Wives to Burn, page 9
“Come in, Mr. Gabriel,” Rhoda Curring called softly.
As soon as the door opened she sprang up, cold with the realization that she had made a mistake. The silhouette did not have the plump outlines of William Gabriel. It was a thin, angular shadow.
“A disagreeable surprise, Mrs. Curring,” The man said. “I am not Mr. Gabriel.”
The peculiar phonetic combination of a chichi accent and an American intonation told Rhoda that the visitor was Ganeshi Lal, but did not reassure her. She did not like the Hindu pleader. She did not like any Indians, in fact, and the educated ones were worst of all. Not only did they fail to acknowledge their inferiority to the European, but they actually acted quietly superior at times. It was a mistake to educate these people—dangerous.
“I fancy you’ve come to bring me word from Mr. Oaks,” she said. “Is he safe?”
“He’s safe. But that is not exactly what I’ve come for.”
“Is he—Is Mr. Oaks in custody?”
“Not yet, thanks to me.”
“Thank God!” Rhoda sat down. Ganeshi Lal also sat down, unbidden.
“So you shot her,” the Hindu said abruptly.
Rhoda drew in her breath sharply. “Who?” she demanded.
“Come, come,” said Ganeshi Lal. “Sooner or later they’re going to trace that gun to you.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know certainly that an American woman named Lucy Steel was murdered tonight in Fred Oaks’s room at Seaside House.”
“I did hear something to that effect,” Rhoda admitted. “But I haven’t been near Seaside House tonight.”
“No, of course not.” Ganeshi Lal chuckled. “And you don’t even know where Fred Oaks’s room is—or how to unfasten the shutters from the outside, So you could get in without having to pass through the hotel where you might be seen. You’d never done that before, I suppose?”
“I don’t intend to be insulted by you!” Rhoda declared. “What business have you coming here anyhow?”
“I’m Fred Oaks’s lawyer,” the Hindu said. “I want to know why you shot Lucy Steel.”
“But I didn’t, I tell you!”
“Of course. Of course. I suppose your story is going to be that you did possess a .32 caliber pistol, but that you lent it to someone—or that it was stolen—and dropped outside of Fred Oaks’s room merely to incriminate you. Because you must know that by this time the gun is in the hands of the District Officer.”
Rhoda was silent.
“Well, why did you shoot her?” Lal persisted.
“Now see here!” Exasperation was getting the better of Rhoda. Her voice shrilled. “Suppose I did shoot this woman. What is it to you, you—you—”
“Nigger,” prompted the Hindu. “That’s what you were going to call me, wasn’t it? Or jungliwalla. Or suwar-ka-bachcha. Or merely Babu—if you thought that derogatory enough. That’s all you know about India, isn’t it?—how to mistreat us who live here. But not for long now, Mrs. Curring. It won’t be long before our own land will belong to us again. It won’t—”
“Bas!” Rhoda interrupted. “If you’ve come here to bore me stiff with your political oratory, I must ask you to leave. In fact, I shall ask you to leave, regardless. Good night, Mr. Lal.”
“I’m not going until I find out the answer to my question. Please understand, Mrs. Curring, that I am completely indifferent about whether you killed Lucy Steel or not. I’m interested only in knowing why.”
“Good night, Mr. Lal.”
The Hindu did not budge. He said: “Let me reconstruct the crime for you, Mrs. Curring. Let us say it was a crime passionnel. You looked through Mr. Oaks’s window. You saw a strange woman in his bed. You shot her. It is quite understandable. Women kill for passion in all lands—even in such backward lands as India. That is why we Hindus once invented the jolly old custom of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their deceased mates. We found it discouraged adulterous wives from poisoning suspicious husbands. Very well. You were in a jealous rage—”
“I was nothing of the kind!”
“I advise you to say ‘yes,’ Mrs. Curring.” A new note of sinister chillness had crept into Ganeshi Lal’s voice. “Because if you did not kill Lucy Steel out of jealousy, your own life is in grave danger.”
“Preposterous!”
