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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
C.I.D. is a gripping novel by Talbot Mundy that plunges readers into the intricate intrigues of British India during the early 20th century. The narrative unfolds through the exploits of an enigmatic protagonist, an officer in the Criminal Investigation Department, weaving a tapestry of adventure, espionage, and cross-cultural encounters. Mundy'Äôs prose is rich and immersive, characterized by vivid descriptions and a keen understanding of the geopolitical landscape, echoing the style of contemporaneous writers while also asserting its unique voice. The book reflects the era's fascination with colonial adventure, shaped by the socio-political tensions of the time and the complexities of British imperialism. Talbot Mundy, an American author renowned for his adventure tales, was deeply influenced by his travels in the East and his experiences during WWI. His background as a war correspondent and a soldier in the British Army endowed him with firsthand insights into the cultural dynamics and conflicts of the regions he depicted. Mundy's passion for Eastern philosophies and a keen interest in mysticism permeate his works, allowing him to construct narratives that resonate with authenticity and depth. C.I.D. is not only a thrilling adventure story but also a nuanced exploration of colonial identity and morality. Readers seeking a blend of action, intrigue, and a historical lens will find this book captivating. Mundy'Äôs work invites readers to reflect on the moral complexities of imperialism while immersing themselves in the excitement of its narrative.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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C.I.D.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 "There is no such person. There is no such country."
IT was typical south-west monsoon weather, about as bad as Noah's deluge. Due to choked drains and innumerable other troubles, some parts of the single track lay two feet under water; and it was next thing to impossible to see through the driving rain, so the "up mixed" reached the terminus three hours late. It crawled dejectedly and grumbled to a standstill in Narada Station, with curtains of water drooling from its eaves. The drum of the rain on the iron station roof seemed to add to the gloom of the lamp-lit platform. Stanley Copeland stuck his head out through a first-class compartment window and received not less than a gallon of water on the back of his neck. Cursing all things Indian, he opened the door then and jumped for comparative shelter—simultaneously with a very obese Bengali babu,* who was traveling second and apparently possessed no other luggage than a black umbrella.
[* babu, baboo (Hindi)—gentleman; used as a Hindi courtesy title; equivalent to English "Mr"; also: a Hindu clerk who is literate in English; also, when used derogatively: a native of India who has acquired some superficial education in English. The American Heritage Dictionary. For more detail see the entry Baboo in The Hobson Jobson Dictionary. ]
"What chance of getting a porter?" he asked the babu.
"None whatever, sahib. Haven't you a servant?"
Copeland had not, but he had a smile worth money. He had to pitch his voice against the splash of torrents from the eaves, the crash of thunder and the scream of the engine's safety valve; but his voice was sonorous, not harsh:
"Someone was to have met me, but apparently he hasn't. If they tried to auction India—"
The babu interrupted him. He chuckled amiably, pointing to the railway dining-room.
"You go in there and order dinner for us both," he said, "and whisky pegs in two tall glasses; those are most important. Do you see those elephants?"
Three huge brutes loomed and swayed in lamplit shadow on the far side of the platform. One had an awninged, nickel-plated howdah, dyed tusks and vermilion paint around its eyes.
"There is a royal personage on this train," said the babu. "He monopolizes all the porters. Is your luggage labeled? How many pieces? How many more in the compartment? Very well, my servant shall attend to them and I will supervise him. I am good at watching other people work. Go in and order dinner."
As he spoke, a dish-faced, coppery-hued fellow in a dirty turban and a ragged cotton blanket left off talking to a pair of yellow-smocked, ascetic-looking pilgrims by the door of a third-class carriage and ran to receive the babu's orders. Rather fascinated by the pilgrims, Copeland stared at them. To him they seemed more interested in the crowd than most such pious people are, when they have sworn a vow of poverty and set forth with staff and begging bowl in search of some religious rainbow's end. However, they walked away and the shadows swallowed them. Copeland, finding himself alone, made tracks for the gloomy dining-room, sat down in the farthest corner at a fly-blown tablecloth beside a window, and ordered dinner from a bare-foot Goanese who knew enough to bring the drinks first.
He had to wait for the babu. He had swallowed one drink and ordered another when a dark-skinned man in a blue European suit, a raincoat, and a turban, entered. He glanced at Copeland shrewdly and then took a seat as far away as possible, but sat facing him. He had keen eyes and a look of self-assurance, but there was something sinister about him.
