Bombay Mail

By Lawrence G. Blochman

“Death and fast action take place on the crack Trans-Indian Express . . . Inspector Prike . . . encounters rubies, secretaries, cobras, priests, spies.” —Time
 
The assassination of the Governor of Bengal propels a Golden Age mystery that introduces readers to shrewd British CID Insp. Leonidas Prike. Set on a train from Calcutta to Bombay, Lawrence G. Blochman’s debut novel races through the Indian landscape, giving Inspector Prike twenty-seven hours to pin down a killer from a colorful mix of suspects, including a drunken news photographer, an intrepid American miner, a woman with dual identities, an Italian acrobat, a Maharajah, and a plumbing fixtures salesman, among other passengers . . .
 
After the governor, Sir Anthony Daniels, goes missing from his private car, Inspector Prike hops on the train at the next stop, bringing his calm efficiency and photographic mind to the case. He soon finds the governor in someone else’s compartment—dead from cyanide poisoning. The suspects include everyone in the adjoining cars, all traveling with secrets ranging from hidden gems to clandestine love affairs and radical political agendas. Danger rides the rails as someone with nothing left to lose sits trapped among the innocent, until Prike follows a trail of clues to the end of the line . . .
 
“A break-neck narrative . . . a non-stop thriller.” —Spectator

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Jul 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781504085762

Book preview

I. CALCUTTA (Howrah Station)

Depart 9:36 p.m. Thursday

Chapter One:

IF ANYONE WANTS TO KILL ME—

The unrest which had been simmering for months under the boiling Bengal sun culminated with the explosion of a bomb at Government House in Calcutta one Thursday morning in 1933.

There was no doubt that the bomb was intended for His Excellency Sir Anthony Daniels, Bart. C.B.E., K.S.I., K.C.I. E., Governor of Bengal. The Governor personally had found the bomb sputtering on his desk after breakfast. He had promptly pitched it through the window and watched it explode in the garden, making a great amount of noise, smoke, and dust, uprooting shrubs, and breaking four windows. Then the Governor himself exploded—with a burst of unstatesmanlike profanity.

Sir Anthony Daniels, physically, was a small, gray-haired governor, but his bearing, his determined jaw, and his clear, ringing voice seemed to add a foot to his stature. He was a grizzled administrator, proud of his long years of service in India which had won him a reputation of being hard, but just. He had been profane on countless occasions before, but never with such eloquence as on this particular Thursday morning. Moreover, he was not swearing at the bomb. That, he realized, was a protest against the jailing of several hundred political agitators under his resurrection of repression measures forgotten since the Sepoy Rebellion. The bomb was more or less a routine matter. But that it should explode on the very morning that the Governor had received an annoying cablegram from England was maddening. The cablegram, confirmed by similar orders from the Viceroy, was from the Secretary of State for India. It read:

PROCEED LONDON IMMEDIATELY BY FIRST MAIL STEAMER FOR CONFERENCE AT INDIA OFFICE BRINGING SECRET FILES INDICATED PREVIOUS CODE TELEGRAMS.

Dammit all, Luke-Patson, said the Governor to his private secretary, going home now after this bomb business will make it appear that I’m running away. People will say ‘Old Daniels is funking it.’

Perhaps Your Excellency will be able to explain the situacion to the India Office during the next few days, began Luke-Patson.

There’s no next few days about it, snapped the Governor. He had his own ideas on the subject of cabinet ministers who want to rule India from the other side of the world, but he also knew how to take orders. The message specifies the first steamer. This is mail day, Luke-Patson. We’ll have to get out to Bombay on the Mail tonight. Make the necessary arrangements for a private car.

Captain Gerald Worthing, the Governor’s military secretary, came into the room. He was a young, natty-looking officer, pale, with a wisp of blond mustache.

I was just about to send for you, Captain, said the Governor. Pack your kit. You’re going home on the Mail tonight.

Captain Worthing’s pale face turned a shade paler. Tonight, Your Excellency?

Tonight. What’s the matter, Captain? You don’t seem anxious to go.

My—my home leave isn’t due until next year, Your Excellency.

Bother your leave. This is a special mission. You’re going with me. Pack your kit.

