News travelled through Montgomery faster than telegrams, if it had blood in it.
By late afternoon, Harrington had heard the essentials:
— Attack at the Jinnah estate clinic.
— Doctor unharmed.
— Nurse stabbed.
— Assailants captured alive.
— No shots fired until the barrister himself had appeared and cracked the sky with a revolver.
An hour later, Ahmed's written report reached the district office — neat Urdu, clipped English phrases, and one key sentence:
SIR, MR JINNAH ASKS ME TO INFORM YOU PERSONALLY INCIDENT WAS CONTAINED AND THAT HE WILL BE AT MONTGOMERY HOSPITAL THIS EVENING STOP
Harrington showed the note to his wife at tea.
"He is here, then?" she said, eyes lighting up in a way that had nothing to do with gossip and everything to do with her private "fan club."
"At the hospital," Harrington replied. "Where else? One of his staff took a knife meant for his doctor, apparently."
His wife put down her cup.
"Then we shall go," she said firmly. "If you are satisfied that the district will not fall apart for an hour, we shall go and pay our respects. I will not miss the chance to meet the lady who got herself stabbed defending a clinic."
Harrington sighed, but he was secretly relieved by the excuse. It gave him a proper reason to see Jinnah without summoning him like some local pleader.
"Very well," he said. "Car in twenty minutes."
A Quiet Ward
By the time they arrived, the hospital had slipped into its evening hush: lamps lit, corridors smelling of carbolic and boiled linen, footsteps echoing on stone floors.
In the women's ward, Mary lay asleep — or as close to sleep as ether and exhaustion would allow — her breathing shallow but steady. Her face was pale, framed by hair that refused to lie neatly even in injury.
Evelyn sat in a chair beside her, reading through the chart with a pinched, precise expression. Jinnah stood at the foot of the bed, hat in his hands, the lines around his mouth deeper than usual.
Harrington paused at the entrance, his wife at his side. He cleared his throat softly.
"Mr. Jinnah," he said.
Jinnah looked up, then inclined his head.
"Commissioner. Mrs. Harrington."
Mrs. Harrington moved first, stepping to Mary's side with a kind of brisk, practical sympathy.
"Is she sleeping?" she asked Evelyn in that half-whisper that still somehow carried.
"Drifting in and out," Evelyn replied. "But she's past the worst. If infection doesn't misbehave, she lives."
Mrs. Harrington studied Mary's bandages, her face softening.
"Brave girl," she murmured. "Foolish, but brave."
"Mostly brave," Evelyn said. "Only slightly foolish."
Harrington turned to Jinnah.
"I came," he said, "as soon as I heard the full account. I am very sorry this happened on your premises, Mr. Jinnah. I hope you do not think we take it lightly."
Jinnah shook his head.
"I have no complaint," he said. "The hospital has been prompt. Your police arrived quickly enough — after the fact."
There was no malice in that last phrase; just a statement of sequence.
Harrington accepted it with a small nod.
"May we," he said, "speak outside, for a moment? I do not wish to disturb your nurse."
Evelyn glanced up.
"You won't," she said. "She sleeps like the stubborn. But yes, go. If she wakes, I'll tell her the local potentate came to bow over her bandages."
Mrs. Harrington gave a small, amused snort at that.
Hospital Verandah
The hospital's side verandah was dim but cool, the night air moving more freely there than in the wards. A single lamp burned beside the door.
They stood just beyond earshot of the ward — Jinnah, Harrington, and Mrs. Harrington a little to the side, listening with polite intent.
"I have had a preliminary report," Harrington began. "Your man Ahmed was very precise. Two assailants inside, a larger group outside, your Farabis intervened, and you discharged a firearm into the air to disperse the remainder."
"That is correct," Jinnah said.
"The assailants," Harrington continued, "are now in police custody. I have given orders for a proper investigation. This will not be treated as a village squabble. Attempted kidnapping, attempted murder, conspiracy — we shall apply the appropriate sections."
Jinnah listened, then spoke with characteristic calm.
"I am obliged to you," he said. "But you are aware, Commissioner, that your police are understaffed, underpaid, and… shall we say, subject to imaginative interpretations of duty if sufficient rupees are applied."
Mrs. Harrington's mouth tightened; Harrington gave the faintest of winces.
"You do not mince words, Mr. Jinnah," he said.
"I am a lawyer," Jinnah replied. "Minced words are for bad cooks."
Bilal snorted faintly in the shared skull.
That's going in the quote book, he remarked.
