Only seven were hanged
On his return he told his wife, with mortification, that Taylor had
left India and had gone to England, having made his fortune and
having no reason for remaining in a country that was trying to the
health of even the strongest white man.
He questioned his wife thoroughly about the carpet she had seen in
Taylor's house, in order to make sure that she was not mistaken. But
his wife held to her statement, and, with the carpet already in their
possession on the floor for comparison she proved that Taylor had the
duplicate. It had been on the wall of Taylor's bedroom and she had
seen it in detail. In haste Ammar went off to his father. The
result was that as soon as they could make the necessary arrangements
Ammar and his wife came to England.
They took a flat in the West End of London and Ammar's wife spent
most of her time enjoying the life of the metropolis and renewing old
acquaintances. She was gay, beautiful, happy. She had plenty of
money and went about without a care, while Ammar visited some of his
Indian friends who had business quarters in the city and were likely
to help him in his quest.
It was not very difficult to trace Taylor. The latter had taken a
house in the country, but still within touch of London, had married,
and was taking life leisurely. But when Ammar Baddan made the short
journey to meet Taylor he experienced a sense of disappointment. He
had expected that Taylor, having been his friend in India and having
introduced him to his wife when she was a chorus girl, would preserve
the friendship and welcome them to his house. He found that Taylor
did nothing of the kind. One can understand this attitude on the
part of Taylor. In India social customs are on a somewhat different
footing from the social customs here. It may have been that Taylor's
attitude was influenced by his wife, who did not care to meet a white
woman who had married a Tamil. At any rate, the old barriers seemed
to arise and Ammar Baddan saw the change.
With his Tamil politeness he accepted the situation and proceeded to
work round to the object of his visit, which, after all, was the
buying of the carpet. He managed this so adeptly that Taylor had
already admitted that he did possess such a carpet and also that he
held it in small financial esteem. The Tamil asked all sorts of
questions about it--how Taylor had come to possess it, who saw him
buy it, who carried it to his flat in Howrah, who hung it on the wall
of his bedroom. Taylor answered that nobody but himself and his
manservant had handled it from the time it was bought in the Indian
bazaar to the time it was in his flat. And then Ammar Baddan asked
to see the carpet and was shown it. He offered a price that Taylor
thought was good and the bargain was made.
As they concluded the business matter and after Ammar Baddan had paid
the check over he thanked Taylor once more for proving his friend.
"Twice," he said, "you have given me my desires. First, it was
because of you that I have my beautiful wife. Second, it is through
you that I have the beautiful carpet. A Tamil does not forget."
That visit was the first and the last that Ammar Baddan made to the
house of Taylor. In spite of the polite, if not very friendly, way
he had been met, Ammar Baddan, having the outlook of a Tamil, almost
succeeded in making Taylor a little uncomfortable in front of his
wife. They began to talk of Calcutta and the old days. Ammar Baddan
wanted to know everything. He was so anxious for the safety of the
carpet he had bought that he wished Taylor's manservant to carry it
to the station for him so that no new hands would touch it. To this
Taylor replied that he no longer employed the servant, who had
started life anew in England as the proprietor of a small inn in
Surrey. Ammar Baddan asked how a manservant could have obtained the
money to buy an inn, and Taylor laughingly answered that he supposed
John Hamlin--the name of his manservant--had fleeced him of enough
money in India to make this possible. At any rate, Hamlin seemed to
be making a good living in the town of Whitchurch. And then, with
Tamil simplicity, Ammar Baddan asked Taylor if he too had obtained
his wife from a theatrical company, and if the theatrical company
they had known in Calcutta had supplied her. This was asked in front
of Mrs. Taylor, who happened to be a lady of strict views, and one
can imagine that Taylor had to use considerable diplomacy in his
answers.
He managed to hint, indeed, before Ammar left and when they were
alone, that it was not always discreet to refer to matters of that
kind in front of wives; and then they parted. Only after he had made
inquiries a day or two later did Taylor realize that Ammar Baddan had
obtained his carpet at a mere fraction of its actual value.
All these incidents show the tortuous workings of the mind of a man
whose instincts and racial traditions differ so greatly from our own.
Taylor never saw Ammar Baddan again and was probably glad to get rid
of him. He related the facts of Baddan's visit to him when the
police called in order to gather evidence of motive. But it was from
one of the servants of the flat where Ammar Baddan and his wife lived
in the West End of London that some peculiar information was obtained.
Baddan was a fanatical Brahman. We need not trouble to inquire
whether his wife had adopted his faith. A wife may not give evidence
against her husband in any case according to our wise law. But in
the sitting-room of the flat Baddan had placed one of the Brahman
gods, a small figure of Kala Bhairava as he is known in Hindu
religion, Bhairon as he is known among the Dravidian peoples.
