Bengal Fire, page 7
“For what specific purpose was Hoyt to pay you five hundred rupees?”
“For services rendered,” said Dormer glibly.
Prike gestured toward the door. “Come with me, please,” he said.
Dormer held back, mockingly apologetic. “You’ll lose caste if you’re seen with me,” he said.
“You flatter yourself,” said Prike dryly. “Come.”
As Prike led Dormer to a car parked in front of the Medical College across Mirzapur Street, he took a crooked pipe from his pocket, filled and lighted it. Even the heavy fragrance of strong tobacco emanating from the inspector’s brier failed to dissipate the warm, frowzy eddies arising from the man beside him. For several minutes he sat smoking in silence. Suddenly he said, “I’m glad I ran across you tonight, Dormer, although originally I had not intended speaking to you for a day or two. My picture of your part in Hoyt’s blackmailing game is not quite complete.”
“I’m not a blackmailer,” said Dormer sullenly.
“You’ve been taking money from a blackmailer.”
“It’s none of my business what Hoyt did,” said Dormer. “As the French say, ‘Money has no odor.’ ”
“Money hasn’t,” said Inspector Prike, puffing furiously on his pipe. “But much connected with the career of the late Mr. Hoyt has a distinctly unpleasant odor. Hoyt used you, I believe, as an entering wedge to the news columns of the Anglo-Bengal Times. Your duty was to write laudatory articles about his clients, creating for them a ridiculously exaggerated, if not false, importance. After you had pulled up the client’s ego sufficiently, so that even he began to believe himself a personage, I believe the process was to discover then some skeleton in the client’s closet and to rattle the bones, which he believed safely buried, until his newly created importance was seriously endangered. The price for which the skeleton would stop rattling varied, I understand, with the client’s bank account.”
“I know nothing about Hoyt’s financial arrangements,” said Dormer, “except that he owed me five hundred rupees.”
“I am afraid, Mr. Dormer,” said Prike, pointing the smoking stem of his pipe at the scrawny journalist, “that you have not the proper respect for the truth. You took an active part in the attempted blackmail of Kurt Julius.”
“What about Kurt Julius?”
“If you will come in,” said Prike, as the car turned off Lower Circular Road and stopped in the compound of his house, “I will explain.”
The shabby little journalist was not at all ill-at-ease in the comparatively luxurious interior of Inspector Prike’s quarters. His worn shoes scuffed unabashed over the velvet pile of a Murshidabad rug as he walked about the room looking at the Travancore ivories, the carved Ajmer marbles, and a strange Monghyr fish of filigree silver—all trophies of some exploit of the inspector’s fifteen years with the Criminal Investigation Department in India.
After watching him with mingled resentment and amusement for several minutes, Inspector Prike took down a book from his well-filled shelves and handed it to Dormer. “You know this volume, of course.”
Dormer took the book. On the lurid jacket, across the snarling head of a Bengal tiger was the title, The Voice of the Jungle, by Kurt Julius.
“Yes, I know it,” said Dormer. “Hoyt wrote it.” He flipped open the pages to the frontispiece, a photograph of the corpulent Julius himself, rifle in hand, with one foot proudly planted on a dead rhinoceros.
“Have you read it?”
Dormer laughed. “A beautiful piece of fiction,” he sneered. “There are more hair-raising escapes in here, more amazing heroism, than in even the tall tales Julius himself tells around the Grand Hotel bar. The man’s topee is three sizes too small for him since this book came out. I think he believes it himself. He’s puffed up like a poisoned jackal.”
“Just the proper state of mind, I should judge,” said Inspector Prike quietly, “to receive the final thrust according to the Hoyt system: Shell out or have the inflated ego Hoyt created for you ridiculously punctured.”
“Not necessarily,” said Dormer, avoiding Prike’s eyes. “Julius is a vain liar but he has a sound knowledge of animals—especially their market value. He was keeper in the Hamburg Zoo and, I think, he was with the Bronx Zoo in New York. After all, he—”
“What about this?” interrupted Inspector Prike. He opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a sheaf of galley proofs, which he tossed to Dormer.
