Blackstone and the Burning Secret (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 4) Read online

  His uncle would never have been capable of such a delicate balance, he thought. If his uncle had still been ruler, Chandrapore would have become a part of British India long ago.

  His mind drifted back to the outbreak of the Second Afghan War, when he himself had been a colonel in the Chandrapore State Army.

  ‘We must help the British to fight the Afghans,’ his weak-spirited uncle had told him. ‘We must show them we are their true friends by offering them the use of our troops.’

  The offer had been duly made, and the Viceroy had accepted it. The Colonel had suspected that the acceptance had more to do with tact and diplomacy than actual military necessity—for just as an adult will agree to let a child help him in a task rather than hurt that child’s feelings, so the Viceroy had welcomed assistance from Chandrapore. Not that the Colonel had been against the plan himself. He was a soldier, and as such, welcomed the possibility of active service. So he had taken his contingent of infantrymen, cavalry, camels and elephants up to the frontier, where it had fought side by side with the British Army.

  He had acquitted himself well in the war, and had been invited to train with the Honourable Artillery Company on English soil.

  ‘You must go,’ his uncle had said. ‘There is no question of it. It would be an insult to the Viceroy if we refused.’

  The old maharaja had never seemed to realize that he was a monarch in his own right—never fully appreciated the fact that he was the heir (albeit an unworthy one) to a long and distinguished line of warriors and statesmen. The rulers of the state had always borne the title of Tiger of Chandrapore, but in his uncle’s case the Worm of Chandrapore would have been a more appropriate one. Why, the man had been so afraid of the British that there was no act of subservience that was beyond him. Yet, once more, since the uncle’s plans concurred with the nephew’s own wishes, the Colonel had held his peace and gone to England.

  It had been while under training with the Honourable Artillery Company that he started to plot his coup d’etat.

  It would be a gamble, certainly, he argued with himself. The British did not like to see any change of Indian rulers in which they had played no part. On the other hand, if he could convince them that a change of government meant no threat to the British position, the Viceroy might just be willing to let it slide.

  Fortunately, no such gamble had been necessary. The spine had not been the only part of his body in which the old maharaja lacked power, and he had died leaving only daughters behind him. That did not give the Colonel all he might have wished for, of course, because it was his father, not he himself, who ascended to his uncle’s throne. Thoughts of patricide naturally began to enter the Colonel’s mind, but before these thoughts had time to develop, his father had had the good grace to contract a fever and die. And thus it was that the Colonel was a colonel no longer, but the Maharaja of Chandrapore.

  ‘Father! Father!’ shouted an excited voice behind him.

  The Maharaja turned to face the new arrival. Though the boy was only six, it was already obvious that he would grow to be a tall, well-built man. And a beautiful one, the Maharaja thought. His hair, now hidden by an elaborate gold turban, was thick, shiny and jet-black. He had huge dark eyes, like those of his dead mother, and a smooth skin which was more olive than brown. Whenever he appeared in public, the people gasped at the sight of him. He was, indeed, a golden child.

  ‘Is it true, Father?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Is what true?’ the Maharaja asked, sweeping the boy up into his arms.

  ‘Is it true that we are going to England?’

  ‘Yes, it is. But how did you find out?’

  The boy looked down at his hands, as if he had suddenly realized that perhaps he had said too much. ‘One of the palace monkeys told me.’

  His father laughed. ‘Perhaps that is true,’ he conceded, ‘but I’ll warrant that this particular monkey had a chamberlain’s chain of office around his neck. Tell me, my boy, does the news please you?’

  ‘Oh yes, Father. It pleases me greatly.’

  ‘Then perhaps you will tell me where England is.’

  ‘Isn’t it near to Bombay?’ the boy asked hopefully.

  The Maharaja laughed delightedly. ‘No, it is much further away than Bombay. It is far across the ocean.’

  ‘Like Ceylon?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Even further. Did the chattering monkey who revealed this news to you before I had chance to do so myself happen to tell you why we are going?’

  ‘Yes, we are going to see Queen Victoria. But why do you not just order her to come and see us?’

  The Maharaja smiled at his son’s naivety, though the edges of that smile were somewhat tempered by his own resentment. How could he explain to the boy that a maharaja had absolute power over life and death in his own state, and yet was expected to bow his head to a foreign queen? Could Balachandra even begin to understand that while his father was a king to his subjects, he was only a prince in the eyes of the British, since the only monarch they recognized in India was their own?

  ‘If I ordered her to come here instead of us going there, it would be she who had the holiday, not us,’ the Maharaja said to his son. ‘Is that fair?’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ the boy agreed. He paused for a moment. ‘Father...’

