Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Intuition is right. Logic is wrong — or there’d never be anything new. Yes there would, though. There’s a logic of intuition.”

  So thought Andrew, with the part of him that did think. Part of his mind was musing on the trail toward Tibet — wind-swept passes twenty thousand feet above sea level — chasms and crags and the merciless rivers that shout like fighting devils between cliffs where eagles build their nests beneath a turquoise sky. He hated Tibet — loved it because he hated it, hatred and love being one. No need to think. He could half close his eyes and remember, just as clearly as one sees the Himalayan panorama from the Singalila Ridge. He knew all the known difficulties, and knew there were thousands more that he couldn’t imagine. He could see what he did know, all in one picture: Tibet; Elsa; Tom Grayne. Those were facts that must interpret themselves — or be interpreted by the light of an idea that hadn’t yet dawned on reason. Andrew himself was a fact; a self-contradictory, curious fact — pitiless, generous, skeptical, credulous, all in one. A lover of conflict. A hater of quarrels. A poet, who had never written one line of poetry nor sung one song of his own making, yet who knew he was a poet. Paradoxical lover of lofty views that made him veil his thought with blunt, ungracious words. That much he knew of himself and could laugh at — at least smile at. He could see himself as a remarkably comical fellow, to be handled with alert discretion because there was a streak in him that he knew no more about than other people did and that caused him to surprise himself. He wasn’t thinking about that; but he saw it, mentally, while he tried to concentrate on what to say to Mu-ni Gam-po.

  The mental picture and conflict were interrupted suddenly by voices in the door of Mu-ni Gam-po’s antechamber. He was instantly alert, but he continued pacing the gallery until he reached the head of the stairs. There he turned in no hurry and retraced his footsteps; becoming angry, not because he recognized the men coming toward him but because he had been too stupid not to expect them. Morgan Lewis, side by side with the Chief of Police Bulah Singh, in step together, laughing, joking — strangely military — looking figures in the cloistered dimness, though they were not in uniform. There was only one electric light, in an enameled frame, on a beam of the gallery roof. All three came to a halt under it, sharply limned against the shadows, facing one another. Morgan Lewis produced his monocle, screwed it into his eye — a symptom — a gleaming symbol of urbane artfulness. Bulah Singh merely nodded, staring at the bundle under Andrew’s arm that concealed Elsa’s boot.

  “This saves no end of looking for you,” said Lewis. “Not on your way to see Mu-ni Gam-po, are you?”

  “Sure. Is he in?”

  “Yes. But don’t waste time trying to see him. He’s busy. Bulah Singh has brought some matters to his attention that will occupy him for several hours. You know Bulah Singh, don’t you?”

  “Sure.” Andrew smiled because the lamplight shone full in his face and the Sikh was watching him intently.

  “You should know each other better,” said Lewis. “Both of you are good talkers. Why not get together some time? Oh, by the way, Gunning, I asked Mu-ni Gam-po about that translation. He said he’d attend to it. So if that’s what you wanted to see him about you needn’t trouble.”

  The Sikh watched Andrew’s face but Lewis distracted attention by dropping his monocle — caught it in the palm of his hand — tossed it two or three times, and replaced it in his eye.

  “One of these days you’ll be shot for doing that,” the Sikh remarked. “Someone will mistake it for a signal and he’ll plug you in the gizzard.”

  “I must cure myself of habits,” Lewis answered. “The good habits are the worst ones.”

  “Are you walking my way?” Andrew asked, addressing both men. “I think I’ll go to the hotel and maybe turn in.”

  “We’re important people. We’ve a car,” said Lewis. “We’ll give you a lift. It’s Bulah Singh’s car but—”

  “Perfectly delighted,” said the Chief of Police, sounding as if he meant it. “Let’s go. As a matter of fact, if Mr. Gunning can spare the time, I’d like a chat with him.”

  It was a command, not an invitation. There was malice in the Sikh’s dark eyes. Andrew ignored that.

  “Come and have a drink at the hotel,” he suggested.

  “Yes. I’m thirsty.”

