The Bronze Bell

by Louis Joseph Vance

  CHAPTER IX

  PINK SATIN

  Shaking with rage, Amber stood for a long moment with pistol poised andeyes wary; then, bewildered, he slowly lowered the weapon. "Well," heobserved reflectively, "I'm damned." For the glittering thing he hadmistaken for a revolver lay at his feet; and it was nothing more norless than a shoehorn. While as for the babu, he had dropped back intothe chair and given way to a rude but reassuring paroxysm of gusty,silent laughter.

  "I'm a fool," said Amber; "and if I'm not mistaken you're Labertouche."

  With a struggle the babu overcame his emotion. "I am, my dear fellow, Iam," he gasped. "And I owe you an apology. Upon my word, I'd forgotten;one grows so accustomed to living the parts in these masquerades, aftera time, that one forgets. Forgive me." He offered a hand which Ambergrasped warmly in his unutterable relief. "I'm really delighted to meetyou," continued Labertouche seriously. "Any man who knows India can'thelp being glad to meet the author of 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush.'"

  "You did frighten me," Amber confessed, smiling. "I didn't know what toexpect--or suspect. Certainly,"--with a glance round the incongruouslyfurnished room--"I never looked forward to anything like this--or you,in that get-up."

  "You wouldn't, you know," Labertouche admitted gravely. "I might havewarned you in my note; but that was a risky thing, at best. I feared togo into detail--it might have fallen into the wrong hands."

  "Whose?" demanded Amber.

  "That, my dear man, is what we're here to find out--if we can. But sitdown; we shall have to have quite a bit of talk." He scraped a heap ofgaily-coloured native garments off one end of the charpoy and motionedAmber to the chair. At the same time he fished a cigar-case out of somerecess in his clothing. "These are good," he remarked, opening the caseand offering it to Amber; "I daren't smoke anything half so good whenat work. The native tobacco is abominable, you know--_quite_three-fourths filth."

  "At work?" questioned Amber, clipping the end of his cigar and lightingit. "You don't mean to say you travel round in those clothes?"

  "But I do. It's business with me--though few people know it. Quaindidn't; only I had a chance, one day, to tell him some rather startlingfacts about native life. This sort of thing, done properly, gives a maninsight into a lot of unusual things."

  Labertouche puffed his cigar into a glow and leaned back, clasping oneknee with two brown hands and squinting up at the low, discolouredceiling. And Amber, looking him over, was amazed by the absolutefidelity of his make-up; the brownish stain on face and hands, thehigh-cut patent-leather boots, the open-work socks through which histinted calves showed grossly, his shapeless, baggy, soiledgarments--all were hopelessly babu-ish.

  "And if it isn't done properly?"

  "Oh, then----!" Labertouche laughed, lifting his shouldersexpressively. "No Englishman incapable of living up to a disguise hasever tried it more than once in India; few, very few, have lived totell of the experiment."

  "You're connected with the police?" Amber's brows contracted as heremembered Rutton's emphatic prohibition.

  But Quain had not failed to mention that. "Officially, no," saidLabertouche readily. "Now and again, of course, I run across a bit ofvaluable information; and then, somehow, indirectly, the police getwind of it. But this going _fantee_ in an amateur way is simply myhobby; I've been at it for years--and very successfully, too. Ofcourse, it'll have its end. One's bound to slip up eventually. You cantrain yourself to live the life of the native, but you can't train yourmind to think as he thinks. That's how the missteps happen. Someday...." He sighed, not in the least unhappily.... "Some day I'll dodgeinto this hole, or another that I know of, put on somebody else'srags--say, these I'm wearing--and inconspicuously become a mysteriousdisappearance. That's how it is with all of us who go in for this sortof thing. But it's like opium, you know; you try it the first time forthe lark of it; the end is tragedy."

  Amber drew a long breath, his eyes glistening with wonder andadmiration of the man. "You don't mean to tell me you run such risksfor the pure love of it?"

