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.
THIRTY
I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them. And now I thought: till now, I had only heard, seen, moved—followed up and down where I was led or dragged—watched event rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but now, I thought.
It’s a lucky thing I left my card, isn’t it, Miss Steele?”
The sun had long since set, the eleventh hour dolefully chimed, and Mr. Quillfeather’s bright hazel eyes were creased with fatigue as he passed me paper after paper from a battered black case. Some were written in Punjabi, which I placed in a separate pile. Others were reports from Lavell’s superiors, however; some were letters writ in my native tongue; and a few were journals written by Lavell himself, which I snatched up eagerly.
“You were very frank with me, Mr. Quillfeather, and you seem a true friend to Mr. Thornfield, so I must learn to be at ease in your company. Thank you for bringing these so quickly—you’ve no reason to trust me, after all.”
“I have reason to trust myself, Miss Steele, and you have always struck me as a most scrupulous young woman?”
Smiling at this outrageous compliment, I touched the black buttons at the neck of the high-collared coral dress I had donned to hide my fresh battle scar. I had always thought Inspector Quillfeather remarkably affable for a policeman, and it was shocking to realise that speaking with him felt like conversing with an old friend.
“I will thank you for saying so by taking you entirely into my confidence—for I need you, Mr. Quillfeather, both you and your police wagon.”