The Detective

Detective Sutherly stepped carefully into the room.  It was a large space and he well short of the body, but it was his habit, born of cruel experience, to always advance cautiously in matters of this sort.  

Sir Giles Niven’s study was like something out of the Arabian Nights and the detective braced himself, glad, and not for the first time, or even the hundred and first, that he was not a member of the forensic team, those men who would have to go through it all piece by piece.  

Overstuffed, high backed chairs with scalloped wooden legs stood about the space, round, glass topped tables, their edges lacquered in the oriental style, standing haphazardly between.  These tables were universally inundated.  There were layers of books, of knicknacks and curiosities, maps, ingenious toys, puzzles and sundry other items which, at a glance, Sutherly could hardly even identify.  But, above all else, more than anything, there was paper, sheaf upon sheaf... of paper.  It lay scattered about the room in loose sheets and open portfolios, had been compiled up into notebooks and rough, leather bound manuscripts, heaped and stacked, stowed away beneath the tables and between chair legs, banked into corners, overflowing, tightly packed boxes; all used, all written over, all covered; a million words at least, in Giles’ flowing, nearly indecipherable, script.  

The bookcases which lined three of the walls were each in the same condition, as well as the master desk, but, despite the mounds of clutter, the room was not the vile refuge of a slob, a degenerate recluse.  There were no dishes, no rubbish, no half filled glasses of drink to give a character of slovenliness.  Indeed, the sidetable-cum-bar, which took up so much of the Eastern wall, was the least encumbered article in the room.  

‘But, what about the other...’ began Detective Sutherly, turning, but then he realized, there were not two serving pieces in the room, just as there were not two fireplaces, or two master desks- and certainly not two corpses.  The effect of duplication was caused by a massive reflecting glass, tipped slightly forward so that it seemed to be frowning down upon the room and all that it contained.  It was so large that at first glance one might have thought it a mirrored wall, but then, looking closer, one observed a scalloped, wooden framework running about the edges, neither molding nor baseboard, but which might have been either, or both, so massive was it.  To prevent its being ludicrous, the ancient glazier had needed to employ for his frame a stock which resembled the halved trunks of trees and Detective Sutherly, whose own father had been a poor carpenter, and to whom the smell of resin and sawdust might have been those of sweet oil and talcum powder, stood in awe of the reflecting glass, and its sternly forbidding grandeur, for a long, silent moment, before returning his attention to the matter at hand.

Sir Giles Niven lay quite dead, upon his own thickly carpeted floor.  The absence of a spreading pool of gore was no mercy, for the ornate, dragon topped handle which protruded from the man’s back bespoke a dagger of no mean size… of whose length none was visible.  The blood must have left the body, and so the layers of tightly woven carpet beneath must surely be impregnated with the stuff, thickening like custard, in the warm study air.

‘Blood pudding,’ thought the detective, with a shudder, taking another step into the room of death.

“Murder,” was what he said, matter of factly.

“Yes,” said the maid, behind him.  

That severe, middle-aged woman had identified herself as one, Mrs. Kumar, when she had answered his ring at the front door, pointing to a name tag fixed to the front of her uniform.  The detective knew therefore, before she said anything else, that it had been she who had found the body, she who had phoned the police.  He had asked anyway, of course, and the short, dark woman had confirmed the fact with a curt nod, taking his rain dappled hat and leading him inside without further ado. 

“Do all the domestics wear name tags?” asked the detective, slowly ascending the stairs.  “Surely that’s unusual.”

Mrs. Kumar shook her head.

“Mr. Niven was an old man,” she said.  “I had only been here for a few weeks, so he instructed that I wear this, so that he and his guest would know what to call me.”

“I see,” said the detective.  “Did that bother you?”

“It became a bother,” she said, her mouth tightening slightly.

“Where were you before entering Sir Niven’s employ?” he asked.

“I am newly in service,” said Mrs. Kumar.  “My father died recently and I was forced to find a way to support myself.”

“Your father was a wealthy man then?” said the detective.

“Once,” said the maid.  “Once, we were a well-to-do family, but we have since fallen on trying times.  My father was sick for many years with despair and regret.  It was enough when we were together, but afterwards there was nothing left.”

“Despair and regret,” murmured Sutherly, nodding sympathetically.  “Well, I suppose we all have a share of that.  I imagine you have had your measure, too?”

The woman did not answer, but indicated an open door at the end of a long passageway.

Now, wordlessly, Detective Sutherly knelt by the side of the dead man, taking care that his trouser leg not touch upon a sodden bit.

‘Poor ol’ Giles,’ he thought, touching the handle with a speculative finger.  

It had been long, dark years since he and the man lying dead across his own Persian carpets had been intimates, years agreed upon by the both of them, and not without some secret relief, as simple prudence.  Indeed, before that morning's summons, Sutherly had not even thought the name, ‘Giles Niven,’- be it Sir or otherwise- for many, bitter years.  It had been the time of their lives, but a time... best forgotten.  

