Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Jimgrim, if you knew what I know of the Gobi!”

  “I can guess.”

  “Cities — cities — buried cities by the dozen! Libraries — perhaps a million years old! Sciences, forgotten when the Gobi sank under the sea! And let that secret out? Tschuhtschuh! The Chinese would pour in the burrow like rats. They would dig for the gold. They would destroy everything. No water — no food — no transportation. But that would not prevent the Chinese if they saw one golden chest that came out of the Gobi. They would overrun like rats, and die like rats; and like rats they would win in the end!”

  “And you told Dorje!”

  “Nay, I did not. Dorje knew it. And he has wrested secrets from the buried cities. But he learned that I knew. And he learned of what you call my underground. So he came and made a bargain with me. And as you say, I trusted him. He has the most vast intellect and breadth of understanding I have ever met. And within one twelve-month, Jimgrim, he had thrust me to the background — he had turned against me all the men who — Jimgrim! May the maggots of Gehenna crawl into his soul, and may he know that in the outer loneliness!”

  “Never mind his soul. I’m here to get his body! Are you going to help — or have you lost your spirit? Is cursing all you’re good for nowadays?”

  “Jimgrim, I swore I would never trust another man born of a woman! But I am old. I have no sons. I think you will not succeed in finding Dorje, let alone catching him. I think that Dorje can defeat the whole world with his knowledge of things unknown to other people. But I will make this bargain with you. Kill him. And I will reveal to you the secret of the Gobi Desert! I will bequeath that to you. It shall be yours and Jeff’s — and to do with whatever you will! But you must kill him!”

  “Are you going to help me?”

  Benjamin nodded.

  “All right. Send for Hari Kobol Das; and when he comes here, tell him Dorje is in Delhi. Then one other thing. A lady who calls herself the Princess Baltis will arrive by ‘plane, perhaps tomorrow and perhaps the next day. She has French credentials and a British secret service visa. She will go to the Kaiser-i-hind Hotel, because she will be told to go there by the officer who examines her passport. Do you know a woman whom you could trust to go and meet her?”

  “My daughter—”

  “Splendid. I want Baltis told that the lock — of the gate of the trail — that leads to Dorje’s nest — is — ?”

  “In Vasantasena’s house,” said Benjamin.

  “And I thought this babu knew how many beans make five!” remarked Chullunder Ghose. “I sigh myself into a back seat. I absquatulate myself. I am gentleman named Anon—”

  “That’s a good one,” Grim said quietly. “Ahnon Mirza — Persian merchant — you can play that. Benjamin can tog you as a Persian. Snap right into it and go and spend some money at Vasantasena’s place this evening.”

  “I have pounds Egyptian fifty.”

  “You will need two or three times that much. Benjamin, cash me a draft on London for as much as a fat Persian ought to squander in a brothel.”

  CHAPTER 30. “Dorje is in Delhi!”

  Hari Kobol Das turned out to be a Hindu of the kind who wear second-hand London suits that have been sold to dealers by the valets of extravagant young men of fashion. He was considerably over fifty years of age and would have looked much less incongruous in one of Gandhi’s cotton caps and shorts. Clean-shaven, he attempted to look twenty-five in spite of gold-rimmed spectacles and a wrinkled forehead that bulged like that of a professor from the U.S. funnies; and he wore a straw hat perched a trifle to one side that made him look more like a dark Goanese than a Hindu. He carried a cane, with which he slapped his striped pants. And he was obviously nervous.

  Grim and I observed him through two knot-holes in the rear wall of Benjamin’s dim office. Chullunder Ghose had been arrayed an hour ago in gorgeous silks and had departed through the back door. Jeff had gone to the Royal Air Force hangar to get news, if he could, of the progress of the French plane that was bringing Baltis. Benjamin was in a mood that Hari Kobol Das was at a loss to understand.

  “You owe me money, Hari Kobol Das. Why don’t you pay me?”

  “Why do you speak to me in English?”

  “Because you wear English clothes. You look so like an Englishman that I feel you ought to pay your debts, as all English gentlemen do.”

