by Talbot Mundy
“Interesting,” said the Prefect, “on a dhow of two hundred tons. There is a body in the morgue — However, I must ask you gentlemen, if you please without consulting one another, to write down, each of you, as fully as you can remember, every detail of today’s events as you observed them. You may set down what was said to you, and what you said, and what you overheard. I invite you also to state frankly why you are in Marseilles and why, with evident collaboration, you arrived at this prefecture together, or almost together, at a critical moment. The formality will be observed of separating you from one another while you write your statements, to avoid collaboration, however unintentional that might be.”
At a nod from him men in uniform escorted us to different rooms, where they supplied us with writing materials, and I heard the Prefect hurry away in a car with the exhaust wide open. My statement, naturally, did not take long. I signed it and went to stare out of the window at a sordidly uninteresting street until someone should come and get it. The official who escorted me into the room had said “no smoking,” so I lighted a cigar in the hope he would smell it and come back sooner. However, he did not, and I began to be abominably bored until a private limousine drew up outside and a woman, unescorted, opening the door herself, stepped out of it and entered the prefecture.
I tossed the cigar through a broken window-pane as somebody ushered her into the room I occupied, quietly closing the door behind her and, unless I was much mistaken, locking it. I don’t know much French, but I do know that French officials, and particularly the police, do nothing without purpose and premeditation; so I fell on guard as tensely as if I had had a rapier in my right hand. She stared at me. I stared at her. And she was well worth looking at.
She was a sort of symphony in jade-green and Chinese yellow. Her long skirt made her look taller than she actually was. Her tightly fitting green hat with yellow lining framed intriguing features. She looked vaguely Chinese, but her mouth and her chin might have been Irish; they would have made her fortune in the movies, except for a slight scar on the upper lip that changed its line and added a sinister touch that rather spoiled her smile. Her nose was agreeably impudent — coquettish; and her eyes, although they did not slant perceptibly, contained in them the mocking, curious intelligence of all the Chinese women in the world. She was wealthily dressed; she had a jeweled purse that had probably cost at least three thousand dollars; there were jeweled buckles on her patent-leather shoes, that had Chinese-yellow heels; and she was wearing a jade necklace that almost bankrupts me to think about. I know jade. Not even “the Old Buddha” ever had a better string than that one. She did not sit; she stood and stared me out of countenance, until suddenly she smiled and came toward me.
“Are you Jeemgreem? Oh, I have so much wished to meet you.”
“What made you look for me here?” I retorted.
“Eentuition!”
“May I know who you are?”
“I am the Princess Baltis.”
“Wasn’t Baltis the name of the Queen of Sheba?”
She nodded. “I am always Baltis. Each time I am reborn I am Baltis.”
“And always a princess?”
“Always.”
I suppressed an impulse to enquire what Solomon was doing now. She had the information at her finger-tips, as transpired later, but for the moment I judged that was dangerous ground. As “Jeemgreem” it behooved me to be circumspect and to elicit other, less controversial, statistics that might forewarn Grim. From the moment she spoke I had no doubt whatever that her purpose was to trap Grim in a net of some kind, or else to seduce him along a blind trail. Intuition sometimes guides me also, but not always.
“Why are you here?” I asked her, trying to imagine how Grim would have brought motives to the surface.
“Jeemgreem, someone told me you are in Marseilles.”
“What of it?” I was painfully aware that “Jeemgreem” would have managed her more subtly; however, I am a very unsubtle person and can do no better than my best in an emergency. “Why do you trouble yourself on my account?” I said that because her perfume, and some sort of mental allurement that she exuded, stirred in me the self-defensive instinct that is usually impolite. The words sounded crass in my own ears. However, she appeared to misinterpret bluntness as a sign of superiority to ordinary conversational methods. She came straight to the point:
“Jeemgreem, you and I can help each other — now as always. We have always helped each other. When I was Baltis Queen of Sheba, were you not my great ambassador? You know that, don’t you? Certainly you know it; you, too, have the psychic memory. When I was Baltis, concubine of Cyrus, were you not my lover? Did you not die in the execution ash-pit rather than betray me? When I was Baltis, who danced and sang at Cleopatra’s court, did I not help you — the Roman Publius Carfax — to corrupt her army until it surrendered to Octavianus without a blow? When I was Baltis, dancing girl in attendance on Suraj-ud-Dowlah — and you were Major Eyre Coote commanding Clive’s infantry — did I not, for your sake, undermine the allegiance of Suraj-ud-Dowlah’s generals, so that Clive’s little handful of troops defeated him at Plassey? You know all this, Jeemgreem. And there were dozens of other occasions. Always, in every life, we have helped each other.”