  "Well ... perhaps not altogether. But we needn't go into details, needwe?" Labertouche's smile robbed the rebuke of its sting. "The opiumsimile is a very good one, though I say it who shouldn't. One acquiresa taste for the forbidden, and one hires a little room like this froman unprincipled blackguard like Honest George, and insensibly one goesdeeper and deeper until one gets beyond one's depth. That is all. Itexplains me sufficiently. And," he chuckled, "you'd never have known itif your case hadn't been exceptional."

  "It is, I think." Amber's expression became anxious. "I want to knowwhat you think of it--now Quain's told you. And, I say, what did youmean by 'news of the Fs.'?"

  "News of the Farrells--father and daughter, of course." Labertouche'seyes twinkled.

  "But how in the name of all that's strange--!"

  "Did I connect the affair Rutton with the Farrells? At first by simpleinference. You were charged with a secret errand, demanding the utmosthaste, by Rutton; your first thought was to travel by the longerroute--which, as it happens, Miss Farrell had started upon a littlewhile before. You had recently met her, and I've heard she's rather astriking young woman. You see?"

  "Yes," admitted Amber sheepishly. "But--"

  "And then I remembered something," interrupted Labertouche. "I recalledRutton. I knew him years ago, when he was a young man.... You know theyarn about him?"

  "A little--mighty little. I know now that he was a Rajput--though henever told me that; I know that he married a Russian noblewoman"--Amberhesitated imperceptibly--"that she died soon after, that he chose tolive out of India and to die rather than return to it."

  "He was," said Labertouche, "a singular man, an exotic result of theunnatural conditions we English have brought about in India. The wordrenegade describes him aptly, I think: he was born and bred a Brahmin,a Rajput, of the hottest and bluest blood in Rajputana; he died to allintents and purposes a European--with an English heart. He is--was--byrights Maharana of Khandawar. As the young Maharaj he was sent toEngland to be educated. I'm told his record at Oxford was a brilliantone. He became a convert to Christianity--that was predestined--wasadmitted to the Church of England, a communicant. When his father diedand he was summoned to take his place, Rutton at first refused.Pressure was brought to bear upon him by the English Government and hereturned, was enthroned, and for a little time ruled Khandawar. It wasthen that I knew him. He was continually dissatisfied, however, andafter a year or two disappeared. It was rumoured that he'd struck abargain with his prime-minister, one Salig Singh. At all events SaligSingh contrived to usurp the throne, Government offering no objection.Rutton turned up eventually in Russia and married a woman there whodied in childbirth--twenty years ago, perhaps. The child did notsurvive its mother...." Labertouche paused deliberately, his glancesearching Amber's face. "So the report ran, at least," he concludedquietly.

  "How do you know all this?" Amber countered evasively.

  "Government watches its wards very tenderly," said Labertouche with agrin. "Besides, India's a great place for gossip.... And then," hepursued tenaciously, "I remembered something else. I recalled thatRutton had one very close friend, an Englishman named Farrell--"

  "Oh, what's the use?" Amber cut in nervously. "You understand thesituation too well. It's no good my trying to keep anything from you."

  "Such as the fact that Colonel Farrell adopted Rutton's daughter, who,as it happens, did survive her mother? Yes; I knew that--or, rather,part I knew and part I guessed. But don't worry, Mr. Amber; I'll keepthe secret."

  "For the girl's sake," said Amber, twisting his hands together.

  "For her sake. I pledge you my word."

  "Thank you."

  "And now ... for what purpose did Rutton ask you to come to India?Wasn't it to get Miss Farrell out of the country?"

  "I think you're the devil himself," said Amber.

  "I'm not," confessed Labertouche; "but I am a member of the IndianSecret Service--not officially connected with the pol
ice, observe!--andI know a deal that you don't. I think, in short, I can place my fingeron the reason why Rutton was so concerned to get his daughter out ofthe country."

  Amber looked his question.

  "You read the papers, don't you, in America?"

  "Rather." Amber smiled.

  "You've surely not been so blind as to miss the occasional reports thatleak out about native unrest in India?"

