Bengal Fire, page 16
“There is no hurry,” said Inspector Prike, bending down to set an overturned table upright. “The door can be forced at our pleasure, and I think the situation downstairs will remain unchanged for a few moments. Sit down, Monsieur le Commissaire, if you can find a whole chair. Perhaps Mademoiselle Antoinette will be able to find an unbroken bottle and serve us an apéritif while I ask her a few questions. I should like you to hear the answers, monsieur.”
With a silk handkerchief, Prike wiped a fleck of blood from a scratch on his bald head, and drew up a chair. The puzzled commissaire sat down opposite him. Antoinette, glowering, replaced her hands on her hips.
Chapter Twenty-Two
MORE THIRD DEGREE
“Monsieur le Commissaire,” Prike began, keeping his eyes on Antoinette, “are you familiar with the wine cellar of this hotel?”
“Sufficiently,” replied the French official. “The red wines are passable. The Clos Vougeot 1921 is even good. But the Chablis is vinegar, the Barsac—”
“Is there any sake?” Prike broke in.
“Saké? That vile Japanese infusion of rice beetles in varnish? I hope not!”
Prike’s fingers drummed the table top as his eyes continued to ask the question of Antoinette Vrai.
Antoinette shrugged. “We have clients of all nationalities,” she said. “We must have the drinks that please them. We have vodka for the Russians, aquavit for the Swedes, even whisky and gin for the leather gullets of English and Americans.”
“And saké for the Japanese?”
“Naturally.”
“You have had many Japanese guests at the Hotel Dupleix?”
“A few.”
“Among them a man named Henry Kobayashi?”
“I cannot remember all their names.”
Prike consulted his watch. “You will have an opportunity to remember faces,” he said. “Henry Kobayashi should be here in a few moments.”
Antoinette carelessly draped one silken thigh over the edge of the marble table top. She smiled at the cigarette butt she stamped out on the marble between the inspector’s hands.
“He is coming no doubt to taste my saké,” she said.
“He is coming,” said Prike, “to help clear up an important question in the relationship between you, Mademoiselle Antoinette Mathilde, and the late Harrison Hoyt.”
“But there is no more Harry Hoyt. How can there be any more relationship?”
“Assez de chinoiseries!” Prike snapped. He was beginning to show his annoyance with the round eyes of factitious innocence that Antoinette was affecting. “A woman who has been living by her wits for as long as you have must know certainly that I would not be quite this extravagant with my time and effort if I were dealing merely with the murder of a worthless American blackmailer whose death has caused very few tears— particularly in my department. There are larger issues involved.”
Antoinette’s mouth became a scornful inverted crescent. “Of course,” she said. “Your promotion, no doubt. Perhaps a decoration from your King-Emperor.”
“I am interested in the murder of Harrison Hoyt,” said Prike, “solely because, two days before his death, I had begun to investigate the entry of contraband arms into India. I know that Hoyt was involved, and I am equally convinced that you were his accomplice.”
“Arms? Me?” Antoinette planted the palms of her hands on the table behind her, leaned back, and unloosed a salvo of deep, full-chested laughter. Inspector Prike noted, however, that her lips clung closer to her teeth than was usual when she engaged in her characteristic displays of explosive gaiety. “Arms!” she gasped. “I have my own arms. They always get what they want. Why should I make contrabande? Ridiculous.”
Prike stood up and faced the door. He had heard the sound of a motor stopping in front of the hotel.
A few seconds later Deputy Inspector Robbins marched into the bar-room with his right hand clenched about the arm of Henry Kobayashi.
“Here he is, inspector,” said Robbins, “though I still can’t see for the life o’ me why you didn’t want me to keep this bloke in Calcutta. I’d keep him busy till you got good and ready for him. But up here, he’s out of our jurisdiction, and—”
“I know,” interrupted Prike. “Sit down, both of you.”
Henry Kobayashi swaggered up to Prike, grinning like a chimpanzee, and held out his hand.
“Howdy, chief,” he said. “Still giving me the works, I see. What is all this—more third degree?”
Prike nodded, but did not shake hands. He gestured toward a chair. Kobayashi sat down, still grinning.
