Bombay Mail, page 16
“But you accepted the railway pass?”
“Yes. I kept out of sight for a few days until mail day. I thought that by taking the boat train I’d have a chance of getting aboard the mail steamer in Bombay, and—well, stowing away. Once I got to France, my friends in Paris might help me. I’could get a job singing in a cabaret again. I’d hate it, but still—”
“You haven’t any relatives?”
“No.”
There was a long pause. The sound of a prolonged gurgle came from Neal’s corner, and the silhouette of an uptilted flask appeared against the window.
“Did you tell this story to Inspector Prike?” asked Hawley at last.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I was so upset when I discovered that Captain Worthing was on this train that I did everything I could to try to hide the fact that I was the Captain’s friend Smeganoff— particularly after the murder of the Governor. I told so many lies and half-truths—to try to protect the Captain— that Inspector Prike would probably find the true story too fantastic to believe. Even Captain Worthing by this time must be convinced that I really am a Russian spy and that I took this train deliberately to follow him.”
“Do you think that the Captain might actually have killed the Governor on account of you and this spy story?” asked Hawley.
“I’m afraid to think.”
There was another pause. The click of the rails, reflected by the bank of a cut, grew louder, then faded.
“You’d better tell Inspector Prike the whole story,” said Hawley.
“He wouldn’t believe it,” said the girl.
“I believe it,” said Hawley.
“That’s more important,” said Beatrice Jones. “But I’m afraid I’ve complicated matters even further, by using my Russian accent to talk to Xavier in the restaurant car this morning. I gathered from your conversation that there was serious trouble between you. I thought by keeping my Russian identity for Xavier’s benefit, I might be in a better position to help you. But since I’ve made such a mess of this business, I might just as well let this newspaper man do his sensational worst with it. You could use the two thousand rupees, couldn’t you, Jack Hawley?”
“I? But why—”
“Because I heard what happened with those snakes,” said the girl quickly, almost breathlessly. “I heard how you risked your life to save a man who’d robbed you. It was a fine thing to do and you got pretty shabby thanks for it. I was proud of you.”
“But what has that got to do—?”
“I’ve never been any good to anybody in my whole life,” the girl continued. “I’ve brought nothing but trouble and bad luck to everybody, to the Russian opera company, to Captain Worthing, to myself. Even just having a compartment next to yours last night was a jinx to you. You told me you were strapped. You could use the two thousand rupees—”
“They’ll get you back to Paris,” said Hawley.
“I won’t need it—after tomorrow.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to be a cabaret singer all my life,” said the girl. “A famous musician once told me I’d never make an opera singer. I thought I could prove he was wrong. But I guess he was right, Jack Hawley. The simplest way to settle all this would be— Well, the train runs out on a pier into Bombay Harbor tomorrow. It will be very easy and convenient. I can’t swim—”
“I can,” interrupted Hawley vehemently.
“Even with handcuffs on?”
“Handcuffs or no handcuffs,” he declared violently. “You don’t think I’d let—”
He stopped. A green signal light shone into the compartment and vanished. By its brief glow, Hawley saw the girl’s face very close to his. Her cheeks were wet.
There was a sudden, blinding glare.
“There’s a picturel” exclaimed Cootie Neal, standing with his feet apart, his camera in one hand, his flashlight gun in the other. “And what a picture! I got the caption already: ‘Beautiful Spy Who Terrified Governments Tamed by Cobra Charmer.’ ”
Chapter Twenty-Two: DUEL IN THE DARK
The Bombay Mail pulled into Khandwa Station at a little after midnight. A man in an aviator’s helmet was standing on the platform. As the train stopped, he spotted the bald head of Inspector Prike at a window of the specialcar. Inspector Prike got out and the aviator walked down the platform to meet him. He handed the Inspector an envelope.
“Any message to take back, Inspector?” the aviator asked.
“None—yet,” Prike replied.
“The Chief told me to say that Agent F-691 is co-operating,” said the aviator.
Prike nodded.
“So I’ve been told,” he said. “Since what point has he been co-operating?”
