by Talbot Mundy
The rajah closed the cabinet again.
“Did you ever see such eyes, or lips — such hair, and such complexion?” he asked.
“Is she not all curves, and suppleness, and lightness? Did you see her ankles? And her wrists? Is her voice not perfect — like the waters laughing at you? And she has money, I imagine; her diamonds surpass mine. Isn’t she wonderful?”
Ommony agreed. It was policy; but besides, there was no use in denying the obvious. But he began to dread the next few days, as sure as that he stood there that the management of a forest and a few score men would be as child’s play compared to partnership in an intrigue with Zelmira Poulakis.
“Ommony, old boy, I’m going to ask a favour of you,” said the rajah, buttonholing him. “She will introduce me into Parisian society. Can I go there? Can I afford it? Can a capital sum be raised?”
“Your Highness’ subjects are already taxed to about the limit,” Ommony answered warily. Something was coming, and he did not care to nip sprouting information in the bud.
“Yes, confound it! They’re not fit to have a rajah; they can’t pay for one! I’ve said that frequently. But I have forest rights, you know. It’s all very well for you to claim control of the forest, and you’ve conserved it beautifully; but the timber revenue from all this section will have to revert to me when it’s time to cut down trees. The shroffs won’t lend on it; they say there’s no knowing when the Government will cut, or to what extent my right will be disputed. Now, don’t you think, if you advised it, Government would buy my rights for money down?”
“How much?”
“My rights are worth a lot — lakhs and lakhs of rupees,” said the rajah. “I would be reasonable, on a basis of money down.”
All governments are capable of anything. Ommony, as an individual, is not to be judged by that standard. But he was no such fool as to answer outright, and to set the rajah dickering with shroffs again. He tickled hope, that springs eternal in a rajah’s breast as with the rest of us.
“I’ll ask,” he said noncommittally.
“Will you? What a splendid fellow you are! How I wish all Englishmen were like you! Now let me do you a favour and introduce you to the most wonderful woman in the world.”
“One minute first. How is it you are entertaining her?” asked Ommony, and the rajah’s face took on that supercilious smile with which the opportunist apes omniscience.
“I have ways and means, old boy, that you don’t dream of. Chota Pegu is older than the British Raj by quite a few centuries, you know. Connections everywhere. Wheels within wheels. You English will never understand how we obtain our ends. Ha — ha! No use asking her, you old fox! She doesn’t know either! She was ‘in maiden meditation fancy free’, as the Psalmist or Shakespeare or somebody says, and a little bird whispered to her. Ha — ha! I knew she was coming to visit me before she thought of it!”
Whereat Ommony looked puzzled, concealing his satisfaction at being in no way connected in the rajah’s mind with Zelmira’s visit.
“But isn’t it awfully inconvenient?” he asked. And now he was simply curious. The rajah’s domestic worries were not even indirectly a concern of his. It was only by hearsay that he knew the rajah had two wives and quite a nice stable of dancing women; but it is always fun to speculate on how a man contrives to keep the peace in such complicated circumstances.
“I do as I dam-please!” the rajah answered after a moment; and in the set lips and studied air of nonchalance was written a whole volume of strife-behind-curtains. But that, again, was no affair of Ommony’s; he was merely glad to know it, since, to quote a favourite proverb of Chota Pegu, all straws serve the birds at nesting-time.
“I’m agog to meet madame,” he said, with an air of playfulness that overlay real dread lest Zelmira should openly confess him an accomplice.
But not she! Her poise was perfect and she had evidently tutored Charley Wear, whose natural instinct would have been to wear his pleasure on his face at meeting Ommony again. Zelmira glanced at the rajah, as if to deduce from his her own proper attitude toward this bearded, stocky-shouldered individual. She did not shake hands — did not attempt to shine in conversation — hardly indeed looked at Ommony; it was only little by little, as an hour went by, that he knew he was being summed up and analysed from under drooped eyelashes. He confessed to himself that the girl was adorable, and there was an added charm of deep artfulness without any evident malice, that meant more to him than cupid lips or dark, delightful brows.
