by Talbot Mundy
As a police officer he was perfectly willing to die blindly obeying official orders; as a private individual he would much rather die than have his private judgment interfered with, uninvited. That Henrietta’s father and even Henrietta herself should have talked it over with the commissioner was their privilege, no doubt. Blair had his privilege too; he could go his own way.
But what the devil did all this mean? How had Henrietta become involved with Wu Tu? They had Held some conversations, said the commissioner, to his certain knowledge; but one thing, at least, was unthinkable; he was no such cad as to imagine that Henrietta even guessed what Wu Tu was trying to do to him. To be told whom he should love, by a notorious quarter-caste, and to be instructed by her how to behave toward the object of his directed emotions, was only less abominable than Wu Tu’s gall in daring even to mention Henrietta’s name. He was enraged to the depths of his savage obstinacy. But he lay still.
Wu Tu spoke to the Chinese girl. He cursed himself for not knowing more than ten words of the Chinese language. He heard the bead-curtain jingle as the girl left the room.
“Sleep—sleep—you are asleep!” said Wu Tu.
Shortly after that he heard a man’s footsteps in the corridor, barefooted, rutching along the carpet with irregular steps—thump-shuffle-thump-thump-shuffle-thump-thump. He knew that signal—listened. It was repeated. It was in his and Chetusingh’s code, known to nobody else and devised for emergencies. Twice repeated, it could hardly be coincidence. It meant:
“Carry on independently of me for the time being.”
The stair-head door opened and shut, and the Chinese girl returned into the room. She resumed manipulations with her hands on Blair’s temples and presently—he supposed, to find out whether he was conscious—pressed the bruise on his head. He winced perceptibly, but she appeared not to notice it. Wu Tu spoke with her lips so close to Blair’s face that he breathed her perfumed breath.
“Blair! You will go straight from here to the commissioner. You will say to the commissioner that Zaman Ali and his gang are escaping from Bombay with stolen passes and will probably scatter. Let the police pursue them. You will say that Wu Tu told you she is going to Lahore, with all her companions. You will tell him you yourself should go at once to Henrietta Frensham in order to question her, because Wu Tu says that Henrietta knows what happened to her father.
“You will say that Wu Tu gave you good advice and is assisting the police. You will insist on seeing Henrietta. Should the commissioner refuse, you will be mutinous. You will put in for leave. If the leave is refused, you will go, nevertheless; you will depend on Wu Tu to protect you with secret influence.
“You must see Henrietta—you must see her. You will see her. Nothing shall prevent it. She loves you and you love her. You will make her tell her secret. And to help you—to remind you—Wu Tu’s eyes shall watch you— always—always. You shall see Wu Tu’s eyes by day and night. They protect. They remind.”
The Chinese girl touched his hand with the end of a lighted cigarette. It was only the least touch. He endured it. Then some scented females came and peeped at him. They giggled and made silly jokes. Wu Tu sent them all out of the room but followed, and he heard her talking to them in the corridor in Hindustanee. He could not hear what was said, but he had no doubt she was instructing them what to say if questioned. He began to wonder when to wake up.
Presently the stair-head door shook to the thump of policemen’s cudgels. Wu Tu hurried in and shook him, slapping the backs of his hands and commanding him to wake. He let her grow half-hysterical before he opened his eyes, sat up and stared.. She faced about toward the curtained doorway, and there stood Govind Singh, a veteran from police head-quarters, with two constables at his back.
“Hokee mut—drunk said Wu Tu and shrugged her shoulders. “You should teach your officers not to be quarrelsome when they are drunk. This one came to not much harm, but he was fortunate.”
Govind Singh, bearded, erect, official, with a row of medal-ribbons, strode into the room and picked Blair’s turban off the floor. He put it on him, a bit clumsily, neither man saying a word; as Govind Singh helped him to his feet his eyes did not reveal that Blair’s hand, clutching his arm, was making dot-dash signals. Looking sternly disapproving, and lending Blair the use of his left arm, the veteran started for the door; but his right hand clutched the paper money that Wu Tu let fall for the Chinese girl to pick up and give him as he shouldered his way through the curtain.
