Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Invited? Yes and no,” Bruce answered. “I was passing. Mrs. Beddington is outside. Oh, hello, Beddington, how are you? Your mother seems worried — seems she has been waiting out there for you — wonders what has happened. She asked me to come in and help get you out to the carriage.”

  Rita, holding Annie Weems hand, edged toward Joe. It was a natural, self-betraying movement that made Poonch-Terai grin savagely. Joe took her hand and held it tight.

  “Courage!” he said. “I need all yours and mine, too.” Then, louder, to Bruce: “It’s mighty good of you. I wonder if you’d mind asking my mother to come in.”

  “No need,” said his mother’s voice. Her foot was through the door, her weight against it. It flew open. Baffled temple servants choked the passageway behind her. “Joe, I must say I’m surprised that you should keep me waiting when the Maharajah has been kind enough to go to all this trouble!”

  Hawkes closed the door behind her. He sensed crisis.

  “Have a chair, ma’am.”

  She glared at him — at Annie Weems — at Rita — at the Yogi — then again at Rita.

  “Thank you, no,” she said. “I came to bring my son away. Joe, are you ready?”

  Instead of answering, Joe signed to Annie Weems and Rita to help to prop him up with pillows with his back against the wall. They draped a blanket over him.

  “I am ready to talk,” he said then. “Sit down, Mater. Take the chair Hawkes offered you.” He glanced at Bruce and nodded to him: “Sit down, won’t you, Bruce? There’s rather more in this than meets the eye.”

  CHAPTER XXIV. “Let judgment answer!”

  Ram-Chittra Gunga fired the opening gun. He aimed it at nothing that any one saw, yet every one knew he had hit the target.

  “Light,” he remarked, “can not see, hear, feel or touch the darkness. There are many kinds of darkness. There is one light. And where the light is, darkness is not.”

  Joe’s mother, for no evident reason, seemed to think her dignity was challenged. She accepted a chair because her shoes pinched. She was much too expensively dressed and perspiration was exuding through the mauve silk. She had on her heavy diamond necklace and its weight, in the heat, was irritating. Joe could recognize another symptom: she had eaten too much, and had not had too little champagne; he supposed she had dined with Albert Cummings.

  “I did not come here to be preached at,” she announced. “As I told you, I came for my son. His Highness” — she smirked at Poonch-Terai— “has very kindly offered us the guest-house at his summer palace. Joe, dear, how long will it take you to get ready?”

  The Yogi answered her:

  “It is wise to be ready. Destiny waits on no man’s will. Man made it, but can he change it? The sum total of his merit is arrayed against the consequences of his sins, each at an end of the scale, and himself the fulcrum. When? they all ask; when is the hour of the weighing? To-morrow? But there was no yesterday. To-morrow never shall be. Now is.”

  “A demented religionist. You must make allowances,” Poonch-Terai remarked with impatience. “I will wait for you outside, Mrs. Beddington.”

  He beckoned his two men to follow him and strode toward the door. Hawkes set his back against it. The expression of Hawkes’ face would have made a landslide stop and think things over. Poonch-Terai saved shreds of dignity again by putting the problem up to Bruce:

  “I suppose this sergeant will obey you? Be good enough to order him to stand aside.”

  Bruce hesitated for a second and Hawkes took full advantage of it. He locked the door, removed the enormous iron key, then crossed the room and dropped the key into the Yogi’s lap. Bruce smiled polite contempt at Poonch-Terai.

  “That solves it,” he said, almost chuckling. “I have no authority in this place. I’ve no business to be here. To be frank with you, I don’t know why they let me in.”

  “Then go out,” Poonch-Terai suggested. “They won’t dare to detain you.”

  “I’m under no restraint that I’m aware of,” Bruce retorted. “Rotten manners — to protest before there’s any excuse for it. What’s yourhurry?”

  “Possibly you mean my hurry?” Mrs. Beddington suggested tartly. “Locked in? I never heard of such impudence. However, I have sent for Mr. Cummings. We will soon see. When the carriage servants tell him I am in here—” Joe refused to tolerate her bombast. He interrupted, finishing the sentence for her: “He will whistle Rule Britannia, light a Murad and come charging in on horseback to show us how St. George slew dragons.”

