“Do you think we could get hold of the woman—on the quiet?”
“I’ll find out tactfully,” said Blane, sober enough now. “Come to tiffin to-morrow.”
“No,” said Purchas, “I’ll come now.”
They went straight out to the cantonments, and after a little judicious handling, Saunders first told his story, and then when it was dark took them round to the lady’s quarters. They had some difficulty in getting in. When they did succeed they found her in bed—with her throat cut. Her tongue, looking like a little red snail, lay in a brass plate standing on her breast.
Blane held the lamp high, looking down with fascinated horror.
“Seems we are too late,” he said stupidly.
But, nevertheless, if that gaping and tongueless mouth did not tell John Purchas all he had hoped to learn, if yet spoke eloquently enough, for it was a witness to the seriousness of what she had said. This was no idle babble of the bazaars. Inside twenty minutes he had laid the facts before his Chief.
“How many people know this?” the old man asked.
“About half a battalion perhaps.”
“That’s bad. Still, they don’t know the story of the Bumali stone.”
“I’m afraid they do, sir,” said Purchas. “You see, they are a mixed lot, drawn, Blane says, from all sorts of occupations, and one of them, who was an assistant librarian in some municipal library, has hunted up the story of the diamond in order to rag this man Saunders.”
“Do they know the stone was lost, centuries ago?”
“Yes, and they pretend Saunders has got it.”
The Chief took a pace or two away, hands behind his back.
“This is a queer thing, Mr. Purchas. The tradition is that the Bumali jewel was given to the Sundra dynasty in the ninth century by the Serpent God, Nag, and that it brought with it the supernatural power which enabled the Sundras to drive the Mohammedan invaders out of Upper India. When it was lost the House of Sundra was said to have lost its power, and the British Raj became paramount. Now, Mr. Purchas, take this tradition in conjunction with the present unrest in the Punjab and let me hear your explanation.”
The old man stopped before Purchas and eyed him under his grizzled brows.
“I should think, sir, they are about to find that stone.”
The Chief extended a hand and patted his shoulder.
“You’ll do,” he nodded approvingly. “That is what is going to happen. That old fox, Duleep Sundra, will find it, or another, and when he does there will be another mutiny.”
He sat down at his desk and gave himself up to thought.
“Somebody’s got to go to Bumali,” he said at length, half to himself.
“I’d like nothing better,” Purchas promptly affirmed.
The Chief turned to look at him consideringly.
“You? Do you know the sort of place it is? There’s Duleep Sundra, the rajah who can contrive accidents for unwelcome white men that look more natural than Nature can make them. And they’d know you were coming. You’d be expected, you see. No, that won’t do.”
Again he fell into profound meditation, while Purchas waited, watching his face. Occasionally a half whisper fell from his lips, but beyond a disconnected word here and there the young man overheard little. Bitterly disappointed at not getting the mission after his hopes had risen so high, Purchas had ceased to look at his Chief and, disheartened, let himself sink back in his chair to regard the toes of his boots.
How long he sat so with only the solemn ticking of the clock audible, he did not know, but anyhow he was suddenly startled when he did look up to find the Chief staring at his face, a new light in his eyes.
“I am going to send you to Bumali,” he said quietly.
Purchas was thunderstruck, and jumped impulsively up to thank him. But the other put up a hand as if to ward off the gratitude.
“You can thank me when you come back,” he said so brusquely, uncomfortably, that Purchas somehow felt he himself was but a pawn in some game about to open between players of ruthlessness and skill. Out there in Bumali sat the subtle rajah, Duleep Sundra; here in Lahore the wise old Chief; and Purchas knew that if the first had all the wisdom of the serpent from which his dynasty was said to descend, the Chief had on his side a good deal more than the harmlessness of the dove.
Within twenty-four hours he seemed to have decided his game, and John Purchas was moved up to the big platform of Lahore station. His instructions were to go to Bumali, stay there with Sam Burgoyne, the resident, and nose around. Purchas, being young, would have much preferred to go in disguise, but this the Chief absolutely prohibited. He was to be quite open in all his movements, as if on a friendly visit to the resident.
As he walked up and down the platform waiting for his train, Purchas wondered much as to what all this portended. That it was a move in the game he did not doubt. Then his eye lighted on two soldiers coming along the platform through the motley throng of natives, and he thought that they at least were in disguise, since anything less martial would have been hard to find. Both were undersized, but one had very bandy legs.
He wondered what their occupations in civil life had been. But when they squatted on their kits and began to exchange hilarious repartee with each other one soon gathered a variety of information about both. They were, it seemed, on leave, going down to Amritzar, to visit friends in another regiment quartered there, and their names were Alf and Fred. They had no reticence whatever. Even their past love affairs and present financial position they discussed aloud with complete frankness. Purchas was vastly amused by their boyish high spirits, and by a contrast to the pair which presented itself when a couple of majestic Sikhs came down the platform, silent men with dark inscrutable faces, their heads, as it were, towering among the stars. As they passed the jabbering pair who had come out to assist in holding the Punjab, Purchas was struck by the immense cheek of the thing. It was as if the guttersnipes of Bermondsey had taken over control of the London police. Even to allow men away on leave at such a critical moment—that also was pure cheek. It was an affectation of strength on the part of the military who, as Purchas knew, were all the time most seriously alarmed.
