Red Snow at Darjeeling, page 12
“I told you I didn’t know Feurmann.”
“Then why did you have a key made to his room?”
“Because it was necessary for me to find out who was registered as John Mapleleaf—a nom de guerre that I childishly supposed was exclusively mine during certain confidential negotiations here.”
Prike’s steady gaze had not moved from Woodring’s worried brown eyes. He said: “You’re rather fond of pseudonyms, aren’t you, Mr. Woodring? You sometimes use the name of R. Ingram, for instance, when you place valuables in a hotel safe.”
“That,” said Woodring, “is not a pseudonym. It’s a precautionary measure. I wanted Ruth Ingram to have access to the valuables in question if I should be—well, quietly garrotted some dark night.”
“Why this pessimism, Mr. Woodring?”
“The casualty list is growing. And I can’t get rid of the idea that I came within half an hour of being John Mapleleaf myself.”
“And who is out to kill John Mapleleaf?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Are you in love with Miss Ruth Ingram?” asked Prike bluntly.
Woodring’s jaw dropped. The question surprised him. What surprised him even more was his own hesitation in answering. He ran his fingers nervously through his hair before he said: “No, of course not.”
“It hasn’t occurred to you, since the demise of Basil Stiller, that you might marry Miss Ingram?”
“I’ve known Miss Ingram for exactly three days,” Woodring said.
“But you’ve also known, haven’t you,” the inspector pursued, “that Miss Ingram is the only living relative and probable heir of Alexander Blenn?”
“Yes, I’ve heard that.”
“Have you seen Blenn in Darjeeling?”
“No. I don’t know where he is.”
“But you had a note from him. Haven’t you tried to find him?”
“My job isn’t concerned with finding Alexander Blenn,” Woodring said.
“Just what is your job, Mr. Woodring?”
“I’m concluding arrangements for the extension of the Blenn interests,” said Woodring uneasily.
“To Shimalghar, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
Prike seemed to be looking out the window. “Before leaving Calcutta,” he said, “I visited the Budge-Budge plant of the Blenn Engineering Works. I took Mr. Hubertson with me, because I thought we might find some trace of Mr. Blenn there. I was very much interested in the manufacture of airplane engines which was going on at a great pace. And I was particularly interested in the carburetter of most unusual design. Mr. Hubertson, like many inventors, is an extremely modest and diffident person, and seemed loath to talk about this carburetter—but I did manage to get from him the information that it consumed only one-fourth as much petrol as the standard type carburetter—and that it was equally efficient at high altitudes!”
As Prike pronounced these last words his gaze swung suddenly from the window and fastened itself upon Woodring.
“Could it be possible,” he asked, “that Mr. Blenn is planning an airway to China via Shimalghar?”
“I wouldn’t know that,” said Woodring quickly. “Mr. Hubertson is our technical man and may know what sort of operations are planned for the future. My only job is to negotiate the extension of an old concession which is quite general in its terms.”
“And what makes you think His Highness the Nawab is anxious to renew this old concession?”
“Why, the Nawab knows it’s no use resisting the march of progress,” said Woodring. “He knows that even his little country, hardly bigger than a football field, can’t fail to benefit by modern development.”
“Modern development … Yes, of course …” Prike spoke absent-mindedly, as he again busied himself with the papers on his desk. “There’s just one more question, Mr. Woodring. Where did you get the automatic pistol which Deputy-Inspector Robbins found in your pocket?”
Woodring’s mouth opened—then closed. In his hesitancy, Prike could almost see the cogs turning in the youth’s brain, trying to grasp the possible significance of the question.
“The automatic,” said Woodring at last, “is the property of the Blenn organisation. The company has its own armoury which issues rifles, small arms, and ammunition to its employees on occasion—but you probably know that.”
“I do,” said Prike, still consulting his papers. “I was just wondering when and where this particular pistol was issued to you, Mr. Woodring?”
“As nearly as I can remember,” said Woodring slowly, “it was about six months ago.”
“In Calcutta?”
