"The Sikhs! The Sikhs!"
The crowd took it up. And since it was a crowd, and there was nothing else to do; and since it had had protection but no violence at Sikh hands ever since "57; and since the babu really did look frightened, it shouted that the Sikhs were coming until it believed the news and had made itself thoroughly afraid.
"Run, brothers!" shouted some man in the middle who owned a voice like a bull-buffalo"s. And that being a new idea and just as good as any, the whole crowd took to its heels, leaving the four policemen staring at the body of a dead Sikh, and the fat babu complacently regarding all of them.
Presently a European police officer trotted up on a white pony, examined the body, asked a dozen questions of the four policemen, wrote in his memorandum book, and ordered the body to be taken to the morgue.
"Come here, you!" he called to the babu.
So the babu waddled to him, judging his salaam shrewdly so that it suggested deference while leaving no doubt as to the intended insult.
"What do you know about this?"
"As peaceful citizen in pursuance of daily bread and other perquisites, I claim protection of police! While proceeding on way was thrown to ground violentlee by galloping horse whose rider urged same in opposite direction. Observe my deshabille. Regard this mud on my person. I insist on full rigor of the law for which I am taxed inordinately."
"What sort of a horse? Who rode it? How long ago?"
"Am losing all count of time since being overwhelmed. Should say veree recently, however. The horse was ridden by a person who urged it vehemently. It was a brown horse, I think."
"Which way did he go?"
"How should I know? He went away, knocking me over in transit and causing me great distress."
"Was he armed?"
"Two arms. With one he steered the animal. With the other he urged him, thus."
The babu described in pantomime an imaginary human riding for his life, whom not even the adroitest police officer could recognize as Ranjoor Singh, even had he been acquainted with the risaldar-major.
"Had he a weapon of any kind?"
"Not knowing, would prefer to say nothing about that. It was with the horse-with the rump of the animal that he hit me, and not with a sword of any kind."
"Well, you had better come with me to the office, and there we"ll take down your deposition."
"Am I arrested?"
"No. You"re a witness."
"On the contrary, I am prosecutor! I demand as stated formerly full rigor of the law. I demand capture and arrest, together with fine and imprisonment of party a.s.saulting me, failing which I shall address complaint to government!"
"Come along. We"ll talk about that at the office."
So the babu was escorted to the stuffy little police office, where he was made to sit on a bench beside ten native witnesses of other crimes; and presently he was called to a desk at which a native clerk presided. There he was made to recite his story again, and since he had had time in which to think, he told a most amazing, disconnected yarn that looked even more untruthful by the time the clerk had written his own version of it on a sheet. To this version the babu was required to swear, and he did so without a blink.
Then there was more delay, while somebody was found who knew him and could certify to his address, and it was nearly evening by the time he was allowed to go.
It was also nearly evening when a messenger arrived at the barracks to report the death of a Sikh trooper by murder in the bazaar. The man"s name and regimental number proved him to have been one of D Squadron"s men, and since its commander, Ranjoor Singh, was then in quarters, the news was brought to him at once.
"Killed where?" he demanded; so they told him.
"Exactly when?"
It became evident to Ranjoor Singh that there had been some truth after all in the babu"s tale. The verbal precis of the only witness, given from memory, about a man who galloped away on horseback, threw no light at all on the case; so, because he could think of nothing better to do at the moment, the risaldar-major sent for a tikka- gharri and drove down to the morgue to identify the body.
On the way back from the morgue he looked in at the police station, but the babu had been gone some ten minutes when he arrived.
The police could tell him nothing. It was explained that the crowd directly after the murder had been too great to allow any but those nearest to see anything; and it was admitted that the crowd had been suddenly panic-stricken and had scattered before the police could secure witnesses. So he drove away, wondering, and ordered the driver to follow the road taken by the murdered trooper.
It was just on the edge of evening, when the lighted street-lamps were yet too pale to show distinctly, that he pa.s.sed the disused boarded shop and saw, on the side of the street opposite, the babu who had brought him the story of riot that afternoon. He stopped his carriage and stepped out. On second thought he ordered the carriage away, for he was in plain clothes and not likely to attract notice; and he had a suspicion in his mind that he might care to investigate a little on his own account. He walked straight to the babu, and that gentleman eyed him with obvious distrust.
"Did you see my trooper murdered?" he demanded; for he had learned directness under Colonel Kirby, and applied it to every difficulty that confronted him.
Natives understand directness from an Englishman, and can parry it; but from another native it bewilders them, just as a left-handed swordsman is bewildered by another left-hander. The babu blinked.
"How much had you seen when you ran to warn me this afternoon?"
The babu looked pitiful. His fat defenseless body was an absolute contrast to the Sikh"s tall manly figure. His eye was furtive, glancing ever sidewise; but the Sikh looked straight and spoke abruptly though with a note of kindness in his voice.
"There is no need to fear me," he said, since the babu would not answer. "Speak! How much do you know?"
So the babu took heart of grace, producing a voice from somewhere down in his enormous stomach and saying, of course, the very last thing expected of him.
"Grief chokes me!" he a.s.serted.
"Take care that I choke thee not, babuji! I have asked a question. I am no lawyer to maneuver for my answer. Did you see that trooper killed?"
The babu nodded; but his nod was not much more than tentative. He could have denied it next minute without calling much on his imagination.
"Oh! Which way went the murderer?"
"Grief overwhelms me!" said the babu.
"Grief for what?"
"For my money-my good money-my emoluments!"
Direct as an arrow though he was in all his dealings, Ranjoor Singh had not forgotten how the Old East thinks. He recognized the preliminaries of a bargain, and searched his mind to recall how much money he had with him; to have searched his pocket would have been too puerile.
"What of them?"
"Lost!"
"Where? How?"
"While standing here, observing movements of him whom I suspected to be murderer, a person unknown-possibly a Sikh-perhaps not-removed money surrept.i.tiously from my person."