by Talbot Mundy
“You bloody fool! Any of us would have lent you money. What ailed your stomach?”
“Dunno. Same complaint the rajah has. Burns — makes you miserable. Opium dulls it. Nothing else will.”
“Where are your servants?”
“Gone, I suppose. The new butler is somewhere, isn’t he?”
“Where is your clerk?”
“Gave the fool a week’s leave. Didn’t want him in the way.”
“Who cooked your food?”
“Cook’s gone. I accused the swine of poisoning me and he ran away. Then I fainted. When I came to, I was too bloody miserable to think of anything but opium. Say, old man, give me some more of it. Let me — I know where it is. My belly, it’s like about a thousand knives, like rats gnawing, like—”
But Galloway was adamant.
“You’re dying, Rindervale. Come on now — play the game. Die chin up. Talk. Why should the cook want to poison you?”
“Dunno. I don’t remember.”
“Rot! Had you been asking questions about the rajah’s illness?”
“Of course I had.”
“Whom did you ask, for instance?”
“Lots of people.”
“Name a few of them.”
“Rundhia Singh was one.”
“When? Come on now, answer me! I’ll shake you again if you don’t!”
“He called on me about three days before he left for Mount Abu. I asked him if he thought the old man had been poisoned. He said no.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘If he dies we’ll have an autopsy,’ I said, ‘You tell ’em at the palace, if he dies I’ll recommend an autopsy.’”
“Did you change cooks after that?”
“Yes, the old cook left. I had to get a new one.”
“Who recommended the new one?”
“Nobody. He just came. He had the usual package of forged testimonials. Give me some more of that opium, old chap. It’s in the — let me—”
“Sit down. I’ll pull you through if possible. I’ll send you up to Mount Abu in a stretcher — night marches. You may make it. Windle’s up there and he’s a wizard.”
“Old fellow, I can’t stand this. For God’s sake give me some more of that—”
“Sit down! My cook is making you some coffee — good strong stuff that’ll put life in you. Now think! Don’t tell me you can’t. You can; your eyes are better already. Look here, if you don’t try to breathe deep I’ll take a whip to you! Fill your lungs! Now again — deeper! Now answer me: Have you heard any talk about oil?”
Rindervale moaned.
“No oil! Don’t give me castor oil!”
“I’ll give you a thrashing if you don’t keep on breathing deep! Here’s the coffee — swallow all of it!”
“I can’t.”
“Shall I thrash you?”
Rindervale swallowed about a quart of strong black coffee and the pupils of his eyes no longer were contracted into pin-points. He began even to have the courage to resent the bullying.
“You’re bloody unkind!” he protested.
“Keep breathing deep! Did Rundhia Singh say anything concerning oil?”
“Yes. Nonsense — I forget what.”
“I’m going to make you remember! Do you see this whip?”
“No, no, Galloway, you can’t do a thing like that! Wait a minute! I’ll remember! Let’s see, now—”
“Keep on breathing!”
“Oh yes, I remember. He suggested I should chuck my job and apply for an oil concession. Said he’d show me oil and give me a share, provided I’d do something or other — I forget what. Oh yes, provided I’d consent to be a figurehead.”
“When was that?”
“A month or two ago. I saw through it. He wanted to get rid of me. If I’d chucked the job he’d have laughed and told me to go to hell.”
“Why didn’t you report to me?”
“Whole thing was too stupid.”
Galloway went out and ordered the Goanese butler under arrest. He had no handcuffs but put him in charge of two of his own servants. Then he ordered two more servants to take charge of Rindervale and keep him walking up and down, with permission to use violence if necessary. He sent most of the rest of his saises and camp-followers in search of Sivaji the spy, and presently set off on foot alone toward the rajah’s palace.
