by Talbot Mundy
“That r-remains to be seen,” she retorted. “What will you do now?”
I could not have answered the question. We had no weapons. We could not escape by way of the corridor. If we should climb down from the window into the garden we would be exposed to pistol shots and there would still be the high wall to negotiate. It seemed extremely probable that at least one of the Princess’s accomplices was a French army officer, and I had proof that at least one of the police obeyed her orders. Even the Prefect might be her accomplice, or at least her dupe. If she was such a trusted spy as Meldrum Strange said she was, attempts to expose her would only meet with blank official incredulity, whereas, she could frame up any charge against us that she pleased. However, Jeff seemed genially undisturbed.
“I don’t have to do anything,” he answered. “Grim does the fancy work. My share is merely the manual labor.”
“I don’t think your Jeemgreem is such a genius,” she answered. She seemed perfectly at ease, and as far as I was concerned she had a perfect right to be. As “Jeemgreem” I felt I had shot my bolt and I could have cursed Jeff for passing the buck back to me. He noticed my embarrassment and his next remark was plainly meant to calm me as much to annoy her, although it actually made me even more nervous and left her scornful:
“I know what is going to happen. You haven’t known him as long as I have.”
“No?” she answered, lowering her eyelids. “I have known him fifty million years. Is that a slight acquaintance? But I am frankly disappointed in him. He stands staring in that mirror like a fifty-franc-a-day detective; whereas, if he were his true self, he would have known what to do before this. And he would have done it. Jeemgreem, I am afraid, is paying for some weakness of former lives by being a man of straw in this one — a man with a reputation greater than he can sustain in a real emergency.”
“We’ll wait and see,” said Jeff.
She nodded. “I am in no hurry.”
“Grim never is,” he answered.
I supposed he was giving me time to think. However, the only thing that I could think of was the open window. It might be possible to gag and tie her without making any noise, and then to escape by way of the garden before the men in the corridor suspected anything. But if we should do that, it would ruin Grim’s chance of making use of her in any way. I kept silent, hoping that Jeff would drop some hint that I might act on. Then suddenly I noticed a movement in the mirror. Jeff, observing my changed expression — he said afterwards that I looked as if I had won a Derby sweepstake; began talking to the Princess to distract her attention. “Reincarnation is rot,” he announced, which surprised me, more than it did her, because I happened to know he believes it. “If you know so much about your former lives, come on now, tell me what Jimgrim is going to do. You ought to be able to guess that from experience.”
I was too busy watching the mirror to hear her answer, although I remember the tone of her voice was mocking and coolly confident. There were no sounds from the corridor but I suppose the front doorbell rang. The middle-aged, unpleasant-looking maid appeared and the men vanished, closing the doors, although the man in military boots left his door ajar about half an inch, so that he could listen. The maid opened the door and in walked the Prefect of Police in uniform. Grim followed him; and hard on Grim’s heels came six policemen, the last of whom turned and closed the door but not before I caught a glimpse of two more men in uniform outside.
I think the maid screamed, although I could not hear her. I saw her lips move, and the one door that was ajar was promptly shut tight. At a sign from the Prefect, two of the policemen seized the maid, the door opened again, and they almost hurled her through it into the arms of the two who waited outside seeming to expect that. Then again the door closed. One policeman went and stood on guard in front of each door in the corridor; he at the door that had been ajar tapped on it, several times, with increasing vehemence. I heard Jeff say:
“I never knew Grim to do anything anyone thought he would do.”
And I heard her mocking answer: “I can tell you what he will do this time. He will choose between death and obedience.”
The door that was being rapped on opened gingerly. The policeman entered. The Prefect, with a nod to Grim, followed and the door closed. Grim came forward along the corridor, apparently so perfectly at ease that I felt like shouting to him to be on his guard. However, I contrived not to do anything as ridiculous as that. I went to the door and dragged away the barricade that I had built up.
“What is that fool doing?” asked the Princess. I unlocked the door and swung it open.