“You seem to have come down in the world,” I suggested.
“You, too, Jeemgreem! You were a general of Genghis Khan. A hundred thousand soldiers rode like whirlwinds at your nod in those days. But you know what Shakespeare said: There is a tide in the affairs of men . . .”
“I agree with Shaw,” I said, “that Shakespeare is overrated. I don’t understand poets.”
“You never did! No, nevaire. You were always inartistic. That is why you have always needed me; whereas I need your pragmatism and your power of concentration. Jeemgreem, our tide is turning — yours and mine. Destiny has kept us separated until now, in this life, because now is the propaire moment. I have come to warn you not to interfere with Dorje — as I warned you when you were Sir Francis Weston, and I was Ann Boleyn.”
“Didn’t you say your name is always Baltis?” I suggested.
“Always Baltis. I have always known myself by my own name. But I have sometimes kept it secret. The real reason why Henry the Eighth of England caused me to be executed was that in a foolish moment I revealed to him my real name, telling him that I was once the Queen of Sheba, whereas he was nobody in those days. He grew jealous. He made charges against me. And they were partly true. Yes — why not? I did not love him. But I did love you, Jeemgreem. In those days you were vairee handsome, when you were Sir Francis Weston. And if you had listened to me, you would have r-r-run as you will r-r-run now, if you listen to me.”
“Do you think me a coward?” I asked. It was difficult to think of appropriate remarks to keep the conversation going. Her apparent sincerity was a bit bewildering.
“A coward? I would r-rather call myself a pr-r-rude!” she retorted with withering scorn. “Is a tiger a coward, who r-r-runs from a cage when the door is open for him? Jeemgreem! Solomon the Wise has been reborn into the world, to be King of the World. I tell you what all the East knew long ago — that the King of the World is coming! The King of the World is Solomon reborn. He is known as Dorje! Dorje the Darling! Dorje, before whom presently the kingdoms of the world will bow their necks!”
I nodded. It seemed the only thing to do. Then, suddenly, I thought of another line of questioning:
“Wasn’t it a rather strange coincidence that someone should tell you of my arrival in Marseilles the day after I got here?”
“Coincidence?” She spluttered with laughter. “Jeemgreem, I have hunted for you during three whole years. I have spent more — much more than a quarter of a million francs to find you. When I learned you were in Tibet I sent men to watch all the passes by which you possibly could recross the mountains. Even so, you escaped me. Then, at last, I heard you were in Berlin — then in Paris — then that you had booked your passage from Marseilles to New York, on your way
to Callao. So I came to Marseilles. This morning an informant told me you were at L’Église de Notre Dame de la Garde, where you spoke with Haroun ben Yahudi — that fool — Dorje was a fool to trust him, half-Jew, half-Arab. Dorje trusted Haroun because in ancient days he was the captain of the fleet that brought cedar down from Lebanon when the Temple was building. Even Dorje makes mistakes.”
She paused for breath. She stared into my eyes and seemed in doubt whether to take me into her confidence or not — then suddenly threw caution to the winds:
“There are no witnesses. Jeemgreem — then that terrible — that horrible, atrocious mistake — that cr-ruiser blown up too soon! And with my own eyes I saw them capture Haroun. I learned that you came to the prefecture. So I came also. Jeemgreem, you must get Haroun out of here before he tells secrets. I know what they will do to him. They will place his thumbs in the jamb of a door, and they will squeeze until he tells every single word he knows. Jeemgreem — I have been to such great pains to find you — will you do that trifle for me? Will you use your influence — your wits — your resourcefulness to get Haroun out of these men’s clutches?”
