by Talbot Mundy
And finally, there’s this: have you heard of the Khufu Trust Fund? There are very few who have not heard of it-almost equally few who know exactly what it does, although there are a hundred thousand rumours and certainly not less than a million schemes afoot to loot it. Perhaps you are even one of the hopeful who have tried to get your fingers in the pie?
I have been promised that before long I may tell the story of the Fund. I believe it will rather surprise you to learn how more intelligent rogues than old Khufu, and how even the armour barons failed to levy tribute from it.
After all, old Khufu had proposed to himself to spend that money in the next world. Nobody knows, at any rate yet, what the next world is.
If that should be a too exciting hint, try to bridle your impatience and imagination until the trustees keep their promise to let me be the first to tell the use that has been made of Khufu’s money.
THE END
THE RED FLAME OF ERINPURA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. John Duncannon
CHAPTER II. Galloway and Rundhia Singh
CHAPTER III. The Pennyweathers
CHAPTER IV. Anup
CHAPTER V. Tiger
CHAPTER VI. The Grounds of the Kaiser-i-Hind Hotel
CHAPTER VII. Mrs. Bisbee
CHAPTER VIII. In Mrs. Bisbee’s Bungalow
CHAPTER IX. The Gnani of Erinpura
CHAPTER X. Baxter
CHAPTER XI. Tonkaipur
CHAPTER XII. The Red Flame of Erinpura
CHAPTER XIII. Baxter! Baxter!
CHAPTER I. John Duncannon
There was a voice outside, and nothing else except the creaking of an evenly pulled punkah-cord that passed through a piece of gas-pipe in the wall into the only other room. On the mat on the floor, and under it, were scorpions, so that if a man rolled off the bed he had to pull his boots on, having shaken them to make sure no kraits were lurking coiled up near the toe. And over the rust-stained ceiling-cloth there raced an endless series of rats which seemed to know exactly where the cloth was rotten.
According to his own thermometer, bought from and guaranteed in writing by a Bombay cheap-Jack, John Duncannon’s temperature underneath his tongue was one hundred and nine and a half; therefore, he doubted everything, the scorpions included. When he took the thermometer out of his mouth it rose steadily to one hundred and thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, as he ascertained by laying it down on the bed and resting his chin on his elbows to keep his head from shaking.
“I don’t feel dead,” he muttered. “Still — this might be hell. I wonder how I got here?”
He stared at the bare stained stucco walls and could see nothing about them that was in the least familiar. There was a framed notice printed in two languages tacked to a door that led into the other room. He had looked into the other room. It was exactly like the one he occupied, with a similar pair of caned cots, four chairs, two wash-stands, coconut fiber mat and teak-wood table. The exertion had made his head swim so that he could not read the printed notice. Anxious not to fall on the floor amid the scorpions, he had returned to the bed, on his way taking the thermometer out of the kit-bag on the table.
He recognized his own baggage, or at any rate most of it, lying about on the floor. There were two rifles in leather cases and a shot-gun in a canvas sling, a small trunk, a suitcase, an awful thing the English call a hold-all — which could not be made to hold anything and keep its shape — and a bag containing books and papers. There was also a genuine Mexican saddle screwed up in a wooden box — or at least he supposed the saddle was inside the box, and even found enough mental energy to hope that it might be. Somebody must have opened the suitcase, because he found himself lying in pyjamas; and his clothes were on the table, rather neatly folded. He had looked at the watch which had stopped at 12:30, but whether noon or midnight, or how long ago, there was no guessing.
Within easy reach, on a chair beside the bed — which was spread, by the way, with his own blankets — was a half-filled whisky bottle and a chipped enameled jug containing tepid water. There was no tumbler, but there were fragments of glass on the floor under the bed.
A door led out of the room, apparently to a veranda, but it was locked from the outside and so, apparently, was a similar door leading to the same veranda from the other room.