  They walked together to the stairhead, Andrew on the outside, watching Lewis for a signal. Lewis made none. They tramped down the stone steps side by side, jumped one by one across the puddle at the foot of the stairs, drew abreast again and awoke the monastery echoes as they marched in step toward the archway that divided outer and inner courtyards. Not a word. Not a hint. Not a sign. Not even the monocle now; it had returned to Lewis’s vest pocket. Andrew broke the silence:

  “Lewis, you’ll join us of course for a drink?”

  “No. Not this time. I’ve a case to look up — very interesting case. Called in for consultation. So I think I’ll drop you two at the hotel and send the car back for Bulah Singh — that’s to say, if Bulah Singh will permit.”

  “Why, certainly.” The Sikh appeared off guard and anxious to please. “Just tell the driver where to take you.”

  No one spoke again until they had tramped through the long dark archway and halfway across the outer courtyard. Then Bulah Singh spoke in a casual tone of voice that didn’t quite conceal a tart sub-flavor:

  “Lots of ponies in the monastery stables. Your loads are stowed here, aren’t they, Gunning?”

  “It saves renting a godown,” Andrew answered. “I took the precaution of having the loads marked with my name, to prevent misunderstanding.”

  The Sikh was about to say something but Morgan Lewis interrupted: “By the way, if you’re in no hurry, Bulah Singh, I’d like to keep your car until the consultation’s over. Is that putting too much strain on your good nature?”

  “Keep it as long as you please,” said the Sikh. “Gunning will have to endure my company until you bring the car back, that’s all.”

  Andrew suspected guile, but he did not glance at Morgan Lewis, lest Bulah Singh should also draw conclusions. The Sikh seemed unconscious of possible ulterior motive beneath Lewis’s innocent air.

  “Gunning and I should find plenty to talk about,” he remarked. “I look forward to it.” He very evidently did look forward to it.

  Andrew got into the waiting car, in the narrow street outside the monastery front gate, aware of a new admiration for Morgan Lewis. “Translation” obviously meant that Elsa would be spirited away to Nancy Strong’s house out of Bulah Singh’s reach — she — Elijah in a chariot of petrol. And Lewis had cleverly jockeyed the Chief of Police into a corner, to be entertained and encouraged to talk while Lewis used unseen wires — perhaps telephone wires. Lewis was trusting him — perhaps trying him out. One false move, one ill-considered remark, and Bulah Singh might close the passes in spite of anything Lewis could do. Lewis probably had no executive authority, whereas the Sikh did have. Then worse would happen. Tom Grayne would be left without support or supplies, helpless, useless, more than nine hundred miles away over the Roof of the World.

  It was abundantly clear to Andrew that the Government was willing he should recross the forbidden frontier into Tibet — but that the Sikh wasn’t in on the deal — not yet, at any rate — and there was conflict beneath the surface.

  CHAPTER 6

  Bulah Singh despised all amateurs. He was himself a professional in every sense of the word. He had taken courses in criminology in Germany and France; had written, for important quarterlies, a number of praiseworthy papers on the history and development of crime in India. He believed he had peered beneath the mask of consciousness and understood the underlying automatic metaphysical mechanics of human behavior. He had dabbled in Karl Marx, Freud, Adler, Watson and Cesare Lombroso. He regarded himself as an atheist, but he had studied many religions diligently because of their obvious bearing on the problem of what people believe and are likely to do. Intellectually vain, he was equally vain of
his appearance, careful to look as little like a policeman as possible. He didn’t even look like a Sikh. He never wore a uniform if he could help it, bought his soft felt hats in Vienna and his clothes in London. A powerful, lean, clean-shaven, rather dark-skinned man with magnificent teeth and dark brown eyes that sometimes suggested gentleness and humor. It was his mouth, when he wasn’t consciously controlling it, that betrayed him; it revealed cruelty, deliberately studied, intellectually built into the structure of his thought.

  He sat down in a long armchair in the room next to Andrew’s bedroom and was at pains to pretend to observe his surroundings. In a secret file at police headquarters there was a list of every single object in the room. In the same file were copies of all Andrew’s recent correspondence, together with a not quite accurate account of his activities since the day he was born. Andrew guessed as much; he had detected finger marks on rifled documents; and besides, he was quite familiar with the means by which police in all the countries of the world inform themselves and one another. He held the whiskey bottle poised over a tumbler and raised one eyebrow.