“I wasn’t informed.”
“That’s all, then. Happy landings.”
Inspector Prike got back into the private car, trying again to remember who Agent F-691 was, When the train started, he sat at the table in the dining-saloon, emptying the contents of the envelope the plane had brought from Gaya. The torn scraps of paper were dirty and yellowed by their brief exposure to the tropical sun. From his wallet Prike took the scrap he had found wedged into a window shutter that morning. He read it for the twentieth time:
rupees. Of cou …
personal chec…
later, in ca …
Then, using the first scrap as a cornerstone, he proceeded to fit the other scraps around it, like a jigsaw puzzle. When he had reconstructed the torn letter, with the exception of several blanks caused by missing pieces which had not been found by the agents at Gaya, the letter presented the following appearance:
Dear L …
I hope y … mind this pack … paper mon … I think you’ll find’it counts up, as we agreed, to 20,000 rupees. Of course I couldn’t… personal check in this deal… later, in case you have not promised more than you can deliver, I shall be glad to…ou another 10,000 rup …
There was no signature and most of the salutation was missing. Still, Inspector Prike thought he could get along without either. He looked up suddenly, aware that someone was standing behind him, reading over his shoulder.
Luke-Patson was standing there in a silk dressing-gown.
“Where the deuce did you get that, Inspector?” asked Luke-Patson. “I thought I’d torn that up and thrown it out the window a thousand miles back.”
“You did,” said Inspector Prike. “A plane just brought me the pieces from Gaya.”
“I wish you’d told me you were after it,” said Luke-Patson. >“I could have spared you the trouble, Inspector. I had no idea you were looking for it as a clue—which it obviously isn’t.”
“Obviously,” said Inspector Prike. “Just a business letter. Who wrote it?”
“I’d rather not say, Inspector, if you don’t mind—”
“I don’t mind in the least. I know. Fortunately, I have a specimen of the man’s handwriting to compare it with. Mr. Xavier wrote it. Why couldn’t he give you his personal check for the twenty thousand rupees, Mr. Luke-Patson?”
“Well—” Luke-Patson hesitated, but he was not embarrassed. He smiled as one man of the world might smile in detailing a minor escapade to another man of the world who would understand. “As a matter of fact,” he continued, “it’s not the sort of deal that either of us would be particularly proud of, Inspector. If it hadn’t been that I was desperately in need of money, I should never have considered it.”
Inspector Prike nodded. He extracted a cigarette from his case and offered one to Luke-Patson. As he held out a lighted match, he asked quietly, “Some sort of gambling transaction, I suppose?”
“Exactly. As you probably know, Inspector, I go in rather heavily for racing. Mr. Xavier was paying me not to allow a certain horse of mine to win in the Lucknow Gymkhana meeting. Not exactly an honest transaction, Inspector, but when a man has debts—”
“I understand,” said Inspector Prike.
He chuckled disarmingly. With a quick movement of both hands he swept the jigsaw letter into a pile of scraps and replaced the pieces in the envelope the aviator had brought.
“Is there any other information I can give you, Inspector?” said Luke-Patson.
Inspector Prike looked at him for a long minute. He noted that Luke-Patson carried under his arm a bundle of what appeared to be soiled clothes. He pointed to the bundle.
“What have you got there?” he asked.
“I just had the annoying thought that I hadn’t a clean suit of whites to go aboard ship in tomorrow,” said Luke-Patson. “Traveling this time of year is such a dirty and disagreeable business that I’ve had to change half a dozen times a day. I’m having my bearer wash out a suit for me. I’ll have to rouse him up by hand. The lazy beggar doesn’t answer the bell.”
“I didn’t hear it ring,” said the Inspector.
“Probably out of order,” said Luke-Patson. He edged away from the table and passed through the dining-saloon into the kitchen and servants’ quarters.
Inspector Prike sat motionless, listening to Luke-Patson upbraiding his bearer in fluent Hindustani.
A moment later Luke-Patson passed through again, on his way back to his compartment.
“Good night again, Inspector,” he said.
