The Bronze Bell

by Louis Joseph Vance

  CHAPTER VII

  MASKS AND FACES

  Like many a wiser and a better man, Amber was able upon occasion tochange his mind without entertaining serious misgivings as to hisstability of purpose. Therefore, on second thought, he elected tojourney India-wards _via_ the Suez Canal rather than by the westernroute. As he understood the situation, he had no time to waste; thequicker way to his destination was the eastern way; and, viewedsoberly, the chance upon which he had speculated, that of overtakingthe girl's party somewhere _en route_, appeared a long one--a gambler'srisk, and far too risky if he did not exaggerate the urgency of hiserrand. Rutton's instructions had, moreover, been explicit upon onepoint: Amber was to enter India only by the port of Calcutta. Indeferring to this the Virginian lost several days waiting in London forthe fortnightly P. & O. boat for Calcutta: a delay which might havebeen obviated by taking the overland route to Brindisi, connectingthere with the weekly P. & O. boat for Bombay, from which latter pointCalcutta could have been quickly reached by rail across the IndianPeninsula.

  Now Quain's letter to Labertouche went by this quicker route and soanticipated Amber's arrival at the capital of India by about a week;during all of which time it languished unread.

  A nice young English boy in Mr. Labertouche's employ received andstamped it with the date of delivery and put it away with the rest ofthe incoming correspondence in a substantial-looking safe. After whichhe returned to his desk in the ante-room and resumed his study of thelaw; which he pursued comfortably enough with a cigarette in his mouth,his chair tilted back, and his feet gently but firmly implanted uponthe fair printed pages of an open volume of Blackstone. His officialduties, otherwise, seemed to consist solely in imparting to all andsundry the information that Mr. Labertouche was "somewhere up in theMofussil, hunting bugs--I don't know exactly where."

  This was, broadly speaking, perfectly true, within the limitations ofthe youth's personal knowledge. He was a pleasant-mannered boy oftwenty or thereabouts, with an engaging air of candour whichsuccessfully masked a close-mouthed reticence, even as his ostensiblyheedless, happy-go-lucky ways disguised a habit of extreme caution andkeen and particular observation: qualities which caused him to beconsidered an invaluable office-assistant to a solicitor without anyclientele worth mentioning, and who chose to spend most of his timesomewhere up in the Mofussil hunting bugs.

  The Mofussil, by the way, is an extremely elastic term, standing as itdoes in the vocabulary of the resident Calcutta-man, for the Empire ofIndia outside the seat of its Government.

  Precisely why Mr. Labertouche maintained his office was a matter forcasual conjecture to his wide circle of acquaintances; although it'snot unlikely that, were he the subject of discussion, the bulk of thewonder expressed would be inspired by his unreasonable preference forCalcutta as a place of residence. The Anglo-Indian imagination isincapable of comprehending the frame of mind which holds existence inCalcutta tolerable when one has the rest of India--includingSimla--open to one. And Labertouche was unmarried, unconnected with theGovernment, and independent of his profession; certainly it would seemthat the slender stream of clients which trickled in and out of thelittle offices on Dhurrumtollah Street, near the Maidan, could hardlyhave provided him with a practice lucrative enough to be aconsideration. On the other hand it had to be admitted that the mankept up his establishment in Calcutta rather than lived there; for hewas given to unexpected and extended absences from home, and wasfrequently reported as having been seen poking sedulously over thisplain or through that jungle, with a butterfly net, a bottle ofchloroform, and an air of abstraction. In view of all of which he wasset down as an original and wholly irresponsible. The first of which hewas and the second of which he emphatically was not.

