City of Bells (9 page)

***

The Byculla Club – The Kitchens

1:20 PM

             
“Don’t tell Trevor or he shall have apoplexy,” Tom said, “but the idea about cutting off the fingers wasn’t a bad one.  Either Seal or Morass, one of them, is cleverer than he seems.”

             
“Well I suppose even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while,” said Rayley, wiping his hands on a dishcloth. Within minutes of their arrival at the club, they had been shown to the kitchens, and then to the storage cooler, and had there been greeted by the sight of Rose Weaver and Pulkit Sang lying side by side in what appeared to be a coffin made of ice.  It was both eerie and rather like a child’s fairy tale, Rayley thought, noting how the corpses lay not only in close congress but furthermore gazing into each other’s eyes. As if they shared some secret unknown to the outside world.

             
But any such romantic notions quickly dissipated when Tom approached the pair and matter-of-factly began to whack away at the ice.  They were extracted easily enough, since the thick dome which covered them broke off nearly all in a piece, allowing Tom and Rayley to set it aside.  The revelation of the bodies brought both the sweet smell of decomposition and the awareness that rigor had in essence fused them together.  Tom, utterly nonplused, had merely picked up his hammer again.

             
Rayley had stood in the doorway, ostensibly to shield the kitchen staff from the undignified sight of Tom wresting the bodies apart, at one point straddling the both of them and using his full youthful strength to accomplish the task.  He assured Rayley that his roughness was necessary and would not corrupt the investigation.  Since the two had been dead so long, it should be an easy enough matter to tell postmortem wounds from any which might have been inflicted while the person was still alive.  Rayley had briskly nodded, but in truth the purity of the forensics was the last thing on his mind.  Although he had volunteered for this task, recording the observations made as Tom examined the bodies, he hadn’t counted on anything quite so distressing as this.

             
At last the two lay apart and it took Tom but a few minutes more to confirm that the original report appeared to be accurate.  The bodies had suffered no obvious injuries before death.

             
“At least nothing such as obvious as a blow or stab wound,” Tom had said.  “But the skin is far too corrupted to look for a puncture mark.”

             
“You agree with the possibility of poison, I take it?” Rayley asked, finally leaving his post at the door to cautiously approach.

             
“It seems likely,” Tom said, glancing toward the vials of blood resting on the table behind him.  “The local boys are right in saying that it’s the only thing that explains the fact that both arrived here at the club apparently in fine fettle and lay dead just minutes later.  But the trouble is, the kit I brought from London and my study books only address the sort of poisons one is apt to find in Europe.  I venture to say there are any number of botanicals here in Bombay which could cause death upon ingestion, but I have no idea where to begin.”

             
“They were likely dosed in the home and not the club?” Rayley said, gazing down at the form of Rose Weaver.  Of the two, she looked especially pitiful.  So small and pale and startled looking, as if death had caught her utterly unaware.  The fact that one foot flopped awkwardly inward, the ankle no doubt broken during the rather brutal autopsy, only added to her helplessness, as did of course, the fact she was missing all ten fingers.  Sang was curled on his side, with his own ravaged hands tucked under him, almost as if he were ashamed of them.

             
“Yes, the poisons are a conundrum,” Tom continued, lining the fingers up on the table beside the blood samples.  “But I do believe these fingers may yield at least partial prints. With any luck Davy shall pick something up when he dusts the house and we will be able to determine where and how the poison was administered, even if we don’t know the precise kind it is.”

             
“Would a jury convict without proof of the type of poison?”

             
“I cannot say.  What a jury will or will not do lies more within your expertise than mine.  A British court might demand it, but who knows what a local court may accept.”

             
“It seems,” Rayley said, “that we are well on our way to strengthening the case against your aunt’s beau.”

             
“We can’t help which way the evidence falls,” Tom said, shifting the form of Rose back beside that of Sang on the table and wincing with the effort.  “Which Aunt Gerry fully understands, I am sure.  But as for now,” he added, “help me rebury them in ice, will you?  I’m not sure these bodies have anything else to tell us, but I am not ready to release them for burial yet. Or whatever the Hindus do.  Burning, probably.”

`
              “Very well,” said Rayley, scooping the smaller shards of ice to pack around the two bodies.  “But I wish to stay and assist while you do the fingerprinting and blood work.  Should I pull the microscope from its case?  I know I’m little help in the laboratory but I find this part of the process oddly compelling.”

             
“Of course,” said Tom, as they lowered the large curved piece of ice over the bodies.  “I shall talk you through it as I work and turn you into a proper laboratory assistant.  Ah, look there,” he said, jerking his head toward another table.  “There is a bit of welcome news, is it not?  It would appear we are having lamb for dinner.”

             
“Welcome news indeed,” Rayley said drily, for he also had noticed the racks of lamb as he entered, lined neatly up against the wall and unwrapped for defrosting.  It was all a bit much to take in, the puddles of animal blood on the floor, as the lamb slowly dripped, the vials of human blood on the counter.  The fingers and the ribs and the hanging birds and the staring eyes, all of it, all together, and Rayley suspected his dreams would be memorable tonight.  “In truth I don’t know why I want to learn your work at all, Bainbridge.  For this is a dreadfully macabre sort of business, is it not?”

