by Talbot Mundy
“I see it’s no use talking to you,” said Deborah disgustedly.
“Am enjoying anticipation of insults; have not been insulted yet,” remarked Chullunder Ghose. “Can pocket insults same as duck eats frogs.”
“You mean you expect money?”
“Sahib, this babu expects raw deal in all contingencies, from much experience of same. Am impecunious. Must swallow insults if tendered — legal tender eagerly preferred.”
Deborah discovered a ridiculously tiny purse in the watch-pocket of her riding coat and from that produced a thousand-rupee note, which she unfolded and tossed to him.
“Now,” she said, “that’s about three hundred dollars. Are you oiled enough?”
“Indeed. Am slippery customer!” the babu answered, tucking the money away in the folds of his white cotton waist-cloth. “Have not been so insulted by a lady ever previously. Now explain yourself, sahiba!”
Deborah changed her tone of voice. She had bought the man. Authority crept into word and gesture.
“Keep me informed of Mr. John Duncannon’s movements — in advance. And take care of him. Keep him out of the reach of Prince Rundhia Singh. And you are not to tell Mr. Duncannon you have seen me. Do you understand?”
“Am tightwad of garrulity,” Chullunder Ghose assured her.
“Well now, what will Mr. Duncannon do first?” she asked.
“He will recover from the fever,” said the babu.
“He’s not seriously ill?”
“Only serious, sahiba, and ill-tempered. Otherwise recovering hourly.”
“What does he plan to do first, when he recovers?”
“To buy horses, this babu superintending.”
“Then?”
“To proceed into Sirohi country on a certain quest.”
“Certain?” she asked.
“Certainly continuous, sahiba! Like squaring of circle, perpetual motion, et cetera. Seek and ye shall find, maybe! Hope springs eternal, whereas oil—”
“Has he a map?” asked Deborah.
But the babu was again not to be caught.
“Have not been through his trunk,” he answered rather plaintively, and sighed.
“You said Sirohi country. What place? What town? What village?”
The babu’s smile was almost audible. It beamed through the gloom made by the shadow of the rock.
“Sahiba,” he remarked. “Rupees a thousand is too high price for mere mendacity, yet not enough for naked truth. Same being naked is ashamed and should be tempted subtly into open, with assurances of secrecy. Lady Godiva, as for instance. There was peeping Tom.”
“Oh, shucks!”
“Oh, Siva, steel this babu’s resolution!” prayed Chullunder Ghose, aloud in English.
“Oh, very well,” said Deborah, “you needn’t tell. I guess I can find out some other way.”
“Sahiba,” said the babu solemnly, “can you tell me this? How is it that when a man prays to the gods for affluence the gods are always deaf; yet when he prays for power to resist a profitable lapse from virtue they invariably answer?”
He scratched his stomach noisily and Deborah laughed.
“I won’t tempt you any more,” she answered. “I would rather have you virtuous, for his sake. Does he ever mention me?”
“Let me think,” said the babu. “Let me think. He swears a great deal. What is it that he swears about? Oh, I remember — harridan, name of Isabel. Designing female, name of Isabel. Damned liar, painted parasite, man-hunting Jezebel of an imported, dyed, sophisticated she-cat, name of Isabel. No knowing who she is but he says she spoiled his chances. Says it to the moon, making this babu supremely happy.”
“Why?”
“Must I harp on obvious? Well, if, as this babu suspects, said Jezebel named Isabel has come between John Duncannon sahib and his heart’s desire, sex possibly prevailing over sense, with contempt from supposedly angelic loved one superadded to contempt of self, then probably there will be no love-affair for several weeks.”
“What then?”
“Emoluments! This babu is experienced. Unmarried sahibs are manipulatable, tyrannical at times, but tolerant on the whole, not too suspicious or inquisitive concerning petty cash account. But enter the sahiba — phut! Farewell emoluments! He raves about the color of her eyes, he weaves romance and she checks up the figures or else makes him do it. Which is worse, because he usually kicks, or uses riding-whip! This babu is unromantic pragmatist with hedonistic leanings.”
