Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Bulah Singh’s eyes were excited, but he talked on patiently: “The Tibetan superstition, that a dead Dalai Lama reincarnates almost instantly into the body of a newborn child, would be comical if it weren’t actually, when it’s well analyzed, the same old myth that’s at the root of all religion. Of course in practice it sets up, a vicious circle because of the human craving for power. Poison is the obvious corollary; any criminologist could foretell that. The men behind the scenes poison a Dalai Lama and set up a Council of Regents, who then claim supernatural guidance and in due course they discover a child into whose body the poisoned victim is supposed to have reincarnated. They take the child away from his mother and control him until just before he comes of age. Then again they poison him, and begin all over. That makes it very nice for the Council of Regents.”

  “You seem to know as much about it as I do,” said Andrew. “Why don’t you come to the point? I won’t betray your confidences.”

  The Sikh stared. He was startled: “Pardon me,” he said. “Let’s understand each other. It is your confidences that won’t be betrayed — provided they’re of value to me.”

  Andrew laughed. “The difficulty is, I know no more than you do. However, here’s the low-down, for what it’s worth. If you know it already, say so, and I’ll stop talking. The Council of Regents in Lhasa, with one exception, are political crooks with phony religious credentials. For centuries it has been the first principle of the Tibetan political game to play off the Dalai Lama against the Panchen Lama, and make rivals of them, instead of co-rulers as they’re supposed to be. But now there’s neither Dalai nor Panchen Lama. A few years ago, you remember, they chased the Panchen Lama into exile in China, because he was too incorrigibly honest. After that, they poisoned the best Dalai Lama that Tibet ever had. That gave the ball to the political gang. So they staged the usual circus, scoured the countryside and discovered a newborn child whom they identified as the Dalai Lama’s successor. The Panchen Lama imposed his official veto. But the Regents treated that as a joke because they had chased him out of Tibet and he couldn’t come back. He died in exile quite recently. So the new infant Dalai Lama’s divine right to the throne of Tibet stands unchallenged. He has a propaganda value.”

  “He has more than that,” said the Sikh,

  “Call it poker, if you prefer the word.” Andrew was warming up. “The point is that China, Japan and Russia realize his potential value. They are employing some of the cleverest secret agents in the world, and almost unlimited money, to gain political control of Tibet. Tibet is not the obvious key, but it’s the real key to the control of Asia. And the key to Tibet is the infant Dalai Lama. Have I made that clear?”

  “Yes. That’s a good precis. But there’s nothing secret about it,” said Bulah Singh. “It even appeared in the American newspapers. I have the clippings. What else do you know?”

  “Probably no more than you know,” said Andrew. “The self-appointed Council of Regents in Lhasa have been bribed alternately by Russian, Japanese and Chinese agents, and supplied with weapons and so on. They’ve been fed so much bull and boloney and lying propaganda that they’re three parts crazy. They’d rather cut each other’s throats than come in out of the wet. They all thought themselves Machiavellis, but now they feel more like hayseeds in a gyp- joint. There was only one member of the Council who ever rated as a real number one man. No doubt you’ve heard of him. They gave him the works. Damned near killed him. Chased him out of Lhasa. He’s in hiding.”

  Bulah Singh’s eyes narrowed. He interrupted. Which one do you refer to?”

  “I don’t know him personally. Never met him,” said Andrew. “Tom Grayne knows him well.”

  “Ah.” The Sikh’s eyes glittered. “Then Elsa Burbage also knows him?”

  Andrew noticed the tactical change of attack. He sensed the sudden lunge of directed thought, like a rapier under his guard.

  “Dr. Lewis could tell you,” he answered. He knew it wasn’t a clever answer, but it gave him a second in which to think and recover.

  The Sikh followed up: “I am asking you, not Lewis.”

  “Yes. I heard you.”

  “Is the man you mean the Ringding Gelong Lama Lobsang Pun?”

  “If you know him, why ask me?” Andrew retorted.

  The Sikh nodded dark then demanded suddenly: “Where is the infant Dalai Lama? Do you know?”