His gestures were those of a conjurer "with nothing to conceal," and his very shapely hands were too conspicuous; a ruby, that perhaps was genuine, in a ring on the middle finger of his right hand suggested a danger signal; and Copeland was not prejudiced in his favor by the fact that he wore a gold chain-bracelet on his right wrist. His stare was lynx-like when the babu entered. He appeared to suspect, if not to recognize him, but the babu took no notice. A cane chair creaked under his weight as he sat down with his back towards the other man and swallowed, almost at a draught, the long drink that awaited him. Then he plunged into conversation:
"It will be a rotten dinner, but you will learn that without my telling you. What is the use of your talking to me, unless I tell you what you can't discover for yourself? I am a reprehensible and graceless babu named Chullunder Ghose—investigator; don't, however, waste your time investigating me, for there is no such person. Out there on the platform you were about to speak of India. There is no such country."
"Where, then, have I spent the last six months?" Copeland asked him. "The visa on my passport calls it India."
"If I should call myself a surgeon," said the babu, "would that prove it? India speaks more than fifty languages, but can't explain itself. It has a hundred heavenly religions, and is going to the devil. It has two hundred governments, no two alike, and more misgovernment per square mile than a colony of monkeys in a madhouse. India is misunderstood by itself and by every one else, the same as you and me, but would like to be understood, the same as you would; I, myself, however, pray that nobody may ever understand me. If I understood myself, I should inevitably die of boredom. You, sir, are a surgeon. Don't deny it. I know all about you."
"Why should I deny it?" Copeland answered. "There is nothing to know about me. I'm a specialist from the neck up—eye, throat, nose, and ear. Just now I'm studying cataract, if you know what that is. I came here because I heard that the next State, Kutchdullub, is full of it. I operate on anyone who'll let me."
"So does that man," said the babu with a backward motion of his head, "but sane people don't let him."
Copeland glanced at the man at the far corner table. "Does he know you?" he asked.
"Not yet."'
"He'll remember the shape of the back of your head!"
"He shall remember more—much more!" the babu answered. "If only other people had longer memories, he might not now be drawing such a fat retainer as the medical wizard in charge of the Prince who came on our train. Even wealthy Indian Princes are as silly as peasants and lots of other people; they will listen to and pay a charlatan, but send a reputable doctor to the devil. Do you find it easy to get patients?"
Copeland smiled reminiscently. He had merry eyes and almost comically large ears, but a studious face and an unself-assertive manner.
"I've had better luck than I expected," he answered. "Lots of Mohammedan patients, and some Hindus. In the hospitals I've had no difficulty with the Hindus—even women. However, if I understand the situation, now I'm up against State rights. Narada seems to be the jumping-off place into ancient history, as well as railroad terminus and border-town. The Rajah of the next State doesn't even answer letters."
"Perhaps, if he were sober —" said the babu. "Oh, is that the trouble? I was told he has religious prejudices against modern medicine and surgery."
"Prejudices!" said the babu. "The religious member of that family is the Rajah of Kutchdullub's cousin. It was he who arrived on our train. It is he who would inherit if the present Rajah should die childless. The present Rajah inherited because his elder brother did die childless. I am an investigator. Verb. sap."*
[* Verbum sapienti sat est—A word to the wise is sufficient. Annotator]
"I should say, then, that the cousin would be wiser not to cross the border. Why does he do it?"
"And in this weather! There are always seven reasons for everything that anybody does. I know three: politics, health, religion. And the greatest of these is human nature! That is not a reason, but a good joke. His political adherents in Kutchdullub aren't so sticky that it doesn't pay to see them now and then and spread more tanglefoot. He has a country villa where his medical adviser, whom you see behind me, tells him that the medicinal springs are curative of ulcers of the stomach. As the hope and ewe lamb of the high church party, it behooves him at certain seasons to be sacramented by the priests. The other four reasons are what I am here to find out. But why are you here?"
"Me? I'm hoping," said Copeland. "I want to see Kutchdullub, and I want to shoot a tiger. There's a small dispensary in this town, and the Sikh in charge of it has offered to let me hold a clinic. So I'll stay here for the present. What did you mean by saying there is no such person as yourself?"
"Am dead just now, as happens frequently. Was mixed up in a case near Quetta, and some murderers were hanged. But certain other murderers and friends of same were not caught, it being out of the question to catch and hang the total population; because no government is wise or reasonable; they always compromise: Therefore the C.I.D.—you have heard of it? Criminal Investigation Department—had me murdered and cremated as a precaution against revenge, and then removed me to this sweet solitude for a vacation."
