that no one need glimpse any blood, least of all your own sweet self,” Mr. Sack suggested, ringing a bell to see I was escorted out. “Thank you for your visit. And, I assure you, I look forward to our meeting again with the very greatest pleasure.”
• • •
My hooded cloak served his purposes just as neatly as Mr. Sack had imagined, and I arrived at the Weathercock without a single glance of concern darting my way. This is not to suggest that eyes did not follow my progress; shadow-obscured figures trailed after me as I exited East India House, for I saw their doubles in the windowpanes, and when I had reached my lodgings, I peered through the curtains and saw men with hats pulled low, studying newspapers as they idled against the brickwork.
These small impediments served solely to bait me.
I called for linens and hot water. Viciously harsh with the key, I locked my door and pounded a single fist against it, unspeakably vexed both at myself and the badmash who had dared to treat me so.
My requested supplies arrived well before an hour had passed, and I barricaded myself in again and stripped all away, sinking into the bath. Gingerly, I cupped my hand and splashed at the line Mr. Sack had torn through my skin, which had already stiffened into a fiercely throbbing counterpart to the tear in my scalp. I then lay back to wash all clean.
Soaking, drifting, I sifted Mr. Sack’s fresh details in my mind. Some were valuable wholly in the sense that I loved Charles Thornfield, others in the sense that I wanted him safe. Sack’s words could have been false, I told myself, but they had not sounded like any sort of prevarication I had ever encountered—what, therefore, would it mean if they were truths?
Nothing to the good, I thought at first. My feelings upon theorising that Sardar Singh was a liar were, in ascending order: shame, hurt, and dismay. I hesitate to tell you that lies, reader, are a very easily learnt knack, so I did not for an instant marvel over whether he could have retained possession of the precious trunk, crossing oceans with it no less, without confiding in anyone.
Yet I could not reconcile what I knew of Mr. Singh with the fresh sketch which had been inked—and neither could I reconcile his epistolary posturing with his obvious chagrin at Mr. Sack’s visiting Highgate House, his love for Sahjara Kaur, and his fury that Mr. Thornfield might have exposed her to evil influences.
At the thought of what Mr. Thornfield must have seen on the battlefield, his childhood love blown apart and swept ashore like so much river flotsam, I was tempted to weep.
No weeping, I thought furiously. Thinking is more useful than weeping.
I allowed my mind to drift farther afield; after all, this whole mess had begun in the Punjab.
Who is to say the key to it could not be found in the Punjab?
Lest one mistakenly consider me a close reasoner, I am only a close observer of human nature, my own being defective. On this occasion, however, I had lit upon a valid idea. Streaming bathwater everywhere, I leapt out of the tub, hastily drying myself before throwing a dressing gown over my shoulders. The steam had become soporific, and I needed to wrest nagging hints from the hind of my brain to the front.
After an hour’s chaotic sprawl in my bedsheets, I thought I had got somewhere. It was hardly evening, and yet the sunlight had utterly decayed, winter’s dreary gleam just visible through my curtains.
Eagerly, I hastened to write a letter to one Inspector Sam Quillfeather.
Solving the murder of Jack Ghosh was irrelevant, for I had killed him; solving the murder of John Clements was impossible at the moment. A grisly trail of blood across the continents, however, had been left behind by those associated with Karman Kaur’s vast fortune, and I thought that, all other avenues being barred, I might glean some leavings from an earlier—much earlier—misdeed.
I had to solve the murder of David Lavell—in Amritsar, all those years hence.
It is of the utmost importance that I see the papers regarding Mr. Lavell that Mr. Clements was studying. . . .
This I wrote to Inspector Quillfeather, followed by:
If I am correct in my conclusions, I must confess to you that I have committed a terrible crime, and must be brought at once to justice.