism behind my being here in India. I always say, ‘Show me the number and design of a country’s bathrooms, and I’ll tell you how civilized that country is.’ What’s holding India back from her rightful place in the council of nations, Highness? The caste system, isn’t it? All right, what’s responsible for the caste system, Highness? Hygiene, isn’t it? In the old days, you fellows didn’t want to associate with the scavengers and sweepers because they were dirty. They smelled bad, so you put ’em in a low caste. All right, today we can accomplish the same end by putting ’em in a porcelain bathtub. We can abolish caste by teaching the Untouchables to wash themselves. Let me put a million bathtubs in India—”
“What’s your number?” interrupted the Maharajah suddenly. He had torn up Breeze’s card and scattered the pieces on the floor.
“My number?” A puzzled frown darkened Breeze’s baby face.
“Yes. You are sent by the C.I.D., of course.”
“C.I.D.? I guess you mean C.O.D.,” said Breeze. “Or V.P.P., as you call it in India.”
“You are a secret agent,” said the Maharajah. “That is why Inspector Prike put you in here. What is your number?”
“Me, a secret agent?” Breeze laughed uneasily as the Maharajah’s burning gaze focused upon him. “Why, I’m no secret agent, Highness. I’m Edward J. Breeze, Indian Import Manager of—”
There was a knock on the door.
“Inspector Prike wants to see Mr. Breeze.”
Breeze lost no time getting out of the compartment. The haunted look in the Maharajah’s eyes had frightened him. He had the impression for a moment that he was face to face with a madman. But Inspector Prike’s first question made him wish he were back with the Maharajah.
“Mr. Breeze, are you a member of the Chrowringhee Club in Calcutta?”
Breeze colored crimson to the tips of his ears.
“I used to be a member,” he replied, “but I resigned.”
“You were asked to resign?”
“Well—yes,” Breeze admitted.
“Why?”
“Why—I—one night, I—” Breeze was stammering. “I had a little too much to drink, one night, and I guess I said some things that some of the members didn’t like.”
“You said you would kill Sir Anthony Daniels the first chance you got?” Prike’s voice was cold as steel.
“Why I—not—not exactly,” stammered Breeze. “I’d had a little too much to drink, and I guess I said that if a man plays around with another man’s wife, even if he is the Governor of Bengal, he’s taking chances of getting shot—”
“And Sir Anthony was ‘playing around’ with Mrs. Breeze?”
“Well, yes—or no— That is, it was just a flirtation.” Breeze was still very red. “Mrs. Breeze met the Governor in Darjeeling last hot weather and they used to go horseback riding together. Then he danced with her quite a lot at Government House affairs this winter—”
“Where is Mrs. Breeze now?”
“She’s gone home.”
“When did she leave?”
“She left Calcutta about three weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t she wait and go home with you, Mr. Breeze?”
“She—well, as a matter of fact, she is waiting for me in Bombay. We’re sailing on the same steamer.”
“I see. You merely wanted to get her out of Calcutta— so you wouldn’t be forced to make good your boast about killing Sir Anthony.”
“It was Mrs. Breeze’s idea.” Perspiration blurred Edward J. Breeze’s spectacles. “She thought if she left Calcutta, it might stop talk.”
“I see.” Inspector Prike deliberately poured himself more brandy and slowly added the soda. “And when you found unexpectedly that Sir Anthony Daniels would be traveling to Europe in the same steamer as Mrs. Breeze, you took your own measures to stop talk.”
“I—I don’t get you, Inspector.”
“You saw the Governor strolling along the side of the train very early this morning at Gaya, Mr. Breeze.”
“No, I didn’t. I—”
“You’re a big man, Mr. Breeze. A man of your stature should have little trouble lifting the body of a man the size of Sir Anthony Daniels through a lavatory window of a second-class carriage.”
“My God, Inspector, you—”
Breeze stopped, unable to finish his sentence.
“Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Breeze,” pursued Inspector Prike, “that you wrote a letter to the Governor, offering to cause no scandal if he should consent to pay you a certain number of rupees?”