  “Is that why you sent for me?”

  “Yes. It is three years since I lent you money and you have never even paid the interest. Nevertheless, you appear to expect me to keep on giving you secret news, so that you may go to your employer and pretend to be a good spy — whereas, as a matter of fact, you are only a poor pretender. Tschey-yey! You believe you can make a quail win fights by sending thoughts into its head! And you have lost my money betting on such imbecility. Pay me, if you want the secret that I know now.”

  “You have news? Better tell me, Benjamin, or I will tell the general some things about you that will—”

  Benjamin acted perfectly. He exploded. He gave a word and gesture — perfect imitation of an old Jew terrified by threats and tantalized by inability to get his money back. He rose out of his chair and trembled. He appeared to attempt to recover his dignity. He muttered Hebrew phrases. He began to speak a dozen times, and checked himself. He sat down, staring, scandalized above spectacles down on his nose.

  “And is this gratitude?” he asked.

  “Gratitude is the humiliating vice of unimportant people,” remarked Hari Kobol Das, who had apparently been memorizing modern phrases. “You had better tell your news.”

  “But if I tell you — ?”

  “I will protect you. I stand very high in my department.”

  “Dorje is in Delhi!”

  “Incredible!”

  “But you must not tell anyone except your general!”

  “Where is Dorje?”

  “I don’t know. I only know he is in Delhi.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw him. I have spoken with him.”

  “Where?”

  “Here.”

  “In this office?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What does he look like?”

  That was how we got our first reliable description of the man of mystery. Baltis had given us five or six descriptions of him, each one different; it was part of her method to maintain her own value by elaborating mystery. But Benjamin believed that Hari Kobol Das had probably seen Dorje, so he described him accurately:

  “He is of medium height, but looks big. He looks as if he might be Chinese, Afghan, Irish and American Indian all in one. He has big eyes that can suddenly grow small, and a small mouth that can suddenly grow big, particularly when he laughs. He has a nose that looks as if it smells the history and the meaning of everything on any wind. And he carries his head like a woman who brings water from the well.”

  “That is Dorje! But how was he dressed?”

  “Quite plainly, like an Englishman. But on his finger was a gold ring in the form of coiling serpents that hold an uncut ruby in their coils. And over the English clothes he wore the hood and kirtle of a Ringding Gelong Lama from Tibet.”

  “That is Dorje!”

  “Do you know Vasantasena?” Benjamin asked.

  “Yes. You know I know her.”

  “I advise you not to mention it to her.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t trust her. I would tell the general if I were you.”

  “Would you? I don’t believe you. Else, why not tell the general yourself and get the credit for it? I believe you play a trick on me. You wish to prove to Dorje that I am unfit to be trusted. I shall certainly tell Vasantasena, because if Dorje is in Delhi there are going to be some killings and I do not choose to be a victim. If you are not careful I will tell Vasantasena that you are treacherous and that you sent for m
e to persuade me to betray Dorje.”

  “No, no, no! Oh, no!” said Benjamin. “Not that! Could you be such an ingrate? That you may get some credit for yourself I tell you something — and you betray me?”

  “Well, be careful. If I catch you playing tricks with me and withholding information, I will certainly not spare you, but will report you both to the general and to Dorje!”

  He smiled conceitedly. He posed as a person who might tell a great deal if he chose to. But he reminded me of one of those incompetents who hang around the fringes of societies — extremely learned in the text, perhaps, of occult books but absolutely void of any occult gifts excepting cowardice, chicanery and self-esteem. When he had gone, and the door of the great gloomy shop was closed behind him, Grim and I came out of hiding and Benjamin said what he thought:

  “You are crazy, Jimgrim! I have done what you demanded, but I tell you: that fool will go to Vasantasena straight away, and he will tell her Dorje is in Delhi. She knows Dorje. She has seen him. She is like all important prostitutes, she has a horde of spies, like rats, who run her errands. She is a clearing house of secrets — a schemer — a power in Delhi — and a woman of great intelligence. She will pump that fool as dry of information as a dead bat. And the next thing you know, she will be sending peeled eyes, and tickled ears, and curious noses to visit this place!”

