Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Are your books in this house?” Grim asked, suddenly alarmed at a random notion.

  But Cyprian chose to be amused at that, shaking his head sidewise with the palsied humor of old age.

  “Do you think I am in my dotage?”

  Grim had no time to reply. There came a long peal on the bronze bell, that clanged on its coiled spring as if the temples of all Thibet were in alarm. Grim went to the front door, opened suddenly, and stood back.

  Three men entered, all in yellow smocks. They came in swiftly, almost on the run — stopped suddenly — and hesitated. They were surprised to see Grim.

  “I am the padre sahib’s new servant,” he said in the dialect, smiling.

  Then he turned the key and threw it out through the little round peep-hole that exists somewhere or other in most Indian front-doors.

  “Father Cyprian is in there,” he said, with a jerk of his head in the direction of the sitting-room.

  They eyed Grim curiously, saying nothing. Bigger, stronger than Grim as far as appearance went, they wore the impudent expression of men who have been taught from infancy that they are better than the crowd, of other clay — bold, yet with a sort of sly air underlying impudence, and an abominably well-fed look, although they wore the simple smock of the ascetic. Finally they all three smiled at Grim, and one of them motioned him to lead the way into the sitting-room. The man next to him who motioned had a long silk handkerchief in one hand, and on his forehead the crimson signet of the goddess Kali. Grim stepped back instead of forward — ducked — stepped back again — and stood in the pantry entrance with blood chilled and the gooseflesh rising.

  “My hour is not yet!” he assured them.

  Except for Grim’s activity there had hardly been a motion visible, and yet — the handkerchief was in the other hand. The executioner had missed. And if there had been a score of witnesses they would likely all have sworn there had been no attempt made, for the pride of the Thug* is in his swiftness. None sees the strangling when it happens, it is so quick.

  All three men smiled with the coppery, cast expression of determination that can bide its time. Grim motioned them again toward the sitting-room, and they went in one by one, the man with the handkerchief first, and the last man turning on the threshold to assure himself that Grim was not bent on reprisal. But no effort was made to exclude him. The door was left open until he walked in after them and closed it — having his own reasons.

  Cyprian was very near collapse. The apparition of the three in orange-yellow came like an almost mechanical dénouement, to which Manoel’s misconduct had been overture — warning perhaps. His old hands clutched and clutched again the carved ends of the chair-arms. But he said nothing. He was fighting for self-mastery. His lips were moving, probably in prayer; and repeatedly his eyes sought Grim’s, although Grim refused him any answering signal. Grim knew he held the winning hand, and he who knows that is a fool if he fails to play it carefully.

  His cue was to make believe he had no weapon — to postpone violence — to unmask purposes — to ascertain facts — before admitting the possession of a forty-five. Even when the orange-yellow exquisite tried thuggery he had not so much as made a gesture to reach his weapon, and the three were fairly satisfied that he was unarmed. They sat down in a row on the long strip of yak-hair rug that covered half the floor, facing the shuttered window, at an angle of forty-five to Cyprian.

  Grim went and sat in the corner facing Cyprian, whence he could watch them at an angle athwart the flowing lines of light. They were nearer to the door than he was, but had no forty-fives, which made a difference. They produced what they did have — two old-fashioned muzzle-loading pistols between three of them — cocked, and fitted with percussion caps. Grim looked afraid, and Cyprian was afraid.

  “You want what?” Cyprian demanded, speaking English for no other reason than that those words trembled out first.

  “Books!” replied the middle of the three men, using the same language with a readiness and absence of foreign accent, that astonished because of his bronzeness and the orange-yellow smock. There was no reason why he should not know English, except that he looked like one of those who pride themselves on their refusal to learn it.

  “What books?” asked Cyprian feebly.

  But only his voice failed. There was no suggestion in his eye that he dreamed of yielding. Rather, he was recovering self-command as the effect of shock receded.

  “All the books you have, including that one,” the same man answered, pointing at the volume Grim had saved from Manoel’s clutches.

