City of Bells (20 page)

             
“Most probably not.  But it is a distraction, you see, and that is the lucky part.  Distractions muddy the water.”

             
“It was not especially lucky for them.”

             
“As I said, the girl will recover and Benson...Benson knew full well the risks of his profession,” Michael said.  “Even welcomed them, you might say. I have noticed that some men indirectly court death and he was precisely that type, choosing a dangerous line of work in lieu of a more direct suicide.   But now I find myself without his services just as I need them most.  For we must come up with some plausible reason for why Sang might have murdered Mother, and then killed himself.  Do you have any ideas?  You’ve been sitting here in this cell for over two weeks so you must have thought of something.”

             
“There is absolutely no reason Pulkit Sang would have killed your mother.  He was the most loyal and dedicated of servants.”

             
“Yes, yes, of course he was, but the jury doesn’t know that.  They shall be inclined to believe anything we say about him, will they not, he being both a native and not here to mount any manner of defense?”

             
Weaver studied his stepson.  “You have no curiosity about what really happened?  We are talking about the death of your mother, after all.”

             
”When the crisis is past, then perhaps I will have the time to be curious,” Michael said, carelessly flinging himself into the cell’s one chair.  With the movement, his jacket fell open, exposing an expensively tailored shirt which barely stretched across his ample abdomen. 
His life in London is utterly undisciplined
, Weaver thought. 
He lives with no accountability to anyone except his political party and they are too dazzled by the shield of his family name to notice what a flimsy sort of creature lies beneath.

             
“Well, if your plan is to implicate poor Sang,” Weaver said mildly.  “I am not sure how an electrocution happening weeks after his death bolsters your case.”

             
“True, true, all true enough,” Michael said.  “But perhaps they will conclude it was some other Indian.  I have reason to believe it was. The majordomo at the Byculla Club greeted me in a most insolent manner when I arrived last night, so there is no telling what that fellow was about.   He was just like Sang, you know, as I have tried to tell you and Mother endless times.  You keep the old ones around too long and they begin to feel they own the place.”

             
Weaver stretched his legs out in front of him and coughed.  “Your Benson was not the only Scotland Yard detective in Bombay.”

             
“There is no need to be clever, for I met them last night.  A chap named Welles surrounded by the most bizarre gaggle of companions I have ever encountered.  Women, Jews, and schoolboys.  I am only surprised he didn’t bring along a trained monkey.”  Michael blew air from his cheeks with an exaggerated huff of displeasure.  “When I first heard of your arrest, I went to the Queen for help, thinking she might send a letter authorizing my inquiry but she did me one better and unleashed Scotland Yard on the matter.  Can’t think why.”

             
“Perhaps they have kept her around too long and she thinks she owns the place.”

             
Michael ignored this. “These Yard chaps shall dig around in a most inconvenient manner,” he said fitfully. “It is what they do.”

             
“I imagine so.  But is that not what you want?  As I have told you, I am an innocent man.  Anything they find shall only free me from this cell and leave you equally free to pursue your political ambitions without the threat of scandal.”

             
“Perhaps.  But in my experience with policemen, they lack all discretion.  They may raise issues which have nothing to do with the case.”

             
“Such as your relationship with Benson?”

             
Michael flushed.  “I have nothing to hide.”

             
“Then you have nothing to fear.”

             
Michael looked at his stepfather with an exasperation bordering on contempt.  “It would appear that a lifetime in this backwater has made you simple minded. You say that you did not kill Mother and I believe you.  Now I tell you in all candor that my relationship with Benson was nothing but business.  But human lives can be so very complicated, can they not?  Do you really wish to lay every detail of your past exposed to the unblinking eyes of Scotland Yard?”

***

The Tucker House

1:52 PM

             
“On to the strange business of last night,” Trevor said.  “Tom, you said you dropped by to call on Amy Morrow after your time in the lab.  You found her on the mend, I trust?”

             
“Admirably recovered and as giddily charming as ever,” Tom said.  “Her grandmother is quite the character as well, is she not?  She was threatening to charge up to the Byculla Club and rip out every wire from every wall with her own hands.  Candles were good enough for her generation, she said, and should suffice for ours.”

             
“She has a valid point,” said Geraldine.

             
“I’m happy to hear that the girl is better,” said Trevor. “Plans have been made for the immediate transfer of Jonathan Benson’s remains to England.”

             
“That was fast,” Rayley said.  “Who made the arrangements?”

             
“I did,” Trevor said.  “With some assistance on the London end.”  Trevor’s eyes flitted toward his fellow detective.  “He was Scotland Yard.”

             
“What?” Rayley said with an exclamation of surprise that ran through the group.  “How did you learn that?”

             
“His name sounded vaguely familiar when I met him,” Trevor said.  “I thought little of it at the time, since the world is probably full of Jonathan Bensons.  But after his death I couldn’t shake the notion that yes, perhaps his familiar name was significant.  So I sent a telegram last night and received a reply this morning. He wasn’t current Yard, you see, which is why none of us had ever met him.  He was retired.”

             
“Retired?  The fellow looked no older than either of us,” Rayley said.

             
“Electively retired,” Trevor said.

             
“Because he was a homosexual?” Davy asked.  Trevor smiled at him.  The boy’s tendency toward plain speaking rarely failed to move the discussion along.