  “We won’t put her to all that trouble,” Grim answered. “I want a Ringding Gelong Lama’s outfit. Have you one?”

  “Yes. But I might as well give you a shroud! You will be detected. You will be stabbed, and they will throw you, shroud and all, into a rat-pit. What the rats leave of your bones they will probably send in a bag to the general’s office with the compliments of Shiva!”

  “Sort me out a Kashgari trader’s kit for Jeff. He can talk that language perfectly to anyone except a man from Kashgar.”

  “And for Major Crosby, I suppose, a nautch-girl’s costume! Jimgrim, you have lost your senses! You will go to Vasantasena? Then I bid you good-bye. You will never see tomorrow’s sunrise!”

  Jeff came, dropped at the front door by a hooting car that belonged to the Royal Air Force, driven by a subaltern to whom intrigue was as incomprehensible as speed and bombs were sweetly reasonable logic. Jeff had all the news he went for:

  “Baltis gets here any time. The French ‘plane turns out to be a record-beater. They’ve wirelessed that they’re running short of gas and may not quite reach Delhi, but they’re due, if they can carry on, about nine-thirty. So the Air Force has a squadron looking for them, to guide them to a landing place in case they can’t quite make the distance.”

  “All right, Crosby, you go ‘as is’.” Grim stared at me thoughtfully. “Your story is that Baltis is in need of medical attention. You are one of her gang. You’re the doctor she trained in Paris to be sent to the United States to do a little strategic poisoning of key-men like the President and the Chief of Staff and a few of the hot men in the secret service. You were sent here to replenish the supply of vegetable poison. Go to the hotel and wait for her, but don’t let her see you until Benjamin’s daughter has told her Dorje is in Delhi. Then tackle her and refuse to be shaken off. The point is this: I think we’re right in guessing that Vasantasena is the hook-up between Dorje and his agents, but there may be several. I count on Baltis to pick the right one.”

  I objected: “But suppose she heads off somewhere else. How can I let you know? How can you trace us?”

  Grim laughed. “Baltis will be shadowed by the general’s experts from the second she steps out of the ‘plane until she gives them the slip — and that won’t happen too soon. Don’t show fight, whatever happens. If you’re trapped, we’ll come and get you.”

  So I left them disguising themselves with the aid of the protesting Benjamin, whose old age had not lessened his ability to criticize, nor yet the lively skill with which he pulled out garment after garment from chests and drawers and lockers — rejecting this, selecting that — and even choosing perfumes that, as he expressed it, made them “stink like where they should be from; because the wrong stink stirs suspicion quicker than a clumsy gesture. A man from Kashgar might — yey — yey, he will unconsciously copy the gestures of Delhi but he will smell of loess dust. And a man from Tibet will smell like a yak in a shed — yes, though you wash him for a whole year. I have perfumes that suggest such characteristics, and it might surprise you to learn what prices wise ones are willing to pay to get them.”

  I never saw Benjamin’s daughter until nearly ten o’clock that evening. Baltis came to the hotel escorted by an Air Force officer, who insisted on ordering cocktails and tried to amuse her — I suppose to give spies time to take up tactical positions; I saw none of the spies, but he took his leave quite suddenly, so I suppose someone made him a signal. Immediately after that, Benjamin’s daughter turned up, looking like a middle-aged ayah. She was followed by a porter carrying a suit-case, but she took that from him when she reached the door of Baltis’ room; and when she knocked she was admitted instantly, Baltis probably supposing she was someone sent by the authorities to play servant and act as a spy.

  I gave them fifteen minutes to get acquainted. Then I went to the door and met Benjamin’s daughter already on her way out, but without the suit-case. They had been quick. Baltis was already arrayed in Indian costume and both her hands were full of native jewelry that Benjamin had sent along with the clothing; otherwise, she would have locked the door in my face. She was as pleased to see me as a bird to see a tom-cat, but I forced my way in, so she made the best of it, but there was murder in her eye.

