by Talbot Mundy
Mrs. Aintree seized opportunity to mail a letter. She said it was to her friend in Springfield, but she wore her dark look as she spoke, and I knew she was lying. The postmistress wouldn’t give me any information, so I wrote a short letter myself to Meldrum Strange and registered it. While the postmistress copied the address into her book I got a look at the previous entry, and — as I expected — it bore the name of Antonio Vittori, Lakelock, California. That was perfectly satisfactory. However quickly we might get away from Appleton, it was a certainty that mail would reach the border of California ahead of us, for our car would be hitched on to local trains and dandled to a dead march across the continent.
The more time Antonio Vittori Bhopal Gosh should have to mature his plans, the more likely he would be to fall into our trap. Mrs. Aintree had served the purpose so far perfectly. It would be time for her to send another telegram a day or so before our premature arrival on the scene. So I didn’t tell her anything about our change of schedule until after we left Appleton next morning, and Sam received private instructions in the meantime. When she did give him a telegram he kept it in his pocket until I gave the word to send it off.
The P.O.P. was a platform for her self-esteem and no more. She cared nothing for the disappointment of her dupes. Only her own predicament disturbed her seriously, and she believed that her only port in the storm was partnership with Bhopal Gosh, the man who had supplied the brains from the beginning. She realized as well as I did that the one gold plate we had with us would be an irresistible temptation to the man who had the other thirty-one.
Bhopal Gosh probably knew Sanskrit. If so, he could appreciate and probably had told her that the stolen thirty-one plates were unintelligible without the thirty-second, the key plate. He probably told her in imaginative oriental phrases how stupendously important the complete set would be; and as a matter of plain fact he could hardly have exaggerated. The original law of Moses, engraved on gold, could be used to produce a more effective world upheaval than any scrap of paper signed at Versailles. Consider what the Mormons did, and are doing. What Mohammed did. And there are others.
Mrs. Aintree had faith in Bhopal Gosh and his adroit intellect. She trusted him to contrive some means of stealing it. Her one remaining chance of wielding the world-wide influence she craved was to help Bhopal Gosh and then, if necessary, blackmail him. Otherwise her folly in consenting to make the journey with us in that car would be inexplicable.
Money did not appeal to her much except as a means to a definite end. The end that she never lost sight of, was self-importance. She yearned to be looked up to — admired — reverenced. She was willing to go through anything, to compromise to any extent, to condone any wickedness with specious argument, provided only that her own sense of importance should be bolstered in the end. And Bhopal Gosh, who knew that side of human nature, being built of just such stuff himself, understood, and laughed at her, as the sequel proved.
Of course, this is ex-post-facto analysis. It is extremely easy to deceive yourself when looking backward and imagine you were wise about it all from the beginning. The truth is that I had some uncommonly discouraged moments and, for instance, while we were waiting for our evening entertainment I went and interviewed the chief of the Appleton police. I took him quite a long way into confidence.
* * * * *
IT was a hectic evening from the start, for Darktown turned out and filled the hall long before we got there. According to the chief of police there had been nearly a score of free-lance agitators in the town during the past few weeks, every one of whom had left a standing grouch behind him.
So they were ready to be preached to. They wanted to be told that heaven lay just beyond the hill and could be reached by revolution. We had our own men scattered about the hall before it filled, and one or two of them made alleged impromptu speeches before the opening ceremony, with the idea of keeping good humor as near the surface as possible; for it was a risky game we were going to play — the sort of game that follows better on a joke or two than on solemnity.
Our fellows had the ritual down fine, and had even improved on it. It had mostly been designed by Mrs. Aintree with a view to the superstitious appeal, and in order to lend solemnity to her ridiculous pretensions. For instance, after a dreamy hymn, there was a solemn parade around the hall in Indian file, each man doing the lock-step with his hands on the shoulders of him in front; that was supposed to represent the wanderings of Israelites in the wilderness for forty years, and it might have gone right well on this occasion if our men hadn’t interjected sotto voce jokes reminiscent of the A.E.F. One laugh led to another, and they drowned out the piano finally by singing the old songs that some of them had howled in France.
