by Talbot Mundy
“What is he? Crazy for power?”
“He has power! He is mischievous. Go after Bhopal Gosh but take care for yourself; for he is more dangerous than all the other dangerous men you have ever met, all put together!”
CHAPTER VII. “Murdered at seven fifteen.”
I LEFT Pananda’s house with mixed feelings, but on the whole felt inclined to trust his information. The difficulty to my mind was to believe that here in the United States one man — and he a foreigner — could have the gall to plan the world-wide outrage that was apparently intended.
Nevertheless, by the time I reached New York next morning I was inclined to believe, in spite of what I have seen in various quarters of the world in the way of lightning-like adoption of a new idea by widely scattered colored races, that the whole thing was a mare’s nest; that the gold plate incident was a simple case of theft; that the P.O.P. was a harmless organization that might keep out of mischief otherwise possibly turbulent individuals; and that Mrs. Aintree was a simply ambitious crank, who would melt presently in the heat of her own hot air.
But Meldrum Strange, who was waiting for me in the office, stolidly chewing one of his dark cigars, threw another light on things. He showed me the collected and typed-out reports of our men in the field. They were from all over the United States, and described secret meetings of the P.O.P., followed by local strikes, violence, and trouble on a small scale generally. There had been a particularly bad local outbreak at Appleton, West Virginia.
“And this is the latest,” he said, passing me a longhand report from one of our New York men. “It was too late to get into the morning papers.”
He looked delighted. He was in his element, sitting there in the middle of the net like a strong, good-natured spider, feeling the threads of events vibrate to his touch. Along with his deliberate altruism there is a schoolboy passion for intrigue. It was rapidly coming to the point where a murder to him produced the same sort of effect that news of a necessary operation does on a young surgeon. He was almost audibly chuckling. And murder it was, according to our man’s account.
Mameluke Gulad was murdered at 7.15 this morning in his room at Riley’s Hotel on Ninth Avenue by an unknown colored man, who entered through the fire-escape. Nothing in the bedroom was disturbed, but Gulad’s jaw was nearly wrenched off by the assailant, who gagged him and then stabbed with a broad-bladed knife. No knife was found, but the wound under the ribs on the left side is several inches long. Death must have been nearly instantaneous. The police have charge of the body.
“Our man phoned in at 8.30,” said Strange. “I happened to be down here early, and the first thing I did was to phone to Mrs. Aintree and tell her all about it. She’ll be round here before long, unless I’m much mistaken.”
I began to tell him about Pananda and Bhopal Gosh, but his surmise was accurate enough. Mrs. Aintree sent her card in before I was half-through, and the two of us received her in Strange’s private office.
She was dressed up to kill, in a lavender creation, with a hat that would have looked too youthful on a maiden of seventeen, and breezed into the office with that sort of unsolicited familiarity that annoys you by its insincerity. She marched on Strange with her hand held out:
“Are you Mr. Ross? Mr. Ramsden I know already, and I met Mr. Grim in Palestine.”
“My name is Strange,” he answered, bowing slightly.
“Strange? Are you the gentleman who telephoned to say that Gulad has been killed? Pardon me, but how like the pictures of General Grant you look!”
“Be seated, madam, and tell me what you want,” he answered.
“Are you connected with the police in any way?” she asked, trying to ignore his brusqueness.
“No, ma’am.”
“What is this firm? There is no description on the door or in the telephone book.”
“We do an international business.”
“How did you learn about Gulad’s death?” she asked.
“One of our men was passing the place, and saw the assassin escape.”
“Well?” she said. “You know something about Gulad or you wouldn’t have telephoned to me at once.”
“Gulad stole thirty-one ancient gold plates from an Egyptian temple, and brought them to this country with your connivance,” Strange answered. “Where are the gold plates, Mrs. Aintree?”
She hesitated, and Strange took a long shot — took it deliberately, as if he were firing at a mark.