"Taking chances, aren't you?"
"No, I never take them. One of them will take me some day. Until then I am taking long odds, but betting only on certainties."
Copeland studied him a minute, while they both dipped spoons into abominable soup. He decided that the man's obesity might be as deceptive as his mild brown eyes and his almost bovine calm.
"What I meant," he remarked, when thunder had ceased crashing, "is, why do you tell me your name and what you are? I might betray you."
He was answered by a chuckle. Then: "Do you suppose the C.I.D. would send me here because I don't know the country intimately? Knowing, I am naturally known; and, once known, not so easy to forget! If His Highness the Rajah of Kutchdullub happens to be sober, his spies will tell him before midnight that you and I have dined together. So why should I observe secrecy towards you? On this side of the border what harm can you do me?"
"Will they let you cross, or must you sneak in?" Copeland asked him.
"I would go in with a brass band, if there were one," said the babu. "Some of them will welcome me as small boys do a teacher, telling me the little secrets better to conceal the big ones. For I tell you, that secrets are not kept by being secretive; nor can you discover them by looking like a questionnaire in a headsman's mask. But tell me, have you ever shot a tiger?"
"Can't say I have," said Copeland. "But a fellow needs a steady nerve at my trade. There isn't much room for error when you operate on eyes, for instance. I can handle a rifle. I've a good one that I've used quite a bit. Say, look here! I don't know of anything that I can offer you, but perhaps you can think of something. You can get into Kutchdullub, and you're going. I want people suffering from cataract to come and see me. And I want to shoot a tiger. Help me in either of those respects, and name your quid pro quo. If I can match you, I will."
Swiftly, penetratingly, and only once, the babu glanced at him; his brown eyes almost changed their shape during that fraction of a second, and their color glowed like amber with a light behind it. Then he looked down at his goat chop.
"Do you ever gamble, sahib? Do you bet blind? Do you have an intuition that you trust against the evidence of all your senses?"
"Sometimes."
"Care to bet on me? I have a nuisance value. Not even God can guess the value of a nuisance, or He would not have created such a paradox. A nuisance is superior to Einstein's square root of minus one; that has no demonstrable existence but can solve a problem by creating greater ones. I would exact a promise."
Thunder again, chain lightning, and a volley of rain on the iron roof. The man in the far corner washed his ruby in a tumbler, polished it on a napkin, turned up his overcoat collar and walked out, letting in a gust of wind that blew off tablecloths and smashed some crockery.
"I would ask you to promise," said the babu, "not to cross the border into the State of Kutchdullub until I send for you or come and fetch you."
"What's the big idea?"
"Take no chances," said the babu. "Sahib, it is paradoxically true in this world that the simplest way to get what you are after is not to try to get it. Say no, and resist temptation when you mean yes and already have fallen for it like an apple on to Newton's nose."
"O.K., I get you. Very well, I promise."
"But I promise nothing," said the babu. "It is contrary to my religion to make any promise that I don't intend to break. I am a slave of my religion."
"You're 'a high-caste Hindu, aren't you? How comes it that you eat with me, and eat meat?"
Chullunder Ghose took up a bone in his fingers and gnawed it before he answered:
"Sahib, why do you cut cataracts off eyeballs?"
"For the practice. Hell, I'm learning!"
"Same here! Self am also surgeon—of impossibilities! I amputate them. Why? For the experience. I like it. And one does not get experience by being holier than other people."
"But the Hindu religion, as I understand it—"
"You don't understand it, any more than I do, or the priests do," said the babu. "I am a devotee of all religions and all politics. I am an autocratic democratic absolutist, communistically minded—a pro-Gandhian believer in machine-made products. Also am a Nietzschean-Tolstoian Platonist with animistic leanings, balancing a pole, like Blondin on a tightrope, with a Bryanite bimetallism on the one end and a sense of humor on the other. I believe that governments are necessary nonsense, and that the only deadly sin is sorrow, whether you inflict it or accept it."
"So you sign up with the C.I.D. and send men to the gallows?"
"I? Their lack of humor hangs them! Clowns and other funny people never reach a gallows. It is people who take themselves seriously who slip up on their own solemnity, like politicians on a party platform. The secret of all the crimes there ever were, is self-importance. It is that—their self-importance, that eventually traps them."