“No, I was stationed in the Punjab six months ago …”
“That,” said Prike, “is most unusual. Because the armoury list which I induced Mr. Hubertson to let me take from the Blenn offices in Clive Street, day before yesterday, shows that an automatic pistol of the same serial number was issued only five days ago to Alexander Blenn himself.”
Woodring moistened his lips, but made no comment.
Prike arose, strode over to Woodring, stared at him in silence for a moment. Then he said abruptly and without a trace of irony in his voice: “Thank you for coming in, Mr. Woodring. I don’t believe I shall need you any more today. Good-morning.”
Woodring blinked. “You—you’re not keeping me in custody?”
“No,” said Prike with a faint smile. “Not yet.”
Woodring lost no time in leaving. He had hardly gone, when the door opened again and Deputy-Inspector Robbins stormed in, his tiny moustache twitching with indignation.
“You’ve turned him loose, inspector!” he protested. “I just saw this chap Woodring, big as life, rushing down the hall. You’ve let him go, inspector?”
“We mustn’t impede the march of progress, Robbins,” said Prike quietly. “The young man is engaged in the expansion of trade and the advance of British enterprise overseas.”
“But his gun, inspector… The indentation made by the firing-pin, the extractor and ejector marks on the empty .32 cartridge we found in Stiller’s flat… even without a comparison microscope you can see they’re identical!”
“I must remind you, Robbins,” said Prike, “that a .38 bullet killed Stiller—and Dr. Feurmann.”
“Maybe,” Robbins admitted. “But this chap Woodring is mixed up in both these murders, or there ain’t no snow on the Himalayas.”
“Undoubtedly, Robbins,” Prike said. “In fact, he is probably more deeply involved than he himself realises. But you should feel complimented that I let him go, Robbins. It shows I have such implicit trust in your abilities as a man-hunter—despite your failure to bring me Alexander Blenn last night—that I know you will be able to put your long, competent finger on the young man the instant I want him again … In the meantime, shall we go down to breakfast, Robbins?”
The Clerk at the Grand paled as Woodring approached the desk. He opened his mouth as though to shout for help. Woodring smiled, disarmingly.
“You needn’t call the police,” he said, “because I’ve just come from talking with Inspector Prike. I’m not a fugitive from justice, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, no, sir. I wasn’t thinking, exactly, sir. Surprised, I was, rather, you might say.”
“Are my valuables still in the safe? Or have you turned them over to some one else?”
“Yes, sir—and no, sir,” stammered the clerk. “That is—yes, sir, they’re still here. I couldn’t turn them over to any one else, sir, without some sort of … writ, I believe they call it.”
“But some one has tried to get a writ?”
“Well, the police were talking about it, sir.”
“Get me the packet,” said Woodring.
He gave up his receipt, waited while the clerk opened the safe. He slit the top of the envelope, peered in to satisfy himself the contents were intact. He put the envelope into his breast pocket, started for the door—then stopped.
Just outside, leaning nonchalantly upon a Malacca cane, was Count Vaznilko.
Woodring pivoted on one heel, walked back through the hotel lobby and entered the dining-room. A khid-matgar pulled out a chair for him, and he sat down. He was unfolding his napkin when he noticed, sitting half a dozen tables away, Henry Emmet-Tansley.
The plump red-head was staring disconsolately at a prairie oyster a khidmatgar had just set before him. He bowed gravely to Woodring, then added another dash of Worcester Sauce to the raw egg.
An instant later Count Vaznilko took a seat in the dining-room, followed not long afterward by Inspector Prike and Deputy-Inspector Robbins.
Woodring ordered a large breakfast. He was surprised to find that he was hungry. Besides, he was in no hurry to leave the dining-room. He was still eating when Count Vaznilko paid his check and went out.
It was nearly half an hour before Woodring called on Ruth Ingram at the Woodlands.
Ruth looked attractively efficient in a neatly tailored gabardine of pale almond green. She had obviously been up for some time.
“Did you see him?” was her greeting.
“I think I saw him,” said Woodring, “but that’s all. The police stopped the show.”
“Police? They arrested you?”
