Nightrunners of Bengal by John Masters

would hate being the only Englishwoman in Kishanpur. He fidgeted uncomfortably; the Rani wouldn’t mind if Joanna never came.
    And there was Robin without English playmates. And he himself would never serve with the 13th Rifles again. He could make something out of the Kishanpur troops, but he he could never make them the 13th Rifles. That settled it.
    “Captain Savage, I wish to talk with you.”
    He started, looked up, and suppressed a desire to swear. Caroline Langford, dressed in russet brown, stood bythe tree. He made to scramble to his feet, but she shook her head and sat down near him. As he had done, she looked slowly round at the bright tents, the green falls, and the red afterglow in the sky.
    She said, “Was the Field of the Cloth of Gold more beautiful? But that’s not what I want to talk about. Yesterday Major de Forrest and I absented ourselves from the Installation and instead visited the city. We went to Sitapara’s house.”
    Rodney locked his arms round his knees and rested his chin. Sitapara was the woman at the second-storey window the night of the riot; he’d found out her name the next day, for everyone knew her as the madam of a high-grade whorehouse. On Saturday evening, when relating the story of the riot, he had mentioned her name but not her profession. Still, de Forrest at least must have guessed what sort of place he was taking this young lady to.
    Miss Langford continued. “Of course I’d heard of her when I was here before, but hadn’t met her. We asked the way and reached her house with no trouble. A little man followed us, looking worried, but did not try to stop us. Sitapara is a very striking woman—and she did not seem surprised to see us. We talked in French, of a sort.”
    “French!”
    “Yes. She was a harlot in Chandernagore for a few years, Captain Savage, will you please stop pretending to be shocked. I am a grown woman and I spent two years in a hospital at Scutari. The soldiers came in from the Crimea with wounds, but half of them stayed with venereal diseases they contracted in Turkish brothels. I am not going to talk round any subject, and I will make myself clear. Sitapara used to be the mistress of the French Governor of Chandernagore, and her French is as good as mine. I went to her because I hoped she could prove that the Rani and the Dewan murdered the old Rajah.”
    Rodney stared at the dark water and thought, Does this have to come? Already, fifty hours after greeting the otherBritish guests, murder seemed a dirty crime—whatever its motive—and in his bones he knew the Rani had committed murder. He had not faced it in his thoughts about taking the post of commander-in-chief. His mind had accepted other grounds for deciding to refuse; anything not to have to reach down to that, drag out the ugly thing, and look at it.
    He mumbled, “Why go to all this trouble? Why stir up filth? No one cares, and the Company are going to support her.”
    “Because the old Rajah was my friend! Because you told us on Saturday that you’d seen the wall-eyed man who shouted to you in the riot hanging on a gibbet three days later. Because the Dewan tried to shoot Sitapara. Because the Commissioner gave me no satisfaction about the Silver Guru and what he said to the crows. As for the Company, they would not dare to support her if I can prove that she is a murderess.”
    He kept his head turned away; it was nearly dark and he could no longer see across the river. She caught her breath and went on less vehemently, “Unfortunately, Sitapara had no legal proof.”
    “Why did she say she knew, then?”
    “Partly because she knew the old Rajah exceptionally well; he was her father. I’d heard that too, and Sitapara confirmed it. Her mother was a famous courtesan. The Rajah fell in love with her as a young man—and she with him, Sitapara says. At all events, Sitapara hears a lot, or her girls do. She has a dozen of them, and all the court officers go there, get drunk, and talk too