The journalist fingered his frayed-looking mustache as he glanced at the columns of type, but his expression did not change. The first sheet contained a single headline in screaming letters: Calcutta Smiles At Jungle Munchausen. The second sheet carried a two column lead which began: Posing in his own writings as a great huntsman who traps the ferocious tiger in the fastness of his Bengal forests, captures the rare Tibetan takin in the impossible mountain passes of the Himalayas, and snatches venomous snakes from the tall terai grass with his bare hands, Kurt Julius is being laughingly rechristened in India today as “The Bar-room Shikari.” Another column continued in the same vein. A fourth sheet was made up of a layout of photographs illustrating Kurt Julius in various drinking poses; adjacent were other photographs, without Julius, of half-clad Hindu hunters. The caption began: Kurt Julius drinks chota-pegs at the Grand Hotel in Calcutta while barefoot natives, armed only with a forked stick, dare the fangs of the deadly king cobra for Julius’s next shipment to American zoos….
Rufus Dormer tossed the proofs back to Inspector Prike. “What of it?” he asked.
“I seem to recognize your brilliant satiric style in this little masterpiece,” said Prike. “You write much better than Hoyt. I find, also, that the type for these proofs was set in the job printing department of the Anglo-Bengal Times. An excellent idea—that of confronting Mr. Julius with the convincing reality of cold type. He could not know, of course, that these proofs were printed privately. What price was he asked to stop publication?”
Dormer did not reply at once. He fished in his torn pocket for an imaginary cigarette. Watching him closely, Prike brought out a box of Trichinopoly cheroots. Dormer reached greedily. Prike glanced at his extended fingers, withdrew the box, himself selected two cheroots and presented them to Dormer.
“As far as I know,” said Dormer, striking a match, “Julius has never seen these proofs.”
“I should like to verify that fact,” said Inspector Prike. “Suppose we call on Mr. Julius—together.”
It was nearly midnight when Prike and Dormer arrived at the Chowringhee entrance of the Grand Hotel. Kurt Julius was not in the bar. The desk clerk said that he had retired for the night and was not to be disturbed, so Prike, with Dormer in tow, went to the animal buyer’s room unannounced. The door was unlocked. Prike walked in without knocking. A very black Tamil bearer who was energetically attacking the inside of the mosquito canopy with a long rattan whisk turned in surprise.
“Julius Sahib kidhar hai?” Prike asked.
Before the bearer could reply, Julius Sahib, himself, emerged indignantly from the bathroom clad only in a pair of baby-blue silk drawers. His large egg-shaped head, with its florid perspiring face seemed to have been fitted as an afterthought to the bulging white body of an enormous porcelain Buddha. When he saw Inspector Prike his indignation vanished.
“Ach, pardon me, inspector, I didn’t know it was you. I will get dressed.”
“Please don’t,” said Prike. “I hardly think Mr. Dormer will insist on conventional attire. As for myself, I am sure you will be able to lie to me quite as well without clothes.”
“Lie?” Kurt Julius’s little pig-like eyes grew round. “About what should I lie?”
“About this,” said Prike, carelessly handing Julius the galley proofs of Calcutta Smiles At Jungle Munchausen.
The springs of a divan sagged complainingly beneath the animal buyer’s two hundred and fifty pounds. One hand grasped the proofs. The other moved nervously over the curly gunny-colored hair plastered to his skull. He glowered at Dormer.
“I found these in Harrison Hoyt’s files,” said Prike quickly. “Don’t blame Mr. Dormer. He tells me that you know nothing about this matter.”
Julius became suddenly interested in the proofs. He made clucking sounds with his tongue as his pudgy fingers turned over the sheets. He slapped his bare thigh resoundingly.
“Ach, that Hoyt,” he muttered. “Such lies! No wonder a scoundrel like that gets killed. Yes, Dormer was right; I didn’t see this. Just as good, maybe, I didn’t. Such-such a libel!” The Julius tongue clucked like an irate hen.
“How much did Hoyt want not to publish this article?” asked Prike quietly.
Julius stopped clucking. The color left his lips.
“But—nothing!” he protested. “Hoyt didn’t ask nothing. He didn’t even show me this—this verdamter outrage. Didn’t Dormer say—?”