Yes, Your Excellency. I came to report that the police say they are looking for a Hindu in a loin cloth who was seen running across Government House gardens immediately before the explosion, but who seems somehow to have slipped past the guards—

Naturally.

—and that there is a rather unruly mob heading into Old Court House Street from the Maidan. However, a machine-gun detachment has arrived from Fort William. They’re setting up two Lewis guns at the Hastings Street gates.

Oh, they are, are they? growled the Governor. Well, they can take them down again. ’Phone Fort William and tell the general I don’t want his machine guns. I’ll not have an Amritsar massacre at my front door.

Is that prudent, Your Excellency, in view of the mood—?

How long have you been in India, Captain Worthing? the Governor interrupted.

Five years, sir.

I’ll have been out here twenty-five years next monsoon, said the Governor. When you’ve been out that long, Captain, maybe you’ll know the Indian mind as well as I do. The Indian mind understands questions of courage and cowardice. In calling me home today after this bombing business some stuffed shirt in Whitehall is making me look the coward. I’m not a coward, Captain. See that those machine guns are taken away.

Very well, Your Excellency.

As for you, L.P.— When the Governor called his private secretary L.P. instead of Luke-Patson, it was a sign he was in excellent humor. His gesture in sending away the machine-gun detachment, thereby demonstrating that he was not a coward, had improved his spirits. As for you, L.P., I want you to get Secret Files D and E in order, so we can take them home to the stuffed shirts.

Luke-Patson went to his own office to work on the secret files. Documents littered his desk, and his left hand was constantly outspread to keep the papers from fluttering in the draft from the ceiling fan. It was a large hand, slightly hairy but well manicured. It expressed eloquently the proportions and character of Luke-Patson—a large, well-groomed man nearing forty, whose ruddy face and full lips indicated his love of good food and drink. Calcutta knew that he maintained a luxurious apartment in Lower Circular Road, owned race horses, and gambled heavily. He was credited with having a large private income which allowed him to keep his wife and two children in the hill stations or in England except for the three months of Calcutta’s comparatively cool weather. Malicious gossip attributed motives other than the climate to Luke-Patson’s keeping his family elsewhere than in Calcutta, but malicious gossip is considered an innocent pastime among Europeans in India. Rare is the man for whom evil tongues cannot invent more scandalous secrets than could be found even in the Bengal Government’s secret files, which Luke-Patson was at this moment checking.

A package for you, Sahib.

A red-turbaned chuprassy placed a small parcel on Luke-Patson’s desk and stood waiting expectantly. Luke-Patson took the package.

Well? he asked.

There is an answer, Sahib, said the messenger. A receipt.

Luke-Patson opened the parcel. It contained a stack of bank notes of large denomination. A letter was wrapped around the money. Luke-Patson read the letter, rapidly penned a few lines in reply, sealed them in an unaddressed envelope which he handed to the messenger. The messenger salaamed and left.

At the same moment Captain Worthing entered the office.

Luke-Patson slipped the letter he had just received among the papers of Secret File D, fluttering in the wind from the ceiling fan. He looked up to see Captain Worthing staring at the bundle of currency. He put the money in his pocket.

I just sent to the bank for some cash, Luke-Patson explained. I’ll need it for the trip home. And I’ve got to settle a few debts before we leave. My bookmakers have been after me already this morning—

You’re a lucky devil, with your well-lined pockets, said Worthing. Is that File D you’ve got there?

Yes.

The Governor wants it, said Captain Worthing.

I’ll bring it to His Excellency in a few minutes. I haven’t finished checking.

His Excellency wants it immediately, just as it is. He told me to bring it.

Very well then.

Luke-Patson gathered up the papers, fitted them into a leather case and accompanied the military secretary to the Governor’s office.

The Governor took the leather case and said, That’s fine, L.P. Is there anything important we should clean up before we leave?

There’s been a young American trying to see you all day about some mineral concession up-country, said Luke-Patson.

Why doesn’t he go to the mining office?

He insisted that he had to see Your Excellency. I told him that Your Excellency was leaving today on matters of state and would be unable to see him until your return.

Quite right. L.P. Did—? Oh, good morning, Lady Daniels.

The Governor’s wife stood in the doorway, a handsome, well-poised woman, growing gracefully into middle age.

Captain Worthing and Luke-Patson withdrew.

