Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Thus far, sahibs, the trail appeared to lead no-wither. But there was a voice within me that kept urging patience, and you are doubtless familiar with the well-known truth that the only good soldiers are those who are never in a hurry until the scouts have made full report. So, speaking solely with desire to cause him to speak again, I said that the Chinese possibly were living men in those days, but that now they are all dead and incapable of thinking. Whereat, as the way of most men is when so accused, he boasted; and in order to bring his boasting home, he cited instances.

  “Said he: ‘You see this instrument? Can Sikh eyes see the fineness of it, or has so much liquor dulled the vision?’ And he showed me a thing such as I never before set eyes on — a thing of brass that slid inside itself when a screw was turned, so that certain figures came in contact with other figures, and they in turn with more, and there from calculations could be made in logarithms without chance of error.

  “Said he: ‘You see that, don’t you, you whose eyes would rather behold strong drink? You think that was made in the West? Look, see, then — here is the signature of him who made it.’ And he showed me Chinese characters cut deeply in the brass. ‘This was made in Hong Kong by a Chinaman,’ he said, ‘and there is but one other like it in the world.’

  “Now, as to that, he may or may not have been lying, sahibs; but at any rate I told him he was lying, for, said I, the Chinese forever lie to foreigners. Moreover, I said that the instrument was a simple thing that any fool could design and put to use. Whereat, seeing we enjoyed each other’s company, he further controverted me.

  “Said he: ‘Not only did a Chinaman make that, but none other than a Chinaman can use it. None other understands it.’

  “‘But the numbers on it,’ said I, ‘are European.’

  “‘Surely so,’ said he, ‘for it was meant that the barbarians should understand it. But none did. For ten years,’ he said, ‘I have possessed these two machines, and I have offered them at a fair price to all such barbarians as think themselves educated and who entered my unworthy shop. Certain of them were curious, as if they beheld a sort of peep-show, but none understood. It was not until a Chinaman sent to inquire for something of the sort that I found a purchaser for one, so that now I have but this one left. It was no barbarian who bought the other, but a Chinaman.’

  “Sahibs, my heart made a leap within me, for the instinct of an old scout assured me I was on the trail. And so it proved. Again I told him he was lying, for any man, said I, could invent a story of a Chinese purchaser and say without proof this or that to clinch an argument. Whereat he took down from the shelf his book in which he keeps a list of purchasers and what they bought and by how much he cheated them and what not.

  “‘See!’ he said. ‘Look, see, drunkard!’

  “He showed me, sahibs, the name of an Egyptian — Enim Ismail Bey — with an address beneath it that I also memorized, and I inquired since when were the Chinese ever created bey, that being an Egyptian title. So he told me how, not many days since, an Egyptian of that name came to him, making inquiries for a calculating instrument, and how the Egyptian was such a muddle-headed fool that he knew neither the name of the instrument nor its purpose, but supposed that one instrument might be as good as another for any mathematical purpose.

  “So, because talk led nowhere, and because the Egyptian admitted that the instrument was needed by a Chinaman who could not walk abroad to make his own purchases, that shopkeeper offered to leave his shop and visit the prospective customer. And to that the Egyptian raised objections, saying he would inquire more particularly as to the nature of the instrument required.

  “However, the next day the Egyptian returned and accepted the shopkeeper’s offer, and the two drove away to a house in the quarter Tewfikyeh, where was a very old and, so he said, sagacious Chinaman, who soon made known the nature of needs, and the shopkeeper returned and brought the instrument, and made a sale at a good price.

  “‘So you see,’ he said, ‘it is only the Chinese who can appreciate such fine calculating instruments.’

  “Wereat I said, sahibs, that whether he were Chinaman or not, he must be a lunatic to spend his old age addling what few brains remained to him with any such contrivance. And at that the shopkeeper smiled inscrutably and said that very much wisdom always upsets the human brain, for reasons that no Sikh could possibly appreciate.

  “‘For as a man grows wise,’ said he, ‘he differs from the unwise, and in that degree must appear mad to such as lack his understanding.’

