Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Tom drew the slipper along the floor, slowly, in short jerks. Still the shang-shang didn’t move. He put the slipper into the cage and untied it, taking care to leave a scent up the side of the cage. Then he picked up the other slipper. Some one tried the doorknob. Dowlah’s voice:

  “Grayne, are you in there? Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Dammit, keep out!”

  Tom turned the key in the door and hurled the slipper. It hit the wall hard, about two feet higher up than the shang-shang. The monster saw that one — saw it coming — wasn’t there when it hit — dodged, as quick as light, toward the corner. Even so, it reached the floor before the slipper did. It climbed the table, crawled along it. Suddenly it seemed to go mad. It danced on the table-top. It knocked over an electric lamp. Then it got under the table and hung head-downward.

  That was a chance. Heavy drapes, then chloroform. Tom reached for a drape. As if the shang-shang knew what he intended, it crept out on the far side of the table, four legs on top, four underneath, mandible-end upward — angry. Tom picked up a book and threw that. The brute saw it coming and leaped to the floor, exactly on the trail of the slipper. It had followed the trail and was into the cage in less than the time between two heartbeats. It savaged the slipper instantly. The lid thudded shut. Tom went and shot the brass bolts home. Then he arranged the covering shawl neatly, shoved one hand in his pocket and went and opened the door.

  Dowlah stared at him: “The shang-shang?”

  “In the cage. Where’s Elsa?”

  “Elsa Burbage? What do you care?” Dowlah answered. “For the shang-shang, I congratulate you in the name of Science, my immortal mistress.” He went and peeped into the cage. “You pretty, precious pussy! Tweet-tweet!”

  CHAPTER 14. “Tum-Glain! Tum-Glain!”

  DOWLAH went and picked up the lamp that the shang-shang had knocked over. He rearranged a number of other objects, lit a cigarette and smiled reflectively.

  “You are a wonderful fellow,” he remarked. “I believe I’d trust you if I held a pledge from you of some sort.”

  “No witnesses,” said Tom. “It’s getting late. Talk turkey.”

  Dowlah took a mock-poetic pose.

  “Science!” he remarked. “My immortal mistress Science! My only love! My muse! She takes nothing for granted — searches all things; questions all things. Each of us is a potential danger to all the others. One little blunder, and whoopsy-daisy! — all sorts of plain and fancy combustibles — two or three million volts of malice — a short circuit — whoopee! Whoever caused the short circuit would burn, and bad luck to him! But then what? When the moralists discover what their governments are doing, governments have to go to war to prove how virtuous they are. Tell me now: what have you discovered so far?”

  “That you’re afraid,” Tom answered.

  Dowlah giggled, like a woman being tempted to betray her something less than irreproachable virtue.

  “Do be seated, Grayne. Standing, you give me an inferiority complex. That’s better. Have you ever considered the appalling fact, that of a thousand volunteers for secret sub-diplomacy, very rarely one is found fit for the work?”

  “No,” Tom answered. “Sub-diplomats don’t come applying to me for a job.”

  “Of any thousand,” said Dowlah, “twenty-five may be fit for policemen; fit for regular routine duty subject to the rules. One or two if competently handled may be fit for rather ticklish situations; such men as Eiji Sarao, for in stance — not really clever. Seldom one, and never more than one, in any thousand who begin by being spies, is fit to be trusted to understand what he’s doing. How long have you been in the secret service?”

  “Never was,” said Tom. “My subject’s Tibet.”

  “Would you care to come with me to Tibet?”

  “If I thought you were really going there,” said Tom, “I’d think that over.”

  “Well, if I were really going, I might make you an offer. You speak Tibetan?”

  “Fat chance I should have in Tibet, if I couldn’t.”

  “What strange things men study!” Dowlah remarked. “Except for my scientific researches, which I am frequently assured are puerile and undisciplined, I have studied very little. I was sent to the usual school for princes’ sons. We were taught the three princely virtues: mediocrity, hypocrisy and cricket. I was good at the first two. Common sense was an extra, but nobody took that. Tibetan was not in the curriculum.”

  He glanced at the shang-shang cage, got up and crossed the room to change the angle of an electric-fan, so that it would blow on the cage and cool the monster inside it. When he sat down again he glanced at the shelves of books, as if wondering what to say next.

