Night Train to Jamalpur(101)

It would be up to us to make it for him.


IV

Against all the odds, we found a tonga in Bhawanipore Road. There was room for only four inside, so Dougie Poole volunteered to follow on foot. Our destination was a mere half mile away: the Zoological Gardens, and the office of Hedley Fleming. Or perhaps we would overtake him on the way. I had it in mind to simply confront the professor with the facts as we knew them, and see how he reacted. I would then take those facts, and the news of that reaction, to Superintendent Christopher Bennett. I would force Bennett’s hand, in other words. Later on I would likewise confront Detective Inspector Khan, and give him my theory about the killing of John Young on the Jamalpur Night Mail. I had nothing to lose; I would bail out of the Commission of Enquiry, just as Fisher had done. My wife was pregnant and I wanted to get her home as soon as possible.

But no: that train of thought was utterly illogical. I had a great deal to lose by Khan learning that I knew the truth, and not so much to gain. My knowledge of his crime was a card only to be played in extremis.

In the tonga, I sat next to Charles Sermon. Deo Rana and Gopal the mali sat opposite. I unbuttoned my rain cape, so as to air my sodden trousers. Sermon had done likewise, although he could not have been as soaked through as I was. He had not, after all, gone bathing in Tolly’s Nullah. In the course of arranging my clothes, I discovered in my suit-coat pocket the bundle of documents concerning the doings of the Company in 1919. I had ‘borrowed’ these papers from the office, and now they were no doubt ruined. Jogendra would not be pleased. I unfurled the bundle, and instantly read ‘News from the Out-Stations’. That was in bold, so I didn’t need my reading glasses to make it out. I had opened the bundle at a page of the Company magazine describing social events, and weddings in particular. The date at the top of the page was also clear enough: September 1919, as was the sub-heading ‘Burdwan Blessings’. Burdwan was on the Grand Chord, not far out. For the most part, the print of the article itself was a little more hazy, but I read, ‘Mr F. De Souza, the very popular engineer, married Miss Noreen Ford, late of Calcutta, and daughter of Mr P. Ford, Permanent Way Inspector.’ There was a picture of the happy couple. It was a pound to a penny that they were Anglo-Indians. She was very pretty, and she carried a wreath. In a photograph without colour the flowers appeared white, and I believed that was because they were white.

Charles Sermon, by my side, wore glasses at all times. He could therefore read perfectly well, even in the semi-gloom of the shaking tonga . . . and he was breathing heavily. The flowers in the wreath held by the bride were white carnations. I turned to my left and saw the white carnation in the buttonhole of Sermon’s suit coat. He wore a white carnation every day, and he had taken the trouble to obtain one this morning even though he knew the business he had in store was not of a very decorous nature. The white carnation, then, was of the greatest importance. It went to the very heart of the man. I delved into my suit coat for my reading glasses, and I put them on. Deo Rana was eyeing me carefully. Sermon was wheezing. I read the confirmatory words, ‘The bride carried a beautiful bouquet made of her favourite white carnations.’

I removed my glasses, as the truth broke in upon me. The ‘intriguing alliance’ that Mrs Young had meant to show me at the Insty was not that of Hedley Fleming and the woman who became Mary Bennett (even though I believed I had glimpsed Fleming in the assembled party, and possibly standing beside that same Mary). That, I now realised, could not possibly be the liaison Mrs Young had in mind. After all, she did not know Christopher Bennett. When I had indicated him to her as the Debating Society dance, she had looked blankly, and on top of that, she had lowered her voice when pointing to the photograph. If she had been referring to Christopher Bennett, she would not have needed to do that: he was not in the bar of the Insty, but Charles Sermon had been in the bar, and sitting only a few feet away. Was it not possible that the surprising alliance was that of Charles Sermon, long-time bachelor and pukkah sahib, and a young and beautiful Anglo-Indian woman: between Charles Sermon, in fact, and the young woman smiling up at us from the page of the East Indian Railway Magazine: Miss Noreen Ford? Snakes had first appeared in the first class compartments of the Railway when Miss Ford, lost to Charles Sermon, had moved from Calcutta and married a fellow Anglo-Indian, an altogether less surprising alliance.

But why had the snakes made their reappearance in April of this year, and with far more devastating results than the first time?

I turned towards Charles Sermon. I indicated the photograph.