Keeping Bad Company (6 page)

‘In that case, why leave me to find it?'

‘Because he wanted a trustworthy witness.'

‘Of what?'

‘I don't know.'

Tom repeated, routinely, that I was talking nonsense but with less conviction in his voice.

‘There's another thing,' I said. ‘Both you and Mr Griffiths have told me you can't go anywhere or do anything in India without servants. But that morning, McPherson rode out to meet Burton alone. Does that mean really alone, or with only half a dozen or so servants?'

This time his reply was prompt. ‘Really alone. People were commenting on that.'

‘And what did they say?'

‘Even the man's enemies admit he's got good nerves. There were suggestions that the jewels Burton was bringing were more valuable than McPherson had let on and he didn't want a lot of gossip about them.'

‘Did anybody see the jewels that hadn't been stolen, the ones in the wallet on Burton's body?'

‘I suppose some people did. I don't know.'

‘Since McPherson found the body, I suppose he must have taken the jewels off Burton's body himself.'

‘I suppose so. What are you driving at?'

‘Don't you think it's odd that the robbers didn't strip Burton's body and find the rest of the jewels?'

‘They were disturbed, I suppose.'

‘But I thought most of Burton's servants had run away. Those must have been very timid robbers.'

Tom ran a hand through his hair.

‘I just don't see where this is heading.'

The truth was, I didn't either. It had all happened four and a half thousand miles away, mostly to people I'd never met. What was the use of being nagged by questions, and nagging my brother? Still, I risked one more.

‘What happened to the hawk after you and Griffiths took it to the Governor?'

‘I suppose he gave it back to McPherson. Now stop this, Liberty. I don't want to hear any more about it. And if I do take you to see Griffiths again, I expect you to promise that you won't talk about it to him.'

When I turned back from seeing Tom on his way, Tabby was waiting for me in the yard. I hadn't introduced her to him, thinking he had enough on his mind.

‘I might be going away for a bit,' she said.

There was a truculent look about her.

‘Is anything wrong?'

‘Nah. Just fancy it.'

It was no use cross-questioning her, but my heart sank. The fact was, Tabby and I had a business disagreement. Life as an investigator was not all diplomatic parties. In quiet times, tracing the pet animals that so often went missing around the Park was one of our staples. Tabby, with her gang of urchins from her days of surviving on the streets, had always been an accomplished tracker of dogs, parrots and monkeys. As she picked up an increasingly polished way with clients, I'd turned more of that side of the business over to her and even had cards printed, ‘Lost Animals Found', with our Abel Yard address, so that she could deliver them to the big houses. I'd not entirely given up hope of converting her to the advantages of being able to read and write.

Then it had come to my attention that Tabby and her gang did not always wait for the animals to go missing of their own accord. The urchins had taken to kidnapping them, then sharing the proceeds of returning them, as finders, to their grateful owners. When I'd told her it must stop, she'd been annoyed.

‘We've never hurt none of them, not a hair nor a whisker.'

‘I should hope not. But that's beside the point. It's dishonest.'

‘People are happier when they get them back than if they'd never lost them in the first place.'

‘That's also beside—'

‘And it's only the rich ones we try it on. What they give us is only small change to them.'

I didn't say that was beside the point too, because it wasn't entirely. Working with me, Tabby had seen the way some rich people lived and been unimpressed. I couldn't blame her. How could I preach to a girl who'd had to fight for halfpennies in gutters that she should be content with her station in life?

I looked at her, in her neat grey dress with her hair clean and tied back. She was scuffing her shoe on the cobblestones as she did when her mind was uneasy. It was often the prelude to a dip back into her urchin mode. She'd sometimes vanish for a day or two, then appear suddenly and take up from where we'd left off. Something told me this was more serious and I was surprised that she'd taken the disagreement so much to heart. It had happened weeks before and should have blown over by now. Perhaps I should have taken more trouble to explain at the time, but I'd been much occupied then with one of the nastiest cases in my experience and had been determined to shield Tabby from it, so we hadn't been talking as much as we usually did.