  “Well, good night,” said Tom. “I see we’re getting no where. I’ll go to the hotel and turn in.”

  Dowlah betrayed an almost imperceptible flutter of annoyance.

  “No, don’t go yet. I expect an interesting visitor.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Time means nothing to him. Did you ever hear of the Most Reverend and Holy Lobsang Pun?”

  Tom almost betrayed excitement. “No,” he answered.

  “He is the Tashi Lama’s confidential representative.”

  Dowlah was watching Tom’s face, but apparently he detected nothing to suggest that Tom was more than politely interested.

  “Lobsang Pun,” he continued, “is probably in Delhi to persuade our Government to help the Tashi Lama to return to Tibet. Since the Dalai Lama died in Lhasa there’s been a slowly developing chance for the Tashi Lama to return and seize control.”

  Dowlah appeared to be talking to kill time. He looked as if he were thinking of something else while he made conversation.

  “Strange system of government, isn’t it,” he continued. “But it couldn’t be worse than ours, so perhaps it’s better. Dalai Lama in Lhasa, in charge of civil affairs. Tashi Lama, at Tashi-lunpo, in charge of spiritual law and order. Theoretically equals. Both of ’em moralists. Actually as chummy as a couple of bobcats in a cage with one bird between ’em.”

  “That’s the fault of their subordinates,” said Tom. “As a general rule, it isn’t the men at the top who make trouble. It’s the men who want to be on top.”

  Dowlah nodded. “Yes,” he said, “the man who wants to see his master cock of all the dunghills is a menace. And what a way to choose a successor when one of ’em dies! I daresay it’s as good as our way, if you don’t mind poison as a political argument. It’s logical enough to have the Tashi Lama superintend the selection of a dead Dalai Lama’s successor — and the Dalai Lama, in turn, do the same thing when a Tashi Lama dies. But what actually happens? A committee gets itself appointed to go hunting, at public expense, all over Tibet, for a child who was born at the hour of the late lamented ruler’s death. Eventually they find one with certain birth-marks. Those and his horoscope are supposed to prove he’s a reincarnation of the deceased. That’s as good as any plebiscite. Perhaps it’s better. But again, what happens? A Council of Regents gets itself appointed to educate the child, and to govern in the child’s name, until his eighteenth year. So, if they poison him before he’s eighteen, that gives ’em another eighteen years of power. And, of course, the followers of the surviving Lama scheme like devils to control the Board of Regents. Lobsang Pun would like that job. You know, they haven’t chosen the child yet. They said they had. The political gang in Lhasa tried to rush proceedings before the Tashi Lama could return from exile. But he started from Peking the moment he heard the news. He made a prodigious forced march to the Tibetan border. Some say he used a Chinese airplane. Some say camels. Anyhow, there he is, on the eastern border of Tibet. They won’t let him enter Tibet, but without him they can’t legally select a new Dalai Lama. Stalemate, unless Lobsang Pun can move a hidden piece or two.”

  “Do you know him well?” Tom asked.

  Dowlah avoided the question. “Lobsang Pun,” he said, “is a picturesque prelate with a string of astonishing titles half a yard l
ong. He has a reputation for severity. No vices. He imposes floggings on sinners who use tobacco, and on ladies who are scandalously indiscreet. He has traveled — widely. And he has been through the Tibetan self-denial mill — frightful austerities — said to have lived somewhere near Mt. Everest, at an altitude of seventeen thousand feet or so, immured in a cave, naked in all weathers and fed on five grains of parched barley a day — for two years — until he was sent for by the Tashi Lama. Some say he did it to convince the Tashi Lama of his iron will. Those fellows believe in more than theory. They like their secret diplomatic agents to be practically tested first, before they trust them. Even so, they sometimes pick a wrong ‘un. Lobsang Pun is as right as a shang-shang, if you get my meaning. When he comes, don’t talk Tibetan.”

  Tom’s eyes smiled. Dowlah noticed it.

  “Lobsang Pun knows English none too perfectly. Stick to English and perhaps he’ll slip up.”

  “All right.”

  “Have a drink on that,” said Dowlah.

