Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Then what Andrew hoped would happen, did. Old Ugly-face came and crawled under the same shelter with the dying man. For the time being he left them there alone. He went and unpacked a bottle of whiskey and rationed it out in teacups. Divided up, there wasn’t enough to make even a chicken drunk, but it was a friendly gesture, and it gave the phony lama a grand chance to demonstrate phony virtue. He refused the little metal cup when it was handed to him. He spun his prayer wheel and made a grimace expressing pious horror. But when the others curled up, all close together under the blankets that Andrew had served out, he leaned closer to Andrew and seemed to hesitate. One could almost hear him thinking whiskey. Andrew encouraged him:

  “Your Eminence knows best. But is it sinful to take medicine?”

  He couldn’t fall from grace mannerly. He was too full of fear for his self-importance — too inexperienced in the art of saving face. His was the Teutonic style. He felt the need to insult Andrew before letting down his ill-fitting mask of righteousness.

  “You are a mean host,” he retorted. “You have saved an extra drink for yourself by offering one to me when those rhagbyas were looking and you knew I couldn’t accept it.”

  Andrew told Elsa about it a few minutes later: “No one but a louse would have called his own gang ragyabas. You can generally get a good line on a man by noticing the epithets he uses. But I let him go on talking. Presently he said: ‘A giver should be generous, or else give nothing. No doubt when those ignorant fellows are asleep you will open another bottle. A little medicine is not much good. There should be plenty: So I asked for his blessing.”

  “Did he give it?”

  “Yes, grudgingly.”

  “A genuine High Lama’s blessing should sound like echoed organ music from beyond the veil that separates the living and the dead.”

  “I know it should. I know High Tibetan better than that man does. Believe that or not, as you please. His sounded like mumbling to hide ignorance. I told him I’d look for another bottle, and as soon as he thought my back was turned he grabbed the tot he had refused and swallowed it in one gulp. So we’ve got his number. We don’t have to bother about him.”

  “Andrew, do you intend you and me to go on sharing this one tent?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was thinking about—”

  “I know. But this is no time to change. And don’t let’s waste time. Let’s do some scouting. Come on. I may need you to interpret.”

  They struggled against the wind to the lee of the makeshift tent where Ugly-face was keeping his dying friend company. For several minutes they couldn’t hear because of the storm. But it was springtime; the wind changed with a sudden blast like high explosive, and as suddenly died. Then the snow fell softly in huge flakes that felt warm and comforting. There was a mystic silence, and presently they heard the sonorous voice of Old Ugly-face.

  “His friend is already dead,” Elsa whispered. “He is reciting from the Bardo Thodol.”

  “What’s that?”

  “‘Oh nobly born, that which is called death being come to thee now, resolve thus: O this now is the hour of death ...’ It’s the Book of the Dead. He is instructing the spirit of the dead man how to behave, and what thoughts to cling to, on the plane of existence beyond the Veil on which he is now awakening. Andrew, not ten other men in the world know the Book of the Dead by heart.”

  “Belly and brains and beauty, he’s the real thing, eh?”

  “Andrew-please! Until he gives permission, don’t let anyone guess that you know who he is!”

  “I don’t know. I don’t believe it yet. Come back to our tent.”

  It was still snowing heavily. When they reached the tent, someone came out of it on hands and knees. Catching sight of them through the curtain of snow he got up and ran, but he wasn’t quite quick enough. Andrew grabbed a steel tent-peg and threw it. When he picked up the peg a moment later there was blood on it — not much, but enough; there’d be no hiding the wound. He stuck the peg into his belt, since it might serve as a weapon and save killing someone.

  “This should bring things to a head,” he remarked to Elsa. “It’s a case of act now or they’ll get me before daylight. Look in the tent. See if anything’s missing, while I get things going.”

  He called Bompo Tsering and set a guard around the tent — four men. Then he listened patiently while Bompo Tsering told him that Bulah Singh had been trying to beg a weapon from the man who kept his face covered.

  “But their talking English, too fast. My not understanding.”

