by Sax Rohmer
Bimbashi Baruk Of Egypt
Sax Rohmer
* * *
Bimbashi Baruk Of Egypt
Sax Rohmer
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1. Mystery Strikes at Ragstaff Hill
2. The Bimbashi Meets Up with A 14
3. Murder Strikes in Lychgate
4. The Laughing Buddha Finds a Purchaser
5. Warning from Rose of the Desert
6. Lotus Yuan Loses Her Vanity Case
7. The Scarab of Lapis Lazuli
8. Vengeance at the Lily Pool
9. Adventure in the Libyan Desert
10. Pool-o'-the-Moon Sees Bimbashi Baruk
* * *
In this new book, Sax Rohmer, master writer of stories of mystery and horror, adds to his already notable group of scoundrels and heroes, which includes the unforgettable Dr. Fu Manchu, a striking and colorful new character— Bimbashi Baruk, of the renowned Camel Corps in Africa. Born of an Arab sheik and an English mother, this tall, slender, swarthy, taciturn man was singled out by the British Military Intelligence for his uncanny power of scenting crime and bringing the criminal into the open.
The scene of the book is England and the Near East, particularly Syria, Persia, Egypt, and Afghanistan, with their crowded, labyrinthine and treacherous thoroughfares, which Sax Rohmer knows so well. Bimbashi Baruk is the dominating figure of these thrilling adventures set against an exotic Oriental background, and the reader will follow him as he weaves his way through the vast underground webwork of crime and moves up noiselessly on crafty German and Japanese secret agents, and other malefactors that make the Near East one of the most dramatic as well as most dangerous places in the world today.
Bimbashi Baruk's use of Oriental psychology is fascinating, and there are many crime twists, new to Occidental mystery stories:, which the reader will pursue with mounting excitement and interest.
Bimbashi Baruk of Egypt is another masterpiece of Sax Rohmer's eerie imagination.
1. Mystery Strikes at Ragstaff Hill
THERE WERE two witnesses of the remarkable incident on Ragstaff Hill—or two witnesses who reported it. In normal times the mystery would have been a front-page sensation; but these were not normal times. What happened was this:
Early one morning as reluctant winter fell back before spring—spear heads of crocus and daffodil were piercing the fresh green so recently white-mantled—Major Stampling, of Old Place, set out as was his custom to take a brisk walk to the top of the hill and back. He wore a plus-four suit and a cap of the same outstanding check, with a red woolen pullover having a polo collar to merge with the burgundy hue of his face. He carried an ash stick, and field glasses were swung over his shoulder.
At a point about midway between the gates of Old Place and the crown of the hill, the major pulled up sharply. The day promised perfection, and the view was one of which he never tired: a tableau of close-hedged farmland sweeping upward like a gesture to the pale blue sky outlining the crest. Sea tang spiced the air. Several magpies were exploring furrows of a neighboring meadow and the chatter of a host of their less comely cousins, the rooks, sounded pleasantly in his ears.
Just by an open gate, where a track led down to Hooper's Farm couched in the valley, and squarely in his path, a man was seated before a small easel, painting.
“Well, I'll be dashed,” muttered the major.
It was not that the prospect failed to merit the services of art; it was how, with a great part of the world locked in a death grapple, anyone could find either leisure or enthusiasm for painting. The fellow was quite young, too; not a day over thirty, he'd be bound, and a bronzed, athletic-looking figure of a man. Two minutes later the major stood behind the artist, monocle adjusted, considering the painting.
He didn't like it. On this point he was quite definite. He thought of the fine prints in Old Place and decided that this man couldn't draw.
Although the painter had offered no indication of the fact that he was aware of Major Stampling's criticism, he presently dropped his brush. He was a lean, wiry man, and he wore breeches and muddied riding boots. A sort of suede jacket and a spotted muffler completed his visible kit, for his head, covered with black, rather wavy hair, was bare. He turned, smiling up at the major.
“Rotten, isn't it?” he remarked.
