Bennett produced a pasteboard folder from his desk. ‘Recommendations for your enquiry from the man Sinclair. Looks like you’ll be pursuing them on your own – or not at all, of course. They’re only recommendations.’
Even so, it seemed positively evil of Sinclair to have been formulating proposals over that lazy tiffin of Friday last. Bennett pushed the papers towards me, but I would not be party to any attempt to make everything seem normal. I said, ‘I’ve just read about the barrister, Biswas.’
Bennett nodded.
‘. . . And the Russell’s viper,’ I added.
Bennett gave me a warning look, but I made my plunge. ‘The question, if you ask me, is when was that train made up? I mean, when was it cleaned and prepared for the trip?’
‘I know what “made up” means, Jim,’ said Bennett, and he was studying the etching of the calm man on the tobacco tin, as though seeking inspiration. ‘Naturally, we asked the traffic department about that. That rake of coaches was thoroughly cleaned and prepared ten days beforehand.’
And that was before Dougie Poole had gone to Darjeeling. It was before almost anyone had gone to Darjeeling.
Bennett said, ‘We’ve put on more patrols around Howrah, and it’s not as if the carriages are standing there in the sidings with their doors gaping. You’d have half the beggary of the city sleeping in them if that were the case. The doors are all locked at all times except when the sweepers are in there.’
‘But they’re standard locks and standard keys aren’t they?’ I observed. ‘Any man on the railway can lay hands on them. For ten clear days those carriages were available to the snake man. He knew they’d be used to make up a train eventually, and he knew they wouldn’t be checked over again before that happened. From what I understand, most snakes will be happy to lie in a semi-dormant state for days on end without need of food or drink. The next thing they know, some great human has interrupted their slumbers and is threatening to bloody stand on them.’
Bennett had laid down his pipe. He was, at last, frankly angry.
‘Thank you for your speculations, Jim. I would hate you to think I had not come to exactly the same conclusions myself. I’d have to be very stupid indeed not to have done so.’ He sat back. ‘You are required by Jogendra Babu, I believe.’
It was perfectly clear that I could not disclose to Bennett my appointment with the snake men’s uncle. I stood to go, and as I did so, he relented somewhat. ‘I have been slow off the mark, Jim, I will admit. It was the nature of these murders. I was taken aback by the sheer . . .’
‘The brutality?’ I suggested. Because snake bite did seem to be the worst sort of death.
‘Not quite. More the sheer the ungentlemanliness of it.’
‘I see,’ I said, not seeing.
‘But we are about to make our move, Jim. We are about to make our move.’
II
In his small and perfectly ordered office, Jogendra Babu handed a paper to me. It was the reservation chart for the first class carriage of the Jamalpur Night Mail of Monday 23 April. At least, that’s what was written at the top, but this was not the document that might or might not have been posted on the carriage side, for this was handwritten in perfect, violet-coloured copperplate. I read:
Compartment 1: Mr R. P. N. Ganguly.
Compartment 2: Captain J. H. Stringer.
Compartment 3: Rev. Canon P. L. W. Selwyn.
Compartment 4: Major N. Fisher.
Compartment 5: Servants belonging to Mr Ganguly and Rev. Canon Selwyn.
My mind whirled. Was John Young really called Ganguly? Did he really have the same surname and initials as the doctor who shared a staircase with Miss Hatsuyo? Couldn’t be. I had seen his warrant card; I’d spoken to his family. Far more likely was that John Young had booked into his compartment late, the original booking having apparently been made in the name of the phthisis specialist, and having been cancelled.
. . . And yet he was not down as Dr Ganguly, and so a different thought came . . . It must be a different Ganguly, albeit with the same three initials as the doctor. But while it was easy to imagine that there must be many Gangulys in Calcutta, how many R. P. N. Gangulys could there reasonably be?
Jogendra was highly amused. He said, ‘I will explain, please?’
‘If you don’t mind.’
‘This,’ he said, indicating the paper, ‘not official.’
‘How do you mean? Are these the actual bookings as made?’
‘Yes, yes, actual bookings. But not original paper.’
‘No. Because the original would have been typed. Where is the original? Burnt?’
‘Not burnt. Taken from booking office files by one man. But I must not disclose name.’