  “You may have later news than mine,” said Andrew, “but what happened is this: the Abbot of Shig-po-ling is no more a genuine Abbot than you or I, but he’s one of the Regents — his right name is Ram-pa Yap-shi. He carried off the infant Dalai Lama to the fortified monastery at Shig-po-ling, where he is dickering with Russian and Japanese agents. Perhaps with Chinese agents too. Presumably he’ll sell out to the highest bidder.”

  The Sikh nodded: “That isn’t news, but it’s true. Physical possession of the infant Dalai Lama would be a bargain at any price,” he remarked. “How old is he?”

  “He must be about five years old by now.”

  “Still young enough. The Jesuits were right about catching them young. Mussolini is following suit. So are Stalin and Hitler — training infants. So is Nancy Strong, God damn her! Teach the child, the man obeys. Sow now and reap the Future. The child is father to the man. Educated by Japan, the Dalai Lama would be Japanese. Educated by a Russian expert, he would become more Russian than Stalin himself. What is Tom Grayne doing?”

  Andrew grinned genially: “If I knew, I’d tell you.”

  “You do know. You have means of communication with Tom Grayne in Tibet.”

  Andrew stiffened. “If he and I corresponded by mail, you’d have no need to ask questions, would you?”

  The Sikh also stiffened. He had finished feinting. He commenced actual assault. Its violence was hypnotic: “You correspond by way of Sinkiang, Hongkong and Macao. Smart work, but not secret from me. You have another, much more secret means. Cooperate, in that, with me — or take the consequences.”

  “I don’t think I get you.” said Andrew.

  “No? I will drop you a hint.”

  “Go to it.”

  “Did you ever hear that during the World War the German High Seas Fleet put to sea, not long before the Battle of Jutland, simply and solely to find out whether it was true, as they suspected, that the British Admiralty had occult means of reading the German secret signals?”

  “No, I never heard of that. I don’t believe it,” said Andrew.

  “Don’t you! Then read what Admiral Bacon says about it in his life of Lord Fisher. I can lend you the book.”

  “I don’t care if it’s in fifty books. I don’t believe it,” said Andrew.

  Bulah Singh smiled importantly: “Von Tirpitz and Ludendorff did believe it. Why? Because they themselves were also trying to use occult means, in competition with the British secret intelligence.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I knew Ludendorff — after the war. But before the war, I was one of the secret observers appointed to watch the staff of the German Crown Prince when he came to India. Do you know why the Crown Prince was obliged to leave India so suddenly?”

  “I was in short pants in those days,” said Andrew. “I was learning all about Santa ‘Claus and George Washington and the Cherry Tree, and how the doctor brings newborn babies in a handbag.”

  “Members of the Crown Prince’s staff,” said Bulah Sing, “were discovered attempting to establish a telepathic link with Indian seditionists for propaganda purposes in time of war. It was I who caught them at it. The Crown Prince was given his walking orders, and the Germans never did get beyond the experimental stage.”

  “That kind of thing is darned easy to say,” Andrew remarked. “I should say it’s less easy to prove.”

  ‘Impossible to prove!” The Sikh’s eyes glowered like an angry dog’s. “That is its value! Its virtue! Its importance. That is why you get away with it! That is why you and I can’t deal on ordinary terms. There must be guarantees. How do you
wish to return to Tibet?”

  “No orders yet,” said Andrew eyeing him hard. “I’ve been wondering whether some of my correspondence has been held up.”

  The Sikh accepted the challenge: “Oh, I’ll be quite frank about that. Your mail goes through the usual channels. The one you received from the United States last Tuesday was in code. I read it. It was signed ‘Hofstedder.’ It said something about taking a walk that suggested a possible double meaning. That’s why I asked where you’re hoping to go.”

  “I have the letter in my pocket,” Andrew answered.

  “Well, see here, Gunning. Let’s suppose that the dice should be loaded a bit in your favor. Let’s suppose you should slip over the border discreetly without any risk of being caught. Would you reciprocate?”

  “How? In what way?”

  “In any way I stipulate.”

  Andrew grinned: “That’s a tall order. You’d better explain.”

