Bombay Mail, page 3
SORRY CAPITAL NOT AVAILABLE FOR TAKING UP OPTION AT THIS TIME
“But I thought he was lousy with money,” said the crestfallen Hawley when Burgess displayed Xavier’s telegram. “Do you think he lost it all since we saw him last?”
“Lost nothingl” exclaimed Burgess. “He’s doublecrossing us, that’s all! He wants to let our option expire so he can make a new deal for himself, without giving us a half interest.”
“But does he know we’ve struck it rich? Did you say in your wire that we’d found ruby earth?”
“I did not. But I imagine he’s found out from his own sources. Remember that big black Tamil mucker that disappeared from our camp night before last?”
“You think—?”
“Exactly. The Tamil was Xavier’s man. He disappeared to tell Xavier that we’d dug out some rubies, and Xavier, figuring that the time is too short for us to do anything about our option, is going to grab the whole works for himself.”
“And we’re going to let him?”
“Not if we can help it. You’re going to get out of here right away for Calcutta, while I stay to keep an eye on things here. Better try to see the Governor. Sir Anthony Daniels is supposed to be pretty hard-boiled, but he has the reputation of being a square shooter. Tell him the whole story. The Government will be involved ultimately, of course. Whoever gets the concession will have to pay a royalty of thirty percent, the way they do in Burma.”
“And if I can’t get to the Governor?”
“You might try seeing Xavier again, but I doubt if it’ll do much good. If you find he’s really on the level, you might ask him for a steer toward somebody else with a little capital—but there’s not much chance of his being on the level.”
“Then what?”
“You’d better take our six rubies with you,” said Burgess.
“They’re not really ours, are they?”
“Not technically, until we arrange terms for a permanent concession. Still, we’ve got to fight trickery with a little trickery of our own. Take those rubies and try to raise enough money on them to save our option. Once we’ve established our title, we’ll get the rubies out of hock and put them into the pot. But don’t show them around Calcutta. There’ll be too many questions asked anywhere in Eastern India. If everything else fails, hop the first mail train for Bombay.”
Jack Hawley reached Calcutta next morning. He found Government House in a turmoil over the bomb explosion and the imminent departure of Sir Anthony Daniels for London. He made two attempts to see the Governor. The first time he got no farther than one of the secretaries of the Governor’s secretary. The second time he reached Luke-Patson himself, only to be informed that the Governor would be unable to take up new matters however urgent, until his return from London. Sorry.
Hawley next tried to get in touch with Xavier. He was referred from one office to another. There was an incredible ignorance—or mysterious reticence—among Xavier’s associates. His whereabouts seemed unknown. Hawley went to his sumptuous house in the suburb of Alipur. Here his coming seemed to have been expected. Hawley was told that Xavier would be in shortly and had sent word that Hawley wait and have tea with him.
Hawley had not been in India long enough to become addicted to tea, but he waited—for an hour and a half. Then he overheard someone talking on the telephone in another room, telling the person at the other end of the wire that Mr. Xavier was out of town!
Well, that settled Xavier. There was no more doubt about his bad faith. The next thing to do was to get to Bombay with the six rubies in his tobacco pouch. Hawley had just time to get in from Alipur to his hotel, pick up his bewhiskered bearer and his bedding roll, wire Burgess that he was leaving on the Bombay Mail, and start across the river to the Howrah Station. The troop of lancers which had cleared the bridge for the Governor’s party had just been withdrawn, and the rush of delayed traffic clogged the bridge. Hawley’s taxi barely crawled through a tangle of bullock carts and a bedlam of shouting drivers. But he got aboard the Mail, even if he made it by the skin of his teeth. Moreover, the Governor of Bengal would be a fellow passenger for the next thirty-six hours. There was a slim possibility that he might get to see him after all. He would try again in the morning.