Then the express came thundering in, and the noisy pair passed out of the young man’s mind. He had two changes to make before he reached his destination. At Kurrapur he had to take the branch line which runs on to Attaka Finnegar. Some thirty miles short of that terminus, at a little place called Bagiah, he had to change into the Rajah’s private, narrow-gauge railway, which ran up for some fifty miles to the capital. It was at Karrapur that Purchas again, much to his surprise, fell in with Alf and Fred.
He saw, or rather heard, them at three o’clock in the morning, tumbling out of the express after their heavy kit. Soon a mighty noisy altercation arose between the two soldiers and the railway officials. The stationmaster, a Babu who spoke English, was summoned. But as the Babu, who had probably been educated at Bombay University, and whom Alf addressed as Sambo, spoke a very bookish English, not in the least like the kind affected by Alf and Fred, his intervention only increased the dispute. In the end Purchas offered his help.
“You passed Amritzar two hours ago,” he said.
Fred eyed him doubtfully, as if uncertain which side Purchas was taking.
“That’s all right, old sport, we saw it.”
“Oh, I thought you were going there,” said Purchas.
Overhearing this, Alf turned from the gesticulating stationmaster.
“We only said that at Lahore to kid the red cap. We’re out to see a bit of the real India—afore we go back ’ome.”
The bandy-legged Fred slapped his friend on the back.
“That’s right, old Eleven-three-four,” he cried approvingly.
Then Purchas, observing that the stationmaster seemed to be entering the figures in his notebook, drew the two
companions away towards the Attaka Finnegar train. He spoke to them like a father of the many dangers into which they might easily run their simple, careless heads. The view that they were simple-minded seemed new to them. But as an example of their simplicity Purchas instanced the mention of Alf’s regimental number before a native official, who, merely out of self-importance, might report all sorts of crime against them.
Hearing this, a fit of merriment so overcame both that they gripped each other for support.
“Lor’ bless you, that wasn’t his regimental number,” Fred cried, wiping his eyes. “That’s only the name he goes by—eleven-three-four—him having been a draper before he joined up.”
“A draper!” cried Purchas.
“Yes,” Alf agreed. “Served me time at it in ’Ackney.”
“And your friend?” Purchas asked.
“Me?” said Fred. “Oh, I was what you might call a furniture remover, though I was bred as a house decorator reely.”
“And where exactly are you going?”
“To see a bit of India—native State for choice—jungle, ellerphunts, but no snakes, by request.”
“Alf and me was always fond of the Zoo ever since we was little nippers, wasn’t we, Alf?”
Fred took his friend’s arm affectionately, shaking him so that he rocked on his bandy legs.
Now it might have been very awkward had the pair by some chance blundered into Bumali. Purchas saw he must head them off.
“What about Attaka Finnegar?” he suggested, well knowing that once the train reached that terminus they would be taken care of by the military police. Fred wiped his mouth.
“Don’t mind,” he said, “if the refreshment room is open.”
“Lime juice for me,” Alf put in; “them foreign drinks upset me stummick.”
Purchas explained the situation to them very seriously, warning them, above all, to keep clear of native States. At first they seemed very much impressed, and had quite a number of questions to ask; but in the end they turned his warning, as they turned most things, into a jest, as is the way with soldiers out on a spree.
“Supposing we got into trouble and they caught us, what ’ud ’appen?”
“Fill you with red pepper, perhaps.”
“Anything else?”
“I’ve known them to tie a man up, pull his head back, fix his jaws open, and let water dribble into him for days.”
“D’ye think they’d make it beer for a London boy?” Fred asked with affected eagerness.
Purchas then lost patience with them and spoke sharply.
Still, the warning did not seem to have been in vain, for when Purchas left the Attaka Finnegar train at Bagiah, and transferred himself to the Rajah’s little train, he saw nothing of the two wanderers; and he thought of them as peacefully sleeping, their heads on their kit, till the train ran into the terminus, where they would be roused up by the hated red cap on duty there.
At Bumali Purchas was met by Burgoyne.
“Bit run down, I hear,” said the resident, gripping Purchas’s hand very hard.
“So, so,” he returned, taking the cue, as they passed through the line of Punjabi officials.
“Well,” Burgoyne nodded, “Bumali will set you up all right. Pretty hot in Lahore, I’m told.”
“That’s it,” Purchas assented. “And as there’s nothing doing, the Chief gave me a holiday.”
Burgoyne laughed heartily.
“Oh, Lahore is a dull place. There never is anything doing there.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, most of the staff are away on leave,” Purchas rejoined lightly.
But once they were alone and closeted in the study the careless gaiety dropped out of Burgoyne’s manner.
“There’s something afoot,” he said. “The place is just too damn quiet. It frightens me.”
Purchas related the recent developments in Lahore, and Burgoyne questioned him about his interview with the Chief, more particularly in regard to the instructions he had received.
“I have got to smell around, that’s all,” said Purchas.