‘You'll come back?' I said.

All I got was a nod. I took a handful of coins out of my pocket and gave them to her.

‘Don't need it.'

‘Take it anyway. Let me know if you need me.'

I turned and went upstairs, to stop myself uselessly pleading with her. She was like a young fox that might consent to live with you for a while but will never surrender its freedom. That night there was no candle gleam from the cabin at the end of the yard where she lived.

At the start of the week, when Tom was due to give his evidence to the parliamentary committee, I received another invitation to a Mary Anne Disraeli ‘At Home'. Considering that I'd exchanged hardly ten words with her on my previous visit, she seemed to have developed a surprising taste for my company. This time I waited on a sofa by the window, playing with somebody's lapdog, and sure enough the elegant figure of Mr Disraeli appeared beside me.

‘May I?'

He flung back his coat-tails and sat down beside me, giving a passing stroke to the lapdog, just in case it was ever given a vote, I supposed.

‘So what did you make of our friend Mr Griffiths?' he said.

The skill in dealing with Mr Disraeli was never to let him see he'd surprised you, so I just stopped myself from asking how he'd known.

‘A very interesting gentleman,' I said.

‘So I gather. He should certainly annoy most of the committee. You know it's loaded with friends of John Company, all wanting an excuse to go to war with China? Those McDruggies – I mean those excellent and reputable gentlemen in the opium trade – have packed the committee so thoroughly that they might as well conduct their deliberations reclining on divans and smoking pipes.'

He gave a lightning impression of an MP leaning back and inhaling, so droll that I almost laughed out loud.

‘Why do you call the merchants the McDruggies?' I said.

‘They do seem to include a remarkable number of Scotsmen. Fresh from Canton with a million of opium in each pocket, denouncing corruption and bellowing free trade, like Jardine and Matheson.'

‘And Mr McPherson?'

‘Indeed, like Alexander McPherson. I believe he's seeking a cool quarter of a million in compensation.'

‘Is there nobody on the committee against them?'

‘There's an earnest young man named Gladstone who's dead set against the war, but nobody listens to him.'

‘So you're not on the committee yourself?'

He shook his head.

‘So many demands, so little time.'

Which went a long way to explain Disraeli's interest. In spite of his failure so far to gain a ministerial post, he refused to believe that anything in the political world could happen without him. If, as was likely, he'd tried to be appointed to the India parliamentary committee and failed, he wouldn't rest until he knew more about its proceedings than any of the MPs involved.

‘If you happen to meet Mr Griffiths again, you might warn him that McPherson and friends are doing their best to shred his reputation before he gives evidence to the committee,' he said, serious now.

‘I think he knows that already.'

‘Does he? He's an eccentric who spends his spare time talking to Indians instead of drinking whisky with his fellow countrymen, a troublemaker and quite probably a murderer. The committee will swallow it whole.'

‘Then there's his pamphlet,' I said.

A sudden glint in his eye was the only indication that Disraeli hadn't known about that. I hoped I hadn't blundered, but then surely a man putting out a pamphlet doesn't wish for secrecy.

‘Indeed. I'm sure we're all looking forward to that,' he said.

Two women were approaching, obviously intent on conversation with him.

‘You'll excuse me, Miss Lane. Please give my good wishes to your brother. Do tell me if you think there's anything I should know about our friend.'

As often in my meetings with Mr Disraeli, I was left wondering if I'd found out more from him than he had from me. Honours equal this time, I hoped. But given his taste for sailing in stormy waters, his interest worried me.

I
delivered Disraeli's message to Mr Griffiths the following afternoon, when he and I were taking a decorous walk in the sunshine beside the Thames at Richmond. Once again, he'd managed neatly to get us apart from my brother. The cottage was a chaos of straw and packing cases because Mr Griffiths had suddenly decided to move himself closer to the centre of things in London. He'd brought few possessions with him from India – a trunk of clothes, half a dozen carpets, some pictures and ornaments, several hundred books – but packing them for the carter seemed such a business that he greeted our arrival like a man besieged.

