Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Keep the door shut!” That was Jeff’s voice.

  “Shut it is,” said a voice at the screen.

  Then McGowan: “Dammit, where’s my flashlight?”

  I produced my lighter. It refused to work. I could hear the babu groping on the floor and did him the injustice of supposing he was so scared as to try to get under the bed. Not a sound from Grim. And apparently not one of us had matches. I groped blindly, reaching for the Princess and expecting to be met by a revolver shot. But I clutched Jeff’s arm; he was doing the same thing, and expecting the same.

  She could have shot us all easily. But suddenly the babu grunted and exclaimed, “I have it!” He had found McGowan’s flashlight on the floor. He switched it on. The Princess was standing quite still near the head of the bed.

  Then Grim struck a match; there had been a box in his hip-pocket all the time. He carefully re-lit the candles, smiling to himself. Chullunder Ghose laid a hand on his heart and bowed profoundly:

  “Princess sahiba, this babu makes semi-absolute salaam. It should be absolute if only you had not let fall that flashlight when you took it from McGowan sahib’s pocket. Self am sleight-of-handist in excelsis, plus and then some, as U.S. Americans say with native modesty. Am personage whose praise is priceless. For a female woman that was not bad. Ma’am to you. None but a prestidigitatoress of much promise would have caught it on her instep when she dropped it, to prevent noise. Ma’am I adulate you. Kicking it under the bed was also very verb sap — no end top-hole, I assure you.”

  “Nom d’un imbécile, you nudged me,” she answered, smiling — but the smile was tart and boded malice.

  “Strange — strange how women never love me,” sighed the babu. “Even wife of my own bosom is indignant with me when she is caught in act of reprehensibility — not seldom, too, believe me.”

  Grim looked carefully at the bed-clothes and McGowan turned the flashlight on them, nodding. Even so, it was several seconds before I noticed they were slightly disarranged; they had been moved during those seconds of darkness and rearranged so deftly that only a skilled eye would have noticed it at first glance.

  “Wasn’t this what you wanted?” Grim asked; and he held out the package that I had seen McGowan pass by way of Jeff to Chullunder Ghose at the hotel — the one that the babu dropped into Grim’s hip-pocket while he was twisting on Grim’s turban.

  The Princess nodded. “Maybe. You humiliate me purposely. What is it?”

  “See for yourself.”

  She opened the envelope. Inside was a small cardboard box of the kind in which druggists send pills to their customers. It contained what almost anyone would bury with its owner — what even a prisoner would be allowed to retain — a cheap bronze chain about a yard long and extremely thin, to which an amulet was fastened; and the amulet looked like a wad of paper very tightly pressed into a leather bag of the sort in which some people carry their watches.

  She turned toward the nearest candle as if to examine and perhaps identify the thing. And she was quick. But Grim made a signal to Jeff and Jeff was even quicker; he caught her by both elbows; and Chullunder Ghose filched the thing out of her hand. He tossed it to Grim.

  “Why burn it?” Grim asked.

  She showed a stiff lip — defiant. But she was hanging on to herself, I could see that. Almost any kind of medical practice equips a man for judging how near a person is to the borderland between hanging on and letting go, and my practice has been peculiarly educative in that respect; but, of course, what is unpredictable is the strength of that last quantum of resistance. And I could see that Jeff was pitying her, as I was also. One by one Grim stripped away the shreds of her own self-valuation:

  “It can’t be an identification tag. Dorje isn’t such a fool as to label his agents.”

  “It is a talisman,” she answered. “There is a mantra written on it. A man from India gave it to me, and my sister stole it.”

  Grim ignored that obviously lame lie. It might turn out to be ingenious, but it limped. Its value was that it proved she was weakening; but he knew that already.

  “And it can’t be anything you need in order to do Dorje’s work, or you would not have been willing to burn it.”

  “I am no longer doing Dorje’s work,” she answered. “Must I strip my heart to you before these people?”

  He ignored that, too, not giving her the slightest hint as to whether or not he believed her.

  “For the same reason, it can’t be anything you need in order to work against Dorje.”

  “It is nothing,” she said. “I told you: it is merely a mantra.”

  “Then why go to all that trouble?”