And that while, with the rajah playing half-intoxicated host, they talked of all inanity, like new neighbours at someone’s tea party. A spy, or an intruder might have guessed them all bored, except the rajah. Not the slightest hint was dropped until the rajah left the room, and Zelmira’s face became instantly wreathed in smiles. She was about to say something to the point, but Ommony checked her.
“Look annoyed!” he ordered. “You wish the rajah was here! You don’t think much of me!”
She registered, and Charley followed suit. Ommony, with forest-trained ears alert, was aware of the cabinet in the wall behind him being opened, and could almost feel the rajah’s eyes making holes in the nape of his neck.
“Let me show you my dog,” he suggested, as if he could not think of any other way of entertaining; and, as if even that would be better than a dreary conversation with him, Zelmira jumped up with alacrity. Even so, she played safe.
“What fun! Perhaps the rajah will come too. Hadn’t we better wait for him?
“Ommony raised his voice a trifle, and capped the safety.
“No,” he said, “he’s looking up information for me about his claims in regard to the forest. It’ll take him fifteen minutes.”
With that hint for the man behind the spy-hole he led the way out, and they walked three abreast down the long drive, Zelmira in the midst.
“Don’t talk yet,” said Ommony. “People’s backs give more away than they imagine.”
Two hundred yards from the gate in the wall, still in sight from the palace windows, Ommony set fingers to his teeth and whistled shrilly.
“Now watch! The wall’s too high for her, but she’ll try it first.”
Three disappointed, almost piteous barks, announced that the whistle had been heard.
“Three shots at it,” he said. “Now watch again. There’s a jungli out there. He’ll stand against the wall. She’ll back across the street and take a running jump, using his shoulders for spingboard. Watch that space between the two trees.”
He whistled again. There was a pause, and then the hound’s paw just appeared above the level of the wall, missed hold, and disappeared as suddenly. A yelp, half-angry now, another pause — then head and shoulders — a yelp of triumph — and the enormous dog came leaping, thrusting her nose into Ommony’s hand and wriggling satisfaction.
“Now,” said Ommony, “We can talk while we fool with Diana. That looks innocent enough.”
V. — SHEEP’S BONES AND NO STRYCHNINE!
Somehow, woman has come to represent temptation in the minds of most of us. Doubtless she earned the stigma, and we males the worse one, of being weak. Zelmira Poulakis, in pale mauve georgette, was art so refined and simplified as almost to seem divine, so that Ommony wondered whether he could keep his own head. As to Strange, with himself to load the scale clandestinely, he felt no doubt whatever.
“Have you a plan?” he asked her, so well versed in Indian lore that he knew a woman’s plan prevails in spite of anything a man can do.
“Nothing,” she answered. “He ought to marry me. He ruined my husband.”
“Revenge?” asked Ommony, not relishing a campaign for that unprofitable stuff.
“No. My husband probably deserved it. But some of my money went too, and I was innocent. Strange needs a wife; he never had one. He kissed me once in New York, when I interviewed him as my husband’s emissary, and — well — propose to conquer him, that’s all.”
That was frank enough. It was even
credible. If money had been her sole aim she would never have needed to pursue Strange, limiting her scope to him. She was more marketable than the diamonds on her left hand, and no doubt scores of wealthy men had let her know it.
“Conquest, eh?” said Ommony. “Yes, Strange needs conquering.”
“He likes me,” she answered. “He is only so cruel and selfish that he fears marriage. But I can conquer him. I will make him generous. You’ll see!”
“Do you know what Strange will think, if he learns you are staying with this rajah?” Ommony asked her. “Our Indian rajahs have a certain reputation.”
“Pouf! He knows better. He might pretend to think that. He is cruel enough to pretend anything. But he will know it isn’t true, so what does that matter? It is what one knows that influences, not what one pretends to think. He knows in his heart he likes me. He said — over afternoon tea in New York — he would choose me before any woman in the world, if he were of the marrying kind. I am of the marrying kind, and I choose him! Presto! That is the end of it!” And she clipped her hands, while Charley grinned.
