Sprayregan and his wife had been killed for nothing. Sprayregan had found out only what all Washington knew and failed to understand. But I said, “He knew all about you, Malabar woman. He was the best private detective in Washington. I guess Ambedkar was right: he had to kill him.” I thought she would die more easily believing that.
She whispered, “He should have killed you too. He tried.”
“What about Varley?” I said.
“That? He didn’t want to kill Varley. He had no reason to.”
“In fact, once Varley got himself this India assignment, you and Ambedkar probably wanted him alive. He was tailor-made for you, wasn’t he?”
“In Washington, Ambedkar was very jealous … of Stewart Varley. He was working both ends against … our cause and his own personal feelings …”
“So beating up Varley out in Maryland had nothing to do with the Conference?”
She smiled up at me. Her eyes were glassy. “Who says … Sprayregan was the best detective in Washington? You are, Mr. Drum. You have to know … all the answers, don’t you?”
I didn’t say anything. She tried to sit up. Then the smile went off her face and she said, “I wish you had never come to India, Drum,” and she fell back, and was dead.
The Siva man had sent someone for the police. They came an hour after dawn and they took Aruna in an armored car to the Conference. I learned about it afterwards at the hospital, where I shared Wally Baker’s room with him. They didn’t have to probe for the bullet: it had gone through the flesh of my arm without touching bone.
Aruna’s story lined the Conference delegates up behind Gaganvihari Mojindar. He never left the Conference, despite what had happened. The Benares Conference, like all such meetings, did not accomplish anything specific. But the wedge that might have been driven even further between East and West was not, and on the final day of the Conference above the burning ghats of Benares, the delegates voted unanimously, with the Chinese and Vietnamhese abstaining, to hear a speech by the American Observer who, it was said, learned much in India.
That was the speech you know about, of course, if you followed the Benares Conference in the papers and news-magazines. It was one hell of a fine speech and I heard it on the radio with Wally Baker and Marianne. All-India Radio carried it in a dozen languages. Stewart Varley spoke of the World Spirit which the Panch Kosi Sadhu had died for, and maybe the words of his speech were the sadhu’s and maybe they were Varley’s. That didn’t matter. There was the life of contemplation, Varley said, and there was the life of action. Each was a good life, in the East and in the West. Each was necessary. Each was part of being human, and each had its role to play in fostering international understanding. Although he didn’t come out and say it in so many words in that speech, Varley devoted himself to the life of action.
He was given a standing ovation and when he returned to the States he was a big man in the State Department overnight. But you already know that, too.
I remained in Benares until Wally Baker was well enough to travel. Time-Life was giving him and Marianne a well-earned vacation, and we flew back to the States together. They would be married soon, they said. Marianne almost expected me to resent it, but I didn’t. I told them I would be a staunch friend of the family, and meant it.
The morning before our flight we drove out to the sadhu’s hill on the Panch Kosi. Gaganvihari Mojindar had gone out there right after the Conference ended. He sat in the lotus position under the pipal tree. Aruna served him. The Siva man was very proud of her and proud of Mojindar too. The Siva man said:
“We lost a sadhu, and we gained one. It was our karma, as it was yours to get Mr. Varley back.”
Maybe he had something there. The new sadhu sat under the pipal tree in dappled sunlight. He was frail and slender with a shock of white hair and serene, unmoving eyes. He looked amazingly like the old one.
I left India with only one question unanswered. I never found out if Ayyangar had died naturally, or had been murdered because he knew too much or demanded too much. I didn’t say good-by to Banerjee, who was too busy rounding up the fanatics Ambedkar’s one surviving henchman led him to.
It was raining at Washington National Airport when our Air France plane landed. Priscilla Varley was waiting for me with an umbrella, my expense money and two thousand dollars. She thought her husband was cured, she said. She thought his new dedication was wonderful. She thought I was wonderful too. She said I had earned the two thousand dollars.
I didn’t feel much like arguing with her.
THE END
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Killers Are My Meat Page 19