“Mr. Dormer didn’t know that I also found this in Harrison Hoyt’s files,” said Prike, extracting a paper from his pocket and unfolding it before the widening eyes of Kurt Julius.
Rufus Dormer sidled up and peered uneasily over the fat, white shoulder of the animal buyer. He read:
NATIONAL SUNDAY NEWSPAPER SYNDICATE, NEW YORK CITY, N. Y.
Gentlemen,
Referring to the article “Calcutta Smiles At Jungle Munchausen,” of which I have just received your proofs, may I remind you of the provisional terms under which I submitted this. You understand, of course, that the story is to be published only when I cable you the release date.
Very sincerely yours,
Harrison J. Hoyt.
Copies for:
File.
Mr. Kurt Julius.
Kurt Julius spread his hands in a gesture of amazement and appeal. “That no-good Hoyt must have forgotten to send me this letter,” he spluttered. “I never saw it before. Truly, inspector.”
The inspector’s unwavering eyes never left the red face of the animal buyer. “How much did Hoyt ask?” he demanded.
Kurt Julius with great effort got to his feet. The crimson of his cheeks deepened to a royal shade of purple. “My God, inspector, you aren’t—you don’t think I killed that skunk, Hoyt?”
“How much?” Prike repeated.
Julius’s eyes, dilated with fear, moved from Prike to Dormer and back to Prike. His lips worked silently for several seconds. Then, with a groan, he covered his face with his hands.
“Ach, what’s the use?” he breathed. “You know it anyhow. I bet Dormer told you. Hoyt said he would disgrace me unless I paid him twenty thousand rupees.”
Inspector Prike carefully refolded the letter without a show of surprise. “Did you pay it?”
Kurt Julius gazed at the inspector through the plump lattice of his fingers. “Yes,” he admitted after a pause.
“When?”
“Well, I didn’t pay it all,” amended Julius, dropping his hands. “Ach, how could I, inspector? Twenty thousand rupees is a lot of money. All my capital is in animals. I got fifteen thousand rupees worth of elephants on the high seas now which I don’t get paid for until the ship gets to San Francisco next month. That animal house of mine on Dumdum Road is full of cats, snakes, and parokeets for another ten or fifteen thousand rupees. For those I don’t get paid till I ship them to Germany: Besides—”
“How much did you pay Hoyt on account?” interrupted Prike.
“Five thousand rupees last month.”
“And when was the next installment due?”
“Another five thousand rupees I promised pretty soon.”
“Today, perhaps?”
“Let me see—I think…. Yes, it was today.”
“And you didn’t pay it?”
“Ach, how could I, inspector? Hoyt is dead.”
Inspector Prike reached for his hat. He nodded curtly. “Thank you, Mr. Julius,” he said, “that’s all I wanted to know. Coming Mr. Dormer?”
He started for the door. Julius caught his sleeve.
“Please, inspector, you don’t think—? I mean, have you found out yet who killed him?”
The inspector turned slowly. “Have you?” he asked very deliberately.
“How should I know, inspector? Everybody thinks I know, but I don’t know. Tonight you asked me. A few hours ago this American fellow, Linnet, he was asking me. Kobayashi was asking me. Even that Babu from Hoyt’s office, this afternoon he was asking me. They all ask me, inspector, but I don’t know any more about it than these six hyenas I bought yesterday from Ali Hassan. I—I don’t know anything, inspector.”
“Naturally,” said Inspector Prike, his hand on the doorknob, “I didn’t think you would. Good night.”
Once outside of Kurt Julius’s room, Inspector Prike paused to look up and down the corridor. In front of nearly every door a Hindu bearer was sleeping, stretched across the threshold like so many dead men. Prike took a few steps up the corridor and stopped at the room adjoining that of Julius. There was a broom leaning against the door and a wastepaper basket next to it. A gleam of dull red among the rubbish in the basket attracted Prike’s glance. He stooped, fished out a large fountain pen of hard rubber composition. It was a fat, oversize fountain pen of the type made to hold twice as much ink as the usual model. Prike was about to toss the pen back into the basket, when he noticed that beneath the inscription Jumbo Pen, stamped into the red barrel in gold letters, were smaller characters reading Made in Japan.
Prike frowned, put the pen in his pocket, noted the number of the room, and went downstairs. He stopped at the desk.