“Not formally,” Wodring said. “They were just curious about how my fingerprints came to be found in Basil Stiller’s flat, and why I had a duplicate key to Dr. Feurmann’s room.”
“Apparently you convinced them of your innocence,” the girl said. “You aren’t in jail.”
“I might just as well be,” Woodring shook his head. “Prike is a damned shrewd man. He’s merely giving me enough rope with the idea that I’ll hang myself.” the idea that I’ll hang myself.”
“Well? What next?”
“Next,” said Woodring, “I’m going to get rid of an envelope that’s so hot it’s raising blisters.”
“You’re going to give it to me?”
“No, I’m not going to put you in a spot like that. I want you to go with me to the manager of this hotel, and have him put it in the hotel safe under our joint signatures. Then in case I am … suddenly removed from circulation, you can turn the data over to your uncle or Hubertson—or the survivor.”
“Your joke,” said the girl, “is in very bad taste.”
“It may be in bad taste,” said Woodring, “but it’s no joke. Let’s hurry now, because I must get back to Cotton-tree Lodge. Either Mr. Blenn or Quombi La will probably be looking for me.”
In another five minutes the transaction was concluded, and Woodring was again on his way across town. The clear, tonic sunshine seemed brighter to him, now that he was not carrying that ill-starred envelope. He quickened his steps. Nearing the bazaar, he found himself knee-deep in a herd of tiny donkeys, scarcely larger than dogs laden with baskets of vegetables. When he extricated himself from the tangle of donkeys and shouting market women, Woodring noticed that two hill men, clad in the yellow robes of Buddhist monks, were following at his heels.
One of the monks was old and apparently blind. His wrinkled eyelids were tightly shut. A Buddhist rosary dangled from the wrist of one hand extended for alms. The other hand clutched a prayer wheel. The monk who guided his uncertain steps was a large man with a well-nourished air about him. He carried a small bell which he rang at intervals as he chanted in a falsetto: Mihrbani karke, Sahib … zakat doge … Khairat, O Huzur!”
After one look at the two priests, Woodring hurried on, but the whining demands for charity continued to drone in his ear as the pair kept up with him. After a moment, Woodring was startled to hear his own name interpolated in the monotonous cry for alms. He came to a sudden halt.
The yellow-robed Buddhists passed without looking at him, but the larger of the two said distinctly in Urdu: “There is word from the Nawab, if you will follow us, Sahib.”
Woodring followed. The blind monk and his burly guide crossed the bazaar, still whining for the pice of the charitable. Woodring was close behind them as they turned off into a side street, began climbing a rickety wooden stairway that mounted the steep hillside between two rows of houses. At the top of the stairs, the burly monk paused to ring his bell. A heavy door swung open.
“Please enter, Sahib,” said the burly monk.
Woodring stepped in. He started walking along a dark, narrow corridor at the end of which, by the dim light of a flickering wick floating in a bowl of oil, he could see another stairway going down. When he reached the top of the inside staircase, he stopped, filled with sudden misgivings. He had somehow expected these Buddhist monks to lead him to an interior fragrant with incense. Instead he sniffed pungent fumes, a sourish alcoholic odour peculiar to marwa, a Himalayan beverage made from the fermented mash of millet.
“Age jao!” barked the burly monk.
Woodring spun about. The eyes of the smaller monk were wide open now, no longer blind. The hand that had been extended for alms now grasped the hilt of a gleaming naked kukri. From beneath the yellow canonical robes of the burly monk, the dark unorthodox bulk of a .45 automatic had appeared.
A hearty voice boomed from the foot of the stairs: “Come in! Come right in, Mr. Woodring!”
Woodring experienced a strange fluidity in his knee joints as he went rapidly down the steep stairs. If only that damned deputy police inspector had given him back his .32 …
He found himself in a room that was partly carved out of the hillside. There were no windows, and the foul air was redolent with stale tobacco odours and the reek of marwa. The only furniture consisted of a long table, several benches, and a charcoal brazier on which a kettle was simmering. On one end of the table were half a dozen tall joints of giant bamboo, containing the marwa mash, ready for hot water to be poured in and sucked up through a reed. At the other end of the table was a smelly kerosene lamp. Behind the lamp sat Count Vaznilko, smoking a cigarette through a long ivory holder.