  Andrew feigned indifference. “It would be stupid,” he said, “to try to learn too much all at once. How much have they learned about us?”

  “Nothing, Gunnigun! Nothing! Our telling nothing!”

  “But Bulah Singh — ?”

  “Yes, yes, his surely telling too much.”

  “What do you make of the man that Bulah Singh’s been talking to?”

  Bompo Tsering retreated toward his mental funk hole: “Uh — uh! My not knowing. Him not being Tibetan.”

  “What about their leader — that lama who rode the pony?”

  “Gunnigun, why your asking my such questions? Why not—”

  “Never mind. Do you know who the big man is, that we made a special tent for — him with the dying friend?”

  Bompo Tsering backed into his funk hole and mentally vanished: “Uh-uh! Uh- uh! Uh-uh! No, no! My not knowing him! No, no!”

  Elsa almost thrust herself between them: “Andrew, don’t ask! Please don’t!”

  “Okay.” Strangely, he didn’t sound irritated. Uppermost was that kind of hunter’s patience that appeared when he carved wood or, as now, when he played with his life in his hand. “Anything missing?” he asked.

  “Yes. Your little steel lock-box.”

  She had been almost afraid to tell him, but he didn’t seem disturbed by the news. Staring through the snow, thinking, it was nearly a minute before he answered: “It was empty. I expected they’d go for it. I’ll get it back. But there’s something else needs doing first. While I’m gone, you sit here in the mouth of the tent, and shoot to kill anyone who starts anything. Get me?”

  “Yes, Andrew.”

  “I don’t think there’ll be any shooting.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “But if there is any, it’s likely to start soon. If so, shoot first at the phony lama, Bulah Singh and—” there was a name on his lips, but he didn’t say it “the man who walks on corpses.”

  She knew instantly what he meant. It exactly described the walk of the man who kept his face half covered and looked over the top of a muffler with vicious eyes.

  Andrew continued: “But I guess you’ll be safe enough with four men on guard. Just sit here until I come back.”

  He unpacked a small bottle of rye and stuck it in his pocket. Then he and Bompo Tsering crossed the bivouac to where the phony lama sat alone by a scrap of yak-dung fire. His men were cuddled up together, like tired ponies, asleep. Andrew would have sat down beside him, but the fool wouldn’t permit it. He screamed like a parrot — tried to overawe Andrew — accused him of being a Russian — told him he had no business in Tibet — threatened to make things very hot for him indeed unless —

  He paused, rather artfully building suspense and glancing around for an audience. But his men were asleep or indifferent. Andrew prompted him: “Unless what?”

  “Unless you make yourself useful to me.”

  Having Bompo Tsering to interpret was a great advantage. Andrew always found it difficult to pretend fear where he felt none, whereas Bompo Tsering’s quite genuine terror kept the charlatan lama well blinded by self-esteem. The rye whiskey helped: Andrew gave him a stiff drink. But even so, it was fifteen minutes, and pitch dark, before Andrew had coaxed him to tell what he really wanted. He whispered it, pulling Andrew’s overcoat to make him bend down, and belching in Andrew’s ear.

  He hardly guessed after that what happened. There was Andrew’s knee in his stomach and a g
rip on his throat that choked his parrot-scream. Force of example was all that Bompo Tsering ever did need. In a second, the lama was down on his back beneath two men, being searched; and that was done so thoroughly that he felt even his secrets being torn apart along with his underwear. He wasn’t even allowed to lie still; they kept him rolling to keep his mind occupied as treasure after treasure found its way into Bompo Tsering’s copious bokkus. The phony lama’s men, exhausted and now full-bellied, didn’t know what was happening; or if they did know, they ignored it. Sounds were deadened by the snow. Andrew prolonged the business for the sake of Bompo Tsering’s morale. He let his victim sit up. He showed him his Mauser, unloaded it, drew the slide, struck it with the steel tent-peg, broke it, then he handed it back

  “No one,” he remarked, “will know it’s broken unless you tell ’em.”

  Bompo Tsering translated. And then someone did move in the dark at the back of the lean-to. Bompo Tsering clucked a warning.