So by the time Mrs. Aintree entered, pompous as a peacock with her staff around her, they were ready for pretty nearly anything except serious business. We had ten trumpeters, who represented the Israelitish heralds sounding the blast that blew down the walls of Jericho. Five trumpeters stood on each side of the door, as she entered surrounded by meek white minions and followed at a decent distance by Brice and Allison carrying the gold plate framed upright on a tea-tray. I came last and received an ovation, although I did not know why until Sam informed me afterwards that he had advertised me as the “champeen heavy-weight long-distance African golfer of the whole wide world.”
At the sound of the first blast they all got to their feet. There were five more blasts while Mrs. Aintree strode up the aisle magnificently, at each of which they were supposed to shout:
“Glory Hallelujah! The kingdom is at hand!”
By the seventh blast Mrs. Aintree had reached the platform and they all sat down, throwing one leg over the other to signify that the walls had fallen and that all they had to do now was to enjoy the feasting and the loot.
There was quite an obvious difference between members and their friends. Members knew which leg to throw over which, for instance — a very important point. They also knew the responses, and were all the more readily tickled into ribald laughter by the new ones interjected by our men.
Mrs. Aintree came to the front of the platform, and stood there holding up a hand for silence. But silence was a long time coming. Circumstances were against her. The tattered old crimson canvas drop-curtain had not been raised to the full distance, and she stood exactly underneath the daubed, recumbent undraped figure of a fat and silly-looking Bacchus, engaged in pouring a stream of yellow wine out of a blue cornucopia. He was leering down at her. It was only a matter of seconds, apparently, before the stream of wine would splash on her head. The audience refused to stop laughing until somebody went behind and raised the curtain to its full height. Then —
“What is the sacred number?” she demanded in ringing tones.
“Seven!” they answered.
“Come eleven!” shouted one of our men, and a roar of laughter greeted that, which she did her best to ignore.
“Oh you little lucky, lovely, rollin’ bones!” said someone with a bass voice like a bull’s, and that pretty nearly brought the house down. However, she continued —
“How many are the tenets of the P.O.P.?”
“Seven!” they answered.
“What are they?” she went on instantly, giving nobody a chance to interpose a joke.
The reply sounded like a Sunday-school class reciting the catechism in quick time:
“Brotherly love for all black races,
Brotherly blacks in ‘portant places,
Wilderness once crossed is over,
Tired ones have a right to clover,
Handsome is as handsome does,
Whatever is good is good for us,
Res egaliter omnibus!”
(Even dog-Latin, you see, to give it a properly scholarly flavor.)
“Ah’s agwine ride in dat omnibus!” someone shouted from the rear of the hall. “No moah flat-footin’ them ole deserts! Ah’s hit them ties too off en! Hee-hee! Ah’s agwine ride!”
“Getup!” ye
lled someone else.
“No, chillun, this heah’s a motor-bus. Ain’t agwine be no mewls this trip!”
“Honk-honk! Ting-a-ling! Pah-pah! Who ain’t paid his fare?” Mrs. Aintree tried to laugh it off good-naturedly, but her anger was rising. Her frown betrayed her, and the audience realized that perfectly. They set themselves deliberately to annoy her, and succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.
She tried to make a speech, but they interrupted with cornerman remarks. The more she tried to browbeat them with eloquence, the worse they got out of hand, egged on by our conspirators strategically posted to produce the most effect.
“My friends!” she began. “I have brought you a surprise from New York — or rather from beneath the sands of ancient Egypt.”
“Ah trembles wid antiquity! Oh, hold ma hand!”
“You were promised the privilege of feasting your eyes on the thirty-one plates—”
“Wi’ turkey on um, an’ sweets, an’ gra-avy — Oh you Tha-anksgivin’! Show me them eats!”
“ — but we have a greater privilege in store for you tonight. Instead of bringing the thirty-one plates that were promised, and which would have been a cumbersome and difficult thing to do—”
“Not ‘nuff room in dat ole omnibus! Plates no use anyhaow widout knives an’ forks! Yah-hah! Mebbe ‘Gyptians didn’t use no knives an’ forks. Fingers plenty good ‘nough for them ‘Gyptians!”