Blair said nothing to Wu Tu, but smiled as he passed her. He seemed puzzled, as if searching memory. Her answering smile, as she put her fingers over her eyes and peered at him between them, was assured—contented—knowing. Outside, in the dark street, out of earshot of the darker shadows, as Blair marched beside Govind Singh at the head of six policemen two by two, the Sikh spoke:
“Should I have come, sahib?”
“I expected you sooner.”
“Idiots returned saying Chetusingh came forth from Wu Tu’s house with many men and ordered them back to the khana. They said he showed them his pass. What does that mean?”
“Report it to the commissioner.”
“And Wu Tu? What of Wu Tu, sahib?”
“How much did she give you? I wasn’t looking.”
They tramped all the rest of the way to police headquarters in silence.
* * *
CHAPTER FOUR
Under sun or stars there is no saying, of fool or wise man, that is nearer the truth than that now is the appointed time. But it may be the time for waiting. And it may be the time for patience. When I said to my Teacher: “Tell me what to do now, I will do it,” he went fishing.
—From the Seventh of the Nine Books of Noor Ali.
DAY dawned mystically as it always does in Indian hot weather. It is said that children born at daybreak bring with them into the world a mysticism and a great sense of beauty that they never lose.
The driver was a Sikh who never heard of nerves, so the commissioner’s car wove like a shuttle amid creaking bullock-carts and sleepy pedestrians.
“Are you quite sure your head is all right?” the commissioner asked. It was the second time he had asked that since they, sped over the bridge that connects Bombay with the mainland.
“Aches a bit. It’ll be all right in the train.”
Blair Warrender sat relaxed and leaned his head back. Telling the commissioner—being cross-examined by him—had been hard work. He retorted with a question: “Did they describe the man who used my pass?”
“Vaguely. He was seen by lamplight. The guard at the bridge-head took it for granted he was you. The pass said Ismail ben Alif Khan. There was a thumb-print on the attached photograph and everything appeared to be in order. He said the photo resembled the bearer. That, of course, is questionable. He probably didn’t look carefully. As a matter of routine he phoned headquarters after the man was gone. Headquarters got me out of bed at once. Zaman Ali was not at the dera.”
“Was the man alone?”
“Yes.”
“Chetusingh’s pass was used by nine men?”
“In a stolen Ford truck, at three forty-five a.m. There’s nothing against the owner of the truck. The men are at large; they’ll turn up somewhere, using the passes, and get arrested. The point is, Zaman Ali double-crossed himself. He is using the stolen passes to draw a red herring behind his own trail. He thinks he’s thrown us off the scent. He hasn’t.”
Blair scowled, keen on his job and yet dreading it. “I’m in the dark,” he said. “I can’t guess why I wasn’t murdered last night— once by Wu Tu, once by Zaman Ali. They both had a chance. I obeyed orders and behaved like an imbecile—walked straight into an obvious trap, and took all chances.”
“I only know one other officer who could do that,” said the commissioner in one of his bursts of generosity, “Most men would have been clever at the wrong time.”
Blair had an almost superstitious dread of being praised before a job was finished, so he talked fo
r the sake of talking, using words as an umbrella against bad luck:
“Wu Tu did her best to scare me—I mean inside-psychic-scare me—with a poisoned dagger. But it wasn’t poisoned. The stuff looked to me like alcohol. I suppose she was no such fool as to take a chance with poison, knowing I might get a scratch with the thing. I laid odds she didn’t want me murdered—not in her house. They wanted police passes. She wanted me knocked out. They won both bets. I suppose it’s reckoned easier to hypnotise a man when he’s out from a blow on the head. If I had questioned her about that golden figurine—”
“Why didn’t you?”
“It was too obviously set to attract my attention, so I shied oft, hoping she would make a break about it. But it’s difficult to make a woman lead trumps. I believe the thing was gold. If you know what I mean by pre-Egyptian, I should say it was all that. I never saw anything like it in any museum. It was exactly the same color as that box or whatever it is you showed me. It looked as if it had been smoothed by a million hands for a million years. Its face was—damned if I can tell you. Elemental is the only word I can think of. I’ve seen something rather like it in dreams. Pretty hair-raising. Nothing decent about it—except the skill; it was marvelous molding. It wasn’t Indian, I’ll swear that.”
