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“All the more convenient.”
Anthony Weaver looked at his stepson with distaste. He had never felt particularly close
to Michael. The boy had been Rose’s child, through and through, and never more so than now, as he
paced the cell in an aggrieved manner that implied he was the primary victim in this entire matter.
“I did not kill your mother,” Anthony said, although the minute the words left his mouth
he heard how ridiculous they sounded and Michael turned toward him in exasperation.
“I know that. Do you think I don’t know that? The important thing is that the charges
against you must be dropped immediately so that the papers in London will forget any of this ever
happened. I face a confidence vote in the fall, you know.”
Ah, thought Anthony. So that is what brings young Michael so unexpectedly to my
side. The fear that a family scandal might derail his political career before it even really begins.
“We have had a bit of luck,” Michael went on, stopping to stare out of the only window
in the room. The view was uninspiring – a yard of dust baking in the midday sun. “There was an
incident last night at the Byculla Club which may serve to divert attention from your upcoming trail.
Two members of our dinner party suffered electrocution through some fluke of faulty wiring. I shall
pause now for you to make the predictable joke about how very shocking you find that news to be.”
“I was not about to make such a joke, I assure you. The victims are dead?”
“A young lady lives. The man dining beside her was pronounced dead on the spot. He
was my attaché, as fate would have it. The fellow had traveled from London with me.”
“Attache?” Anthony said. “An admirably vague word. My apologies on your loss.”
“Benson was a detective,” Michael said, resuming his agitated pacing. “Scotland Yard,
at one time, but retired.”
“It was murder?”
“Most probably not. But it is a distraction, you see, and that is the lucky part.
Distractions muddy the water.”
“It was not especially lucky for them.”
“As I said, the girl will recover and Benson...Benson knew full well the risks of his
profession,” Michael said. “Even welcomed them, you might say. I have noticed that some men
indirectly court death and he was precisely that type, choosing a dangerous line of work in lieu of a
more direct suicide. But now I find myself without his services just as I need them most. For we
must come up with some plausible reason for why Sang might have murdered Mother, and then killed
himself. Do you have any ideas? You’ve been sitting here in this cell for over two weeks so you
must have thought of something.”
“There is absolutely no reason Pulkit Sang would have killed your mother. He was the
most loyal and dedicated of servants.”
“Yes, yes, of course he was, but the jury doesn’t know that. They shall be inclined to
believe anything we say about him, will they not, he being both a native and not here to mount any
manner of defense?”
Weaver studied his stepson. “You have no curiosity about what really happened? We
are talking about the death of your mother, after all.”
”When the crisis is past, then perhaps I will have the time to be curious,” Michael said,
carelessly flinging himself into the cell’s one chair. With the movement, his jacket fell open, exposing
an expensively tailored shirt which barely stretched across his ample abdomen. His life in London is
utterly undisciplined, Weaver thought. He lives with no accountability to anyone except his
political party and they are too dazzled by the shield of his family name to notice what a flimsy