Aside from his flaring cheek bones and the lack of lashes over his straight, elongated eyes, Henry Kobayashi appeared more American than Japanese. His birth in Honolulu and his education in the American schools there had left a stronger mark upon him, at least externally, than his Oriental blood. His intonations, his mannerisms, the cut of his white clothes and the tilt of his topee, the red and blue stripes of his silk cravat and the diamond-studded horseshoe- of his watch charm—all were as American as hot cakes and maple syrup.
“Mr. Kobayashi,” said Prike, “I’d like to introduce you to Miss Antoinette Vrai.”
“Don’t bother,” Kobayashi replied. “Tony and me are buddies.”
“You met her with Hoyt, of course?”
“Sure. Poor old Harry and me used to come up here for a week-end now and then.”
“On business?”
“Not exactly.” Kobayashi’s grin became reminiscent. “Harry used to say that Chandernagore was a swell quiet place to get tight at. And it sure is.”
“You are representative in India for the Osaka Cotton Spinners’ Mutual Export Association. Is that right, Mr. Kobayashi?”
“You bet it is.”
“Then to save you from unnecessary lying in answering my next questions,” Prike pursued, “I think I should share this bit of information with you. The Singapore police several days ago seized a shipment of five thousand Japanese-made machine guns, destined for Calcutta. These arms were packed in cases labeled cotton goods, bearing the imprint of the Osaka Cotton Spinners’ Mutual Export Association.”
Henry Kobayashi’s grin flickered and went out. His bronze face turned a peculiar brassy yellow.
“There—there must be some mistake,” he stammered. “Some forgery or something.”
“There was no mistake in the fact that the shipment was consigned to Harrison Hoyt,” said Prike. “As a matter of fact, you knew that shipments of arms, disguised as Japanese cotton goods, had been coming to Hoyt for some time.”
“How in hell should I know that?”
“Because you have been associated with Hoyt in business for nearly a year.”
“Business, sure. But no monkey business,” said Kobayashi, nervously biting the end off a large fat cigar. “I— I don’t know anything about any machine guns.”
“As a matter of fact, your visits to Chandernagore with Hoyt were for the purpose of arranging a cache for your machine guns, were they not?”
“Hell, no!” exclaimed Kobayashi, sliding to the edge of his chair. “We came here to get tight.”
“Pay no attention,” Antoinette admonished him. “He is dingo! Crazy! I think he takes stupéfiants, the inspector!”
“Listen to this, please,” said Inspector Prike, taking a memorandum book from his pocket. “Since the first of the year, 3,650 tons of Japanese cotton goods have been cleared through the customs at the port of Calcutta, all by Harrison Hoyt. Every consignment, on being cleared, was reshipped to the little river town of Hooghly, five miles north of here. Don’t you think, Mr. Kobayashi, that this is rather an excessive amount of cotton goods to meet the simple Hindu needs of a small town of perhaps twenty thousand population, which also buys cotton dhotis and saris from Manchester, to say nothing of swadeshi cotton?”
“I—not necessarily,” said Kobayashi, taking an unusually long time to light his cigar. “Maybe there’s some distributor at Hooghly with a big district to sell. I don’t know, of course. J don’t know anything about Hoyt’s business at Hooghly.”
“The day before Hoyt was killed,” Prike interrupted, “I discovered the rather interesting fact that every one of Hoyt’s cotton shipments was cleared from the customs just before closing time—so that the trip up the river was invariably made in the dark.”
“What’s funny about that?” Kobayashi objected. “That Howrah pontoon bridge don’t open for river traffic except at night.”
“Nothing particularly funny,” said Prike, “except that I have been unable to find a record of any of Hoyt’s shipments being received at Hooghly.”
“So what?”
“So I am forced to conclude,” the inspector continued, “that instead of being shipped to Hooghly, the, well, cotton goods, were landed in the dark, somewhere en route, say at Serampore, or Jharnpur—or Chanderna-gore!”
“Chandernagore!” Antoinette shook her head violently. “I tell you the man is dingo!”