“Pleasant dreams,” said Inspector Prike. He sat for a full minute looking out the window, absorbed in thought, watching the signal light change from green to red. He looked at his watch. Less than ten hours remained before the Bombay Mail arrived at Ballard Pier; less than ten hours in which to solve the mystery of two murders. There was no time for sleep. There was time, however, for a brandy peg.
The Inspector walked to the built-in sideboard at the end of the dining-saloon. He reached for the V.S.O.P. bottle which stood on a silver tray. He did not remove the cork, however. As he lifted the bottle, he saw, lying on the tray, a folded piece of paper with his name printed on it in pencil in block letters. He put down the bottle, unfolded the note and read:
If the Inspector will come to the luggage van at the next station, his case will be closed.
F-691
Prike studied the note. So C.I.D. agent F-691 was indeed co-operating. There was no clue to the identity of the writer in the labored block lettering of the text. The Inspector again consulted his watch. In fifteen minutes the train would stop at Bhusaval where he would find out the man’s identity for himself. He resumed his interrupted operation of pouring a brandy and soda and sat down to wait.
As he lifted his glass, the Inspector frowned. He wondered whether F-691 would be waiting in the combination guard and luggage van coupled to the rear of the train, or in the luggage van that adjoined the mail van forward. He decided it was the latter. The body of Sir Anthony Daniels was being carried in the forward car and F-691 had undoubtedly discovered some clue on the corpse that the Inspector had overlooked. Prike’s frown deepened in annoyance with himself for having overlooked something that a subordinate might find.
The train roared into Bhusaval and stopped with a sibilant protest of compressed air. Inspector Prike stepped from the private car and walked quickly down the nearly deserted platform to the forward luggage van. The doors had been padlocked at the Inspector’s express orders after the transfer of Sir Anthony’s body. Prike reached into his pocket for the key and immediately told himself he should have brought his electric torch. He pushed the key into place, removed the lock, and slid back the door. After a few seconds passed, he clambered into the dark interior.
“Hello,” he called softly. “F-691?”
If F-691 replied, the Inspector did not hear him. A hoarse blast of escaping steam from the engine just ahead drowned out any possible answering sound. The deafening geyser of steam continued. The engineer was evidently blowing tubes. Impatiently Inspector Prike took a few steps deeper into the darkness of the luggage van. Then he turned abruptly. The door had slid shut with a click behind him.
Inspector Prike stood for an instant, staring into the blackness. The prolonged blast of steam had disintegrated into a labored panting. The floor of the car trembled. The Bombay Mail was getting under way.
The Inspector waited for several seconds for the person who had just closed the door to make himself known. Then he called again, “F-691?”
The reply was a burst of orange flame and a clap of thunder.
Instinctively Prike leaped to one side and dropped to one knee. The shot had been fired at such close range that he could still feel the scorching breath of the discharge on his cheek. His ears were ringing as he reached for his own gun. What a fool he was to have walked into a trap like this. Only the uncertain aim of a man firing at a voice in the darkness had saved his life.
The Inspector’s forefinger took up the slack in the trigger of his automatic. He aimed at the point he judged his assailant to be. But he did not fire. If he missed, the flash of his gun would reveal his position to the other man, who must also be waiting with his trigger finger tense. He would let the other man make the next move. Staring ahead, he tried vainly to pierce the impenetrable wall of darkness. Vague, pale patches swam dizzily before his eyes —the after-effects upon his retina of the blinding flash of that first shot.
As Prike waited—possibly for death—his logical mind delved back through the hours in an effort to determine who could have led him into this trap, and how. The answer came almost immediately. It was simple carelessness. He had left the telegram informing him that F-691 was co-operating exposed on the table during the flurry of excitement following the discovery of Captain Worthing’s revolver behind the fan. The murderer of Sir Anthony and the Maharajah had seen the telegram and had taken a long chance, using the signature of F-691 as bait.
The crash of a falling piece of baggage roused Inspector Prike from theory to action. His trigger finger contracted. His automatic spurted fire and lead in the direction of the sound.