***

Bombay Jail

1:30 PM

             
The old man stared at Trevor impassively.  He did not seem particularly pleased to have been escorted from his cell into a larger, airier room for his interview, and the words “Scotland Yard” had not created in Anthony Weaver the sort of nervous expectation they generally created in others. 

             
Nor did the man appear to be bound by the protocol of the situation.  In fact, he spoke first.

             
“Did Geraldine travel with you?  Or did she merely send you?”

             
“Merely?” Trevor snapped.  “There is no ‘merely’ about it.  A contingent of investigators traveling from London to Bombay on a domestic matter is a noteworthy event, Secretary-General, and I should think you would be grateful to anyone who had gone to such trouble on your behalf.”

             
“This is not a domestic matter,” Weaver said and despite his immediate dislike of the man, Trevor was impressed with his composure, with the calm, even timbre of his voice.  If he was near seventy, on trial for murder, and incarcerated in a moldy Bombay jail, he doubted his own nerves would have held so steady.  “This is not a matter of a man killing his wife,” Weaver continued.  “It is more likely a case of political intrigue.”

             
“We are aware of that possibility,” said Trevor.  “As is The Queen.”

             
“The Queen?” said Weaver, his face for the first time showing emotion.  “The Queen herself has taken an interest in my predicament?” 

             
“If the Queen has taken an interest,” Trevor said, “it is more due to the status of the deceased than the accused, I assure you.” 

             
“It was Michael, wasn’t it?” Weaver said, twisting nervously in his chair.  “He went to her.  Told her everything.”

             
Well, he certainly didn’t tell her everything,
Trevor thought.  
Whatever everything is. 
Something about the mention of either the Queen or Michael Everlee’s name had brought a new energy to the small room, some sense of urgency.  “Your stepson,” Trevor said cautiously, “did indeed write Her Majesty on your behalf before he left London.”

             
“And so Michael too has come to Bombay?” Weaver said.  A sheen of perspiration suddenly appeared upon his face and he rubbed his lips with the back of his hand. “He is with you?”

             
Dear God, but the discussion had gotten out of hand quickly and Trevor momentarily sank back in his chair, unsure of how to continue.  Weaver was a difficult man to label, that much was certain.  So cool at first and now so agitated, his mood shifting without warning, his eyes suddenly darting around the room.   And he seemed to have leapt to many assumptions without evidence – an odd trait in a military man. Perhaps this abrupt change in affect was more the result of his present predicament, and not a normal personality trait.  But it was unquestionably fortunate that Weaver had so quickly concluded that Geraldine was not with them in Bombay.  If he had known otherwise, he might have requested a meeting, which she would have insisted on granting, and Trevor couldn’t fathom bringing Geraldine into such a place as this.

             
But the questions were the real issue.  The fact that Trevor Welles was supposed to be asking them, and not Anthony Weaver.

             
“Your stepson traveled separately,” Trevor finally conceded, for the man would surely become aware of this fact shortly, whether he was the one to tell him or not.  “I understand he is in Bombay but I have not yet had the pleasure of making his acquaintance.  I represent Scotland Yard and have voyaged on order of the Queen. With this in mind, shall I assume I have your full cooperation?  And might we start with August 7, the morning your wife and Pulkit Sang died?”

             
Weaver sank back in his chair.  “What of it?  That morning was no different than any other, at least not as far as I know.  I didn’t see either Rose or Sang before I left the house.”

             
“Tell me everything that happened.  Walk me through it step by step.”

             
Weaver sighed, as if the simplicity of the task was beneath him.  The nervousness which had seized him had passed as quickly as it came and he was once more his composed self.   “I arose and dressed.  Rose and I sleep in different rooms, as I gather a Yard man such as yourself would have already deduced.” 

             
A small jab, but Trevor let it pass.  “Did you go into the dining room to eat or take your meal in your room?”

             
“I don’t breakfast,” Weaver said sharply, as if hunger upon awakening was some sort of profound moral failure.  “I rose, I dressed, I visited the WC, if you must know, but that was the only room in the house I entered other than my own.  I walked down the main hall and out the front door.  My driver Felix was there.  Held the door for me, asked me if I needed an umbrella, pulled round the carriage.  He was the only one I saw.”

             
“You did not walk through the gardens?”

             
“I have already said that I did not.”

             
“Or the kitchen?”

             
“Why the devil should I go into the kitchen?”

             
“Where did you go upon leaving the house?”

             
“The Byculla, of course.”

             
Trevor raised his eyebrows.

             
“I go there every morning,” Weaver said.  “Myself and some of the other pensioned officers – we like to take our coffee and papers on the patio, discuss the business of the day.”

             
“Were you at the Club when Rose and Sang arrived?”

             
“Of course not.  That was much later.”

             
“What time did you leave the Club?”

             
“10:15.”

             
“That is quite specific.”

             
Weaver shrugged.  “A clock stands in the foyer.”

             
“So I understand.  Which is why the butler could tell the authorities with great confidence that your wife and her manservant arrived at 10:29.  So they didn’t come much later at all, did they?  In fact, I would imagine you passed their carriage approaching the Club as your own carriage departed.”

             
Weaver shook his head impatiently.  “I departed by another route.”

             
“I am terribly new to Bombay, Secretary-General, having disembarked from my ship only this very morning.  But even my limited experience with the city is enough to make me question the particulars of your story.  First of all, what time did you arrive at the club and you say Felix was the one to drive you?”