by Talbot Mundy
“Tassim talked of firing the hotel,” she answered.
“Is that why your locked trunk had this in it?” Colonel McGowan asked her.
From under his voluminous robe he produced a piece of brass tube that had plugs screwed into both ends. One of the plugs was not screwed home; he took hold of it as if about to give it a turn or two. I saw her wince, but she controlled herself.
“How many turns does it need,” McGowan asked, “to make it dangerous?”
“Just one,” Grim answered, “but it’s all right, go on, turn it if you want to. Even the elevator isn’t running. The hotel folk have turned off the juice at the main switch.”
McGowan held it toward the Princess. “Turn it for us,” he suggested naively. “You know how.”
She refused. “I have nothing to do with it — nothing.”
Jeff Ramsden stepped into that breach. “May I see it?” He held it close to the Princess, taking one end between thumb and finger as if about to apply force. “Which end do you turn — this one?”
Then she yielded, but without panic. She spoke quietly:
“That end. But if you turn it — and if there is current turned on in the next building — or in the next but one — and if there is anything explosive within quite a wide radius — you will be sorry you turned it, that’s all.”
“Thank you,” said McGowan. “That is just what I wanted to know. Who hid the dynamite in this hotel?”
“Tassim Bey,” she answered, “said he thought of doing it.”
McGowan studied me a moment. “I wonder if you’d lend me a suit of your clothes. Shoes, too. Can you fit me?”
I gave him the key of my room, telling him to help himself.
“If there is dynamite,” he said, “I’ll find it. But I want to search without starting talk. The likeliest place is the storeroom. I’ll give my right name and say I think a package belonging to me got in there by mistake.”
I locked the door behind him and returned the key to Grim, who was examining the brass tube. Suddenly he looked up at the Princess.
“You’ll find it hard to believe,” he said, “but I actually didn’t know you had any of these in that trunk. You were watched so carefully in France after the Marseilles incident that, clever though you are, it seemed impossible for you to hide anything from us. But I know now how you did it. Changed trunks, of course. Swapped them in transit. Was there anything in this trunk that you personally need?”
She nodded, too alert to trust herself to speak.
“It is being gone through by McGowan’s men,” Grim went on. “You may have back anything that doesn’t interest us. This” — he tapped the brass tube with the door-key— “was made in the railway workshops — from memory; I’m flattered that it fooled you. We found several real ones; but they were all destroyed in making tests. There was one bad accident. The censorship was clapped on. Some of them appear to have reached the United States; there was an unexplained explosion in New Jersey that killed more than a hundred people. The new motor-ship Dido has sunk in mid-Atlantic. Maiden voyage. Seen to blow up suddenly. No survivors. Nearly three thousand people missing. One or two of these things may have been on board the Dido; almost anyone could hide one in his luggage, and not a ship on the sea is safe from them until we find the source of the supply.”
Jeff made a gruesome suggestion. “Any good mechanic could fix up clock- work mechanism that would turn that screw at the end of any given number of hours or days. Ship a trunk in the hold of a liner — no need for Dorje’s man to be on board.”
Grim stood and looked at the Princess. When he spoke, there was not a trace in his voice of criticism:
“So you see, we must catch Dorje. And I need your help again.”
“You — you need no help from anyone,” she answered. “You, the devil.”
But Grim did not look like the devil. I drew the conclusion that either she loved devils or else that she did not think Grim was one.
“What will you do if you catch him?” she asked.
Grim took thought before he answered: “I will know that then.”