Is it true that you’re going out on the Mail tonight? asked Lady Daniels.

Quite.

Why doesn’t the E.I.R. give you a special train to take your private car to Bombay on a secret schedule?

Because I’m going on the Mail, Lady Daniels.

But after what happened this morning, Anthony—

I’m going on the Bombay Mail, insisted the Governor. I’m not sneaking away. If anyone wants to kill me, he’ll find that Britain can send out new governors faster than they can be done away with. I’m not afraid. If my career is to come to a sudden, violent end, I’m satisfied to stand on the work I’ve done.

Then I’m going with you, announced Lady Daniels.

You’d better go on up to Simla for the hot months, as you’d planned. You’ll miss not adding new Himalayan butterflies to your collection—

I’m going with you, said Lady Daniels.

Sir Anthony made a gesture of surrender.

Lady Daniels withdrew.

The Governor looked down at his desk—and started. A card lay there—a greasy, much-fingered card that he had not seen before. On it was written in a large, round, childish hand: Do not exult over your triumph. Exultation is premature.

The Governor picked up the card. He frowned. Then he snorted. There was much in India that was still mysterious to him, much that no white man could understand. But he had never believed in the supernatural feats boasted by Yogis. It was all simple conjuring. That card had not been materialized out of nothing. How—? Of course. The window was open behind him. The card had been tossed through the window. He had not seen it fall, that was all. It would require considerable dexterity to throw a card through a window with such accuracy, but Indian conjurers are not lacking in dexterity. He would not even bother to report the matter to the police.

Sir Anthony tore up the card and dropped the pieces into his wastebasket.

At eight-thirty o’clock Thursday evening a troop of fiercely bearded lancers, resplendent in blue-and-gold turbans, rode proud horses down Hastings Street and along Strand Road. With red-and-white pennants fluttering from their upright lances, the horsemen charged into the slow-moving traffic that clogged the pontoon bridge across the Hooghly River. For twenty minutes there was a hopeless tangle of buffalo carts, gharris, and antiquated taxis. Half-naked bullock drivers leaned forward to twist their animals’ tails as the lancers advanced, a Sikh taxi chauffeur squawked his horn with his bare foot, and fifty gharri-wallas swore at one another. At last the bridge was clear for the Governor of Bengal’s motor to proceed swiftly from Calcutta to the railway station at Howrah, terminus for trains to and from Western India. A few minutes after nine o’clock the Governor helped Lady Daniels from the motor and walked along the strip of red carpet that marked the path across the station platform to the Governor’s private car—a snow-white car attached to a train of deepred coaches: The Bombay Mail.

On Thursday nights the Bombay Mail leaves Howrah terminus in two sections. The first section had already gone. The second section is the boat train, speeding one thousand three hundred and fifty miles across India directly to Ballard Pier in Bombay, arriving just in time for the Saturday sailing of the weekly P. & O. mail steamer for England. The boat train was due to leave at 21:36 Indian railway time—which is 9:36 p.m. by anybody’s watch.

A round of applause broke from the crowd gathered to congratulate the Governor on his escape from the bomb explosion. The Governor raised his gray top hat. Wives of Legislative Council members curtsied to Lady Daniels. Light flashed from the metal spike on Captain Worthing’s white dress helmet as the military secretary conferred with the stationmaster. The Maharajah of Zunjore, surrounded by Hindu nobles in brilliant silks and turbans, followed by green-coated A.D.C.’s with clanking swords, came forward to greet the Governor.

The Maharajah’s own private car was scheduled originally to be attached to the Bombay Mail. Railway officials announced that the Mail could carry only one extra coach. Sir Anthony had invited the Maharajah to travel as his guest in the Government car, housing his retinue in the adjoining first-class coach. A bejeweled spray of egrets bobbed at the front of the Maharajah’s lavender turban as he talked to the Governor.

A tall, distinguished-looking European with a close-cropped black beard walked by, speaking sharply in French to a fat servant, from whom he snatched a Gladstone bag of black cowhide. An angular, middle-aged lady was complaining in a thin, nasal voice, unmistakably American, that her luggage had not been placed in her compartment. A dissipated-looking young man in badly rumpled whites rolled his bloodshot eyes as he leaned unsteadily for support on a servant already overburdened with cameras and tripods.