“Well,” said Burgoyne, “you won’t light on much. The Rajah is away too, though that in itself is not a disadvantage.”
For the first few days Purchas loafed about the house, playing the part of the semi-invalid, seeming to take an interest in nothing, but wondering all the while what eyes were upon him. Then he began to stroll about the place, in a languid fashion, but with much alertness behind his apparently lack-lustre eyes. He never lighted on a single hint of anything in the wind. Not a ripple showed on the surface. Bumali was as placid as a sleeping duck-pond. Purchas feared he would have to return with no more than that to report, while aware that there was ever so much more, if only he could put his hand on it. That would mark him out in the Chief’s mind as a man who had failed. It gave him a sort of sensation as of nightmare, and he felt like a man who had only to crack an egg-shell to save his life, but whose hands were bound with cobwebs which he could not break.
Then one evening when he was returning in something like despair Burgoyne met him at the door and drew him into his study. His sais, Abdulla, had brought in the rumour of a great tamasha about to be held in the old temple out in the woods. Abdulla had been concealed in the stables to surprise some corn thieves, when three stableboys entered, and he had overheard their talk.
“A gathering!” Purchas cried, “but there’s no room in a temple for many people.”
“This old temple belongs to the primitive worship; it’s not a mere shrine like a Hindu temple,” Burgoyne explained.
“What do you make of it then?”
“What I think,” said the other, “is that the secret underground work has now been done, and this meeting is being held to stir up fanaticism in the mob.”
Purchas nodded agreement.
“You mean the fanaticism that sets a crowd on fire when it is moved by a common purpose?”
“Exactly,” said Burgoyne. “You mark my words, the curtain is about to rise for the drama.”
Next morning more news, which disquieted both men still further, came to the residency—a faquir of exceptional holiness had arrived in Bumali. The news made both sit up at once, for both knew these faquirs very well—experts every one of them at rousing the passions of the mob.
“I hear,” said Burgoyne, “that he has been sitting for two days without speaking a single word, under the sacred peepul tree outside the city walls. What do you make of that?”
“Very clever—that silence. When he does speak his message will be listened to.”
“Not a doubt of it,” Burgoyne agreed. “Let’s go out and have a look at him.”
They found the holy man seated under the great spreading tree which sheltered the shrine of Gaupati. At a respectful distance a large crowd stood regarding him with awe-struck eyes, and Burgoyne heard that people were flocking in hourly from the outlying villages to see the holy man who had suddenly appeared, none knew whence or why.
From the outskirts of the crowd the two Englishmen for a while watched the man, who sat there cross-legged and motionless, like a tailor cut out of stone. Both wished for a closer sight of him, but the mob did not appear to be as willing as usual to make way for the Sahibs, and Burgoyne, as resident, would not risk a possible insult at that moment. Purchas, however, as a stranger, had more freedom to display curiosity, and accordingly he passed through the throng till he reached the inner fringe of the crowd.
Then, amazed by what he saw, he even advanced a few steps into the open space which the deference of the spectators kept between themselves and the faquir and his servant. Before him sat the holy man, as motionless as the image of the god above his head and as naked. But there wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t bedaubed with paint. He was all a riot of colour.
His face was scarlet, and his eyes with cir
cles round them looked like the centres of two targets. Hanging from his yellow neck by a blue ribbon was the representation of a quart pot, foaming. Startled beyond measure, Purchas cast a look at the servant who stood beside his master, and who was as freely bedecked with colour, though without the other’s fancy decorative designs. He was bandy-legged! Again Purchas’s stare went back to the master, and as he looked him full in the face he distinctly saw the holy man’s left eyelid droop at him for an instant! A murmur ran like a wave through the crowd when they saw how deeply the Sahib was impressed.
Impressed? It is a feeble word. John Purchas was being torn by conflicting emotions, both anger and laughter struggling in him for expression. Of course he dared not give vent to either; and so, wheeling abruptly round, he pushed his way clear and rejoined his friend. Burgoyne had seen enough to be aware that something unusual had occurred, but he asked no questions till they were once more in his bungalow. Purchas had not mentioned his encounter with the two men at Karrapur; indeed, Alf and Fred had passed out of his mind. Burgoyne heard the tale with amazement.
“Do you think they are up to some game?” he asked.
“Just a lark,” said Purchas; “a silly, rotten lark.”
“It will be a costly one for them; they are sure to be found out, and then——” He made a gesture.
“Oh, deuce take them. Can’t we get them cleared out before then?”
“They’ll not be allowed to go. Don’t you see, whether detected or not—and the chances are that the Rajah’s people already know they are frauds—they are being mighty useful. See how excited that crowd was! To a certainty, the holy man will be taken into the temple on the night of the tamasha.”
“On the night of the tamasha,” Purchas cried. “If only I knew what night that was!”
Burgoyne stared at him.
“You don’t mean to say——” he began.
“I mean to be there,” the other said with finality. “Do help me if you can.” And when the appeal met with no response he continued: “See here, Burgoyne, so far I’ve failed in this job. Am I to go back and say so? I’d sooner be skinned alive.”
The Big Book of Espionage Page 107