  Cyprian took his own time about answering that, moving his lips and jaws as if first he had to masticate the words and glancing down at Grim repeatedly to see whether Grim had any signals for him.

  But Grim sat still, the way a chela sits by the feet of his guru , unpresuming, waiting for the wisdom to come dropping word by word from the privileged lips of age. When the time should come for Grim to give a signal he was minded to make it abrupt and unmistakable.

  “Who are you men?” demanded Cyprian at last; and the three in yellow looked amused. Either they disbelieved that he did not know, or they thought it amusing he should dare to ask; it was not clear which.

  “We are they who demand the books,” answered he with the handkerchief, and his companions nodded.

  “And if the books are not here?” Cyprian asked.

  “We will take that one, and you with it! Later you will show us where the others are.”

  Grim heard the noise he was waiting for, but did not move, for the sound was vague as if, on the sidewalk, thought was producing words, not action yet. He hoped the bell would not ring — hoped the key dropped through the hole would be interpreted — hoped Cyprian would not have apoplexy at his next remark. For it was time and he was ready.

  “Holy one,” he said in the dialect, playing the part of the chela still, “would it not be wiser if I tell them where a few books are?”

  He allowed his eyes to wander furtively in the direction of the far wall, where the room was in shadow.

  “And I win!” he exclaimed in English suddenly.

  They had turned their heads to follow the direction of his glance. They looked back along the barrel of a forty-five. And of all things in the world that are difficult, the hardest is to tell which of three of you sitting side-by-side will be first in the path of a bullet.

  “They are hollow-nosed bullets,” Grin assured them. “Put your hands up, please!”

  They held their hands up, palms to the front, suggesting Siva’s image.

  “We are not afraid,” said the man in the middle. “We are watched for. Others come.”

  “Yes, others come,” said Grim, aware of noises penetrating through the thick door and thicker walls.

  “Bet you they’re in here! What’ll you bet?” demanded Jeremy’s voice as the door flew open and the whole crowd poured in, Jeremy leading — all the crowd, that is, who had been in the room before and two besides.

  Ali of Sikunderam came last, volcanically angry, muttering Islamic blasphemy into his ruffled beard that either he had tugged at or some other man had pulled.

  Narayan Singh went straight for the two pistols and kicked them away from their owners. One went off. A lead ball as large as a pigeon’s egg was flattened on the stone wall close to Cyprian and the smell of cheap black powder filled the room. Using that as an excuse the three in orange-yellow put the ends of their turbans across their mouths and nostrils, moistening them thoroughly with spittle.

  “Being very holy men no doubt, oh yes!” remarked Chullunder Ghose, picking up both pistols as his own perquisite. “Spirits of the cess-pool! Who invoked them? That is the worst-smelling powder! Are infernal regions advertised by Christian missionary actual? My aunt! Shall I open window, holy one?”

  But Cyprian was losing consciousness. King went at a bound for the door and was in time to stop the three strange visitors with three blows. (India, who knew almost all human knowledge long before
the West was born, has yet to learn to use her fists.) He bade Ali and his sons hold them, and returned to discover what the source of the reeking smoke was. He suspected a grenade with some new sort of fuse. But there was only the assassin’s long silk handkerchief, dropped on the carpet as if by accident. He kicked it and nothing happened, though the smoke did not cease.

  Meanwhile, Grim was holding Cyprian’s head while Ramsden lifted him and Jeremy forced a window. Between them they got the old man’s head into the fresh air. He showed signs of recovery. But the three coughed so violently that they could hardly hold him up, and the open window seemed to make no difference inside the room; there was no telling where the smoke came from.

  Nor was it actually smoke; rather a thin mist, with a hint of pearliness and green in it. There was a faint suggestion of sweetness and a little ether. It was a compound undoubtedly, and there was lots of it, but neither King nor yet Chullunder Ghose exploring on hands and knees could find its source nor any container that might have held it.

