by Talbot Mundy
Not a word more. He frowned at the letter, and read and reread it, sniffing at the scent and holding up the paper to the light, so that Sita Ram very nearly had a chance to read it through the knot-hole in the door. The last phrase was the puzzler. It read at first like a boast — like one of those picturesque expressions with which the Eastern mind enjoys to overstate its case. But he reflected on it. As an Orientalist of admitted distinction he had long ago concluded that hyperbole in the East is always based on some fact hidden in the user’s mind, often without the user’s knowledge. He had written a paper on that very subject, which the Spectator printed with favorable editorial comment; and Mendelsohn K. C. had written him a very agreeable letter stating that his own experience in criminal cases amply bore out the theory. He rang the desk bell for Sita Ram.
“Get me the map of the province.”
Sita Ram held it by two corners under the draughty punkah while Samson traced the boundaries with his finger. It was exactly as he thought: without that little palace and its grounds, the state of Sialpore would be bounded exactly by the river. Take away the so-called River Palace with the broad acres surrounding it, and the river would no longer run through the state of Sialpore. That would be the end, then, of the safety of the secret. There was food for reflection there.
What if the famous treasure of Sialpore were buried somewhere in the grounds of the River Palace! Somewhere, for instance, among those gigantic pipal trees.
He folded the map and returned it to Sita Ram.
“I’m expecting half a dozen officers presently. Show them in the minute they come. And — ah — you’d better lock that middle door.”
Sita Ram dutifully locked the door on Samson’s side, and drew the curtain over it. There was a small hole in the curtain, of peculiar shape — moths had been the verdict when Samson first noticed it, and Sita Ram had advised him to indent for some preventive of the pests; which Samson did, and the hole did not grow any greater afterward.
Samson had had to call a conference, much though he disliked doing it. The rules for procedure in the case of native states included the provision of an official known as resident, whose duty was to live near the native ruler — and keep a sharp eye on him. But Samson, prince of indiscretion, had seen fit three months before to let that official go home to England on long leave, and to volunteer the double duty in his absence. The proposal having economic value, and there being no known trouble in Sialpore just then, the State Department had consented.
The worst of that was that there was no one now in actual close touch with Gungadhura. The best of it was that there was none to share the knowledge of Samson’s underlying scheme — which was after all nothing but to win high laurels for himself, by somewhat devious ways, perhaps, but justified in his opinion in the circumstances. And the very worst of it was that good form and official precedent obliged him to call a conference before recommending certain drastic action to his government. Having no official resident to consult, he had to go through the form of consulting somebody; and the more he called in, the less likelihood there was of any one man arrogating undue credit to himself.
They were ushered in presently by Sita Ram. Ross, the principal medical officer came first; it was a pity he ranked so high that he could not be overlooked, but there you were. Then came Sir Hookum Bannerjee, judge of the circuit court — likely to have a lot to say without much meaning in it, and certainly anxious to please. Next after him Sita Ram showed in Norwood, superintendent of police; one disliked calling in policemen, they were so interfering and tactless, but Norwood had his rights. Then came Topham, acting assistant to Samson, loaned from another state to replace young Wilkinson, home on sick leave, and full-back on the polo team — a quiet man as a rule, anxious to get back to his own district, and probably reasonably safe. Last came Lieutenant-Colonel Willoughby de Wing — small, brusk and florid — acting in command of the 88th Sikh Lancers, and preferring that to any other task this side of heaven or hell;— “Nothing to do with politics, my boy, — not built that way — don’t like ’em — never understood ’em anyhow. Soldiering’s my business.”
It was well understood it was to be a secret conference. The invitations had been marked “Secret.”
“Suppose I lock the door,” suggested Samson by way of additional reminder; and he did that, resuming his chair with an expression that permitted just the least suggestion of a serious situation to escape him. But he was smiling amiably, and his curled mustache did not disguise the corners of a wilful mouth.