  "Surely you don't mean----"

  "I assuredly do mean that the Second Mutiny impends," declaredLabertouche solemnly. "Such, at least, is my belief, and such is thebelief of every thinking man in India who is at all informed. Theentire country is undermined with conspiracy and sedition; day afterday a vast, silent, underground movement goes on, fomenting rebellionagainst the English rule. The worst of it is, there's no stopping it,no way of scotching the serpent; its heads are myriad, seemingly. Andyet--I don't know--since yesterday I have hoped that through you wemight eventually strike to the heart of the movement."

  "Through me!" cried Amber, startled.

  Labertouche nodded. "Just so. The information you have already broughtus is invaluable. Have you thought of the significance of Chatterji's'Message of the Bell'?"

  "'_Even now,_'" Amber quoted mechanically, "'_The Gateway of Swordsyawns wide, that he who is without fear may pass within; to the endthat the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil._'" He shook his headmystified. "No; I don't understand."

  "It's so simple," urged Labertouche; "all but the Gateway of Swords. Idon't place that--yet.... But the 'Body'--plainly that is India; the'Scarlet Evil'--could anything more fittingly describe English rulefrom the native point of view?"

  Amber felt of his head solicitously. "And yet," he averred plaintively,"it doesn't _feel_ like wood."

  Labertouche laughed gently. "Now to-night you will learn something fromthis Dhola Baksh--something important, undoubtedly. May I see thisring--this Token?"

  Unbuttoning his shirt, Amber produced the Eye from the chamois bag.Labertouche studied it for a long time in silence, returning it with anair of deep perturbation.

  "The thing is strange to me," he said. "For the present we may dismissit as simply what it pretends to be--a token, a sign by which one manshall know another.... Wear it but turn the stone in; and keep yourhands in your pockets when we're outside."

  Amber obeyed. "We'll be going, now?"

  "Yes." Labertouche rose, throwing away his cigar and stamping out itsfire.

  "But the Farrells?"

  "Forgive me; I had forgotten. The Farrells are at Darjeeling, where theColonel is stationed just now--happily for him."

  "Then," said Amber, with decision, "I leave for Darjeeling to-morrowmorning."

  "I know no reason why you shouldn't," agreed Labertouche. "If anythingturns up I'll contrive to let you know." He looked Amber up and downwith a glance that took in every detail. "I'm sorry," he observed, "youcouldn't have managed to look a trace shabbier. Still, with a touchhere and there, you'll do excellently well as a sailor on a spree."

  "As bad as that?"

  "Oah, my dear fallow!"--it was now the babu speaking, while he hoppedaround Amber with his head critically to one side, like an inquisitivejackdaw, now and again darting forward to peck at him with hands thatnervously but deftly arranged details of his attire to please a tastefastidious and exacting in such matters--"Oah, my dear fallow, surelyyou appreciate danger of venturing into nateeve quarters in Europeandress? As regular-out-and-out sahib, I am meaning, of course. It ispermeesible for riff-raff, sailors and Tommies from the Fort, and soaon, to indulge in debauchery among nateeves, but first-classsahib--Oah, noah! You would be mobbed in no-time-at-all, where we aregoing."

  "All right; I guess I can play the part, babu. At least, I've plenty ofatmosphere," Amber laughed, mentioning the incident of the peg he hadnot consumed over Honest George's bar.

  "I had noticed that; a happy accident, indeed. I think"--Labertouchestepped back to look Amber over again--"I think you will almost do. Onemoment."

  He seized Amber's hat and, dashing it violently to the floor,deliberately stamped it out of shape; when restored to its owner it hadaged five years in less than half as many minutes. Amber laughed,putting it on. "Surely you couldn't ask me to look more disreputable,"he said with a dubious survey of himself in the mirror.

  His collar had been confiscated with his tie; his coat collar waspartially turned up in the back; what was visible of his shirt wasindecently dirty. His polished shoes had been deprived of theirpristine lustre by means of a damp rag, vigorously applied, and thenrubbed with dust. An artistic stain had been added to one of hissleeves by the simple device of smudging it with the blacking from hisshoes. As for his hat, with the brim pulled down in front, it wasnothing more nor less than shocking.