  ‘Yes, my son?’

  ‘Is to see Queen Victoria our only reason for going?’

  ‘What other reason could there be?’

  ‘I hoped...I hoped...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I hoped you might be looking for a new wife.’

  ‘For a new mother for you, you mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ the boy confessed. ‘For a new mother for me.’

  The Maharaja felt a stabbing pain in his heart. Balachandra had never known the mother who had died giving him birth, yet despite the scores of retainers who constantly fussed over him, he still felt the need for her.

  ‘We will find you a new mother soon,’ the Maharaja promised, ‘but she will come from India, not England.’ He placed his son back on the floor and patted his head. ‘I am happy that you came to see me, but I have many serious matters still to think about, and so now you must go away again.’

  ‘Of course, Father,’ the small boy said dutifully.

  The Maharaja watched as the boy crossed the room and disappeared into the corridor. There had been a time when he had had ambitions for himself, but that was no longer the case. If he had hopes of expanding Chandrapore at the expense of his neighbours, if he wished to see the British leave and the Maharaja of Chandrapore become emperor of all India—and both these things were very much in his mind—then these dreams were not for his own benefit, but for his son’s. Balachandra was the very centre of his being. He loved the child with all his heart.

  The Maharaja looked down on to the gardens. In the orchard, the honeybees were busily engaged in collecting nectar from the blossom. In the water garden, two servants were clearing away weed which threatened to clog the stream. And in the rose garden, the young Prince Nagesh, the Maharaja’s cousin, sat on a carved bench and gazed at the distant horizon as if he could see his future written there.

  Nagesh seemed aware that he was being watched. Indeed, there were times when it appeared as if he deliberately chose to position himself in a place where his cousin could not fail to notice him.

  ‘Here I am, Mahavir!’ he seemed to be saying, by his very presence. ‘Look at me! See how regal I am. My father was younger than yours, which is why you are maharaja and I am not. But do not worry—my time will come.’

  ‘Never!’ the Maharaja said aloud to the challenge which had never actually been put into words. ‘Never will I allow that to happen. My throne is for Balachandra. It is his right.’

  He wished that he could have Nagesh killed. But he knew that, as powerful as he was, such a bold act would be a step too far. Nagesh had his supporters in the court—men who would probably not risk their own necks in an attempt to put him on the throne but would willingly
face the possibility of death to avenge his murder. And so, for a while longer at least, Nagesh must be allowed to continue living.

  Another man had now joined Nagesh on the bench—a spindly man with thick wire glasses. No sooner had he sat down than the two of them fell into earnest conversation, so intense they could almost have been plotting.

  But whatever Nagesh might think, there was no plot being hatched there, the Maharaja told himself. Sapan Aggarwal was not only his secretary, he was his man. Aggarwal recognized that, but for the Maharaja’s generosity, he would still be bent over a desk in a dusty Bombay office. He saw clearly where his future lay, and when his master had asked him to pretend to make friends with Nagesh—the better to establish what thoughts were going through the ambitious prince’s mind—he had readily agreed.

  The spindly secretary was gesturing towards the town. Perhaps he was suggesting to Nagesh that, but for an accident of birth, all this could have been his. But the prince had better be careful how he answered such statements, especially when there were more witnesses around. Were he to utter anything which might be construed as treasonable, then even those courtiers who supported him would not dare to object when he was executed.

  The Maharaja turned away from the garden and walked over to his desk. There was a pile of papers there relating to his journey to England, and when Aggarwal finally returned from his task as agent provocateur to Nagesh’s conspirator, the final details would need to be confirmed.

  It was vital that the trip went well, the Maharaja told himself. It did not so much matter what was said while he was there—the vital thing was what was understood. The British government must learn to appreciate the fact that the political stability of Chandrapore depended on his continuing rule. They must come to believe that the queen had no more loyal ally than he—and perhaps she didn’t, for there was not a prince in the whole of India who would not stab the British in the back if he thought he could get away with it. And, most important of all, there must be an acknowledgement that Balachandra was the rightful heir to the throne of Chandrapore—and that the British would back his claim, with bayonets if needed.

  The Maharaja picked up a cigar with one hand and a silver bell with the other. Then, after a second’s thought, he replaced the bell on the desk. He didn’t want the arrival of servants to interrupt his train of thought at that moment, and in order to avoid such an inconvenience, he was perfectly willing to perform the onerous task of lighting his cigar himself.

  He inhaled the smoke, and relished the soothing effect it had on him. There was no need to worry about the expedition to England, he thought. His secretary, the ever-efficient Aggarwal, had the whole matter in hand. Even the dispatch of the beast, with which he intended to create a huge sensation on the streets of London, was well underway. It would all run as smoothly as clockwork.