The stationmaster signaled the engineer, far forward. Steam hissed. The train groaned. The Governor and his party got into the private car. There was a chorus of good-bys. English wives taking children home to school waved moist handkerchiefs to husbands who would have to stay in India for the hot weather. A quartet of flushed subalterns burst into song on the platform in honor of a comrade going home on leave. The train started to move.

A young Anglo-Saxon wearing khaki shorts sprinted along the platform in pursuit of the train, followed by a full-whiskered Indian servant carrying a bedding roll.

A plain-clothes man stepped from the crowd directly in the path of the young Anglo-Saxon. The momentum of the racing youth in shorts knocked him down. The uniformed European constables sprang to seize the youth. The train began picking up speed.

The youth frantically displayed an American passport and an oblong of green pasteboard. The first constable examined the passport with the air of someone handling a tainted and odorous object. The second constable seemed equally disgusted as he handed back the ticket.

Amerrikin, said the first constable.

Seckind clarse, said the other.

They released the youth. He dashed after the disappearing train. His bearded servant had already opened the door of a second-class compartment, three cars behind the Governor’s private coach. The American jumped in. The door slammed shut. The Bombay Mail snorted as it passed from Howrah Station into the hot night.

Chapter Two:

STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE

A strong atmosphere of nervous tension pervaded the Governor’s car as it clicked over the rails. The iced pails of champagne which had stood on the table of the little dining-saloon since the Bombay Mail had left Howrah Station were no more successful in dispelling the general feeling of uneasiness than the two ceiling fans were in relieving the heavy, damp heat.

The Maharajah of Zunjore fidgeted as though he believed that he might be to blame for the undercurrent of —was it fear? —that caused talk to fail and jokes to fall flat. The Maharajah of Zunjore was not usually given to fidgeting in European society, for, despite his bejeweled lavender turban, he knew himself to bear the approved stamp of gentleman that the polish of English public schools and Oxford guaranteed. In fact, a discontented party of orthodox Hindus in his own State accused him of being too much of an English gentleman—of having more interest in polo and pig-sticking than in the affairs of the people of Zunjore. Yet His Highness was uneasy to the extent of upsetting a glass of champagne in Luke-Patson’s lap.

Lady Daniels, who was seated on the other side of Luke-Patson, arose to leave the dining-saloon.

You will excuse me, gentlemen, she said. I am very tired.

The other gentlemen of the party rose with the Governor’s wife. When they resumed their seats, the Maharajah remained standing. Twirling the stem of his empty champagne glass nervously between his fingers, he approached the Governor.

Your Excellency, I should like to ask you a frank question, he said in a cultured voice that was without a trace of chichi accent.

The Governor studied the regular features of the Anglicized prince before he replied.

I suppose Your Highness would like me to send my secretaries to bed, said Sir Anthony at last.

No need of that. There was just a touch of sarcasm in the Maharajah’s tone. I fancy they know more about this than I do.

More about what, Your Highness?

The Maharajah of Zunjore breathed deeply, as if to swell himself to the proper proportions of a sovereign potentate. Just what is the significance of Your Excellency’s request that I travel with you to England? he demanded.

Sir Anthony suppressed a bored yawn.

I communicated the Viceroy’s message to Your Highness, word for word, he said.

But what is behind the Viceroy’s message?

Sir Anthony made a phlegmatic gesture with his right hand. With his left, he passed his champagne glass to Captain Worthing to be refilled.

Your Highness will be fully enlightened by the India Office in London, he said.

The Governor’s calm manner seemed to infuriate the Maharajah of Zunjore. The play of his facial muscles indicated a struggle to retain his dignity. Yet his upper lip was drawn back tightly against his very white teeth, and his next phrases were strangely curt.

Why am I kept in the dark? he asked. Why am I treated like a naughty child? I am the Maharajah of Zunjore. I am a sovereign ruler—

I imagine the Viceroy is in full possession of those facts, interrupted Sir Anthony quietly.

Then Your Excellency refuses to answer my question?

Sir Anthony put down his champagne glass with great deliberation.

I am not at liberty to discuss the alleged strained relations between Your Highness and the Government of India, he said. "I can only guess that since the present Secretary of State for India was a