by Talbot Mundy
“No, not ghastly. What the devil is it?”
There was fear in them, he thought, but also something else that underlay the fear. He remembered a bedside at which he had sat watching an acquaintance die — not exactly a friend, although he should have been. Damned decent fellow, Edmondson — uninsured — a wife and kids — racked by the pain of his broken bones — refused morphia — knew he was dying — horrified by the thought of poverty awaiting his dependents — and yet —
“Confident that was it, confident. I knew he could see something that I couldn’t see. My eyes now — look like his did then. Exactly like ’em. What does that mean?”
He went on shaving, tubbed himself and dressed in the clothes that the servant had laid on the bed. He felt a ridiculous impulse to stick an automatic pistol in his back pants pocket. “Must be going crazy.”
He locked the pistol away in a suitcase, took a last tug at his tie before the bathroom mirror and started down-stairs. As he left the bedroom he was conscious of a series of extremely clear mental pictures — Rita — Annie Weems — Hawkes — the ayah — last of all, but equally vivid, the old Yogi down by the temple wall.
“What’s that ayah’s game, I wonder.”
One second she appeared as if his brain had photographed her perfectly; the next she was a soot-black specter edged by tiny tongues of dull-red flame, rather resembling one of those dark dugpas painted on Tibetan banners. He wanted to prepare himself to meet Poonch-Terai and be properly nonchalant, but he could not conjure up a mental picture of the man — nor of Cummings either.
“Fatuous ass. I like him like a boil on the back of my neck. Of the two, I’d choose Poonch-Terai as a boon companion. Poonch-Terai isn’t a sheep with false teeth and a hypocrite’s hair on his back. Cummings should be selling socks in a department store.”
He wondered why he hated Cummings — no earthly reason for it — no sense in hating him — he wasn’t worth hating. He decided to be extra-civil — to try to draw him out in conversation — to look for something admirable in the man.
He glanced into the dining-room and saw flowers on the table — extravagant cutlery, too; his mother had evidently dug out the silver-gilt Kashmiri knives and forks that she bought in a store in Srinagar.
“If she knew what the pattern on those knives and forks was all about, she’d maybe hide ’em,” he reflected. He had taken the trouble to ask the antique dealer for an interpretation, and it had shocked even himself. He was no sickly-minded moralist, but he was shocked all the same. He rather liked the notion now of shocking Cummings, who could probably read the pattern’s meaning. Poonch-Terai, of course, would understand it perfectly. The Maharajah’s malignant amusement and Cummings’ hypocritical embarrassment ought to be worth watching. He strolled out on to the verandah, where his mother waited in a creaking wicker chair.
“Joe, do you feel better?”
“Feel like ten cents.”
“Nonsense. Come over here and let me fix your tie for you, it’s coming undone.”
He submitted patiently, hating a bow-knot the way she tied it, tight in the middle; he turned away from her and loosened it surreptitiously as soon as something else attracted her attention.
Then the night shut down with Indian suddenness and Cummings came, important in a brand-new rickshaw with nickel-plated lamps and pneumatic tires. The contraption looked vaguely familiar; suddenly Joe remembered where he had seen it on exhibition. Had his mother wired for it and given it to Cummings? He whistled softly to himself.
“Wonderful!” said Cummings, advancing up the steps with an air of subdued pomposity. “Upon my soul, dear lady, I never enjoyed such luxury in all my life. A long day in the office, but then this — why, thanks to you I’m young again!”
So-ho! So she had given him the rickshaw. Why not a perambulator? Little the fat fool guessed what sort of strings were attached to a gift from Kitty Beddington! But what could she see in such a specimen worth tying strings to?
“Oh, good evening, Joe. How are you? Hurt yourself? Not anything serious, I hope?”
“No, nothing serious.”
Joe, if you please! He wondered what Cummings’ first name was. Probably Percy or Archibald. Or possibly Harold — Joe anticipated an awful kick out of calling him Harold, a name for which, for no earthly reason, he had a fathomless contempt.
“Will he call her Kate or Kitty? Or are they already at the pet-name stage?”