  Henry Charles Beresford Labertouche was, in person, a quiet andunassuming body, with nothing particularly remarkable about him savehis preference for boot-heels nearly three inches high and a habit ofdying his hair--naturally greyish--a jet-black. Inasmuch as he wasquite brazen about these matters and would cheerfully discuss withcomparative strangers the contrasted merits of this hair-dye and thatand the obvious advantages of being five feet nine and one-half inchesin height instead of five feet seven, his idiosyncrasies were not heldagainst him. Otherwise he was a man strikingly inconspicuous; his eyeswere a very dark brown, which is nothing remarkable, and his featureswere almost exasperatingly indefinite. You would have found him hard torecall to memory, visually, aside from the boot-heels, which mighteasily have been overlooked, and the black hair, which was, when all'ssaid, rather becoming than otherwise. Living with two native servantsin a modest bungalow somewhere between Chitpur and Barrackpur, he wentto and from his office, or didn't, at his whim, with entire lack ofostentation. Soft-spoken and gifted with a distinct sense of thehumorous, he would converse agreeably and intelligently upon anyimpersonal topic for hours at a time, when the spirit so moved him. Asan entomologist his attainments were said to be remarkable; he wasadmittedly an interested student of ethnology; and he filled in hisspare time compounding unholy smells in a little laboratory connectedwith his suburban home. This latter proceeding earned him the wholesomefear and respect of the native population, who firmly believed him anintimate of many devils.

  Such, at least, was the superficial man.

  Now upon the morning of the day that found the steamship _Poonah_nuzzling up the Hooghly's dirty yellow flood, Mr. Labertouche's clerkarrived at the Dhurrumtollah Street office at the usual hour; which, inthe absence of his employer, was generally between eleven o'clock andnoon. Having assorted and disposed of the morning's mail, he donned hisoffice-coat, sat down, thumbed through Blackstone until he found twoperfectly clean pages, opened the volume at that place, tipped back hischair, and with every indication of an untroubled conscience imposedhis feet upon the book and began the day's labours with a cigarette.

  The window at his right was open, affording an excellent view, from anelevation of one storey, of the tide of traffic ebbing and flowing inDhurrumtollah Street. The clerk watched it sleepily, betweenhalf-closed eyelids. Presently he became aware that an especially dirtyand travel-worn Attit mendicant had squatted down across the way, inthe full glare of sunlight, and was composing himself for one of thoseapparently purposeless and interminable vigils peculiar to hisvocation. Beneath their drooping lashes the eyes of the clerkbrightened. But he did not move. Neither did the Attit mendicant.

  In the course of the next half-hour the clerk consumed two cigarettesand entertained a visitor in the person of a dapper little Greekcurio-dealer from the Lal Bazaar, who left behind him an invitation toMr. Labertouche to call and inspect some scarabs in which he hadprofessed an interest. It was quite a fresh importation, averred theGreek; the clerk was to be careful to remember that.

  When he had gone the clerk made a note of it. Then, glancing out thewindow, he became aware that the Attit mendicant, for some reasondissatisfied, was preparing to move on. Yawning, the clerk resumed hisstreet coat, and went out to lunch, carelessly leaving the doorunlocked, and the memorandum of the Greek's invitation exposed upon hisblotter. When he returned at three o'clock, the door of Mr.Labertouche's private office was ajar and that gentleman was at hisdesk. The memorandum was, however, gone.

  Mr. Labertouche was in the process of opening and reading a ten-days'accumulation of correspondence, an occupation which he suspendedtemporarily to call his clerk in and receive his report. This proved tobe a tolerably lengthy session, for the clerk, whose name appeared tobe Frank, demonstrated his command of a surprising memory. Withoutnotes he enumerated the callers at the office day by day from the timewhen Labertouche had left for the Mofussil with his specimen-box andthe rest of his bug-hunting paraphernalia; naming those known to hisemployer, minutely describing all others, even repeating their wordswith almost phonographic fidelity.