  “No thanks.”

  They were silent for several minutes before a knock at the door announced the visitor. Abdul Mirza bowed him alone into the room, said nothing, retired and closed the door. Dowlah got up and stood with his back to the shang-shang cage. Tom stood, smiling. All three bowed simultaneously. The Most Reverend and Holy Lama Lobsang Pun murmured his blessing.

  He was even more astonishing than when Tom last saw him. He had been fat then, but he had grown fatter. If he was recently from Tibet, it was amazing that he shouldn’t have lost weight on the exhausting journey. A big drum belly bulged above his girdle. An unruly thatch of black hair. A black toga. Black robe. A jade rosary, each bead carved to resemble a human skull. A nose like an owl’s beak, protruding between cheeks that looked as if he were puffing them out on purpose. High cheek-bones. Twinkling, deep-sunk, humorous, malicious black eyes. Pretty nearly six feet of him.

  He didn’t appear to suffer from the heat. If it was true that he had once lived immured in a cave near Mt. Everest (and it might be true), then perhaps, too, he had partly learned the hermits’ mysterious art of enduring extremes of temperature. He had certainly recovered from the effects of the alleged diet of five grains of barley a day.

  He had a grand voice. He and Dowlah, going through the ritual of polite question and answer about each other’s health, sounded like priest and acolyte intoning a litany. Not a phrase was omitted, to the last, almost physically embracing:

  “Your Highness’s happiness?”

  And Dowlah’s: “That is crowned and rendered deathless by Your Eminence’s visit.”

  During the entire ritual Lobsang Pun was watching Tom’s face in the mirror behind Dowlah. He chose a chair from which he could continue that espionage. But he pretended not to recognize Tom until the Rajah formally introduced him. Tom winked.

  Instantly, the Lama’s features broke into an ivory-leathery torment of grinning wrinkles. He opened a mouth from which half the teeth were missing and roared with laughter that shook his big belly. He seized Tom’s hands and shook them as if they were prayer pumps.

  “Tum-Glain! Tum-Glain! Oo-ha-ha-hah! — Player efficacious! ‘Leven hunderd monks all playing that the snow not overtaking you! I ordering it. Oo-ha-ha-hah!”

  Tom returned the laugh. It was a thoroughly Tibetan joke.

  “Your Eminence’s confidence in prayer almost persuades me to become a Tantric Buddhist! You expelled me, as I don’t doubt you remember, just a few days ahead of the winter blizzards. At the time I thought you cruel — even homicidal, but I see I was mistaken.”

  “Oo-ha-ha-ha-hah!”

  The Most Reverend and Holy Lobsang Pun hadn’t had such a laugh since the news of the late lamented Dalai Lama’s death. Even so, there was a hint of gales of laughter in reserve. He might be saving those for the day when the Tashi Lama should return across the border and become the ruler of Tibet without any rival at all.

  He let go Tom’s hands at last and leaned back in the chair, studying him intently, lowering his eyebrows, pouting judicious lips.

  Dowlah watched both of them, visibly puzzled. He appeared slightly nervous. He interrupted the tense silence:

  “Somebody has told His Eminence that you, Tom Grayne, were Thö-pa-ga’s protector in London. That your influence in certain quarters preserved Thö-pa-ga from prison. That at great self-sacrifice you brought him to India, neglecting your own interests. And that here in Delhi you lodged him in a safe place where his enemies couldn’t get at him. Is that an exaggeration?”

  “It is,” Tom answered. “His Eminence is a man of vast experience. He’ll believe we’re lying to him if we yes each other.”

  “Oo-ha-ha-ha-hah! Thö-pa-ga having many enemies,” said Lobsang Pun. “You his friend, you Tum-Glain?”

  “I don’t think he trusts me.”

  Suddenly again the Lama burst into roars of laughter.

  “Player efficacious. Oh, yes! Ah-ha-ha!”

  He nodded to Dowlah. Enough. The interview was at an end. He was used to terminating interviews. He scrooged himself up from the arm-chair, became solemn, flicked like lightning about twenty or thirty beads of his rosary, bestowed his blessing and began to stride toward the door — long strides, taken slowly, to permit the proper courteous expressions of regret that he should take away the splendor of his presence.