“There is proof conclusive,” he began, “ — I’ve telegrams here that you may see in confidence, that Gungadhura has been trafficking with Northwest tribes. He has sent them money, and made them promises. There isn’t a shade of doubt of it. The evidence is black. The question is, what’s to be done?”
They passed the telegrams from hand to hand, Norwood looking rather supercilious. (The police could handle espionage of that sort so much better.) But it was the youngest man’s place to speak first.
“Depose him, I suppose, and put his young son in his place,” suggested
Topham. “There’s plenty of precedent.”
The doctor shook his head.
“I know Gungadhura. He’s a bad strain. It’s physiological. I’ve made a study of these things, and I’m as certain as that I sit here that any son of Gungadhura’s would eventually show the same traits as his sire. If you can get rid of Gungadhura, get rid of his whole connection by all means.”
“What should be done with the sons, then?” asked Sir Hookum Bannerjee, father of half a dozen budding lawyers.
“Oh, send ’em to school in England, I suppose,” said Samson. “There’s precedent for that too. But there’s another point. Mukhum Dass the money-lender has been foully murdered, struck down by a knife from behind by some one who relieved him of his money. Either a case of simply robbery, or else—”
“Or else what?” Colonel Willoughby de Wing screwed home his monocle.
“That’s as obvious as twice two. That rascal Mukhum Dass was bound to die violently sooner or later. He was notoriously the worst usurer and title-jumper on this side of India. He charged me once a total of eighty-five per cent. for a small loan — and legally, too; kept within the law! I know him!”
“On the other hand,” said Samson, “I’ve been informed that the cellar of the house at present occupied by those Americans on the hill — the gold-miner, you know — Blaine — was burgled last Sunday morning. Blaine himself complained to me. It seems that he had given Gungadhura leave to search the cellar, at Gungadhura’s request, for what purpose Blaine professes not to know. Blaine himself, you may remember, lunched and dined at the club last Sunday and gave three of us a rather costly lesson in his national game of poker. It took place while he was with us at the club. He has been able to discover, by cross-examining some witnesses — beggars, I believe, who haunt the house, — that Mukhum Dass got to the place ahead of Gungadhura, burgled the cellar, removed something of great value to Gungadhura, and went off with it. On the way home he was murdered.”
“The murder of Mukhum Dass was known very soon afterward, of course, to the police,” said Norwood. “But we can’t do anything across the river without orders. Why didn’t Mr. Blaine bring his complaint and evidence to me?”
“Because I asked him not to!” answered Samson. “We’re mixed up here in a political case.”
“Damn all politics!” growled Willoughby de Wing.
“If it can be proved that Gungadhura murdered Mukhum Dass, or caused him to be murdered, I should say arrest him, try the brute and hang him!” said Topham. “Confound these native princes that take law into their own hands!”
“I should say, let’s prove the case if we can,” said Samson, “and use that for an extra argument to force Gungadhura’s abdication. No need to hang him. If he’d killed a princess, or an Englishman, we’d be obliged to take extreme measures; but, as De Wing says, Mukhum Dass was an awful undesirable. If we hanged Gu
ngadhura, we’d almost have to put one of his five sons on the throne to succeed him. If be abdicates, we can please ourselves. I think I can persuade him to abdicate — if Norwood, for instance, knows of any way to gather secret evidence about that murder — secret, you understand me, Norwood. We need that for a sword of Damocles.”
“Who’s to succeed him in that case?” asked Ross, the P. M. O.
“I shall recommend Utirupa Singh,” said Samson, with his eyes alert.
Ross nodded.
“Utirupa is one of those men who make me think the Rajput race is not moribund.”
“A good clean sportsman!” said Topham. “Plays a red-hot game of polo, too!”
“Pays up his bets, moreover, like a gentleman!” said Colonel Willoughby de Wing.