  “Up to the pretty,” said Bulah Singh. “Not too much soda. No ice.”

  Andrew tossed Elsa’s boot through the bedroom door and sat down facing him, after making sure that there was no one lurking in the corridor. That trick worked. The Sikh fell for it — boasted:

  “Don’t be nervous. One of my men is at the head of the stairs to make sure we’re not interrupted. I planned this conversation.”

  “Very thoughtful of you.”

  “I have had to think about you.” Bulah Singh lighted a cigarette, blew the smoke through his nose, crossed his knees and selected the English method of disarming frankness. “You have me puzzled.”

  “Sometimes I’m a puzzle to myself,” said Andrew.

  Bulah Singh stuck to the brusque British method. “Come now. No metaphysics. I’m a practical man. So are you. Let’s lay cards on the table, faces upward.”

  Andrew’s smile was as disarming as the Sikh’s assumed frankness: “Okay. Suits me. You first.”

  Bulah Singh’s eyes betrayed a flash of resentment. He was used to being feared and diffidently treated. He forgot for a tenth of a second to govern the line of his mouth. He led the ace of trumps:

  “The frontier into Tibet is closed,” he remarked, adding after a second’s pause: “tight as a drum.”

  Andrew followed suit with a little one: “I’ve heard it’s your business to see that no one gets through.”

  “Yes. Not even a native Tibetan can return home without my leave. When the passes are open — that won’t be long now — there’ll be quite an exodus. There are two ways to get permits. The wise ones will come to my office. The unwise ones will regret their lack of discretion.”

  Andrew offered no comment. He lighted his pipe.

  “It’s my impression,” said Bulah Singh after a moment’s silence, “that it’s your immediate ambition to rejoin Tom Grayne in Tibet.”

  “I’ve thought of doing it,” said Andrew. “But do you appreciate what a journey it would be by way of China, with China being raped by the Japanese? It would take at least six months — perhaps longer. It would cost like hell, too.”

  “Ah. But how about returning by the way you came?”

  Andrew’s smile widened: “Are you suggesting that I’m fool enough to try to escape your vigilance?”

  “Tom Grayne was one of Johnson’s pets,” said Bulah Singh, tasting his whiskey. “That’s how Tom Grayne got through.” He watched Andrew’s face narrowly, under lowered eyelids, over the top of the glass, then set the glass down slowly on the small brass-topped table beside the chair and continued: “Johnson is no longer with us. His worst fault was that he couldn’t train a successor. The job is vacant. There are several candidates.”

  “Are you one of them?”

  The Sikh avoided the question. “You are no tenderfoot,” he remarked. “I think that is the correct word. You know as well as I do that reciprocity and mutual concessions are the secret of all bargains.”

  Andrew agreed: “Sure. Nothing for nothing.”

  Bulah Singh sipped whiskey without looking at him. No need to look; he had his victim interested. All that remained was to jiggle the bait: “Suppose I tell what I know,” he suggested. “Then you tell what you know. Something might come of it.”

  “Swell.”

  “You are clever, Andrew Gunning, or I wouldn’t waste time talking to you. Beneath that air of almost brutal directness you’re as smart as a fox. But even foxes make mistakes. I happen to know that Tom Grayne is somewhere near Shig-po-ling, short of provisions. You want to take provisions to him. I have had to speak to the Abbot Mu-ni Gam-po about those loads of yours. If they should be moved from the monastery stable without my permission it would be awkward for Mu-ni Gam-po.”

  Andrew looked serious: “Glad you mentioned it. The old Abbot has been kind to Elsa Burbage. Kind to me, too. I’d hate to make trouble for him.”

  Bulah Singh nodded: “Mu-ni Gam-po can’t afford any more mistakes. He has been playing with fire for too many years. His method is shopworn — amateurish. His political sagacity is sticky with religion. It belongs to a dead era that has been decomposing since the World War and was buried at last when Johnson of the Ethnographic Survey left for England. Johnson was a typical B.S.I. — bigot, stupid, incorruptible. A reactionary.”