“Can’t you have Strange come in and rescue her from the rajah?” asked Charley, fertile in screen-drama expedients.
“He wouldn’t come. He’d send for the police,” laughed Ommony. “No, we must have her rescue him.”
“From the rajah?”
“From anything that makes him look ridiculous.”
“Wise man! I like you, Mr. Ommony,” Zelmira announced, her whole face sparkling with amusement.
The best and the worst of us like to be liked, more particularly by a pretty woman. It gilds the edges of intrigue, and surely dulls conscience to the drab grey underside of human schemes. Ommony began to like his task amazingly. He almost forgot the forest in determination to make Meldrum Strange a captive of this woman’s bow and spear.
“I wish you’d tell the rajah about Strange,” he said, after making Diana jump over his head a time or two — for he saw the rajah coming. “Not too much, of course. Just say he’s a millionaire who wants to buy up Indian forest rights. Say you’ve heard he is staying with me. I think we can safely leave the rest to Strange, the rajah, and Providence, assisted by Chullunder Ghose. You stumbled on a jewel in that babu. By the way — drop your handkerchief! Quickly!”
She obeyed. Ommony signed to Diana to pick it up. The dog brought it to him, not to her, and Ommony put it in his pocket.
“If ever Di comes, look for a letter inside her collar. You can send an answer the same way.”
“Ah! That dog! That dog!” said the rajah, joining them. “A perfect beast! So intelligent! But someone will poison her one of these days, and then my friend Ommony will be disconsolate.”
He, too, it seemed, knew how to drop a hint. Perhaps he had seen the handkerchief incident, and guessed its motive. Ommony looked straight at him, and their eyes met.
“Then someone would have a personal fight on his hands with me,” he said blandly, and the rajah, pinked, with an effort switched attention to Zelmira.
Ommony excused himself then, borrowed a fresh horse from the rajah’s stable, and started back on the long cross-forest journey. After a while he took the jungli up behind him, jungli and dog taking turn about, the jungli between-whiles clinging to tail or stirrup, scouting ahead where he knew of leopard lairs, and not so weary as the fat horse at the journey’s end, three hours after dark, an hour too late for dinner.
Jeff was waiting in the dark by a wood-pile near the house, and the horse shied at him. The jungli fled.
“That rascal Chullunder Ghose is up to no good,” Jeff began, seizing a rein to hold the horse still. “Strange and I shot a tiger this morning.”
“Which of you?”
“He wounded and I killed. We were back here for lunch. Chullunder Ghose was squatting on the verandah like a big brass idol. Strange began to talk to him. All afternoon, when he wasn’t taking a nap or smoking by himself, Strange has been questioning the babu, and what he hasn’t learned about this forest and one of the local rajahs — Chota Pegu, I think his name is — wouldn’t fill a nut-shell. I couldn’t prevent it.”
“I’m not sorry.”
“If I could have broken the babu’s neck before he—”
“You or I would have had to do his work. I expect he has done it better.”
“Listen. Don’t be over-confident,” said Jeff. “We used to employ that babu. He plays both ends from the middle always. Nothing he says or does is on the level. He’d sell you out to Strange for one rupee over and above what he could get from you—”
“Let’s nope!”
“And then double-cross Strange!”
“Excellent!”
“Well, I’ve warned you,” Jeff grumbled.
“Be a good fellow and keep Strange occupied while I eat dinner. I’ll have one of the servants bring the babu to me in the dining-room.”
Ommony saw the horse stabled and the dog fed. Ten minutes later he was in the dinning-room, with Chullunder Ghose cross-legged on the floor at his right hand.
“So you’ve moved without waiting for me?” he asked.