‘Tom, my boy, I'm being driven mad. You know how I like things. Could you very kindly see to the last of the packing and spare your sister to take me for a walk in the fresh air?'

So we left Tom and the Indian lad, whose name was Anil, loading books into tea chests, with the carter's horse dozing in the shafts outside. As soon as we were through the garden gate, Mr Griffiths resumed his spry air, striding out and swinging his walking cane. He nodded when I passed on the warning about McPherson being determined to damage his reputation.

‘Of course he is. Still, thank Mr Disraeli for his goodwill.'

‘I told him about the pamphlet. Does it matter?'

‘Of course not. I'm sending copies to all the MPs. I don't suppose more than a dozen will read it, but we must do what we can.'

He sounded quite cheerful about it. We stopped to watch some children with their nursemaid, throwing bread to the swans. I think he needed a rest from the brisk pace he'd set, but was trying to hide it.

‘Tom's annoyed with me,' I said. ‘He wanted me to promise that we wouldn't talk about what happened in India.'

‘And did you promise?'

‘No. He thinks I did, but that's only because he expects me to do as I'm told.'

He laughed. ‘He should have more sense. So have you come to any conclusions?'

‘How can I? I don't know anywhere near enough. All I've come up with are some more questions.'

‘Such as?'

‘Such as why Mr McPherson went out to meet the assistant on his own, and why the robbers only took some of the jewels and missed the really valuable ones.'

‘Yes, those had occurred to me too.'

‘Did they occur to anybody else in Bombay?'

‘I believe there were questions, yes. But nobody discussed them with me.'

‘This assistant, Burton, was he well known?'

‘In Bombay, hardly at all. The first most people there knew about him was his funeral.'

We left the children and swans and walked on at a slower pace beside the river.

‘There was another question,' I said. ‘It's even occurred to Tom, though he wouldn't dream of asking you.'

‘Oh?'

‘Why did you send him to find that diamond hawk, when you knew it was there anyway?'

He said nothing for a few steps and I thought I'd gone too far, but when he answered his tone was calm, even amused.

‘So Tom suspects that, does he?'

‘If he thinks about it, only he won't let himself think.'

‘He's very loyal to his friends.'

‘Yes, so there's an obligation on his friends not to misuse his loyalty,' I said.

‘I hope I'm not misusing it. He's told no lies. I sent him and he found it, just as he describes.'

‘But you knew it was there?'

He swished his cane through a clump of cow parsley, setting it swaying.

‘Miss Lane, if I answered that question, you'd feel obliged to tell your brother?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then you'll excuse me for not answering it at present.'

‘So the answer is yes?'

‘The answer is: wait.'

‘Wait how long?'

‘A week or two.'

‘Until Tom's given his evidence to the committee?'

‘And until my pamphlet is out. It will explain many things to you and others. Then we shall talk again.'

The tone was still perfectly good-humoured, but there was no budging him and we didn't talk again until we'd turned back towards the cottage. Then he broke the silence.

‘There is one respect, at any rate, in which I'm not playing entirely fairly with your brother.'

‘What?'

‘He believes that I'm halfway to persuading you to join the fishing fleet.'

‘Fishing?'

‘Forgive me. That's the disrespectful term some men in India have for ladies sailing in search of husbands.'

‘In some more words from our Bard, I'd sooner “lead apes in hell”.'

‘I'm sure of it. You'd hate life in India very much.'

‘But you love the country.'

‘The country, yes, but not our countrymen within it. And – with a few brave exceptions – our countrywomen even less.'

‘Are they so ill-humoured?'

‘In essence, no worse than most ladies here. But India makes caricatures of them. You know the way society ladies live in London – the calling cards, the dinners, the charity concerts by bad amateur musicians, the shredding of each other's reputations over the teacups?'