"All right, go and prod their self-importance, but remember, I want some cataract cases—and a tiger. You can reach me at the Sikh's dispensary. He wrote he has a bedroom for me, but I don't know the address yet. I'll have to wait here at the station until he shows up. Where will you be?"
"Everywhere, sahib. I must splash around in this abominable monsoon, wishing I were Jonah in the belly of a whale. And I must go now. Thank you for the rotten dinner and the pleasant company. I wish you hecatombs of mutilated heads to study with your lancet."
"Thanks, I hope you hang your man," said Copeland. "Bring him to me first, though, if his eyes need fixing."
"Good-by, sahib. Don't come out into the rain." But curiosity compelled, so Copeland buttoned up his overcoat and watched three elephants go swaying off into the darkness loaded with a Prince and all his retinue. The station lights, reflected in a kind of misty halo by the rain, revealed even a glimpse of royalty—a lean, dark-turbaned, youngish man, a trifle stooping at the shoulders, perched up in the nickel-plated howdah with a heavy shawl over his English raincoat. He was taking himself, or something, seriously. He looked sad. But he swayed away into the rain and was lost in darkness before Copeland could even memorize his features.
Then an ekka drove up for the babu—a one-horse, two-wheeled, springless cart, already piled up with the babu's baggage under a watertight tarpaulin. The babu's dish-faced servant was already up beside the driver. The babu climbed in and the cart creaked. The driver screamed at his decrepit horse. The babu pulled an end of the tarpaulin over him and waved his black umbrella—and suddenly, out of the station shadow, the two yellow-robed pilgrims ran like ghosts and climbed into the cart too.
"Charity to holy people is a way of going long of riches in the next world!" the babu shouted. "Good-by, sahib."
There was a frightful flash of lightning—seething rain — thunder—howling wind; lightning again, and a vivid glimpse of trees bent almost double—ruts through black mud—miles of muddy water. And then darkness.
"It's a hell of a night," said Copeland to himself. He went back to the dismal dining-room and paid his bill. "Who was that man who had dinner with me?" he asked the waiter.
"Some babu," he answered. "I not knowing."
But he did know. He was too afraid of him to talk. The lamplight shone on too much of the bloodshot whites of his distended eyes.
CHAPTER 2 "I am sent by Soonya"
WIND rolled away the steam of two weeks' rain and gave a glimpse of tumbled mountains beyond lush green jungle. Out of the jungle poured a roaring river; coffee-brown, loaded with trash; it stank of dead things. Where, two weeks ago, the shallow ford had been, and village cattle came to drink, it boiled and eddied ten feet deep—impassable. A dozen mat-and-cotton, toe-rag camps were clustered on the side towards the city; there the traveling native merchants waited for the yearly race to be first in the field, to sell goods on credit while the peasants' rain-fed optimism rose like sap in green stuff.
On the far side of the river, on a hillock, in a thatched shed built for him by villagers, Chullunder Ghose sat camped in luxury. He had crossed, before the river rose too high, on a log-raft that had been carried away by the next night's flood and left him stranded. He had exactly what he needed, and he needed extremely little. In an English Norfolk jacket, a Hindu loin-cloth and a plain black cotton turban, he looked rich enough to be important and yet not so rich that the villagers might feel afraid of him. He sat on a mat in the door of the shed; cross-legged, like a fat god, smiling. And since he paid his way, and certainly was not a tax-collector or policemen, the villagers came and talked to him between the storms of rain. Their talk was chiefly about taxes, and the priests, and the iniquitous forced labor when the Rajah needed porters for his hunting expeditions. They talked about the Prince who had come across the ford with three elephants, and who had actually paid them for firewood and elephant feed.
"A good Prince. But he came near drowning. There was with him a Madrasi, with a red stone on his finger. When the Prince fell off the elephant in mid-stream that Madrasi pretended to try to rescue him. But we saw. And it was one of us who swam into the stream and saved him. He received for that a gift of two rupees from the Prince. But from the Madrasi he received a cursing. The Madrasi said a low-caste person should not touch the Prince's person. And that is true. But what would you?"
They talked also of Gandhi. Gandhi, they had heard, was in London teaching the English how to use the hand-loom. Was it true, as some of Kali's priests said, that Gandhi intended to kick the English out and give the government to Moslems?
