Wives to Burn, page 6
Gabriel stared at her. If he could only be sure that she was really screwy, or just putting on a show. He must make a note to read a little abnormal psychology when he got home.
“There!” announced Gwendolyn Small, as she laid down the last three cards in the deck. “That’s done it! There’s your fortune, Gabriel. Blood! Or red-headed women! Or both. The cards aren’t quite clear. But there’s a letter in the night…. A letter or a telegram. And trouble. There’s trouble, Gabriel. Stay away from women—!”
“Now, Gwendolyn,” said Gabriel, coming around the desk to put a paternal arm around the white-haired woman. “You know I don’t even look at any other woman but you.”
“I’ll thank you not to call me Gwendolyn,” said Miss Small.
“Anything you say, Miss Small. But there’s one more thing I’d like to know. Did Lucy Steel leave anything with you for safekeeping?”
“She did not.”
“She didn’t put any valuables in the hotel safe? Not even a handbag—a red, patent-leather handbag?”
“Nothing.”
“Well.” Bill Gabriel pursed his full lips in a silent whistle. “Maybe we ought to go see Mr. Hatton,” he suggested. “I can hear him sounding off down the hall. Something’s happened to hang cow bells on his well-modulated voice.”
When Bill Gabriel left Room 9, closing the door upon the mild objections of Dr. Forsythe, the old missionary doctor unhooked the stethoscope from his ears and said, “I wonder if I should have let him run off like that.”
“I’ll go after him,” Fred Oaks volunteered.
“Hold on now, young man,” said Dr. Forsythe. “You’ll do nothing of the kind. How do I know you two aren’t confederates? After all, I know nothing about either of you, practically, except that I found you both in here with a dead woman. You’ll wait until Mr. Hatton comes.”
The doctor maneuvered himself between Fred and the door. Fred smiled at the optimistic defiance of the frail old man. Then he turned his head at a slight sound behind him.
One of the window shutters, unfastened, was swinging in the wind. It banged shut, swung open again to reveal the leaden gleam of the sea, obscured at rhythmic intervals by a moving shadow—probably the shadow of a palm frond bending to the wind. The muscles along Fred’s jaw tightened.
Dr. Forsythe saw the slight change in his expression. He said, “You keep away from that window too, young man.”
Fred turned back, smiled again. Then the light went out. The darkness that leaped into the room was accompanied by the tinkle of breaking glass and the crash of the lamp being overturned.
“Stay where you are, Mr. Oaks!” Dr. Forsythe called. “Don’t move. I warn you.”
There was no answer. The shutter slammed shut. Dr. Forsythe groped his way across the room, fumbled in his bag for a flashlight.
“Mr. Oaks!” he called again. His old fingers sought the button. A feeble beam of light sprang into being, darted ineffectually about the room. It did not find Fred Oaks.
The shutter creaked open again. Dr. Forsythe went to the window, looked out. He could see the phosphorescent line of the surf, the stiff silhouettes of the tal palms against the whiteness of the beach. He saw no human figures. He reached out, was about to close the shutter, then reconsidered. He came back, picked up the kerosene lamp from the floor, struck a match, touched it to the wick. The chimney and shade were smashed beyond repair, but the wick flared with a yellow, smoky, odorous flame.
Dr. Forsythe returned to the bed, made another searching examination of the body of Lucy Steel. His thick, black eye-brows simulated most of the curves in Euclid before he finally snapped out his flashlight and replaced it in his bag. He got down on his hands and knees, looked under the bed, then rose stiffly, walked to the walnut clothespress. He pulled at the mirrored door, made several clucking sounds when it swung open. He spent ten minutes looking at the suits hanging there, going through the pockets. When he heard footsteps in the corridor, he quickly closed the door to the clothespress, buttoned his alpaca jacket combed out his beard with his fingers.
“Thank God you’ve come, Mr. Hatton,” he exclaimed as the District Officer opened the door.
Reginald Hatton surveyed the dim-lit room, an annoyed expression on his ruddy, equine face. He touched his small reddish mustache, barely visible on his long upper lip, with two exploratory fingers.
“What’s going on here, Forsythe?” he demanded in bored tones. “Something important, I hope. You’ve taken me away from—”
“A deceased female, Mr. Hatton,” said Dr. Forsythe, nodding toward the bed.