Hawley looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock, Calcutta time. His bearer, who had been squatting on the floor of the compartment for more than an hour, had gone to the servants’ quarters when the train stopped at Burdwan a few minutes before. The Brahmin was still poring over his book, lifting his shaven head occasionally to look keenly at Hawley. There was no attempt at conversation. Hawley lowered the sliding wooden shutter from one of the windows to get a breath of air. The air was warm and sticky. He sat watching the phantom landscape slide by in the Indian night. The train was roaring through rice fields, starry with the flickering light of a million fireflies. Dark silhouettes of palms whisked by, and occasionally the shadowy pyramid of a Hindu temple.
Hawley had no desire to go to bed. When the Mail groaned to a stop at Asansol Junction, he got out to stretch his legs. It was after midnight, and the usual confusion of the station platform was reduced to a few passengers, a handful of porters, and a water vender. Hawley saw a Eurasian in a khaki uniform running along the side of the train, shouting something. At first he thought the man was shouting his name, then decided he was mistaken. He listened more intently. There was no mistake now. The man was calling, “Hawley.” He stepped up to him and took an envelope from his hand. The envelope was addressed to Jack Hawley, Passenger Bombay Mail. Due Asansol Zero Hours Twenty-six.
He walked quickly across the station platform and stood under an insect-clouded kerosene lamp as he ripped the envelope open. Inside was a telegram. He read:
JUST LEARNED THAT MISTER X OR HIS AGENT IS ABOARD MAIL— PREVENT HIM SEEING GOVERNOR AT ALL COSTS BURGESS
Hawley crumpled the telegram and stuffed it into his pocket. He swore to himself. So Xavier was a fellow passenger too, was he? Burgess had said “or agent.” Who else in one of the cars of the Bombay Mail could be Xavier’s agent? It would be hard to tell until morning, since there was no way of going through the cars. Hawley walked rapidly along the side of the train until he came to the Governor of Bengal’s private car. Light still shone through the slatted shutters of several of the windows. Perhaps the Governor was still awake. Perhaps he could see him tonight. He stopped in front of a window, the shutter of which was lowered halfway. He stepped close to the car and raised himself on tiptoe, trying to see someone whose attention he could get. At that moment a face appeared in the opening—a pale face with a trim blond mustache. A moment later a florid, well-fed face appeared. Hawley tried to explain the urgency of his business. The train started to move. He could barely keep up with the moving window. The argument ended. Hawley sprinted ahead to gain his car, swung into his compartment. The Bombay Mail drove forward into the night.
II. MOGHAL SARAI
(Arrive 7:50 a.m. Friday)
Chapter Four: A VERY IMPORTANT CORPSE
Cuthbert Neal, better known as “Cootie,” got unsteadily to his feet. He was in that unpleasant state halfway between the night before and the morning after. His tongue was of flannel and his mouth lined with coarse tweed, yet he was still nearly as drunk as when he had staggered aboard the Bombay Mail in Howrah Station. He needed another drink, that was what.
The train lurched around a turn and Neal sat down abruptly among his cameras and tripods.
“Hurt yourself, Mr. Neal?”
Neal rubbed the top of his reddish, wire-haired scalp, as he looked about the first-class compartment. The dim night light was burning, made even more dim by the first gleam of daylight. He blinked at the big, baby-faced man standing opposite him. The baby-faced man blinked back through horn-rimmed spectacles. No, he was not the product of Neal’s alcoholic imagination. Neal remembered now that the man had been very energetically friendly all night—annoyingly friendly even, in the eyes of a man who wanted to sleep off a drunk. The man was always talking, talking.
“Morning,” said Neal. “You’re up again, ain’t you? Seems that every time I look at you you’re gettin’ up.”
“I can’t sleep in these Indian trains,” said the baby-faced man. “There’s no use of even undressing. Now, American trains are different. Take the Twentieth Century Limited, for instance—”
“You take it,” said Neal, with a feeble gesture. He was still sitting on the floor. “I can’t, Mr.—er—Mr.— You’ll have to ’scuse my memory. I never forget a face, but I’m no good at names, Mr.—”
“Breeze,” said the baby-faced giant. “Edward J. Breeze. If you look through your pockets, you’ll find my card. Manager of the Indian Import Branch of the International Plumbing Fixtures Corporation. You probably don’t remember but we had a long argument, last night about plumbing and sanitation. I was showing you this album with pictures of some of the work I’ve been doing here.”