“Please tell me who is occupying room 213,” he said to the clerk.
The clerk replied that 213 was unoccupied.
“Are you certain?” asked Prike.
“Quite,” said the clerk. “The American gentleman who booked it yesterday checked out an hour ago.”
“What was the American gentleman’s name?”
The clerk consulted his records. “George Linnet,” he said.
“Do you know to what station Mr. Linnet had his luggage removed?”
“To no station, sir,” said the clerk. “Mr. Linnet has gone to stay at the Alipore Palace of the Maharajah of Jharnpur.”
“Thank you.” Inspector Prike stood a moment staring pensively into space. Suddenly like a man awakening from a trance, he walked briskly from the hotel into Chowringhee Road.
Chapter Eleven
TWO TIGER-HEAD BUTTONS
Lee Marvin, to put it mildly, was in a state of slight mental confusion. Here was a problem that could not be solved by applying aqua regia or the tests of hardness, cleavage, and crystallization. When Inspector Prike had tripped him neatly in a blatant, if gallant, lie, and further doubt had been cast upon his veracity by the disappearance of the nao-ratna, Marvin had fully expected to be arrested. Prike’s disarming courtesy had served only to increase his uneasiness. He knew he was being watched; all his movements that day had apparently been recorded in detail. “You are still at liberty,” Prike had said. His liberty was about that of an amoeba in a drop of water under the microscope of the C.I.D.
When Prike left his apartment, Marvin did something he had never done before: he took a drink alone, a stiff drink of Scotch without either ice or soda. Then he went to the offices of Orfèvre, Ltd., and made a desperate effort to lose himself in work. He dug into the correspondence that had accumulated on his desk during the day, reports from his gold-buying agents in Dacca, Patna, and Cuttack. His eyes skimmed figures on bullion purchases by the United States treasury, on sapphire production in Eastern Siam, on estimates of the De Beers diamond reserves—but his mind could not assimilate the information. He could not help thinking about the Bosa pearl.
Despite the fact that he felt he was definitely suspected in connection with the murder of Hoyt, Marvin found himself coming to the conclusion that Orfèvre, Ltd., owned an equity in the Bosa pearl and that he would be shirking in his duty to his firm if he did not make a strenuous effort to get it back—police or no police. After all, he had given Hoyt eight thousand rupees, and he had no proof that Hoyt was not acting legitimately in offering him the pearl. If Hoyt had stolen the Maharajah’s nao-ratna, why had not the rightful owner come forward openly to recover his property lawfully, instead of using the tactics of a burglar? And who had taken the valuable talisman from Marvin’s flat, anyhow? Someone, obviously, who had seen Hoyt give the package to Marvin at the bachelor dinner, and who either knew or had guessed its contents. Evelyn Branch, too, knew he had the nao-ratna; he had told her himself. But she would not have had a chance to steal them from his rooms—unless she had gone there during the several hours Marvin spent at the church in Dharmtolla Street that morning. She could have done that, of course, if Hoyt had told her about Marvin during his midnight visit—
“Mister Marvin, please.”
Marvin looked up to behold Babu Gundranesh Dutt standing before his desk, mopping perspiration from his very round face.
“Hello, Babu.”
“Am coming to make peace offering of abject apologies,” said Gundranesh Dutt. “Greatly fear have incriminated you unintentionally with police, sar.”
“How, Babu?”
“During unguarded moment of severe questioning by Inspector Prike at church,” said the Babu, “greatly fear I released cat from gunny-bag by divulging information that you were outside Mr. Hoyt’s domicile in smallish hours of this morning-time.”
“That’s all right, Babu. I told the inspector that myself.”
“So glad.” Gundranesh Dutt inflated himself for a prolonged sibilant sigh of relief.
“But how did you know I was there, Babu?” Marvin asked.
“Was also keeping nocturnal vigil in vicinity,” the Babu replied.
“Why?”
“Was seeking word with late deceased employer, regarding possible half-holiday on wedding day. On returning home last evening-time, discovered that Cousin Danilal Dutt of Barrackpore was arriving on morrow for celebrating Diwali festival in bosom of Dutt family. Was desirous, therefore, to secure slight leave of absence—”
