by Talbot Mundy
The sons of Ali had no steel. Tradition would have counseled patience and dissimulation. But the heat in the cell was growing insufferable for men born where the clean air whistles off everlasting snow-peaks, and stuffiness — being kin to strangulation — breeds hysteria, which in turn brings all innate proclivities to the surface and upsets any calculation based on intellect. He in orange-yellow was an intellectual. He knew the rules. The sons of Ali were no psychologists.
“Let him die before he does us injury! Be quick, my brothers!”
That was a call for action, understood and never argued, over. He in orange-yellow gave a shout blended of agony and unbelief as fingers like hairy spider-legs closed on his throat. Other parts of his anatomy grew palsied with pain, in a grip that he had no more chance of breaking than a sheep has of breaking the butcher’s hold. Noise ceased.
It was at that stage of proceedings that the cell-guard, whose ear had been to the peep-hole, hurried to summon his officer. He ached with ill-will, because his sinews had been twisted when the sons of Ali objected to arrest. He wanted to see them dragged out one by one and beaten. But exactly at the same moment there entered from the street three men in orange-yellow, with the caste-mark of Kali on their foreheads, who approached the desk and made signs to the bewildered officer. The bewilderment was all too obvious.
He was as displeased as a magistrate might be to whom an arrested violator of the law made masonic signals; nevertheless, not nearly so certain what to do, since there was no appeal in this case to his honor and the dictates of conscience. He was bluffed before they said a word to him.
“This is a day of reckoning,” announced the leader of the three. “One of ours is in your keeping. He is part of the price. We demand him.”
The Moslem officer hardly hesitated. Saying nothing, but livid under the impress of that fatalistic fear which is the only force blackmail has, he started toward the cells and disappeared through a door into the corridor, followed by the cell-guard. The door slammed, but opened again a minute later. The officer stood there beckoning. The three followed him in, and the door, slammed shut a second time.
“Look!”
The officer flung the cell-door open and the cell-guard brought his carbine to the charge, showing his teeth for extra argument. The three in yellow, self-controlled, peered in like visitors being shown the sights, their bronze faces showing no more emotion than the image on copper coins; but the police-officer was trembling with anxiety.
“I ask you to believe—” he stammered in Punjabi.
One of the three interrupted him, touching his sleeve, not wasting any words.
The three were interested — neither more nor less. There was possibly as much trace of amusement on their lips as you may see on the granite monument of one of the old Pharaohs — semi-humorous acceptance of the iron rule of destiny, observed without surprise. The officer tried speech again.
“Beware, most honorables! They are dangerous!”
The same quiet hand on his sleeve requested silence. The three had seen all there was to see, but continued looking; for the processes of thought are said to be accomplished best with all eyes on the object.
In front of the door, as if laid there for inspection, was the body of the individual in orange-yellow who had threatened the sons of Sikunderam. Most of his throat had been torn out by human fingers, and the back of his head lay flat against the shoulder-blades in proof of a broken neck. Both arms were twisted so that the hands were around again to where they should be, backs to the floor. The feet were toe to toe, after describing three quarters of an outward circle, and a leg was obviously broken.
“He is very dead!” remarked the one voice of Sikunderam, speaking for three minds.
The sons of Ali sat back on the bench, backs to the wall, in an attitude that gave them leverage in case one indivisible impulse should decide them to attack. They could launch themselves from the wall like tigers out of ambush. One hint of reprisals and no cell-door on earth would be able to slam quick enough to keep them in.
But unaccountably there grew an atmosphere of calm, as if Allah, Lord of Kismet, had imposed an armistice. The electric tension eased, as it were, and muscles with it. Someone in yellow smiled, and Sikunderam answered in kind through a gap in a black beard. All three men in yellow strode into the cell, stepping over their co-religionist, and one of them turned to beckon in the officer, who, at their suggestion, sent the cell-guard to the office out of sight and hearing.