             
“That is my assumption, that the rumors were persistent enough to curtail his career.  Since leaving the force seven years ago he has worked in various functions, serving as a bodyguard, a consultant in security matters, and he has also done a bit of private detection work.  Catching wayward wives with their lovers, that sort of tawdry thing.  Somehow Michael Everlee found him and convinced him to travel to Bombay.”

             
“Why would a Scotland Yard detective, even a retired one, take on such a task as this?” Seal protested.  “It is hardly up to his standards.”

             
“Presumably Benson was a bit like Adelaide, grateful for any work at all,” Rayley said.  “The man’s inclinations were obvious enough that they may have cost him not only his post at the Yard but also alienated any number of would-be clients.  And at least Everlee offered him an opportunity for true investigation into a murder case, something I can imagine he missed dreadfully.  I know I would.”

             
They were then interrupted by a rap at the door.  Davy opened it and allowed in one of the local policemen, dressed in his shapeless drabs, who gestured to Morass.

             
“So he wasn’t here as an attaché or even a bodyguard…” Emma said, “but rather as a private detective?  Looking for evidence to exonerate Anthony Weaver?”

             
“Indeed, and we shall go to his room and take possession of his papers before we ship the body back to England,” said Trevor.  “He had at least a two-day advantage over us, so who knows what he might have found.”  He looked down at his notes.  “And now on the issue of fingerprints.  You have collected them, Davy?”

             
“Yes, Sir, and I have identified six distinct sets from the Weaver home.  The medications Mrs. Weaver took are kept in the kitchen but there weren’t as many prints there as I had hoped.”

             
“Not surprising,” Trevor murmured, still flipping through his notes.  “If the timeline Weaver gave me is right, and the majordomo at the Club confirms that it more or less is, there was nearly an hour between the time Rose and Sang left the house and Anthony Weaver reentered it.  Plenty of opportunity for the cook and maid to set the kitchen to rights, and thus wipe away any evidence in the process.  What I find strange is that you identified six different sets of prints and there were seven people who were regularly in the house:  Anthony, Rose, Sang, Adelaide, Felix, the cook, and the maid.  Whose are missing?”

             
“That I won’t know, Sir, until I’ve printed everyone involved.  We have the two dead people’s, of course, thanks to those chopped off fingers and we have Secretary-General Weaver’s, but the servants –“

             
“Speaking of such,” Morass said.  “The driver Felix is here.  One of my men has just brought him in.”

             
“Good work,” said Trevor, hoping that the surprise even he heard in his voice was not insulting.  “What of the women?”

             
“We have found them as well,” Seal said quickly.  “But unlike Felix, they speak not a word of English.”

             
“Hardly an insurmountable problem,” Trevor said.  “Hindustani?”

             
“I believe so.  It is the most common language of the region.”

             
Trevor mused a minute.  “Emma, Gerry, Davy…the three of you shall talk alone to the cook and maid.”

             
“You don’t intend to use a detective?”  Seal asked.  “They may only be servants, but they still might have observed much, especially any events which took place in the kitchen.”

             
“Yesterday you didn’t see the purpose of interviewing them at all,” Trevor said drily.  “And now you challenge the credentials of those who will?  Well, you need not.  Young Mabrey here is an extraordinarily competent officer of the law, Emma is our linguist, and Geraldine, even thought it was in the past, knew both Secretary-General and Mrs. Weaver.  She may think to ask things the rest of us would not.  And I suspect the presence of the ladies on our team may relax the ladies under questioning.   I daresay they’ve seen enough white Englishmen in their time.”

             
“And I threaten no one,” Davy said.

             
“And he threatens no one,” Trevor agreed with a smile.  “Which makes him the biggest threat on the team.”

             
“All very well,” Emma said.  “But none of us speak Hindustani, so I am afraid we are back to having to ask some law officer to come with us to translate.  Surely you have such a man, Inspector Seal?  Or you, Inspector Morass?  Someone who can serve as an intermediary?”

             
“Leigh Anne Hoffman speaks the native tongue,” Geraldine said slowly.  “We heard her shouting out to the girls in the garden, do you recall?”

             
“Yes, indeed,” said Emma.  “You are right.”

             
Trevor nodded too.  “The perfect solution.  Rather than taking the female servants to the police station, which will certainly intimidate them into silence, or even bringing them here, with so many of us to sit in our circle and stare, we shall ask that they be delivered to the girls’ school.  That little porch with the garden is quite the place.  You can all ask your questions, and I suspect that in light of Gerry’s generosity, Miss Hoffman will be pleased to assist us by translating.  Then Davy can take their fingerprints and perhaps even those of Adelaide.  Oh and interview her.  That’s the essential part.  We have no real evidence that she is either emotionally or mentally handicapped, only hearsay, and there’s certainly a chance she has plenty to say on the subject of Rose Everlee Weaver. If the three of you can manage all that, I can move on to Benson’s quarters and collect his notes.”

             
“We can manage it,” Emma said.

             
“I have no doubt,” Trevor said.  “But if you deem your conversations with Adelaide and the maids to be unsuccessful or if you note anything strange in Miss Hoffman’s manner – stranger than usual, I mean – we can haul them all down to the station and try our luck there.  But the more I think of it, the more I think a genteel conversation among ladies in the garden might yield more than scaring the witnesses to death with a show of masculine power.  I trust your instincts completely.”