  Bulah Singh stood up. He lighted another cigarette. He half closed his eyes. He came closer to Andrew, standing over him, looking down at him. His mouth didn’t look like a man’s any longer; it suggested a gash made by a surgeon’s knife. He held his voice down to a flat monotone.

  “I’ve got you by the short hair, Andrew Gunning. There’s no India Office visa on your passport. There’s the little matter of Elsa Burbage to be explained. And there are those loads at the monastery. Taking a walk is exactly you are going to do — in either of two directions. Agree with me, and over the Roof of the World with you. Otherwise, take the first boat from Calcutta or Bombay. Which is it?”

  The knuckles of Andrew’s fingers that clutched the chair-arm turned white under the pressure of self-control. The professional Bulah Singh should have noticed it, but he seemed not to. Andrew knew that Morgan Lewis had purposely left him alone with the Sikh. He couldn’t risk anger. He glanced at his watch, at the door, at the window; made a rather amateurish effort to look furtive, realized that the Sikh saw through that, changed it to a skeptical grin that was far more effective, and said: “Sit down. Help yourself to a drink. Let’s talk things over.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Elsa’s bazaar-bought raincoat made a pool around her feet on the floor of Nancy Strong’s hallway. The turbaned servant who hung up the raincoat and knelt to wipe her wet shoes clucked solicitous comment. He was used to all kinds of people — even well-bred, gently mannered people in inexpensive clothes, who came without warning in the rain, at unconscionable hours. But why no galoshes? Why were her shoes not wetter than they were? If she hadn’t walked, how had she got there? The effort of suppressing the urge to ask questions so occupied his mind that he forgot his manners and left her standing in the hall while he switched on the light in the living-room and frugally added pine knots to the blazing fire.

  The hall was lined on both sides with books in shelves about shoulder- high; on the wall above those were plainly framed photographs of ex-pupils of Nancy’s school. Tibet, Nepal and every province of India were represented. On top of the shelves were statuettes, done in clay by the pupils and baked in the school kiln. Some of them were very revealing portraits of Nancy Strong as seen through the eyes of attentive, inquisitive Indian youth. No two alike — even remotely alike — and yet all unmistakably Nancy Strong in one mood or another.

  Elsa felt relieved that Nancy wasn’t there to receive her. She needed time, after a wild ride through the rain with Dr. Lewis in Bulah Singh’s car, to subdue emotions that made her heart beat quickly and her head feel almost like someone else’s, full of unfamiliar thought that she recognized nevertheless as her own. She admired Nancy Strong, but she was conscious of being on guard against her. She even liked her. But she didn’t quite trust her. Not quite. There was something about Nancy that always made her feel shy and reserved. Perhaps it was the school-teacher quality. It was a superficial manner, because Nancy had no unpleasant mannerisms. It was more likely a habit of thought, concealed but evident to Elsa’s sensitive perception. Her perception was much too sensitive. Elsa knew it. She was always much too careful, and perhaps afraid, of meeting other people’s minds in unmasked conflict. Each time she had met Nancy hitherto she hid always felt vaguely antagonistic, almost sulkily disposed to cover up her own thought and talk superficially, which she could do very well when she wanted to. Sometimes Nancy even made her feel like a small animal that creeps into its hole and watches, listens, wonders what next?

  So when the servant ushered her into the vast living room she made an effort of will to be natural, at ease, and confident of welcome. It didn’t quite work. But she achieved some success. The servant seemed to notice it. He smiled at her as he fussed around rearranging ashtrays, watching her furtively, waiting for her to sit down before going to summon his employer. She chose a chair near the door. But the moment he left the room she got up again and looked about her, as it were feeling for Nancy’s atmosphere in order to meet her on even ground.