“Jimgrim!” I announced.
And Grim walked in. I closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER 6. “How many wives had Solomon?”
“Destiny!” said the Princess.
“How d’you do?” said Grim.
I walked back to the cabinet to watch the corridor. It had occurred to me that the Princess might have unexpected forces in reserve and Grim would probably be grateful for a timely warning. The Princess had sprung to her feet. She stood confronting Grim with an expression that baffled analysis as, probably, her emotions did, too.
“So you are Jeemgreem! Yes, yes, yes — of course you are! And I have made myself ridiculous by being taken in by that one! I will not forgive myself.” She tossed a scornful glance in my direction. “But I will not forgive him, also!”
“Let’s waste no time on trivialities,” said Grim. “Be seated, won’t you. I am here to talk to Dorje.”
Jeff drew up a chair and Grim sat down in it, facing the Princess, not six feet away from her; but Jeff continued to stand between her and the window, watching her gestures. If she had produced a weapon and if she had been as quick as a leopard, she would have had no chance to use it. I think she realized that; from subsequent experience of her I feel sure that she had a very deadly weapon concealed in her dress, but she gave us no excuse at that time for submitting her to search or any similar indignity. Neither did she give the least sign of curiosity as to how Grim had entered without opposition from her accomplices, although it must have puzzled and even bewildered her. She was outwardly all self-assurance, whatever her inner feelings might be.
“Jeemgreem, you are as handsome as you always were, in all your lives,” she remarked. “You have not one straight feature, and not one weak one. You have understanding eyes. What experience you must have had with women!”
“About Dorje—” said Grim.
“I am another woman — one more, Jeemgreem. I have had experience with men.”
“About Dorje—” Grim repeated.
In the mirror, I saw the man in military boots led out handcuffed into the corridor, but the Prefect remained in the room for a while. The policeman led his prisoner to the front door and handed him over to someone outside, then returned and I saw him knock on another door.
“As long as you and I have known each other, Jeemgreem, so long we have both known Dorje, although we have not always known who he is. Dorje has been ripening, as it were, through very many lives, developing his gr-reat wisdom and r-rounding it out. When he was Solomon he made many mistakes, of which one was idleness, due to a sort of conceited pacifism. When he was Karl Marx he had to suffer in comparative obscurity, because he was laying his mines at the r-root of the social structure, making possible the r-ruin of civilization that is to take place now, so that Dorje may be King of the World. Without him as Karl Marx, what could Lenin have accomplished? What could Stalin do now? But they — those two are little nobodies compared to Dorje, who makes use of them and will presently destroy what they have done, that he may rebuild. Dorje has chosen you to be one of his captains, Jeemgreem.”
“How did he hear of me?” Grim asked.
“Smoke, won’t you?” He produced his cigarette case. “Have one of mine.”
“Yes, let us all smoke. Let me order some liqueurs, yes?”
“No,” Grim answered,
By that time the Prefect had come into the
corridor and was giving orders with gestures imposing utmost silence. In response to repeated knocks the doors had opened and all except one of the men I had seen had been searched and handcuffed. Only one door remained closed; the Prefect ordered it forced and the policemen did that very cleverly and quietly. Two of them went in and dragged a man out by the shoulders, quite dead; he appeared to have poisoned himself. The Prefect sniffed his lips. I imagined him saying “cyanide.” The prisoners were marched out through the front door, two policemen dragging the dead one with his heels deep in the three-pile carpet. Then the Prefect and one policeman began examining the rooms.
“How did he hear of me?” Grim repeated.
“How could he have helped that, Jeemgreem? Did not you, before you went to Tibet, delay and annoy Dorje by arresting many of the men in Palestine — in Syria — in Arabia — in Egypt — in India — who were Dorje’s useful tools and sometimes even Dorje’s agents?”
Grim answered: “In those days I had never heard of Dorje.”