“I feel sure,” said Sir Hookum Bannerjee, seeing be was expected to say something, “that Prince Utirupa Singh would be acceptable to the Rajputs themselves, who are long weary of Gungadhura’s way. But he is not married. It is a pity always that a reigning prince should be unmarried; there are so many opportunities in that case for intrigue, and for mistakes.”
“Gad!” exclaimed Willoughby de Wing, dropping his monocle. “What a chance to marry him to that young Princess Whatshername — you know the one I mean — the one that’s said to masquerade in men’s clothes and dance like the devil, and all that kind of thing. I know nothing of politics, but — what a chance!”
“God forbid!” laughed Samson. “That young woman is altogether too capable of trouble without a throne to play with! I suspect her, as it happens, of very definite and dangerous intentions along another line connected with the throne of Sialpore. But I know how to disappoint her and stop her game. I intend to recommend — for the second time, by the way — that she, also, should be sent to Europe for a proper education! But the point I’m driving at is this: are we agreed as to the proper course to take with Gungadhura?”
They nodded.
“Then, as I see it, there’s no desperate hurry. Norwood will need time to gather evidence; I’ll need specific facts, not hearsay, to ram down Gungadhura’s throat. I’ll send a wire to the high commissioner and another to Simla, embodying what we recommend, and — what do you say to sending for a battery or two?”
“Good!” said Willoughby de Wing. “A very good thought indeed! I know nothing of politics, except this; that there’s nothing like guns to overawe the native mind and convince him that the game’s up! Let’s see — who’d come with the guns? Coburn, wouldn’t he? Yes, Coburn. He’s my junior in the service. Yes, a very good notion indeed. Ask for two batteries by all means.”
“I’ll tell them not to hurry,” said Samson. “It’s hot weather. They can make it in easy stages.”
“By jove!” said Topham. “They’ll be here in time for the polo. Won’t they beef!”
“Talking of polo, who’s to captain the other side? Is it known yet?” asked
De Wing.
“Utirupa,” answered Topham. “There was never any doubt of that.
We’ve got Collins to captain us, and Latham and Cartwright, besides me.
We’ll give him the game of his life!”
“That settles quite an important point,” said Samson. “The polo tournament — after it, rather — is the time to talk to Utirupa. If we keep quiet until then — all of us, I mean — there’ll be no chance of the cat jumping before the State Department pulls the string. I feel sure, from inside information, that Headquarters would like nothing known about this coup d’etat until it’s consummated. Explanations afterward, and the fewer the better! Have a drink anybody?”
In the outer office beyond the curtain Sita Ram cautiously refitted the knot into its hole, and sat down to write hurriedly while details were fresh in mind. Ten minutes afterward, when the conference had broken up in small-talk, he asked permission to absent himself for an hour or two. He said he had a debt to pay across the river, to a man whose wife was ill.
One hour and a half later by Sita Ram’s wrist watch, Ismail, an Afridi gate-keeper at present apparently without a job, started off on a racing camel full-pelt for the border, with a letter in his pocket addressed to a merchant by way of ostensible business, and ten rupees for solace to the Desert Police. Tucked away in the ample folds of his turban was a letter to Yasmini, giving Sita Ram’s accurate account of what had happened at the secret conference.
Chapter Eighteen
Safe rules for defeating a rascal are three,
And the first of them all is appear to agree.
The second is boggle at points that don’t matter,
Hold out for expense and emolument fatter.
The third is put wish-to-seem-wise on the shelf
And keep your eventual plan to yourself.
Giving heed to the three with your voice and eyes level
You can turn the last trick by out-trumping the devil.
“Be discreet, Blaine — please be discreet!”
Meanwhile, Gungadhura was not inactive, nor without spies of his own, who told him more or less vaguely that trouble was cooking for him in the English camp. A letter he expected from the Mahsudi tribe had not reached him. It was the very letter he had hoped to show to Samson in proof of Mahsudi villainy and his own friendship; but he rather feared it had fallen into secret service hands, in which case he might have a hard time to clear himself.