  “It has sentimental value.”

  “Then why burn it?”

  Because I know it by heart. And it is after all something sacred. I did not wish it to fall into irreverent hands.”

  “Mine, for instance? Are there — were there ever any duplicates of this?”

  “How should I know!”

  “You say you know it by heart. And you are against Dorje.”

  “Yes. But how shall I ever make you trust me, Jeemgreem? You are blind when it comes to women. Men, yes. But a woman — you are without passion — and that is, without understanding. You do not understand me. If you were not so blind, you would see that I truly am in love with you. And when I love, I idolize. And how else shall I make you love me than by proving to you that I am necessary to your very being; because what is your being, Jeemgreem, except doing? Oh, I know you. You and your love and your work are the same thing. Can you not read in my eyes that I adore you?”

  “You have just told me how blind I am.”

  “Jeemgreem, in all other matters — oh, what is the use of talking? I must prove it to you.”

  “And if your trick had succeeded and you had burned this, you could prove it more easily?”

  “You are cruel.”

  “Because you know it by heart. And if it were burned I might have to depend on your memory?”

  “A mantra. What if I know a mantra? What good would that do?” she asked.

  “It would be more than good,” said Grim, “it would be excellent if it should happen to be the key to Dorje’s cipher.”

  She was silent. “Is it?”

  “It is a mantra.”

  “Is it the key to Dorje’s cipher?”

  “You are talking nonsense.”

  “Nevertheless, this babu — being high degree initiate of nonsense — notices that Princess sahiba’s fingers twitch like bally tearing into tatters said absurdity! Am destitute; but will bet pounds Egyptian fifty that Jimmy Jimgrim sahib has hit nail on apple of its eye! Oh, whoopee! That is U.S.A., American for Let’s Go, Gallagher. Am individual who decoded cipher despatch from German G.H.Q. to Indian revolutionary council — and was locked up afterwards for six months to prevent me from bragging of same, such is gratitude. Krishna! Let me see it!”

  It was psychologically perfect — one more instance of the babu’s genius at playing into Grim’s hands by making himself ridiculous. He touched off her temper. She turned on him.

  “Animal! I hope you try to solve it. This time they will lock you in a mad-house!”

  He laughed.

  “Goal of my ambition! Everybody talking nonsense at same time, free from obligations, debts, responsibilities and labor — three meals daily. Nevertheless, I bet you pounds Egyptian fifty I can solve same.”

  “Then you with your ape’s brain will be cleverer than—” She checked herself and Grim opened the amulet, gingerly unfolding it under McGowan’s flashlight. It consisted of parchment-like paper about four inches square with heavy writing on one side of it, done with a brush and Chinese ink. He read aloud:

  “Forty-five minus forty-five equals forty-five.”

  “Obvious,” said the babu. “I knew that one.”

  Grim continued: “Underneath that it reads, ‘Bible, McClaughlin’s Dictionary, Encyc. Brit. Eleven.”’

  “Mantra — poetic —
sacred!” said Chullunder Ghose.

  “And beneath that: ‘One to twenty-eight equals circle. Nine, ten, eleven are one, two, two-two.’ That’s all.”

  “Yes, that is all,” said the Princess. “It is supposed to be a magic formula.”

  “Why in English?” Grim asked her.

  “It is the most-spoken language.”

  He smiled.

  “In which Dorje publishes commands to his subordinates all over the world?”

  She flared up, possibly because the babu picked up one of the candlesticks and held the light so that he could see every movement of her face and she could not avoid seeing his mischievously triumphant smile.

  “You are crazy! I have told you what it is. Why do we stay here? Are we to attend a funeral?”

  Grim passed the paper, chain and leather sheath to McGowan:

  “You’ve had it photographed?”

  “Yes, here in the hospital. Did it while she was unconscious — gave it back to her before she died. We’ve two copies for you — one enlarged. Are we ready?”

  “Not quite,” Grim answered. He stepped up to the Princess and Chullunder Ghose held the candle between them. “Is it the key to Dorje’s cipher? If not, why did you challenge Chullunder Ghose to solve it?”

  “It is not.”

  “How do you know it isn’t?”

  “Oh, very well, I don’t know.”