Chullunder Ghose suddenly slapped his fat thigh a resounding thwack that startled all of us and voiced stark-naked nonsense:
“Am immoralist. Am weaned on theory that right and wrong are two sides of self-same silly nonsense. Can do — that is sole test of what anyone should do. Can get through to Tibet? Do it. Can take your goods? Do it. Can be Caesar and Napoleon plus Alexander? Do same. Why not? Why did God make little apples? Nobody knows, but wise men eat same, not asking questions. Were I Jimmy sahib — beg his pardon, were I honorable Jimgrim, having at my mercy most astonishing Princess who wears orchid lingerie and whose infinite variety is soul of wit et cetera, would take same — stay not on the order of my taking, either! Exquisite emotions notwithstanding, then would positively out-do Dorje. Slam-bang — go right to it! Dorje’s game is obvious — down with everything and up with Dorje! Dorje is doing it. Opportunist policy is obviously do in Dorje and seize reins of Dorje’s power! Emperor Jimgrim — how does that sound? And such a woman to share one’s throne — oh, is the champagne finished? I would like to drink to that thought — Emperor Jimmy Jimgrim — Empress Baltis — Banzai, as the Japanese say!”
The Princess stared at him, then spoke in a rather strained voice:
“Did I call you a fool just now?”
“Your mistake,” he answered.
Grim astonished me. Unsmiling, serious, he turned to Jeff and asked him:
“How about that? What do you say?”
Jeff astonished me almost more than Grim did: “Who wants an emperor’s job? Chullunder Ghose is right; a man should do what he can. But can you?”
“Someone must,” Grim answered. “Dorje has laid his plans too well; he has got to blow up every arsenal and warship in the world, and who can stop him? The damned things seem to suck up electricity and turn it into a vibration that sets off all explosives within a radius that depends on nothing but the strength of the current. Destroy all warships and ammunition — then what? The man with a sword is master, isn’t he?”
“And I can love you, Jeemgreem,” said the Princess. “Dorje I do not love. Few do.”
Grim caught my eye. “What do you think?”
The babu interrupted: “Treason against governments that plot against each other! Treason against kings and dictators and parliaments and congresses that never yet have thought of anything except how to exploit the unorganized! Dorje is right! The only thing wrong with Dorje is that Jimgrim is better. It is treasonable not to vote for Jimgrim. Am not treasonable person.”
“Dammit, Jim, go steady,” Jeff urged.
“Jeemgreem,” said the Princess, “I will show you Dorje. I will lead you to him. You, not Dorje, should be King of the World. Forgive me, Jeemgreem, that I worked against you. It was a very bad mistake. From now on I am for you, heart and soul.”
Grim smiled at her. “Why should I trust you?”
“Smile at me! Smile like that at me! Look into my eyes, Jeemgreem — read there what is in them!”
There came a knock at the door, and when I turned the key McGowan walked in, in a suit of my clothes. The Princess’s hands were on Grim’s shoulders and she was talking to him in undertones; Chullunder Ghose and Jeff, in equally low tones, were arguing over by the writing-table.
“What’s going on?” McGowan asked. “Yes, found the dynamite — in tin cans — in a case marked chicken soup. But what’s up?”
“Grim is considering taking Dorje’s place,” I told him.
“High time, too,” he answered. “Someone must. Reuters have just announced that three of our cruisers blew up in Portsmouth Harbor. We’re afraid that Woolwich Arsenal may go next. Can’t turn off a whole world’s electricity. We know there’s a plot here in Cairo to blow up the Citadel. Armstrongs — Vickers — Maxim — Nobels — Duponts — all the makers of explosive in the world are at their wits’ end what to do. It’s a sure thing that Dorje will pu
t all our armies and navies out of existence in less than a week. Then what price India? What price China? What price Egypt, the Sudan, Arabia? What price you and me if someone doesn’t kill Dorje and seize control, Grim’s the man — can’t beat him!”
“Jeemgreem,” I heard the Princess say, “you and I died because we loved each other, when you were Sir Francis Weston and I was—”
But I had heard enough of that stuff. I approached Jeff Ramsden, but as I did so he spoke past me at Grim:
“If you and Chullunder Ghose are right I’ll eat my hat, but damn you, do as you like, Jim. I’ll stick.”
What could I do? A man can’t niggle when the world seems at a madman’s mercy. I said, “All right, I suppose I’ll stick too. But I think Grim’s crazy.”
CHAPTER 10. “Dorje! Dorje!”