Then there was the murder of Mukhum Dass. He had not been able to resist that opportunity, when Patali reported to him what Mukhum Dass had been seen to make away with. And now he had the secret of the treasure in his possession — implicit directions, and a map! He suspected they had been written by some old priest, or former rajah’s servant, in the hope of a chance for treachery, and hidden away by Jengal Singh with the same object. There were notes on the margins by Jengal Singh. The thing was obviously genuine. But the worst of it was Patali knew all about it now, and that cursed idiot Blaine had complained to Samson of burglary, after he learned that the cellar door was broken open by the money-lender. Why hadn’t he come to himself, he wondered, and been satisfied with a string of promises? That would have been the courteous thing to do. Instead of that, now Samson’s spies were nosing about, and only the gods knew what they might discover. The man who had done the murder was safely out of the way — probably in Delhi by that time, or on his way there; but that interfering ass Norwood might be awake for once, and if the murderer should happen to get caught, and should confess — as hired murderers do sometimes — it would need an awful lot of expert lying and money, too, to clear himself.
With funds — ample extravagant supplies of ready cash, he felt he could even negotiate the awkward circumstance that he himself was deeply in debt to Mukhum Dass at the time of the murder. Money and brains combined can accomplish practically anything. Delhi and Bombay and Calcutta were full of clever lawyers. The point was, he must hurry. And he did not dare trust any one with knowledge of his secret, except Patali, who had wormed out some and guessed the rest, because of the obvious risk of Samson getting wind of it through spies and so forestalling him. He felt he had Samson’s character estimated nicely.
Arguing with himself — distracted between fear on one hand, and Patali’s importunity on the other, he reached the conclusion that Dick Blaine was his only safe reliance. The American seemed to have an obsession for written contracts, and for enforcing the last letter of them. Well and good, he would make another contract with Dick Blaine, and told Patali so, she agreeing that the American was the safest tool to use. She saw herself already with her arms up to the shoulders in the treasure of Sialpore.
“The American has few friends,” she said. “He smokes a pipe, and thinks, and now that they say his wife has gone away there is less chance than ever of his talking.”
“He will need to be paid,” said Gungadhura.
“There will be plenty to pay him with!” she answered, her eyes gleaming.
So Gungadhura, with his face still heavily bandaged, drove in a lumbering closed
carriage up the rough track to the tunnel Dick had blasted in the hill-side. The carriage could not go close to the tunnel-mouth, because the track was only wide enough just there for the dump-carts to come and go. So he got out and walked into the tunnel unattended. Dick was used to seeing him about the works in any case and never objected to explaining things, several times over on occasion.
He found Dick superintending the careful erection of a wall of rock and cement, and he thought for an instant that the American looked annoyed to see him there. But Dick assumed his poker expression the moment afterward, and you couldn’t have guessed whether he was glad or sorry.
“You block the tunnel?” the maharajah asked.
“The vein’s disappeared,” said Dick. “The rock’s all faulty here this and that way. I’m shoring up the end to keep the roof from falling down on us, and next I’m going to turn sharp at right angles and try to find the end of the vein where it broke off.”
“You are too near the fort in any case,” said the maharajah. “No use driving under the fort.”
“What do you propose I should do?” Dick answered a trifle testily.
“Dig elsewhere.”
“What, and scrap this outlay?”
“Yes. I have a reason. A particular — eh — reason.”
Dick nodded, poker face set solid.
The maharajah paused. His advantage was that his face was all smothered in the bandages, and the dim light in the tunnel was another good ally. His back, too, was toward the entrance, so that the American’s chance of reading between the words was remarkably slight. Dick’s back was against the uncompleted masonry.
“Could I — eh — count on you for — eh — very absolute silence?”
“I talk like that parrot in the story,” Dick answered.
“You — eh — know a little now of Sialpore, Mr. Blaine. You — eh — understand how easily — eh — rumors get about. A little — eh — foundation and — eh — up-side-down pyramids of fancy — eh? You comprehend me?”