No. It was still dear Mr. Cummings and dear Mrs. Beddington. Just as dangerous for him, but not so compromising for her. What the devil was in the wind? The Maharajah, of course, was late — probably seeing a priest about spiritual prophylaxis against contamination from a white man’s table. Rotten manners, all the same, to come late to dinner, priest or no priest, religion or no religion. Caste? All hokum — simply a scheme for putting money into Brahmins’ pockets and to keep the under-dogs from becoming upper-dogs. Joe had read up caste in the encyclopedia — knew all about it. Mess of idiotic nonsense.
Poonch-Terai was twenty minutes late; there was plenty of time for Joe to observe the new development. He went into the dining-room to mix cocktails, standing near the open window while he shook the mixture. Cummings and his mother sat in wicker chairs under the hanging oil lamp on the verandah, in a circular golden pool surrounded by velvet darkness— “Oh, you Harold, watch your step! Oh, Albert — so his name was Albert. Born in lower Tooting. Hmn — telling her something about himself — he’ll tell her too much after three or four of these — gets sentimental when he’s drunk, I’ll bet a dollar. Two of them will make her as hard as chrome-steel in a rubber glove. And champagne afterward — I’d pity him if he weren’t such a fatuous jackass. I wonder what her scheme is. He’s swallowing hook, line, sinker — and the gaff, too.”
Poonch-Terai at last, in a landau behind jingling thoroughbreds, with two men on the box and a brace of footmen up behind him — wearing a diamond aigrette in his turban —
“Handsome devil walks like Mephistopheles,” thought Joe, delivering the cocktail shaker to a hotel servant. “Are the glasses clean, you heathen? Let me see them. All right — watch, and as soon as anybody’s glass is empty, fill it — all except mine — you understand me?”
Poonch-Terai was courtesy incarnate — cordiality in cream and gold-embroidered crimson. Joe almost liked him; the fellow knew how to wear his finery, no doubt of that — nothing of the Knight of Pythias or Shriner parading himself in strange towns to escape from repressions at home. Good manners, too — knew how to carry off a rather awkward situation.
“Mr. Beddington, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you on your feet. For a moment this morning I feared my clumsiness had almost killed a fine horseman. If I had not been almost stunned myself I would have insisted on seeing you home.”
Confounded liar — he had not been stunned at all, but it was a courteous alibi, and his smile would have thawed an iceberg. Good sense, too; he did not offer to shake hands; Joe had been ready not to notice his hand, had he extended it.
“Good job it wasn’t worse,” said Joe. “We might have both been badly damaged.”
“Good pig,” said the Maharajah.
“Pig was all right.”
“Nice fellow, Bruce.”
“Yes, dam’ nice fellow.”
Joe watched the servant pour the cocktails. “Hope you’ll all like this one — it’s my private recipe — the Rocket — it has a stick to it that no one notices till after the explosion.” He looked over the rim of his glass into the Maharajah’s eyes. “Here’s looking at you.”
Poonch-Terai sipped at his drink, then finished it in one long draught.
“I’m like you,” he remarked. “I like things strong. Strong men — strong drink — strong language — strong prejudices. Yes, that was good, I would like another.”
He looked ugly and handsome alternately, depending on the light. It was easy to tell when a shaft was coming from his spleen; he smiled for a second, half closing his eyes
as if enjoying it in advance.
“The United States will be known for its cocktails long after its statesmen are forgotten.”
Cummings objected instantly. “Come, come, Poonch-Terai, is that polite before your hostess? She’s American, you know.”
Joe’s comment was inaudible. “You futile idiot!” But he answered Poonch-Terai aloud:
“What will they remember India for, d’you think?”
“Oh, our nautch-girls, I suppose. I hear you’re interested in them.”
“So? Who told you?”
“Walls have ears in India.” It was pointed. There was a barb at the back of the point. The Maharajah’s face was lit with malice and there was fire in his tigerish eyes, but his smile was suave and his voice almost caressing. Joe realized he had been warned and it made him feel hot at the back of the neck; a warning from that dark devil was as good as a challenge. He was about to answer, but his mother interrupted:
“Dinner — I do hope you’re all hungry. No music — nothing to do but eat, and drink.”
“And tell secrets,” suggested Poonch-Terai. “I want a secret out of Mr. Cummings. Give him lots of champagne.”
