by Talbot Mundy
“Funny time to want to talk to her,” Blair suggested.
“Better time than any other. She sometimes actually talks at daybreak, instead of listening and saying nothing. Doris and I have respected her silence, of course. It’s comprehensible. She probably feels much worse about her father’s disappearance than she cares to reveal to anyone — even her friends. I’ve let her do pretty much as she pleases.”
“So I hear,” Blair answered. “What did you have in mind to say to her at daybreak?” Grayne looked vaguely uncomfortable. He did his best to look judicious — leaned back. lighted a cigar, pursing his lips on the butt.
“There’s a limit,” he said. “She’s a damned nice girl, although unusual. To put it mildly, she’s unconventional. But I’d trust her anywhere, in nearly any circumstances.” He blew smoke through his nose. “I don’t believe there’s a soul on this countryside who’d harm her. But she overdoes it. I mean, for instance, where the hell is she now? Home in the early hours — off again before daybreak without a word to anyone — tigers, you know? snakes — besides, who’d bet there aren’t dacoits in the hills? There probably aren’t, but there might be. Doris and I don’t mind her missing meals or anything like that, but — well, I ask you.”
Blair waited. He was not there to be asked, but to find out. Grayne continued:
“Between you and me, I object to her going where I myself couldn’t go without a special warrant and probably couldn’t get that. To give you an idea of what I mean — when I put in for long leave and told ’em I meant to spend it here, I was cautioned — just as it I’d been a probationer fresh from home — on no account to poke my nose into places regarded as sacred.
“They knew I’m interested in that kind of thing and they ticked me off like a recruit. I haven’t even been up on Gaglajung. You know the legend? I’d intended to look for the secret passage that the three kings forced Ranjeet Singh to betray. Of course I couldn’t in the circumstances. However, I’ve reason to believe that Henrietta goes into all sorts of places, Gaglajung included. Crypts. Caverns. God knows,where she goes.”
“You say you’ve reason to believe it?”
“Good reason. One of my specials saw her, week before last, being led by a local priest into a place at the back of a shrine near here that only Brahmins are supposed to enter. What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
“Well, I’d say she’s quite likely looking for her father. You know, there’s a vague report of his having been seen hereabouts. I don’t believe it. But perhaps she does. She seems to be on good terms with the local priests and peasantry. That’s all very well, of course; but you know, I’d be in the devil of a mess if anything should happen to her. I’d be put on the mat, and no two ways about it. As her host, it would be a bit awkward for me to have to — dammit, you know what I mean — she’s — Have you any influence with her?”
Blair avoided the question:
“Did you examine her tent?” he answered.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It didn’t occur to me. Why should I?”
“So you don’t know if anything’s missing?”
“No.”
“Would your wife know if there were anything missing?”
“She might. She might know what to look for. I wouldn’t.”
The Rangar was watching. Blair, to appear casual, struck a match on the heel of his boot and lighted a cigarette. He was almost sick with a sense of dread, so he contrived to look rather cheerful.
“Don’t look at me,” he said. “Look at that kite over there on the dead tree, as if we were talking about that. Go back and get your wife to search Henrietta’s tent. Take care that’ your servants don’t see what you’re doing. Write me a full report at once; I’ll endorse and forward it to the proper quarter.”
“Good God, man, do. you think?”
“I’m thinking.”
“I mean—”
“Yes, I know what you mean. She had a servant, I suppose. Where is he?”
“In camp. It was he who first suggested that she might have returned here to talk to you, since she was here last night. Do you mean you think—”
“Did he see her leave camp?”
“No. He was asleep under the fly of her tent when your men brought her home. I suppose they told him where she’d been. She told him he was not needed, so he went off to sleep in the servants’ quarters. Their tents are about fifty yards from ours. He had no notion she was gone again until I sent for him.”
“Has Henrietta said anything to you about her father?”
“We’ve discussed him, of course. The impression I got was that it hurt her to talk about him. Doris put a damper on that topic of conversation; she called me a tactless brute. Henrietta isn’t what I’d call garrulous at any time; the only pointer I remember her giving was when she said, a few days ago, that her father might, have been a lieutenant-general by now if he wasn’t such a student of Indian magic. But when I questioned her about that she shut up.”
“What was your line of interrogation?”
“Stupid,” I daresay. I asked if she thought it possible that Frensham might have fallen foul of some of those sorcerers who like to keep their tricks a deadly secret. They might have killed him for discovering a trick. She said Frensham had never been interested in faked miracles. Then she shut right up. You know her better than I do, You know how she shuts up.”
“Why do you call that a pointer?”
“Perhaps it isn’t. But it’s full moon tomorrow night. It makes some women restless, you know. It makes her restless. I don’t know whether she’s superstitious about it or not. But she has it marked.on the calendar, and she told us not to worry if she should go out to study the full moon, and should be gone quite some time. If it’s your business, I wish like the devil you’d put a kibosh on her wandering around the country. It ‘ud be damned unpleasant for me to have to do it.. Can you?”
“If it isn’t too late.” Blair answered. “Have you had breakfast?”
“All i ever take, thanks.”
“Go and search her tent, then. Search it thoroughly, and send me a written report. Keep It secret. Say nothing whatever to her if she turns up. Can you trust your wife to hold her tongue?”
“Certainly.”
“All right. See you later.”
Grayne rode away, looking gloomy. Blair studied the Rangar; he had the painter’s trick of looking sideways at what he was observing carefully. A servant brought the camp-stool close and the Rangar sat down.
“That was a good tale you were telling last night,” Blair began. “Ranjeet of the Ford seems to have been a strange character.”
“Ah, but his ghost is quiet now, sahib.”
“You say he was a law to himself. In what way do you mean that?”
“Hah! He used to override the Brahmins.. He respected them not at all. It is a pity there are none nowadays who have that courage. It was Ranjeet of the Ford who gave the Bats the Brahmin privileges that they claim to this day. He is said to have learned a Brahmin secret — some say by torture. It is known that he slew a Brahmin and put a Bat in his place. And it is said that because of that a Brahmin betrayed him to the,three kings, intending Ranjeet should be slain by them,, so that his stolen secret might die with him. But the Bats — or so men say — already knew it. The Bats are worse than pukka Brahmins. They have no sense of responsibility. But they know the Brahmin law. The people groan, but submit to extortion.”
“My father—” said Blair. He threw away his cigarette and looked straight in front of him. He had reached a decision. He spoke quietly, in a level voice. “I need your confidence.”. The old man looked startled. He stared.
“By Allah,” he answered after a moment, “there is none to whom I give that more willingly.”
“Because I believe that, I asked it. Where is Miss Frensham?”
“Nay, I know not. Before God, and by my beard, I know not.”
; “But you knew she is missing?”
“One said something pi the sort. So I came hither to learn more of the matter.”
“Who spoke of her?”
“One in the dark, whose name I know not, nor w h o he is, nor any thing,at all about him. It happened I lay cursing the heat that frets these old bones. I bethought me of that tiger-skin, that is pegged in my yard awaiting alum. It might be sore temptation to someone desiring claws against the evil eye. I went out in the dark to be sure the watchman was awake. And as I spoke with the watchman a voice cried, ‘Ranjeet’s wife walks, seeking for her lover. Spirits of the dead are leading her from Gaglajung.’
“Whoever had spoken stole away into the dark. But the watchman also had heard him, so he and I considered the matter. We knew, because such news travels fast, that the Frennisham sahiba had been taken to Grayne’s camp by your honor’s servants. And so I bethought me, should she then come thence toward Doongar she must use the footpath that leads over the shoulder of Gaglajung. Is it not my business to know what happens? I sent a messenger. He, going and returning swiftly, told me the sahiba is missing from her tent, wherein she had not slept. So I came hither.”
“Do you know a man from the Salween country by the name of Taron Ling?” Blair asked.
“No.” The Rangar looked uneasy. Morning mauve had vanished. The sharp, hot, golden sunlight limned him mercilessly; it revealed fear. The young grandson took the old man’s hand and watched him — feeling, not comprehending. Blair lighted his pipe. “Let the child sit yonder under that tree,” he said after a moment. Then he called to his servant, “Bring forth Taron Ling!”
The Rangar shuddered. He had let down the bars of confidence in response to Blair’s request. But he had not revealed all he knew — not by the width of the gulf between East and West, between youth and old age.
Taron Ling came leering at the men who guarded him. Blair dismissed them.
“Have you received food? Were you made comfortable?”
“Yes.”
“You address me as sahib.”
“Smite him in the teeth!” said the Rangar. “By Allah—” His voice grumbled away into silence when Taron Ling looked straight at him.
“Yes, sahib,” said Taron Ling.
“Tell the Zemindar Abdurrahman Khan that which you told me before daybreak.” The semi-Mongolian eyes conned the old man’s face curiously. “I came seeking service,’ he said slowly, “as a guide.”
“To find what?” Blair demanded.
“Frennisham sahiba.”
“And—”
“Frennisham bahadur.”
“And —
“Nothing else.”
“Beware of him!” warned the Rangar sotto voce. “This one is an ibilis — a dugpa they call such, where he learned magic. He is from hell. He should be sent back.”
“You spoke,” said Blair, “of Wu Tu and of Zaman Ali.”
The man nodded.
“Do you know where they are?”
He nodded again. Although he stood more or less at respectful attention he exuded the scorn of Olympian knowledge.
“Do you know where Chetusingh is?”
“You finding all that out,” he answered. The Rangar spoke up, almost slobbering with nervous anger: “There is but one course — flog him! Allah! I have seen such as him flayed and pegged amid the flies before the devil left them! He and a Bat-Brahmin hereabouts are two of one liver. Flog him, sahib!”
Blair stared at the Rangar. Such hysteria as that suggested either genuine information or else total ignorance. In either event interrogation was the wrong course; the old man needed strength to lean on.
“True,” he said, “he knows a trick or two. He does them rather well. He fooled me badly, shortly before daylight. He may even be able to do the rope trick that; we’ve heard about so often — you know — throw a rope in the air, climb it, vanish and pull the rope up after him. He’s probably a particularly skilful hypnotist. At any rate, he knows how to trick imagination — once. What do you know about him?”
“Nothing,” said the Rangar. “God forbid that I should know about him.”
Plainly he did know something, but would not tell. He had known about Brigadier-General Frensham’s disappearance. How? Why? Perhaps Henrietta Frensham had told him. But he had also known, before Blair knew it, that Henrietta, too, had vanished; and his tale of a voice in the dark was unconvincing.
“Send for the Bat-Brahmin,” Blair commanded.
“Sahib, he would not obey me.”
“Very well, I will go myself and find him.”
“Sahib?”
“Yes?”
“That is unwise.”
“Wisdom isn’t always commendable,”, said Blair. “Patience isn’t always a virtue, either. Care to come with me?”
“Come alone!” advised Taron Ling in a voice like a bell. He had a quick understanding of English. He used it well enough when not deliberately misusing it.
“He will deceive you,” the Rangar warned. “He is a devil, that one.”
Blair stood up, eye to eye against Taron Ling. He had an impulse to punch him, but that was easy enough to restrain. A subtler impulse’ almost made him hesitate to trespass where the Rangar feared to intrude. He saw Wu Tu’s eyes again, behind Taron Ling’s, fading and reappearing, fading again, as if two influences struggled for control.
“Can you work your tricks by daylight?” he demanded.
The Rangar objected. “No, no! In the name of God, no!”
Taron Ling, looked haughty. “Tricks?” he answered “You will say I trick you if I show you Frennisham sahiba?”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Show me.”
Suddenly Blair saw Henrietta, although the vision was more distinct than natural eyesight. She looked unhappy and yet curiously excited. The strange thing was. that he could see everything else, including Taron Ling, quite normally; but whichever way he turned his head he could still see Henrietta. Her surroundings were shadowy, and in the shadow, to one side of her, was the Chinese girl who attended the upstairs door at Wu Tu’s house in Bombay.
There were other people in the shadows, but he could not distinguish them. The vision had the quality of a vivid dream. The color of Henrietta’s frock changed as he watched — changed repeatedly. First she was wearing the loose sort of tennis-frock of the night before, then the rose-colored evening dress of that night in Bombay when he had dragged her to see the fakir, then the tennis frock again. The vision vanished. Taron Ling spoke:
“Trick?” he demanded.
Anger stirred Blair strangely. There is no worse insolence on earth than interference with another’s mental processes. He had asked for it, but he did not like it any better for that. Even though his reason told him this was only an extension of the art by which a story-teller conjures visions in an audience’s mind, he hated the imposition — loathed it. He was about to speak savagely and act drastically.
It crossed his mind to arrest Taron Ling — there was plenty of law to permit it — and to send him under close arrest to Bombay for the commissioner to deal with. But a messenger came.
He saw the man running from the direction of Doongar village with a telegram in a cleft stick, so he waited and went into the tent for his pipe, cursing himself because his hand trembled while he filled it. He felt sick, and horribly scared on Henrietta’s account. Through the tent opening he saw the Rangar walk away and sit down under the tree beside his grandson, leaving Taron Ling standing alone. He wondered, supposing he should arrest the man; who could be found to convey him to railhead. Perhaps Grayne would do it.
He wished he had kept Grayne with him a little longer instead of packing him off to search Henrietta’s tent.
The sweating messenger panted to the tent. Blair signed for the telegram, told the man to wait and returned into the tent to read the message. It was in code from the commissioner, and it took him nearly ten minutes to work it out because the signaller had made.
, a mistake in one word, which obliged him to guess. It was a long message, but he worked it out finally:
Wu Tu left Bombay two days ago with ticket for Lahore accompanied by twenty women and five men after closing her residence. Should she leave train en route she will be followed. Taron Ling on your track. Strongly advise you keep him under observation long as possible before arrest as he is probably a key man. He is well shadowed. Eleven [that meant Rowland of the C.I.D.] has sent three specials to watch and help if necessary. No news of Frensham or Chetusingh. Your stolen pass reported found in Calcutta probably intended to mislead investigation. Remember get facts not fireworks. Your reply will be forwarded. o. 9.
So the commissioner also had left Bombay. That indicated probably swift developments. Blair wrote out an answer in code. That took ten minutes:
Henrietta vanished before daylight this morning after inconclusive interview with me. Taron Ling here apparently in league with Bat-Brahmin and producing mysterious phenomena of File FF type. No sign yet of Wu Tu or of specials. Taron Ling claims knowledge and offers to reveal whereabouts of Frensham and Henrietta. Shall accept offer. Recommend swift follow-up unless you hear from me within next twelve hours. Copy of this to Eleven. 088.
It was reassuring news that Howland had sent three men to lend a hand, in addition to the two who had been detailed by the commissioner to shadow Taron Ling. That there was no sign of them was nothing to worry about; such men were entirely capable of keeping their identity a secret until the last minute. Even the telegraph runner might be one of them.
As he gave him the two messages and watched him tie them in the cleft stick, he observed him carefully, but there was no signal: he salaamed and trotted away toward Doongar with a corner of a cloth between his teeth. Blair stood staring after him, wondering whether lie had said enough in the telegram, and then looked for Taron Ling. The man had vanished.
He called to the Rangar, “Where did Taron Ling go?”
The Rangar got up and walked toward him, looking older than he did at daybreak. The rims of his eyes were red and watery. He was trembling.