“You’re all wet, chief!” protested Kobayashi, with a wave of his cigar which was trembling between his fingers. “If you brought me up here to talk about machine guns, you’re wasting time.”
“I think not,” said Prike quietly. “I think Chandernagore would be an excellent place for Hoyt to hide his smuggled arms. The anachronistic political arrangement here would keep his cache away from the prying eyes of the British, who would be most concerned. And his fiancée would be constantly on hand to keep watch over the contraband. Very logical.”
“But what’s that got to do with me?” Kobayashi insisted.
“You admit that you were associated with Hoyt?”
“Sure, but—”
“That’s a damaging admission, Kobayashi.”
“Now, listen, chief. Why should it be damaging? Hoyt was—”
“Hoyt was engaged in activities obviously hostile to the safety of the British Empire. You were his associate.”
“But to me Hoyt wasn’t any gun-runner. He was a press agent. You see, chief, this Osaka crowd sent me to India because they knew that even with the yen way down and cheap goods to sell, they were up against a tough proposition. During the war, with German goods cut out, there was a lot of Japanese junk dumped into this market. The trouble was, it was junk—pencils with only an inch of lead in each end; watches with no works in ’em; all that sort of stuff. So now people are kind of shy of Japanese goods, and my job is to break down that feeling. They sent me because I know English, and I’m pretty hep to high-pressure American methods, from living down in Honolulu. First thing I do is hire a press agent, and it happens to be Hoyt.”
“A good blind,” mused Prike.
“But what would I want to get mixed up in gun-running for?”
“Money,” said Prike, “is always a strong sedative for the most virulent case of scruples. Besides, you might conceivably look upon yourself as performing a patriotic duty. Since Japan recently embarked on her new course of empire, she has made no effort to disguise her policy of ‘Asia for the Asiatics.’ Organizing India for an armed revolt against the British would be quite consistent with such a policy.”
“But I—I—” Henry Kobayashi’s cigar had gone out, and he was having considerable difficulty in relighting it. He had broken three matches when a hubbub of voices in the hotel veranda diverted attention from his increasing confusion.
Above the rumbling of several masculine voices came the halting, excited, half-gasping treble of a woman. A man was shouting for the police.
Deputy Inspector Robbins sprang to his feet, hurried toward the voices. Antoinette’s lips pressed together in expectant enmity. The commissaire of police verified the twisted ends of his black mustache, then jumped up. Inspector Prike leaned forward a trifle.
Henry Kobayashi closed his eyes a moment in obvious relief. When he opened them, almost immediately, they were drawn sharply to an unlatched shutter that was swinging gently in the hot wind that breathed gustily through an open window. Kobayashi arose, covered the room with quick, apprehensive glances. He was only three silent steps from the low window sill.
At that moment the doorway from the lobby framed an odd group. Chitterji Rao and George Linnet paused on the threshold, like matinee idols awaiting the burst of applause following their first entrance cue. Behind them, her hair straggling damply to her cheeks, her wet, muddy clothing molding the graceful lines of her young, budding body, stood the dripping figure of Evelyn Branch, leaning on the equally wet Lee Marvin.
Chapter Twenty-Three
FROM BENEATH THE EARTH
When he ran down the stairs of the Anglo-Bengal Times building, loped through the night, and hailed a cruising taxi in Dalhousie Square, Lee Marvin was beginning to enjoy his game of hide and seek with the C.I.D. He could have done very well without the grim note of sudden death which seemed such an integral part of the game, but since neither Hoyt nor Julius were particularly admirable nor sympathetic humans, he was surprised to find that he rather liked the added zest of danger. To the taxi-walla’s query, “Kidhar, Sahib?” he replied without hesitation, “Guru’s Lane,” knowing perfectly well that he could expect to cross the police again at Mrs. Pereira’s. He wanted a show-down with Evelyn Branch.
He was faintly incredulous when Mrs. Pereira’s sleepy durwan told him that the Mem-sahib he was seeking had gone away an hour ago in a motorcar belonging to the Maharajah of Jharnpur. He bribed the durwan to let him into the house, and was standing in the hall when Deputy Inspector Robbins arrived, got the same story from the durwan, and drove away again. Then Marvin came out, increased his bribe, and asked to be let into the Mem-sahib’s room.
