Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle

by Dorothy Gilman

  At last, fleeing the rising heat they returned to the hotel where they gave themselves up to other joys of being on holiday, dining in one of the hotel's restaurants and sampling strange exotic foods.

  "But spicy," Cyrus commented. "Glad now I brought my sardines."

  "Oh, Cyrus, surely not yet?"

  "Not yet, no," he said amiably, "but I certainly plan to slip one or two tins into my camera case tonight for easy access. I am," he added unnecessarily, "a large man. I need protein."

  She laughed. Later, returned to their room, she laughed again as he tenderly brought out two of his six sardine tins and slid them into his camera bag. She was still smiling as she resumed addressing postcards to her son, Roger, daughter, Jane, and to her old neighbor Miss Hartshorne but her thoughts were not entirely on the cheerful messages that she wrote. She was remembering that tomorrow they would fly off to Chiang Mai to meet a man named Ruamsak, and she found herself wondering what Ruamsak was doing and thinking at this hour, and whether he might already be in Chiang Mai waiting for Thursday morning ...

  CHAPTER

  3

  RUAMSAK CAME EARLY TO THE HUT BEHIND Thapae Road but he arrived by a circuitous route: he approached it from another alley, making his way to the rear of the house by climbing walls, which alarmed a large family of ducks, and tiptoeing down rows of growing vegetables. He had chosen not to sleep in the hut, which would have saved him money, but had instead spent the night in a hostel run by a Chinese. Yesterday he had checked the house and found it empty but even so he was wary: the hut was built six feet off the ground, of split bamboo and thatch, and he first crept underneath the floor and squatted there, listening for signs that someone might have preceded him. After some minutes, hearing only the harsh click of a gecko, he climbed into the hut by way of the shutterless window in the back, and at once inspected the handfuls of sand that he'd scattered yesterday at the door and under each of the four windows. No one had been here: he looked behind the bamboo screen that ran halfway down the center of the room and then he walked in behind the screen and sat down, cross-legged, to wait.

  He was expecting two people in the hours ahead: the unknown person to whom he would deliver his information but first of all the man to whom he had entrusted the letter that was undeniable proof of what he already knew and carried in his head. He had thought for a long time about how to conceal this letter, and he felt that he had been very ingenious in seizing on the use of magic talismans and white magic. He had planned it carefully: first he had trimmed the letter to the size of a yantra that he'd borrowed from his sister, one of several that hung by string over her new baby to guard it against evil spirits. Since the yantra had been consecrated by the monks he felt that it would guard him, too, against evil spirits, as well as bring him good fortune, and a man could not have too much good fortune. This particular yantra was called a Yan Trinishinghe, and was a square of paper with four squares drawn diagonally across the main one, leaving half-squares at each corner, with certain mystical numbers and figures inscribed in each space. Behind this he had lightly attached the cut-down letter and had then taken both to an out-of-the-way lacquer factory yesterday. Showing the man the yantra, but not the letter concealed behind it, he had rolled the two thin sheets of paper into a tube and asked to have this set into a phyot arm-ring.

  The man had exclaimed, "This is protection indeed, a yantra and & phyot arm-ring!"

  But despite the money that had been placed on the counter in front of the man he had insisted it could not be done by nightfall. It was true, he said, that weaving a circle of cotton yarn around the tube of paper could be done in an hour or two but the lac that would hold it all together in the shape of an arm-ring needed time in the drying cellar. Failing this, he said, the lac would melt—laly!—and there would be nothing the next day but a piece of paper and a handful of cotton yarn. He had been very firm: he was a craftsman, he said, and in such matters was to be trusted.

  And so Ruamsak had taken back half the money on the counter, promising it to the man on delivery, promising even more money the earlier in the morning the arm-ring was brought to him, and he had drawn a sketch of the place where he was to bring it.

  Except for this delay he felt that he'd done well. Even if the man in the lacquer shop unfolded the rolled-up yantra and discovered the letter behind it the words were in a language he wouldn't understand—Ruamsak had made certain of this before choosing the shop—and the man was being well paid. He would arrive before eight—Ruamsak glanced at the slant of the sun outside the window and nodded—and following this he would have the arm-ring to hand over to the stranger who came for it; in return he would be given his gold.