“Is it indeed? I have been generous in my readiness to believe that your interest in Fred Oaks is purely romantic, but—”
“Whatever it is doesn’t concern you!”
“Yes, it does, Mrs. Curring. These next few days are extremely vital to me personally, probably vital to the whole idea of Swaraj, possibly vital to the history of India. I can’t have them nullified by any woman—dead or alive.”
“Isn’t it rather fanciful to attach so much importance to the late Lucy Steel?” Rhoda asked in her best bored manner.
“You might ask your husband.”
“Mr. Curring never saw the woman.”
“I’m afraid he did. He spoke to her tonight just after she got off the train. He was at the station when she arrived, and they spoke for perhaps two minutes.”
“That’s impossible. My husband spent the day on the plantations.”
“You know better than that, Mrs. Curring. You know that your husband spent a good part of the day in conversation with Hajji Ahmed, Shakkarpur’s leading Mohammedan citizen.”
“I know nothing of the kind.”
“Well, I do. Good night, Mrs. Curring.”
“Wait, Lal—Mr. Lal. Just a moment. Please!”
Ganeshi Lal did not bother to reply. He bowed, walked slowly to the door, opened it.
“Mr. Lal!”
The door slammed as the Hindu went down the steps.
Rhoda hurried to the screen, pressed her face against the dusty copper mesh, peered into the night to watch the direction Lal was taking. She strained her eyes, to follow his progress along the beach. Her cigarette, burned down to her fingers, reminded her that time was passing. She flung it away, opened the door, ran out after the son of the Brahman.
Chapter Twelve
The Attack on the Lodge
A lantern swinging from the lower branches of a tamarind tree glinted dully on the rifle barrels of the Sikh constables surrounding the watchman’s shack. Six of the constables were drawn up in front of the lodge, red turbans piled proudly on their erect heads, their square beards savagely dark in the lamplight. The rest were deployed on the other three sides of the little building.
The District Officer came up behind the line and addressed his native police captain.
“Has he tried to get out, Subadar?”
“No, Excellency. There has been no movement, no sound inside.”
The District Officer pushed his way between two riflemen, strode boldly to the front door of the shack, rapped twice.
“Come out, Oaks!” he ordered. “I have a warrant for your arrest.”
There was no response. Hatton tried the door. It was locked. He kicked at the bottom panel.
Virginia Hatton, standing far to the rear, felt her mouth go dry. She wondered vaguely why she had come. She didn’t want to see this, yet some strange fascination had compelled her to follow her brother after he had wrung the story from the chokidar that Oaks had given him money.
The District Officer raised his left forearm level with his eyes, half turned so that the light from the lantern fell upon the dial of his wrist watch.
“I’ll give you half a minute, Oaks,” he declared to the door. “If you don’t come out peacefully, we’ll come in after you.” He stepped back a pace. “Have your men get ready to fire through the door, Subadar,” he ordered.
Cold moisture formed on the palms of Virginia’s hands. She felt her knees buckle. Reaching out for support she grasped the arm of Bill Gabriel who stood next to her, watching the proceedings with detached calm.
“Take it easy, sister,” Gabriel said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
All right! In the deathly silence she could almost hear her brother’s watch ticking away the seconds. She had to act—and quickly. Whatever she did, Fred would think she had betrayed him. No matter. Anything was better than having him shot down in cold blood. She released Gabriel’s arm, ran. She heard Gabriel call to her but she ignored him. She ran past the gleaming line of rifle barrels, flung herself upon the District Officer.
Hatton pushed her aside. “Stand back!” he said.
“You can’t do this, Reg,” she pleaded. “You can’t shoot a man without a chance.”
“He’s had his chance. Get out of here.”
“No, Reg. He’ll come out for me. Let me ask him.”
Hatton hesitated. He glanced at his watch. Then, “All right. Half a minute more. Go ahead. Try.”
Virginia pressed her cheek against the door panel. Her heart was beating violently in her throat, choking back her breath. She could not force the words to her lips. The seconds were ticking by again. She swallowed.