There were beetles swimming in the water in the jug, and the cork being out of the whisky-bottle, quite a lot of ants had drowned themselves in that. The beetles that swam were devoid of all sense of direction, so it was difficult to rescue them, what with his hand shaking and one thing and another, but he got most of them out at last and found when he gulped the warm water that he could think more definitely — although either the taste of the water was horrible or else —
“Was I drunk?” he wondered.
He believed not, although he was not sure. For one thing, he habitually drank so seldom and then so temperately that there was almost nothing more improbable than that he should drink himself unconscious. But on the other hand, there were those incredible scorpions on the floor. He blinked at them. And then there was the voice outside — one that he was sure he had never before heard.
“Am I in jail?” he wondered.
But the place did not look like a jail. It was neither strong enough nor clean enough. He did not know whether they provided punkahs for the prisoners in Indian jails, but rather thought not; and if they did, then it was likely they would grease the rope where it passed through the pipe in the wall.
The funny thing was that he could not remember anything about the past few days, although he recognized his luggage, knew his name, his home address in Bangor, Maine, and could remember why he came to India. His brain quite readily recalled the circumstance of landing in Bombay from a P. & O. liner whose passengers behaved as if they were the rather weary gentlemen and ladies in attendance at a languid royal court. He recalled that even when you went on deck in your pyjamas before breakfast you did not speak to any one without being first introduced — not, that is, unless you did not mind being snubbed; and the officers seemed to expect you to touch your hat to them.
He remembered it was hot the day he landed, and that when you drank a long drink the whole of your shirt was wringing wet five minutes afterward. He could recall the vaguely insolent official who had examined his passport and passed him out of a corrugated iron-roofed shed into a street that was a splurge of many colors. He had gone thence to a horrible hotel, because the decent ones were full of Englishmen who had made their reservations in advance.
In a hired Ford that had a linen top with bright red tassels he had made the social rounds and left a dozen letters of introduction; and on the whole he had been well received, although it had amused him to discover that, as a person with commercial affiliations, he was not considered eligible for the best clubs.
However, people had been civil; they had invited him to dinners at their homes, and in less than a week he had learned enough from a dozen different points of view to realize that business in India would not be in the least like anything he had experienced anywhere else. Not that the discovery disturbed him in the least; Turner, Sons and Company had not picked him out from a hundred eligibles for nothing. He had come to India to hold his tongue and use his wits; moreover, he was well aware that he had used them fairly shrewdly.
“Then how did I get into this fix?” he asked himself, drinking some more of the disgusting water.
He decided he must have help, though he hated to ask for it until he could feel more self-confident. Not given much to dandiness in dress — in fact, preferring well-worn clothes to new ones — nevertheless, like many other men who loathe the latest fashions, he preferred to appear shaven before strangers. He could feel a three-day stubble on his chin, and his dense, unmanageable, crisp dark hair he knew was like a mop.
For a while he listened to the voices outside; his head did not ache so much since he had drunk about half of the water and he began to hear a little better. There was a squeaky
, shrill voice and a baritone one, full, possessing a wide range, resonant and decidedly pleasing. The squeaky voice suggested an unoiled wheel; the other was human and, to an attentive ear, good-natured.
It was at least ten minutes before it dawned on John Duncannon’s slowly recovering brain that both voices were speaking English, the squeaky one vilely mispronouncing it, the other mouthing it with evident familiarity and no more than a trace of Oriental accent, but with a peculiar economy of unimportant words.
“Must make,” said the strong voice.
“Squeezit? Squeezit? What is that?” the other demanded. New words seemed to irritate him.
“Ignoramus! Obsolescent savage! In what second-handed, six-weeks’-course-in-English-and-perfection-guaranteed bazaar handbook did you pick out your vocabulary like a parrot choosing easy nuts? Gampati! Whoi! Should India swadeshi win, what jargon should we wrangle in? But why quote poetry to persons preferring dunghill snort of swine? Are Burmans persons? Tell me that? Or are they warts on a Darwinian landscape? Hari bol! Have you heard of the U.S. United States — thou, whose skin is like a parchment with the mantrams rubbed off by scratching yourself against shoot-no-rubbish signs?”