  He turned his head; his senses had picked up the faint whisper of cloth and the creak of bamboo: someone was entering the house. Silently he rose to his feet and waited. The footsteps halted and then moved toward the partition, a head appeared and then a man stepped inside the half of the room that Ruamsak occupied.

  It was not the man from the lacquer shop; this was someone he'd never seen before and Ruamsak wondered if this was the man to whom he should deliver the letter. He was about to greet him when the man took a step forward and Ruamsak saw the knife in his hand—a killing knife...

  A chill raced down Ruamsak's spine.

  Jacoby, he thought... Jacoby must have known all the time, must have been alert enough to know his files had been ransacked, and now he had sent a man to kill him.

  He swore at himself for having come unarmed; he had walked into a trap like a bird coaxed into a cage by a handful of rice.

  Jai yen yen, he told himself to slow the racing of his heart: keep your cool. He waited, knowing there would be others outside as well, and that they would not allow him to leave here alive... Death had entered this room.

  At ten minutes past eight, with cameras conspicuously in hand, Mrs. Pollifax and Cyrus climbed into a taxi and set out for Thapae Road. They had so far enjoyed Chiang Mai very much, and, following their errand on Thapae Road, they planned to enjoy the remaining hours even more. Certainly it was a more relaxed city than Bangkok, so relaxed that Cyrus had agreed to ride in a tuk-tuk yesterday after their arrival, observing that Chiang Mai drivers might drive with a certain lightheartedness but with an absence of the frenzy that had dismayed him in Bangkok. In the evening they had dined at the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center and had then watched tribal dancers perform, and it was here that they'd had a very pleasant talk with a young American named McAndrews, who seemed to be following the same itinerary: his tuk-tuk had passed them on the street, he'd been seen in the lobby of their hotel, and in its restaurant, and he had dined at the Cultural Center, too, at which point they had introduced themselves.

  A very nice young man, currently working in Bangkok with an American aid program, he said, but it was strange, thought Mrs. Pollifax, how deeply embarrassed he'd seemed when Cyrus first spoke to him.

  The morning air was deliciously cool and the distant mountains still a hazy blue. They drove past tree-shaded villas and sleek government buildings until gradually the streets grew narrower and busier and they came to Thapae Road. Mrs. Pollifax, consulting Bishop's memo, kept an eye out for the Apichat Lacquerware Factory until "There!" she cried and the taxi drew over to the curb. Paying the driver, they stepped out into Thapae Road.

  "Thursday morning, and here we are," Cyrus said, and lifted his camera out of its case, nearly spilling out his two sardine cans as well.

  "And there's the alley," Mrs. Pollifax pointed out in a low voice.

  They had disembarked in front of the lacquer shop, which was open to the street with all sorts of treasures piled on shelves to catch the eye, and the outline of still more in the shadowy rear lacquer cups, vases, bowls, dishes, trays, chests, jewelry boxes... A gnarled little old woman watched them from a chair inside, hands folded tranquilly in her lap. Mrs. Pollifax smiled at her, lifted her camera and snapped a picture, and then turned to photograph the street. Protective covering, she thought, as
she edged slowly toward the alley.

  Cyrus, she saw, was already standing at the edge of the alleyway, his attention captured by a huge earthenware jug placed at the corner of the lacquer shop. "Emily," he called to her, "just look at this! Magnificent, isn't it?"

  She joined him and was at once seized by a rare spasm of acquisitiveness. "Wouldn't that look wonderful in our garden at home?" she said eagerly. It was at least four feet high and made of terra-cotta, with a beautifully graceful line to it.

  "Water jug, I suppose," Cyrus said. "Cistern?"

  "And made entirely by hand, which makes it so lovely. Do you suppose they'd sell it?"

  Cyrus looked at her, amused. "And just how do you think you'd carry this back to the United States?"

  "Spoilsport," she told him, running an admiring finger over its texture. "Beautiful," she told the old lady seated nearby. "So big!"