  “I never met him,” said Andrew.

  “So I understand. Johnson was trained, if you care to call it training, in the days when Whitehall’s grip on India was strong. He was an amateur, with all the faults that go with it. Too many irons in the fire. No concentration. You’re aware, I suppose, that the B.S.I. controls the Foreign Office? Actually it secretly rules the British Empire. It’s even independently financed, from Persian oil wells. Well — there’s a strong undercurrent in favor of changing all that, at least as concerns India. A professional — Indian by birth — responsible to Delhi, not Whitehall — do you get me?”

  “Sure,” said Andrew, gravely courteous. “Changes are going on everywhere. Who’d heard of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, twenty, years ago? I guess it’s simply a matter of the right man, at the right moment, with the right information and the right idea.”

  Bulah Singh blew a smoke ring and pushed his finger through it, indicating bull’s-eye, first shot, and time to be careful. “I could use some information about Tibet,” he remarked.

  Andrew accepted the opening: “Yes, whoever could swing Tibet would be powerful. He could upset any political calculations. But are you young enough? And have you the backing in India?”

  “I have detractors. I have enemies,” said Bulah Singh. “Envy, jealousy, malice, are inseparable fro politics. Very few people can be impersonal when it comes to making political appointments. As for impartiality, that consists in understanding neither side of a problem. Some very influential people, who call themselves impartial, and perhaps believe it, are opposed to the principle of putting an Indian into a key position, no matter what his qualifications. Their prejudices masquerade as principles. But I’m a realist. Hard facts are what interest me.”

  “What facts do you want to know?” Andrew asked.

  “Well — for instance—” he blew smoke through his nose— “who pays you?”

  “No one. I’ve a private income. I’m a free lance.”

  Bulah Singh’s eyes hardened: “Ummnn. If I believed that, it might possibly simplify matters. But the fact is, you’re an agent of the United States Department of State, or else of the Treasury, or the Army or Navy, or possibly even the Postal Department. Who sent you from Shanghai to Shig-po- ling?”

  “The same man who pays Tom Grayne,” Andrew answered.

  Bulah Singh sipped at his drink thoughtfully. “I know who pays Tom Grayne,” he said after a moment.

  “Swell. Then we needn’t discuss it.”

  “You are unpaid? That is very interesting, if true. Have you any idea why the American Government should be
interested in what’s going on in Tibet? As a private citizen, unpaid, I suppose you feel free to discuss that?”

  “Well,” said Andrew, “since you ask me, it’s my guess that the American Government doesn’t give a good God-damn what’s happening in Tibet. You’ll have to take that or leave it. I believe it’s the truth.”

  The Sikh sneered. “It is one hundred per cent true that you can’t cross the border into Tibet — without my leave. You’d better talk.”

  “Well,” said Andrew, “if my opinion’s any use to you, I’d say that our Army and Navy are Watching Japan. Why shouldn’t they? If they know what Japan’s commitments and intentions are they can bear ’em in mind. If the Japs win, the Far East cat jumps one way. If the Chinese win, it jumps the other way. Forewarned is forearmed.”

  “Forewarned is what you are now,” said Bulah Singh. If you want special favors—”

  “I don’t,” said Andrew.

  “If you don’t want special inconvenience, and even special arrest, under special regulations, devised for the special purpose of preventing unauthorized or seditious acts — I advise you to tell me plainly why Tom Grayne is interested in the infant Dalai Lama, and what his and your interest amounts to.”

  “That’s a long story,” said Andrew. “You know, of course, how they go about getting a new Dalai Lama?”

  Bulah Singh betrayed a flash of impatience. But he appeared to decide that Andrew wasn’t quite ripe yet for plucking. “Yes,” he said after a moment, “I have made a study of that. Such superstitions are more revealing than even Frazer points out in his Golden Bough. Have you read that?”

  “Some of it,” said Andrew. “I read two or three volumes and got bored.”

  “A study of Frazer explains why Hitler is inventing a new religion for the Germans; and why he attacks Christianity.”

  “What’s your point?” asked Andrew. “What are you driving at?”