“Well, take good care of him,” said Deborah. “I’ll give you another thousand rupee note if no harm happens to him. And remember: when he learns I’m at Mount Abu, as of course he will sooner or later, you know nothing! But you keep me informed of his movements!”
“Cash in advance?” Chulluder Ghose suggested.
“Cash on delivery of John Duncannon right side up, unpoisoned and unhurt, three months from now,” said Deborah. “Good night, babuji.”
CHAPTER VII. Mrs. Bisbee
Pennyweather, having felt ridiculous because he had allowed himself to be persuaded by his daughter to come to India in search of a mare’s nest of an oil deposit, bored in consequence almost to the verge of mania and reduced to non-committal silence toward strangers to avoid being made more ridiculous than he felt already, plunged with a sort of frenzy into real business, of the kind he understood.
Public debts were things he could conjure with as Cinquevalli used to juggle knives and cannon-balls. In thirty minutes he was satisfied that Galloway was a man to whom those in control of Indian finances lent a friendly and appreciative ear. In thirty minutes more he had persuaded Galloway that public duty, self-respect and inclination all directed him one way and Rajputana must be irrigated— “watered” was the phrase that Pennyweather used — until all other irrigation projects should look like mere toys in comparison.
Galloway saw knighthood in the offing. To a man whose ancestors for several generations had died in the Indian service, knighthood had attractions.
He and Pennyweather sat at a desk and sent endless telegrams to Simla, coding them and then impatiently decoding the replies.
The first fruits were all negative. The Secretary of the Treasury, per third-assistant ditto, was “instructed to reply” that all financial transactions involving loans from abroad must be authorized by Home Government through proper channels, after application made by Governor-General in Council.
But Pennyweather was an old hand at setting political wheels within wheels in motion. First he ascertained that every detail of the Rajputana irrigation scheme had been worked out by efficient engineers and that the project had only been shelved temporarily because of the state of the European money-market. Then he wired to the head of the Public Works Department to come and see him at Mount Abu, utterly corrupted him with praise and prophecy about a desert blooming like the rose and swept him off in a special train from Abu Road to Simla to talk to the gray-haired wizard who held India’s purse-strings.
“This government’s asleep!” he said to Galloway. “I’ll point out to him the effect on India’s finances of a cash outlay of thirty million, all drawn from abroad. Why, man, the revenue will run away with them, cover the standing charges four or five times over! Then, look at the advantage from the other angle! No strain on the London money-market; relieve London just as much as India. Besides, it’s time India left off carrying all her financial eggs in one basket. If she learns to look to New York for her capital — Who are the influential natives? They’ll listen! Give me their names. Wire ’em to meet me in Simla! We can shove this through at a quarter or maybe a half percent cheaper than London would dream of doing it.”
He even forgot his indigestion and ate curried mutton — almost forgot to say good-by to Deborah, whom he would not have taken to Simla with him for a million dollars. This was business, not idiotic searching for imaginary oil on the strength of a dead Scotchman’s stolen documents. He did not want his daughter “horning in” with her infernal aptitude f
or creating distractions.
“You go on and hunt your oil,” he told her. “Who’ll look after you? You can’t stay alone at the hotel. You’d better hire some one to—”
“Bunk!” said Deborah. “I’ll stay with Mrs. Bisbee.”
From Galloway’s viewpoint she could not have chosen any one more mischievous, but Galloway’s obvious dissatisfaction with the arrangement only confirmed Deborah’s determination. Joe Bisbee was an assistant commissioner who had had to stay and sweat in some unhealthy district in the plains. His wife, aged twenty-eight and possessed of a private income, had a summer bungalow at Mount Abu that overlooked the lake. She also had a curiosity concerning Oriental mysteries that made the bungalow a byword.
