Night Train to Jamalpur(84)

I came up to the open doorway signified by the two brass plaques: Dr R. P. N. Ganguly and Miss Hatsuyo. I entered the hot gloom, and climbed the stairs; the place smelt of singed dust. Ganguly’s rooms were on the first floor (as were Miss Hatsuyo’s). I knocked, obtaining no reply. I knocked again with the same result. I tried the door: locked. I knocked one final time, and it was the door behind me that opened: Miss Hatsuyo’s door. I caught a glimpse of the lady as she let a man out. He was a European, and upon seeing me, he bounded down the stairs, red-faced. But I was not concerned with him; I was eyeing Miss Hatsuyo. She was real; she fulfilled all the promise of the photograph, and she had perhaps smiled at me through the chink in the door before closing it. I lingered at the top of the stairs. Lydia had had a tussle with Khudayar Khan (perhaps); why should I not have one with Miss Hatsuyo? Make an international effort of it, League of Nations sort of thing. However, I descended the staircase slowly, lingering again when I regained the street, staring at the photographic portrait of Miss Hatsuyo and wondering about her Japanese speciality. It had certainly brought colour to the cheeks of her late customer.

I looked along Chowringhee, searching for the retreating form of the customer; instead, I saw the approaching form of another man altogether, Canon Peter Selwyn, walking fast, with a sheen of sweat on his pink face, silver crucifix bouncing about his neck, and some unknown violet-coloured flower in his buttonhole.

‘Captain Stringer!’ he said, and he took me by the elbow. ‘Kindly follow me.’ He was glancing in all directions as he took me through a broken gate, into a passageway running between a gun shop and a motor-car showroom. There was a pile of tyres in the alleyway, and somebody had lately ignited a heap of newspapers in it, or perhaps the newspapers had ignited themselves in the great heat.

‘I assure you that I am not in the habit of asking men to accompany me down dark alleyways,’ said Selwyn, ‘but I believe we were overseen when we talked at the Bengal Club.’

‘Who by?’

Cinders from the newspaper fire floated between us.

‘The rather forbidding Detective Inspector Khan, or an agent thereof. Such a mysterious man as him must have agents, don’t you think? At any rate, he summoned me on Wednesday last. Wanted to get from me everything I knew about the killing of Mr Young on the Jamalpur line.’

‘That’s fair enough. The wonder is he hadn’t called you in before then.’

‘But that’s the whole point. I don’t think he would have called me in at all – he would have been perfectly happy with the statement I made to Hughes at Jamalpur – but for the fact he’d seen me speaking to you.’

‘But we spoke on the Friday. So he let five days go by before he called you in. Did he say he saw you speaking to me?’

‘No, but he asked if I’d had further discussions about the case with anyone who’d been involved in it. I said no.’

‘And he didn’t contradict you?’

‘Not verbally, but by the look he gave me.’

I offered Selwyn a Gold Flake. He refused it.

‘What would you have done if he’d pulled you up?’ I asked. ‘I mean, if he said he knew you’d talked to me at the Bengal Club?’

‘I would have said I didn’t regard you as being involved in the case. But basically what I said to Khan was a direct contradiction of the ninth commandment.’

I frowned.

‘“Thou shalt not lie”, Captain Stringer.’

‘Did he ask you about the metal tube you’d seen Fisher throw away?’

‘Again not specifically. He asked if I’d seen any suspicious behaviour.’

‘And you didn’t mention the tube?’

‘I mentioned that to you. I didn’t want to say anything to Khan that I hadn’t mentioned in my statement.’

‘Did he ask about the . . .’

‘What? Spit it out, man.’

‘Well, the book you had with you on the train.’

‘I assume you mean the Bible.’

I smoked with eyes averted. ‘No,’ I said.

I meant the other book, which had not been astronomy. I could not imagine that Khan would take very kindly to the activities of Uranians.

‘Well now, Captain Stringer, I don’t see how that could be a factor in the case.’

‘No.’

‘. . . Any more than the young Japanese lady whose advertisement you were studying with such interest just now.’

I gave that the go-by. Certainly Miss Hatsuyo could not be a factor in the case of John Young’s murder, whereas her neighbour, Dr R. P. N. Ganguly, might very well be.

‘But what about that metal tube?’ he said. ‘Did you find out anything more about it?’