The first thing he saw was the note in the copper-plate hand, on Evelyn Branch’s night table, asking her to come to the Alipore Palace. Then in succession he noted the girl’s bed in disorder, her flimsy silk night-dress thrown over the back of a chair, a fluffy pink slipper near the door halfway across the room from its mate, the punkah still whirling overhead—all signs that Evelyn had been aroused from sleep and had left hurriedly. Well, he would wait for her to come back. He couldn’t quite bring himself to probe into her personal effects, which lay about the room with a disturbing sense of intimacy; that wouldn’t be cricket. But he would certainly surprise her on her return. Hadn’t she waited for him in his flat? He put out the light and sat down. In five minutes he was asleep.
Daylight awoke him. When his startled eyes had oriented him, he looked at his watch. He had slept for three hours—which was worse than nothing. He had a bitter, woolly, sleepless taste in his mouth. Evelyn had not come back. Or had she come and gone? He looked at himself in a mirror and scowled at his reflection. He looked worse than he felt. That manly stubble on his chin and the fatigue circles under his eyes needed only a felony number around his neck to complete a rogue’s-gallery photograph. He left the house quietly and went home.
At his Theater Road flat, his bearer was waiting with a hot bath, a tall glass of cold water, two aspirin tablets, and a cable from the London office of Orfèvre, Ltd.
Close soonest Bosa pearl; offer three thousand higher if necessary, the cable read. That was his mistake. He should never have mentioned the Bosa pearl to the home office without a more substantial basis than Harrison Hoyt’s word. He’d have to make good on it now. He’d go out to Alipore after breakfast, he reflected as he bathed.
When he started lathering his face for shaving he remembered a little .32 caliber revolver that was tucked away at the bottom of a drawer under his clean shirts. He never used it, but it might be a good idea to take it along to Alipore. Every step he’d taken these last few days seemed to get him deeper into trouble. Of course, he could let the whole matter drop, charge up the eight thousand rupees to his own profit and loss, and cable London that the Bosa pearl was no longer available. That would be the easiest way out. Orfèvre, Ltd. didn’t expect him to jeopardize his life deliberately for the sake of a few thousand pounds’ profit. He knew, though, that he would certainly go to the Alipore Palace—and it wasn’t because that girl was there, either. Damn that girl with the long slim legs and the provocative ankles and the proud blond head and the trusting lips that he had come so near to kissing before they put him off by uttering sharp, distrustful words! He must think a lot of the girl to resent so strongly the feeling that she was putting something over on him. Funny, how it hurts to play second fiddle to a girl you really like. But he was sure she wasn’t the reason for his going to Alipore. No, it was because he had had the Bosa pearl in his hands, had lost it, and was feeling a little silly and with more than a little bitter wrath over the whole business.
“Sahib?”
Marvin’s bearer came into the bathroom with a slip of paper in his hand.
“Damn!” Marvin cut himself. He always cut his chin when he allowed himself to become introspective while shaving. Some day he would cut that dimple off, and good riddance! He reached for the styptic pencil with one hand and the note with the other.
The folded paper was gummed together around the edges with some pink substance that smelled faintly of ether and bananas. Marvin tore it open. Inside, in a small, tight backhand, was written:
I think I have caught Harry Hoyt’s murderer. This probably doesn’t interest you, but I am telling you because I may have trouble letting go of him. I haven’t the slightest idea where I am now, but we are going to Chan derna gore, wherever that is. It seems we are calling on Miss Vrai. You probably have decided I am a fool, and I am rapidly coming to the same conclusion myself, but if you are not too disgusted with me, will you please come?—Evelyn Branch.
Marvin tossed the note aside. Was this an apology or a trap? A trap, probably. The girl thought he still had the Bosa pearl. She hadn’t believed him last night when he told her it had been stolen, and she was still hell-bent on getting her hands on it. She was a determined woman, and determined women are dangerous. There had been a murder a day since Evelyn Branch arrived in Calcutta. Why did she want him up there at Chandernagore, in French territory?