  “‘So your customer was what a sane man would describe as mad?’ I asked him.

  “‘A drunkard would call him mad,’ said he.

  “‘Would a sober and well-educated white man call him mad?’ said I.

  “‘Of a certainty!’ said he. ‘For the education of barbarians is such that they call all men mad who surpass them in understanding. Yes, they would probably confine him in a madhouse. To you, who are a Sikh and therefore a drunkard without brains, I answer yes, that he is mad; but to a man of true intelligence I would say: “He knows more than any of us”; and in the presence of the sage himself I touch the earth with my forehead.’

  “‘So he is stark mad?’ said I.

  “‘Stark mad,’ said he, ‘since we talk the English language in which truth cannot be told.’

  “So I knew, sahibs, that I had found the address of the lunatic, and I went off in search of the place and discovered it easily, for it is a big house set in the midst of others in a row, none touching, but all close together-a long street of houses of the better sort, but not so modern, nor yet so well cared for, as in certain other streets near by. The windows are heavily barred, and there are shutters on nearly all of them, and although I watched for several hours, none came and none went through the door that opens on the street.

  “So, being weary, and needing time to think, I set certain of our men to watch that door all night. Four men I set on watch, so that if as many as three should fall asleep, there would still be one keeping vigil. And all four swore that none slept, yet that none came or went through that door; nevertheless, that a light had shown until after midnight in an upper window. So, soon after dawn, I myself returned to that street to study the situation fully and conceive a plan.

  “There was no light burning then. There was nothing to show that the house was occupied. But it was early, and the tradesmen who deliver milk and such things were delivering from house to house. As I have said, sahibs, those are houses of the well-to-do — of folk who eat luxuriously in the European fashion. Nevertheless, I observed that a man with a basket delivered at the house next door to the one I was watching such things as rice, ghee, garlic and dried fish; moreover that the quantities were small, as if for one individual and he particular about the freshness of his food.

  “I followed that man back to the stall in the bazaar whence he had come, and behold yet another Chinaman! But he, observing me to be a Sikh, and having memories no doubt of Sikh policemen in the treaty ports of China, was afraid to tell me anything, beyond that he delivered food at that house daily, now one thing and now another, but always in small portions. I asked him who paid for the stuff, but he answered that one man’s money is as good as another’s and that it is all one to him who pays, so be that he gets what is due him.

  “So I sent some of our own men out again to make inquiries, and within the hour I knew that both those houses are the property of one Zegloush Pasha, a reputedly wealthy man who owns much land in the Fayoum, and that there is a covered way connecting them together from the rear, which cannot be seen from the street because of the shrubbery.

  “Now this Zegloush, sahibs, is the same who is said to be the leader of the so-called Agrarian Bloc, whose politics consist in abusing all men and supporting none-the same, in fact, who sent Moustapha Pasha to America. Therefore there is no longer doubt in my mind that the lunatic we seek is secluded in that second house belonging to Zegloush, where they doubtless keep him occupied with c
alculations, lest he grow restless and perhaps escape and make known his secrets elsewhere.

  “In your absence, Jimgrim Sahib, I was puzzled what to do. In this land, as in most others, bribery is the key that opens doors; yet in this case, bribery would likely be expensive, and though I had no fear that you would question my accounts, nevertheless it is not the part of a faithful man to spend his employer’s money recklessly. So I took thought again, and went back to the shop of the Chinaman who sells surveying instruments and so forth, whose name is Ah Li Wan — or so says the sign above his door; they lie concerning names, those Chinamen.

  “To Ah Li Wan, I said: ‘Your miserable countryman, for whom that thing of brass that slides within itself was bought, is in bad hands. Is it good,’ I asked,

  “So I said to him: ‘That old man,’ said I, ‘remains in that house because he has nowhere else to go; and I take pity on him, having lived in China, and having received on more than one occasion great kindnesses from the Chinese. And it stands to reason,’ I said, ‘that if he were to be provided with a home more to his liking, among friends instead of enemies — such as you, for instance, could contrive — he would come there willingly. The sage is mad,’ I said; ‘he loves such instruments and things as you have here, and, being old, he enjoys deference. If you would make a home for him, I think I could contrive that he would come to live with you.’