Chullunder Ghose was patient. He declared he had to wait until the ford was passable. He asked no questions about tigers, none whatever about Kali's priests, or about the ruined temple in the jungle near by. If he had asked, he might have heard nothing. But, as usually happens to a good-tempered man who listens but is not inquisitive, what he wished to learn began to reach his ears in driblets. He was told, among many other things, the reason why, for instance, nobody came near him after four in the afternoon, and why the cattle were driven home so early.
"He has slain six women, four men, five children, six-and-fifty goats and nineteen head of cattle. He is a male tiger. He is harder on us than the takkus [tax]. Our shikari should have set a trap or shot him, but he dared not, though he talked loud; and when we mocked him he ran away, we know not whither. It is not wise that your honor camps in this place, and if we had known how good your honor is we would have spoken. Come now and dwell in the village." Chullunder Ghose might have accepted the invitation, but the rain came down that minute, so a dozen villagers were forced to share the shed with him, and half a dozen more came running along the track at the edge of the jungle to take shelter. Five of them reached it, and the sixth was hardly fifty yards away when he suddenly screamed. A tiger leaped out from the undergrowth and struck him, seized him by the shoulder, worried him a moment and then dragged him out of sight. It was all over in ten seconds. But they heard the man scream in the jungle—once. After that, silence. It had happened phantom-fashion. Even the rain seemed silent and unreal.
All the villagers took sticks and ran to beat the jungle. But it was useless, and they knew it. One by one they came back to squat and shudder in the babu's camp-fire smoke and ask advice.
"Another widow to feed. That is the fifth man, making sixteen humans. Shall we abandon the village? But where then? There is no place for us."
"Tell the Rajah," said the babu. "Is it not his business and privilege to deal with tigers?"
"Sahib, we have sent and told him. Long ago we told him, when the tiger slew the first man."
"What else have you done?"
"We have paid much money to the priests of Kali's temple. But the priests also do nothing."
"What else?"
"To the priestess we have given money. Her name is Soonya. It is her tiger. She lives in the ruined temple yonder in the jungle. The tiger lives there also."
"Liars! Can she keep a tiger like a tame cat? If it eats you, would it not eat her?"
"Nay, not so. Is she not a priestess? She is not like other people, sahib. Furthermore, she says the tiger will continue killing us and our cattle until the Rajah keeps a promise to rebuild the temple. Nevertheless, if he should do that he would first increase the takkus; and how can we pay it, since the tiger eats us and our cattle? Will your honor not speak to the Rajah?"
"I would like to speak first to that priestess," said the babu. "Which of you will lead me to her?"
There were no volunteers. There were fifty excuses, chief of which was that the hour was growing late; it would be dark in the jungle. Some of them even admitted they were too scared.
"Sahib, in a few months, when the sun has dried it, we will burn the jungle. There is nothing to do until that time comes."
"Except to get me an elephant. Get one. Go and do it!"
But the nearest elephant was fifteen miles away. It belonged to a zamindar* notorious for meanness; he would demand too much money. The elephant would eat the food of thirty people. The mahout and two or three alleged grass-cutters would also demand rations and money. Probably the elephant would go sick. He might even die; and who would' be blamed for it?
[* zamindar, zemindar (Hindi)—land-holder, land-owner, landlord, landed proprietor; farmer. Platt's Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English. For other meanings and more information, see the Wikipedia article Zamindar. ]
"Tell me then about this Soonya whom you call a priestess," said the babu.
So they told him an endless story, that being the least they could do after refusing his other requests; and he believed some portions of it. None knew whence she first came. She was married, some said, at the age of ten years to a man so handsome that the gods were jealous of him. Therefore the gods slew him with a sickness. She wanted to die on his funeral pyre, as widows used to, and, it is rumored, that some do even to this day. But that was forbidden by the Sircar,* that is obstinate about such matters.
[* Sircar, Sirkar (Hindi, "head of affairs")—various meanings: 1) the State, the Government, the Supreme authority; also "the Master" or head of the domestic government. Thus a servant, if asked "Whose are those horses?" in replying "They are the sircar’s," may mean according to circumstances, that they are Government horses, or that they belong to his own master. 2) In Bengal the word was applied to a domestic servant who is a kind of house-steward, keeps the accounts of household expenditure, and makes miscellaneous purchases for the family; also, in merchants' offices, to any native accountant or native employed in making purchases, etc. 3) Under the Mahommedan governments, as in the time of the Mogul Empire, and later in the Deccan, the word was applied to certain extensive administrative divisions of territory. The Hobson Jobson Dictionary. ]
So she tried to starve herself to death, which also was forbidden. Sahibs took her to a hospital and fed her by force with a tube until she gave in and agreed to live. She was then sent to a Christian mission, and the padres taught her to deny caste. But she did not agree to the rest of the teaching, so she ran away. She became a sanyassin*—wandering, wandering with staff and begging bowl, and rumor had it that she went mad. But some say that the padres had already made her so.