The critic's stare met a glance from dark blue eyes which were humorously pathetic and were set in a brown, aquiline face which, he had to admit, was that of a man of action.
“I would not go so far as that, sir,” he replied, “but I confess I have seen better.”
“So have I,” murmured the painter, relighting a briar pipe—“lots.”
His accent and manner were those of a cultured Englishman, and his blue eyes were English, too, or perhaps Irish; but in repose there was something Oriental about the drooping lids, and his slow smile was not a Western product. Major Stampling scented a Wandering Jew and wondered where the refugee was billeted.
“You see,” the painter explained, “these mother-o'-pearl effects of early morning fascinate me. Whistler knew how to trap them. John can do it, and Brangwyn. Damned if I can.”
“It is possible, sir,” the major began—when at that very moment it happened.
Heralded by a coughing and spitting of asthmatic cylinders, a car crested Ragstaff Hill. The painter watched it idly; Major Stampling swung his binoculars forward, raised and focused them. On the crown of the hill the car seemed almost to pause for a moment. Then, at ever-gathering speed, it raced down the slope past a coppice of firs—and was gone.
As if petrified, the major stood, glasses raised, still watching the stretch of now empty road. Some explanation of his attitude must have come to the artist, for he sprang up. He had realized the fact that Major Stampling was listening—listening so intently that he had forgotten to move.
And now, the other listened also. He heard the drone of the engine become a distant roar—a shriek —and finally a sound so like that of a heavy bomb falling that, unconsciously, he grasped the major's arm.
Following that shrill wail, complete momentary silence had fallen. Battalions of rooks, disturbed, rose from the woods; their discord filled the morning. Like a sooty cloud against blue sky they swept overhead. A robin seated on the farm gate chirped as if in warning. Major Stampling lowered the glasses and turned to the painter: his florid complexion was slightly modified.
“Good God!” he said. “That rat-trap has done for her at last. Always knew it would. Brakes failed or something—”
“You speak to a stranger, sir,” the painter interrupted, and his crisp, almost peremptory, change of manner did not escape the soldier. “You know the owner of that car?”
“Polly Anstruther. Everybody knows her. Old bus of hers was literally tied together with string. But that's Ragstaff Hill, sir, steepest gradient in the county.”
“Well?”
“Well—there's a right-angle bend halfway down, slap on the cliff's edge, with nothing but some old hurdles marking the verge. Three hundred feet below is Cobham Cove. That's where the car lies low—”
“IT'S ALL VERY WELL, Stampling,” said the Chief Constable, “for you to philosophize, but to my way of thinking this business has a bad smell.”
Colonel Brown-Maple and Major Stampling were old friends, neighbors now in this forgotten corner of the West Country. They were alone in the colonel's library: the hour was close on midnight. Three days had elapsed since that remarkable incident had occurred on Ragstaff Hill, and these had been three days of bother and mystification for the Chief Constable.
In the first place, at about die time that Major Stampling and the painter had witnessed the
death ride of Miss Anstruther's car, Miss Anstruther herself was telephoning the Moreton Harbor police to report that it had just been stolen from outside her garage. The major was already doubling back to Old Place to notify the same authority of what he assumed to be a tragedy. He held Miss Anstruther in high esteem. As commander of the local Home Guard, he was pleased with his performance: he made the mile in something under eleven minutes. The painter, who had a bicycle lying in a ditch, had set out pedaling furiously down to Cobham Cove.
Major Stampling's prediction was proved correct. Fragments of flotsam, which included a broken hurdle, marked the spot where the car lay, four fathoms deep. Not until a diver and salvage plant had been sent round from Poole—an interval of an entire day—did it become possible to raise the wreck.
A man was pinned inside, crumpled up over the broken driving wheel.
Dr. Whittington, who acted for the police, certified that the victim had sustained a number of injuries, any one of which might have proved fatal, but that the actual cause of death was a bullet which had passed through his brain!