“You may stand accused of having that man murdered for the possession of those gold plates,” he said. “This firm has been commissioned to recover those plates for their lawful owners. If you know where they are you’d better say so.”
“I don’t know where they are,” she answered. “The pity of it is, I don’t know.”
She wrung her hands and seemed inclined to cry.
“Gulad would trust nobody with them. He lived in that little back bedroom in Riley’s. Hotel — a very third-rate place with all kinds of undesirable characters frequenting it constantly, and we begged him to be careful with them and not leave them in his room.”
“Who besides yourself was sufficiently interested to caution him?” Strange interrupted.
She hesitated palpably; again. It was my turn to take a long shot.
“Was his name Bhopal Gosh?” I asked.
“How did you know?” she demanded.
“Continue, ma’am,” said Strange. “What happened to the plates?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. If I knew where to lay my hands on them I would dispute their ownership with anyone! I’ve consulted a lawyer. We were quite within our legal rights in keeping them; but now I don’t know what to do. You’ve no notion how much depends on the possession of those plates! Who has commissioned you? Why don’t you take the commission from me instead? I’ll pay you anything in reason to get them back. If you find them and hand them over to anybody else you’ll be robbing me — us.”
“What do you think Gulad did with them?” asked Strange.
“There was nothing in his bedroom when the corpse was found. The man who escaped was carrying no package. You must have some idea. What might Gulad have done with them? Did he rent a strong-box?”
“I don’t know. He had a little money, and opened a bank account at the up-town branch of the Cotton and Woollen National Bank. I went there on my way here, and they wouldn’t tell me anything.”
I signaled Strange and walked out, leaving the two of them talking. A taxi took me to the Cotton and Woollen National, in less than five minutes, and I was admitted at once into the manager’s office.
“Does a man named Gulad rent a strong-box here?” I asked. “He has been murdered. You’d better seal the box up.”
He took me down into the strong-room, and showed me an entry in the day-book. The box had been opened and its contents removed that morning, exactly three minutes after nine o’clock. A colored man, apparently a negro and giving his name as Simon Borrow, had arrived with a letter signed by Gulad authorizing him to open the strong-box. As a photograph of Simon Borrow together with his signature was attached to the letter the bank had had no alternative. Borrow had gone away five minutes later in the same taxi that brought him, leaving the strong-box empty. The bank detective had fortunately noted down the taxi’s number, and of course the bank had kept the letter and photograph.
I studied the picture of Simon Borrow carefully, and was far from being convinced of his negro origin. He looked more like a native of Bengal. it was the picture of a heavy man in the prime of life, with massive shoulders, an enormously thick neck, and a big, round head, broad forehead, heavy jaw, a rather pug nose, and a smile of supreme self-satisfaction. His eyes were large, heavylidded, and cunning, and there was a scar underneath the right one. The individual features were strong and not ill-proportioned. Taken together they depicted an immeasurable guile, contempt of other people’s intelligence, and ruthlessness.
The strong-room clerk told me that the man’s physical
strength was prodigious. He had put the contents of the strongbox into a leather valise, and had carried it out with one hand with less apparent effort than most men would seem to exert if the bag were empty, although the weight had made the bottom of the valise sag out of shape.
“I’d hate to be the cop who has to tackle him,” said the clerk, as he affixed the bank’s seal to the empty strong-box.
* * * * *
THE next step was to track down the taxi in which Simon Borrow had driven away, and that presented no difficulties. But before assigning a man to that job I telephoned police headquarters. They promised us “facilities” whatever those are, and my friend Casey looked in, in the course of the morning to “learn how to be a daytective” as he expressed it. He grew ribald when I showed him our condensed reports from all over the U.S.A.
“Me boy, d’ye think the State Department hasn’t ten times that much dope? I could go to Washington and lay me hands on ev’ry word ye have there, only much better systematized. But suppose ye let me have a copy o’ that, just for riference.”