“ — we have brought you the most wonderful thing in the world — the veritable key plate — drafted by the hand of Moses himself — the original Moses — think of it! — and bearing a portrait of Moses done by an artist of his day, engraved on the original solid gold plate on which, in Sanskrit, an ancient tongue, are inscribed the key words by which, with proper understanding, the secret, mystic, marvelous writings on the other thirty-one may be interpreted!” She paused for breath, and they were really silent for the first time. That was quite a bomb to spring on any audience, and there was quite a number of them in the hall who had been sufficiently filled beforehand with a sense of the seriousness of what they called their Pisgah Vision to have won the rest over, had she known enough to keep their attention fixed on the treasure, instead of redirecting it toward herself. But she was so constituted that she couldn’t help herself, being quite capable of being jealous of an inanimate object if that should detract for half-a-minute from her own importance.
“Since I ceased to live among you,” she resumed, “being called elsewhere to higher duties—”
“Leaky ole roof needs mendin’ — wouldn’t spen’ ‘nuff dollars on de ole roof, that’s what!”
“Tenant, he’s gone too! He said, ‘ — ole house not fit for man to live in!’ He va-a-moose an’ pay no rent!”
“Some’s been dug all the taters out o’ tater patch. Yeah! No more taters!”
“Win’ows all bus’ in! House begins look like he’s ha’nted!”
“Rats in dat ole house bigger’n possums! O-o-oh!”
“ — I have always had a kindly feeling — more, a passion in my heart for Appleton—”
“Doggone ole slag-heap ain’t got no passion lef’. Kiss muh, honey Appleton, an’ say goo’bye! Ah’s gwine follow whar Lady Luck done up an’ went — she’s mah beau!”
“ — and therefore it is you, from out of all the hosts of lodges of the P.O.P., who are the first to set your eyes on this priceless heirloom of the centuries!”
“Oooh! Our eyes ache lookin’ at yuh, honey boy! Moses, yo’ sho’ resembles Lady Luck’s gen’lem’n frien’! Ooey! You is good to see!”
“Dawgonnit! Dat stuff’s yaller go-o-old! You-all done hear dat, niggahs?”
I patted my hip-pocket, which was bulging rather ostentatiously as I stood at the end of the line next to Brice and Allison, who were holding the tray between them. Allison nudged me and moved his lips as if I were responsible for the safety of his only child, and for a moment I feared he intended to snatch up the plate and decamp with it, which would have started a riot almost certainly. But in the pause that followed the last negro’s remark, Mrs. Aintree swept into her stride once more. She was full of courage of a kind, that woman, and not minded to be laughed out of countenance.
“But you seem to be in an impudent mood tonight,” she went on. “Some spirit of unrest has made you forget your manners. You seem inclined to overlook the fact that I have come all the way from New York at tremendous cost and inconvenience to show you what many other men — and white folks too! — would almost give their eyes to see! I find you in no mood of reverence. The years I spent among you, teaching, must have had effect, but tonight you forget yourselves! I bear no malice; but I see no humor in your stupid jests, and you certainly can’t expect me to stand here and talk to you unless my words fall on properly attentive ears.”
“We’s lis’nin’, honey! We’s de lis’nin’est folks what is!”
“Yah-hoo! Mah haid’s stuff’ up wiv lis’nin’, an’ I ain’t heard nuffin’ yet!”
“Silence! Order! Niggah, shut yo’ mouf!”
“And so I think it better for tonight that one of your own people should address you. Perhaps you’ll give him a more attentive hearing. Perhaps when you realize how deeply one of your own people is impressed by the sacredness and vast importance of this relic that you are being privileged to see — perhaps then you will listen to him more respectfully and try to show your appreciation of the unheard-of good fortune that is yours tonight.”