Nevertheless, she had admirers of her own race, as well as a large acquaintance among natives who had been to English universities. You could speak of anything in Mrs. Bisbee’s house and be believed, provided the thing was unbelievable and contrary to all accepted theory. Even newly married wives of covenanted civil servants had no word to say against her conduct with men, because she had a cast in one eye and a false leg, due to a railway accident; but most of the women in the station bitterly resented her hospitality to educated Indians, Eurasians, and to Europeans who, for one cause or another, were excluded from the upper social level. She could not be actually outlawed from society, because her husband stood well with the heads of departments and was regarded as a coming man; also because she had money and was generous when approached by subscriptions to charity funds. But she was known as a bad influence, and accordingly ignored as much as possible.
Her bungalow was beautifully situated in a grove of trees, too far from neighbors to be spied upon, yet easy to reach and approach by a narrow road that went winding out of sight of other people’s windows. So, although in India no European can keep secrets because native servants watch them constantly and retail all the gossip, there was at least a feeling of secretiveness about “Lakeside,” as she called her dwelling, and her strangely assorted visitors came and went with a sense of not having been indiscriminately observed.
What Deborah liked about her was her air of mischief. Barring that cast in her eye she was a rather pleasant looking little woman, who invariably dressed well and who took an exquisite delight in saying things that scandalized or else exasperated by their biting accuracy.
“If England’s government of India is proof of the Almighty’s wisdom, why then aren’t the Indians happy?” she was fond of asking.
“You know, my dear, it’s funny,” she told Deborah. “Your father comes from a notoriously free country. Yet he is off to Simla to do his best to get his own claws tight on Rajputana’s throat! If he succeeds he’ll have every peasant in Rajputana working for him — forced to work for him, whether they want to or not — to pay him interest on other people’s money! Doesn’t it make you laugh?”
“Not much,” said Deborah. “If Dad can make the Rajputs work, good luck to him!”
There was moonlight on the water. They were sitting in great wicker chairs on the veranda, with the scent and the stirring of pine-trees all around. Silvered by the moonlight in the distance granite peaks of the sacred Aravalli hills were upreared against a star-lit sky. It was a view of poetry and peace.
“I’ll let you see the other side of it,” said Mrs. Bisbee. “I’m no traitor to my race, but they amuse me, just as you and your father do. The funniest thing is the blindness of the men who might see if they’d only look. They’re none of them dishonest, except that they deceive themselves. We all do that.
“To me the whole thing is a drama in a rapturously lovely setting. I’m the audience. My husband is a member of the ruling oligarchy and I laugh at him too, though I love him. And the natives are just as funny. There’ll be one here presently who is deeper than most of them. He is one of those intrinsically honest men who pose as rogues and break all moral rules because they’re clever and not deceived by conventional morals at all. In really big things this man is a rock of stark integrity, although to hear him talk, and to see him help himself to unconsidered trifles in the way of bribes and odds and ends like that you’d think he was the biggest rogue unhung.
“When he comes I’ll receive him here; you go inside there and sit in the dark by the open window. Come out whenever you care to, but you’ll understand him better if you hear him talk to me before you meet him. I’ll insist on talking English.”
The visitor came presently, announced mysteriously by a butler who apparently had left him on the porch until he could make sure the man was really welcome. There was plenty of time for Deborah to go inside the house and hide on the dark window-seat. Then came a heavy footfall, followed by another not so heavy but at least as definite, and two figures, one ponderous, the other tall, entered the room. No lamps had been lighted. Deborah could not see either man’s features. The ponderous one spoke in a low voice, gesturing, then led the way to the veranda.
“Salaam, Memsahib Bisbee.”
She recognized Chullunder Ghose the moment he spoke aloud, and her estimate of Mrs. Bisbee fell. Could it be possible she actually thought that fat Bengali was — what was it she had called him? — a rock of stark integrity?
The babu introduced the other man, and though she nearly leaned out through the window trying to catch the name she failed. Nor could she see him, though she knew he was a white man. He sat down with his back toward her in one of the big wicker chairs, answering Mrs. Bisbee’s conventional pleasantries in low monotone.
The babu, squatting in the moonlight on a mat on the veranda, presently began to guide the conversation.