  Mrs. Beddington glared at him, speechless. She had not come prepared to fight in that place; she preferred her own ground. Poonch-Terai stepped close and whispered to her. Bruce, embarrassed almost beyond endurance by the prospect of a family squabble in which he had no concern, but in which Poonch-Terai appeared to be a confidant of one side, looked around him for an excuse to change the subject.

  “What’s this in the middle of the room?” he asked.

  Annie Weems glanced at the Yogi. He nodded. She went to the sheet that covered Amal’s corpse and raised one corner of it.

  “Dead?” Bruce whistled softly to himself. “What did she die of?”

  Annie Weems answered him. “Some one said poison.”

  Mrs. Beddington rose from her chair to look and Poonch-Terai tried to prevent her.

  “Who is she?” Bruce asked.

  Joe spoke. “Probably you remember. She was Rita’s ayah — you recall that day when you and I went pig-sticking, and I told you about an old woman who kept shadowing me wherever I went. That’s the one. She came in here and fell down dead.”

  Bruce stared at Joe. “Yes, I remember we talked—” Then, suddenly: “How did that knife get stuck into the wall above your head?”

  “It was thrown through that door.”

  “At you? Did you see who threw it?”

  “No. But I fired three shots into the darkness; and then Maharajah Poonch-Terai entered and accused me of shooting at him.”

  “Your pistol?”

  “No, his.”

  “How did you happen to have his pistol?”

  Hawkes stood forward at attention. “That was me, sir. His Highness drew at me, so I kicked his wrist, not wishing to have no unpleasantness. The pistol fell flop on the gentleman’s bed. It was what you might call one o’ them coincidences.”

  Bruce rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then stared at Poonch-Terai. “What might be your version of it?” he demanded. Poonch-Terai seemed on the edge of explaining, but thought better of it.

  “You have no authority in here.” he answered; “you just said so.

  “Very well,” said Bruce, “I’ll send for the police.”

  Mrs. Beddington flared up. “Joe, you put some shoes on and I’ll have you carried out this minute! This is a nice mess you’ve got yourself into. Here am I engaged this day to Mr. Cummings — my engagement day — you grasp that? — and here he must come and find my son mixed up with murders — and the police — and I don’t know what else.”

  “My engagement day,” said Joe, “was yesterday. No need to introduce Rita to you. You met her at Miss Weems’. I owe Hawkes fifteen thousand rupees.”

  “Do you! And doesn’t he hope he may get it! Joe, you listen to me. Under the terms of your father’s will I can cut you off with nothing if you marry without my consent before you’re forty. I know all about that girl. She’s nothing but a cheap little Eurasian adventuress and I’m glad to have her hear me say it. She and Sergeant Hawkes are in cahoots to get your money. She set her cap at you the minute Hawkes told her you were looking for an American orphan born in India. It’s a fraud that any fool could see through.”

  Hawkes stepped forward. “Are you accusing me, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” she answered, “and I hope you’ll start a suit for slander. I’ll soon show you.” Scornfully she pointed at the sheet that covered Amal’s body. “Do you mean to tell me that isn’t murder, and that it isn’t all part of your plot? Who is that? Wasn’t she the
ayah? Who else was there who could swear to this girl’s parentage? I suppose you were afraid she’d tell the truth. Dead ones don’t say much — do they? But they sometimes hang the live ones! Now I’ve said my say I’m going.”

  Joe felt strange strength stealing over him, not merely mental, it was physical as well. Some impulse made him glance toward Ram-Chittra Gunga and he saw him flame-colored. It was so distinct and so astonishing that be looked to see whether the others noticed it, but apparently they did not, unless — he was not sure whether Rita did; she, too, glanced toward the old man and ceased trembling directly afterward. Joe reached out for her hand but she drew away from him as if she had resolved to fight her own battle. She even pushed Annie Weems away from her.

  “Mrs. Beddington,” she began.

  “I refuse to speak to you. You may tell your tale to the police, young woman.”

  “Tell it now,” Joe interrupted. “Go on, Rita, tell it. Sit down, Mater. Do you hear me? Sit down.”

