Red Snow at Darjeeling

By Lawrence G. Blochman

Corporate hijinks mar the breathtaking scenery of the Himalayas—and set the stage for murder—in this Golden Age mystery from the author of Bengal Fire.
 
A construction overseer for Blenn Engineering Works, Paul Woodring, thinks he’s below the notice of Calcutta business mogul Alexander Blenn, but his singular skills are needed for a delicate mission: renewing a twenty-year-old concession that gives Blenn exclusive rights to develop mechanical transportation and resources in an Indian state near Darjeeling. But before Woodring steps on the train to the mountain city, Blenn goes missing and his general manager is murdered. Enter Insp. Leonidas Prike of the British CID . . .
 
Aboard the train climbing its way to Darjeeling is Prike and a raft of suspects including Woodring, Blenn’s niece and sole heir, a German botanist and Nazi party defector, an inveterate drunk, a Russian count, an engineering superintendent, and a mysterious dark-eyed woman. It will take all of Prike’s deductive skills to discover a motive and means for murder at the top of the world . . .
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Jul 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781504085748

Book preview

Red Snow at Darjeeling

The Punjab Mail, No. 2 Down, chuffed slowly into the gloom of Howrah Station, on time at 7.06 a.m. The train of dull-red cars groaned to a stop, and a chattering host of luggage coolies swarmed along the platform, extending lean brown hands as the window shutters banged open, one after the other with a succession of explosive sounds like a feu de joie. A young man in a khaki topi leaned out of the open door of a first-class compartment, looking back toward the servants’ compartment. He signalled to his bearer, a bewhiskered, turbaned Moslem, to take charge of his bags and bedding roll.

At the same moment a thin, middle-aged European in crisp whites stepped up to the side of the train, fixed the young man with a hard, appraising stare.

You’re Paul Woodring, aren’t you? he asked.

Yes, the youth nodded.

You probably don’t remember me, said the man on the platform. I’m Basil Stiller, Mr. Blenn’s general manager.

Yes, of course, said Woodring. He had seen Basil Stiller only once, three years before, but it would have been difficult to forget that long, sallow face with its bulging eyes, the deep rictus furrows curving down past each corner of the heavy, drooping mouth, accentuating the length of the thin beaked nose. And, of course, no one employed by the vast Blenn enterprises in India was allowed for a moment to forget the name of Basil Stiller.

"Had chota hazri yet, Woodring?" Stiller asked.

Just a cup of tea at Burdwan.

Then you’d better hurry over to Mr. Blenn’s house. He’s expecting you for breakfast.

I’ll stop by a hotel and clean up first, said Woodring. It’s been a hot, dusty ride.

You came through from Lahore, did you?

No, from Delhi.

I’d forgotten, said Stiller listlessly, as though bored by having to remember details in the lives of unimportant subordinates. "Nevertheless, you’d better hurry to Mr. Blenn just as you are. It’s urgent—or he wouldn’t have sent me to get you."

Very well, then.

The two men, walking towards the exit gates of the station, presented a study in contrasts. The younger man in khaki, almost a head taller than the older man in white, walked with an ambling, pleasantly awkward gait, while Stiller’s pace was stiff, precise, in rhythm with the swing of his Malacca cane. Woodring’s face was tanned by sun and wind, like the bare expanse of well-muscled legs showing below his khaki shorts. He had a quick, boyish smile, the symmetry of which was marked by the slight division between his two front teeth; but his clear brown eyes were thoroughly adult, honest, and steady. The set expression of Stiller’s pasty face gave the idea that he had not smiled in years.

I don’t suppose you know why Mr. Blenn sent for you, Stiller said.

No.

Good. Then you can’t have talked about it.

Woodring frowned. It’s a mystery, I take it.

It’s a nasty business. You won’t like it.

Why not?

Stiller stopped walking. His fishy gaze surveyed Woodring coldly for an instant. Then:

You’re too young to die, he said.

Woodring opened his mouth to laugh, but something in the expression of Stiller’s bulging eyes strangled the impulse in his throat.

In silence the two men walked through the waiting-room to the front of the station, where a phalanx of Sikh taxi-drivers were squawking their horns and exchanging noisy insults with red-turbaned Sikh policemen. Stiller pointed his cane at the nearest vehicle and said:

Jump in, Woodring. The Burra Sahib doesn’t like to be kept waiting. I’ll see that your bearer takes your bags to the Great Eastern. I’ve booked a room for you there.

As Woodring stepped into the ramshackle taxi, Stiller flung a few words of Hindustani at the driver and disappeared in the crowd.

