by Talbot Mundy
A man of indiscretion, and a diplomat, must have fireproof feelings. As Tess had observed, Samson blenched distinctly, but he recovered in a second and put in practise some of that opportunism that was his secret pride, reflecting how a less finished diplomatist would have betrayed resentment at the snub from an inferior instead of affecting not to notice it at all. As a student of human nature he decided that Tom Tripe’s pride was the point to take advantage of.
“You’re the very man I can trust,” he said. “I’m glad we have had this talk. If ever you receive a small white envelope marked r. s. in the left-hand bottom corner, see that the princess gets it, and say nothing.”
“Trust me, eh?” Tripe muttered as Samson walked away. “You never trusted your own mother without you had a secret hold over her. I wouldn’t trust you that far!” He spat among the flowers, for Tom could not pretend to real garden-party manners. “And if she trusts you, letters or no letters, I’ll eat my spurs and saber cold for breakfast.”
Then, as if to console himself with proof that some one in the world did trust him thoroughly, Tom swaggered with a riding-master stride to where Tess stood talking with a Rajput prince, who had come late and threatened to leave early. The prince had puzzled her by referring two or three times to his hurry, once even going so far as to say good-by, and then not going. It was as if he expected her to know something that she did not know, and to give him a cue that he waited for in vain. She felt he must think her stupid, and the thought made her every minute less at ease; but Tom’s approach, eyed narrowly by Samson for some reason, seemed to raise the Rajput’s spirits.
“If only my husband were here,” she said aloud, “but at the last minute — there was blasting, you know, and—”
The prince — he was quite a young one — twenty-one perhaps — murmured something polite and with eyes that smoldered watched Tom take a letter from his tunic pocket. He handed it to Tess with quite a flourish.
“Some one must have dropped this, ma’am.”
The envelope was scented, and addressed in Persian characters. She saw the prince’s eyes devour the thing — saw him exchange glances with Tom Tripe — and realized that Tom had rather deftly introduced her to another actor in the unseen drama that was going on. Clearly the next move was hers.
“Is it yours, perhaps?” she asked.
Prince Utirupa Singh bowed and took the letter. Samson with a look of baffled fury behind the monocle, but a smile for appearance’s sake, joined them at that minute and Utirupa seemed to take delight in so manipulating the sealed envelope that the commissioner could only see the back of it.
The prince was an extremely handsome young man, as striking in one way as Samson in another. Polo and pig-sticking had kept him lean, and association with British officers had given him an air of being frankly at his ease even when really very far from feeling it. He had the natural Oriental gift of smothering excitement, added to a trick learned from the West of aggressive self-restraint that is not satisfied with seeming the opposite of what one is, but insists on extracting humor from the situation and on calling attention to the humor.
“I shall always be grateful to you,” he said, smiling into Tess’s eyes with his own wonderful brown ones but talking at the commissioner. “If I had lost this letter I should have been at a loss indeed. If some one else had found it, that might have been disastrous.”
“But I did not find it for you,” Tess objected.
Utirupa turned his back to the commissioner and answered in a low voice.
“Nevertheless, when I lose letters I shall come here first!”
He bowed to take his leave and showed the back of the envelope again to Samson, with a quiet malice worthy of Torquemada. The commissioner looked almost capable of snatching it.
“Mrs. Blaine,” he said with a laugh after the prince had gone, “skill and experience, I am afraid, are not much good without luck. Luck seems to be a thing I lack. Now, if I had picked up that letter I’ve a notion that the information in it would have saved me a year’s work.”
Tess was quite sure that Tom had not picked the letter up, but there was no need to betray her knowledge.
“Do you mean you’d have opened a letter you picked up in my garden?” she demanded.
His eyes accepted her challenge.
“Why not?”
“But why? Surely—”
“Necessity, dear lady, knows no law. That’s one of the first axioms of diplomacy. Consider your husband as a case in point. Custom, which is the basis of nearly all law, says he ought to be here entertaining your guests. Necessity, ignoring custom, obliges him to stay in the hills and supervise the blasting, disappointing every one but me. I’m going to take advantage of his necessity.”
If he had seen the swift glance she gave him he might have changed the course of one small part of history. Tess knew nothing of the intrigue he was engaged in, and did not propose to be keeper of his secrets; if he had glimpsed that swift betrayal of her feelings he would certainly not have volunteered further confidences. But the poison of ambition blinds all those who drink it, so that the “safest” men unburden themselves to the wrong unwilling ears.
“Walk with me up and down the path where every one can see us, won’t you?”
“Why?” she laughed. “Do you flatter yourself I’d be afraid to be caught alone with you?”
“I hope you’d like to be alone with me! I would like nothing better. But if we walk up and down together on the path in full view, we arouse no suspicion and we can’t be overheard. I propose to tell some secrets.”
Not many women would resist the temptation of inside political information. Recognizing that by some means beyond her comprehension she was being drawn into a maze of secrets all interrelated and any of them likely to involve herself at any minute, Tess had no compunction whatever.