It was I who was crazy. Anyone who knew Grim might have known that he was merely fooling Baltis. Jeff’s reluctance justified her in believing Grim was serious. Mine confirmed her opinion. Jeff was acting a part. I was not; but nobody except the Princess, and perhaps Grim, believed I was not, and my genuine friendship with Chullunder Ghose dates from that moment when he leaped to the entirely false conclusion that I had acted the part of conscientious objector simply to convince the Princess that I knew Grim was in earnest.
“Sahib,” he said to me afterwards, “this world is full of wise men who are big fools. It takes a fool like me to be wise on the spur of a moment. But even when said spur pricks this babu to hilarious hocus-pocus, what use would cosmic wisdom be without such genius as yours, that acts like prohibitionist asserting booze is banished from the U.S.A. and looks as if he means it! Spur of moment is supreme test. But for you, that woman would have doubted Jimgrim. Now, however, she doubts nothing except whether ex-Queen of Sheba is suitable person to overthrow Solomon-Dorje.”
“Does she believe all that junk about her previous incarnations?”
“Certainly she does. That is why she is also able to believe that Jimgrim would like to be King of the World. Sahib, all of us have heel-of-Achilles hidden somewhere in our anatomy. Some think they can buy paradise with money. Rammy sahib thinks that difficulties were made by God for us to smash and that only infidels avoid them. This babu is satisfied of ultimate futility of all things; nevertheless, am chaste voluptuary, fearful of extremes and yet pursuing them because there seems no end to anything and why grow weary of the middle? That woman, otherwise sane as an icicle, thinks she was Baltis Queen of Sheba, and Ann Boleyn and God knows who else; so she can be caught in snares that would not fool even a politician. And I know Jimgrim’s weakness, but I will not tell that. Yours is lack of imagination, but I will not tell that also — will merely make note of same for future purposes.”
I suppose he was right. I could not imagine, for instance, why Colonel McGowan had shown no trace of hesitation in accepting the idea that Grim should dethrone Dorje and seize world-dominion. It had shocked me. Why should it not shock him, a British officer on British territory? Surely the first impact of the idea should have made him hesitate. And why should he trust me, a stranger, so unreservedly? He invited me to go with him around Cairo, to look the situation over, as he expressed it, and we went together to his quarters where he changed into his civilian clothes. There, something of the doubt in my mind probably escaped into the conversation. At any rate, he enlightened me:
“Grim is a wizard at picking the right line and the right man. He has taught me more in one week than I had learned in twenty-five years. As a matter of raw truth, we are absolutely up against it, and it’s much worse than is generally known. We don’t know what the deuce to do. The troops are almost out of hand; you see, we hardly dare to let them have a round of ammunition; one — just one of those damned brass gadgets is enough to blow ’em all to Kingdom Come if there’s an electric current within a mile of ’em. We’re taking no chances of that, let me tell you. We’re evacuating the Citadel, reserve ammunition and all. No electricity out in the desert. Then if Dorje’s men fire the city, we can march back with our ammunition, instead of being caught like rats in a trap. But come on, let’s get busy.”
Cairo was in ferment. Reuter’s cablegrams announcing the sinking of British cruisers, following on a series of similar disasters in France and explosions all over the world, had set all Europeans and all the educated Egyptians by the ears. The London Stock Exchange had suspended business; almost every other bourse, including the cotton exchange in Alexandria, had followed suit. There was a rumor, backed by enormous clouds of yellow smoke in several directions, that the warehoused cotton crop was burning — and now, on top of all that, the most alarming certainty of all, that the troops — the hated, irritating, guardians of British overlordship — were on the march, evacuating Cairo, with their ammunition wagons hurrying southward ahead of them.
Rumors — rumors — rumors — of a war in the Sudan, of an invasion by mutinous Sudanese, of a sudden invasion by Italy at war with France and England — a proclamation posted in the streets forbidding the use of all private electric installations until further notice — motorcycles roaring through the streets because the telephone was discontinued — another proclamation, misspelled and with the ink still wet, issuing warning that as an emergency measure Cairo would have no electricity until further notice but that kerosene had been requisitioned by the Government and would be rationed for use in oil-lamps. Crowds, volatile, inflammable, afraid, so swarming in the streets and around the mosques that it was almost impossible for a car to get through. Then an idiotic story, put in the form of a question by a frenzied storekeeper who jumped on the running-board and yelled in McGowan’s face, that the Abyssinians were marching down the Nile a million strong.