“She said nothing at all about it?”
“No. Sent it out of the room with the dagger, perhaps to increase my curiosity: she must have known I’d notice it. When I get in the train I’ll try to draw a picture of the thing from memory and post it back to you.”
“Yes, do that. Are you absolutely sure Chetusingh walked out alone?”
“No. I heard him pass along the corridor. He made a signal. It’s a special one he and I invented. Wu Tu bragged about having corrupted him. She may have done it. Govind Singh took money from her.”
“You saw that?”
“Two one-hundred rupee notes. And Govind Singh’s one of our old reliables.”
The commissioner grinned. “Yes, I think I can depend on Govind Singh. Wu Tu doesn’t tip for nothing, even in a tight place. But police secrets are like stable-secrets; you can’t check ‘em. Govind Singh will tell her the police are hot-foot after Zaman Ali and his friends—and that you’ve been hurried off to Rajputana. Give ‘em what they want. I always do it. Your taking a train six stations up the line will make ‘em think we’re trying to keep your movements secret. Obvious secrecy is the best decoy in the world. You’re a decoy. Remember it.”
The car’s long shadow flitted monstrously through suburbs, where the dust lay thick on sunlit mango trees and the smoke of a million dung-cakes sharpened the scent of the stirring countryside. There was nearly a crash. The Sikh drove roaring between two bullock carts. A rising camel missed Nirvana by the width of a ray of sunshine on his mangy hide. But. all that vanished in a cloud of dust and neither the Sikh nor his passengers batted an eyelid. They sat in silence. It was the Sikh’s job anyhow.
“A crime that includes David Frensham and his daughter isn’t ordinary,” the commissioner said at last. “Zaman Ali sold his string of horses at a loss—let ‘em go for a song. That means something else pays him better than horses. Treasure? Remember, he has been dealing in bullion and spending money remarkably freely for him. So has Wu Tu dealt in bullion. Taron Ling has bolted as I hoped.”
“Lost him?” Blair asked.
“For the moment. We’ll catch him. And so Wu Tu wants you to make love to Henrietta? Always give ‘em what they want, Blair!”
“Damn her eyes. How does she know about me and Henrietta? Who told?”
“It was pretty well bruited around, six months ago, that you and Henrietta were as good as engaged. Wu Tu gets all the gossip.”
Blair scowled. “It was my fault. I wish I’d pulled out sooner. Truth is. Henrietta acted damned well and it never dawned on me, until too late, that she was getting romantic. I treated her damned badly.”
The commissioner tried to smoke, but the wind spoiled the cigar so he threw it away.
“Did I tell you she’s my god-child?”
“Yes, you mentioned it.” Blair spotted the sideways glance from under the gray eyebrows. He neither avoided nor met it. “Is that like vaccination? I mean—” Then he suddenly met the commissioner’s eyes as straight and hard as point engages point in duel. “What does that protect her from?”
“Nothing. But it makes me sentimental. I suspect her. You’re to make love if you have to. I hate it.”
“I won’t do it,” Blair answered. “I’d a lot rather go to hell.”
“That’s why you’re going. It’s your privilege perhaps to save her from a bad mess. I suspect we’re on the track of something more than ordinarily deadly, as well as mysterious, so don’t go off half-cocked. Information, yes; proof, yes; fireworks, no! Take your time and get your evidence. I’ll watch Wu Tu. If she doesn’t bolt, I’ll do something to scare her out. Nothing like getting ‘em moving.”
They approached a wayside station. A short, special freight train, that had happened to be going north from that station with government stores, had been caught by telephone. It waited in the station siding with an old-fashioned passenger coach attached. Porters pounced on Blair’s bedding, steel trunk, rifle-case and two or three small packages. The commissioner smiled:
“Bear in mind that David Frensham, just before he disappeared, was curiously interested in the difference between sun- and moon-light. It was one of his crazes.”
Blair shrugged his shoulders.