This god--it was brought into court but was not exhibited--represents
a man standing with one hand holding a trident and in the other a
drum shaped like an hour-glass. Encircling him is a serpent to show
his chthonic origin. In the chest of this figure are two small
holes, and into these holes Ammar Baddan would put two betel nuts,
then begin the long religious exercises of his caste. The servants
heard him every night at these devotions. Sometimes he spoke in an
Indian dialect, sometimes in English; but his object seemed to be the
same on every occasion. So far as the servant could make out, if the
nut on the right dropped out of the hole first, Ammar Baddan would
exclaim that his undertaking would prosper. If the nut on the left
dropped first, he would declare to the god that he would abandon his
project for the time being. Just before he set out to commit the
heinous crime of murdering John Hamlin he was heard at his devotions.
He had bought a hunting-knife a few days previously and this weapon
was seen in his possession by a servant.
But if the nut in the right cavity in the figure of the god Bhairon
indicated to Ammar Baddan that his crime would be hidden, the god
played him false.
The crime itself was as swift as it was staggering. Ammar Baddan
arrived that evening in the quiet Surrey town just after the inns
closed. He walked up the main street, looking at the names of the
inns.
Less than an hour later John Hamlin was found lying in his parlor
with his throat slit from ear to ear. By the time the police were on
the spot Ammar Baddan was seated in a first-class compartment of a
train bearing him back to London.
To the village police it looked at first to be a case of suicide.
Hamlin's business was not going too well. He had debts. He had been
heard to complain about malaria, of which he was a victim. And to
make it more like suicide there was held in his stiffening fingers,
as he lay beside his chair, a murderous hunting-knife.
But when inquiries were started a barmaid stated that just before she
retired she heard the front-door bell ring. She heard Hamlin go to
the door. It seemed to her that he brought some one into the inn.
She did not hear any struggle, but she heard Hamlin call out the
words, "Hindu swine!"
It was the local policeman who found Hamlin dead. He had flashed his
lamp on the door of the inn and had observed that it was not closed.
He knocked and received no reply. He stepped inside and saw a
trickle of blood coming from the parlor threshold.
A few days later, when the police had made their inquiries, an
officer called on Ammar Baddan when he was preparing, with his wife,
to return to India. When Ammar Baddan saw that he was to be arrested
he evinced no surprise and did not deny his crime. But he was
interested to know how the police had tracked him.
"The local constable," he was told, frankly, "happened to see you
walking up the street that night, looking at the inn signs. He noted
that you were a colored man. We found out the firm that made the
hunting-knife, and from them we traced it to you. But we knew it
could not have been suicide after we considered the nature of the
wound. John Hamlin's throat was slit from left to right. But John
Hamlin was left-handed."
What, then, was the motive of the brutal murder? The prosecuting
counsel suggested one. It was that Ammar Baddan had gone to see John
Hamlin, not perhaps with the intention of murdering him, but possibly
with the object of getting some information about the buying of the
carpet, for in the purchase of these rare articles every detail is
recorded. Hamlin was known to have a contempt for all Indians. He
may have said a word--"Hindu swine," as the barmaid heard--and in a
moment the blaze of the Eastern hot blood flew to Ammar Baddan's
head. This was the theory of the prosecution.
But when the defense was called the counsel who had entered a plea of
"not guilty" found himself in an unheard-of position. He placed
Ammar Baddan in the box.
"Did you," he asked, "go down to see John Hamlin with the intention
of killing him?"
"I did," replied Baddan, firmly.
Fearing lest the question had been misunderstood, it was repeated.
Again the reply was the same.
The defending counsel saw his case dwindling before his eyes. He
seemed to appeal to the bench, and I took upon myself the task of
asking Ammar Baddan a few questions.
The replies I received were deliberate, calm, without fear, without
repentance. He had decided to kill John Hamlin. He had schemed to
do so. He had taken counsel with his god and had been led to think
that all would be well.
I asked him what was his motive. His reply left much to be desired.
These were his words:
"No Brahman may recite a Vedic text where a man of a servile caste
may overhear him, nor must he teach him the laws of expiation for
sin."
I asked him if John Hamlin had committed any sin against Brahmanism
or against him. He replied, "No."
It was impossible to get more out of him. His defending counsel
threw in his brief in despair. And to make matters worse, when I
asked Ammar Baddan if he understood the crime he had committed, he
answered angrily that he would repeat it, were it possible. He
admitted that he had received no words from Hamlin that had been the
cause of the murder. But he was glad he had murdered.
In face of this there was but one thing to do. I donned the black
cap.
He died, I understand, on the scaffold, fiercely cursing the white
law that put him to death, but entirely without penitence.
My own theory is that somewhere in his mentality, somewhere deep down
in his nature, there was a blood-lust, a streak of barbarity, a whiff
of the jungle, that he never tried to control. How else is it
possible for a human being to take satisfaction in murder? Is not
society to be protected from such natures? Are innocent people to be
butchered by such savages? By taking the life of Ammar Baddan the
penal code was acting with entire justice for the sake of everybody