  Outside the room, where the gas or whatever it was spread swiftly but not so densely into the hall, Ali and his sons were taking law into their own hands. There was a cellar door — a trap with big strap-hinges — and the weight of the door, with rust and friction added, was as much as two men striving mightily could move. That appealed, and the sons of Ali raised it. Down below was a stonewalled cellar twelve by twelve or so, empty of everything except some builders’ trash.

  Ali with his drawn knife drove the prisoners one at a time until they jumped down in there.

  “If they break their legs, may Allah mortify the stumps!” he requested piously.

  Meanwhile, tearing about the room, upsetting things and vowing there were devils loose, Narayan Singh lost equilibrium, fell over Chullunder Ghose, and collapsed with his head near the silken handkerchief. King seized him to drag him from the room, and noticed a burn where his face had touched the silk. Chullunder Ghose picked up the handkerchief and dropped it with a yell.

  Ramsden, Jeremy and Grim picked Cyprian up between them and ran for the door with him, meaning to make for the street. They met King dragging the Sikh, and for a second there was a tight jam, into which Chullunder Ghose came headlong.

  “Oh go! All go! Only go!” he shouted. “Now I know it! Manicheean magic![*] It is death! It is unquenchable!”

  Cyprian heard him.

  “Poison — from the ancient books!” he gasped. “Come away!”

  They had reeled through the door in front of the babu’s impact.

  “Where are those prisoners?” King shouted.

  Ali and his sons began to labor at the trap-door, but it had jammed in place and was difficult to start again. Chullunder Ghose, purple with effort and choking, sized the situation up and charged back into the sitting-room.

  He came back like a “soccer” forward, shouting and kicking the handkerchief along in front of him.

  “Out of my way! Out of house! Quick!”

  They fled before him — all but Ali and his sons. The men of Sikunderam considered dignity and flight before a babu, at his order, incompatible. They went on working at the trap, and raised it about six inches.

  “So! Good! Now down again!”

  The babu kicked the handkerchief through the opening and, as Sikunderam showed no symptoms of obedience, jumped on the trap, forcing it out of their fingers and down into its bed with a report like an explosion. There he squatted, looking like a big bronze temple image.

  “Now is good!” he said. “Keep open house until gas shall evanesce! Practitioners of Manicheean deviltry will now be hoist like engineers with own petard! Shakespearean homeopathic remedy! Verb very sap! Oh yes! Tell sahibs , no more danger now!”

  And saying that, Chullunder Ghose himself keeled over.

  CHAPTER VIII. “He is very dead!”

  IN one hot brick cell, closed by an iron door with a peep- hole in it, there were three of the sons of Sikunderam, one Hindu in orange-yellow with a crimson caste-mark on his forehead, who had refused his name, and Fernandez de Mendoza de Sousa Diomed Braganza, whose name and occupation were as well known as his temper was notorious and his predicament acute.

  None of the others seemed to worry much. The “sons” were aware that father Ali and his patrons knew their whereabouts, and it is Law in the North, whence they came, that the feudal claims are first. There would either be a rescue, or a use of influence, or possibly raw bribery this side of midnight. They were sure of that, whether rightly or wrongly.

  And he in orange-yellow, having had the trick turned back on him by Jeremy, was none the less apparently at ease. He wore the would-like-to-be- dangerous smile of the hanger-on of priests not subtle, rather threatening — the smile of a man who holds himself superior to others as rule number one of policy. There is nothing in the world more sure than that the priests and politicians always abandon their clients when convenient; nor anything more fixed than the assurance of the due-to-be- abandoned until the miserable fact confronts them.

  Diomed, on the other hand, was neither full of faith nor hope; and he never did pin much to charity. Having counted on forgiveness of his sins, he found that there was fortune still to reckon with; and he did not believe that fortune ever favored Goanese much. He supposed he must sin some more.

  “We are five in one predicament. Shall we compare notes?” he suggested.

  Being first man in that cell he felt almost in loco parentis , a guise that any innkeeper assumes without much difficulty. That son of Ali whom he had recognized in the street was not one of those detained, so he was unaware of facing men whose enmity he had already, and could not lose without suitable compensation, of which they, and they only, would be judges.