  Her indignant retort was spoiled by Poonch-Terai. He took the wind out of her sails. It seemed he wanted none of Rita’s revelations just then.

  “No, no,” he objected. Then he made an admirable effort to control himself; his voice grew suave, his attitude magnanimous and rather princely. “Nobody, I think, has actually sent for the police and meanwhile we are all losing our tempers. We are likely to create a scandal where there actually is none. Some one mentioned murder.” He turned his back to Mrs. Beddington, with a hand behind his back, it seemed to Joe he signaled to her. “Let us see what that woman died of.”

  No one moved until Hawkes made a gesture to Bruce, who nodded. Then Hawkes raised the sheet that covered Amal’s body. They all stared. They all saw. There was hardly room for doubt; a cobra kills within an hour of striking and leaves no question as to who slew.

  “She must have been sitting or crouching,” said Bruce, “when a cobra bit her. It got a good hold. It struck through her cotton clothing. How long had she been in here before she died?”

  “About a minute.” That was Rita’s voice.

  “I wonder you didn’t notice what was wrong with her.”

  “I did,” said Annie Weems.

  “Then why the silence?”

  But she grew silent again, only staring at Poonch-Terai as if it had been his fangs that had bitten Amal. He returned the stare with interest, then suddenly resumed his air of being the only unhysterical person in the room. “So you see after all, it is only a case for a doctor’s death certificate,” he remarked with a shrug of his shoulders. “Let us send for Muldoon.”

  “Muldoon — certainly — why, yes, of course,” said Mrs. Beddington. She spoke from behind the Maharajah’s back and he looked vaguely annoyed, as if she had spoken out of turn.

  Joe’s memory of Muldoon had been bitten in with acid. “How much have you paid Muldoon?” he asked his mother. “How much have you promised him? See here, it’s as clear to me as daylight that every fair or foul means you can lay your hands on are to be used to destroy Rita’s reputation and to separate her from me. This is conspiracy. Let’s have it out here, now.”

  She approached him. “Are you talking to me, Joe?” He could see her, too, in color. Sulky saffron, glowing sour-green, smoky crimson and, behind it all, inky indigo. He felt steal over him the old familiar sensation that had made school-days, and even punishments at school seem preferable to the life at home. Scores — hundreds of times, to avoid that feeling, he had yielded to her. He believed that his father had died of it.

  “Joe, were you speaking to me — your mother?”

  “Yes, I was. It’s a fine line, isn’t it, for a man to have to take with his own mother. I accuse you of conspiracy. And I intend to marry Rita. Come here, Rita; come and stand beside me.”

  “Very well, Joe. It must be perfectly clear to Captain Bruce and the Maharajah that you have ruined yourself by falling into evil company. There’s something hypnotic about this temple atmosphere — something filthy about it that has corrupted your brain. You are as good as drugged. I suppose next, you’ll become a Hindu. I can only wash my hands of you. I won’t be guilty of conniving at such self-disgrace as you contemplate. Marry that girl? That little Eurasian snippy who has been free with Hawkes and half the soldiers in the barracks? Not with my permission! I cut you off now, this minute, without a nickel. I repudiate you. I shall cable at once, and confirm it by letter, that I have removed you from every position you hold in every one of my companies. You needn’t look to me for one more cent of money. You may go home third-class.”

  “I will go home if and when I please,” Joe answered. “You will go home the moment the Indian Government learns that you are destitute. You will be deported, and I will pay to the government not one cent more than enough for your third-class fare.”

  Mrs. Beddington turned, trembling like a battleship in action. She had fired all bow-guns. Now she swung to bring to bear stern-turrets that should finish matters.

  “As for that young person whom you say you mean to marry, she and Hawkes shall learn what the law has to say about trying to get money under false pretenses. I have sent to my bank for that check.” She favored Hawkes with one withering glare that should have reduced him to a panic. But the cheek she had written with Cummings’ knowledge as a trap for Hawkes had never left Joe’s jacket pocket. That shot missed. Hawkes looked abominably unafraid of her, and nothing is more disconcerting to a bully than an unexpected failure to impose fear. She glanced at the Maharajah, who had been running fingers through his well kept beard, so that it no longer looked like a symbol of aristocratic savoir-faire.