  “I will give you your choice of three alternatives,” said Grim. “You may return to France, remain in Egypt as a military prisoner charged with high treason, or cooperate with me. Choose now.”

  “Do you mean I am to interpret that or—”

  “Is it the key to Dorje’s cipher?”

  “Very well. It is. I won’t interpret it.”

  “I wouldn’t trust you to interpret it.”

  “Jeemgreem, if I thought you would trust me — how shall I make you?”

  She stared at him.

  “Prove up,” he answered. “Are we ready? Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 15. “The Lord Dorje, the Daring — the King of the World!”

  McGowan drove, letting the chauffeur act lookout, as we went at top speed along the tree-lined road that leads southward toward Gizeh. It was almost totally dark between those trees. The car lights were switched off. Grim sat facing the rear of the car with his elbows on the back of the folding seat, speaking rapidly, economizing words.

  “Now the long chance. Jeff’s friend — Mahdi Aububah — bad bird — fanatical — stupid — almost sure he brought a dhow-load of Dorje’s gadgets overland from the French Somali coast and cached ’em near here. Probably has a tough gang. Tassim told Chullunder Ghose and you, Crosby, that the cache is in the last tomb they opened. We know where that is. It’s surrounded now by troops, and if the stuff’s there we’ll find it. But that’s a mere detail. We want Dorje.”

  “He is not in Egypt,” said the Princess.

  “No. But you are. And there are not more than ten quite dependable people who know that your sister is dead. Mahdi Aububah had orders to report to her, and he has no way to know she is dead. In the dark you look exactly like her.”

  “I don’t know him,” she answered.

  “But he knew her. He had spoken to her. He had given her at least one of those gadgets. At least that’s probable. If she had brought the one that killed her all the way from the Cape, it’s likely she would have been more familiar with it and wouldn’t have got killed. And it’s equally probable that Mahdi Aububah is not in command of his party.”

  “He is too big a fool,” Jeff agreed. “I used him once on safari to Kilimanjaro from Dar-es-salaam. Good in some ways, bad in others. No good without someone to keep after him. Taciturn, faithful, brave, persistent — but a damned fool.”

  “He was allowed to escape,” said Grim, “because he almost certainly had nowhere else to go but to his captain.”

  “Was he followed?” I asked.

  “He was. While you three chased that subaltern I sent a good man of McGowan’s to keep close on his heels.”

  The Princess chuckled — maliciously. It was her first chance to get back at Grim by shattering his self-assurance.

  “And you drive into the desert, by night, to find that one man? Well — we will have a nice ride. You are lucky, Jeemgreem; but not so lucky as all that.”

  “The luck was, that McGowan had left a good man at my disposal,” he answered. “He has already sent back word by motorcycle from the outpost near the Minah Hotel. We know the general direction to take. He will be on the lookout for us.”

  He leaned closer to the Princess and, at a whisper from Chullunder Ghose, I lighted a cigarette so that the flare of the lighter let him see her face better. There was so much wind at the speed we were making that I had ample excuse for flashing on the light at least a dozen times.

  “Let us understand each other,” said Grim.

  “Can you?” she answered. “I understand you. But you me — ?”

  “You’re what might be called a criminal,” he said, “but definitions don’t mean much. I could have had you guillotined in France, or shot here, and I can hand you over whenever I please to what is known as justice. Some people would criticize me for not having done that already. However, your peculiar genius may prove useful. So I am going to give you a chance.”

  “What then?”

  “You are once more Baltis, but not the same one. You are now your sister. And if you meet Dorje tonight—”

  “I tell you, he is not in Egypt.”

  “No? Well, if you meet him, tonight for instance, remember which woman you are.”

  “Alors — what else?”

  “Who knows?” he answered.

  She was silent for several minutes. But the atmosphere was vibrant. Nobody knows what thought is, although science comes closer day by day to grasping the principle behind thought-transference. But as I sat between her and Chullunder Ghose, and facing Grim, with Jeff’s broad back toward me, such a flood of suggestions poured into my brain that my own long-standing prejudice against almost all metaphysical theory was forced on the defensive. I could almost feel Grim’s alert neutrality. I could almost equally feel Jeff’s arrogant reliance on Grim’s genius. I felt sure that the babu, on my right hand, was speculating as to what he would do if he were the Princess; and for the sheer, stark fun of living he was hoping she would do it. She, I knew, was turning over bargains in her mind and was intensely puzzled by the complex knowledge not only that Grim almost never made bargains, but that she herself almost never kept them and that Grim knew it. Presently she said:

  “Of course, your information may be accurate. It is possible that you do know where Dorje is. If we meet him tonight, I shall choose between you.”