‘Giles did pretty well for himself out of that Indian campaign,’ thought Sutherly with chagrin.  He had forgotten the man's raw avarice.  And not just in spinning tops and elaborate Hindu dolls either; the other heirlooms which he had appropriated must have been much more… negotiable, as they said in the city.  Those fat merchant families who had welcomed them in, they, and the protection they offered, or had seemed to offer; the Singh’s and Kumar’s, the Das’, all so rich, so hospitable, so… naive.  Giles had always had an eye on the future, the portable property, but Sutherly had been the junior man, in years and appetites; for Giles the gold, for Sutherly, the dusky amours.  

The detective darted his dry tongue in and out, creaking to his feet.  He walked to the desk- what a hopeless confusion- and past it to the window.  Gray fields stretched out in hedged blocks, the cultivated domains of a gentleman farmer.  Cutting across them, a long, white paved drive had been struck, as straight as a ruler.  It was the only means of egress and his own battered, official car stood, still gasping, on the wide lot below.  It was the only vehicle in sight; the coach house must be around one of the graveled corners.

It really was too much for him to deal with; the cluttered room, those reams of paper, old Giles’ whole lifetime worth of double dealing and shady connections, all to be gone over, sifted through, sorted and filed in search of that one clue, that one scrap of this or that, which might, with luck, point a finger at the man’s murderer.  He would let the forensic people handle with it.  Once they got working they wouldn’t leave even a single paper unturned.  Perhaps they would find fingerprints…  

Sutherly shifted a sheaf on the desk.  Below it were what looked like bills of lading, plane ticket stubs, agricultural accounts… a manual for a new tractor.  

A noise from behind caused the detective to turn.  He had forgotten the maid.  She had shut the door and was now standing inside the room, looking at him with her hands clasped.  She was very still.

“So, you found him like this then?” he said.

The maid did not answer. 

“I see, I see,” Sutherly said, nodding officially.  

His eyes roved over a small collection of jade figurines.  Surely, they would not be missed, not if they were to disappear before the forensic crew arrived.  And where was the team?  They should have been dispatched at nearly the same time as himself, but the estate drive was long and he could see no sign of a van, or anything else, coming along it, or the main road in the distance.  It gave one a feeling of… what was the opposite of agoraphobia?  He didn’t know.  After the crowded bazaars of India, Sutherly had never minded isolation.  Obviously, Giles had not either- but this was a bit extreme.

Turning smoothly, Detective Sutherly picked up a translucent green statue- Vishnu, perhaps- and slipped it into his jacket pocket.  

Crossing the study, back towards the door and civilization, Sutherly instinctively gave the body a wide berth.  The circuitous path forced him to draw near the brooding mirror, however, and as he did so, a dark doppelganger seemed to loom up from its somber depths.  He knew what it was, of course, but how very sinister that reflection appeared, how old and crooked.  He could not help but pause and turn, cringing slightly.  In India, he had been gay and handsome.  Yes, he had been younger, of course, but it was more than the intervening years which had whittled him into the sour, skull faced creature who now stood there, leering back at him from the glass.  The detective was suddenly glad that Giles was lying face down, that he could leave before they turned him over and he had to behold what foul caricature, what evil scowl, time must surely have pressed up out of his fleshy abundance.  

Had Giles' body twitched on the floor?  No, it was only Sutherly’s imagination.  

Once, the man had been so fat, pure tallow, now... little more than skin and bones.  In the dark glass the body looked like it was deflating before his eyes.

“So, you found him like this, then?” he said again, strangely flustered and unable to think.

“No, I did not,'” said the maid.

Detective Sutherly lunged forward impulsively and twisted the door knob, but it resisted him.

“Why did you not take all the little statues?” said Mrs. Kumar.  “Surely, your pockets are big enough for them all.”

The detective's hand flashed to the incriminating lump in his jacket.

“That’s evidence,” he blurted quickly, then, with a slight note of strain, “Why did you lock this door?  Open it at once, I have to go downstairs to let in the forensic team.”

“They are not here.  But they will find their own way in, eventually,” said the maid, calmly.  “They may have received a call telling them that Sir Giles' death was falsely reported.”

“Who would make such a call,” blurted Detective Sutherly.

“You did,” said Mrs. Kumar.  

There was a pause.  

“No, I did,” she confessed, with a slight movement of her shoulder, “but only because you told me to.  You need not worry.  They will come back.”

“Open this door at once, I say,” demanded the detective.

Mrs. Kumar shook her head.  

Stepping to the dead man, she grasped the dagger handle and wrenched the blade free.  Even that instrument was unsullied by blood; the body might have had nothing in it but dust and shadows.