  Andrew moved away from the dim firelight. He stepped sideways. Suddenly he sprang. He landed fist first on Bulah Singh — knew it by the Sikh’s growl of anger, and by his smell. There was a real fight this time. Bulah Singh was no weakling. Even though his feet were still in bandages, he fought like a leopard. But it was less than thirty seconds before Andrew’s forearm crushed his throat and he had to lie still and be searched.

  Two Mausers. Four clips of cartridges.

  “Got to hand it to you,” said Andrew. “Come out in the open.”

  Bulah Singh got up and obeyed, awkwardly, because he was hurt and the snow balled badly on his bandaged feet. But slowness gave him time to think, and he kept on thinking when Andrew stopped and framed him with a flashlight, examining his face in the lee of a big rock.

  No bruise — no wound — no blood. “So it wasn’t you I hit with a tent-peg.”

  “Damn you, Gunning, you’re in such a blue funk that you would kill your own mother on suspicion! Don’t you realize that by taking two Mausers away from those men I have reduced your enemies by two?”

  Andrew laughed. “You have now,” he answered, “now.” Mausers are the easiest to break of all automatics. He unloaded them, drew the slides and smashed them one against the other. Then he gave them back: “You may have ’em.” He repeated what he had said to the lama. “No one’ll know they’re broken unless you try to use ’em. No one will know who stole unless you show ’em.”

  “You are a fool,” the Sikh answered, but he accepted the broken Mausers. “You are also a criminal, destroying weapons at a time like this! You need a friend. Have you lost your senses? Why else should you make — an enemy of me? Do you know who these people are?”

  Andrew turned the question back on him: “Do you know?”

  “I think you don’t know,” the Sikh retorted. “If you wish, you may come to my tent and find out. I will tell you — on terms — on reasonable terms.”

  Andrew let him go. He returned to Elsa, carefully arranging the lantern inside the tent so as to spoil anyone’s aim, before sitting down to eat the barley bread and canned stuff she had opened. There was tea, too; Bompo Tsering had seen to that. Elsa, aware that men like Andrew and Tom Grayne love to spring their own announcements, said very little and asked no questions until Andrew had eaten and at last broke silence:

  “Any spirit message from your fat friend?”

  “No, Andrew.”

  “Does it make you sore when I speak of him that way?”

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t do it again.”

  “Thank you.”

  Something had happened. Elsa didn’t know what. It was something that had changed the relation between them. Something inexpressible in words that, nevertheless, Andrew had tried to express. He didn’t look at her. He went on talking, frowning through the open tent mouth at the falling snow that glowed mystically golden in the lamplight.

  “This is the lowdown, as far as I can dope it out — yet. Old Ugly- face has had to take it on the lam. His enemies on the Regent’s Council ran him out of Lhasa. To make his getaway, he had to change clothes with some low-grade flunky — probably a household steward, who is now masquerading in his master’s make-up. I had quite a talk with the flunky and then disarmed him. He wants to reach the Shig-po-ling monastery.”

  “But that’s near where Tom is!”

  “Sure. This whole shooting match is Tom’s meat. He’s like a hungry spider waiting for ’em. The luck’s almost too good to be true. A million dollars ‘ud be a safe bet, against a hole in a doughnut, that if we can deliver this outfit — as is — to Tom Grayne at Shig-po-ling, Tom will know how to use it to spike the German-Japanese game.”

  “You mean their game with the young Dalai Lama?”

  “Yes. And now I’ll tell you the name of the real leader of this outfit. Ambrose St. Malo.”

  “The man Morgan Lewis spoke of?”

  “Yes.”

  “He knows you?”

  “Yes. He recognized me the minute he saw me. It must have been him that I hit with the tent-peg. I guess he’s busy now trying to bust open my empty box. He’ll keep on trying. He’s persistent. Even dead ponies couldn’t stop him in that storm. He came ahead. He has that kind of guts. I don’t doubt it was his idea for Ugly-face to change places and clothes with the flunky lama. He has that kind of brains. I’m game to bet it was he who encouraged the flunky to humiliate his former master — beggar-on-horseback stuff. He has that kind of humor. And I haven’t a doubt he plans to sell Ugly-face at Shig-po-ling for hard cash.”