His age the doctor set at twenty-five to twenty-seven. He was slight but strongly built and had recently been in hard training: a fair man, well groomed and wearing a brief military mustache. He was fully dressed and his clothing was of excellent quality. The name of a George Street tailor was found in the pocket lining of his dark suit and that of a Piccadilly hosier on his underwear. Otherwise there was nothing in his possession: no wallet, no money, no watch, key or identification disk. But on the left side of his breast, the work of a master of tattoo, appeared two slender feminine hands clasping a heart. On the heart the initial C was imprinted.
At this phase of the inquiry it was that Colonel Brown-Maple had remarked to somebody: “It simply doesn't add up. A dead man can't pinch a car —and if he shot himselfin the car, where's the gun?”
But the colonel's troubles were far from being ended. Inspector Horley of the Moreton Harbor police interrogated Miss Anstruther at some length, but gleaned nothing of value.
Miss Anstruther, a reduced lady of good family, occupied a cottage on the eastward approach to Ragstaff Hill. It stood in two acres which she had converted to land fit for chickens and bees to live in. Miss Anstruther had a small local connection, and sold eggs, honey and, occasionally, cut flowers. Her car, which belonged to the days of silent slapstick, was used for the delivery of produce. It was a feature of the landscape.
She lived alone; a spinster sister had formerly shared the cottage. An elderly man acted as daily help in the chicken and bee business, but Miss Anstruther did her own housework and also drove and looked after the car. To casual observation Miss Anstruther offered the pungent sweetness of an acid drop; but there were some—Major Stampling was one—who had discovered that this lonely old maid possessed a high, fine courage and the heart of a rather obstinate child.
Her story of the event was a simple one. She rose early—an hour before Pomfret, the daily man, arrived. On Wednesday morning, having driven the car out of the garage—a wooden structure opening on the hill—she had gone down to the shed to pack a number of eggs for delivery. The sound of the car being started had brought her swiftly back. The car was gone.
In reply to Inspector Horley she stated that, although Ragstaff Hill was a short cut into Moreton Harbor (it was marked: “Very steep hill. Dangerous"), personally she never risked it. She was unacquainted with the dead man. Yes, her car was insured. She did not say for how much, but Sergeant Dimes, the comic of the local police force, later claimed to have discovered the amount to be one shilling and four pence-halfpenny.
“It's a case for Scotland Yard,” Colonel Brown-Maple had barked at Inspector Horley. “We're out of our depth, damn it. This tattooed fellow isn't a tramp: he's a gentleman. The thing simply doesn't add up.”
Scotland Yard had responded electrically. Suppress the facts, the Chief Constable was told; postpone the inquest; await arrival of Sir Burton Ayres, the famous pathologist, and Chief Inspector McCall. This had the colonel on tiptoes; but more was to come. He was called up at an unearthly hour by the Air Ministry. A member of their Intelligence was already on his way. No further steps must be taken until this officer should arrive: he was to be expected between four and five a.m.
Colonel Brown-Maple thereupon summoned his old friend, and now here they were, pacing in opposite directions up and down before the big desk in the Chief Constable's library.
“God knows what it's all about, Stampling,” said the colonel. “But I simply had to unload on somebody. Good of you to come over. Propose to turn in now. Stopes will wait up. See you in the morning.”
“This Ministry man may want to vet the painter fellow.”
“Probably will. Know where to find him?”
“Yes. His name is Barrack or Brook or something. Staying at the Bull in Opley.”
“THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER is,” said Wing Commander Prescott, “that we got onto this only just in time to prevent exposure. Nothing would be gained by publicity, and until we know the real acts it is important that there shall be none.”
Colonel Brown-Maple nodded. “Whenever the Yard men travel,” Prescott went on, “Fleet Street more or less tails 'em But I think have gained a little time. I'm going to be quite frank with you, Colonel. The dead man was one of our fellows: Squadron Leader Hallory—better known as 'Jimmy.'”
“Good God!”
“Yes. The tattoo mark described to the Yard gave the clue, of course. Because they have been keeping a sharp lookout. Hallory vanished some time on Tuesdays the fifteenth—”
“Day before the car mystery.”