Breeze picked up a bulky album from his berth and began turning over the leaves. Inside were photographs, some in the most artistic tones of sepia, some in natural colors, of porcelain bowls and nickel fittings and glossy tiles.
“You may remember,” Breeze continued, “that you criticized the fixtures my firm installed in the bathrooms of the Rajah of Peshabad at his Alipur palace. I don’t know if I made clear why we put those four bathtubs in such close proximity. I should have pointed out that the old Rajah is a great family man and that bathing—”
But Neal was not listening. He had just opened a suitcase containing the elements of his portable photographic dark-room. Selecting a flask from among the many bottles and glass trays, he withdrew the cork and sniffed. Apparently satisfied that the bottle did not contain “hypo” or metol-quinol developer, he took a long swig. He offered the flask to Edward J. Breeze, who refused.
“You was walkin’ around outside at the last station, wasn’t you, Mr. Gale?” said Neal. That drink had done him good. He was beginning to remember things.
“Breeze is the name,” corrected the other. “Why, yes, there seemed to be something happening on the station platform, so I went out to see what it was.”
“What was it?”
“I couldn’t make out,” said Breeze. “Something to do apparently with the Governor of Bengal’s private car—”
“I mean what was the station,” said Neal.
“Oh. Gaya.”
“What?”
“Gaya.”
Neal suddenly snapped his suitcase shut, stood up, started slinging camera cases over his shoulder, rushed aimlessly back and forth across the compartment.
“Great spirits of hypo!” he exclaimed. “I knew I shouldn’t have took that last drink in Calcutta! I’m on the wrong train!”
“You mean you didn’t want to take the Bombay Mail?”
“Is this the Bombay Mail?”
“Yes.”
“I wanted the Bombay Mail, all right,” said Neal, puzzled, “but what were we doin’ in Goa?”
“That last station was Gaya,” said Breeze.
“I thought you said ‘Goa’,” said Neal, greatly relieved. He sat down on his berth and unslung his cameras. Breeze laughed. Neal laughed too. He remembered now hearing the guard calling “Gaya.” Yes, he was beginning to remember things. He scratched his head.
“Didn’t I— Did you hear somebody scream just when the train was startin’ outa that last station?” he asked.
Breeze laughed uneasily.
“Did you hear that too?” he countered.
“It sounded like it was right in my ear,” said Neal.
“Well, it—as a matter of fact, it was in the next compartment,” said Breeze. “I— Well, I was outside, still looking about, when the train started. I rushed to climb back aboard, and in my hurry I tried to get into the compartment next door—by mistake, you understand. It seems the next compartment is occupied by a Miss Ursula Klink of Keokuk, Iowa. I happen to know her name because her baggage was put into- this compartment by mistake at Howrah last night. Miss Klink, who is a rather thin maiden lady, screamed.”
Neal snickered. “Quite a gay dog, ain’t you, Gale?” he offered.
“Breeze,” corrected the plumbing-fixtures importer.
“You weather forecasters!” protested Neal. “Always so technical.”
Breeze walked to the window of the compartment and looked out. It was broad daylight now, and the Mail was slowing to a stop. Breeze looked at his watch.
“This must be Moghal Sarai,” he said. “We’ll be able to get chota hazri here—a cup of tea and a banana. Hello! Wonder what’s going on here?”
In the next car ahead, a second-class coach, Jack Hawley was also wondering what was going on. A minute before he, too, had poked his head out of the window. There were dark rings under his eyes—caused partly by worry, partly by the fatigue of the hot, restless night that had just ended. The six precious rubies still nestled in his tobacco pouch. Hawley had verified the fact after a glance at his fellow passenger. The Brahmin was squatting on a berth in the corner, his feet pulled up against his thighs in the contorted position of a Buddha in meditation, his hands clasped in front of his bare torso, his eyes closed like one dead.