“Memsahib Bisbee, this babu is—”
“Chup!” she interrupted. “Did you come with your box to sell me buttons or to talk as a friend to a friend?”
“Am nevertheless in presence of Kumar bahadur from land where every one is king,” the babu answered.
“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Bisbee. “I am sure Mr. Duncannon—”
Deborah did not hear the remainder of the sentence; she was too astonished, too intent on trying to recognize the back of John Duncannon’s head. There was nothing unnatural or unreasonable or even really surprising in John Duncannon’s paying after-dinner calls; and if he chose to make them in the company of his own servant that was his affair. But Mrs. Bisbee certainly had not expected him. It was uncanny that he should turn up just then, on the very first evening of Deborah’s visit. She made up her mind that nothing should induce her to go out on the veranda until after both visitors were gone.
“Cut all that circumlocution and talk horse!” said John Duncannon’s voice, agreeably gruff. “We’ve no right to take up much of Mrs. Bisbee’s time. Remember, I’m here uninvited. Mrs. Bisbee, if you’ll pardon me I think I’ll do the talking.”
Mrs. Bisbee moved her chair to face him in the moonlight; that brought her own face where Deborah could see it easily, and whether the moonlight softened it or whether she could control her features so as to tempt confidence, she looked Madonna-like, considerably older than her age and not so mischievous as usual.
“A week ago I shot a tiger,” Duncannon began. “I had a hunting permit, but I’m told now that the tiger belonged to a person named the Gnani of Erinpura. My servant, who ran away afterward, said so after I had shot the tiger, but I more or less disbelieved him, and anyhow it didn’t seem important. However, he described to me where the Gnani lived and I figured I’d go and apologize. I understood the Gnani is a sort of priest. It was when I decided to do that that all my servants ran away.
“I found the Gnani in a crypt underneath a temple. I had some difficulty in getting in. A number of natives made it their business to try to prevent me, and as a matter of fact I think they would have prevented, if it hadn’t been for the old Gnani himself. I didn’t care to shoot; that seems a rotten thing to do to unarmed natives, although I suppose I could have claimed self-defense. One of them hit me on the head with a long stick. They had me down and pretty nearly out. You see, I could
n’t explain to them, not knowing their language, and I suppose they mistook me for a souvenir-hunter or something. But just at the critical moment, when I had about made up my mind I’d shoot — I was still hanging on to my rifle — along came the Gnani himself; or I suppose it was he. He said one word and stopped them.
“He gave me a drink. I needed it. They’d hurt my head. The drink may have been drugged. I don’t know. I don’t remember a thing that happened after that until I woke up in the dak bungalow at Hanadra with a high fever and this man Chullunder Ghose came and found me. I hired Chullunder Ghose to act as interpreter and came up here, where I’ve been more or less sick ever since. Have I made all that clear?”
“No,” said Mrs. Bisbee. “Are you in your right mind?” I mean, were you when you went into the crypt?”
“I’m supposed to be,” he answered. “I was picked out from a hundred men to do the particular business I’m engaged on. I’m supposed to be able to worm my way in almost anywhere. In fact, the firm gave me my job for worming in. I was a newspaper reporter and I put one over on them, so they hired me.”
“I begin to understand,” said Mrs. Bisbee. “Go on. What next?”
“Well, I’m after something in the Gnani’s territory. I don’t care to go to the government about it — there’s a man named Galloway who might ask awkward questions. It’ll be time enough to see him when I’ve found what I’m after. The proper thing appears to me to be to ‘fix’ the Gnani.”
He paused because Mrs. Bisbee was laughing.
“How do you propose to fix him, as you call it?” she asked, pulling out her handkerchief.
“Why, I thought if I could meet him, along with some one who’d interpret properly, I could apologize first of all for having shot his pet tiger, and then do the decent thing about it — either pay him compensation for the tiger or let him name his own figure or else make him a pretty handsome present if he’d rather not take cash. You see, I don’t quite understand these people’s prejudices.”