“As you say. He had a baddish crash three months back, and after convalescence he was seconded for special duty—rest cure, really. He humped important stuff between the Ministry and various headquarters. On Tuesday he had a particularly valuable cargo—we'll call it Plan B— which had been left with a coastal command for study and comments. It was in a brand new attache case of the kind commercial travelers use. Quite commonplace; meant to be. Hallory set out from London pretty early, driving his own car, arrived safely, collected case, started back after lunch—and vanished.”
“You mean—his car as well?”
“No, not his car. We traced that. It seems to have packed up on him outside Anchester, where he left it in a garage. There's no record, though, that he hired another. So, naturally, we have been combing the Anchester area. Then came this report of the body found down here.”
“But, Anchester,” muttered the colonel—“damn it, Anchester is forty miles from Moreton Harbor if it's a league! How did he gethere?”
Prescott shook his head. He was a small, tanned, keen-faced man, gray at the temples: in appearance and dress he presented an admirable impersonation of a bank manager.
“We have discovered, of course, that there was no train stopping at Anchester which would have served: it's a drowsy old place to be marooned in.”
Silence fell. Colonel Brown-Maple had turned out smartly to greet the emissary from the Air Ministry. His only perceptible fall from grace was betrayed in a white muffler which took the place of more correct neckwear. But he was conscious of the earliness of the hour.
“What is the history of the tattooed heart?” he asked, glancing at a box of cigars and then distastefully away again. “Some love affair, no doubt?”
“No doubt.” Prescott smiled dryly. “Poor Jimmy Hallory was highly impressionable. He was formerly stationed in Singapore. I imagine that the design dates from that time. I am getting in touch with his great friend, Walmer, who was with him there. One never knows.”
“I take it the loss of—er—Plan B would be by way of a nuisance?”
Wing Commander Prescott stared hard at the colonel.
“Granting certain eventualities, you understate the facts,” he replied.
RATHER LATER THAT morning, having made essential arrangements, Prescott, alone, was driving slowly past the Bull at Opley, where he reduced speed to
a crawl, then pulled up, and leaning back on his elbow stared toward the little courtyard of the inn. A tallish, lean man who wore a riding kit of sorts was strapping a painting outfit onto the rear of a bicycle. He had just completed this operation when Prescott joined him.
“Hullo, B.B.!”
The painter looked up. His dark eyes surveyed the speaker analytically; then, with a glad smile, he stretched out his hand.
“As God is good,” he exclaimed in Arabic, “I behold none other than Prescott Pasha!”
And Prescott, grasping the extended hand, smiled gladly too. He had last seen Bimbashi Baruk in Cairo; but just before Prescott left for England, the bimbashi had disappeared. Ten days or so later the Army of the Nile began its spectacular advance into Libya, and Prescott learned that Baruk had been attached to Intelligence, as was natural and proper. He knew every caravan road, every jackal run, between the Oasis of Siwa and Benghazi better than Prescott used to know the way from his club to his London flat before bombing Huns mixed up the landmarks.
“It's infernally good to see you, B.B.—but a tremendous surprise. How come?”
“I was sufficiently stupid to allow myself to be hit by an Italian bullet. I deliberately got in its way: it was not coming in my direction at all.”
“Must have stopped it pretty firmly to be sent home. When does leave expire?”
“I cannot say, Prescott. I have a Medical Board next week. I chose this spot because, although my mother came from hereabouts, I had never had a chance to visit it before.”
Mohammed Ibrahim Brian Baruk, major (bimbashi) of the most renowned Camel Corps in Africa, was the son of a sheikh of pure lineage by his English wife. In many respects a typical public-school product, there ran in his veins the blood of Moslem captains who had slain the infidel and spared not.
“Keen to get back to the daily round?”
“That depends upon which daily round you mean.” The bimbashi leaned against his bicycle; his eyes were dreamy. “You may mechanize a Camel Corps, but you cannot mechanize a man's soul. I shall miss my camels. But I was happy in my work while I stayed with your fellows.”