I nodded, knowing what Grim had already arranged.
“I may depend on that? It is a promise, from you to me? In all our lives on earth, whatever happened, we have always kept faith, Jeemgreem.”
I nodded again. “He shall not be tortured. If you watch, you shall presently see him go away from here.”
She let a sigh of almost exquisite relief escape her, narrowing her eyes as she felt its full surge through her system. Evidently Haroun had given her anxious moments.
“And now I must go, Jeemgreem, because if that Prefect returns he will recognize me, and that — how soon will you come and see me, Jeemgreem? Listen — I have no card — write this: I am staying at the apartment of Madame la Comptesse de St. Étienne sur Saône, Place de la Croix des Templars, Marseilles. You must come soon. You must come sooner than soon. Within one — two hours — not later! I will be there waiting for you. It is number eighteen. Stop your taxi-driver at the corner of La Rue des Capuchins and let him suppose you are going to déjeuner at the restaurant. Then, after he has gone away, walk to la Place de la Croix des Templars. The apartment is up one flight of stairs. You will be there?”
“If I may bring my friends,” I answered.
“Jeemgreem, you and I must talk alone together.”
“Then I won’t come.”
“When will you leave off being obstinate! Oh, man’s man — you were always such a cautious fool with women! Life after life, I have seen you miss your opportunities because you would not trust me until you had learned too late that I am wholly to be trusted! Very well then, bring them. I suppose you will bring that big oaf Ramsden?”
“Him and Crosby.”
“Who is this Crosby?”
“He may surprise you. I have known him quite a long time.”
“Warn him that he deals with danger! I am not one to be deceived, even by your friends, Jeemgreem!”
As she turned away from me she glanced back in a way that would have brought thrills to the spine of a brass god. Then she walked to the door and scrabbled on the panel with her gloved fingers, making almost no sound. But it opened. She whispered to someone and walked out. Several seconds later I heard her limousine drive away. Then, I, too, went to the door. It was not locked now at any rate. A man in uniform stood outside the passage.
“Why did you show her in here?” I demanded, in the best French I can muster.
“But, M’sieur Grim, she said you wished that.”
“All right,” I answered. “I have written out my statement. You may take it.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I was not James Schuyler Grim; but on second thought it seemed more tactfully neglectful not to. “Who else knows that she has been here?” I demanded.
“Nobody, m’sieur.”
I gave him one hundred francs, on sheer impulse. If anyone had asked, I could not have answered why I did it.
CHAPTER 4. “I’ll take this case.”
Bureaucracy, of course, inevitably strangles itself with red tape sooner or later. Mere efficiency becomes the end aimed at, instead of the means by which ends are attained. However, subject to that limitation, the speed and accuracy of the Marseilles police dragnet was almost incredibly good. Perhaps an hour had elapsed since I was conducted into that room to write my statement. In addition to I don’t know what else, the police had meanwhile managed to identify the body in the morgue as that of Guido Georges Marie de la Tournée. They had a full report, all ready for the Prefect, of how he had committed suicide by leaping from the summit of the funicular at Notre Dame de la Garde. They had, furthermore, identified him as a former Czarist spy of no particular attainments; and they had dug up a record of his having been deported from India, Cuba, the Argentine and the United States. He appeared to have had French citizenship papers and to have served two short terms in prison, for assaults committed while under the influence, once of absinthe, once of hashish, against former employers who, he said, had insulted him.