“Nevertheless, you compelled him to hear about you. And Dorje has a psychic memory that is even more remarkable than mine. He thought about you and remembered you in many past lives, weighing this and that peculiarity of yours and studying your merits and defects. It is of paramount importance to him that he shall choose none except excellent men for his actual council. But do you not see the advantage possessed by Dorje over those who are opposed to him? Which of the kings and generals and presidents opposed to him can choose their captains and confederates by studying them in the light of their behavior in former lives? Those who are not themselves incompetents and blind fools — do they not choose rogues and fools who betray and obstruct? Even as Karl Marx — so recently as that — Dorje had not developed psychic memory. But as Dorje he has it. He remembered me. He has remembered you. And when he learned that you had gone to Tibet he suspected you had gone to meet those men who know the psychic laws, so he supposed you would return ten times as proficient as formerly. Therefore he commanded me to find you, which was for me an agreeable task, because I, also, remember you, Jeemgreem.”
“Are you Mrs. Dorje?” Grim asked — and she almost shrieked with laughter.
“How many wives had Solomon?” she answered when her breath came — or perhaps when she had taken time to think behind that screen of possibly assumed amusement.
“Are you one of Dorje’s wives?” Grim asked her.
She laughed again. “What were Solomon’s wives except hostages and a machinery for intrigue with foreign courts?”
“Are you afraid of Dorje?” Grim asked.
“Jeemgreem, I have never been afraid, in all my life, of anything — and of a man least.”
In the mirror, I saw the Prefect bring out a chair into the corridor and sit down making notes in a pocket memorandum-book. The policeman continued searching room after room.
“Very well,” Grim answered. “Since you’re not afraid of Dorje—”
“Oh-la, la! I know what comes next! Jeemgreem, you believe you have me at your discretion — is it not so? You are too obvious, Jeemgreem. I suppose you have had this place surrounded by some very stupid gentlemen in uniform. Therefore, you will now say: ‘Betray Dorje, Madame, and assist me to destroy Dorje and to r-ruin all his plans, or go to the guillotine!’ It does not need a genius to guess that, Jeemgreem.”
“I am not in command of the French police,” Grim answered, and she stared at him for a moment. Expecting a threat, she was rather nonplussed by not receiving one. However, she held her own line:
“Look at me, Jeemgreem, and use your imagination.”
Jeff Ramsden grinned and so did I. We both supposed she was going to try to hypnotize Grim, and it would be almost easier to do that to a locomotive. Any human being can be hypnotized, of course, given the right circumstances and provided he is inexperienced and not on guard. Grim looked at her. And he always uses his imagination; no need to tell him to do that.
“Do you see this scar on my lip?” she asked him. “I was born with it. It is a memory mark. It is something like the stigmata that certain people have, except that this does not bleed. It is the mark that shows where I was shot when Bismarck ruled Prussia and I was spying for that poor incompetent Napoleon. But see this—”
She leaned forward, turning her shoulders to show him the back of her neck.
“Do you not see that mark? Is it not distinct and unmistakable? That is the mark of the headsman’s sword. When I was Ann Boleyn they had to bring him in great haste all the way from Calais, because I had the right to be beheaded with a sword, not with an axe, and there was not in England one swordsman who could do it, though my neck was so little. I died laughing, Jeemgreem, then as always. You were Sir Francis Weston, and you loved me — then as always. That time, you died under the axe — not smiling, I believe, since you were always a serious person. And besides, they tortured you.”
“What is your point?” Grim asked her.
“That the guillotine could not terrify me.”
Grim lighted a fresh cigarette and tossed the butt of the smoked one through the window.
“I don’t see that it matters whether you are scared or not,” he answered. “My point is, that I can link you up with the explosion on that cruiser—”
“Can you, Jeemgreem? Can you even link me up with Dorje? Could you put me in prison? If you should succeed in doing that for one day, could you keep me there? I will tell you at least three reasons why you could not.”
“Shoot,” said Grim, at his favorite game, getting someone else to do the talking and, as usual, not to be hurried.