He was waiting for the copy to be typed when Brice and Allison came in, each flourishing a different news paper giving Central News accounts of Gulad’s death. Allison looked heartbroken, and Brice hardly any better. Both had made their minds up that the gold plates were lost forever, and Allison was in favor of returning at once to England.
“We’re discr-r-edited, disgr-r-aced, and ruined men. We found the most impor-r-tant records in the whole world, and let them be stolen from us. For pity’s sake let’s have the decency to retir-r-e into well-merited obl-ee-vion.”
“Rot!” I answered. “We’ve a better chance than ever. You have the most important plate.”
“Aye, ye’ve said the word! The key to all the others — as useless as a barren cow without the others — as useless as the lost ones are wi’out our key! Man, man; if I only knew that the thief were a scholar o’ par-r-ts, I’d r-rather he’d stolen the key too than know that such invaluable witnesses o’ history were rendered dumb by separ-r-ation!”
Where do ideas come from? I suppose if you could tell me that you could answer all the riddles of the universe. I was satisfied that
“Simon Borrow” and Bhopal Gosh were one and the same person.
And now Allison, bemoaning his disaster, provided an idea that was like a beacon on a dark night.
“We’ve hardly started our investigation yet,” I said. “If I assure you that I’ve confidence in being able to recover those plates, will you stay and lend a hand?”
“Yes!” said Brice instantly. “Certainly, yes.”
“Man, ye’re daft!” said Allison with withering scorn. “Ye’d heap a ruinous expense on what is much too bad already! We’ll gang hame to obl-ee-vion.”
“I happen to be the senior member of this commission,” Brice retorted quietly. “We’ll stay.”
Allison, yielded without another word. Brice understood him pretty thoroughly, for the two had worked together in desert places, and there is no better way to get a true line on your partner. Having made his protest as a matter of principle, Allison was only too glad to concede the point. I then propounded mine.
“The man who has taken those plates,” I said, “will be as quick as anyone to recognize the value of the key to them. He has committed a murder. He’ll have to stay in hiding as long as the police hue and cry lasts. He won’t dare try to go aboard ship, for that’s the surest way of getting caught. He’s a cunning devil. The only way to catch him is to let him know that the one key-plate that completes the set and makes translation of the whole lot possible is in the United States. He’ll try to get hold of it. In that way we’ll get hold of him.”
“Ye mean we’ll use the one we have to bait a mouse-trap with?” asked Allison.
“Something like that.”
“What’s your plan then?” Brice demanded.
“The murder was committed, and those plates were stolen,” I said, “by a man named Bhopal Gosh, a Bengali who has all along in secret been the guiding hand behind this P.O.P. He is likely to have half-a-dozen different alibis. He’s a thoughtful rascal, who leaves nothing to chance but takes swift advantage of other people’s carelessness. We’ve got to appear to be careless. We’ve got to parade that plate around the country in such a manner that he’ll get to hear of it; and the best way we can do that, I believe, is to do it in connection with the P.O.P.”
“Ye’d have a lot of black men juggling with it?” Allison demanded, shocked.
“I’d have a lot of black men discussing it,” I answered. “I propose that we join the P.O.P.”
“Ye mean ye’d take part in their heathenish abominations? Ye’d have us show our plate and let those black men wor-r-ship it? I’ll lend idolatry no countenance on any ter-r-ms at all,” snapped Allison. “The P.O.P. is a weekid schism!”
“I’ll join anything, if we can get those plates back,” Brice said quietly.
“Ye’ll join? Then bang goes my last atom o’ respect for ye!” exclaimed Allison. “Ye’ll join? Oh, verra well. I recognize the adamantine nature o’ y’r willfulness. I’ll have to join along wi’ ye, but Lord, who’d ha’ thought we’d come to this!”