“I say.” The District Officer came into the room, followed by Alvin Brinker, an Indian police officer, and two native constables. He glanced briefly at the corpse, turned away quickly. “Who is she, Forsythe?”
“Why, that’s Lucy Steel!” Brinker exclaimed.
Hatton looked at the bank manager curiously. “Friend of yours, Brinker?” he asked.
“Hardly.” The banker’s buck teeth shone in a sickly grin. “That’s the American woman who came in on the Mail tonight. This chap Gabriel said her name was Lucy Steel.”
“Yes, of course. I recall it now,” said the District Officer. “What happened, Forsythe?”
“I’m sure I can’t say, Mr. Hatton. Miss Small sent for me, and I found two men in here with the corpse….”
“Two men—in her room?”
“This isn’t her room, Mr. Hatton. It’s—”
“Yes, of course. This is Oaks’s room isn’t it? Where’s Oaks?”
“He’s gone, Mr. Hatton.”
“Gone? How—?”
“I’m sure I don’t know how he did it. Someone smashed the lamp. It couldn’t have been Oaks. At least I don’t believe it was Oaks. He was standing on the opposite side of the room. But the lamp did go out. I think someone outside hit it with something. The shutters weren’t fastened….”
“Why weren’t the shutters fastened?” demanded Hatton. He strode across the room, his face growing even more red with the rage of thwarted authority.
“It’s none of my affair, Mr. Hatton. I was merely called as a physician—”
“Where’s Miss Small?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“Damned irregular. And a damned nuisance, just at this time. Who was the other man? Gabriel, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Forsythe. “He says he’s some sort of a detective, and—”
“Detective!” Merely pronouncing the word had a strange effect on Reginald Hatton. His British reserve, the dignity of his office, and the usual cold arrogance of his official voice vanished in a sudden sulphurous outburst of expletive. He touched briefly on the subject of Americans in general, detectives in general, and American detectives in general. His remarks became more extended and more vehement when they concerned William Shakespeare Gabriel in particular. The violence and apparent lack of reason for the outburst left Brinker, the doctor, and the police official gaping in astonishment. They were still gaping when Bill Gabriel made his personal appearance.
“Pardon me for eavesdropping,” said Gabriel, when Hatton’s roar had subsided, “but didn’t I overhear my name mentioned in muted whispers?”
He held the door open with one hand, and with the other kept a firm, possessive grasp on the arm of Gwendolyn Small. Miss Small surveyed the scene with complete detachment.
“Hello there, Gabriel,” said the District Officer, resuming his normal voice. “As a matter of fact, I was asking about you. You helped Fred Oaks escape, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t notice he was gone,” Gabriel said. “Anyhow, he can’t get out of Shakkarpur any more tonight, unless he sprouts wings—” He grinned maliciously at the District Officer “—which we all doubt very much. Don’t we, Gwendolyn?”
This time Miss Small did not object to Gabriel’s familiarity. She said quietly, as she stared at the red question mark on the bed sheet:
“I’m sure all this could be explained quite simply. Let me lay out the cards for you, Mr. Hatton. The cards will tell us. The cards will show us the knave—the black knave….”
“Will you stop this nonsense!” the District Officer bellowed. “You brought her in here just to confuse matters, Gabriel. But I warn you that any attempt to obstruct justice—”
“Why, I wouldn’t do a thing like that to you, Mr. Hatton.” The upper areas of Bill Gabriel’s plump cheeks began to crinkle under the eyes. “Fact is, I just noticed that justice seems to be obstructing itself.”
“I don’t intend listening to your ill-mannered levity, Gabriel.”
“Suit yourself,” Gabriel shrugged. “Only I should think an investigating officer might be sort of curious about whatever it was that smashed that lamp.” He gestured with his thumb.
The District Officer walked slowly in the indicated direction, stooped over to examine the dark patch of spilled kerosene. There, in a glitter of broken glass, lay a small .32 caliber automatic pistol.
Chapter Eight
A Strange Household
Fred Oaks had seen the automatic a few seconds before it came hurtling between the open shutters to extinguish the lamp. It had startled him at first; unable to identify the hand which held it, he could not know what function it was about to perform. He did know, however, that whatever happened, the moment had come for him to take abrupt leave of Seaside House. The corpse of Lucy Steel had set his plans somewhat awry.