Immediately came an answering roar of flame. The other man was firing at the flash of the Inspector’s gun. Prike heard a bullet thud into a trunk beside him. Both shots had missed.
Prike settled down for a siege of strategic waiting. He could not expect help until the next station, for the noise of the speeding train would cover the sound of shouts and even gunfire. He tried to remember the schedule of the Bombay Mail. As nearly as he could recall, there was no stop for at least two hours—two hours’ ride with a murderer and a corpse. The Inspector dropped to all fours and made his way cautiously along the floor. The faint noise of his movements was apparently concealed by the clattering monotone of the wheels on the rails. He wormed himself between two stacks of luggage and listened tensely for some audible sign of his adversary’s position. For perhaps ten minutes he crouched expectantly in the darkness without hearing a significant sound. Then he decided on action.
Prike’s hands groped cautiously over the stack of luggage in front of him until they touched what his fingers decided was a small oblong box—someone taking home Cawnpore boots, probably. Poising the box in his left hand, he raised his right, containing his automatic, above the luggage pile. Then he tossed the box across the car. It fell with a double thump fifteen feet away.
Instantly a detonation replied from farther down the car. Prike fired at the flash in the darkness. As the Inspector dropped quickly behind his bastion of trunks and boxes, the report of another shot beat upon his eardrums. He could hear the bullet rip through the protecting luggage. He had missed his enemy and his enemy had corrected his trajectory for windage and error.
Prike started moving again, picking his way carefully through the luggage. Although his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, it was impossible to distinguish even outlines of the obstacles in his path. From his sense of direction, guided by the feeling of movement and his memory, he reconstructed roughly for himself the geography of the luggage van. Sir Anthony’s body covered by a Union Jack, lay not far from the center of the car, perhaps twenty feet behind the spot the Inspector occupied at this moment. For several yards in every direction from the body, a space had been cleared. Prike must avoid these cleared spaces, he told himself. He must not lose the advantage of cover. He backed up a few steps and began crawling in a new direction. He sought the wall of the car, so that his adversary, who was no doubt moving himself, could not come upon him from behind. He butted squarely into a wooden crate.
The impact dislodged a piece of badly balanced hand luggage from the top of the crate and it tumbled off the other end. Once more the explosion of the murderer’s gun shook the darkness. Prike smiled to himself as the projectile drilled harmlessly into the crate. Five shots. Unless his adversary had a bandolier, or at least another gun, he had only one shot left. Prike had four. Of course, one shot well placed would be sufficient to end the duel.
The locomotive whistle wailed stridently in the night. The engineer was running through a flag stop.
Inspector Prike hit upon a scheme to make the murderer waste his last shot. Crouching behind a stack of trunks, he turned his automatic backward and held it out at arm’s length, so that it would fire over his own head. His adversary would logically aim behind the flash; that is, to his left, whereas Prike would be to the right. He pressed the trigger with his thumb. The recoil almost kicked the gun from his fingers.
The last shot of the man in the darkness nearly killed the Inspector.
Prike had figured on his adversary being in front of him. Actually, the man had worked around through a quarter of a circle. The last shot, coming from an angle of ninety degrees to the line that Prike had plotted, cut a searing furrow across the wrist that held the Inspector’s gun.
The split-second illumination of the sixth shot gave Prike a first tantalizing glimpse of his adversary. The glimpse told him nothing. The wink of flame had lighted two bare knees. Prike was not even sure he had seen a pair of khaki shorts above them. They might even be the knees of a Hindu.
Prike rose quickly and plunged boldly toward his attacker. He would take the desperate chance that the sixth shot was the man’s last, or at least that he could get his hands on his man in the darkness before the man could reload. His feet sped over the unobstructed floor for half a dozen steps. Then he stumbled and fell forward. His automatic spun from his grasp. As he sprawled across the unseen obstacle, his hands, clutching at the darkness, closed on his flesh. An involuntary exclamation escaped him. His fingers revulsively loosed their grasp. The flesh they had touched was the cold, inert flesh of a dead man. He had stumbled over Sir Anthony’s body.
