‘I believe it might have been a cigar holder.’
‘Oh.’
‘I can tell you that Major Fisher has now left the police service.’
‘That must be a great relief for you.’
‘He has gone to work for a maharajah’s son in one of the native states. He is to build a railway.’
‘What? Single-handedly? I must say, I’m clearing out myself. I sail for Blighty next month.’
‘You’ve brought the date forward, then,’ I said (because his original plan had been to sail in the New Year).
‘It is the effect of Khan. He is an excellent advertisement for Suffolk.’
And off he went.
I lingered on Chowringhee, trying to get inside the head of Detective Inspector Khan. He had interviewed Selwyn on the Wednesday; he had come up to see me in Darjeeling the following Tuesday . . . Was there any connection? It seemed more likely to me that he had come up to Darjeeling having heard that Jogendra had been sniffing around about the reservation chart. From where I stood, I could see the sides of the trams as they clanged past: Lifebuoy Soap . . . Lifebuoy Soap . . . Lipton’s Tea . . . Lifebuoy Soap. I drifted towards the junction with Dalhousie Square, and from here I could see the destination blinds on the fronts of the trams: Tollygunge . . . Lower Circular Road . . . Zoological Gardens. It was about to pull away. I walked – then ran – towards it.
I liked being on the tram. I sat with my hat on my knee. The lower deck was dark, and it gave shade; the bell was mellow like a church bell. As the tram moved south along Chowringhee, it would occasionally muster a burst of speed, so that the air moving through the window slats chilled the sweat on my shirt front.
But in the Zoological Gardens, all was slow again. The electric train was out of commission, as signs hanging from the little picket fence guarding the track repeatedly announced. The few visitors moved exhaustedly between the enclosures, or sat on the benches in the pagodas, sleeping, or fanning themselves with their hats. An ambling elephant crossed my path. In a moment, I thought, all movement will completely cease, as when the reel gets caught in the projector at the picture houses, then a sudden flame will eat us all away.
IV
In his office adjacent to the reptile house, Professor Hedley Fleming stood by the laboratory table, where he was pouring a slow-moving yellow liquid from a test tube into a glass jar. He had been at it for an age, as I sat by his desk smoking a Gold Flake. I had been admitted to his office by his Indian assistant, but only, it appeared, for the purposes of watching the professor at work. The yellow liquid moved like honey. I believed it to be snake venom, but Professor Fleming was not letting on. I had twice enquired, and he had merely said, ‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Captain Stringer.’ He might be showing off. He was like the boy at school who will not let you copy his work but makes it plain that he is getting all the answers right. He really did look like an overgrown schoolboy – It was the curly hair and the golden glasses that did it. They had made him seem an alien presence in the photograph of him attending the Debating Society dance that I had seen at the Debating Society dance. I wondered who had been his partner on that occasion, because no adult went to that dance unaccompanied . . . except for Major Fisher, of course.
Finally, the pouring was over.
‘I have five minutes, Captain Stringer,’ Fleming said, sitting down opposite to me at the desk.
‘Well, first of all, thank you for—’
‘Literally five minutes, Captain Stringer.’
‘Has Superintendent Christopher Bennett of the East Indian Railway Police been to see you?’
‘About what?’
‘About all the snakes that have been killing people along the line. You are the top snake man in Calcutta, are you not?’
‘Captain Stringer, I am still somewhat baffled as to whether you come here in an official or an unofficial capacity. I think you admitted to me last time that you were not directly assigned to this investigation.’
‘I am officially concerned with security, and that is being breached in spectacular fashion.’
Professor Hedley Fleming was contemplating my sweat-soaked form. Over his right shoulder I could see on the wall the university photograph, but I still could not make out the inscription. For all his appearance of being an overgrown schoolboy, Fleming must be about of an age with Superintendent Bennett. Bennett was a Cambridge man; Fleming either Oxford or Cambridge. Either way, there was an excellent chance that they had coincided in Britain or Calcutta. They must have done so, and yet both appeared to be denying any connection.
‘Perhaps you think I am responsible for leaving these snakes on the trains,’ he said.