That being settled, I went into the next office to talk the proposal over with Strange. He already had particulars about the taxi; the driver reported having driven a “full-sized colored man,” from the Cotton and Woollen National Bank as far as the Washington Square Arch, where his fare got out and mounted an uptown omnibus. That occurring to him as peculiar, he had followed the omnibus back for several blocks out of idle curiosity, and recalled its number. But that got us nowhere. A passenger with a valise can disappear from the top of an omnibus at any point he pleased along Fifth Avenue without exciting comment. Later, when I questioned the conductor he didn’t as much as remember having carried him.
CHAPTER VIII. “He likes notes of rather large denominations.”
EVENTS began to follow now in swift succession. The first was a conference at police headquarters, by police request, in the course of which Strange and I told the whole story as far as we knew its details. The police had grilled Mrs. Aintree thoroughly, but got small change out of her. Since seeing Strange and me in the office she had executed a complete volte face — denied knowing much about Gulad, beyond that he returned with her party from Palestine — denied ever having seen any gold plates, although she admitted knowing that Gulad had imported “something of the sort” — had no knowledge of any one who would be likely to murder Gulad for the sake of the gold plates, but had her suspicions of a certain Mr. Brice, who Gulad had said was capable of anything and who, for all she knew, might be in New York — and was, generally speaking, indignant as well as carefully vague.
She gave the police permission to search her apartment, which they promptly did, but found nothing incriminating. The police knew nothing about Bhopal Gosh until I mentioned his name; and then knew no more of him than I did. However, within five minutes after that we had settled on a plan of action. I went straight to Mrs. Aintree’s apartment, where, in addition to one of our men in the uniform of a hall-porter, there was a pretty obvious plain-clothes policeman on duty in the vestibule.
She sent out word that she was indisposed, but I answered that she could choose between interviewing me or the police, and she decided to see me alone in the room with the mirrors. She was black-angry. The creases in her forehead resembled a devil’s finger-marks, and her wonderful blue eyes were alight with what I analyzed as treachery. If ever a man or woman stood ready to throw over a whole cause to save herself, that one was she — or so I read the situation.
“Have you seen the police?” I asked her.
“They have seen me. I was never more insulted in my life,” she answered.
“They tell me that you deny ever having seen those gold plates,” I answered.
“Can you prove that I have seen them?” she retorted. “Can you prove that they exist?”
“You’re going to
prove that!” I answered. “When did you last see Bhopal Gosh?”
She turned white on the instant and bit her lip.
“Who told you about Bhopal Gosh?” she answered.
“Mrs. Aintree,” I said. “The police don’t know — yet — that Bhopal Gosh murdered Gulad to obtain those gold plates. But I know it, and so do you. The police theory is that you were jealous of Gulad and instigated someone else to murder him. You’ve got one way out.”
“What is it?” she demanded.
“Help bring Bhopal Gosh to book!”
She caught her breath.
“I wouldn’t dare!” she answered in a hoarse voice. “I wouldn’t dare!”
“You’ve got to dare!” I retorted. “My firm is willing to protect you. We regard you as the mere tool of Bhopal Gosh. But you’ve got to be frank and tell us all you know about him.”
“He is the real organizer of the P.O.P.,” she said, speaking almost like a woman in a dream. “He is the power behind the throne. He promised me the throne, but he was always to be the power behind it.”
“I know all that,” I answered, and she looked startled. There is nothing under heaven so effective as telling your informant that you know what has just been told you. They jump to the inaccurate conclusion that you knew it before they spoke.
“I d-d-daren’t turn on him!” she stammered. “If he murdered Gulad, what is to stop him from murdering me?”
“I have promised you protection.”
“You don’t know him! He is stronger than two men, and more cunning than ten! More than cunning; he is inspired.”
“By the devil?”
“Probably. To hear him talk you would believe him the greatest of philosophers. Mr. Ramsden, let that man alone! Don’t drag me into this! I swear to you I had nothing whatever to do with Gulad’s murder. I didn’t know he had been murdered — hadn’t a suspicion, until Mr. Strange telephoned this morning. This business has ruined me. I shall have to abandon my connection with the P.O.P.—”