  "You'll do," chuckled Labertouche approvingly. "Just ram your handsinto your trouser pockets without unbuttoning your coat, and shufflealong as if nocturnal rambles in the slums of Calcutta were an everydaything to you. If you're spoken to, don't betray too much familiaritywith the vernacular. You know about the limit of the average Tommy'svocabulary; don't go beyond it." He unbolted and locked the door bywhich Amber had entered, putting the key in his pocket, and turned to asecond door across the room. "We'll leave this way; I chose this placebecause it's a regular rabbit warren, with half a dozen entrances andexits. I'll leave you in a passage leading to the bazaar. Wait in thedoorway until you see me stroll past; give me thirty yards lead andfollow. Keep in the middle of the way, avoid a crowd as the plague, anddon't lose sight of me. I'll stop in front of Dohla Baksh's shop longenough to light a cheroot and go on without looking back. When you comeout I'll be waiting for you. If we lose one another, get back to yourhotel as quickly as possible. I may send you word. If I don't, I shallunderstand you've taken the first morning train to Darjeeling. I thinkthat's all."

  As Amber left the room Labertouche extinguished the lamp, shut andlocked the door, and followed, catching Amber by the arm and guidinghim through pitch darkness to the head of the stairs. "Don't talk," hewhispered; "trust me." They descended an interminable flight of steps,passed down a long, echoing corridor, and again descended. From thefoot of the second flight Labertouche shunted Amber round through whatseemed a veritable maze of passages--in which, however, he wasevidently quite at home. At length, "_Now go ahead!_" was breathed atAmber's ear and at the same time his arm was released.

  He obeyed blindly, stumbling down a reeking corridor, and in a minutemore, to his unutterable relief, was in the open air of the bazaar.

  Blinking with the abrupt transition from absolute night to garishlight, he skulked in the shadow of the doorway, waiting. Beneath hisgaze Calcutta paraded its congress of peoples--a comprehensivecollection of specimens of every tribe in Hindustan and of nearly everyother race in the world besides: red-bearded Delhi Pathans, toweringSikhs, lean sinewy Rajputs with bound jaws, swart agile Bhils, Tommiesin their scarlet tunics, Japanese and Chinese in their distinctivedress, short and sturdy Gurkhas, yellow Saddhus, Jats stalking proudly,brawling knots of sailormen from the Port, sleek Mahrattas, pollutedSansis, Punjabis, Bengalis, priests, beggars, dancing girls; a blaze ofcolour ever shifting, a Babel of tongues never stilled, a seething scumon a witch's brew of humanity....

  Like a fat, tawdry moth in his garments of soiled pink, a babu loiteredpast, with never a sidelong glance for the loaferish figure in theshadowed doorway; and the latter seemed himself absorbed in the familyof Eurasians who were shrilly squabbling with the keeper of avegetable-stall adjacent. But presently he wearied of their noise,yawned, thrust both hands deep in his pockets, and stumbled away. Thebazaar accepted him as a brother, unquestioning, and he picked his waythrough it with an ease that argued nothing but absolute familiaritywith his surroundings. But always you may be sure, he had the gleam ofpink satin in the corner of his eye.

  Before long Pink Satin diverged into the Chitpur Road, with Amber adiscreet shadow. So far the latter had been treading known ground, buta little later, when Pink Satin
dived abruptly into a darksome alleywayto the right, drawing Amber after him as a child drags a toy on astring, the Virginian lost his bearings utterly and was thereafterhelplessly dependent upon the flutter of Pink Satin, and unworried onlyso long as he could see him, in a fidget of anxiety whenever thelabyrinth shut Labertouche from his sight for a moment or two.