“So glad you could come, Mr. Woodring,” said Vaznilko. “Sit down, won’t you?”
Woodring remained standing. “What do you want with me?” he asked curtly.
“You know what I want,” purred Count Vaznilko. His loose lips carefully formed the words around the ivory cigarette-holder, which remained motionless between his teeth. “Coming up on the Mail yesterday, I told you very explicitly what I wanted. Only, I am sorry, the terms now are not quite the same.”
“So what?” interjected Woodring.
“So now the matter can no longer be settled amicably,” said Vaznilko, half-closing his puffy eyelids.
“The matter is definitely settled.”
Vaznilko removed the ivory holder from between his teeth. “The matter will not be settled,” he said, “until I get what I want. And I always do.”
“Not always,” said Woodring, yawning. “For instance, you made a rather clumsy mistake yesterday—about the man in Room 329.”
Count Vaznilko’s heavy eyelids opened slowly. “I’m not interested in the man in 329,” he said wearily. “I’m interested only in a certain photographic negative … for my collection.”
Woodring made no reply. He watched the smaller monk, the pseudo-blind man, lift the kettle from the bed of charcoals and pour hot water into the bamboo cylinders.
Count Vaznilko pushed one of the steaming, primitive mugs towards Woodring. “We will drink a chunga together,” he said. “This marwa is a vile beverage, but it is mildly stimulating. And it will assure you that I am still ready to deal with you without violence—because of course I could not harm a man who has accepted my cup of hospitality, however poor.”
Woodring made no move to take the marwa. He said, “If you have finished, I may as well go.”
Vaznilko laughed mirthlessly. “You will not leave here,” he said, “until. I have the film.”
“Then I may as well sit down,” said Woodring with a shrug. “Because it’s going to be a long wait.”
“Not very long,” Vaznilko corrected him. He placed a revolver on the table in front of him.
“I haven’t any film with me,” said Woodring.
“Then you will send for it,” Vaznilko declared. “You will send word to any one you like. One of my men will carry the message. I don’t care how you phrase it, but I advise you to point out that the film must be in my hands within half an hour.”
He paused significantly.
Woodring threw one leg over the backless bench, and sat down. He reached for the bamboo chunga, drew it towards him. “Let’s keep this thing on a business basis,” he said. “How much do you offer?”
“Nothing!” Vaznilko declared. “Not an anna! Yesterday I offered you a lakh. You refused. To-day I have even stronger arguments.”
The yellow-robed husky with the automatic moved around behind Woodring. Woodring could feel the man’s breath on the back of his neck. He picked up a long reed, dropped it into the steaming marwa.
“But,” he said, “I’m accepting your hospitality, Count Vaznilko.”
Vaznilko nodded. “And for that,” he said, “I am offering you your own life—which is really a more generous offer than the one I made yesterday.”
There was another pause. Woodring sucked up some of the marwa through the reed. The liquid was so hot it burned his tongue.
“I’m beginning to suspect, Count,” he said, “that you’re in deadly earnest.”
“Your suspicions,” said Vaznilko, “are well founded.”
Woodring held out his left hand. “Then give me a pencil,” he said. “And I’ll write the note you want.”
Vaznilko gave a low chuckle of triumph. He reached into his pocket.
Woodring sprang up, tossed the steaming contents of the chunga over his shoulder into the face of the husky behind him. Simultaneously his knees and one hand caught the edge of the table, upset it on Vaznilko. As a follow-through of the same lightning movement, he flung himself to one side.
The lamp on the table slid to the floor and went out. The crash and tinkle of broken glass mingled with the guttural curses of Vaznilko, the howls of pain from the yellow-robed husky trying to claw the hot millet mash from his eyes.
Two shots thundered as the husky fired blindly. The darkness of the subterranean room roared and hummed with the echoes.