Fred had made all arrangements to forestall arrest on any vague political complaint the District Officer might devise, but he was not prepared to meet a charge of murder. It was inevitable that he would be saddled with the death of Lucy Steel as soon as they found out why Lucy had come to Shakkarpur, and they were certain to find out. In the long run he would clear himself, but legal chicanery was slow when the charge was murder, and Fred Oaks was in a hurry. He needed another 24 hours at least to finish sowing his crop of dragon’s teeth, and it might be 48 before he could shake the powdery dust of Shakkarpur from his heels, jump to Pondicherry to collect his money for a bad job well done, and get out of India. When the lamp smashed to the floor, Fred leaped through the open window.
Cactus spines jabbed at his underquarters as his heels sank into the sandy soil. He stumbled forward, plumped into the arms of the man standing in the darkness. His body stiffened, his hands moved upward seeking the man’s throat. Then a voice murmured in his ear, “Easy, Fred. Let’s go.”
Fred relaxed, caught his balance. The man was Ganeshi Lal, lawyer son of the Brahman.
“This way,” Ganeshi said. “The D.O. and his minions are galloping down the other road.”
They hugged the wall of the hotel—as closely as Gwendolyn Small’s cactus borders permitted—then cut back through the unkempt, neglected garden. Fred Oaks led the way, heading for the anonymous crowds of the bazaar. He could hear Ganeshi’s breathing close behind him, for Ganeshi suffered from asthma. He could almost hear Ganeshi’s silk shirt as well, for one of the effects of American higher education upon the Hindu lawyer was a predilection for loud shirts with violent stripes, an addiction to pinch-backed pongee suits, and a talent for expressing displeasure by expelling air sharply between the tip of the tongue and the upper lip. All these foreign affectations were symbolic of Ganeshi’s revolt against orthodoxy. They stood between him and his own people almost as much as his refusal to go through a Brahmanic purification cerempny on his return from abroad, and his marriage with a girl of another caste. And, since they nevertheless brought him no closer socially to the West whose ideas he had adopted, they were also his badge of contempt for the Occident. Ganeshi Lal was a complete individualist, a one-man insurrection, the living voice of articulate protest. He was a rabid Swarajist, of course, and therefore a perfect setup for Fred Oaks.
“Thanks for the hand, Ganny,” Fred said, when they had cleared the gardens of Seaside House. “That was nice timing—and nice aim. Whose gun was that you tossed at the lamp?”
“I don’t know,” said Ganeshi Lal.
“You’re not in court now. You can tell the truth.”
“Have it your own way,” Ganeshi said. “But that’s straight. I don’t know whose gun it was. I found it.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Right underneath your window. I peeked in, and saw you were in a jam, so I started looking around for a rock or something to throw at the lamp. I found that gun down on the ground among the cactus.”
“How’d you happen to be outside the window in the first place, Ganny?”
“I heard you were due for trouble with the D.O.,” said the Hindu attorney. “So I hurried over. And I took a dekko through the window first to see how deep you were in.”
“Did you break the catch on the shutters?”
“No, the shutters were unfastened.”
“How did you know I was in trouble with the D.O.?”
“The elderly parent told me. I didn’t ask the old man how he knew, because he’d just have quoted from the Bhagavad Gita or something, to make me think he got an exclusive tip from Hindu heaven. Anyhow, I rushed right over with a pocketful of writs. Then I looked in the window and saw that the writs didn’t quite meet the current situation. Why did you kill that blonde. Fred?”
“I didn’t kill her. I found her in my bed.”
“Well,” said the Hindu. “I didn’t know you were a necrophile.”
“Go home and wash your eyes out with soap, Ganny. You’ve been looking at those bas-relief friezes in the Temple of Shiva again.”
“Not since I was ten years old. If you didn’t kill the blonde, Fred, why did you jump out the window when I smashed the lamp?”
“Because Hatton would just as soon jug me for murder as on any other pretext. And I’m just as determined not to go to jail as Hatton is to send me there—at least until after Shivarat.”
“What are you going to do? Leave town?”