“I know too much about too many people, Jeemgreem, and if I should be thrown into prison there would almost be a stampede by important personages to get me out again. Furthermore, although you may have drawn a leetle net around me, I have agents who will draw a better one around you and your friends. You also know too much about too many people. If you should suddenly die would Downing Street or the Quai D’Orsay command that crepe be hung on lamp-posts?”
“Would they mourn you?” Grim suggested, and she laughed back gaily at him.
“They would be made to mourn. Because Dorje, who is ruthless toward traitors, avenges his friends. If any government should kill me — well, you know what happened to that warship; and you saw what happened to the records at the Prefecture. We have a weapon, Jeemgreem, that no government can guard against!”
Grim sat silent, tempting her, I think, to continue boasting. So far she had said nothing that a lunatic could not have said, and her claim to remember incidents of past lives was no pronounced symptom of sanity. In the mirror, I saw that somebody had rung the doorbell; the Prefect himself answered the door. A man in uniform gave him an envelope. He closed the door, frowned at the envelope, shook it as if it might contain something dangerous, hesitated, and then suddenly opened it. He read what it contained and, I thought, did not look disagreeably disturbed, although he raised his eyebrows and made an extremely eloquent, though enigmatic, gesture with his shoulders. He looked almost amused as he copied the message into his memorandum book. Then, returning it into the envelope, he came forward and flourished it toward the mirror. He evidently knew all about that cabinet.
I went to the door and opened it. He handed me the message without showing himself in the doorway. I closed the door and handed it to Grim, to whom it was addressed. Grim read it, as he always reads everything, with one swift photographic glance, and handed it to Jeff, who studied it for sixty seconds and then passed it back to me. It was addressed to Grim in care of the police and marked “Urgent. Please find him.” Its contents were brief. The signature was O and I don’t know who “O” was — some confidant of Grim’s. It was dispatched from Geneva.
“My office and all its contents have been destroyed by a fire of unknown origin. The secret, confidential and other records are a total loss. This is irreparable. Perhaps you will now believe that Dorje is what I told you.”
I returned to my observatio
n post. Through the open window we could hear newsboys at the top of their lungs announcing special editions about the warship disaster. It seemed to me highly improbable that the Prefect would remain indefinitely in the corridor while excitement in the streets gained headway, and since he knew about that mirror he might wish to signal to us through it — perhaps to beckon me outside for instructions. However, he was betraying no impatience, beyond that he glanced once or twice at his watch; he sat examining his notebook, rocking his chair on two legs, tapping his teeth with a pencil.
“Princess.” Grim seemed to have made his mind up what to do, and I think she realized it because her attitude became vaguely less relaxed and insolent. “If I wished to get you out of the way, I would not take the trouble to bring you to trial. I don’t understand French criminal procedure, and I do understand that you have what is known in the United States as ‘pull.’ But a pull on a trigger — you understand me?”
“You would shoot me? You have not the disposition. You are too moral. I am not in the least disturbed about your shooting me.”
I thought, and I could tell by his face that Jeff did too, that Grim had gone off on the wrong foot. Certainly the Princess thought so. She looked triumphant again and rather scornful. Grim looked at his wits’ end and as if he were trying to hide the fact.
“I don’t have to pull triggers,” said Grim. “There are plenty of others who would do that quite cheerfully. I have decided, however, to save your life — on conditions.”
“You? Save my life? You are cr-razy! I do not need to move in order to kill all three of you this instant!”
“So I thought,” said Grim. “Let’s settle that first. Jeff, do you mind watching her while I—”
He turned his back to her and walked toward the south wall of the room, the wall that she sat facing. He had been able to watch her eyes from where he was sitting; she had glanced in that direction once or twice too often and too obviously carelessly to escape Grim’s omnivorous eye for detail. I watched her face while Grim walked straight toward the wall. She and I appreciated at the same moment that Grim, by talking like a mere dime-novel blow-hard, had tempted her to crow — and sneer — and give away a secret that she would have given perhaps all she had to keep from him.