  She had risen to the occasion — recovered all her natural, ebullient impudence. Hope, I suppose, had sprung triumphant in her thought of being met by one of Dorje’s agents with a suitable supply of clothing and the news that Dorje was in Delhi.

  “Where is Jeemgreem?” she demanded. I offered to take her to Grim.

  She nodded, studying herself, and I think me also, in a full-length mirror while she tried on Benjamin’s jewelry — astonishing, barbaric stuff that suited her perfectly. By the time she had made her choice of necklaces, anklets, and bracelets she was like a houri of an Oriental dream; and when she had done smiling at herself she turned on me with a look of candid triumph.

  “You are sent to spy on me because Jeemgreem hopes I will communicate with Dorje. So I will be fr-r-ank. I will tell you the plain truth.”

  I supposed a thumping lie was coming. But I was mistaken. Grim’s method, I think, had undermined her self-confidence to the point where she ceased to calculate the odds but betted her last stake on one forlorn hope. And she encouraged herself by discouraging me — or by attempting that.

  “I am spied upon also by Indian agents. But I go where spies are not admitted. Jeemgreem had his chance to be my fr-r-iend. But he spur-r-ned it; and he tr-r-eated me as I do not choose that any man shall tr-reat my offer of myself. I am against him, as he shall presently discover! As for you — you keyhole peepaire! — I will shoot you deader than a mouton if you disobey me!”

  She had stolen one of the Air Force automatics! She did not make the amateur’s mistake of holding it so far in front of her that I could kick it or knock it upward.

  “Before they shall have come and found your car-r-case, I will be out of that window and gone to where all the police in the world can nevaire find me!”

  Benjamin’s daughter evidently had brought all kinds of comforting assurance.

  “My orders,” I said, “are to watch you and go wherever you go. But I have definite instructions not to interfere.”

  She nodded. “It will be simpler if I take you with me. This is a city where a woman looks less noticeable if she has an escort. Get out through that window — down the fire-escape — go to the end of the garden — wait for me beside the door in the wall. And if the door is locked, find someone who will open it.”

  I obeyed. I knew she could not escape through the hotel without being followed by government spies; and I was sure she
intended to shoot if I should even hesitate. Grim had most emphatically asked me not to show fight; I had that excuse with which to salve a somewhat chastened vanity.

  The garden was a tawdry quarter of an acre, with a chair or two for after-dinner cigarettes and sad geraniums in red pots flanking a red-brick path that radiated stored heat like a baker’s oven. I was probably seen; an Indian night has more eyes than its sky has stars; but it was nothing to stir more than idle curiosity that a sahib should use the fire-escape to reach the garden. The door at the end of the garden opened when I touched the latch. I waited, and saw the light go out in Baltis’ room.

  A minute later, walking — looking like an ayah — shrouded in a cheap black sari that shadowed her face and made her look bulky and misshapen, she followed me; and I don’t doubt she was also seen. But there was certainly nothing wrong about an ayah leaving by the back way, and if the secret service spotted her, and followed, then they did it so adroitly that I saw no hint of it. I opened the door in the wall and passed through ahead of her. She closed it.

  “I will shoot you dead, unless you do exactly what I say!”

  There was a taxi standing with its motor idling, clocking up the rupees, six feet from the garden gate. The driver leaned out and opened the door. She jumped in.

  “Hurry!” she commanded. So I followed and she ordered me to take the front seat, where she could keep me covered with the automatic.

  The driver started without being told and drove two or three hundred yards before he asked for orders.

  “Vasantasena!”

  Evidently Benjamin had left our destination undetermined to allow for Baltis having secret links with Dorje of which we knew nothing.

  “See here,” I said, “you throw that pistol through the window. I’m your doctor. I’m the man you trained to send to the United States, to poison Presidents and other superfluous people. I have met you here in order to obtain supplies of vegetable poison that is deadly but leaves no detectable trace. That’s Grim’s story. You tell it.”