They had the dining-room all to themselves and Poonch-Terai had sent on two of his own servants in advance, who took charge unostentatiously, so that the service was almost good, although there were whispers and muttered oaths behind the big screen near the pantry door — scuffling — even the sound of blows.
“It’s a beautiful world,” said Poonch-Terai, observing the iridescent bubbles in his second glass of champagne. The overhead oil lamps stank like fumigators, but the fish was from Fortnum and Mason, its original chaste insipidity perverted into a sophisticated mess by pepper and a rather vinegary white wine. “Why are we in it? I wonder. If there were any such gods as the priests pretend, it might be comprehensible — arbitrary gods inflicting ironical penalties. But no sensible person believes in gods — I don’t believe even the priests do — in fact, I’m positive they don’t. The gods are as out of the running as crinolines. So why are we here?”
“‘Caesar,morituri—’” Cummings quoted. He knew several more quotations, good ones, but he was always careful not to use up more than one an hour. “I’m here obedient to orders. He ceased in suggestive silence, remembering that Poonch-Terai had said something about probing for secrets. District Collectors don’t know any, but that was no reason why he should not cultivate appearances.
“Yes,” said Poonch-Terai, “they sacrifice you like a piece of old furniture, and when you’re all worn out they’ll send you home to Cheltenham to die of abscess of the liver. Serves you right, too; you should never have chosen a career in India.”
“Why are you here?” Joe retorted.
The Maharajah accepted more champagne and smiled as he turned the glass stem slowly in his fingers.
“For the sins of my ancestors, doubtless. The laws of Moses seem to function in India also — thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s landmark, or thy days shall be long in the land that the Lord thy God hath given thee and thy descendants shall rack-rent their tenants unto the thirtieth and fortieth generation. My ancestors on the whole were covetous. My tenants pay for it. I am here to compel them to pay. But why you?” He looked at Joe over the rim of his wine-glass. “It isn’t healthy for you.”
Mrs. Beddington stormed in to Joe’s rescue — an annoying habit that robbed him of many an adroit retort.
“Joe is as healthy as a horse; he takes after his mother in that respect.” She glanced at Cummings, who didn’t notice it, but Joe did. Why should her health interest Cummings? “We’re here to photograph the caverns. They’re marvelous, and almost unknown. You know, in the United States we have no ancient culture of our own — no mysteriously occult symbolism.”
Poonch-Terai toyed with the handle of a silver-gilt Kashmiri table-knife. “You should visit my corner of Poonch,” he suggested. “Symbolism? I have a palace there that simply reeks with it.” He glanced at the knife, then at Joe. “I keep the place in more or less repair, though no one lives in it. If you care to go there you can study symbolism to your heart’s content.”
“But I don’t care to go there,” said Joe before his mother could get a word in. Cummings looked a little restless and attacked his snipe on toast as if hoping to get the others, too, absorbed in more polite distractions.
“What wouldn’t they give for snipe like this in New York,” he suggested.
“We have everything in New York,” Mrs. Beddington corrected. She could not resist letting the eagle scream.
“Including charming women,” said Poonch-Terai. He glanced at Joe again. “India may be rich in symbolism of a sort. But when it comes to living women who may be approached without danger,” — he watched the waiter refill his wine-glass— “London — Paris — Vienna — Berlin — New York — even New York — I suggest New York as safer and less expensive in the long run.”
“Try it,” Joe suggested. “The authorities would let you stay for six months if your passport was in order.”
Cummings tried to turn the edge of that retort by discussing passports:
“Very necessary evils, and a great convenience at times. All immigration laws, of course, are—” “Don’t let’s talk of them,” said Mrs. Beddington. “They make me sick. We can’t get servants in the States, and we’re letting in so-called intellectuals who undermine our laws and the constitution. Even to think of it spoils my appetite.”
Poonch-Terai accepted the amendment — possibly remembered he was dealing with unoriental obtuseness that prefers its hints hit home and clinched with riveting machines.
“I enjoy,” he said, accepting more champagne, “coincidences. They amuse me with the opportunity they give to priests and similar charlatans — astrologers, for instance — to prove, as they would call it, their ridiculous ideas. I understand you are the president or something of the Jupiter Chemical Works.”