  The sons of Ali held their peace. Their knives had been taken from them. Talk is no equivalent for steel. Lacking the one, in the North’s opinion, it is unheroic and incontinent to substitute the other.

  “Wait!” says Sikunderam. “The hour of God’s appointing cometh! Wait, saying nothing!”

  But the man in orange-yellow, regarding Allah as a myth, served an even more destroying goddess, whose devotees are encouraged to seek opportunity, not wait. He spoke, and his voice was strangely reminiscent, so that Diomed stared open-mouthed at him.

  “Someone set fire to a hotel in the night,” he said.

  “Mine! My hotel!”

  “So there are three,” said he in orange-yellow: “he who knows the secret, they who wish the secret kept, and he or they who wish to know who did it.”

  “Do you know who did it?” demanded Diomed, thrusting his little black-bearded face forward so as to read the other’s expression better.

  But there was no expression, except that cast-copper smile betokening superiority. He in yellow was returning the compliment by watching Diomed, so neither of them saw the rapt attention displayed on the faces of Ali’s sons. But the men of the North, who are fools, as all India knows, were born with their ears to the whimpering wind. They are easy to deceive, but as to voices and the memory of voices never. Six eyes from Sikunderam, more used to lean, long distances, met in the cell gloom and three heads nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “They who wish the secret not known may bid first,” said the orange- yellow man. “Nothing for nothing and from nothing. The key that opens is the key that fits. My necessities are a lock that holds me. Has anyone the key?” He stared into the eyes of Sikunderam, impudently, challenging. In the dark of the cell they looked like three young startled animals.

  “Whoever would take on himself the theft of that policeman’s watch would have my friendship,” said he in orange-yellow.

  “You know!” exclaimed Diomed. “You know who burned my hotel!”

  “I know!” he confessed, with another of his bronze smiles, glancing surreptitiously, at Ali’s sons.

  His need was to make them understand him. Diomed might shout to heaven that he had stolen the watch, and the world would only vote him mad; but if one of those Hillmen should confe
ss, and the other two should confirm it, what court could help believe?

  “I will say who set fire to the hotel unless—”

  “It was they! It was they! They did it!” Diomed interrupted. “Now I know them! They are the devils who fought on the roof! They are the sons of evil mothers who—”

  He was silenced by a slap across the mouth, backhanded, that made his lips bleed and cut the knuckles of the smiter. But not one word was said to him. Nor did he who had struck the blow speak at all, for economy is the essence of good teamwork.

  It was the second of three self-styled brothers who pointed a lean fore-finger; and the third who gave tongue to what all three had in mind.

  “Aye! Thou knowest! And we know! We know the voice of him who cried ‘Bande Materam! ‘ That same voice — thy voice — cried ‘Fire!’ before the fire was set!”

  “Ye were there then?” the Hindu answered mockingly; and Diomed, with a half-breed’s instinct for coming violence, drew his knees up to his chin on the bench. He screwed himself into the corner to be able to jump either way.

  “Aye, we were there, seven of us and the father of the seven, a Sikh too, and a Jat and some sahibs , who will swear to that voice of thine, thou raven croaking in a cave! We are not men who can be imposed on! We—”

  The man in orange-yellow interrupted. Like all who pride themselves on their intelligence he underrated that of his would-be victims. He threatened them. Whereas, two things are sure: if you threaten the men of Sikunderam you must be able to make good, and prove it; and if you plead to them, you must prove you are empty-handed — a true supplicant for charity. Between those two poles all earth lies belly-upward to be bargained over. They are poles like light-houses that no man possessed of open eyes could miss. But pride is like box-blinkers.

  “You Moslems don’t like to be hanged. I can call witnesses. Better make terms with me!”

  The Indian courts of justice war with a system of perjury that is older and more popular than law. The consequent precautions and delays, and the system, that if ten men swear to a thing and twenty swear against it, the twenty win, may lend itself to obvious abuses that, according to Sikunderam, are avoided easiest with cold steel.