“You shouldn't…” said Sutherly, weakly, but she spoke over him.

“I had not meant to kill him, yet,” she said.  “But, it does not signify.  It was his karma.”

“You had not meant to kill him?” said the detective.

“Yet,” said Mrs. Kumar, nodding.  “It was a silly little thing, but it does not matter.” 

“What was silly?” said the detective.

“The thing that made me have to kill him when I did, instead of when I meant to,” said the maid.

“And what was it, what was the thing?” whispered Sutherly.  

He felt powerless, as if his joints had been loosened, his feet nailed to the floor, through the thick layers of carpet.  Slowly, Mrs. Kumar walked to him.  Stopping at his side, she turned him until they were both facing the mirror.  How young and fresh she looked in its dark luster; years had gone missing from her face.  She might have been a fresh scrubbed Calcutta girl, had the severe uniform been exchanged for a sari.  But how wicked and old he looked in her shadow, how like a demon, hovering at her shoulder.

“We stood, just like this,” she said.  “Mr. Nevin and I; so absurd that I should have forgotten.  You do not know me, do you, Sahab, do not remember a little girl… brown eyes, black hair?  But then, we all had brown eyes and black hair, did we not?  Niven did not either.  I did not expect him to, to remember me, only the gold, but you...”

The detective looked into her face, then down to the large name tag.  “Kumar,” it read, in clear, plain type.  Sternly, she directed his eyes back to the mirror.  He found it again, in the inverted, alien room, upon the bosom of the secret girl.  He gasped.

“Rumak,” he whispered.

“Yes, Rumak,” she said.  “The greatest family in all Calcutta.  We took you in.  We fed you… and you destroyed us.  I did not know any English names when we followed you to this country.  We were so miserable and broken by then.  My poor father.  They were terrible to him in prison.  It was easier to make a name up, and, you know, it was something.  I was still proud to have my family name, in a way, even though you had sullied it.”

“Ramuk,” whimpered Detective Sutherly, again.  He floundered away from her, his craven eyes fixed on the dagger, held firmly in her strong hand.

“It wasn’t me,” he wailed.  “I didn’t ruin your family; it was Niven.  He was the one who stole the things, ransacking the empty mansions right down to the bare walls, he was the one who had your families thrown into prison.  I’m poor, I’ve had to slave my whole life because I didn’t take a thing.  Look at me!”

“Look at you?” exclaimed the woman cynically, raising an eyebrow.  “I have looked at you every evening, in my nightmares.  No, you took nothing, nothing of value, nothing you would remember.  Or, maybe you did.  And maybe you will, if you try, long enough, and hard enough.  You will have lots, and lots, of time to do so, I am thinking.  You are right about your friend, Niven, though.  He did take many things, physical things, riches, treasures; the very plates we fed you both from.  Perhaps that was why you killed him?”

“I… I killed him?” stammered Sutherly.  “Why, I haven't even seen him in years.  Why should I kill him?”

“It’s all in the letter,” said the woman.

“What letter?” wailed Sutherly.

“The one Niven wrote, the one he told you about, when he confessed to everything, that he was a thief and you a rapist.  The one where he exonerated the men and the families you both falsely accused.  I believe it was quite specific.”

“He would never write a thing like that,” Sutherly gasped, despite himself.

“Perhaps he dictated it then... to me,” said the woman.

“But where is this letter, I don’t have any letter, I never saw any letter,” said Sutherly.

“I’m sure it’s in this room... somewhere,” said the woman, dropping the dagger to the floor and waving her hand.  

“Is that a siren I hear?  Are your friends coming back already?”

Sutherly made to rush to the window, but in his agitation it was to the reflection that he dashed.  His hands flashed out and he stood pressed to its glossy surface, unable to turn away but blocked from life, unable to interfere.  He saw the girl… she looked so young, and, did he… could he… a young girl… perhaps...

Sutherly pressed his eyes shut, refusing to remember, refusing to let the shame and guilt possess him.  He heard a slight snick as the door opened and closed, a key rasping in the lock and then, silence, and then… nothing.

After a long while, Detective Sutherly dared open his eyes.  

He was sitting on an oriental carpet.  From outside there came the muted hubbub of the bazaars.  Sunlight flooded the room and in every corner, on every surface, there stood a treasure.  The wealth of the orient.  He was young again and it was his for the taking, theirs, for the taking, his and good ol’ Giles, so fat, so jolly.  Like low hanging fruit, like pink guava.  Who was to stop them?  The scent of jasmine floated into his mind and he dashed his eyes upwards. 

The gold dust twinkled down.  

The market noises dissolved into the shrill scream of sirens.

Before him were two skeletons, one lying face down, the other leaning next to it, alone in a room full of old trinkets, of dust and ashes.  On the floor was a knife.