  “However, Ah Li Wan was afraid. He refused to interfere, saying that his business might be ruined if he were to make enemies among Egyptians; but he said he would contribute toward the old man’s comfort, if that could be managed secretly. Whereat the gods whom I have always worshipped put a new idea into my head, and I made him a proposal, to which he consented after an hour or two of argument. And the outcome of that is thus, sahib — come with me and behold.”

  He led the way upstairs, and opened the door of a room as big as the one we had been sitting in-a room that Grim had had no present use for, but had been obliged to rent along with the rest. It was fitted up with almost no furniture, except a truck-bed in one corner, but with such a medley of globes, calculating instruments, and what-not that it looked like a museum almost.

  “These,” said Narayan Singh, “are lent to us by Ah Li Wan, I signing the receipt for them and guaranteeing the return of all things in good condition on demand. It has cost us nothing; Ah Li Wan paid transportation charges. So there remains, sahibs, nothing but to bring that ancient here, after which we will flatter his self-esteem and he will tell us all he knows.”

  “How do you propose to get him here?” Grim asked.

  “I have considered that.” Narayan Singh looked hard at me. “You, I, and Ramsden Sahib have contrived many a disguise together; moreover, we have risked our necks, and it is not good to let courage die from disuse merely because two of us have left the Army. I will be a lunatic. I will be a Sikh from Singapore, who has gone mad from too much Chinese education. And you, sahibs, will be friends of mine, the one an Arab and the other simply an American, who has traveled much and studied deeply in many lands. Ramsden Sahib must wear horn-rimmed spectacles, and that will be disguise enough. We will call at that house this evening, if you sahibs give consent, and if all goes well at least two of us will get to see that ancient Chinaman. We will have a motor-car waiting in the street, and only Ramsden Sahib will be in any personal danger, and not even he to any serious extent, because he is strong and men will think twice before they offer him violence.”

  Outside, in the street, a military band went by, playing an air from The Mikado, followed by the tramp of sixteen-year-old boys-for such the British soldiers mostly seem to be in these days. Through the window we could see black-veiled Moslem women elbowing flirtatious, unveiled Levantines, and men of every shade of creed and colour, from Nubian ebony to the thin-blooded white of the fellow who has been too long away from home. A man rode by through the crowd on a milk-white donkey, followed by a string of Coptic monks in single file, stepping aside nervously to avoid motor-cars and offered drinking-water by a man who sold it from a decorated brass jar hung with bells.

  Narayan Singh, black-bearded and enormous began to busy himself getting out disguises for himself and Grim. And Grim, in a grey tweed suit, grey-eyed under bushy eyebrows, sat down cross-legged in the corner, leaned against a hanging from Bokhara, and chuckled silently.

  CHAPTER X. “Whom Allah hath made mad let none offend”

  We spent that whole afternoon rehearsing, not that my part was likely to be difficult, nor that either of the others were likely to misplay, but in order to get the teamwork into it. Grim doesn’t have to pretend to be an Arab; he is one as soon as he puts the costume on-thinks, speaks, looks, and acts as if he had been born somewhere east of the Red Sea, with the only difference that he knows more than all the Arabs put together about the white man’s view of things. It won’t be until a few millions of us on both sides get that gift of Grim’s, and learn to see both sides at once, that East and West will ever really meet.

  Grim and Narayan Singh between them had enrolled and broken in nearly a dozen good spies, that being mainly a matter of selection in a land where intrigue is the universal custom and spying comes, like breathing, naturally. Two of them kept watch on the house we were to visit, and not long after dark one of them brought word that Zegloush Pasha was within doors. We set off at once then in a hired cab. Narayan Singh sitting with his back to the horses, vulture-fashion, with his bearded chin resting on his knees.