“And what the hell can anybody tell ’em?” asked McGowan, when we had got rid of that man.
Someone else was telling plenty. Someone was making rumors by the hat- full and spreading them through the bazaars and back-streets. There was a story of an air-raid on the way, made plausible by the roar of the planes of the Royal Air Force circling over the city in groups of three with the laudable object of restoring confidence. But worst of all, there was a tumult gathering in the throats of narrow lanes and an increasing growl of “Dorje!” that occasionally swelled into a mob-roar— “Dorje! Dorje!” and grew low again. It appeared to be checked by the sight of bayonets, and armored cars, and two tanks; but whether or not those street patrols had ammunition or were merely bluffing nobody could guess.
“We know,” McGowan told me, “that about a hundred of those Dorje-dingbats are in Cairo. And it’s probable that they’ve an electric-light plant hidden somewhere. Start that up, and turn the plugs on a few of those things — might as well shoot the men beforehand as let ’em get caught with ammunition in their belts. Dorje has won Cairo. Can he hold it, that’s the question.”
I asked McGowan about his own automatic; I had seen him put one in his pocket.
“Oh, we take chances at our trade,” he answered. “That’s different. The troops, of course, are mad-angry. They think they are not being trusted. But believe me, they’re too valuable just now to be risked against a mechanical enemy that can kill ’em all at one turn of a switch. No, Dorje has won Cairo — for the moment. And the devil of it is, we don’t know Dorje from a hole in the wall. We don’t know where he is, nor who he is, nor how many other cities he is attacking at this moment.”
“Do his gadgets blow up gasoline?” I asked.
“In certain circumstances, yes, apparently. The Air Force reserve supply tank burst into flames at half-past nine this morning. They say the petroleum wells are all on fire at Baku.”
“For once then the Soviet Government isn’t under suspicion?”
“Hell’s bells, no. They would hardly burn their own wells to annoy the universe. As a matter of fact, they’re as rattled as we are. They’re suffering worse. There’s an unconfirmed message in code to the effect that the Mujiks have all gone Dorje and are proclaiming a new dispensation with Dorje as King of
the World. And India — Jee-rusalem! The cable is silent. Figure for yourself what that means.”
I would not have believed that a city could change its hue, and almost its identity, so suddenly as Cairo did that day. It was not only the smoke from the burning cotton barns, or the din of the angering crowds in public squares and down the stenching side-streets. Chaos struck the place, changing it under our eyes, as if it were a new Pompeii being blotted out by a new Vesuvius, only with this difference, that nobody knew where to run and the mob was possessed by a weird, unexplainable spirit of waiting for something to happen. The city was already at their mercy, and they waited — waited. Every plan, perhaps theirs also, if they had one, had been rendered useless by the fact that electricity and all explosives were out of commission. A man with a stick in his hand was as good as the next. But who knew whose stick was a hollow thing that held a brass tube? And who knew that the troops were without ammunition?
“Dorje!” The growl of the word kept gaining above the tumult, and the King of Egypt’s mounted bodyguard, parading near the palace with a fine air of fearless discipline, retired in front of it sullenly, until the King and his entourage had time to crowd into about a dozen motor-cars and stream away southward. Then the bodyguard fell back on the palace and sat their horses looking sulkily ready for business — or almost ready — almost. They, too, seemed to me, if I can read men’s faces, to be expecting something that had not yet shown up — possibly a leader?
“Dorje,” I said to McGowan, as we began to drive at greater speed at last through quieter streets toward the hospital, “must have been at this game quite a long time. This is a prepared situation. Seems funny to me that the secret services of six or seven powers couldn’t run him down and stop this before it happened. How is it you didn’t find him?”
“Give me your guess,” he retorted.