He had not gone twenty yards along the drive in front of Rindervale’s house when a basket came whirling over the high wall and landed almost at his feet. The top came off the basket and a cobra that had been coiled inside it, maddened by such treatment, struck at him. He killed the cobra with his riding-whip, then stepped back quickly behind a tree and watched the wall. He had a hunter’s eyesight. The wall was broken at the top and there were trees that cast perplexing light and shadow, but he detected brown eyes peering through a crevice. They vanished suddenly.
Galloway threw the dead cobra out of sight, kicked the basket away into the bushes, and continued his walk to the gate. He had turned into the street when he met Prince Rundhia Singh riding toward him. The prince smiled, appearing to look pleased as well as quite surprised to see him.
“I heard you had gone to Erinpura,” he said. “Why are you walking? How can you stand the heat?”
“Heat, cobras, poison — all in my day’s work,” said Galloway. “Get off that horse and walk beside me.”
Rundhia Singh looked almost as if some one had struck him in the face. He hesitated. Galloway seized the bridle-rein.
“Get down and walk!” he repeated. “Now — to the rajah’s palace!”
Rundhia Singh wanted to keep on the far side of the horse, but Galloway would not permit that. Nor would he give a word of explanation. He had no authority to arrest the prince, nor any evidence yet that would justify laying a charge against him. He hoped, in vain, that if he said nothing the prince might make a statement and convict himself.
Where the narrow street turned into a wider one that led to the palace gate they were met by one of Galloway’s saises, who reported having found Sivaji in the first place where he looked for him — the jail; he was reported by the jail-guard to be sick and very likely dying.
Galloway told the sais to lead the horse. He walked on in silence beside the prince toward the palace gate, where sleepy-surly-looking sepoys armed with obsolete rifles saluted. The officer of the gate guard, black-whiskered, sabered, gorgeous in his tarnished gold braid, said the rajah was receiving no one, but Galloway walked through and the prince had no course but to keep him company. Side by side they strode for a hundred yards on worn and ancient flagstones under an avenue of neem trees, until they halted at the foot of marble steps, at the top of which about a dozen servants loitered at the palace entrance.
There, at the foot of the steps, they faced each other, Rundhia Singh’s eyes glowing, Galloway’s hard as flint.
“You’ve a last chance to confide in me,” said Galloway. “Have you anything you want to say while none can overhear?”
“I dislike your manners!” the prince answered sullenly.
“You young dog! You tried to kill me with a cobra. Why? Because I’ve found out that you poisoned Rindervale! Why did you poison him? Because he suspected you of poisoning your father! Do you think you will ever succeed to the throne? Not if I can prevent it!”
The prince’s eyes showed indecision. He did not know how much Galloway had really learned from Rindervale.
“You are altogether mistaken about me,” he said, drawing himself up haughtily. “I am on the same mission as yourself. I left Mount Abu in a hurry because I heard rumors the Gnani of Erinpura has poisoned my father.”
Galloway was watching his eyes. They were a liar’s — a desperate, frightened liar’s. There was utterly no truth in them.
“I can guess the Gnani’s purpose,” the prince went on. “He would like to see oil-wells opened up for the sake of Rajputana. My father objects.”
“And you?”
The prin
ce shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, come along in,” said Galloway.
They had to wait interminably in the stuffy, tawdry antechamber of the audience hall, staring at abominable European furniture that crowded ancient Indian works of art. Bare-footed servants peered at them and went away. There were whispering, long silences, then sounds as if half of the palace furniture were being moved; until at last the minister of state came, smiling, wearing a new red turban and a long robe over a European suit of Chinese silk. He was a little man with the marks of small-pox on a lean, ascetic face. Galloway strode up to meet him as he entered, acknowledged his greetings brusquely, led him out into the hall and whispered:
“There’s a rumor of poison. For your sake as much as any one’s I must see the rajah without loss of time. Prince Rundhia Singh ought to be present.”
“Impossible! His Highness can’t bear the sight of Rundhia Singh! He has forbidden him the palace. If he might only nominate another heir he could die in peace. The shock might kill him if Rundhia Singh should be admitted to the room.”
“Very well then, I’ll see him alone. Perhaps that’s better,” said Galloway. “Can you have the prince watched?”
The minister of state looked doubtful.
“Watched, perhaps yes,” he answered. “Permitted to remain here, no. If it should come to the ears of his Highness that I had permitted Rundhia Singh to remain within the palace, he would die cursing me! He would say I had brought the prince to gloat over his father’s agony! He would accuse me of trying to make my peace with Rundhia Singh in order to retain my position when the prince comes to the throne! I have been minister for twenty years. Surely you will not bring down curses on my head?”
“Turn him out then, but have him watched,” said Galloway.
The minister left the turning out process to a subordinate official and gave whispered orders to the servants who where lounging near the palace door. Himself he led Galloway up ancient stairs all hung with tiger-skins and Rajput weapons into a room where the rajah lay on an imported European bed beneath a canopy of gilded wood and peacocks’ feathers. The room was nearly bare of furniture; the rajah plainly had been carried in there for the interview.
He was an old man, gray with sickness, lean with weeks of agony, his skin in pouches showing how the flesh had wasted. Hollow eyes burning with fever peered from under an aigretted turban. Four servants stood near the bed, but he gestured to them irritably to be gone when Galloway entered with the minister of state.
There was a long silence. Galloway bowed and remained standing, although the servants had placed a chair for him before they left the room. The rajah had the right to speak first and when he did, at last, he used his own speech, Rajasthani.
“My hour is soon. There is bamboo-fiber in my entrails, but I shall live a little while.”
In the pause that followed, while the dying man husbanded his strength, Galloway murmured the politest phrases he could think of, then added:
“If your Highness would only see one of our doctors—”
“Phagh!” the rajah interrupted. The mere suggestion that a foreigner should touch him made him irritable. “I die in debt. Let that be shame enough!”
“Who poisoned you?” asked Galloway abruptly.
“It cannot be proven,” said the rajah, and for a minute he writhed in agony. Then: “But he will gain nothing! Is it true there are Americans at Abu?”
“Yes. Why?” asked Galloway.
The rajah groaned, then leaned up on his elbow.
“They shall have the heritage! Peace! Listen to me! Nay, I cannot talk. You — you tell him.”
He made a savage gesture with his finger at the minister of state, then clutched the bedclothes and rocked himself in the torture of internal inflammation. The minister spoke rapidly:
“His Highness refers to the Red Flame of Erinpura — legendary oil wells, that perhaps exist. His Highness and the Gnani of Erinpura, who is his good friend, know that if Prince Rundhia Singh should succeed to the throne he will violate tradition in order to discover those wells and grow rich. But there came to Abu an American — I believe his name is Penny-weather.”
“I know about him,” said Galloway. “He has gone to Simla in connection with the irrigation project.”
The minister of state smiled.
“He came for oil,” he answered.
“Yes, but I switched him to water.”
The minister smiled again.
“He did not forget the oil. He took with him to Simla a request signed by his Highness, countersigned by me over the seal, addressed to the Viceroy in Council, asking that the concession for oil in Tonkaipur be granted to Mr. Pennyweather. That was done to save time.”
“Who on earth advised that?” Galloway demanded —
“The very holy Gnani of Erinpura!”
“But how did you get in touch with Pennyweather? Who was the intermediary? Pennyweather didn’t know a thing about you. Who informed him?”
“Framji.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” said Galloway. “Well — that ends Framji!”
“He has probably been well paid,” said the minister. “They tell me that Americans pay well for valuable services. His Highness is hoping to live long enough to learn that the concession has been granted and that his heir will not inherit wealth but debts!”
“If I can prove any one of about six charges against him, the title to the throne will lapse for lack of heirs,” said Galloway.
The rajah heard that. He sat up.
“I will bless you! I will bless you as I die! My last breath is a blessing on your head if you can keep that dog from the throne of my ancestors! Let the English take my country! Give to Americans the Red Flame of Erinpura! Let dogs and kites and beetles eat my son who poisoned me!”
Galloway withdrew, with all the bowing and exact speech etiquette prescribed; but outside the door he threw manners to the winds and cursed his secretary Framji, skin and bone, in three profanity-filled languages.
“I don’t blame Pennyweather — he’s a business man; and I don’t blame you — you’re loyal to your chief. Neither do I blame the Gnani. But I’d like to skin that Parsee!”
CHAPTER XII. The Red Flame of Erinpura
John Duncannon, filled with a sort of dogged forlorn hope, was trying to teach new saises how to pack mules. But he was nervous. He expected some messenger would turn up at the last minute to warn him that the Government would like further particulars about his intentions before permitting him to wander at large. It was nearly nightfall. All his camp equipment was in heaps, surrounded by the mules and horses, on the far side of a rocky elevation so as to be invisible from the hotel. Chullunder Ghose was doing marvels of interpretation, listening to Duncannon’s explanations and then instructing the saises to saddle and load the mules in their own apparently ridiculous but time-approved way.
“There will be no interference,” he kept assuring Duncannon. “It is true there is no prospector’s permit, but this babu is expert sleight-of-linguist and received permission from Galloway sahib to conduct your Honor anywhere whatever. There will be no—”
“Huh! What’s this then?”
There arrived two messengers along the track that led from the hotel. One brought a telegram, the other a white envelope. Duncannon opened the telegram first.
Have ascertained by cable that New York concern has obtained provisional oil concession. Discontinue project and come home.
— Turner Sons And Company.
He gave the cable to Chullunder Ghose to read. The babu sighed.
“Might make squeeze hit, nevertheless,” he remarked with a gesture of superb contempt for principals five thousand miles away. “Refusal to see signal made Lord Nelson very awkward customer. Disobedience of orders by Lord Napier added Scinde to the British Empire. Speaking as pragmatic opportunist I should say that cablegram is vague, incomprehensible. If you will give me twenty minutes I will construe it to mean ‘Scoot for home plate
— slide — attaboy!’ “ Maybe there is substance for incomprehension in the other envelope. Open it, sahib.”
It contained a note from Deborah, scrawled all over both sides of the paper in a boyish hand:
Hello, John!
All’s fair in — war, and it was smart of you to buy those photographic copies of our plans from the swami person. Dad and I lost the originals in Bombay. But you may save yourself any more trouble, old thing. Dad cinched the oil concession. Dad’s no tortoise; he took a special train to Simla and fixed things with the central government, so even if you should find the oil it would be ours, not yours. Honest, I’m half-disappointed, John, old dear. I almost hoped you’d beat us to it — sort of thought you had the stuff in you. I’m going now with Mrs. Bisbee to locate the stuff, and if you need a job we’ll maybe give you one later, but don’t kid yourself; the oil’s ours. What’s more you will find me on the spot to prove it in case you’re still incredulous and want to look-see. If you do come, look out for the Gnani’s tigers; Mrs. Bisbee says they’re not tame cats by any means, and shooting ’em is against the rules. Try catnip.
— Deborah
Duncannon stuffed the letter in his pocket, breathing fiercely through his nose, the babu watching him.
“They’re off!” remarked the babu. He looked comically nervous. “Now at last I know why it is called human race. Can’t call it anything else. Neck and neck all the time — necking parties in the U.S.A. United States included. Me? O woman in our hour of ease, with painted lips and naked knees, I think you are a piece of cheese. But juldee, juldee!”
He began hurrying the saises.
John Duncannon swore at him and then looked at the automatic pistol that he carried in a holster at his waist. He was almost in a mood to shoot the babu for his impudence; what restrained him was inherent character, not fear of consequences. He knew something better than catnip for the Gnani’s tigers, and he was certainly not afraid to kill and skin them, whatever governments might say about it.