  “You wish to go?” he asked her. “Certainly. I will escort you to my carriage.” He offered his arm. “That door, please. Some one open it. Get the key from the Yogi.”

  “No,” said Joe, “we’ll wait for Cummings.” He pointed an accusing forefinger at Poonch-Terai. “You’ll wait here, whoever else goes.”

  The Maharajah turned to Bruce. “I appeal to you. You are locked in. Command them to open that door.”

  “No,” said Bruce. “As Mr. Cummings is expected I propose we all wait for him. In fact, I accept that much responsibility. I order that the door shall not be opened, and that nobody shall leave this room, until some one with authority arrives who can — er — ask such questions as he sees fit. I vote we all be seated.”

  Silence fell. Then suddenly a tremendous peal of thunder shook the very basement of the building. As if India’s gods were entering the argument with nature’s huge artillery, such darkness fell as seemed to dim the lantern-light. Forked lightning shook the darkness, and a din of rain seethed in the courtyard.

  “Judgment!” boomed Ram-Chittra Gunga’s voice between the thunder-claps. “Ye have challenged destiny!”

  Salvo after salvo shook the masonry, and now the wind shrieked, adding horror to the darkness. Terror, guised as lightning, lit and relit livid faces.

  “He who summons to himself ten soldiers must control them or they overwhelm him. He who summons violence to do his bidding must control it, or it overwhelms him. He who summons to his aid dark forces must control those, or they overwhelm him. Set your strength into the balance against that which is. I challenge judgment. I demand it. I demand it now!”

  Thunder again, cannonading amid rain-swept masonry. A night-sky, seen across the courtyard, chaos — black with rolling storm-cloud, split by stinging flame that crackled as it split into a thousand bayonets of light.

  And then, again, the Yogi’s voice: “Let her speak who has felt no malice and has said no blame. Stand forth, thou. Say thy say. Let judgment answer.”

  He commanded with his right hand. Rita stood forth beside Amal’s body. Lightning through the open doorway showed her ghost-white, gentle, almost like a spirit summoned from an unseen world.

  CHAPTER XXV. “It is the wrong time of the year for storms.”

  The violence of the storm increased. For several seconds Rita waited, perhaps listening for the quarter-tone on w
hich to pitch her voice to make it audible. Mrs. Beddington spoke, but the elements dealt with her voice in the way that blotting-paper deals with ink; there was neither modesty nor music in her — each as necessary as the other, to be audible above the anvil-chorus of the gods. When Rita did speak, though her voice was level and not loud, it was as distinct as the thread of a melody inwoven amid drums, the brass of lightning and the wood-winds of the splendid orchestra.

  “I love Joe. That is no one’s business but his and mine; not his, unless he also loves me.” Thunder again and lightning that made of the room a cube of cold fire with human figures frozen in it. Sudden darkness, in which the lamp was like a yellow pin-point. Squalls of seething rain, like hail. And then again her quiet voice: “If it were I who created love, I would not ask pardon for it.”

  “Listen to her. I say, listen to her!” boomed Ram-Chittra Gunga. And the thunder, for a moment, blotted out all other sounds.

  Then Rita’s voice: “But I am of eternity, not time. I am a prisoner in this body of great yearnings and too narrow limits; and for how long I am sentenced none in this world knows. I have forgotten. All of us forget when we are born into these cages that we call our earthlier. But those are only moments. They pass; and in death we remember. Eternity always is.”

  “I say, listen to her!” boomed Ram-Chittra Gunga. But for more than a minute the storm monopolized all sound and all sensation. In the glare of the lightning Poonch-Terai could be seen trying to whisper to Mrs. Beddington, but she seemed unable to catch his words. When the deafening thunder ceased for a moment she spoke, almost screaming, her voice pitched sharp and staggeringly raw because she was exasperated and afraid:

  “I didn’t come here to be preached at and I don’t intend to listen. Such hypocrisy is wasted on me.”

  Bruce objected before Joe had time to get a word in:

  “Come now, fair play! Silence, please. It’s hard enough to listen without interruptions.”