  Dowlah followed him into the hall, shutting the library door with a slam that flatly told Tom to remain in the room. There was quite a bit of noise in the hall, but through the thick door it was impossible to guess what caused it. It might be the commotion of departing guests. All was quiet when Dowlah returned after fifteen or twenty minutes. He looked excited.

  “That’s the Number One man,” he remarked. “That’s the fellow who showed the Japanese what they can do in Tibet. Money couldn’t buy him. But a chance to make his nominal master, the Tashi Lama, sole ruler of Tibet would justify him, in his own opinion, for setting all the nations of the world at one another’s throats. He would know how to go about it, too, the old devil. I like him, and I wish he liked me. Grayne, you surprised me. You lied with artistic calm. I didn’t guess you knew him. You behaved a lot better than I’d have done. By God, if he had ever kicked me out to perish in the snow, and had the impudence to pray for me on top of that, I’d have shown some resentment. However, it’s too late to discuss that. I won’t detain you any longer.”

  He paused. He gave Tom a chance to question him. He went and poured himself another drink. He needed one, to judge by the way he swallowed it. Tom stood waiting, silent.

  “Damn you,” Dowlah said at last, “you’re tough. Why don’t you ask about Elsa Burbage?”

  Tom laughed: “You’re responsible. She’s your guest.”

  “I perceive you’re a sensible man,” said Dowlah. “Nowadays it’s no one’s business what a young woman is doing at 4 A.M.”

  “As late as that, is it?”

  “Yes. Lewis doesn’t usually turn up at the hospital much before nine in the morning. But the doctor who should be on duty was taken ill, so Lewis is on the job. You’ll find a taxi at the front gate.”

  “Okay. Good night.”

  “Don’t tell Lewis anything. Let him tell you.”

  Dowlah poured himself another drink.

  A dark-skinned, bearded servant, whom Tom hadn’t seen before, accompanied him to the front gate. There was a decrepit taxi waiting there. Its driver was a Sikh, three good sheets to the wind and sleepy. He didn’t know how to find the hospital. So it was nearly 5 A.M. when Tom walked into Lewis’s office and found him irritably adjusting an electric light for the microscope on his desk. Lewis looked tired out and bad tempered. On the desk was Elsa’s small white hand kerchief embroidered with a blue goose on the wing — one of a dozen that Tom had bought for her in London from a man who had no legs and did that kind of thing for a living. There was no possibility of it not being her handkerchief. Lewis slipped it into a drawer, after he was sure Tom had seen it.

  �
�Is she here in the hospital?” Tom asked.

  “No, she isn’t.”

  “Let me see that.”

  Lewis took it out of the drawer and laid it on the desk, blue goose upward. Tom took it, sniffed it, eyed it, stuffed it into his pocket.

  “Meaning?” Lewis asked him.

  “Nothing. How is Thö-pa-ga?”

  “Gone,” said Lewis. “Damn your chewing-gum. It kills rats. But it isn’t a metallic poison, and it doesn’t show color. It may take me two or three days to analyze it.”

  “Uh-huh? Gone since when?”

  “Half an hour ago.”

  “With your permission?”

  “Didn’t need it,” said Lewis. “No law against his going. I was operating — emergency accident case. Elsa Burbage came in a closed carriage and took him away. I was told about it through the slide in the door of the operating room. I couldn’t leave what I was doing — bad case of haemorrhage.”

  “Gone where?”

  “God knows. Haven’t you any notion where she’d head for?”

  The phone rang. Lewis answered it with a smile of contemptuous reserve.

  “No,” he said over the phone. “No. There isn’t a snake in the world that makes an incision an inch long or an inch deep. No. Snake venom doesn’t ever do that to the victim’s liver.”

  He hung up. He caught Tom studying the handkerchief again. In the corner below the blue goose was a small square marked with lip-stick. It meant that Elsa was all right and that she knew what to do next.

  But beneath that, done in eyebrow pencil was a broad-arrow mark, so small that it only covered about ten threads. That meant:

  “Beware of—”

  In the opposite corner, also done with eyebrow pencil, was a row of short upright lines in groups, with lip-stick dots between to separate them.