  Labertouche listened intently, without interrupting, abstractedlytapping his desk with a paper-cutter. At the end he said "Thank you,"with a dry, preoccupied air; and resumed consideration of hi
s letters.These seemed to interest him little; one after the other he gave to hisclerk, saying "File that," or "Answer that so-and-thusly." Two he setaside for his personal disposition, and these he took up again afterthe clerk had been dismissed. The first he read and reconsidered for along time; then crumpled it up and, drawing to him a small tray ofhammered brass, dropped the wadded paper upon it and touched a match toit, thoughtfully poking the blazing sheets with his paper-cutter untilthey were altogether reduced to ashes.

  Quain's was the second letter. Having merely glanced at the heading andsignature, Labertouche had reserved the rather formidable document--forQuain had written fully--as probably of scant importance, to be dealtwith at his absolute leisure. But as he read his expression grew moreand more serious and perturbed. Finishing the last page he turned backto the first and went over it a second time with much deliberation andfrequent pauses, apparently memorising portions of its contents.Finally he said, "Hum-m!" inscrutably and rang for Frank.

  "He left New York by the _Lusitania_, eh?" said Mr. Labertouche aloud.The clerk entering interrupted his soliloquy. "Bring me, please," hesaid, "Bradshaw, the _News_--and the latest P. & O. schedule." And whenFrank had returned with these articles, he desired him to go at onceand enquire at Government House the whereabouts of Colonel DominickJames Farrell, and further to search the hotels of Calcutta for a MissFarrell, or for information concerning her. "Have this for meto-night--come to the bungalow at seven," he said. "And ... I shallprobably not be at the office again for several days."

  "Insects?" enquired the clerk.

  "Insects," affirmed Mr. Labertouche gravely.

  "In the Mofussil?"

  "There or thereabouts, Frank."

  "Yes, sir. I presume you don't feel the need of a capable assistantyet?"

  "Not yet, Frank," said Labertouche kindly. "Be patient. Your time willcome; you're doing famously now."

  "Thank you."

  "Good-afternoon. Lock the door as you leave."

  Immediately that he found himself alone, Labertouche made of Quain'sletter a second burnt offering to prejudice upon the tray of hammeredbrass. He was possessed of an incurable aversion to waste-paper basketsand other receptacles from which the curious might fish out torn bitsof paper and, with patience, piece together and reconstruct documentsof whose import he preferred the world at large to remain unadvised.Hence the tray of brass--a fixture among the furnishings of his desk.

  This matter attended to, he lost himself in Bradshaw and the Peninsular& Oriental Steamship Company's list of sailings; from which he derivedenlightenment. "He was to come direct," mused Labertouche. "In thatcase he'll have waited over in London for the _Poonah_." He turned tothe copy of the _Indian Daily News_ which lay at his elbow, somewhatanxiously consulting its shipping news. Under the heading of "Due thisDay" he discovered the words: "_Poonah_, London--Calcutta--StraitsSettlements." And his face lengthened with concern.

  "That's short notice," he said. "Lucky I got back to-day--uncommonlucky!... Still I may be mistaken." But the surmise failed to comforthim.

  He drew a sheet of paper on which there was no letter-head to him andbegan to write, composing deliberately and with great care.

  The building in which his offices were located stood upon a corner; ateither end of the long corridor on the upper floor, upon which thevarious offices opened, were stairways, one descending to DhurrumtollahStreet, the other to a side street little better than an alley. It maybe considered significant that, whereas Labertouche himself was notseen either to enter or to leave the building at any time that day, anAttit mendicant did enter from Dhurrumtollah Street shortly after Frankhad gone to lunch--and disappeared forthwith; while, in the dusk ofevening, a slim Eurasian boy with a clerkly air left by the stairs tothe alley. I say a boy, but he may have been thirty; he was carefullyattired in clothing of the mode affected by the Anglo-Indian, but woreshoes that were almost heelless. His height may have been five-feetseven inches, but he carried himself with a slight, studious roundingof the shoulders that assorted well with the effect of his largegold-rimmed spectacles.

  He stumbled out of the alley into Free School Street and set his faceto the Maidan, shuffling along slowly with a peering air, hisspectacles catching the light from the shop-windows and glaringglassily through the shadows.