  “Very wise. Choose Dorje,” Grim advised her. “Because he looks like winning.”

  “Now you make me wish to choose you, Jeemgreem!”

  “Reserve your judgment.”

  “Jeemgreem, I tell you, if you meet Dorje tonight, you are done for. You can never defeat him — nevaire — without my showing you how.”

  “Never,” said Grim, “is a long time.”

  I don’t think another word was spoken until we drew up near the Minah Hotel. The Hotel was in absolute darkness; not even a candle-light was showing in the windows. On our left the huge form of the grandest and the oldest building in the world loomed utterly unearthly, against purple night — the other two pyramids dwarfed into insignificance by its majesty more than its size. Gizeh is either the weight of proportion and silence, or the silence of time in the face of eternity, fashioned in stone; I can never decide which. A man who looked like an Egyptian, but who turned out to be a Cockney Englishman, thrust his tarbooshed bullet-head as close to Grim’s as he could reach and began whispering, but Grim told him to speak up, so that McGowan could hear from the front seat.

  “Followed ‘im all the way ‘ere, sir. ‘E rode a bullock-cart part o’ the way, and part o’ the way ‘e ran like ‘ades. Then ‘e jump
ed another bullock- cart. ‘E’s in the pyramid — the big one.”

  “Where are the sheik’s men?” Grim asked. He referred to the Bedouins whose claim to guardianship of the pyramid is more or less officially recognized.

  “Gone, sir; and it takes something more than a kick or a threat to shunt those blighters. The police ‘ere at the station ‘aven’t been relieved since trouble started. They’re grey-gilled and don’t know much. Their telephone ain’t working, and instead of answering a feller’s questions they do nothing but ask. But one of ’em told me the pyramid Bedouins got scared o’ ghosts and ‘ooked it.”

  “What do you think?” Grim asked.

  “Well, sir, I know them Bedouins ‘as scooted; and I know there’s more than jus’ Mahdi Aububah in there, although the police say not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was up close, nigh an hour ago. I seen two, in the entrance, keepin’ watch; and I heard ’em speak to someone inside.”

  “All right. Follow us, and if anyone bolts keep after him. Any sign of the army?”

  “Sure. They’ve drawed a cordon, but it’s awful wide. Camel and horse and infantry. They’re prob’ly patrolling the river, too, in motorboats but that I can’t say. If somebody ‘ud offer me a ten-pun note to get through that cordon ‘most anywhere, I’d make it easy. It’s a joke, sir, if you asked me.”

  McGowan drove on, up the pyramid road that is white as a bone in moonlight, but on a moonless night like that one it is merely a river of dreamy mystery so dim with gloom that one can barely trace its curve from fifty yards away. A long way from the pyramid he stopped and we all piled out. Grim drew Jeff Ramsden aside; McGowan listened to them while they whispered. Presently Grim beckoned Chullunder Ghose and I was left alone with the Princess.

  “Does he think that Dorje is such a fool as to let himself be taken in that trap?” she asked me. Then, since I did not answer because I did not know: “If Dorje were in there, it would mean it is the deadliest possible trap for trespassers. But I think he is not in there. I think Jeemgreem is making us all ridiculous.”

  It occurred to me that Grim does nothing without motive. He would have asked me into that conference unless he wished me to keep an eye on Baltis. My actual impulse at the moment was to seize her by the back of the neck and shake her, I wanted her scared — as scared as I felt. Fear is very often at least nine-tenths of the substance of discipline; and while I have almost never known Grim’s system to fail, as he applies it, I have also almost never trusted it — until afterwards. I agreed with her, only I would have put it more strongly; in my judgment we were going into a blind trap and personal loyalty to Grim was the only excuse for following him. If she should prove disloyal that might be the end of us.