“Is it lawful to imprison these five, of three languages, three races, three religions, in one cell?” was the first question. There was only one answer possible:
“No, but—”
The same quiet finger on the same sleeve banished the explanation. Without a word said it was made clear that the legal, or rather the illegal fact was all-sufficient.
“Most honorables, that is how your co-religionist in yellow met his death!” piped Diomed, emerging out of a catalepsy. “Most worthy followers of Kali, these three savages attacked him without excuse and butchered him brutally. I offer to give evidence!”
Miscegenated intuition — perverted, that is — told Diomed that his chance lay in taking sides against the man in uniform. The three he addressed were obviously visitors, not prisoners, and the officer’s fear of them was plain enough.
“This policeman threw us into one cell in the face of protests. He is responsible.”
He pointed at the officer, who scowled but the three ignored both of them. Instead, the one who acted spokesman launched a question at the sons of Ali that was half-proposal, half-riddle, and breath-taking regarded either way.
“You understand, that if you escape from this cell illegally, you are guilty of that in addition to the charge of murdering this man?”
“And other charges — other charges, señores ! They burned my hotel! Arson! That is what the judges call it — an indictable offense!”
One of the sons of Ali smote Diomed over the mouth again, and nobody objected. There was a little something after all in his thought that fortune hardly favors Goanese. The sons of Ali fell back on the code of Sikunderam, which calls for incredulity at all times, but particularly when a Hindu makes a proposition. They looked what they were exactly — men from out of town. The smiter rubbed his knuckles.
“Ye speak riddles,” said the spokesman.
“You understand, that they who might set you at liberty, ignoring authority, would have the power to overtake and kill?” asked the man in yellow.
It began to dawn on Sikunderam that these were overtures for a bargain. All three faces closed down in accordance with the code that decrees a bargain shall be interminable and he who can endure the longest shall have the best of it. But the men in yellow were in haste. One of them drew a long silk handkerchief from hand to hand with a peculiar, suggestive flick.
“You understand that for all advantages there is a price? Go free!”
“But — but—” said the officer.
The finger on his sleeve commanded silence. He obeyed.
“Go free, in the fear of Kali, Wife of Siva, the Destroyer! Go free, until a day of reckoning! When Kali asks the price — observe!”
As if one thought functioned in the minds of all three, one of the men in yellow stepped toward the Goanese and taking him by the shoulders jerked him to his feet. The Goanese was too astonished to defend himself.
“Have I not offered—” he began; but the second of the three in yellow pushed him sidewise, so that he reeled backward on his heels toward the third.
There was a motion of the handkerchief, as quick as lightning but less visible, and Diomed fell unpicturesquely — dead — a heap of something in a soiled check shirt and crumpled collar — so dead that not a muscle twitched or sigh escaped him.
“For a death there must be a death,” said one of the men in yellow.
The teeth of Sikunderam flashed white in a grin of pleased bewilderment.
“Hee-hee! He didn’t slay your yello
w man. We did it!” chuckled the spokesman.
The Thug was at no pains to explain his beastly creed. It was better to leave the three less cultivated savages to speculate on what the sacrifice had meant. His point was won. He had impressed them. They had seen the swiftness of the silken death. Undoubtedly they would soon begin to ponder on the fact that Diomed was slain in the presence of an officer of police, and to couple that with another mystery.
“Go! Let them go!” ordered one of the three, and the officer began to fumble with the lock.
He flung the door open with an air of petulant impotence, and it struck the cell-guard, who had crept back to listen. The door hit his heel as he ran and one of the three in orange-yellow stepped out into the corridor without the least suggestion of surprise. He beckoned him. Not a word was said. The second — not he with the handkerchief — held out a hand to warn the sons of Ali that freedom was postponed. The first man continued beckoning, and the cell-guard kept on coming, carbine at the charge, as if he intended violence. But he stepped into the cell with his eyes fixed in a stony stare, as if he had been hypnotized. It was the second man’s turn to beckon; and as the “wretched, rash, intruding fool” obeyed the unspoken call of nemesis, the third man used the handkerchief. The cell-guard fell in a heap on Diomed. The officer picked up the carbine mechanically and laid it on the bench.