His medical report was interesting. He had been set down by the prison doctors as “not insane enough for detention” but as evidencing signs of persecution-mania. One doctor, probably with time on his hands, had filled up two sheets of foolscap about him. As a surgeon I was allowed to see it, and I formed the opinion that, if I had been the prison doctor, the man would have been certified as probably incurably insane. However, there was another report about him, and it was more to the point:
A detective had traced his movements since he left an establishment in the red light district early that morning. He had got into a fight with a French sailor on shore leave from the cruiser anchored in the harbor. He had taken a mild thrashing without doing much damage in return, and he had not seemed to resent that particularly; but two waiters sweeping the front of a cafe had noticed that what the sailor and his companions had said to him afterwards as he slunk away had stirred him to almost maniacal frenzy. According to one waiter, he had shouted, “You shall all of you pay for it — all of you!” But the other waiter had reported him as saying, with a savage oath in borderland French-Italian, “You are blow-flies out of one bottle. I will destroy all of you, bottle and all!”
He had then gone to a cafe, where he drank two stiff glasses of cheap brandy. After that he went to Haroun’s ship, where he disappeared through the hatch that led to the cabins below the poop-deck. Emerging presently, he loafed around until he found a warrant-officer about to return to the cruiser in a small steam-launch, whose owner had offered to take him gratis. Guido Georges Marie de la Tournée was seen to give the warrant-officer a package wrapped in newspaper and tied with tarred string. He was heard to ask him kindly to deliver the package to one of the cruiser’s engineers, saying, “I don’t know the officer’s name but he left this at Madame Reuben’s.”
Immediately after that he jumped into a taxi; and the next that was known of his movements, he had committed suicide. The detective added, however, that someone (name not given) told him that the explosion on the cruiser took place within two minutes of the arrival of the launch alongside and that the departing launch only escaped destruction by a miracle. He wound up the report with his not unreasonable conjecture, that there might be some connection between Guido Georges Marie de la Tournée, the package he had handed to the warrant-officer, and the explosion on the cruiser, although he remarked, too, on the obvious impossibility of wrapping in one small package a sufficient quantity of explosive to wreak so much havoc. It was a good report, not shown to us, but read aloud over the phone by an official, to someone at the military barracks, so that I got the gist of it.
Then Grim reappeared with Haroun, and by the look in Grim’s eyes, and in Haroun’s too, it was easy to see there had been revelations, but neither of them made any remark. Jeff Ramsden came in, with one folded sheet of paper, just as the Prefect returned. The Prefect had walked. There was mud on his shoes. He appeared excited
, and he was rather out of breath. He laid on the desk, on top of the pile of reports, a small brass object that looked like a section of one-inch pipe with an irregular shaped plug screwed into either end. He raised his eyebrows at Grim, who nodded. Haroun stared at the brass thing on the desk as if he recognized it. The Prefect beckoned Grim and Haroun back into the room they had just left, closing the door, and I heard the key turn on the inside.
“What’s that thing?” Jeff asked; and before anyone could prevent him he had picked up the piece of brass tubing, which appeared battered and too light to contain anything, but I had time to notice that one of the plugs was only partly screwed into the end that he held in my direction, before a policeman sharply ordered him to put it back on the desk.
“Might be a bomb,” Jeff hazarded. But I shook my head. It was too small, and not heavy enough.
We were then ordered to sit on chairs with our backs to the wall, doubtless to prevent any further unauthorized investigations. We sat silent for a long time with nothing whatever to entertain us except our own thoughts and frequent interruptions of them by the telephone, which was answered by the Prefect’s secretary. Then suddenly the door opened and Haroun walked out, apparently a free man; the Prefect appeared in the doorway, said something sotto voce to a man in uniform who stood guarding the door opening into the passage that led to the street, and once more closeted himself with Grim. Haroun, not seeming to glance in our direction, made straight for the street and was let go without comment.
However, he was not so free as he perhaps supposed. He had hardly time to reach the street before the Prefect’s secretary ‘phoned to someone in the building to follow and not lose sight of him; reports of his movements were to be ‘phoned to the Prefecture every half-hour. Ten more minutes passed before Grim came out, still talking to the Prefect, who walked to the desk, thumbed over the papers, picked up the piece of brass tubing, shook it, tried to unscrew the plug that looked loose, failed, screwed it in instead, set it down again on the pile of papers — and addressed us: