by Talbot Mundy
“It will need a clear head to — ah — to follow your line of thought,” said Syed-Suraj. “I am not a statesman. But I run your errands. Wouldn’t it be safer if you took me into confidence?”
“About what?”
“What have you done, for instance, that I don’t know?”
“Nothing, except that I’ve sent a party out to bury that babu. I picked four men notorious for criminal associations. They are men who won’t talk — won’t dare.”
Syed-Suraj blinked his bright eyes, hesitated, and then changed the subject.
“Any news of your cousin?”
“Not yet. That doctor of yours from Madras is a slowcoach.”
“He has made a lot of money out of life-insurance cases,” said Syed- Suraj, “and he understands the dangers of an autopsy. He’s a safe man. But have you paid him?”
“Why ask? You know as well as I do that I’m personally broke. I will give him a thousand rupees from the five you got from Ram Dass. Then let him whistle. He won’t dare talk.”
“I’m afraid of the priests,” said Syed-Suraj. “They are subtle.”
“Are they? They will find themselves out-subtled! Hawkes is on his way to shoot their tiger, isn’t he? I may have to fire Hawkes for a scapegoat. But what of it? There are plenty of Hawkeseys. Every one will understand that the tiger trick was rather neatly turned against them. They will be laughed at. It will cost them prestige. And what is left after that of their prestige will fall in the mud when the news breaks that my beloved cousin can’t succeed me on the throne for rather concrete reasons! After that, what can they do but make their peace with me? No heir! Do they want the British to take over the State and run it Gandhi-fashion — brotherhood with Christians, Sikhs and Moslems — child-marriages unlawful — caste repudiated? Not they! The priests will decide to put up with me! And they will pray for a son of my loins to inherit the throne!”
“It sounds good,” said Syed-Suraj. “How about my rake-off, by the way, of the loan from Ram Dass?”
“Get the balance. Then I’ll pay you.”
“But he won’t lend any more.”
“Try him again, if you want your rake-off, as you call it. Take my car and go and see him.”
But Syed-Suraj did not take the Rajah’s Rolls-Royce. Neither did he go to Ram Dass. He had debts of his own, and a craving — not to pay his debts exactly, but to place a stake to windward where his creditors might whistle for it. He was nervous. He felt that the Rajah had gypped him out of a commission, and he savagely resented it. He could not go directly to the priests, and offer to betray the Rajah to them. They would probably decline an interview. But there are ways and ways of doing things.
There never yet was an important priesthood that did not subsidize a more than ultramontane lawyer to direct its contacts with temporal government. Ananda Raz was a Brahmin schooled in those arts. He kept an inoffensive-looking office in the square where the wealthier merchants had their shops, and did a lucrative legal business. Thither walked Syed-Suraj, carrying his own umbrella, because, although he hated Brahmins, he knew it rarely paid to put on airs in their presence, even if one has adopted Western habits and repudiated caste to some extent. One may afford to smile sardonically at the very mention of religion, but it is wise not to flourish one’s offensive affiliations in a land where priests have teeth and competent attorneys.
There was the usual outer office, white-washed, full of meek clerks and spidery files; and there was an oil-stove in the midst, because Ananda Raz was prosperous and liked to have his clerks half-thawed as well as half-starved — meekly eager, that is, and aware that their employer thought about their little comforts. Next, between outer and inner office, was a waiting-room without a stove, as dark as a police cell, furnished with one plain table and one rigidly plain chair. After a minute or two of mysterious conversation through a tube, Syed-Suraj was conducted to the waiting-room and left there. He was very interested in the thickness of the ancient wood partition between the waiting-room and inner office. It was almost a museum piece — incongruous. He wondered at the richly carved panels, and as he examined them, he saw a panel slide the merest fraction of an inch. So he sat down and glanced at his watch, a bit disgusted that he could not recognize the eye that he could easily see peeping at him through the opening. The eye vanished. The panel closed again — almost. There was still a thin crack — quite unusually careless for a man of Ananda Raz’s distinguished habits. Syed-Suraj put his ear to the crack. He forgot for the moment that his name had been announced through a speaking-tube, so it did not occur to him that the crack might have been carefully left to induce him to listen.
Ananda Raz was speaking — wheezily, squeakily. Even the attorneys of the pious now and then have asthma.
“The priests repudiate all knowledge of the tiger,” he said. “If His Highness won’t keep his promise to rebuild that temple, no one but he is to blame if a tiger occupies the ruins and slaughters villagers. If there are riots on account of it, he will be answerable for that too. As the legal member of the Legislative Council, I shall raise that issue at the very next session, no matter how many members he thinks he has under his thumb, and no matter how many threats are aimed at me. And I assure you” — he began to whisper, an asthmatic rasp as noisy as an engine’s safety valve— “I mistrust that doctor from Madras who is attending the Rajah’s cousin.”
“I know him,” said another voice. “He is a charlatan.”
“I intend,” said Ananda Raz, “as soon as possible to send another doctor to the Rajah’s cousin, at my own expense if necessary.”
“There is,” the voice answered, “as it happens, a doctor at rail-head — just over the border — at the Sikh dispensary — an American. He is an enthusiast who would cost you next to nothing.”
Panic seized Syed-Suraj. Cold sweat crept along his forearms. As the Rajah’s Dick-o’-dirty-work, suspicion would certainly fall on him if some reputable doctor were to diagnose poison. And he knew his Rajah. Cousin- poisoners and money-gyps are hardly likely to protect their intimates if danger to themselves looks serious. He could see himself hanged as a murderer — could almost see the Rajah grinning over perjured evidence. The cold sweat turned to hot sweat and again grew cold before the inner office door was opened and Ananda Raz invited him to enter — melancholy-looking, shrew-nosed, small Ananda Raz, in a neat white turban, gold-bespectacled and irritable, wearing the thread of the “twice-born.”
“You are unwelcome, but never mind. I am busy, but I dare say that it doesn’t matter.”
That was a bad beginning, although only the obvious Brahmin reaction to his having omitted the phrase “I kiss feet.” Nobody who wants a Brahmin’s good- will should omit that formula. But there was worse to follow — a shocking spectacle. In a chair outside the railing beyond which no non-Brahmin might trespass with calamitous impurities, near the lawyer’s desk, Chullunder Ghose sat smiling like a fat, complacent toad! The most dangerous man in the C.I.D., in confidential standing with the enemy’s attorney!
Syed-Suraj had not meant what he said when he told the Rajah he was not a statesman; he did not consider himself a rat who would pimp for a rattlesnake if there were comfort in it. There was no comfort here — none whatever. He had overheard the conversation through the crack, so he knew that Chullunder Ghose at least suspected that the Rajah’s cousin was being poisoned. Not improbably the babu also shrewdly guessed who had instigated the attempt to murder himself; he had probably added two and two together and was out for vengeance. It was time for Syed-Suraj to swap horses. He tried it instantly:
“Am I right,” he asked — he looked directly at the babu— “in supposing that the C.I.D. have sent you to contrive a political change here? An important change? If so, I might help you. I am thoroughly disgusted with the goings-on. I have done my best to solve the tiger difficulty; as you know, it was I who told Hawkes to shoot the brute.” He hesitated, then stared at Ananda Raz, conjecturing what shot might penetrate the Brah
min’s prejudices. “This morning I spent an hour attempting to convince the Rajah that he ought to purify himself and make peace with the priesthood. But I can’t convince him.”
“You are his intimate. Why not set him the example?” Ananda Raz ask pointedly.
“I can’t afford it. And, besides, it might lose me the, Rajah’s — ah — friendship, and that would destroy my usefulness.” He eyed Ananda Raz. “I could do it afterwards.”
“What do you mean — afterwards?”
“A more generous patron might — ah — might provide me with the stiff fees that the priests demand for ritual purification. If the Rajah’s cousin knew how sincerely I would work for and welcome his—”
Ananda Raz snorted. He seemed unimpressed. He wiped his spectacles. “If you have anything to tell us, tell it,” he breathed. It was too like a snake’s hiss to encourage indiscretion. Syed-Suraj grinned back, catwise.
“Make me an offer,” he suggested.
But it was Chullunder Ghose who made the offer — suddenly, before Ananda Raz could answer: “Get out of the State, and stay out.”
“But I can’t afford it. Can’t you see, you fool, that you should use me?”
“How so?” asked the babu.
“I could get proof!”
“Proof of what?”
“Someone is murdering someone.” Chullunder Ghose smiled like a seraph. “Yes,” he said, “and certain sorts of murderers need parasites to cover up their tracks — sycophants to hire their doctors from Madras. Get out of the State, you jackal! Leave your royal tiger to the huntsmen!”
Syed-Suraj wilted. “Oh, all right,” he answered, “since you put it that way.”
“If I catch you here tomorrow—”
“I will go today. I will take tonight’s train.”
“Get a permit from the Rajah. You will need it. And I don’t care what you tell him,” said the babu.
Syed-Suraj strode out, dignified — if dignity consists in throwing up one’s chin. And it is difficult to hold that pose and notice things, still more difficult if one must hold an umbrella against a rainstorm. He did not, for instance, notice a man in rags, a beggar possibly, who followed him almost as far as the palace gate. The ragged, dish-faced person dodged behind a tree six feet away, exactly at the moment when a mud-bedraggled member of the State constabulary, staggering with weariness, stepped out from the shelter of that same tree and confronted Syed-Suraj. It was squally; the constable seized the umbrella and held it to windward, protecting them both. So most of the conversation reached the man who listened. He was downwind.
“Careful, sahib! Someone, who I think is a friend of the fat babu, just now offered me ten rupees to tell what I know. I refused.”
Unfortunately, silver jangled in a tunic pocket, and it was certainly not pay-day. However, that might be coincidence, and Syed-Suraj pretended not to notice. The constable continued:
“Something went wrong. He who should have slain that babu was himself slain by a priest from Kali’s temple, who was on his way from having taken goats for sacrifice at that old ruin in the jungle.”
“Who said that? Who knows it?”
“We four found the body. And Hawkes knows it. With Hawkes, on an elephant, is he who saw the deed done — a fool of a villager; we would have brought him here in custody, but Hawkes said no; he took the fellow with him. What now? May I have an elephant to bring the dead man to the city?”
Syed-Suraj sneered back: “How do I know? What do I care? Ask His Highness.”
“He is in his bibi-kana. None may summon him,” said the constable. His voice held envy or contempt; it was not easy to tell which.
“Do you expect me to enter the zenana?” Syed-Suraj retorted.
“Wait here until you are sent for.”
“I am weary, sahib.”
“Constables sometimes are, they tell me. What are you paid for? Wait there.”
Syed-Suraj hurried toward the palace, still not noticing the dish-faced man behind the tree, who ran before the rain until he once more reached the office of Ananda Raz. But he did not enter; he sat in the rain and waited for Chullunder Ghose. He appeared to be doing, it might be, penance, wrapped up in a piece of ragged sacking.
Syed-Suraj went into the palace and demanded instant audience with the Rajah.
“If he has a dozen women in his lap, I don’t care! I will see him now — do you hear me? Tell him.”
So the Rajah fumed into the library, showing his teeth. He smelled of blended perfumes. “What the devil does this mean?” he demanded.
“Good-by! I’m off.”
“Curse your impudence! I’ll shoot you like a dog if you ever again dare to summon me from the zenana!”
“Never again, I assure you! Give me my percentage of the loan from Ram Dass.”
“To the devil with you! All you do is badger me for money!”
“Better pay me this time, or I might talk! I’m deserting you. That’s final.”
“You treacherous swine!” The Rajah turned his back, but watched the mirror. He opened the mirror — took out a revolver — faced about abruptly. “Dog of a traitor! What does this mean?” he demanded, walking forward.
Syed-Suraj backed away from him. “Steady now, steady! I’ve warned you often enough against your temper. Don’t make matters worse by—”
“Tell me, damn you! What has happened?”
“Nothing, my good man; oh, nothing, oh, dear me, no!” Syed-Suraj found that tart sneer irresistible. “I warned you. Did you listen? Not you! Now the priests know you are poisoning your cousin! Furthermore, Chullunder Ghose is alive, in the city, in touch with the priests — one of whom killed the man whom you sent out to murder Chullunder Ghose. Do you suppose the babu doesn’t guess who ordered him killed and buried in a swamp? And what does that mean? That you have the C.I.D. against you! That is why I am going. Give me money and a travel permit.”
The Rajah took three steps forward. “You propose to desert me, eh? You propose to betray me from over the border! Probably you hope to toady to my cousin! Speak, you hyena! Have you sold yourself? To whom? For how much?”
Syed-Suraj backed away again. He struck a footstool — staggered. Probably the Rajah misinterpreted the sudden jerk toward him in an effort to recover balance. He raised the revolver. Panic-stricken, Syed-Suraj clutched at his wrist. The Rajah fired three times, to summon a servant.
“Help!” he shouted. “Help! Help!” frenzy of indignation making him forget he was using English. Syed-Suraj, wincing as the shots smashed the window- glass, struck at the Rajah and tried to escape before a servant could arrive. He poked two fingers at the Rajah’s eyes. The Rajah shot him — twice — through the heart. As he fell he kicked him four or five times in the face.
Then the Rajah’s mood changed. Languidly he turned and faced the door. It had opened. His personal servant stood there. He signed to the man to close it and come nearer. Then he stared into the man’s eyes.
“You, who saw what happened, did you see him take my revolver from the closet behind the mirror?”
The servant nodded, wide-eyed, silent.
“Did you hear him threaten me? And did you see him try to shoot me, three times, as I stood between him and the window?”
The servant gravely bowed assent.
“And did you hear him boast that the priests will provide him an alibi, and pay him handsomely for killing me, because they wish my cousin on the throne?”
The servant bowed.
“And did you see me snatch the pistol from him?”
“It was well done,” said the servant. “Others saw it also. I will go and find them.”
The Rajah poured himself brandy-and-soda, smiled, and drank it.
“Yes,” he said, proud of his self-control, “bring them in. Refresh their memories. Talk with one another.”
He drank another gulp of brandy — straight, and strode out, back to the zenana.
CHAPTER 10. “Whoever it is, is as scared as I am”
The rain ceased, but the river had risen; it poured out of the jungle with a gurgling rush that carried big trees ducking and bobbing in mid-stream. Men from the merchants’ bivouac on the near side gathered around Hawkes and warned him that not even an elephant could cross for possibly a week to come. No one could remember such a monsoon. They regretted having started out so prematurely. They were beginning to lack provisions; they described themselves as idiots for not having returned to the city along with the man who had taken the fat babu for nothing; nothing, mind you!
“But the babu had a way with him. A madman. Or perhaps a holy person: Holiness makes some folk impudent. Besides, the owner of the cart and horses was afraid of the woman across the river; but the babu claimed to have authority from her. It might be; and she might be dangerous; men say so. There are great owls in the jungle, and they cry too much; men say they cry out to announce the prowling of that woman and her tiger.”
“Have you seen the tiger?” Hawkes asked.
“Nay, nay! Could it cross the river?”
“How do the priests cross when they bring goats? I’m told they bring ’em once a week for a sacrifice of some sort in a ruined temple.”
“Who knows? Some say they cross by a bridge. The people hereabouts won’t speak of it, except as something to stay away from. They pretend it is guarded by evil spirits. Now and then they tell the truth, those villagers.”
Hawkes’s passenger had heard the conversation. He admitted that he knew there was a ruin — and a tiger — and a priestess. The tiger killed folk, and the priestess ate them; everybody knew that. But a bridge? He shook his head.