  And having thus assured himself that nothing could possibly go wrong, the Maharaja turned his thoughts to further triumphs he could as yet see only hazily in the even more distant future.

  The Maharaja was not unique in such musings. It was a common trait of great men to plan ahead in such a manner. No doubt Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln had done exactly the same thing.

  One

  London, August 1898

  Sam Blackstone, one-time orphan, sometime soldier and currently a detective inspector in the London Metropolitan Police, placed his fingers firmly in his ears and awaited the worst.

  The worst came, a few seconds later. The horrendous clang of a thirteen and a half ton bell being struck by a four hundred and fifty pound mechanical hammer made his eardrums screech with protest, despite the protection his fingers had given them. The rest of his body, too, protested at the experience—trembling as the shock waves passed through it, and continuing to tremble even after they had gone.

  Showing no sense of mercy or compassion, the great bell just above his head reverberated a second time, and while this should have been easier to assimilate now the novelty had gone, the ears and legs quickly informed the Inspector of the contrary.

  Blackstone removed his fingers from his ears. His head seemed to be ringing at least as loudly as Big Ben had done, but he supposed that he should be grateful the kidnappers had set the exchange to take place at two o’clock, rather than at midday.

  The Inspector walked to the edge of the parapet of the bell tower, and focused his field glasses on Westminster Bridge. It was said that if London was the heart of the British Empire, then it was the horses which kept that heart beating at such a rate. And looking down, Blackstone had no doubt that was true.

  There were dozens of horses on the bridge at that moment. Teams of four pulled the double-decker omnibuses by which the less affluent members of the public travelled around the city. Single horses sat between the shafts of the hansom cabs which the more prosperous used as their means of transportation. Then there were the goods vehicles—the furniture and livestock vans which needed at least six horses to move them; the chimney sweep’s van which, though loaded down with sacks of soot, made do with one old nag.

  The pavements, too, were choked, but with bustling pedestrians—workmen and clerks, beggars and flower sellers. At that time of the afternoon, the traffic flowing across the bridge was almost as deep and relentless as the river which flowed under it, the Inspector thought—and the kidnappers would have been well aware of that.

  Blackstone fixed his glasses on the almost portly young man standing at the midpoint of the bridge. The man was wearing a top hat and slightly worn, slightly old-fashioned frock coat. In his hand, he was carrying a bulging leather attaché case.

  The Inspector chuckled at the memory of his sergeant’s disappointed expression when he had been presented with what was to be the first frock coat ever to have graced his back.

  ‘Couldn’t we have laid our hands on something a bit smarter?’ Patterson had asked.

  ‘Yes, we could have,’ Blackstone had replied. ‘And if the object of this exercise had been to impress some young women of your acquaintance, no expense would have been spared in making you look the perfect ladies’ man. But that’s not our aim, is it, Sergeant?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘So what are you supposed to look like?’

  ‘A tight-fisted northern industrialist who’d rather limp than pay a doctor’s bill.’

  ‘Exactly. And may I just say that in that coat, you’ll fit the description to a T.’

  And he did, Blackstone thought. Anyone who took the time to study him at close quarters would soon see that he was far too fresh-faced to be Obadiah Ramsbottom, but based on their previous form, the kidnappers were unlikely to linger.

  Blackstone shifted his gaze from Patterson to the blind clog dancer, otherwise known as Detective Constable Dove. The constable wasn’t doing a bad job at all, he thought. Dove was clumsy—but not too clumsy. And he had certainly assumed the air of a man who knew that a few coins, thrown in pity, were all that stood between him and starvation.

  He moved the glasses again, and briefly studied the coster-monger who appeared to be taking a rest from the heavy work of pushing his barrow up and down the streets. Very convincing, as was the flower girl, despite her distinctly masculine build.

  Everything—and everyone—was in place. The trap was set, and now all that remained was to wait for the prey to fall into it.

  If you enjoyed Blackstone and the Burning Secret check out Sally Spencer’s other books here: Endeavour Press - the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.

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  Why not read Book Five in The Blackstone Detective series next?

  Blackstone and the Stage of Death

  Also in The Blackstone Detective series:

  Blackstone and the Rendezvous with Death

  Blackstone and the Great Game

  Blackstone and the House of Secrets

  Blackstone and the Burning Secret

  Blackstone and the
Stage of Death

  Blackstone and the Heart of Darkness

  Also by Sally Spencer:

  Pilgrimage of Death

  The Madeiran Double Cross

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