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life, the restoration of his reputation among others of his kind…these are pale incentives for a man
so near the end.
And then inspiration struck.
Rayley waited for the old man to finish wiping his brow and retie his cravat before
saying, slowly and with great emphasis on every syllable, the one sentence which might prompt
cooperation from Anthony Weaver.
“Geraldine Bainbridge has traveled with us from London.”
For a moment, Weaver did not react at all, making Rayley wonder if he had misjudged
the situation. But when the man finally spoke, his voice trembled with emotion.
“You say Geraldine is here? In Bombay?”
“Do you wish to speak with her?”
“More than anything.”
“And so you shall. If you cooperate.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Just what I said. The story of a single day.”
Weaver leaned back in his chair. Silence once again engulfed the room and Rayley
waited. Weaver was stalling to give himself time to control his nerves, this much he knew, but
Geraldine was Rayley’s only bait. If the chance to see her was not enticing enough to prompt some
sort of confession, then this interview would come to a rapid end.
After a moment Weaver smiled again, but with less self-assurance than he had displayed
the first time. “But how will you know,” he asked, “if I am telling you this slippery thing you call the
truth? As you have said yourself, I am the only person who knows what happened that day, so it
seems I could concoct any tale which suits my fancy and you would have no choice but to believe
me.”
He is bluffing, Rayley thought. Very well. So shall I.
“The last two days have given me some notion of what you are about to tell us,” he said.
“We have interviewed Felix, you see, and he was full of information. It would appear the boy was
his great-uncle’s confidant.” Weaver, Rayley noted with satisfaction, appeared disconcerted at this
notion and was once again unknotting his ridiculous neck scarf. “If your story matches that of Sang,
and furthermore fills in a few of the details that Felix was unable to provide, then you shall be
rewarded for both your truthfulness and your thoroughness. Geraldine is very eager to see you.”
Now this last line was a blatant lie. Geraldine appeared to have no interest in visiting
Weaver, which now that Rayley stopped to consider it, was in itself rather odd. Why had she traveled
thousands of miles to defend the man but then, once she set foot in Bombay, never expressed the
slightest desire to come to his jail cell?”
But the lie had the desired effect. The smile had utterly left Anthony Weaver now and he
gazed up thoughtfully, as if wondering where to begin.
“Our entire unit was headed in the direction of Cawnpore,” he finally said. “We were
traveling with great urgency for we had no idea that the women and children who had been
imprisoned in the schoolhouse were already dead. As we moved east through the rural districts out
from the fort, we had encountered several stranded families and…and the remains of stranded
families whom the mutineers had found first. We got word of a woman living alone with five young
children, on a farm just outside the fort. She was a widow, you see, her late husband taken from our
own unit, and Roland insisted we go there at once and assure ourselves of her safety. Or at least that
he and I go there while the rest of the men pressed on toward the schoolhouse.”