“Or something,” Joe answered, “is nearer the mark.” But he almost held his breath, anticipating that the next shot would shiver the bull’s eye. Cummings began to talk to Mrs. Beddington, raising his voice, hoping to prevent her, and perhaps himself too, from hearing the thrust and riposte that a blind fool could have guessed was coming.
“Curious, is it not,” said Poonch-Terai, “that some one should have called you man from Jupiter?”
“I find it much more curious,” said Joe, “that any one should go to so much trouble to learn what an old man called me.”
Poonch-Terai carefully opened the skull of a snipe and spread the brains on a scrap of toast. “No trouble — not trouble at all,” he answered. “I mind my own business, in quite a number of ways. I have servants, too, who mind it for me.”
“Did one of them get punched?” Joe asked him.
“Yes. Did it amuse you?”
“And did some of them get licked this afternoon?” “There was a fracas — so I’m told. If I had been there—” “But you were,” said Joe; “I saw you.”
The Maharajah darkened but his smile was skilful and did not look forced. He had perfect control of his voice; he changed to a tone of good-natured raillery and answered, almost without hesitation: “You Americans are what the French call enfants terribles. Did you never hear, for instance, that if a Frenchman of any social distinction is seen in Paris during July or August, he is incognito? Nobody notices — nobody speaks of it. I, too, when I ride through sidestreets, like to be considered incognito.”
“You should wear a symbol,” Joe suggested. “Something phallic. Or an armlet, with ‘Cherchez la femme’ inscribed on it.”
The Maharajah’s lips smiled but his eyes were tigerish: “A woman solves so many riddles, doesn’t she?” he answered. It was a threat. Joe saw the edge of it. So did his mother.
CHAPTER XVI. “Funny — I don’t feel scared a dam’ bit.”
Conversation after that descended into trivialities. Cummings assumed pinchbeck dignity and talked insufferable platitudes afte
r the manner of “safe” men all the wide world over. Mrs. Beddington, trying to be chummily intimate, boasted about her “little place in the country.”
“Sounds like a wonderful place,” said Cummings with a meditative hunger in his eyes that Joe began to understand. He switched opponents for a moment — devastating — almost shocked his mother’s breath out of her body; she had never known Joe to defy her in front of other people.
“No,” he said, “it’s just a pig-farm out in Putnam County — frame house — hired man’s laundry on the line — a lot of unsprayed apple trees and nine sway-backed horses.”
Poonch-Terai’s eyes glittered with amusement. By niceties of subtlety he made it understood that he had endured the dinner merely for the sake of warning Joe against trespass. He even yawned, taking such pains to disguise the yawn that the others could not avoid seeing it. By the time dinner was over there was not a remaining vestige of even mock-conviviality, and Joe was fuming. Coffee was to be served on the verandah but the Maharajah took his leave at once without the formality of excuses. Joe walked with him to the porte-cochere where his carriage waited and under the hanging oil lamp they took a last envenomed stab at each other:
“Good-by. You will be leaving India soon?”
“No sooner than it suits me,” Joe retorted.
“Ah! A bad climate and bad people — I might say mad people, Mr. Beddington. The women are particularly mad. The men are crafty and vindictive. It is no land for the inexperienced to attempt dangerous amusements in. Do you ever hit below the belt by any chance?”
“Not if I know it, I don’t. Why? Have I said something that frightened you?”
“No. I was asking from curiosity. I always hit below the belt. So happy to have met you and your charming mother — a delightful dinner — good night.”
And Rita’s name not once mentioned! Joe watched the carriage whirl away, its lights bewildering countless bats that had chosen the course of the drive as their hunting ground. A black thing, vastly bigger than a bat, came flitting out of shadow and was cut off from view by the horses that were reined in staggering and plunging, kicking up clouds of dust that obscured the dark specter, although Joe got one more glimpse of it — and it was followed by Chandri Lal the unmistakable, with his basket of snakes on his head. There was a pause long enough for the exchange of fifty words; then the carriage drove on and Joe was almost sure he recognized the ayah vanishing in shadow.