“I’ll be frank with you,” she said. “I’m curious.”
Once they walked up the path and down again, talking of dogs, because it happened that Tom Tripe’s enormous beast was sprawling in the shadow of a rose-bush at the farther end. The commissioner did not like dogs. “Something loathsome about them — degrading — especially the big ones.” She disagreed. She liked them, cold wet noses and all, even in the dark. Tom Tripe, stepping behind a bush with the obvious purpose of smoking in secret the clay pipe that be hardly troubled to conceal, whistled the dog, who leapt into life as if stung and joined his master.
The second time up and down they talked of professional beggars and what a problem they are to India, because they both happened as they turned to catch sight of Umra with the one eye, entering through the little gate in the wall and shuffling without modesty or a moment’s hesitation to his favorite seat among the shrubs, whence to view proceedings undisturbed.
“Those three beggars that haunt this house seem to claim all our privileges,” she said. “They wouldn’t think of letting us give a garden party without them.”
“Say the word,” he said, “and I’ll have them put in prison.”
But she did not say the word.
The third time up the path he chose to waste on very obvious flattery.
“You’re such an unusual woman, you know, Mrs. Blaine. You understand whatever’s said to you, and don’t ask idiotic questions. And then, of course, you’re American, and I feel I can say things to you that my own countrywoman wouldn’t understand. As an American, in other words, you’re privileged.”
As they turned at the top of the path she felt a cold wet something thrust into her hand from behind. She had never in her life refused a caress to a dog that asked for one, and her fingers closed almost unconsciously on Trotters’ muzzle, touching as they did so the square unmistakable hard edges of an envelope. There was no mistaking the intent; the dog forced it on her and, the instant her fingers closed on it, slunk out of sight.
“Wasn’t that Tripe’s infernal dog again?”
“Was it? I didn’t see.” She was wiping slobber on to her skirt from
an envelope whose strong perfume had excited the dog’s salivary glands. But it was true that she did not see.
“May I call you Theresa?”
“Why?”
“It would encourage confidences. There isn’t another woman in Sialpore whom I could tell what I’m going to say to you. The others would repeat it to their husbands, or—”
“I tell mine everything. Every word!”
“Or they’d try to work me on the strength of it for little favors—”
“Wait until you know me! Little favors don’t appeal to me. I like them big — very big!”
“Honestly, Theresa—”
“Better call me Mrs. Blaine.”
“Honestly, there’s nothing under heaven that—”
“That you really know about me. I know there isn’t. You were going to tell secrets. I’m listening.”
“You’re a hard-hearted woman!”
She had contrived by that time to extract a letter from the envelope behind her back, but how to read it without informing Samson was another matter. As she turned up the path for the sixth time, the sight of Tom Tripe making semi-surreptitious signals to attract her attention convinced her that the message was urgent and that she should not wait to read it until after her last guests were gone. It was only one sheet of paper, written probably on only one side — she hoped in English. But how -
Suddenly she screamed, and Samson was all instant concern.
“Was that a snake? Tell me, was that a snake I saw. Oh, do look, please!
I loathe them.”
“Probably a lizard.”
“No, no, I know a lizard. Do please look!”
Unbelieving, he took a stick and poked about among the, flowers to oblige her; so she read the message at her leisure behind the broad of his back, and had folded it out of sight before he looked up.
“No snakes. Nothing but a lizard.”
“Oh, I’m so glad! Please forgive me, but I dread snakes. Now tell me the secrets while I listen properly.”
He noticed a change in her voice — symptoms of new interest, and passed it to the credit of himself.
“There’s an intrigue going on, and you can help me. Sp — people whose business it is to keep me informed have reported that Tom Tripe is constantly carrying letters from the Princess Yasmini of Sialpore to that young Prince Utirupa who was here this afternoon. Now, it’s no secret that if Gungadhura Singh were to get found out committing treason (and I’m pretty sure he’s guilty of it five days out of six!) we’d depose him—”
“You mean the British would depose him?”
“Depose him root and branch. Then Utirtipa would be next in line. He’s a decent fellow. He’d be sure of the nomination, and he’d make a good ruler.”
“Well?”
“I want to know what the Princess Yasmini has to do with it.”
“It seems to me you’re not telling secrets, but asking favors for nothing.”
“Not for nothing — not for nothing! There’s positively nothing that I won’t do!”
“In return for — ?”
“Sure information as to what is going on.”
“Which you think I can get for you?”
“I’m positive! You’re such an extraordinary, woman. I’m pretty sure it all hinges on the treasure I told you about the other day. Whoever gets first hold of that holds all the trumps. I’d like to get it myself. That would be the making of me, politically speaking. If Gungadhura should get it he’d ruin himself with intrigue in less than a year, but he might cause my ruin in the process. If the local priests should get it — and that’s likeliest, all things considered — there’d be red ruin for miles around; money and the church don’t mix without blood-letting, and you can’t unscramble that omelet forever afterward. I confess I don’t know how to checkmate the priests. Gungadhura I think I can manage, especially with your aid. But I must have information.”