[* sanyassin (Hindi)—a wandering religious beggar. For more information, see the Wikipedia article Sanyasa. ]
"We are all mad," said the babu. "If we were not, nobody would love us. How did she come to this place? Did she bring the tiger with her?"
Opinions varied. Some said she had come before the tiger; some said afterwards. They all agreed, however, that at Kutchdullub she had adopted the terrible creed of Kali, which serves death, not life. It worships death and sings the praises of calamity. "Our fathers told us about Thuggee, sahib. Has your honor heard of that? The Thugs slew people as a sacrifice to Kali, the Destroyer. But the Sircar also made an end of Thuggee—some say."
"I will cross the river," said the babu.
"Nay, nay, sahib! Not yet for a week, or for more than a week. It drowns men. Who can cross it?"
"I will cross now."
"Nay, nay! Tell us more about the dok-i-tar who skins eyes so that blind men see."
"Lead me to the priestess, or I go now."
"But we dare not. Is that killer not loose in the jungle? He is worse than she is."
"Then I go at once. These"—he pointed to his odds and ends of baggage—"are in your keeping. Make me a raft of goatskins — tight ones—well sewn. Bring a long rope and a pole. And if I drown I hope the tiger eats you all."
They pleaded—argued; but his mildness had vanished. He even beat them. So the goatskins that an Indian village never lacks were blown up tight and lashed together. Standing on that, the babu poled and paddled himself across, assisted by the rope that held the raft against the stream. It took him two hours. It was after nightfall, and he was almost fainting from exhaustion, when he crawled out on the far bank in a storm of wind and rain. He staggered to the nearest trader's bivouac, where a kerosene lantern made a warm glow in the darkness.
"Horses!" he commanded. "Harness up and drive me to the city!"
Mocking voices answered. "Swim, thou mudfish! Sit in the mud thou fool, and pray for miracles! Thy belly holds more food than we have here—go and fill it with frogs!"
"I am sent by Soonya," he answered.
There was instant silence. Presently a man crawled out into the rain and thrust a lantern near the babu's face.
"Who do you say sent you?"
"Ask again, thou dog, and she herself shall answer! Harness up! She orders. I pay—twenty rupees."
That was a mistake.
"So? She? A priestess offers money for a service?"
But the babu snapped back: "Atcha! I will keep my money. Ask her anything you wish to know. I will go and bring her."
He turned away into the dark rain. The lantern followed.
"Sahib! Sahib!"
Fifteen minutes later he was splashing into darkness toward Kutchdullub City in a hooded cart, behind two strong horses, munching at chapatis spread with hot spice. The driver asked no more questions.
It appeared that Soonya was someone.
CHAPTER 3 "Isn't that brute dead yet?"
DIVINELY authorized and autocratic sounds good, but it seems that liabilities invariably balance assets, somehow, even in the Rajah business. To begin with, it was monsoon weather. The marble and limestone palace, with its terraces, courtyards, gardens, summer-houses and lotus-ponds was one desolate splash made drearier by hurrying dark-gray clouds. There were creditors out on the palace steps, bemartyring themselves beneath umbrellas. The walls dripped clammy moisture. There was mildew on the hangings. The canaries in gilded cages were molting miserably and refused to sing. The Rajah had the bellyache, a headache, and a letter from a banker—a swine of a banker—a dirty, contemptible son of a low-caste shroff,* who demanded his interest and "found it inconvenient" to lend another rupee. Nor was that all.
[* shroff (Hindi from Arabic)—a banker or money changer in the Far East; especially: one who tests and evaluates coin. Merriam-Webster Online. See also Platt's Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English. ]
The zenana* hummed with malice, like a wasps' nest being smoked out. The most recent recruit to the Rajah's private ménage was a lady with a genius for spending money and a magnetism that exploded all the stores of jealousy and discontent that she could anywhere discover.
[* zenana (Hindi)—the part of a house in Asian countries reserved for the women of the household. Wikipedia. ]