  The woman beamed and nodded. "Ka yai!"

  Reluctantly Mrs. Pollifax tore herself away, remembering that she was not here on Thapae Road to admire water jugs. Moving to the entrance of the alley, she glanced over her shoulder. "Coming, Cyrus?"

  "In just a minute," he said, nodding, and brought up his camera for a snapshot of the terra-cotta jug.

  Mrs. Pollifax turned into the alley, nearly colliding with a man running out of it, a shabby-looking Thai in a great hurry who slowed only to avoid running into her. The man brushed against Cyrus, backed away with mumbled apologies, hesitated and then ran away, leaving Mrs. Pollifax to continue unimpeded. Halfway down the alley she stopped and glanced back, surprised to find that Cyrus was not immediately behind her. She saw that he remained at the entrance to the alley, still, with what seemed to her an extremely odd expression on his face. She was tempted to go back and see what mesmerized him but since she was halfway down the alley—and the purpose of their being here was to walk down this alley —she decided not to tempt fate. Not at all the thing, she decided, to stroll down the alley, return to the street and then walk down it again—much too conspicuous. She therefore continued on her way, camera in hand, and almost at once caught a flash of brilliant pink ahead. She had reached their destination.

  Bougainvillea spilled over the weatherbeaten fence just as described, a brilliant eruption of color in a somber burnt-sienna scene. She walked through the gap in the fence and crossed a small yard of dull red barren earth to confront what looked more like a hut than a house: it leaned slightly to the left, stood high off the ground on posts and was built of bamboo walls with a thatch roof. A doorway had been cut squarely in the center, but lacked a door, she noted, and a square window was placed symmetrically on either side of it. Mrs. Pollifax mounted five steps and peered into a dark, smoke-stained room.

  Inserted into the rear wall directly across from her was a square window through which she could see brilliant sunshine, but since not a ray of it entered the room it appeared more like a bright square of tapestry hung on the wall. She stepped inside, and as her eyes began adjusting to the darkness she discovered a room empty of all but broken shards lying here and there. A woven bamboo partition ran halfway down the center. She called softly, "Anybody here?"

  There was only silence until a lizard slithered across the floor, startling her.

  Where, she wondered, was Cyrus and why was he taking so long to catch up with her?

  She walked around the bamboo screen and into a space equally as dim, with another window through which she could see brilliant but unilluminating sunshine. This room was occupied and she stopped when she saw its occupant, whose sleep she was obviously interrupting. He lay on his back in the center of the space, a square of bright cloth flung over his face to keep out the light, although she wondered crossly what light could possibly disturb him in such a dark room. He looked so relaxed—as if sleep had so suddenly overwhelmed him that he'd simply flung himself on the floor—that she hesitated at waking him.

  Tactfully she cleared her throat; when this produced no reaction she added, "Good morning!" and then, hoping she pronounced it correctly, "Sawadee?"

  And then as her eyes drew in more detail they returned to the shape that rose vertically out of his shirt, just over the heart, which at first glance she had assumed to be some intricate Thai design in the shirt. It was not a design: it was a knife.

  Mrs. Pollifax stiffened in shock, and then, "Oh!" she gasped and rushed forward to kneel beside him.

  Gently, fearfully, she removed the square of bright cloth, staring now at the man in horror because his eyes were wide open and unseeing. She put out a hand to feel for a heartbeat, recoiled at the knife imprisoned in his flesh and reached instead for his outflung hand. There was no pulse: Ruamsak was dead.

  Outside the room a rooster crowed and some distance away a child called out. She thought, Carstairs isn't going to like this... I don't like it either, and then, / must stay calm, there's nothing more to be done. But as the initial shock passed she realized that of course there was something more to be done: she was going to have to search Ruamsak's body for whatever he had come to give them.