“Is there any one else who’d be dangerous if he possessed the secret?”
“Anybody would be, except myself. Anybody else would begin playing for political control with it, and there’d be no more peace on this side of India for years. And now, this is what I want to say: The most dangerous individual who could possibly get that treasure would be the Princess Yasmini. The difficulty of dealing with her is that she’s not above hiding behind purdah (the veil), where no male man can reach her. There are several women here whom I might interest in keeping an eye on her — Tatum’s wife, and Miss Bent, and Miss O’Hara, and the Goole sisters — lots of ’em. But they’d all talk. And they’d all try to get influence for their male connections on the strength of being in the know. But somehow, Theresa, you’re different.”
“Mrs. Blaine, please.”
“I know Tom Tripe thinks the world of you. I want you to find out for me from him everything he knows about this treasure intrigue and whatever’s behind it.”
“You think he’d tell me?”
“Yes. And I want you to make the acquaintance of the Princess Yasmini, and find out from her if you can what the letters are that she writes to Utirupa. You’ll find the acquaintance interesting.”
Tess crumpled a folded letter in her left hand.
“If you could give me an introduction to the princess — they say she’s difficult to see — some sort of letter that would get me past the maharajah’s guards,” she answered.
“I can. I will. The girl’s a minor. I’ve the right to appoint some one to visit her and make all proper inquiries. I appoint you.”
“Give me a letter now and I’ll go tonight.”
He stopped as they turned at the end of the path, and wrote on a leaf of his pocket-book. Behind his back Tess waved her secret letter to attract Tom Tripe’s notice, and nodded.
“There.” said Samson. “That’s preliminary. I’ll confirm it later by letter on official paper. But nobody will dare question that. If any one does, let me know immediately.”
“Thank you.”
“And now, Theresa—”
“You forget.”
“I forget nothing. I never forget! You’ll be wondering what you are to get out of all this—”
“I wonder if you’re capable of believing that nothing was further from my thoughts!”
“Don’t think I want all for nothing! Don’t imagine my happiness — my success could be complete without—”
“Without a whisky and soda. Come and have one. I see my husband coming at last.”
“Damn!” muttered Samson under his breath.
She had expected her husband by the big gate, but he came through the little one, and she caught sight of him at once because through the corner of her eye she was watching some one else — Umra the beggar. Umra departed through the little gate thirty seconds before her husband entered it.
Blaine was so jubilant over a sample of crushed quartz he had brought home with him that there was no concealing his high spirits. He was even cordial to Samson, whom he detested, and so full of the milk of human kindness toward everybody else that they all wanted to stay and be amused by him. But Tess got rid of them at last by begging Samson to go first ostentatiously and set them an example, which he did after extracting a promise from her to see him tete-a-tete again at the earliest opportunity.
Then Tess showed her husband the letter that Tom’s dog had thrust into her hand.
“You dine alone tonight, Dick, unless you prefer the club. I’m going at once. Read this.”
It was written in a fine Italic hand on expensive paper, with corrections here and there as if the writer had obeyed inspiration first and consulted a dictionary afterward — a neat letter, even neat in its mistakes.
“Most precious friend,” it ran, “please visit me. It is necessary that you find some way of avoi — elu — tricking the guards, because there are orders not to admit any one and not to let me out. Please bring with you food from your house, because I am hungry. A cat and two birds and a monkey have died from the food cooked for me. I am also thi
rsty. My mother taught me to drink wine, but the wine is finished, and I like water the best. Tom Tripe will try to help you past the guards, but he has no brains, so you must give him orders. He is very faithful. Please come soon, and bring a very large quantity of water. Yours with love, YASMINI.”
He read the letter and passed it back.
“D’you think it’s on the level, Tess?”
“I know it is! Imagine that poor child, Dick, cooped up in a palace, starving and parching herself for fear of poison!”
“But how are you going to get to her? You can’t bowl over Gungadhura’s guards with a sunshade.”
“Samson wrote this for me.”
Dick Blaine scowled.
“I imagine Samson’s favors are paid for sooner or later.”
“So are mine, Dick! The beast has called me Theresa three times this afternoon, and has had the impudence to suggest that his preferment and my future happiness may bear some relation to each other.”
“See here, Tess, maybe I’d better beat him and have done with it.”
“No. He can’t corrupt me, but he might easily do you an injury. Let him alone, Dick, and be as civil as you can. You did splendidly this evening—”
“Before I knew what he’d said to you!”
“Now you’ve all the more reason to be civil. I must keep in touch with that young girl in the palace, and Samson is the only influence I can count on. Do as I say, Dick, and be civil to him. Pretend you’re not even suspicious.”
“But say, that guy’s suggestions aggregate an ounce or two! First, I’m to draw Gungadhura’s money while I hunt for buried treasure; but I’m to tip off Samson first. Second, I’m to look on while he makes his political fortune with my wife’s help. And third — what’s the third thing, Tess?”