The boy slid down from the wall and sauntered around towards the pens. “Not the same animal you had agreed upon, oah no,” he answered, the last two words an English interjection before returning to the vernacular. “That creature was good only for feeding the vultures, and moreover had the trick of breaking its hobbles on the first or second night out and trotting home to its stable. I succeeded in loosing its rope during the night and exchanging it for its sister, who is an ‘altogether more satisfactory beast.’?” Again, the final phrase was in ornately accented English, which might have been disquieting except that I had the clear idea that it was merely his way of demonstrating what a man of the world he was.
We followed our unlikely guide past some stinking pens that were full to bursting with horseflesh, to one that was deserted but for one lone donkey, dozing in a corner. The boy climbed up on the gate and gave a little
“And the cart?” Holmes asked.
The boy swung his legs over the gate and dropped into the pen, splashing through the half-liquid and entirely noxious ground to the far corner of the pen, where he stuck his toes into invisible niches and clambered over the wall like a monkey. A minute later he reappeared around the outside of the pen, heaving at a miniature cart that contained a child-sized armload of hay. He stopped in front of us, let the traces drop, and gestured proudly at the light little vehicle. It had probably started life as a cart for the entertainment of small English children, and although its paint was long gone and the high sides had seen rough use, the solid craftsmanship held, and the repairs to its two big wheels and leather straps were neat. The boy stood looking up at Holmes, taking no notice of the muck to his knees; I wondered again about his mental acuity.
Holmes surveyed the object solemnly, and nodded.
Instantly, the child shot back over the gate to leap onto the animal’s scrofulous back, nudging it forward with heels and knees. I opened the gate to let it out, and in a moment the beast was standing amiably between the cart shafts while the boy strapped it in. After some adjustments to the girth, the boy slapped the animal’s shoulder in satisfaction and stood away. “You are to pay me what is owed,” he said.
“Oho,” Holmes retorted, “and when it comes to light that the horse-seller merely sleeps, and you have delivered to my hands a stolen donkey and cart, what then do I tell the police who come to arrest me?”
The boy’s indignation was profound, and well polished. “Sir, never would I do such a thing! You came to buy a donkey, here is your donkey, and I am here to collect for the horse-seller. You have paid him one-half, and all the cost of the cart, and one day’s food. You may pay me the remainder.”
“That much at least he knows correctly,” Holmes said to me, then to the boy, “But you will have to tell me exactly what is owed, before I believe you.”
The child hesitated, caught on dilemma’s horns. If he quoted the amount Holmes clearly had in mind, then we might believe his veracity; if, however, he followed his gut instincts and demanded more—which is the only way to do business in India—then he risked losing all. He sighed, and rolled his eyes to express his disgust for the whole affair.
“Twenty-three rupees,” he admitted. Holmes raised his eyebrows and inclined his head slightly in a nod before turning his attention at last to the beast herself, looking to see if the trick lay with the substitution. But she looked sound beneath the filth, and if she was willing to respond to the blandishments of an urchin, no doubt her affections, or at least her attention, could be bought by owners willing to ply her with plentiful food and the occasional application of a brush to her sides. Holmes reached for his money-pouch, and thumbed the coins into the child’s hand.
The boy accepted the coins with the gravity of a bank manager, bound them up into a rag, and then scampered over the shed and pulled himself up its outside wall, diving headfirst through a small, high window. A minute later he re-emerged, the coin-rag replaced in his hand by a horse-brush and a small sack of grain. His grin told us without words that these were not part of Holmes’ original bargain, but a
“Oh no,” Holmes said firmly. “I required a donkey, not a donkey-master. We travel alone.”
“But if you do not take me, I shall be beaten and starve,” the child whined, pitifully. Holmes merely laughed.
“I cannot imagine one such as you starving,” he said. “Give me the lead.”
“Then I shall follow you on the road,” the boy declared. He sounded determined, alarmingly so; Holmes eyed him curiously.
“Why would you do so?”
“Because I had my horoscope cast two days past, and I was told that my path lay with two strangers dressed as Mussalmani.”
I was not certain that I had caught the subtle oddity in his phrasing—not “two Moslems” but “two men dressed as Moslems”—but Holmes’ reaction made it clear that I had heard it correctly. He went very still, his grey eyes probing the child like a pair of scalpels. The boy squirmed, and changed his words.
“I cannot help it, that is what I was told. That there would be two Mussalmani come to buy a donkey, unlike any men I knew from the bazaar. That is all, oah yes.”
Holmes did not believe in the retraction any more than I did. He raised his eyes to mine, consulting; I could only shrug. I did not doubt that the child would follow us, and keeping him close at hand made controlling him, and finding out what he was up to, more likely.
Besides, I was more than happy to have someone else in charge of pack animals and drudgery.
Holmes cast his gaze down at the servant we had just acquired. “And how much will it cost me to have you look after this beast and serve our needs?”
“Oah, next to nothing,” the boy chirped in English, elaborating somewhat more believably, “Five rupees every week.”
Holmes burst into laughter at the effrontery, causing the donkey to snort and tug at the rope. The boy controlled her without a struggle, and said, “Very well then, you will give me my food and drink and whatever small money you think I am worthy of. You see, I am trusting you gentlemen, not to torment and tease a homeless orphan.”
Boy and man gazed at each other for a time. Then Holmes said, “What is your name?”
The urchin wriggled with satisfaction, taking this as it was clearly meant, an acceptance of his proposal. “I am Bindra.”
“Well, Bindraji,” Holmes said, adding a mock honorific, “we are in your hands.”
The deed settled, we dropped our bags into the cart; the boy, after enquiring again as to which road we wished to be on, tugged the donkey into motion and led his small caravan out onto the road.
“Why do I get the idea that the child is going to take us wherever he thinks we should go?” I asked Holmes in a low voice.
“A most determined infant,” he agreed.
“It’s going to be very difficult, not to give ourselves away in front of him.”
“Hm,” Holmes commented, unconvinced. “I should say that his wits tend more towards the cunning than the analytical.”
I thought privately that the child would have to be remarkably obtuse to spend much time in our company without noticing that one of the “gentlemen” had some very odd habits when it came to private matters, but I said nothing. If the boy’s presence became difficult, we could always drive him away.
Or, we could try.
We turned north, the sun rising on our faces as we walked the road with a million other inhabitants. We were making for Simla, the government’s summer capital and year-round home of the Ethnological Survey of India. Holmes had debated heading south first in order to shake off any possible enemies from our tail, but he had decided that disguise and the sheer number of people on the road ought to be enough, so north it was, with the sun to our right.
Five miles outside of the city we paused to take tea at a roadside cafe that seemed to double as a motorcar
