As they returned, Mr. Merriman suggested that they should walk down to
Mr. Watts' house near the river to see if any news had arrived from
Cossimbazar. On the way they passed a large pakka {substantial} house,
surrounded by a compound and a low wall.
"We were talking yesterday about spies," said Merriman. "In that house
lives a man who in my belief is a spy, and a treacherous
scoundrel--actually living next door to Mr. Lyre, the keeper of our
military stores. He's a Sikh named Omichand, and the richest merchant in
the city. He owns half of it; he's my landlord, confound him! For forty
years he was the contractor for supplying the Company with cloth, but we
found out that he was cheating us right and left, and dismissed him. Yet
he's very friendly to us, which is a bad sign. 'Twas he who brought
Krishna Das with his treasure into the place, and my belief is, he did it
merely to embroil us with the Subah. Mr. Drake is disposed to pooh-pooh
the idea, but I incline to Mr. Holwell's opinion, that Omichand's a
schemer and a villain, ready to betray us to French, Dutch, or Gentoos as
it suits him."
"Why don't you turn him out, then?" asked Desmond.
"My dear boy, he's far too powerful. And we'd rather keep him in sight.
While he's here we can tell something of what is going on; his house is
pretty well watched; but if he were away he might try all manner of
tricks and we should never learn anything about them. Our policy is to be
very sweet to him--to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, as
Mr.
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