She stepped back a pace or two, and one of my men at the back of the stage produced a chair for her. Allison and Brice took chairs as well, but I didn’t care to sit down, for I knew what was coming, more or less, and the others didn’t — least of all Mrs. Aintree, who supposed I had provided a speaker capable of undoing the P.O.P. with faint praise. But my man stepped forward from the rear with a grin on his face that might have disillusioned her if she hadn’t been paying so much attention to the set of her skirts. He was a big, stout darky — a college graduate — who had spent most of his time trying to force his way on to the legitimate stage, earning his living meanwhile in small-town vaudeville, with occasional side-excursions as a member of a quartette and, now and then when times were bad, a spell of ballyhooing for a one-ring circus. He had a magnificent baritone voice, and was not only dressed in evening clothes, which suited his ambition finely, but was drawing the best pay he had ever come in contact with outside dreamland — Tom Tulliver by name, as decent and as clean-living a colored man as I want to have any dealings with, and an expert in the psychology of his own race, as well as a born actor.
“Folks!” he began, and if he had been a white man with burned cork on he could have held any audience after that first word. “I wuz agwine to call you jokes, but you-all ain’t funny enough for that. You ain’t got ‘nuff ‘nthusiasm to crank a car with. You ain’t aware o’ all your opportunities, what stands heah starin’ yo’ in the face, an’ you all gapin’ back at ’em wiv eyes as bright an’ lively as fried aigs stuck on yo’ faces!
“This heah’s an epoch, that’s what this is — an epoch up an’ beck’nin’ yo’. And an epoch is as diff’runt from a shepoch as di’monds is from the loser’s end of a game o’ crap. You’ve all met up wiv shepochs; there ain’t no use o’ my standin’ heah tellin’ you ‘at shepochs ain’t no good. Ah’d be a-wastin’ o’ youah time, an’ time’s the valuablest commodity what is, ‘speciaily in this heah flourishin’ an’ hustlin’ community. We’re dealin’ wiv a he poch, an’ that’s somethin’ else again, as the Jew said when he saw the fire department comin’.
“I ain’t agwine to waste youah time. I ain’t agwine to waste nothin’. Ah’s jes’ agwine tell yo’ all — ah’s jes’ agwine point out to yo’ a half-a-dozen o’ the leadin’ circumstances what this heah pictchah as yo’ all see dazzlin’ yo’ optics means. An’ then ef yo’ ain’t the gratefullest niggahs what is, ah’s agwine be the mos’ mistakenest one.
“This heah’s Moses. You all done heard o’ Moses. He led
the chillun o’ Isr’el into a lan’ ‘at wuz flowin’ wiv milk an’ honey, after he’d showed ’em how to plunder the ‘Gyptians. An’ the ‘Gyptian police what chased ’em to recover the di’mond brooches an’ the watch-chains an’ the stick-pins as they’d ‘dopted ‘fore they made their getaway was flummoxed by de good Lo’d an’ drowned. Plum daid, ev’ry one of ’em, an’ the chillun of Isr’el ‘scaped.
“They wuz ‘Gyptians, those police was. Mebbe the p’lice in this heah lan’ o’ bondage is all ‘Gyptians too. I ain’t looked ’em over ‘nuff so’s to be able to give yo’ stric’ information on that point. You’ll jes’ hev’ to make use o’ your discriminations an’ discover that point for yo’selves. But that ain’t the point izzac’ly as I wuz drivin’ at.
“I’m agwine discuss wiv you tonight about Moses. He killed a ‘Gyptian p’liceman — did it easy, ‘cause the p’lice in those days didn’t have no shootin’ irons, an’ Moses was that indignunt, what wiv the cop’s fresh line o’ talk an’ one thing and another, that he smit him good an’ hard. He nonplused that ‘Gyptian, lef’ his carcase lyin’ there, an’ beat it. The ‘Gyptians sicked their bloodhounds after him, but the dogs in those days hadn’t no more nose than jackrabbits, an’ Moses giv’ em the ha-ha, tendin’ sheep so’s to have somethin’ in the envelope when pay-day come aroun’.
“He tended sheep for forty years out on a ranch somewheres, till the statute o’ limitations run out an’ his pictchah in the rogue’s gallery wuz all faded — an’ him so changed, what with the mean livin’ on the ranch, and him growin’ a beard, an’ gettin’ older, an’ gettin’ a new suit o’ clo’es — til them ‘Gyptians couldn’t recognize him no more. Then he come back, ‘cause the ranchin’ weren’t the fondest thing that he wuz of by no means. He was plum fed up with it. But he knew more’n he once did. There wasn’t nothing you could tell him ‘bout sheep.