  “I believe you’re right, Andrew.”

  “Right or wrong, that’s how we’ll play it.” He paused. Then he added: “Unless you’ve a better idea.”

  Something had happened. It was nameless. It didn’t make speech easy. But the tent, with its view of lamplit snow, felt cozier than anybody’s home that ever was. Elsa almost stammered:

  “Andrew, I’m useless. I haven’t an idea. The only thing I can think of is that we’re so physically near to — I don’t want to name him.”

  “Go ahead. I know.”

  “We’re so physically close to him that he’s like a huge dynamo and simply drowns out my clairvoyance! I see nothing. I hear nothing. I’m just normal. It feels actually funny!”

  “You’ve no suggestion to offer?”

  “None. Except don’t name him! Don’t recognize him!”

  “Good. Then we’ll play it my way. Between now and daybreak, I’m going to boss both gangs or bust.”

  CHAPTER 44

  That was the night on which Andrew, to use his own phrase, “came clean.” Sleep was out of the question; too probably someone would make an attempt on his life before daybreak. Someone. It wasn’t likely to be Bulah Singh, nor the flunky lama. Those two had been sufficiently discouraged.

  “Someone,” said Andrew. “But who? Bulah Singh hasn’t hit it off with St. Malo. Fool, fool, where there is no fool! They’re a brace of Weisenheimers, underrating each other, playing for position. Bulah Singh will have another try to make friends with me. He’ll decide, after thinking it over, that I’d be easier to double-cross than St. Malo. That’s my guess, anyhow.”

  “Are you really sure the other man is Ambrose St. Malo?”

  “Dead sure. No mistaking him. Met him in Shanghai — guess he thinks I’ve forgotten. Perhaps he only hopes it. He went by three or four different names. As Louis Lazard he was acting runner for a Japanese-owned joint that had a bad rep. He’s a pimp, like Hitler’s national German hero Horst Wessel. But that’s not unusual; nearly all professional spies live off women. His original name was Franz Schmidt, born in München-Gladbach, Bavaria. He studied music, philosophy, languages, law. Quite a bright lad. Before he was twenty he shook down one of our American heiresses for fifty thousand or so. But he paid most of it out in blackmail. That’s how he made the Social Register — I mean, our secret service black book and three stars, meaning dangerous. During the World War he was two years behind the French lines without eve
n being suspected. Smart work, that. Took doing. He is said to have been betrayed at last by Mata Hari. More likely, he betrayed her. There was a secret trial. A French firing squad shot someone. Franz Schmidt turned up later on as Ambrose St. Malo, in Syria, drawing French pay to help spoil England’s game in Palestine.”

  “Can he be working for France now?” Elsa asked.

  Andrew laughed. “This is once when the French aren’t guilty. I’d put nothing past them. But they’ve no political interest in Tibet. They can’t even claim they’ve the Catholic Church to protect. No, when the French are once through with a spy it’s his cue to clear out. They’re killers. So I guess St. Malo shook the French, to save his skin. At any rate, he’s being paid just now by Russia and Japan. But look-see! Look-see! What d’you make of it?”

  “Andrew, I’m stupid tonight. I’ve no imagination. You’ll have to tell me what you mean.”

  “Well, no one could accuse von Klaus of being anything but German. So this turns out to be a German plot, to get control of the Dalai Lama. The Germans are double-crossing their friends the Japs, but the Japs and Russians are paying Hitler’s bills.”

  “You think it’s one and the same plot?”

  “Yes, but it begins to look like a race — with Ambrose St. Malo taking his pick of the runners. There’s one sure thing about him. He’s never working for the side you think he is.”

  “Andrew, did you suspect all this when you were talking to Dr. Morgan Lewis?”

  “You mean about St. Malo?”

  “And his line-up with the Germans.”

  “Sure. It’s my business. I got a clear line on St. Malo in Shanghai.”