  It was quiet enough away from the main thoroughfare, but with asinister quiet. Tall dwellings marched shoulder to shoulder along theways, shuttered, dark, grim, with an effect of conspirators, theirheads together in lawless conference. The streets were intolerablynarrow, the paving a farce; pools of stagnant water stood in thedepressions, piles of refuse banked the walls. The fetid air hungmotionless but sibilant with stealthy footsteps and whisperings....Preferable to this seemed even the infinitely more dangerous andodorous Coolootollah purlieus into which they presently passed--nestingplace though it were for the city's most evil and desperate classes.

  In time broad Machua Bazaar Street received them--Pink Satin and thesailorman out for a night of it. And now Pink Satin began to strollmore sedately, manifesting a livelier interest in the sights of thewayside. Amber's impatience--for he guessed that they neared thegoldsmith's stall--increased prodigiously; the shops, the stalls, thethatched dance-halls in which arose the hideous music of the nautch,had no lure for him, though they illustrated all that was most evil andmost depraved in the second city of the Empire. He was only eager tohave done with this unsavoury adventure, to know again the clean wallsof his room in the Great Eastern, to taste again the purer air of theMaidan.

  Without warning Pink Satin pulled up, extracted from the recesses ofhis costume a long, black and vindictive-looking native cigar, andlighted it, thoughtfully exhaling the smoke through his nose while hestared covetously at the display of a slipper-merchant whose stand wasover across from the stall of a goldsmith.

  With true Oriental deliberation Pink Satin finally made up his mind tomove on; and Amber lurched heavily into the premises occupied by oneDhola Baksh, a goldsmith.

  A customer, a slim, handsome Malayan youth, for the moment held theattention of the proprietor. The two were haggling with characteristicenjoyment over a transaction which seemed to involve less than twentyrupees. Amber waited, knowing that patience must be his portion untilthe bargain should be struck. Dhola Baksh himself, a lean,sharp-featured Mahratta grey with age, appraised with a single look thenew customer, and returned his interest to the Malay. But Ambergarnered from that glance a sensation of recognition. He wondereddimly, why; could the goldsmith have been warned of his coming?

  Two or three more putative customers idled into the shop. Beyond itsthreshold the stream of native life rolled on, ceaselessly fluent; apageant of the Middle Ages had been no more fantastic and unreal toWestern eyes. Now and again a wayfarer paused, his interest attractedby the goldsmith's rush of business.

  Unexpectedly the proprietor made a substantial concession. Money passedupon the instant, sealing the bargain. The Malay rose to go. DholaBaksh lifted a stony stare to Amber.

  "Your, pleasure, sahib?" he enquired with a thinly-veiled sneer. Whatneed to show deference to a down-at-the-heel sailor from the Port?

  "I want money--I want to borrow," said Amber promptly.

  "On your word, sahib?"

  "On security."

  "What manner of security can you offer?"

  "A ring--an emerald ring."

  Dhola Baksh shrugged. His eyes shifted from Amber to the encirclingfaces of the bystanders. "I am a poor man," he whined. "How should Ihave money to lend? Come to me on the morrow; then mayhap I may have afew rupees. To-night I have neither cash nor time."

  The hint was lost upon Amber. "A stone of price----" he persisted.

  With a disturbed and apprehensive look, the money-lender rose. "Come,then," he grumbled, "if you must----"

  A voice cried out behind Amber--"_Heh_!"----more a squeal than a cry.Intuitively, as at a signal of danger, he leaped aside. Simultaneouslysomething like a beam of light sped past his head. The goldsmithuttered one dreadful, choking scream, and went to his knees. For asmany as three seconds he swayed back and forth, his features terriblycontorted, his thin old hands plucking feebly at the handle of abroadbladed dagger which had transfixed his throat. Then he tumbledforward on his face, kicking.

  There followed a single instant of suspense and horror, then a mad rushof feet as the street stampeded into the shop. Voices clamoured to theskies. Somehow the lights went out.

  Amber started to fight his way out. As he struggled on, making littleheadway through the press, a hand grasped his arm and drew him anotherway.

  "Make haste, hazoor!" cried the owner of the hand, in Hindustani. "Makehaste, lest they seek to fasten this crime upon your head."