"I do not," Jinnah continued, "distrust you, Commissioner. But we both know that if these men — or their friends — find the right pockets, they may be out of your lock-up sooner than I would care for. And my estate, my doctor, my nurse… will still be there."
"So you intend," Harrington said slowly, "to treat this as an ongoing threat, not an isolated incident."
"Correct," Jinnah said. "And that leads to the matter we must settle: security."
He folded his hands behind his back.
"As you know," he went on, "the consignment of weapons I requested through proper channels has already been delivered to my estate armoury. Rifles, a few shotguns, some revolvers. They are still in their crates, locked, untouched. I have not put a single firearm into a Farabi's hands without first speaking to you."
Harrington's brows rose a fraction.
"You already have the weapons," he said. "All of them?"
"Yes," Jinnah replied. "And you have my word that — aside from the revolver I used today, which is registered in my name — they remain under seal. After this incident, I no longer consider it responsible to delay their use. But I also do not wish to be seen as arming a private gang behind your back. That is why I asked you here."
He looked directly at Harrington.
"I want," he said, "their distribution and training to happen under your office's supervision. Ahmed — your liaison man — will assist. My havildar will obey. The Farabis' primary duty remains what it has always been, to manage and protect the estate, its clinics, its stores, and its tenants. But in doing so, I would have them recognised, formally or informally, as an auxiliary extension of your law-and-order apparatus — a rural arm under your eye, not a rogue battalion at your flank."
Harrington was silent for a moment, thoughts moving behind his eyes.
He's thinking, Bilal noted, "So you're inviting me to be its godfather."
"You understand," Harrington said at last, "how this appears, Mr. Jinnah. You have engaged fifty men, you possess an armoury, and after an attack you propose to arm them and call them a sort of auxiliary constabulary. One might say you are handing command of a private regiment to me and then asking me to trust you with it."
Jinnah's mouth curved slightly.
"If I intended to build a secret militia against the Crown," he said, "I would hardly ask the Crown's own officers to countersign my armoury ledger — or to walk in and count the rifles themselves."
Mrs. Harrington gave a small laugh at that despite herself.
"But you are not wrong, Commissioner," Jinnah continued, more serious. "Perception matters. Which is why I do not wish this to be my private force. I wish it to be clearly understood — in your papers, in your mind, and eventually in the minds of my tenants — as a recognised, disciplined auxiliary for the maintenance of order in this difficult corner of your district. Their first loyalty is to the law as embodied here; their first task is the orderly running and defence of the estate. Those two things must not be in conflict."
Harrington considered him.
"You want, in effect," he said, "my tacit recognition that your men are a kind of… rural constabulary, operating on your land, for mutual benefit."
"Precisely," Jinnah said. "I am not a dacoit chieftain arming a gang. I am a landholder and a lawyer in a district where bandits move in groups of forty and rumours travel faster than police. I am also—" he allowed himself the briefest of sardonic smiles "—a particularly attractive target for any political enemy with a taste for theatre. If I am kidnapped or murdered, there will be more trouble for your administration than for my estate."
"That," Harrington admitted, "is unfortunately true."
"So," Jinnah went on, "I hire men, I train them to stand in line, not to loot; I put a doctor and a clinic and a wireless set between them and panic. I do not wish them to be a law unto themselves; I wish them to be part of a larger structure you recognize. Let them be written in your files as 'estate guards', 'rural security detail', 'auxiliary unit attached to Sandalbar estate' — I care less for the label than for the alignment."
Harrington's brows knit.
"And where," he asked, "do I fit into this structure, in your mind?"
Bilal leaned back mentally.
Here we go, he murmured. "Define the relationship," ICS edition.
"At present," Jinnah said, "you are the man legally responsible for this district's peace. Your police are your hands. I am, for the moment, a private individual with more resources, order, and motivation than most. I could pretend we are separate spheres — you in the city, I in the canals. That would be comforting and false."
He met Harrington's gaze squarely.
"I would prefer," he said, "to regard myself as an auxiliary limb of your law, not its adversary. I do not wish to embarrass you with some freelance brand of justice. I wish to help you prevent chaos. When trouble comes, Commissioner, men will not ask whether the hand that stops the knife belongs to the Crown or to a barrister. They will only remember whether it stopped the knife."
Mrs. Harrington watched him with open interest now.
"You trust me that much?" Harrington asked slowly. "To let me see the inside of your arrangements, to place Ahmed as a bridge, to allow my officers to walk your estate, open your crates, and count your guns?"