“Now go!” said the spokesman, motioning the Hillmen out with a gesture worthy of the angel of creation bidding the aeons begin. “Kali is all-seeing. Ye cannot hide. Kali is all-hearing. Ye may not tell. Kali is unforgetful. Therefore, when a price is set pay swiftly — even as ye saw this man pay!” He laid a finger on the officer’s sleeve, who trembled violently. “For if not, ye will pay as these did!” He signified the corpses with a gesture. “Go!”
So the three went, wondering, not troubled as to what the official explanation would be, of three murders in a cell and three lost prisoners. The newspapers next day might call that mystery. To them another mystery was paramount, and all-absorbing:
Who were the men who had released them? Where had they learned that skill with a handkerchief? Why had they slain Diomed? And why had they three been released? Moreover, what would the price be that was mentioned, and would they — three Moslems — be justified in paying it, suppose they could, to the priests, of a Hindu goddess? How much would they dare tell to Ali, their ferocious sire, considering the silence that was laid on them? And if they should tell Ali, and he should tell Jimgrim, for instance, and Jimgrim should consult the others, would the priests of Kali visit vengeance on themselves as the fountainheads of disobedience?
There was more to it besides:
If Kali was all-seeing, as the Three had warned them, did that simply mean that they were being followed?
He in the middle faced about suddenly and walked backwards with his arms in his brothers’; but he could see no Hindus in pursuit. They tried a score of tricks that Hillmen use when the stones are lifted in the valleys and the “shooting-one-another-season” has begun — tricks that the hunted leopard tries, to assure himself that he has left the hunter guessing wild. But though they hid, and strode forth suddenly from doorways, so that passersby jumped like shying horses in fear of highway robbery, they detected no pursuit.
“The man in yellow lied to us,” said one of them at last. “They let us go, and that is all about it.”
“But why?”
“They were afraid.”
“But of what? They could have killed us easily.”
“Nay! None slays me with a handkerchief! By the Bones of Allah’s Prophet—”
“They could have slain the cell-guard in the passage, and could then have shot us with his carbine through the hole in the iron door. They were not afraid of us!”
“Nevertheless, we three are afraid of them!” announced the brother who had spoken first. The other two did not dispute the fact. “I say — if we are wise — we will — hold our peace — a little while — and wait — and see — and consider — and if perhaps — there should seem to be a need — and an advantage — then later we might tell. What say you?”
“Allah! Who put wisdom into thy mouth?”
“It is wisdom! Let us consider it!”
They agreed to use their own term, to leave the proposition “belly- upward” for a while.
CHAPTER IX. “Silence is silent.”
CYPRIAN was not in a quandary. He would have known what to do, but his eighty-year-old lungs were too full of a sickly-tasting gas for him to function physically. That which is born of the spirit is spirit, but the brain must wait on material processes. He was just then in Jeremy’s keeping — held in the Australian’s arms — being thought for by Jeremy.
And as the stars in their courses once warred against Sisera, circumstances and his reputation combined to trick Cyprian. Never would it have entered Jeremy’s head that dignity, discipline, responsibility to some one higher tip were necessary ingredients of Cyprian’s code. Having saved the padre’s life the only other thing that Jeremy considered was “the game.”
Then there were the neighbors. Right and left were locked godowns stored with merchandise. Opposite, behind shade trees and a wall were Goanese, who would not have thought it moral, expedient, polite or safe to interfere in the padre’s doings uninvited, even supposing they had seen what was going on. And the heat prevented their seeing anything, for May was merging into June and none who could afford to stay indoors dreamed of venturing forth.