“Lot’s wife was made pillar of salt, according to Christian missionary. She looked back. Kaiser is in Holland, very hard up. He looked forward. Chinese suffer presently from foreign creditors. Stood still! Choice of three evils leaves enigma up to me. No advice available; no orders, except not to talk with servants; no consolation from Ramsden sahib, who threatens me with outsize boot. What can do but tickle ear of money-nabob with account of ripe apples in next orchard, whetting appetite of octopus for loot, which is envy of white man, always? What could do? Must say something! He is incarnation of enquiry armed with can-opener and too much zeal.”
“Did you tell about Madame Poulakis?”
“Nay, sahib. Told nothing this babu knows for certain. Truth is like saving’s-bank account, for use in dire emergency. Direness not yet obvious. Spoke much of Rajah of Chota Pegu, intellectual gent with expensive leanings and no cash. Conversation turned on said aristocrat’s claim to own birthright in enormous tract of this forest. Did mention likelihood of same being exchangeable, like Testament swap for mess of pottage — cash in this case.”
“How did you know about that?”
“Am all things to all men, sahib. To your honour, truthfull. Was employed by rajah of that ilk to make rounds of Hindu moneylenders in all cities, offering undiscoverable title as security for long-time loan. Was not inundated with success, but drew personal expenses in advance.”
To let such a person as Chullunder Ghose into a secret on equal terms would have been tantamount to asking him to take advantage of it. Ommony did not dare even to smile, much less confess that the babu had led up to his hand with perfect intuition.
“I gave you leave to sleep here one night,” he said presently, after turning the problem over in his mind.
“Am ‘whelmed with gratitude!”
“Go in the morning — at break of day — before Mr. Strange wakes up.”
“On foot? By train? To Hades?”
“The Rajah of Chota Pegu’s horse is in my stable. Ride across the forest and return the horse to its owner with my compliments.”
“A red one? Sahib, I know that beast! Self am not expert in equitation. Forest, moreover, is full of leopards, tigers, elephants, and snakes of all sorts! Do not know way.”
“I will lend you a jungli.”
“Who will kill and eat me! Sahib, with your honour’s favour this babu will take train and change at Sissoo Junction.”
“You will leave with that horse before daybreak. You may have two junglis,” answered Ommony. “If you fall off they will catch the horse and put you on again.”
“You do not know, sahib, what such fear means to person of unathletic temperament!”
But Ommony did know, and knew, too, the only way short of banishment to keep the babu from jockeying for the upper hand of all concerned. Banishment was out of the question; he needed the babu’s services.
“You leave before daybreak on the red horse,” he insisted unsympathetically. “Keep out of Mr. Strange’s sight meanwhile.”
“But, sahib—”
Ommony interrupted by glancing down at him. Their eyes met, and the babu understood. There are men who will listen to all sides of a case, but can never be wheedled when once they have given decision.
“What shall I do, then, at Chota Pegu!”
“My advice to you is to watch your step, Chullunder Ghose. I imagine your reward, if Madame Poulakis’ plan succeeds, will be proportioned to your zeal. But I assure you the penalty, in case the plan fails through any treachery on your part, will be out of all proportion to the importance of the matter in hand. Let that ride through the jungle tomorrow morning be a hint to you.”
“Sahib, hint at me with a riding-whip! Take bail! Let me sign a stipulation before witnesses! Only not that jungle ride!”
“And when you get there,” Ommony went on, ignoring the babu’s outburst, “look about you. Get to know people — as, for instance, priests. If I should send word to you by jungli to meet me in a certain place, why not keep the appointment? If the rajah asks you about Mr. Meldrum Strange, you may say—”
“Let me memorize your honour’s wisdom!”
“ — whatever occurs to you as good sense at the moment. Bed now! There’s a cot in the out-house.”
The babu shuffled off, his bare feet rutching on the polished floor, and Ommony joined his guests on the verandah. But Meldrum Strange proved taciturn, not even loosening his tongue under the influence of questions about the tiger he shot that morning. He was not diffident about having shot a tiger without Ommony’s permission; he made that obvious. From the first he had challenged Ommony’s right to have any say in such matters. But there was a new challenge noticeable in his whole demeanour. Abruptly, without apology, he announced his intention of retiring early, and walked off with hardly a muttered good night.