"I am trusting," Jinnah said calmly, "your self-interest and your fatigue. You do not want another pocket of lawlessness in your jurisdiction. I do not want my experiment destroyed by some petty inspector's attempt at blackmail or sabotage. Our incentives align."
He paused.
"And besides," he added more quietly, "I am, by training and inclination, a man of law. Not of mobs. Not of mutiny. I did not come here to raise a banner against you. I came here because I saw what happens when there is no functioning law at all. I would rather work with a flawed, overworked system than help tear it down and replace it with something worse."
Harrington studied him for a long moment.
He's testing for fanaticism, Bilal thought. You're giving him tired pragmatist. Good choice.
"You speak," Harrington said finally, "like a man who has thought too much about what happens after the slogans."
"That," Jinnah replied, "is my permanent misfortune."
Mrs. Harrington stepped closer then, her voice softer.
"And until your nurse recovers?" she asked. "You said you would return to Lahore."
"Yes," Jinnah said. "Dr. Evelyn will have to divide her time between the estate and city practice. Until Mary can resume her duties, it is unwise for us both to be in the firing line. I will attend the next clinic days if convenient, but base operations will be coordinated from Lahore. Ahmed will liaise with your office for weapons allocation and any police cooperation. If there is any difficulty, you may telegraph me directly at my chambers."
"And you are confident," Harrington said, "leaving armed men behind in your absence?"
"If they were the sort to go wild without their master," Jinnah said dryly, "I would not have hired them. They will drill, they will escort, they will sit on stronghouse steps and gossip. Ahmed is not easily impressed; he will report any stupidity you need to know."
Harrington exhaled slowly.
"Very well," he said. "Here is what I propose. I will instruct the relevant departments that your existing consignment of weapons is to be formally recorded under the classification of a 'rural security and upliftment project'. My sub-divisional police officer and Ahmed will jointly supervise the opening of the crates and the initial distribution. Serial numbers noted, quantities logged, storage inspected."
He went on:
"Regular reports will be filed on their use. Any incident involving firearms on or near your estate will be notified to me at once. In return, I will expect your men — your auxiliaries, if you like — to cooperate fully with police instructions in case of wider disturbances. If there is a riot three villages away, and I need Sandalbar's men to help hold a road, I will expect them to stand where they are put."
"You will have it," Jinnah said. "Promptly."
"And, Mr. Jinnah," Harrington added, "if ever I feel that your private arrangements are drifting toward something… less cooperative, I will come to you directly before I go to my superiors. I ask the same courtesy in reverse: if my officers misbehave on your land, you inform me before you write angry letters to Bombay."
"Agreed," Jinnah said. "I would rather share a table than a scandal."
Mrs. Harrington smiled.
"I think," she said, "you two may yet manage to civilise each other."
As they turned to go back into the ward, Harrington hesitated.
"One last question," he said. "These men — the Farabis, you call them? You expect them to be loyal to you or to 'the law'?"
Jinnah considered the phrasing.
"If I do this correctly," he said, "they will not see a difference. They will say: 'We guard the estate and we uphold order.' And for them, those will be the same sentence."
In his head, Bilal nodded slowly.
That, he thought, is the point. Make "law" and "Jinnah's system" feel like the same thing on the ground — so when the big collapse comes, people follow the habit, not the flag.
Back in the ward, Mary stirred.
Evelyn looked up as the trio re-entered.
"Well?" she asked. "Has the Empire decided whether we may protect ourselves, or must we wait for the police to arrive two hours after the next stabbing?"
"The Empire," Harrington said dryly, "has decided that Mr. Jinnah is entirely too sensible to be left sitting on a pile of unused guns. Your 'rural security project' will be armed — on paper and in fact."
"Good," Evelyn said. "Bandits are so much easier to treat when they stay outside the clinic."
Mary blinked her eyes open.
"Has he," she croaked, looking at Jinnah, "taken his medicine yet?"
Jinnah sighed, a long-suffering, oddly fond sound.
"I am," he said, "about to prove, Nurse Mary, that even barristers can obey orders."
Mrs. Harrington watched the exchange — the wounded nurse threatening her employer, the British doctor glaring like an adjutant, the famous lawyer submitting with only token sarcasm — and thought, privately:
If this strange little colony works, it will not be because of guns alone. It will be because these people bully each other into living.
Outside, in the dark, telegraph wires hummed faintly.
Somewhere between Lahore and Bombay, the file labelled SANDILBAR ESTATE – SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS had just acquired a very unusual note in an ICS margin:
MR JINNAH – USEFUL ALLY IN LAW AND ORDER – WATCH, BUT CULTIVATE.