Brakes squealed, gears clashed, and shrill Urdu profanity issued from the wagging beard, of the chauffeur as he cut sharply round a traffic jam of bullock carts, buffaloes, and ticca gharis, swung on to the floating bridge across the Hooghly to Calcutta, Despite the early hour, the relentless lash of the sun’s rays was already raising scales of fire on the muddy river as it swirled past the pontoons of the bridge.

Woodring hadn’t the faintest notion of why Alexander Blenn had sent for him. True, he had been in Blenn’s employ for the past five years, but so had scores of other young men.

There was a certain anonymity in being connected with the far-flung Blenn enterprises in India. Blenn had built—and was still building—an industrial empire on the vertical pattern which had crumbled for Stinnes in pre-Hitler Germany but which was succeeding for Ford in America. Blenn sought to control production from raw materials to transportation. His plantations, mills, factories, engineering works and dockyards stretched across the great Indian peninsula from Bengal to Baluchistan. And in the small army of Blenn’s Occidental employee’s Paul Woodring had been only a corporal—or at most, an obscure sergeant. He had been a construction overseer on several minor projects, but that was only a glorified surveyor’s job. And for two years he had had a small measure of responsibility; he had been in charge of two isolated posts in the mofussil, posts that were twice as lonely as they were important. He had never exchanged a dozen words with Alexander Blenn since he had been working for him, and this new mission—Well, he would soon know all about the nasty business….

Woodring lit a cigarette. The taxi had crossed the bridge, left Strand Road, and was chugging into the vast green stretch of the Maidan. Woodring sat up straight. Above the noise of the motor he heard a clear, shrill, crescendo note, a strident bird call with a rising inflection, repeated again and again with maddening insistence—the call of the brain-fever bird. And it then dawned upon Woodring that this was spring!

"Yih gali Camac Street hai, Sahib."

The voice of the Sikh taxi-walla broke Woodring’s reverie. He had stopped in front of a three-story, red-brick house in Camac Street. Woodring paid his fare, walked past the saluting durwan at the gate, climbed the stairs, rang. A moment later he was ushered into the presence of Alexander Blenn.

Come in, Woodring.

Blenn was attired in a red silk dressing-gown. He was a heavy man, with thinning iron-grey hair and a hard, florid, ruthless face that seemed weighted down by a strong, aggressive jaw. Woodring could hear Blenn’s deliberate, rhythmic breathing as he felt himself being scrutinised like a prize dog in the judge’s ring. He instantly felt something of Blenn’s dynamic presence, the self-conscious power of a true burra sahib, one of the old line of giants who built British India—for their own personal profit.

Sit down, Woodring. We’ll eat. I’m starved, waiting for you, said Blenn. Then he roared, "Khansama!"

In the next room there was a flurry of long white tunics and red turbans, as barefooted servants jumped into rapid, un-Oriental action. Woodring caught sight of two frightened brown faces, and mentally classified Blenn with certain other burra sahibs he had known: men who had lived in India for thirty years, but who spoke, with an atrocious English accent, only a hundred words of Hindustani, of which the word for thank you was not one.

You married, Woodring? Blenn demanded.

Woodring’s gaze wandered to a carved sandalwood desk on which was a framed photograph of a pretty girl—a girl of about twenty, with curly hair that lay close to her small, pert head.

No good your looking at that photo, Woodring, Blenn said. I don’t need you to perpetuate the Blenn dynasty. I’m quite satisfied with my plans for Ruth. I merely wanted to know what responsibilities you had.

None, sir, Woodring replied, except myself.

You’re English, are you?

Technically I’m British, said Woodring. My father was British and my mother American. I was born in the French Concession in Shanghai—through a miscalculation in schedules.

Blenn grunted. He said, You pronounce ‘schedule’ with a ‘k’—like an American. Why?

Woodring smiled. My father died when I was nine, and my mother took me to the States for most of my schooling, he said.

"But you’re British at heart. You’re not one of these scatter-brained radicals that believe in self-determination and swaraj and the break-up of the Empire and all that rot. You wouldn’t be working for me if you were. Now listen—"

Blenn paused. Three servants had entered, and were removing silver covers from steaming dishes. A Blenn breakfast, Woodring observed, was no half-hearted affair. There were grilled kippers, bacon, scrambled eggs, curried potatoes, great pyramids of toast, chutneys, marmalade, preserves. Blenn fell to with much gusto and little finesse.

I sent for you, Woodring, he continued, with his mouth full, because you’re honest, you’re resourceful, brave and loyal. You proved all these things when you recaptured the pay-roll from the dacoits who shot our paymaster in Chota Nagpur last year. Furthermore you’re independent and not too ambitious—because you’ve done your job in God-forsaken out-stations without a whimper, instead of yelling for transfer to the big cities, like most of our young men. So I’m giving you a chance at something big. More kippers, Woodring?

