Carlos Zafon - The Midnight Palace

‘What have you two managed to find out?’ asked Ian, turning to Seth and Michael.

‘I wish our results were as spectacular as Siraj’s, but to be honest the only thing we’ve discovered is a mass of loose ends,’ Seth replied. He went on to tell them about their visit to Mr de Rozio, whom they’d left in the museum, continuing the research. They’d promised they would return in a couple of hours to help him.

‘What we’ve discovered until now only goes to confirm what Sheere’s grandmother – sorry, your grandmother – told us. At least in part.’

‘There are some gaps in the engineer’s story it won’t be easy to fill in,’ said Michael.

‘Exactly,’ Seth agreed. ‘In fact, I think that what we haven’t discovered is far more interesting than what we have …’

‘What do you mean?’ Ben asked.

‘Well,’ Seth went on, warming his hands by the fire, ‘Chandra’s story is documented from the moment he became a member of the official Institute of Industry. There are papers confirming that he refused a number of offers from the British government to work for the army building military bridges, as well as a railway line that was to join Bombay and Delhi, for the exclusive use of the navy.’

‘Aryami told us how much he loathed the British,’ Ben commented. ‘He blamed them for many of the things that have gone wrong in this country.’

‘That’s right,’ Seth continued. ‘But the curious thing is that, despite his open dislike of the British, of which there were many public displays, Chandra Chatterghee participated in a strange project for the British military between 1914 and 1915, a year before he died in the Jheeter’s Gate tragedy. It was a mysterious business with a peculiar name: the Firebird.’

Sheere raised her eyebrows and drew closer to Seth, looking concerned.

‘What was the Firebird?’

‘It’s hard to tell,’ Seth replied. ‘Mr de Rozio thinks that it might have had something to do with a military experiment. Some of the official correspondence that turned up among the engineer’s papers was signed by a colonel called Sir Arthur Llewelyn. According to de Rozio, Llewelyn held the dubious honour of heading the forces that were responsible for repressing the peaceful demonstrations for independence that took place between 1905 and 1915.’

‘Held?’ asked Ben.

‘That’s what’s so intriguing,’ Seth explained. ‘Sir Arthur Llewelyn, His Majesty’s official butcher, died in the Jheeter’s Gate fire. What he was doing there is a mystery.’

The five friends looked at one another, confused.

‘Let’s try to put some order to this,’ Ben suggested. ‘On the one hand we have a brilliant engineer who repeatedly refuses generous offers of employment from the British government due to his dislike of colonial rule. Up to there everything makes sense. But suddenly this mysterious colonel appears on the scene and involves him in an operation which, whatever way you look at it, must have made Chandra Chatterghee’s stomach turn: a secret weapon, an experimental way of controlling crowds. And he accepts. It doesn’t make sense. Unless …’

‘Unless Llewelyn had uncanny powers of persuasion,’ said Ian.

Sheere raised her hands in protest.

‘My father would never have taken part in any kind of military project, it’s impossible. Certainly not for the British, and not for the Bengalis either. My father despised the military – he thought they were nothing but brutes blindly carrying out the dirty work of corrupt governments and colonial companies. He would never have allowed his skills to be used to invent something that would massacre his own people.’

Seth watched her quietly, weighing her words.

‘And yet, Sheere, there are documents to prove that he did take part, in some way,’ he said.

‘There has to be some other reason,’ she replied. ‘My father built things and wrote books. He wasn’t a murderer.’

‘Leaving aside his ideals, there must be some other explanation,’ Ben remarked. ‘And that’s what we’re trying to discover. Let’s go back to Llewelyn and his powers of persuasion. What could he have done to force Chandra to collaborate?’

‘Perhaps his power didn’t lie in what he could do,’ Seth stated, ‘but in what he could choose not to do.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Ian.

‘This is my theory,’ Seth continued. ‘In all the engineer’s records we haven’t found a single mention of Jawahal, this childhood friend, except in a letter from Colonel Llewelyn addressed to Chandra and postmarked November 1911. In it our friend the colonel adds a postscript in which he briefly suggests that, if Chandra refuses to take part in the project, he will be forced to offer the post to his old friend Jawahal. What I think is this: Chandra had managed to conceal his relationship with Jawahal, who was by then in prison, and had developed his career without anybody knowing that he had once covered up for the man. But let’s suppose that this Llewelyn had come across Jawahal in prison and Jawahal had revealed the true nature of their relationship. This would put Llewelyn in an excellent position for blackmailing the engineer and forcing him to collaborate.’

‘How do we know that Llewelyn and Jawahal met one another?’ Ian asked.

‘It’s only a supposition,’ Seth replied. ‘Sir Arthur Llewelyn, a colonel in the British army, decides to ask for the help of an exceptional engineer. The engineer refuses. Llewelyn investigates him and discovers a murky past, a trial to which the engineer is linked. He decides to pay a visit to Jawahal, and Jawahal tells him what he wants to hear. Simple.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Sheere.

‘Sometimes the truth is the hardest thing to believe. Remember what Aryami told us,’ Ben said. ‘But let’s not rush into anything. Is de Rozio still investigating this?’

‘He is, yes,’ replied Seth. ‘The number of documents is so vast that he’d need an army of library rats to make sense of anything.’

‘You’ve made quite a good job of it,’ remarked Ian.

‘We weren’t expecting anything less,’ said Ben. ‘Why don’t you go back to the librarian, and don’t lose sight of him for a moment. I’m sure we’re missing something …’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Michael, although he already knew the answer.

‘We’ll go to the engineer’s house,’ Ben replied. ‘Perhaps what we’re looking for is there.’

‘Or something else …’ Michael pointed out.

Ben smiled.

‘As I said, we’ll take that risk.’

Sheere, Ian and Ben arrived outside the gates that guarded Chandra Chatterghee’s house shortly before midnight. To the east, the narrow tower of the Shyambazar was silhouetted against the moon’s sphere, projecting its shadow over the garden of palm trees and bushes that hid the building.

Ben leaned on the gate of metal spears and examined their threatening sharp points.

‘We’ll have to climb over,’ he remarked. ‘It doesn’t look easy.’

‘We won’t have to,’ said Sheere next to him. ‘Our father described every inch of this house in his book before he built it, and I’ve spent years memorising every detail. If what he wrote is correct, and I have no doubt that it is, there’s a small lake behind these shrubs and the house stands further back.’

‘What about these spears?’ asked Ben. ‘Did he write about them too? I’d rather not end up skewered like a roast chicken.’

‘There’s another way of getting into the house without having to jump over them,’ said Sheere.

‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Ben and Ian asked together.

Sheere led them through what was barely an alleyway, a small gap between the railings surrounding the property and the walls of an adjacent building with Moorish features. Soon they reached a circular opening that looked as if it served as the main sewer for all the drains in the house. From it came a sour biting stench.