“That’s the simplest way of getting caught.”
“Who told you it was any simpler than a European trying to hide in a small Indian town? The D.O.’s men will ferret out your hiding place inside of two hours.”
“The D.O. won’t think of looking in the place I’ve picked,” said Fred Oaks. “Not for a while, at least.”
“Why won’t he look there?”
“Because I’m going to hide in his own house,” Oaks said.
“You’re a genius,” the Hindu said, “if you can get away with it. How will you get around the servants?”
“I think I can get around the servants. I’ll have to, that’s all. I’ve got to be there tomorrow morning, anyhow—to give instructions for the delivery of the rifles.”
“You’re crazy, Fred. You haven’t had the rifles sent to the District Officer’s bungalow!”
“‘Sure, I have,” was the reply. “They’re arriving from Madras addressed to the D.O.’s sister. She thinks they’re wheelchairs for Doc Forsythe’s Pariah Clinic.”
“You are a genius!” Ganeshi Lal stopped to whistle in admiration. “Not to say a louse, a fox, and a budmash of the first degree. As one angle-worker to another, I salute you.”
“That’s fine,” Oaks said. “Now suppose you salute yourself off into some side street and let me continue my solitary way to the D.O.’s.”
“Don’t you want me to come with you, Fred?”
“No.”
“Listen, Fred, if you need—”
“I’ll send for you.”
“What about the rifles? The men will be here at dawn tomorrow.”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve decided what to do about them.”
“No stalling now, Fred. I warn you, you can’t let me down. My men have to have the rifles tomorrow.”
“Why this sudden and un-Oriental show of speed, Ganny?”
“You know why. You’ve been following the news from Europe. England’s going to war.”
“That’s what they said just before Munich.”
“I know, but it’s real this time. Even a Halifax will turn in the end. This is our big chance, Fred—the chance we should have grabbed when England was in a spot twenty-five years ago. We’ve got to strike now—while Britain is in no position to deny us. How are you going to let me know about the rifles, Fred?”
“By heliograph, pony express, or mental telepathy. Trust to my ingenuity, Ganny.”
“I do, Fred. But—”
“Then scram.”
Virginia Hatton waited for 15 minutes after Fred Oaks left the domicile of Shivaji Lal. When the Brahman did not put in an appearance, she went next door to the unhallowed house of his son. No one paid any attention to her as she entered the drawing-room, but she was accustomed to that. The Lals were a strange family—neither cod nor Bombay duck nor good red marinated herring—and fitted appropriately into the heterogeneous house of Lal the Younger.
The elder Lal was there, as Fred Oaks had predicted. He was squatting on the floor, balanced precariously but without effort upon his bare toes. His hands held his congress gaiters, one of which he used to make an occasional gesture of emphasis beneath the nose of his son. Virginia could not hear the subject of his argument for he spoke in his usual low, calm tone. She only remarked that Ganeshi seemed self-consciously bored as he leaned back in his imported leather chair, smoking his very English brier pipe with very un-English sucking sounds, and that the fingers of his left hand were rhythmically busy buttoning and unbuttoning the six buttons at the front of his dazzling silk shirt.
Ahalya Bai, Ganeshi’s wife, sat in an imported rocking chair in the background, gently rocking herself as she played the Internationale on her flute. Despite her surface unconventionality, she was less westernized than her husband. She still wore a sari—a purple one, shot through with gold threads—wrapped around her small, lithe body and brought up, cowl-like, across the back of her glossy black hair. She wore the traditional red mark of the married woman on her forehead, but Virginia suspected that this was only because it was becoming to her deep olive complexion—for the same reason that she used kohl to make her eyes brighter. Ahalya Bai seemed quite as oblivious of the men’s argument as they were unaware of her persistent tootling. For them she was as much a part of the scenery as the pictures on the walls: Karl Marx, Stalin, Rosa Luxemberg, Gandhi, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Susan B, Anthony, Lloyd George, Tagore, Amelia Earhart, and Mr. Justice Frankfurter in academic cap and gown. All except Marx, Rousseau, and Rosa Luxemberg, which were cheap prints, the portraits had been cut out of the rotogravure sections of Sunday newspapers and framed with window glass and passepartout.