  There was surely no other room in the world quite like that one. In the middle of the long wall opposite the door was a huge stone fireplace. In a horseshoe around that, within an oblong barricade of bookshelves, were large old-fashioned, overstuffed armchairs, each with a footstool and a small end- table beside it. The fire shone hospitably through an opening between the bookshelves, which were placed back to back, so that books faced both ways, inward toward the fireplace and outward toward the room. Outside that homelike, snug enclosure the room resembled almost a museum, except for touches of humor and a sensation of being lived in. The carpet was from Samarkand, too good to tread on. The curtains were from Lhasa, Bukhara and Peking. The walls were hung with Tibetan sacred paintings and some of Nancy Strong’s own, less sacred but strongly unsentimental watercolors, of which the most noticeable was a portrait of the late Dalai Lama. There were devil-masks, Tibetan weapons, bronze bells, dories, silk embroidery and weird musical instruments. At one end of the room was a black grand piano that threw everything else out of balance. Its top was a maze of framed photographs. Elsa went up and studied them, growing mentally more confused and uncertain of Nancy’s point of view as she looked, and remembered chance remarks, and guessed, and tried to imagine Nancy Strong in such strangely assorted company.

  Three were of Viceroys. There was Lord Kitchener in Commander in Chief’s uniform. The ex-Kaiser, alongside Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher and the weirdly bearded Von Tirpitz. General Lord Allenby. An archbishop, a cardinal, two bishops. King George and Queen Mary. Senator Borah. General Smuts. Sun Yat-Sen. Gandhi. President Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt side by side. Mary Pickford, Will Rogers. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Sven Hedin. General Younghusband. And no less than eleven Indian ruling princes. All autographed, and many of them bearing written record of affection.

  But the most remarkable object in the room stood alone, on a small teak table, exactly midway between the door and the fireplace. One had to walk around it to reach the opening in the oblong screen of bookshelves. It was a much enlarged head and shoulder portrait of the Ringding Gelong Lama Lobsang Pun, known in Tibetan and English, and to friend and enemy alike, as Old Ugly-face. The portrait started floods of memories pouring into Elsa’s mind, although it had been obviously taken long before she met him, in the days when he was reasonably thin and coming to be recognized in Far East diplomatic circles as the new enigma.

  There was a magnificent cat on the hearth, with its back to the fire in feline recognition of the fact that the rain had only temporarily ceased. He would turn his face to the fire again when the rain resumed. Meanwhile, he studied Elsa with Sphinx-like detachment. His face looked something like Lobsang Pun’s in the silver-framed photograph. It was only a vague resemblance, but there it was. You could look at either of them and catch yourself thinking about the other — wondering how many birds the cat had killed — how many secrets Old Ugly-face knew.

  Elsa went and sat down by the fire. She made friendly overtures to the cat. But the cat took no notice, any more than Lobsang Pun would have done. So she
leaned back and stared at the fire, thinking about Lobsang Pun, as she last saw him, at the Thunder Dragon Gate in Tibet. But she began to see Bulah Singh’s face, growing larger and larger amid the burning pine knots. That was no good. It didn’t frighten her, but it made her feel vaguely guilty of forgetting something that she should remember — secretly guilty of liking a man whom really she intensely disliked. To throw off that sensation and get her mind on something else she turned sideways in the armchair to glance at the rows of books, pulling out a few at random from the nearest shelf behind her. Aristotle, Lord Derby’s Homer, Plato, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy. She returned them and tried again, kneeling on the chair to read the titles: the Upanishads, Freud, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians in Greek, Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat, the Psalms in English, the second volume of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital in German. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Tennyson, Browning, the Bhagavad-Gita, a whole set of Dickens, the Intimate Papers of Colonel House, a set of Shakespeare, Hitler’s Mein Kampf in German, the Bible, the Koran —

  Elsa heard the door open. She jumped out of the chair, hurriedly straightened her skirt and went and stood in the opening between the bookcases, silhouetted with her back to the firelight, feeling rather like a bewildered child and not at all sure she was welcome.

  CHAPTER 8

  Something happened to the room when Nancy Strong entered and closed the door behind her, glancing around swiftly before she looked at Elsa. She even brought the grand piano into harmony with all the rest of it. Gray-haired, gray-eyed, gallantly old-fashioned, even dowdy. She wore one of those dependable brown wool frocks that Department Stores can be trusted to ship to customers of twenty-five years’ standing. Woolen stockings. Tidy ankles. Scarred knuckles. Hands like a horseman’s. Her face had no room left on it for ugliness, there was so much character. She was beautiful from having faced trouble and stood up to it and beaten it, times without number. A stormy-weather woman, matter-of-fact in her greeting of Elsa: