by Talbot Mundy
“Lynn dear!” said the Maharanee.
But Lynn was resolute. She wouldn’t listen to her. “May I have pen, ink and paper?”
No one answered. Lynn tugged open the drawer of the writing table, pulled out paper, sat there and began to write. She laid the note she had addressed to Aunty Harding on the desk. In her haste, she splashed ink on the envelope. When she had finished her letter to Norwood, she noticed the blots on the letter to Aunty Harding. She threw Aunty’s envelope into the waste-basket. She turned both letters face downward on the blotter while she searched for envelopes. There were none in the desk drawer. She asked Rundhia for envelopes. He found two. She inserted the letters, sealed up the envelopes and addressed them. Rundhia walked out of the room.
“I have sent him,” said the Maharanee, “to find a reliable messenger, who will know how to find Captain Norwood if he is not at his camp.”
Lynn gave both letters to the Maharanee. “Darling,” said the Maharanee, “Rundhia adores you so much that you could persuade him to do anything.”
Lynn stared: “Do you think I could persuade him to try to prove Captain Norwood’s innocence?”
“But Lynn dear, if Captain Norwood has been guilty of taking a bribe—”
Lynn interrupted: “I don’t believe Captain Norwood is guilty.”
“But what do you know about him?”
“Maharanee dear, what do you know about me? How do you know I’m not a criminal?”
“Lynn—”
“Maharanee dear, even if Captain Norwood could be guilty of an ungentlemanly, mean thing like taking a bribe, it was I who betrayed him and I want him to know it. If he isn’t guilty—”
The door opened suddenly. Rundhia entered, followed by an attendant in the Maharajah’s livery.
“Yes,” said the Maharanee, “that man can be trusted. Lynn dear, I will give him both your letters. He will find Captain Norwood, even if he has to hunt all over Kadur.”
She gave the man emphatic orders in his own language, told him to go at once, watched him along the corridor and led Lynn through the brass gate to the women’s quarters.
Rundhia waited, standing. When he heard the messenger’s footfall returning along the corridor, he opened the door, admitted him, closed the door, held out his hand, received both letters, glanced at them and returned to the messenger the one that was addressed to Mrs. Harding.
“Deliver that one. After that, keep out of sight for an hour. Then return and say that you have delivered the other letter to Captain Norwood. Go.”
Rundhia opened the letter that was addressed to Norwood. He smiled. There was no heading:
Your unkindness about what you saw this morning does not make me wish to hurt you in return. There is something I wish to tell you. It is important. I hate myself for something that I said unintentionally, under great strain. I can explain it. Won’t you see me?
Lynn.
Rundhia tore the letter into fragments, burned it in an ashtray, crushed the ashes to powder and then strode to the phone. He called up the Bengali doctor:
“Come and see me. Yes, in my suite at the palace. Now. I don’t care how busy you are. Come at once.”
Chapter Twenty-one
THE Bengali doctor entered Rundhia’s suite at the palace with the air of a crook who is afraid of a master-crook. He assumed an air of self-importance that he didn’t feel; of confidence that didn’t exist. He didn’t wait for Rundhia to tell him to be seated, and he began to speak in Bengali.
Rundhia interrupted him: “Speak English. I sent for you here, instead of to my house, to avoid eavesdropping. The only servants in this palace who know any English have been loaned to the Hardings.”
“All the same, I will look.” The Bengali opened the door suddenly and glanced into the corridor. He did the same thing to the door leading into the next room. He looked out of the windows onto the balcony before resuming his seat. Rundhia began on him without preliminaries:
“You may discontinue dosing Mrs. Harding. Miss Lynn Harding has accepted an invitation to remain here at the palace, so the sooner the aunt clears out of Kadur the better. Let her get well.”
“She has refused medicine. I had to put it on her breakfast food. And now she won’t eat. She will recover quickly enough! There is nothing much the matter with her. I am relieved. I do not like to do such things to western people.”
Rundhia ignored that. He lighted a cigarette and blew several smoke rings. He examined the tip of the cigarette and then asked suddenly: “Could you get at Captain Norwood?”
“No.”
“I think you’d better. Last night at supper, Norwood watched your clumsy by-play when you gave that pellet to Mrs. Harding. The way you switched the pellets wasn’t clever. Norwood suspects you.”
“Captain Norwood is himself under suspicion,” the Bengali answered. “He stands accused, does he not, of having accepted a bribe? You told me to say so to Mrs. Harding. And I did.”
“Yes. I was coming to that,” Rundhia interrupted. “I thought the news might influence her to keep Norwood away. Now, look here: officers caught taking bribes, especially if they’re popular and well connected, very often commit suicide. Norwood’s suicide would be appropriate, convenient and, in the circumstances, not suspicious. How do we go about it?”
“We don’t!” the Bengali answered, without a second’s hesitation.
“Oh. You think you can afford to defy me?”
“It is not defiance. It is discretion. Also, it was not in the bargain. What I have agreed to do, I will do. When I have done that, you will pay me, because I know more about you than you know about me. When I have received my money, I will go my way and live respectably. I will not interfere with Captain Norwood. No. I will not. That is final.”
Rundhia stared at him scornfully: “Timorous fool! All you Bengalis are alike. You run out. You’ve no consciences, but you’re afraid of the last minute. You can’t stand up and go over the top. Look here. Norwood drinks whiskey and soda. He’s an Engineer, and there’s no reason whatever why he shouldn’t have some cyanide in his kit. He has a logical reason for committing suicide. It ought to be a simple matter to get cyanide into his whiskey without anyone suspecting you.”
“I have told you that I will not do it,” the Bengali answered.
Rundhia studied him. His unconscious gesture suggested what was going on in his mind. He extinguished the cigarette by rubbing it to pieces on the ashtray. Then he lighted another.
“Well,” he remarked at last, “it might be dangerous to do. You and I must be careful.”
The Bengali folded his hands across his stomach: “Very careful.”
“Things mustn’t be traced back to us,” said Rundhia. “There is nothing, so far, than can be traced back to me. But I have the goods on you; and by God, if you don’t do what I tell you, you’re in trouble.”
Fear looked forth from the Bengali’s eyes, but he said nothing. He crossed his knees and waited.
“Norwood has got to be killed,” said Rundhia. “He is in love with Miss Lynn Harding. He hates me. He is suspicious by nature. He is on the defensive. And he is the type of person whose idea of self-defense is to attack with every scrap of energy he has. That kind of person is much too dangerous. You and I can’t afford to let him live. If we can blame his death on the priests, that could be made to hold water. The priests bribed him. By this time, they probably know that the news of the bribe is out. It would be natural for them to murder Norwood, to stop his mouth.”
“Well, why not let them! Why not leave it to them?” the Bengali retorted.
“Because they won’t do it, you fool! Did you ever know a priest to do a thing at the right time to suit someone else? It will have to be done for them. Now here’s the idea: they keep a hospice where mendicants may live as long as they please, for no payment. There are three men in that hospice, who would kill their mothers and anyone else for an ounce of opium. For two ounces, they would murder ten children apiece.”
“Wait until I have finished speaking, you white-livered fool! Do you think I would be such a reckless lunatic as to send you to talk to them? They would be blackmailing you for the rest of your life. This is what you are to do.”
“I will have nothing to do with it. That is final.”
“Oh, yes you will. You know my man Gulbaz?”
“Too well. Someday that badmash will turn on you.”
Rundhia smiled: “Long before that, dear doctor, he shall swallow one of your prescriptions! Summon Gulbaz. Give him money. I will give you three hundred rupees, and you may keep the change. Tell Gulbaz he is to hire those three men to assassinate Norwood tonight. I don’t care how they do it, and I hope they get caught. They have been living for months in the temple hospice. Everyone will believe they are in the pay of the priests. Do you understand?”
“I understand you. I won’t do it. I have done what I have done, because you knew of former indiscretions, for which you could have betrayed me to the law. And I will do what I will do, because I need the money. There it ends. I wish you wouldn’t keep me waiting. I am becoming nervous. I have drugged his medicine until he needs it five times daily. Now he is demanding one at bedtime. Why wait?”
“Are you sure of the poison?”
“Quite sure. It is the same that I gave you to test on the monkey that you packed in ice and sent to Delhi to be autopsied. It is a vegetable poison. It escapes analysis by all known methods. It is one of five poisons that baffle analysis, once it has become absorbed by the blood. They will find in your uncle’s stomach, if they look, some traces of marijuana, which it can be proved that he himself bought, and which I added to his tonic at his own written request. I advise you to act quickly.”
Rundhia nodded: “If you will attend to the killing of Norwood, I will let you do the other job tonight. But I want Norwood out of the way.”
“I have told you. I will have nothing to do with the killing of Norwood.”
“Damn your eyes. I won’t forget your having failed me like this in an awkward moment! Very well then. Find Gulbaz and send him to me. No, not here; to my own house. I will tell Gulbaz what to do. You hold yourself in readiness to do your job tonight and do it properly. After that, you may go to the devil.”
“I will go away from Kadur, you may believe me,” the Bengali answered.
Chapter Twenty-two
THE brass gate clanging behind Lynn and the Maharanee had a peculiar effect on Lynn. It made her feel buried alive in eastern luxury. Her appreciation of the seclusion, from which she could run in and out as she pleased, had not faded. But it didn’t feel the same. The click of the lock being turned by the old near-sighted servant, had a sinister suggestion that she noticed for the first time. There was a chill at Lynn’s heart. As she walked beside the Maharanee into the room, that was called the boudoir but retained the sumptuous, old-fashioned splendors of a royal bibi-kana, she felt more self-critical than ever before in her life. Not even Aunty Harding’s crudest accusations had made her feel as guilty, and as impotent to undo wrong.
“Lynn darling, why are you silent? I can almost always count on you for chatter when I feel despondent.”
“Maharanee, did you ever betray anyone?”
“Never, or I think not. I have made many mistakes; and I have been unkind, angry, stupid, sometimes I daresay, cruel. I have been selfish and ungenerous. But I don’t think I ever betrayed anyone. I don’t remember that I ever did.”
“Then you can’t know how it feels,” Lynn answered.
“Let us sit here by the window,” said the Maharanee. “Tell me how it feels. Perhaps I can help you to feel differently. You have helped me in so many ways. There is a law of compensation. Perhaps comes now my opportunity to do for you what you have done for me.”
“I hate myself,” Lynn answered. “You can’t change that. I don’t want it changed. If I didn’t hate myself for what I’ve done, I shouldn’t be fit to live. The dreadful part is, that I can’t undo what I did. Oh, my God—” she put her head between her hands “ — I didn’t mean to do it. If I could cut out my tongue! But I said it. I can’t unsay it.”
“My dear, you are suffering reaction from your quarrel with your aunt.”
“Damn Aunty. The hell with Aunty. Aunty may go to the devil — do you hear that? — to the devil. I don’t care what Aunty thinks, or says, or does. I am not reacting to her. I hate her, because what she said of me — is true. I am treacherous.”
“Lynn darling, did you promise Captain Norwood not to speak about those diamonds?”
“No. He didn’t ask me to promise. He took it for granted that I wouldn’t mention what any idiot could guess he hadn’t wanted me to see. Captain Norwood saw me kissing Rundhia. I know he did.”
“Did he say so?”
“Of course he didn’t. And of course he won’t mention it, ever, to anyone else. The man is a gentleman.”
The Maharanee smiled. “Lynn darling, where did you learn about men?”
“Oh, if it amuses you, say Aunty taught me. I don’t need to be taught. I know a man when I see him. Tell me that red head, those gray eyes, and that mouth, and the set of those shoulders, and that straight way of saying exactly what he means, are the marks of anything else than a gentleman — and I will doubt even your wisdom, Maharanee dear. I can’t bear to be despised by a man like that. Do you know, Maharanee, it’s funny: I wouldn’t mind a bit if Rundhia despised me. And yet I don’t dislike Rundhia. Why is it?”
“Perhaps you don’t yet understand Rundhia.”
“Oh, yes I do. Rundhia is a beautiful savage.”
“Lynn darling — ! Rundhia’s ancestors were civilized, chivalrous noblemen when yours were running naked in the woods! Julius Cæsar sold your ancestors as slaves in Rome when Rundhia’s were living in a golden age of art and everything that gives nobility to man!”
“Rundhia must have forgotten lots,” Lynn answered. “I can forgive him for having forgotten manners in the treasure room this morning. I can see that as a joke. But do you expect me to forgive him for having repeated what I told him in a moment of confidence?”
“Darling, did you ask him not to tell?”
“I made it quite clear I was sorry I had told him.”
“Well, you must remember that you told him something that concerns the State of Kadur. You uncovered to him the existence of a bribe that might have changed the destiny of Kadur by legalizing the priests’ possession of the diamond mine. I haven’t told you much about the diamond mine. It is supposed to be a secret. Do you call it a betrayal that I have mentioned it to you?”
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell!” Lynn answered. “I never want to hear diamonds mentioned again. How long will it take that messenger to reach Captain Norwood?”
“That depends on where Captain Norwood is. The messenger will have to look for him. He has gone on horseback. I ordered him not to spare the horse. It might take him half an hour — an hour.”
“Did you tell him to wait for an answer?”
“Yes. Captain Norwood will be sure to write an answer, because I did not give the messenger the usual receipt book in which Captain Norwood might have merely scribbled his initials. There being no receipt book, he will feel obliged to write at least an acknowledgment.”
“I can’t wait for an answer! I wish I had gone in search of him, myself. I haven’t any pride left. His career will be ruined, won’t it?”
“But darling, he deserves to be ruined if he accepts bribes.”
“Now you talk like Aunty Harding! That is the way she has been accusing me, for seventeen years, with no more evidence than her imagination, or what someone said. I don’t believe — I won’t, I don’t believe that Captain Norwood would accept a bribe from anyone, in any circumstances.”
“Darling, if he is innocent, he will be able to prove it.”
“Do you believe that? I can eas
ily doubt it,” Lynn answered. “I have never once been able to prove my innocence, against Aunty’s accusations. Not one single once! Not one time — ever. To this minute, she believes everything she has ever said against me.” Then, suddenly: “What is Rundhia doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he like to be despised?”
“Lynn dear, if you should despise him, I don’t know what might happen. Rundhia loves you.”
“Does he? You think so? Tell him I despise him! And I will, until he proves to me that he has done his absolute, utmost best to undo the cowardly wrong he has done to Captain Norwood. You may say I will help in whatever way I possibly can. But if he doesn’t do his best for Captain Norwood, I will never speak to him again.”
“Lynn—”
“Maharanee dear, won’t you please tell him? I mean it. He might believe you.”
The Maharanee sighed. She left Lynn and walked out of the room to find Rundhia.
Lynn went to the piano; she had to do something. It was a splendid piano but it hadn’t been tuned for a year. Lynn was out of practice. The combined assault on Mozart’s reputation made a couple of canaries chitter in a different key. Lynn slammed down the piano-lid and paced the floor. She sat down to write another note to Norwood, tore it up and paced the floor again. Then she took hold of herself. She was seated in the armchair by the window, staring at an illustrated magazine, when the Maharanee came back.
“Darling, Rundhia has promised.”
“What did he promise to do? What can he do?”
“Lynn darling, there are some things it is wiser not to know. Seemliness and convenience (am I using the right word?) so often are supported upon contemptible things that exist beneath the surface. Is it not so in America also? Rundhia has promised to employ a creature, whose profession is to produce evidence. If one party to a lawsuit should have ten witnesses, this person would produce twenty witnesses to contradict them.”