So Xavier was on this train! Where was he? Leaning out a little farther, Hawley scanned the sides at the red cars, gleaming in the early morning light. He might have been expecting to see Xavier’s dark head suddenly appear at one of the windows.
As a matter of fact, a head did pop out of the window of the adjoining second-class compartment at that moment, but it was the blond head of an attractive young white woman. She was leaning rather far out, as if she, too, were looking for someone. As she turned in Hawley’s direction, he was impressed by the sophisticated pout of her pretty mouth, quite out of character with her big, wistful gray eyes, the pleading eyes of a frightened child.
The wheels of the Bombay Mail were grinding to a stop. Hawley saw the sign of the station: Moghal Sarai. He saw the crowd on the platform, a colorful, Hindu crowd, most of them pilgrims either coming from or going to the Sacred City of Benares, ten miles away across the Ganges. There would be few of them getting on this train, for the Mail carried no third-class coaches. Hawley saw water carriers with glistening black goatskin bags across their shoulders. He saw venders of greasy sweetmeats moving among the bobbing, sun-drenched mosaic of pink and blue and yellow turbans. Then he noticed that the crowd of pilgrims was being held back by a rope stretched across the station platform. Soldiers with fixed bayonets were guarding the rope. Red-turbaned Indian policemen were being ordered about by a dynamic little European in white trousers, black alpaca coat, and khaki sun helmet.
Something was happening. All along the train, heads were appearing at the windows. Hawley saw the tall black headgear of a Parsi with steel-rimmed spectacles. Beyond was a Tibetan official with a magenta skullcap and one long earring; a fat Marwari money-lender in close-wound puggree; a long-faced Afghan with a pillbox cap of black velvet set on his bobbed hair; an ebony-faced Singhalese with a large ornate comb stuck into a knot of long hair at the back of his head. Two Mohammedan purdah ladies were lowering their veils with timid curiosity. A square-whiskered Sikh disdainfully shouldered aside a Bengali, whose lips were scarlet with chewing betel nut. Hawley’s glance quickly swept along this living ethnological chart of India and returned to the blond head in the next window. As he watched the wind ruffle her hair, his worries of the last few days seemed suddenly and strangely unimportant. He smiled.
“Good morning,” he said.
The girl looked at Hawley. There was a flicker of interest in her eyes, but she did not reply. Hawley tried his French.
“Bon jour, mademoiselle.”
Still the girl did not reply.
“Buenos dias, señorita,” said Hawley.
The gray eyes, looking over Hawley’s head, were now slightly bored. Hawley was not convinced that the boredom was genuine, however. Anyhow, he was beginning to enjoy this linguistic game.
“Salaam, mem-sahib,” he said. “Buon giorno, signor-ina.”
The Bombay Mail stopped with a jerk. Hawley suddenly remembered that the Japanese greeting was “O-haiyo gozaimasu.” He carried his fingers to his temples, pushing up the skin to give himself Oriental eyes. When he looked again, the blond head had disappeared from the adjoining window. Now that the train was standing in the station, he decided to pursue his acquaintance further. Opening the door of his compartment, he was about to step out. The dynamic little European in the khaki helmet, the man Hawley had noticed ordering the policemen about, pushed him back.
“Stay inside, please!”
The order was given in a calm undertone that somehow was as cold and sharp as the snap of a steel spring.
The little man slammed the door upon Hawley and walked on rapidly along the side of the train. Hawley, indignation succeeding surprise, swore.
“What the hell does he mean by that?” he exclaimed angrily.
There was a low chuckle behind him. Hawley turned to see the Brahmin standing, watching him with an amused expression in his ancient eyes.
“You do not approve of the efficiency of the C.I.D., Sahib?” said the Brahmin.
“The what?”
“The C.I.D.—Criminal Investigation Department. The British Secret Service in India. A very efficient and alert body of men, Sahib, and none more efficient or alert than Inspector Prike.”
“Who’s Inspector Prike?” Hawley asked.
“The smallish gentleman who just now pushed you back into your compartment with such calm efficiency,” said the Brahmin. “You will know him better before the day is much older; that I can promise you.”
