Jane Steele(121)

“Oh, I cannot tell you how sorry I am. Please forgive me,” I begged.

“For the loss of my hand?” He shook his head. “There is nothing to forgive—you were the one truly endangered, after all. At last I am able to offer a true sacrifice: a disfigurement upon the altar of justice. Or so I tell myself. Monkishness is second nature to me, but as to my hand—I was quite attached to it.”

“So often the way with hands,” I agreed, and then we were laughing like overwrought children, wrung to the highest pitch of nerves, and there were tears in my eyes when I added, “I am also sorry for the loss of your friend.”

“Yes, Charles told me.” He sighed, a devastated look clouding his strong features. “This is on my head, not yours.”

“You ought not blame yourself any more than Charles ought to blame himself for your sister’s demise.”

“I shall have to teach myself that wisdom slowly, Miss Stone, as did he.”

I wanted to ask if he had suspected Garima Kaur loved him, but thought the question cruel.

“What does the name Garima mean?” I asked instead.

“There isn’t quite an equivalent in English.” Shifting, he settled farther back into the nest of pillows. “A crossroads between dignity and pride, perhaps.”

“Do people’s names always seal their fates, or only in the Sikh culture?”

He smiled again, though it did not erase the lines of suffering etched upon his brow. “I sound superstitious, don’t I? I do think that when God gifts a parent with insight, a child’s name will reflect their soul. Take Jane Stone, for instance—it suits, does it not?”

“It’s the plainest of given names and an adopted surname,” I confessed.

“Ah. Is it really? Nevertheless, I believe you mistaken. We are so locked within ourselves, we often lack perspective on these subjects—I take it to mean a rock, an island in the midst of perilous seas, and Jane is from the Hebrew, you know.”

I had not known. “What does it mean?”

Mr. Singh’s eyes, though laced with red spider’s silk, twinkled thoughtfully. “Gift from a gracious God. I have found it, you will pardon me, not unfitting.”

Rather than stem my tears, this spurred more. “You are far too kind to me.”

“It is a great privilege, to have the opportunity of being kind to anyone. What is your real surname, if you’ll pardon my asking?”

“I don’t precisely have one—but it used to be Steele. I mean to tell Charles the whole story after Sack is dealt with; I shall give you a full account then, I promise you. Rest well.”

“Steele,” he mused as I quit his bedside. “Better and better—strength, resistance, a fighting spirit.”

“I’ll need all I have just to enter East India House again,” I said from his threshold. “Mr. Sack is a brute and I shan’t relish seeing him again, even with Mr. Thornfield there.”

“So that is the meaning of all this bustling.” Sardar Singh’s eyes narrowed into knife blades. “You are off to London. What do you mean to do there?”

“To give up the treasure,” said I, gently shutting the door.





THIRTY-THREE



“No—no—Jane; you must not go. No—I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence—the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these joys.”


Are you mad?” Augustus P. Sack circled his own desk like a jackal.

He was discomfited; I, Charles Thornfield, Sam Quillfeather, and Cyrus Sneeves had descended on him without warning. Freely do I admit that we brought the treasure he sought, and freely did we give it—expecting at any moment the arrival of another guest.

Mr. Sack, for a man who had been seeking a single prize for so many years, did not seem sufficiently glad to have it in view. Soon, I understood this was due to the fact he had loved tormenting Messrs. Thornfield and Singh with that the same glad viciousness which had caused him to tear my necklace from my throat; in addition, he suspected something amiss with the generous overture.

He was perfectly correct.

“Our demands are entirely reasonable, sir,” my solicitor droned. To Mr. Sneeves’s immense credit, confronting the East India Company sounded as if it were the duller sort of business to conduct on any given Thursday. “You are welcome to this box so long as you never reveal from whence it originated. Mention of the Punjab is acceptable, but this gentleman is to be released from all liability regarding the ownership of these gemstones. To that effect, you shall simply sign this paperwork exonerating Charles Thornfield of any wrongdoing, and I shall have it copied and delivered to any litigators in your employ.”

“Surely you will comply, Mr. Sack?” Mr. Quillfeather pressed. “You now have my full report regarding the unsolved murder of John Clements, and the killer is beyond the punishment of mortals. All this, and a fortune in recovered property—what could be a happier circumstance?”

Charles Thornfield, meanwhile, continued to say nothing. When we had learnt the true intentions of the Company soldiers from Inspector Quillfeather, he had expressed profound relief; the sight of Augustus Sack, however, predictably wreaked havoc with his digestion. He sat expressionless before the political, one finger framing his temple, boring holes into the enemy with his pupils.