“Have heard, yes, certainly of U.S.A.,” the squeaky voice answered. “But what is squeezit?”
“Krishna! Surface that thou art of improfundity! Know cricket?”
“Yes. Sahibs play cricket— ‘How’s ‘a-at? A-out! Over!’ Bat — ball — run — sweat — tea-time!”
“Baseball,” said the big voice, “is cricket without tea-time, played in U.S.A. Biff — yow — pop-bottle on umpire’s ear — crowd roars — stand collapses — big man in prison-costume pitches bat at anybody nearest — everybody runs, trying brain everybody else with hard ball — people called fans throw hats from sun-shiny side of paddock and yell ‘Slide, you bloody idiot!’ Person who did not hit ball — was standing elsewhere — sits down as admonished — slides on rump, heels first, for home plate, arriving one inch ahead of ball, with which man in armor seeks to brain him. That is baseball — hot stuff — very! Have seen. Was in U.S.A. Paid dollars two for seat plus twenty-cent tax. Peanuts extra.”
“Yes, but what is squeezit?
“Man of muddy intellect! A squeeze hit is as aforesaid — skin of teeth ahead of ball at home plate. We must do same, ball in this instance being symbol of slings and arrows same as Hamlet suffered, only worse; he, being prince, ate frequently. Thou, mummy of a boh’s ambition! Thou negation of discernment! Within, possessed of money and banker’s references, also valuable luggage, lies one of unimaginative tribe of gora-log, at present in extremis, which is doctors’ way of saying ‘e dunno where ‘e are.”
“Is he baseball player?” asked the squeaky voice.
“Gampati! He is bread, meat, victuals! Thou shadow of the puncture in a sieve! Thou stranded jetsam on the beach of imbecility! He lies within, doesn’t he? He is locked in, isn’t he? He has raved in delirium, hasn’t he? He will wake up, won’t he? Well, what is left to us but making squeeze hit and be home first before said white man’s wits return and beat us out of fat emoluments?”
“Well, I am ready,” said the thin voice. “Let us enter. Doubtless he has money in the—”
“Chapper-band! Nay, I insult the rainy-season thieves of Malabar! Beast of a Burman! Am I come to this, that I must sit still and be ogled by a sneak-thief?”
“But you robbed the—”
“Shush! I did not! The red-faced drunkard kicked me out of the first-class carriage by behime-end — and self having first-class ticket, generous employer having paid and self not having opportunity to trade same in and pocket difference. Should I entrust injured pride of bruised posterior to legal procrastination? So it happened that aforesaid angry drunkard’s pocketbook containing not too many bank-notes made exit simultaneously. Personally — price was too low in exchange for injury to self-esteem, omitting bruises.”
“But this is a different sahib, and his servants have run away,” argued he with the high-pitched squeak. “There is only one punkah-wallah, who will also run—”
“He will not! I have threatened him with possession by Burmese devils if he should fail to pull the cord until relieved.”
“But why? Do we want witnesses?”
“The gora-log die in the heat without punkahs.”
“But if he were dead—”
“Crow! Jackal! Dung-beetle! Grave-robber! Ghoul! Burman! When you die, may barbers bury you. Gampati, may you richly recompense me in the next life for the destiny of this one that has made of me a consort with this necromantic vermin! Oh, though unimaginative proof of Darwin’s dream! Thou tapeworm! That inside there is a specimen of homo sapiens — a young, clean, strong provoker of happenings — let us hope, not too well nursed by wisdom — let us pray, not noticeably provident — a buffalo for energy — a sentimentalist undoubtedly, since he is white. And we — what are we but parasites? Could we thrive off corpse? Are we priests? No. Are we wakils? No. Embalmers? No. Agents of political extortionism adding to bereavement of widow and children severe death penalty in form of cash down? No. Decrepit hyena! Even lice leave carcases! Living American goose from U.S.A. lays golden eggs if suitably encouraged. Kill same — flesh and feathers — bah!”
“Then what shall I do?” asked the squeak.
“Shall act as indicated.”
“Speak plainly.”
“Paragon of imbecility! Blind owner of empty belly! Witless ingrate! Lo and look! Could generous Ganesha have done better for us? Ignorant, opulent, inquisitive, rash, lonely, lost white man, possessed of energy, lies sick from circumstances he has probably forgotten. Servants of same, being terrified, run, having bribed one punkah-wallah to remain, lest death ensue and therewith complications such as police investigation. Said servants, intending to summon medical aid, argue, quarrel, accuse one another, change minds and scatter — is it not so? Did we not hear portion of said arguments? Well and good. Verb. sap. Excellent. We arrive on scene. We wait for symptoms of return to compos mentis. Hearing call for help, we enter. We are astonished. Withers being wrung by indignation at predicament of stranded personage, bowels of compassion obligate us to express benevolence. Not so? Universe as is, on fifty-fifty basis, barring accident, delivers quid pro quo — same, speaking personally, taking form of cash emolument. What was that? Is it time to be astonished!”
John Duncannon lifted his head from an air-pillow that burned like a hot brick and swallowing more water, shouted:
“Ho there! Who are you? Come in!”
The effort made him weak and he lay down again, shutting his eyes because the walls whirled sickeningly. A key creaked in a lock, the door opened gingerly and a blast of hot wind entered, bringing dust with it. When he opened his eyes again he was aware of an immensely fat Bengali standing near the bed, examining the clinical thermometer with an expression of contemptuous amusement.
He was an extremely handsome babu. His face looked brainy and good-natured. The cunning of his large brown eyes was tempered by good humor. His bare legs, remarkable in a land of spindle-shanks, looked stout enough to have carried twice his weight, prodigious though that was. He wore a bright pink turban, rather soiled, a well-cut black alpaca jacket and elastic-sided boots, which were the only incongruity in an otherwise reasonable compromise between Eastern and Western costume.
“Salaam, Kumar Bahadur!” he said pleasantly.
“I don’t understand you,” Duncannon answered, his voice crackling with the heat.
“Salaam meaning peace where is no peace, but wishing same,” said the babu. “Am Washingtonian democratist since short experience in U.S.A. All U.S.A. Americans are kings as per constitution, consequently kings’ sons, unless Darwinian theory should be adopted as national religion by amendment — in which case ancestors would have to be sold at auction. Meanwhile, Kumar Bahadur, meaning son of a king, your Honor, is form of suitable salutation — same as how d’ye do.”
“Who are you?” demanded Duncannon.
“Sri Chullunder Ghose.”
“Sri?”
“Same being significant of high degree in Universal University, self being failed B.A., Calcutta, consequently persona non grata to certified nabobs of knowledge. General public notwithstanding, knowing good thing when it sees it, conferred title of Sri by acclamation; governing committees of less universal universities giving consent thereto by silence, same being very dignified.
“Who is your friend?” Duncannon asked.
“Assistant,” the babu corrected. “Stays outside, being Burmese person of no social standing. Sits in dust where he belongs.”
“Why do you talk English to him?”
Chullunder Ghose scratched his protruding stomach, possibly to help himself recover from surprise.
“Being savage from wilds of Burma, said miserable creature knows no other intelligible language,” he answered nervously. Then, with the bedside air of a physician, “What can I do for your Honor?”
His coppery-ivory skin appeared to glow with human kindness; there was cunning mixed with it undoubtedly, but nothing that looked treacherous.
“What do you think you can do?” Duncannon asked. “I don’t know how I got here, where I am or how to get away.”
“Sahib, show me any man who knows any of those things and I will show you a god!” the babu answered. “ ‘Nevertheless,’ says Santayana, ‘waking life is a dream controlled.’ We must endeavor to control same. Can assist.”
He whistled and a lean hand passed a bag in through the door. Chullunder Ghose deposited the bag on the table and pretended to grope among its contents while thoughtfully examining Duncannon’s clothing.