Breeze did not answer. He sat staring at Prike, his mouth open. Perspiration streamed down his plump cheeks.
Inspector Prike took a scrap of paper from his wallet and compared the writing on it with the signature on Breeze’s passport.
The Bombay Mail crawled into the station of Manikpur and stopped. The stationmaster came into the private car with a packet of telegrams. Inspector Prike handed most of them to Lady Daniels, read three addressed to him, and wrote three replies which he handed to the stationmaster. Edward Breeze mopped his face. The hubbub of the crowds on the platform was deafening.
Jack Hawley and Beatrice Jones returned from the restaurant car in custody of their guard.
“He tried to get away, Inspector,” said the guard.
“Can I speak to you, Inspector Prike?” asked Hawley. There was a cut on his chin, caused by impact with the ground when the guard had tripped him.
“Later,” said the Inspector.
“It’s urgent,” insisted Hawley. “I’ve got to see you now. I-”
“He claims he’s been robbed o’ that tuppenny tobacco pouch o’ his,” said the guard. “He’s been raisin’ a terrific row.”
“We’ve got all afternoon, Hawley,” said Inspector Prike. “I’ll see you later.”
“Inspector Prike, for God’s sake—!”
“Go on, the two of you. You heard what the Inspector said,” ordered the guard, pushing Hawley into the corridor.
The train was moving again. The slow-paced snorts of the locomotive picking up momentum echoed from the station buildings.
The guard locked Hawley and Beatrice Jones in the compartment with Pundit Garnath Chundra.
Inspector Prike returned to his questioning of Edward J. Breeze, which he suspended temporarily when the khansamah announced lunch.
Only Prike, Luke-Patson, Captain Worthing, and Doctor Lenoir partook of the meal. Lady Daniels took tea and toast in her compartment. The Maharajah of Zunjore did not reply to the knock of the servant who announced that lunch was served. Neal was not hungry. Edward Breeze declared he was unable to swallow a mouthful. Captain Worthing, too, ate almost nothing. Doctor Lenoir ate, but in silence.
Prike and the florid Luke-Patson both ate heartily and talked of the relative merits of olive oil and coconut oil as the basis of curry, and whether a dry white wine or claret was the logical companion to curried dishes.
The Bombay Mail swung south toward Jubbulpore. The withering heat increased. The electric fans spun futilely. The rushing landscape danced in the wavering currents of hot air.
As Inspector Prike put down his napkin, a door opened and shut in the corridor. The Maharajah of Zunjore stalked into the dining-saloon. His face no longer wore an expression of great weariness and his eyes had lost their tortured look.
“Inspector, I have a statement to make,” said the Maharajah.
Inspector Prike smiled significantly. “Shall we go to your compartment, Your Highness?”
“No need,” said the Maharajah. “I shall make my statement here, and publicly. I have nothing more to hide.”
There was the slight scraping sound of chairs being pushed back from the table—then a long moment of expectant silence, during which the rails clicked monotonously.
“I am well again,” continued the Maharajah. “I have thought through to a calm decision. The pain I suffered was the torture of a soul trying to conceal truth. I will conceal truth no longer.”
He stopped for a deep breath. The clicking of the rails was dying to a lower, slower song. The Bombay Mail was rolling to a stop. A dull boom shook the air.
Edward Breeze sprang up in alarm.
The Maharajah turned his eyes to the windows. The sun shone on a brilliance of silk turbans and uniforms, flashed on gold ornaments and sabers. Another explosion, louder, nearer, sent a quick tremor through the car.
Lady Daniels came rapidly from her compartment.
“The guns are for you, Your Highness,” said Captain Worthing. “This is Satna. The Maharajah of Rewa is paying the customary respects of one ruling prince to another who crosses the territory of his State.”
Inspector Prike’s gaze moved quickly over every contour of the Maharajah’s features, seeking some involuntary expression that would reveal more than words.
“Your Highness will be obliged to greet the Maharajah of Rewa and acknowledge his salute,” he said crisply.
“That is the procedure called for by protocol.”