  Grim wore a white cloth turban, wrapped around a tarboosh, and all the other dignified paraphernalia of a uleema, or learned Moslem, a costume in which he was sure of getting at least outward respect from anyone who professed the creed of the Prophet. Narayan Singh was also clothed in white-good, well-laundered, expensive linen; for it does not pay to approach the house of an Egyptian Pasha looking like a person who would have to go to the devil if told to do so. The Egyptian aristocracy is one of wealth exclusively, and its manners correspond.

  In the more or less dark, at a point midway between two street-lamps half a block away from the house we were to visit, stood the motor-car Narayan Singh had arranged for, with one of our best spies behind the wheel. So we sent the cab away and approached the front door boldly, Grim and I each taking an arm of Narayan Singh and half-dragging him between us, as if he were a cripple as well as daft.

  For a minute after we had rung the front door bell we were examined through a pane of glass by a Nubian servant, who finally opened the door about six inches and took my card.

  I told him I was a traveller with a problem that I believed would interest His Excellency, but that if he did not care to see me, there were doubtless others who would be glad to know about the matter. That piqued curiosity, and turned the trick. I was invited in.

  So I left Grim and Narayan Singh in the hall, Grim on a chair ostentatiously in charge, and Narayan Singh squatted on the floor mumbling to himself and tracing imaginary figures on the carpet with one finger. I was ushered into the library. It was quite a magnificent room, if mere expenditure of money means magnificence. Most of the furniture was from Grand Rapids, but some might have come from the Tottenham Court Road, London, and some from France and Belgium. It was all extravagant, and beastly; but the shelves were liberally lined with books, some of which appeared to have been used a time or two.

  Zegloush Pasha rose from a rocking-chair to meet me. He was a rather short, extremely stout man with a politician’s smile — little black moustaches, carefully barbered and upturned — little, bright, black eyes set deeply in fat cheeks — a tarboosh at an angle on his close-cropped head — fat fingers — diamond ring on the right hand, emerald on the left — European dinner-clothes, and ladylike patent-leather shoes.

  “You have a problem — Mr. — ah — Ramsden? Have a seat, please, and explain. You are American?”

  “Yes. But I have a Sikh servant and an Arab friend. They are giving me trouble at present. The Sikh is a man whom much learning has made mad. He’s a mathematicia
n, who had his teaching from a Chinaman in Singapore. He and my Arab friend have been wandering about the bazaars together, and have met some Chinamen who said that my servant’s old teacher is here in your house. That, of course, means nothing to me, but to my Sikh servant it appears to mean a very great deal. He has been unmanageable ever since, vowing and declaring that he will see his old teacher or die in the attempt. Finally, he threatened to go to the police about it, and actually did start off to do that.

  “So my Arab friend and I talked it over, and realizing that we couldn’t keep the Sikh quiet we thought it better to put the problem up to you. You see,” I said, “he’s not sufficiently mad to be locked up, but he’s a determined fellow, and he and my Arab friend both swear that they have witnesses who can prove that this old Chinese teacher is in your house. It occurred to me at once how distressing it might be for you if the police were to take the matter up and make inquiries, and it seemed at least possible that you might prefer to let him visit the old Chinaman, as the simplest way out of the difficulty.”

  There used to be nine wonders in the world. Nowadays, of course, there are nine million; but the most wonderful of all of them is the stupidity of people who let such folk as Zegloush become party leaders. Crowds are not nearly as stupid, really, as the men who control them; yet why do the crowds submit? That little, fat, beady-eyed son of a Turk sat looking at me with every emotion from suspicion to bewilderment crossing his face in turn. He was at a loss what to say or do without a confidant with whom to talk it over first.

  “But where did they get their information?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But they’re perfectly sure of it. And, as I told you, my man is mad and not responsible. He talks of accusing you of keeping his old teacher a prisoner; he says he’ll get all the Indians in Cairo to come and storm your house. Obviously that kind of thing won’t do; no man of influence desires a scandal of that kind. And it I would be so easy to calm him by letting him see his Chinese friend.”