“Fred!” she gasped at last. “Please come out. This is Virginia. Please! Don’t make them shoot!”
No answer. She could picture him behind the door, waiting with that reckless half-smile of his, his arms crossed defiantly, waiting in supremely confident silence.
“He’s not there,” the District Officer said. “This is a trick of yours to gain time.”
“He’s there, Reg. I’m sure of it.”
“Then stand aside.”
“No, Reg. Please. His blood isn’t going to solve anything.”
“Get back!”
“No, Reg.”
The District Officer seized the girl’s arm, flung her roughly beyond the line of Sikh constables. “Hold her, Brinker!” he ordered.
Brinker and Gabriel caught her arms, drew her further back behind the bristling rifles. Gabriel said, “Take it easy, sister.”
“Ready, Subadar?” the District Officer asked.
“Ready, Sahib.”
“Fire!”
The hot night trembled with the roar of flaming rifle muzzles. Slumbering tree-tops awoke to the terror of screaming monkeys and shrieking birds. The haze of dust and splinters settled to silence in front of the watchman’s shack as the echoes died. Wide-eyed and speechless, Virginia watched the District Officer again step up to the bullet-marked door.
“You know we’re in earnest now,” Hatton said. “Come out, Oaks.”
Silence.
“Probably killed him,” said Alvin Brinker. He laughed.
Virginia made a small convulsive sound in her throat. It sounded far away, as though someone else had sobbed. Her own throat was numb, incapable of feeling, just as her mind was incapable of explaining her own spontaneous behavior.
“Break it in, Subadar,” the District Officer was saying.
Rifle butts smashed against rotten wood. The door cracked, shuddered, crashed in.
Revolver drawn, the Subadar stepped into the watchman’s lodge. An instant later he reappeared.
“Nobody’s inside, Excellency,” he reported.
The District Officer blinked incredulously. He, too, stepped into the hut. When he emerged, he walked directly to Virginia. For an eternal five seconds he stared at her—through her, it seemed. She fancied she could hear the grinding of his teeth as his jaw champed sidewise in barely perceptible movements of suppressed fury.
“You lied to me!” he said at last.
“I didn’t, Reg! He was there. I swear it. You heard what the chokidar said.”
“The chokidar was evidently repeating what you told him to say. This is all a clumsy trick to give your filthy friend time to get away. Friend! He’s probably been your lover. At any rate, you’re certainly his accomplice. Come with me, Subadar.”
He strode off in the direction of his bungalow, leaving Virginia with the cold, lonely feeling that whatever slight bond there had been between brother and sister was definitely sundered. She was no longer the District Officer’s sister. She was a stranger—and Fred Oaks’s accomplice!
Accomplice! The full meaning of the word burst upon her like a blinding light. With dismay she remembered what Fred had told her scarcely an hour ago. In the morning a shipment of contraband rifles—labeled wheelchairs—would arrive. They would be addressed to her. Accomplice!
Suddenly she became aware that Bill Gabriel was still standing by her side, watching her intently. She turned to him. Gabriel cleared his throat apologetically.
“Well, I guess I’ll be getting on,” he said. He took a few steps, then came back. He added, “I’ve moved down to Seaside House—Room 3—in case there’s anything you might want to tell me.”
Even in the darkness, she thought there was a look of sympathetic understanding on his chubby face, sensed a friendly tone in his voice. As she watched him go off into the night, she felt less alone.
Chapter Thirteen
Lucy’s Dossier
William Shakespeare Gabriel stopped briefly at his new quarters in Seaside House to change his sweat-soaked shirt, to pour himself a drink, and, because the urge to compose was strong within him at the moment, to continue his unfinished letter to Inspector Dumbarton of the C.I.D. He unfolded the sheets he had gathered up in such a hurry when Lucy Steel appeared unexpectedly at the dak bungalow that evening, and unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen.
Dear Aubrey, he wrote. I had to interrupt this letter on account of my case coming to an abrupt termination. My client has just been shot from under me.