No, thanks.

Ever heard of Shimalghar? asked Blenn, scraping the rest of the kippers to his own plate.

That’s the independent state in the Himalayas north of Darjeeling, isn’t it?

Right. Shimalghar is one of our northern gateways to India. And I must say the gates are half off their hinges, what with our present wishy-washy foreign policy in Whitehall. We’ve lost our old grip on Afghanistan and we’re slipping badly in Shimalghar. Tibet and the mountains aren’t the barriers they used to be. From the headquarters of the new Chinese Communist Armies, airplanes could cross Tibet in two hours. And from an air base in Shimalghar, a bombing squadron could lay eggs on Calcutta in less than two hours. And that’s what will happen, Woodring, if I don’t stop it. In the past year three new Russian tea factories have opened in Shimalghar, and I’ll wager that every one of the tea planters is an officer in the Soviet Army. What’s more, the German perfume consortium that just sent men to Shimalghar to hunt the musk deer is only a blind for a Nazi mission.

I thought, said Woodring, that the Nawab of Shimalghar had an agreement to be guided by Britain in his foreign relations.

Blenn snorted—and sprayed toast crumbs in Woodring’s direction.

Rot! he exclaimed. So did Germany have an agreement not to fortify the Rhine. And what’s it worth to-day? Listen, Woodring. There’s going to be an air base in Shimalghar—but Alexander Blenn is going to build it. I’m already making planes in my plant at Budge-Budge. I have an engine of a new design, with a carburetter that operates with amazing efficiency at high altitudes. I have a concession from the Nawab of Shimalghar giving me exclusive rights to develop mechanical transportation and mineral resources in his state. The only drawback is that the concession was granted twenty years ago and expires next week. The Nawab has been stalling me on the matter of renewal. So to-morrow, you’ll go to Darjeeling, meet the Nawab’s representative, and bring back a ten-year extension of the Concession … More tea, Woodring?

Thanks, said Woodring. He frowned, as he seemed to be studying his own hands—large, capable hands with furry wrists. You talk, Mr. Blenn, as though it will be a simple matter to get the extension, he continued after a pause. Will it?

Alexander Blenn smiled. It was a smug smile. Yes, he said. Very. And very dangerous.

Woodring did not comment. He watched Blenn get up, wipe his mouth, light a long black cigar. Blenn took a bunch of keys from the pocket of his dressing-gown, walked to the sandalwood desk, unlocked a drawer. At the back of the open drawer he unlocked another compartment, drew out an unmounted photograph. He laid the photo on the table in front of Woodring.

Recognize any of these people? he asked.

Woodring studied the picture. The man with the beard, he said. Isn’t that the old Nawab of Shimalghar?

Exactly. Last month the Nawab made a hurried trip to Bangkok to consult the physician of the Siamese court for a throat ailment. This photograph was taken in Bangkok. Notice that the calendar on the wall behind the group conveniently fixes the date. And the people on both sides of the Nawab give us an idea of what was wrong with his throat. The man with the moustache is an attaché at the Italian Legation in Bangkok. The one next to him is a Nazi diplomat, and the little man on the right is General Daikumo of the Japanese Air Force. The Nawab seems to be writing something. In view of the recent Pan-Fascist Treaty signed by Germany, Italy and Japan, we can guess what he is writing. At any rate, I have sent the Nawab a copy of this picture, and he is very anxious to have the negative. That is why your mission to Darjeeling will be simple. But certain other parties are just as anxious to get the negative; that’s why your mission will be dangerous.

I see, Woodring was still looking at the photo. Has the Foreign Secretariat in Delhi seen this?

Of course not, Blenn said. When—or if—they do, there will be British troops in Shimalghar within forty-eight hours.

Then isn’t that the patriotic thing to do?

That, declared Blenn, puffing furiously on his cigar, would be carrying patriotism too far. Listen to me, Woodring. I’m an important man in India. I’m probably one of the most powerful persons between Peshawar and Cape Comorin. But do they recognise that at home? They do not. When the honours lists come out, who gets the knighthoods? Some stupid civil servant or a tuppenny-ha’penny rajah. Alexander Blenn isn’t even a baronet. But he will be—and more. He’ll have a seat in the House of Lords. I’ve already picked the title. The Viscount of Stepney! Lord Blenn of Stepney. Blenn laughed loud and bitterly. "Stepney! That will be one for the stuffed shirts in Westminster who’ve been snubbing me year after year because I wasn’t born a gentleman. I was born in Stepney. I was brought up on the smells of Whitechapel and Limehouse and the