“And remember that the East has always dreaded moon-light. It’s supposed not only to madden lovers. David Frensham seriously believed it has mysterious qualities that sunshine hasn’t.”
“Damn all moonshine!” Blair climbed into the train and they shook hands through the window.
“If my suspicions are right,” said the commissioner, “File FF should get some interesting additions.”
“To hell with FF!”
“Quite right. It’s a bloody nuisance. It disturbs a fellow’s trust in Hoyle and Culbertson. So keep your hair on. Walk into anything whatever that looks like a trap, and trust me to keep you in sight. We’ll be close behind you. Good-by. Good luck!”
The engine seethed and clamored. An impatient Eurasian station-master with his watch ill his hand kicked at a sleeping cur and made it yelp to call attention to himself; the commissioner nodded to him and he blew his whistle.
The train started.
There was no ice—no comfort. The engine grumbled along a track that resembled an aching steel nerve, toward a heat-haze bounded only by infinity. The commissioner’s car sped away in a dust cloud of its own, toward the smoke-stacks which fringe the hot crucible of human emotions known on the maps as Bombay City.
When Blair Warrender stepped from the train at Abu Road, it was into the dazzling glare of Rajasthan. He loved it. It was a land after his own heart—a land of anger and good manners. Conquered times out of number, its conquered, like the English Saxons, always forced new masters and new chivalry to bloom and live by glory or be damned.
Warrender’s great-grandfather had fought under Arthur Wellesley. He was the grandson of a gunner officer who died on the Ridge in ‘57. His uncle had led a squadron of Indian cavalry to Kabul and was mentioned in despatches by “Bobs” of Kandahar. So he was unlikely to lack what he needed in that land, where even a peasant usually, traces his descent from warriors who looted and fought ere history was written.
A rajah, whose royal lineage was already ancient when the gods (so says the legend) walked on earth with men, provided too many ponies and too much camp equipment. A zemindar lent servants to whom such service is traditional privilege, a trifle arrogantly seized and quarrelsomely held, but rendered feudally and with alertness to observe all reasons why such duties are a source of pride.
The encampments, night after night for five nights, were a rendezvous for veterans who had served before Blair Warrender saw daylight, under men whose graves had strewn the long length of the North-West Frontier.
There were tales and songs by fire—and moonlight, and the days were a procession of wayside courtesies. Until one evening Blair pitched near Doongar, where the jungle heaves at the foot of Gaglajung, amid hills like the humps of camels.
Abdurrahman Khan—Moslem Zemindar of Hindu acres, and as part and parcel of them as ever a Norman landlord was on Saxon soil —sat gray and dignified on a camp-stool under the awning of Blair’s big tent. He reached out a hand such as El Greco painted, for the rifle that Blair’s borrowed gun-bearer was cleaning. His own sabre, brought in honor of the occasion, lay bright and legendary-looking on the knees of a grandson squatting near him. He examined the rifle and then handed it back.
“In my day,” he remarked, “I have seen much that was new, which seemed good. But by Allah (blessings on His Prophet!) it was forth from a man that goodness came. And not always was it goodness! As a man’s heart are his weapons.”
Blair merely nodded, watching the Indian night, dark, swift, splendid, deepen on jungle and hills. Such information as he sought lurks, shy of argument. It creeps forth like the jungle dwellers in the stillness. Royal Rajasthan drew on her starlit cloak, which is a conjurer of moods. He awaited a mood of indiscretion. In front, a mile away, the ruined keep of Gaglajung—shadowy fangs on a dark crag—told of the days when men of action struck such blows on time that the reverberations still make songs on the lips of minstrels. Such history lives in the night. It could be felt, like the smells in the dew that the animals observe and understand.
“By God, we need more chota sahibs,” the old Rangar grumbled. He had talked mere politics for an hour. “There were never enough of those young brass-gutted Britons. They rode hard and died laughing at mysteries. They understood not much except how to be men, but that was plenty. They served for us to form on and to follow, and by God, we did it. But to-day whom shall the men with stout hearts follow? Babus? Nowadays the sahibs have to wait on babu’s orders. As for the police—”