The remainder of the street’s inhabitants were Moslems with a sprinkling of Hindus at the lower end; and every one of those knew Cyprian by reputation as a student, and perhaps a practitioner of black magic — a man to be feared, if not respected; moreover, a man with influence. Nine out of any ten of them would have looked the other way if Cyprian’s house were burning down. The tenth in nearly every instance would have run as far away as legs or a bicycle could take him.
The constable, whose duty it was to patrol that street, having quitted himself well with one arrest that morning, retired to a basement cellar to brag of his doings and gamble on fighting quails.
On top of all that there undoubtedly had been some deliberate clearing of the street by influences never named but referred to, when spoken of at all, as “they.” The street was as peculiarly empty as it sometimes is when a royal personage is due for assassination.
The obvious course for a man in Cyprian’s position, with three would-be assassins in his cellar and his whole house full of anesthetic, was to report at once to the authorities, leaving subsequent developments to take their course. But Cyprian was in no condition to give orders; and none of the others, King included, cared to invoke official skepticism. No man, who confesses to himself that he is searching for a heap of gold as heavy as the Pyramid, and for the books that explain how the heap was accumulated, is exactly unselfconscious when official investigation looms among the possibilities.
There was furthermore Narayan Singh, unconscious — in itself an almost incredible circumstance; for that doughty Sikh is a drinker of notorious attainment and less likely than any of them to succumb to fumes. He had keeled over like a gassed canary. King and Grim were giving him first aid, considering his recovery of vastly more importance than any debatable obligation to call in the police. They knew the police for mere bunglers at best and sheer obstructionists as far as true inquiry was concerned. They knelt on the sidewalk one each side of the Sikh, who breathed like a cow with its throat cut; and Jeremy, holding Cyprian like a baby in his arms, came and watched.
“If you can make him vomit, he’s yours!” he advised. “Get something functioning — no matter what. One natural process encourages the next. Knead him in the solar plexus.”
King and Grim, having tried all other methods, experimented with Jeremy’s.
“Damn it! There’s an antidote if only we could lay our hands on it,” said King. “I’ve heard about this stuff — saw its effects before. It’s a capsule as big as a rupee. They puncture it
under a handkerchief. The minute the air gets to it the contents turn to gas. Beastly stuff burns the skin as it emerges, but changes again as it spreads and becomes anesthetic. The thieves who use the stuff carry the antidote with them. It’s all in one of Cyprian’s books.”
“If pop ‘ud wake,” suggested Jeremy. But Cyprian only sighed.
“Where are the three Hindus?” Grim demanded.
“In the cellar. Ali pitched ’em in there — first-class job. Chullunder Ghose is sitting on the hatch to keep ’em out of further mischief,” Jeremy announced.
“Ramsden — where’s Rammy?” Grim demanded.
“Here.”
Jeff, with a cloth about his face well drenched in water, had been exploring the floor of the sitting-room on hands and knees for evidence that would explain the enemy’s method. He emerged through the front door, panting.
“Gas is disappearing,” he gasped.
“Rammy! Narayan Singh is going West! Get a move on! Get those three Hindus. Make ’em produce their antidote! Stop at nothing!” That was Grim with the mask off — dealer in fundamentals.
So the purple patch that was the shadow of Jeff Ramsden ceased from existence on the white wall — simply ceased. He can be swift when occasion calls for it. Within, where more or less silence had been, was a great noise, as Jeff’s weight landed on the trap and that of Chullunder Ghose, capsized, complaining.
“Off the trap! Lively!”
Ali of Sikunderam and his sons had been lying belly-downward listening in vain for noises from below. Imagination yearned for cries of pain and half-invented them. But the door was too thick, and sat too tightly in its bed for even their fond wish to get itself believed.
“By Allah I swear I broke the legs of all three!” boasted Ali, face to the wood.
But he said no more, for Ramsden seized him by arm and leg and threw him clear, the sons scampering away on hands and knees before the like indignity could happen to themselves. Then Ramsden got his fingers into the only crevice, strained, grunted, strove and gave it up. The door and frame were jammed hermetically.