Inspector Prike hesitated. “If I should suspend my investigation for five minutes during this ritual of etiquette,” he said slowly, “Your Highness will step from this car onto non-British territory—out of my jurisdiction.”
“I shall return to the train immediately the ceremony is finished,” said the Maharajah. “You have my word.”
The saluting cannon boomed again.
Inspector Prike nodded. “Very well,” he said slowly. “I am inclined to accept your word.”
The train stopped with a sighing of brakes. A company of Indian troops was drawn up at attention on the station platform. Six elephants, decked in glittering ceremonial panoply, swayed uneasily behind the troops, lifting their restless trunks to sniff the odor of burning powder.
The salutes were being fired from a small fieldpiece of polished brass, posted beyond the station buildings, not fifty yards from the private car. A battery of Rajput artillerymen manned the gun—which thundered flame and smoke for the fourth time. The artillerymen reloaded. The Maharajah of Zunjore was entitled to a salute of eleven guns.
Windows and shutters dropped all along the side of the train, as the passengers watched the colorful display of the ceremonial compliment of an Oriental ruler. The fifth, sixth, and seventh salutes were fired. Cootie Neal was moving from window to window, focusing his camera, pushing aside first Breeze, then Doctor Lenoir. Lady Daniels held her hands to her ears to keep out the roar of the eighth salute.
Two of the Maharajah of Zunjore’s aides ran from the adjoining car to open the door for the Maharajah. The Maharajah glanced quickly about the dining-saloon before he turned to face the resplendent group of Rewa nobles and dignitaries waiting on the platform to greet him.
Inspector Prike took out his revolver, glanced at it, and replaced it in the pocket of his black alpaca coat, but he did not withdraw his hand from the pocket.
The saluting cannon roared for the ninth time.
The guard at the end of the corridor deserted his post to have a look out the window. Captain Worthing put on his dress helmet. Luke-Patson said something to Inspector Prike, which was lost in the roar of the tenth salute, then moved across the car.
A dark fist rapped repeatedly on the window sill, two windows from Prike. Captain Worthing reached down and took from the fingers of a station coolie a folded piece of paper, on the outside of which was written Inspector Prike’s name. He passed it on to Prike silently, and the Inspector shook it open with his free hand, but he had no time to read other than the letterhead—R. Xavier, Investments, 3 Lal Bazaar, Calcutta—for at that instant the Ma harajah of Zunjore stepped down from the private car between his two green coated aides, whose sabers flashed in the sun. Prike stuffed the note into his jacket pocket to await a more propitious moment for reading.
The nobles of Rewa salaamed their respects to Zunjore.
The report of the eleventh salute crashed upon the stifling atmosphere.
Lady Daniels screamed.
The Maharajah of Zunjore twisted half around. His face showed an instant of surprised pain, then contorted in agony, as he slumped against one of his aides. Quickly, like a puppet from which the supporting hand has been suddenly removed, he collapsed to the ground. His turban rolled from his head.
Pandemonium was instantly unloosed on the station platform. Gorgeously dressed Hindu nobles ran about aimlessly, shouting, gesticulating. An elephant trumpeted shrilly.
Inspector Prike sprang from the train, knelt down, raised the Maharajah from the platform, supported him against his knee. When he took his hand from the Maharajah’s back, it was crimson.
The Inspector called for Doctor Lenoir.
The black-bearded physician pushed his way through the crowd that was forming about the fallen Maharajah. He made a brief, efficient examination.
“His Highness is dead,” he announced in French. “He died instantly of a bullet in the heart.”
“Fired from the back,” said Inspector Prike grimly. His keen glance swept the horrified faces in the car windows.
Chapter Fifteen: CONCEALED WEAPON
The locomotive panted with sharp, staccato blasts as the Bombay Mail began climbing southward into the Kaimur Hills.
The body of the Maharajah of Zunjore had been left behind in Satna, the secret he had been about to reveal dead with him. The British political officer in Satna was co-operating with the Indian authorities in continuing the investigation in Satna, while Inspector Prike, aboard the Bombay Mail, now had two murders to solve, although he was certain that there was only one murderer. He was equally certain that the murderer was on the train.