I guess you know the bare facts already—and I mean bare—because Hatton, the D.O., got your wire shoving me in on the official investigation. Your stooge here sure shot you the news fast, whoever he is. I cant figure out yet who he is and how he put the flash on the ticker so quick, but I’ll bet a rupee to a pants button that it is not Hatton, because the D.O. isn’t having any spasms of joy over me co-operating with him, and I don’t expect much vice versa from him personally. Anyhow, since you want my help on the case, I feel you’d want to know how things stack up as of present date. So here goes.
I found Lucy Steel’s body in Fred Oaks’s bed in Seaside House. She’d been shot through the left side, probably with a .32. I’ll know the caliber for sure when Doc Forsythe, the missionary medico here, digs out the slug before they cremate her. She was as naked as the truth except for one stocking. There was no blood around to speak of, except a few smears on the mosquito netting, which was down, and a faint red squiggle on the top sheet, like somebody had tried to draw a question mark. Oaks was in the room when I found her, but made a break about twenty minutes later when somebody outside tossed a .32 automatic through the window and smashed the lamp. Oaks hasn’t been seen since, so of course the D.O. thinks he killed her. Hatton is specially sure Oaks killed her since I told him that Lucy was Fred’s wife—either ex—or bigamous—come to hunt him down.
As I already told you, I personally wouldn’t trust Oaks with a blind man’s lead pencils, but I don’t think he did this particular job. In the first place he was in the room with the body for ten minutes that I know of, which is plenty of time for him to climb out the window, which he did later, and manufacture himself an alibi. Also that gun which somebody tossed at the lamp couldn’t have been his or the one he used, or he’d have got rid of it in the Bay of Bengal which is practically in the front yard. Either that or he’s dumber than I think.
Well, that’s the set-up, Aubrey. And here are the leads I’m working on:
1. Lucy’s dress, lingerie, and one stocking have disappeared. I’m still looking for them.
2. Lucy’s bearer, a little Hindu with a hump like a camel and a beard like a black goat, vamoosed after packing in her bath water from the hotel kitchen. He’s still missing. So is a red handbag that I happen to know had a lot of cash money in it.
3. Gwendolyn Small, the screwy old dame who runs this hotel, tells a cock eyed story. She sent for the doctor as soon as she heard the shot, told him right where to go, and who was hurt—but she claims she didn’t see a thing that happened. All the answers came out in her fortune-telling cards, she says. She’s lying of course, and I’m going to find out why, and if she didn’t cook up this story with the doctor, maybe.
4. That gun that came through the window had been fired and there was one shot missing in the magazine. Alvin Brinker, manager of the Shakkarpur Bank, admits the gun belonged to him, but says he loaned it to Rhoda Curring two months ago. Seems Mrs. Curring always has a gun in her bungalow for protection when her husband is away on the indigo plantations. She had one of her own, but something went wrong with the extractor two months ago, so she borrowed Brinker’s.
5. Mrs. Curring is a good shot, according to people I’ve talked to, and shoots at targets while reclining in a chaise longue on her back lawn. Mrs. Curring is sweet on Oaks and might have resented Lucy.
6. James Curring, the husband, was supposed to be away at his plantations but was back at the time of the murder. Now he’s supposed to be away again. I’m checking.
7. I’m also checking on the D.O. himself, confidentially. I don’t quite like the way he tried to keep the news of the murder from getting out of Shakkarpur. It’s far-fetched, probably, but I’m going to find out if he didn’t possibly know Lucy before she came here.
So you see, Aubrey, I’ve got—
Gabriel paused, listening intently. He heard a faint sound, like a dog scratching at his door. He got up, tiptoed across the room. He stood with his hand on the knob, staring down at a white triangle that grew larger as it wiggled in under the door, then became a rectangle. It was an envelope too bulky to be pushed in easily. Abruptly he pulled the door open.
“Good evening, Miss Small,” he said.
Gwendolyn Small straightened up. Her dignity was not at all affected by the fact that her white hair bristled with leather curlers or that her red silk dressing gown gaped immodestly in the haste of her sudden change from stooping to standing.