  She sat back and stared down at him: a sturdily built man in his thirties, she guessed, a lean hungry face with the high cheekbones of his race, a long jaw, the mouth twisted into a grimace of shock or pain. His clothes were nondescript: dusty black cotton trousers and sandals on his feet, the gray shirt clean except for a seepage of blood around the knife. She wondered how long he'd been dead and reached out for his hand again and found it warm, with no signs of rigor mortis. This was vaguely alarming because it meant that he'd not been dead for long, he might even have been alive when she and Cyrus left the hotel, which meant... but she did not want to think of what that meant, the sooner she was out of here the better, except where was Cyrus? She slipped her hand into Ruamsak's left trouser pocket and found it empty. Checking the other pocket, she drew out four crumpled 25-baht notes; none of them looked as if they held a message but she dropped them into her purse to examine later.

  It was at this moment, still kneeling beside Ruamsak, that Mrs. Pollifax realized that she and the dead man were not alone in this room, that someone else—someone living—was with them, and was standing in the shadows by the window. The shock of finding Ruamsak dead had sharpened her senses so that she could not mistake the whisper of cloth as someone shifted from one foot to the other. She glanced up, very alert now, and in the corner saw a shape that did not quite blend in with the shadows: it was a shade lighter and its shape was that of a man.

  Staring into the comer, she slowly rose to her feet. "I know you're there," she said. "Did you kill him?"

  A second later she rued her lack of tact because the man who walked out of the shadows looked even tougher than the dead man at her feet, and certainly no one to trifle with. He was as solidly built as a wrestler, with a long puckered scar across one cheekbone. The scar made him look like a brigand, more Chinese than Thai. His trousers were rolled up to his knees, exposing thick muscular calves; his blue shirt was wrinkled, and on his head he wore an incongruous dirty linen hat, narrow-brimmed, and very British, a hat straight out of My Fair Lady. The hat was jammed as squarely on his head as the lid on a teapot, which would have struck her as comical if he'd not looked so menacing.

  And she was alone with him, separated from him only by the body on the floor. She wished fervently that she could retract the words she'd just spoken, they hung in the air between them, an accusation hurled at a man who was undoubtedly Ruamsak's murderer, and where was Cyrus"!

  The man walked to the body and looked down at it, and then he leaned over and pulled out the knife, which made her shudder. She wondered what karate strikes could possibly have any impact on this man if he planned to kill her next, and she realized that she was too frozen to manage even a scream.

  But he remained standing where he was. He examined the knife and then he pulled out his shirt and wiped the blood from it carefully.

  She managed a weak, "Do you know him?"

  He lifted his eyes and studied her. "Do yo
u?"

  At least he spoke English; she shook her head.

  "So why are you here?" he asked, eyes narrowed.

  "My husband and I"—what did one say to a murderer? —''we were taking snapshots—" She held up her camera. "And the alley looked interesting, and—" "Husband," he said harshly. "Where is this husband?"

  His eyes were shrewd as they rested on her; he might wear a funny hat and look like a brigand but he was intelligent and she noticed that he'd not replied to either of her questions. "Outside—somewhere," she stammered.

  He glanced again at the dead man on the floor between them. "I think we return you to your husband. At once."

  This was good news, she wanted very much to be returned to Cyrus but she managed to say bravely, "And will you call the police?"

  She thought he looked amused. He shoved the murder knife in his pocket and jerked his head toward the door. "Show me this husband."

  She sighed, failing to see why producing Cyrus was so important to him, unless of course he planned to kill her if she was lying. Obviously there were dimensions to this situation that were obscure at the moment but the important thing was to get out of this house and away from this murderous-looking man. She picked up her purse, slung it over her shoulder and walked to the door.

  The brilliance outside was like a blow after the darkness of the hut and she paused on the steps to blink. "Cyrus?" she called.

  In front of her stood the fence, framed by its mass of bougainvillea, and beyond that lay the alley, and the alley was empty. She hurried toward it, entering with her brigand companion on her heels, and walked quickly toward the street. The first touch of unease was arriving because Cyrus had been going to follow her, he had not followed her and where was he?

  She reached the huge earthenware jug and stopped. "This is where I last saw him," she said over her shoulder to the man behind her. "He was—just standing here, looking at this." Her eyes moved among the passersby; she turned and looked up and down the road.