The shot that killed the Maharajah had obviously been fired from the train, although a hurried examination of witnesses before the Mail left Satna disclosed no one on the station platform who had seen the shot fired. All eyes had been on the Maharajah of Zunjore as he stepped from the private carriage. The shot had been so perfectly timed that the report from the gun had been covered by the roar of the eleventh and last salute. Even those inside the private car insisted they were not aware that a shot had been fired.
Inspector Prike sat at the head of the table, glancing at a dozen telegrams that had been delivered at Satna. The telegrams were concerned with the death of the Governor of Bengal; at the next station the wires would be hot with word of the assassination of the Maharajah.
The last assassination, and the probability that one of their number was the assassin, brought a new, tense breathlessness to the passengers in the private car. Doctor Lenoir sat uneasily on the edge of an easy chair near the Inspector; his lips moved restlessly, as though he were continually on the verge of speaking. Captain Worthing was frowning out the window at the torrid landscape. Edward J. Breeze was complaining in an awed undertone to Cootie Neal how he had been robbed of an almost certain order to modernize the plumbing of the palace of Zunjore. Luke-Patson’s usually stolid gaze was roving about the arched ceiling of the dining-saloon, as though seeking the cause of the unfamiliar metallic vibration emanating from some one of the battery of electric fans.
Inspector Prike seemed to be making a very cursory examination of his telegrams. As he turned them over, his mind seemed busy with other aspects of his problem. Suddenly he stopped shifting telegraph forms and concentrated his attention on one of them. The unsigned text read:
INSPECTOR L M PRIKE
IMPERIAL INDIAN MAIL SATNA
CID AGENT F-691 CO-OPERATING
Prike stared at the message for several minutes, then raised his head and covertly studied the other occupants of the car. Agent F-691 was unknown to him. In fact, even had the number been familiar, the present holder of it might not be. Death (which was not infrequent) and other considerations sometimes made new number holders necessary. Breeze? Neal? Luke-Patson? (The florid-faced fellow looked almost stupid enough to fill that proposed seat in the National Assembly as he sat staring at the overhead fans, with his mouth open.) Captain Worthing? Doctor Lenoir? As Prike turned his head to look at the eminent toxicologist, the doctor, taking advantage of the opportunity, leaned forward and said nervously.
“Monsieur l’Inspecteur, I tell you I must return to my compartment.”
Prike looked at him quizzically. “Later,” he replied.
The Frenchman was not to be put off so easily. “Now!” he almost shouted. “It is imperative!”
“Why?” asked Prike casually.
Doctor Lenoir glanced about nervously, seemed about to speak again, then changed his mind and sank back into his chair. For some seconds Prike continued to stare at him impersonally. He turned at the sound of a slight cough. Anderson was standing at respectful attention in the doorway.
Prike snapped at him, “Did you carry out my instructions regarding Sir Anthony’s body?”
Anderson nodded. “Yes, sir. I went into the luggage van with the embalmer gentleman back at Satna. I should say that Sir Anthony is resting comfortably, sir.”
“Give me back the key to the luggage van,” said Prike.
As Prike was putting the keys in his pocket, Luke-Patson jumped to his feet and pointed at a whirling fan.
“Look, Inspector!” he cried.
Heads turned. Prike left the telegrams on the table and rose quickly, calling in the direction of the servants’ quarters: “Khidmatgar!”
A turbaned head appeared instantly.
“Punka bund karo!” Prike ordered.
The khidmatgar sprang to obey, snapped the electric switch, and the fan slowed down with a strange clanking noise. The blades lessened their speed with a succession of sharp sounds, as of steel meeting steel. A dark object fell heavily to the floor.
It was a revolver.
Prike lunged forward, jerking a pencil from his pocket. Running the pencil through the trigger guard so as not to spoil possible fingerprints, he lifted the gun from the floor and placed it gingerly on the table. After examining it thoughtfully for a few seconds, he announced:
