“A lakh of rupees! I pay a lakh! Let her up!”
So he let her go, picked up the dagger and sniffed it after biting and
sucking the back of his right hand again until it bled freely. Then he
pointed to the hamper:
“Go back there and sit down!”
But the Chinese girl seemed all-important. Wu Tu hurried to the cistern
and tried to comfort her, helping her out and talking to her rapidly in
Chinese. The girl took it all quite stoically. When she had coughed water
from her lungs she slipped away from Wu Tu, ignoring Blair as if he were
nonexistent, and went and sat on the floor near the lanterns, where she
continued coughing and retching for several minutes. The tone of Blair’s
voice changed perceptibly:
“Is the drug in this dagger the stuff that made Frensham talk?” he
demanded. “What is it? What does it do—paralyze the will or
something?”
“Don’t be a fool, Blair. There’s no drug, and that was an accident. You
startled her. She didn’t mean to scratch you.”
“I’m going to scratch you and see if it makes you talk,” he answered.
“Come here.”
“No, Blair! No, no!” She retreated slowly. Her eyes were like a desperate
animal’s, her hands ready to scratch. She was like a cat at bay. “No, no, let
me talk, Blair—let me tell you.”
“Very well,” he said, “sit there. Go on talking or you’ll feel the point
of this thing. You were saying it was you, not Taron Ling or Zaman Ali, who
found the way in here. How did you do it?”
Wu Tu sat down on the hamper; full in the lantern glow. “Blair,” she said,
“I thought you were a fool policeman, but I see you’re clever. I will trust
you. I will tell you everything. What did you do to Taron Ling? You didn’t
kill him? Tell me—did you?”
“Wait and see,” he answered. “Go on with your story.”
“Let me tell in my own way, Blair. You terrify me—stand back. You
promised—”
“Yes,” he said, “I promised.” He stood back from her two paces. As the
friend I said I’d be, I give you one chance.”
“Are we friends if I tell?”
“Policemen haven’t friends,” he answered. “Only enemies, protégés and
allies. Which are you?”
“Blair, I said I’d give you Henrietta. I can do it.”
“Where? When?”
“Listen to me, or you’ll regret it! Do you want to kill her?”
“If a hair of her head’s hurt, I’ll make you suffer for it,” he answered
grimly.
Wu Tu was equally grim. “You’ll be the death of us all unless you listen
to me! There is magic in this place! That woman out there inside the crystal
was the queen or the priestess of a race of giants who emerged long
ago— no one knows how long ago—and died out—vanished. How?
Why?
“Frensham found a tablet in here, but he couldn’t read it, so he borrowed
Taron Ling from Dur-i-Duran Singh of Naga Kulu. Taron Ling can put a person
into trances. Frensham never let Taron Ling see the tablet. He didn’t trust
him. He knew too much about magic and trances to trust a practitioner. He
kept the tablet hidden in a box, into which he put his hands through two
holes. But what he understood in the trance he couldn’t remember afterwards;
it was like trying to remember a dream. So he had Henrietta to watch Taron
Ling and to write down whatever he might say while in the trance.
“To make extra sure of Taron Ling, he handcuffed him to the wall at the
opposite side of the room. It was a very small room, but Taron Ling couldn’t
overhear much. However he managed to steal some of the notes Henrietta made.
I’ve read them, but Dur-i-Duran Singh won’t part with them. He thinks about
nothing but money and laughs at magic, but all the same he’s superstitious
and he thinks those notes are—what was that noise?”
Blair’s ears felt as if they twitched. But he knew, if it were Chetusingh,
he could count on a definite signal. That sound might have been made to
attract his attention. “Nothing,” he answered.
“Yes it was!” Wu Tu looked thoroughly scared. “I heard a sound in the
passage. Is it Taron Ling? If it is—you have one bullet—shoot
him!”
Blair was listening intently, but he went on talking. “Why?” he answered.
“To oblige you?”
“Yes! Blair, kill that devil! If you don’t, he’ll kill me. There, I heard
him again. Kill him, did you hear me! I tell you, kill him!”
“What’s your hurry?” The strange thing was that the Chinese girl seemed
undisturbed. She had taken off most of her clothes and was wringing them dry.
Between the red light and the shadows, against a background of unexplainable
golden moldings and a dark wall, she looked like old ivory—a
master-carving, done by a man who knew what motion is and how to suggest it.
Wu Tu made a sudden grab at the revolver—missed it—tried to
snatch the dagger, and then knelt. She seized Blair’s knees. She was almost
sobbing. Her voice was tragic:
“Blair, do what I say or we’re all damned! If you don’t kill Taron Ling,
he’ll kill me and he’ll either kill you or use you! What he wants is
Henrietta. Do you hear me?”
“And if I kill him?”
“I will take you then to Henrietta. But I daren’t—I daren’t as long
as Taron Ling is in the taverns!”
“Silence!” he commanded. Wu Tu clung to him, trembling, holding her
breath. He felt her fingers dig into the muscles of his leg. The water
splashed and gurgled in the cistern. The Chinese girl stepped into wrinkled
trousers and stood, calmly observant, unsmiling, unconcerned apparently;
making almost no noise with her bare feet, she walked to the cistern and,
plunging in her arms, groped for her lost cigarette tube.
She found it almost at once and blew through it to get the water out; it
made a sharp noise, like a toy trumpet. Then she walked back to the lanterns,
found her cigarettes there somewhere, picked up a lantern, raised the colored
glass and lighted her cigarette at the candle. She appeared uncertain where
to set the lantern down; she moved it to and fro several times before putting
it back where it was before. To whom could she be signaling? How many more
than two of Wu Tu’s or Zaman Ali’s men were in the caverns? Did Wu Tu want
that one shot actually used, or did she want to see it wasted? Should he tell
her Taron Ling was dead? He decided not to—not yet.
“There’s no one there,” he said in a distinct, level voice, but he felt
certain someone lurked in the darkness of the low entrance to the chamber,
watching, listening. “Why are you afraid of Taron Ling? He’s only a
charlatan. You know as many tricks as he does. You were boasting just now,
that he couldn’t even get in here until you led the way.”
She answered hoarsely, “Blair—I beg you— kill him! If I hadn’t
a soul I wouldn’t care? I wouldn’t be afraid to die—I’d fear nothing!
But I have a soul! I wish I hadn’t! So have you, and you’ll wish you hadn’t
if you don’t kill that devil!”
Softly to himself Blair whistled three bars of a familiar tune that stole
on memory. He saw no kindly light that led, but—
“Soul?” he said. “Have you turned pious?” He was watching the Chinese
girl’s cigarette that moved in quite unnecessary lines and dots as she
smoked—took the tube in her fingers—smoked again. She had the
damp pyjama jacket in her left hand. There was no real need to shake it; in
that stifling heat it would have dried in a few minutes. One of the candles
dropped, forward and blackened the lantern glass. Another guttered and died.
The remaining one faced Blair and Wu Tu, like a danger signal set in the
throat of darkness. THE square entrance-hole was now a black blot on the dim
red darkness of the end wall. Tired eyes strained in the reduced light and
Blair began to wonder how long he could carry on without sleep. His eyelids
became suddenly heavy. It was difficult to fix attention simultaneously on Wu
Tu, the Chinese girl and the entrance-hole. Sensation—or lack of
it—warned him his reserve of nervous energy was perilously near
exhaustion. But his ears were alert.
He detected a faint sound that might be a trigger—or a glass tube
snapping. He glanced at Wu Tu. In that split second he felt consciousness
slip from his grasp. He was blinded by an explosion of magnesium light that
seared the scene into his memory. At the same time there was a sensation of
being struck, he never knew by what; it was painless, heavy, deadening.
He hit out blindly. He had dagger and revolver; he used both, not knowing
what he struck at. Wu Tu clung to his knees. He
kicked—swayed—felt his knees yield. Then, for what seemed endless
time, he lay still with a roar in his ears, and a vision blazed on his retina
of three men, of whom one looked like Chetusingh; of Wu Tu and the Chinese
girl; and he thought the Chinese girl had done something to him, he didn’t
know what. Foreshortened memory was there, too, blended with it all—the
giantess within the cone in the sunlit cavern—the tunnel where Zaman
Ali and two others lay dead—the ash-floored sunlit
charnel-house—the tunnel beyond it— Taron Ling, dead and alive at
the same time— the shrine, the Bat, the hermit, and Ganesha’s image
inscrutably smiling. The giantess within the sunlit cone changed presently to
Henrietta; she receded to a vast distance and looked terribly lonely; he felt
responsible for her loneliness. He knew he loved her, and wished to say
so.
In a nightmare, he climbed up and down ghastly steps on the face of a
precipice, trying to reach her before Wu Tu could prevent him. That effort
led him gradually back to consciousness, until the roaring in his ears waned
and changed to human voices. Then mortification and shame swept over him,
that he should have been caught off-guard. He felt himself’ an arrant
failure.
The first voice he recognized was Chetusingh’s. He could not hear what
Chetusingh said but the tone of the man’s voice conveyed a sensation of
horror. He was not speaking English. He addressed somebody as Soonia and then
Jenny, which sounded off-key and incongruous, until he remembered that Soonia
and Jenny were two of Wu Tu’s names. Soon after that he recognized Wu Tu’s
voice, and then full consciousness returned, although he felt incapable of
movement. He could not even move his eyelids. He lay as if paralyzed by a
blow that had left his brain functioning.
Wu Tu—angry—excited—vigorous—was speaking English.
Her eyes stared at him out of the dark, through his own closed eyelids. He
felt a sickening distrust of Chetusingh. Had Wu Tu told the truth? Had
Chetusingh turned traitor? He kept on speaking Hindustanee in a monotonous
voice that droned against the splash and gurgle of the water in the cistern.
He was answering Wu Tu’s questions:
“I obeyed. I have not seen Taron Ling. I brought her here, did I not? I
lied. She did not believe, but she came with me nevertheless. And I protected
her from Zaman Ali and his men, who wanted to make her afraid.so that Taron
Ling might control her more, easily. But I think she can not be controlled,
unless this man does it. She has not spoken to me since I told her Bee-lair
Warrender will come soon.”
“Idiot!” That was Wu Tu’s voice again. “I ordered you to say I bring him.
That without me he could not come to her. Why didn’t you?”
“I did. After that she was silent.”
“What else have you done?”
“As bidden. I summoned these two. Here they are. That they are dead is not
my doing. There were two of Zaman Ali’s men on the ledge lip yonder. They
came toward us three, very fearful, saying that Zaman Ali lies dead of a
knife-wound and that two more of his men lie dead beside him.
“Taron Ling, said they, is somewhere in the tunnel. They invited us three
to go with them to Taron Ling. They said Taron Ling has put magic on Bee-lair
Warrender, who will therefore obey Taron Ling whatever comes of it; and
consequently there is nothing else to do but to take Taron Ling’s part and to
kill you, seeing that you can do nothing with Bee-lair Warrender now that
Taron Ling is controlling him.
“They said Dur-i-Duran Singh of Naga Kulu is your enemy, and you his,
though you pretend friendship. And that Taron Ling is faithful unto death to
Dur-i-Duran Singh, who will bestow great rewards when he possesses the secret
of Gaglajung. Whereas, said they, Wu Tu is likelier to kill, as she killed
Zaman Ali, in order to have all for herself. And they said you will kill her,
and Bee-lair Warrender also, as soon as you have what you want, because you
will wish to keep it secret. Taron Ling, said they, will be too clever for
you; he will kill you… . Then there was a quarrel, because your men
answered hotly.
“There were blows and the end came swiftly; they two fell into the great
pit, where vultures were already picking one of Zaman Ali’s men. After that,
we three came hither.”
“Slow! Late!” Wu Tu spoke savagely. But Chetusingh answered like a man in
a dream, or as if broken by punishment until nothing remained but the will to
obey.
“Step by step as bidden—no haste—no delay— no excuse.”
That phrase sounded suspiciously like a formula impressed hypnotically on his
mind. “I lay there in the dark and made a signal to Bee-lair Warrender, to
betray him, to gain time while I summoned these two. Could I have done
better? How should I know he had dagger and pistol? I did not know. I did as
bidden.”
“Dog!” she retorted. “Two good servants dead, and worse!—no more
drug for the dagger! Would to God I had not wasted stuff on you that cost a
fortune! Who protects us now from Taron Ling? You? Who undoes Taron Ling’s
hold on him? You? Who shall manage Henrietta Frensham? You?”
“I don’t know,” said Chetusingh’s voice wearily in English.
“Go!” she commanded. “Find Taron Ling. Kill him!”
“I have no weapon.”
“Find one, or else kill him with your hands! Don’t dare to return to me
while Taron Ling lives!”
Blair felt the blood coursing again in his veins, but shame and contempt
for Chetusingh were his chief sensations. He almost forgot his own
predicament. Chetusingh had been his discovery—his comrade-in-arms. He
felt his eyelids flutter. He got a glimpse of the shadowy chamber, but saw
very little, closed his eyes again and lay still. It would be better to let
Chetusingh get out of the way. Then, when he was gone, he would jump up
suddenly and snatch the lantern; that would give him a slight advantage. He
listened for the Rajput’s footfall and almost disbelieved his ears
when—thump and slither on the rock floor—he recognized a familiar
spacing of sounds. None but he and Chetusingh knew that code. It was an
almost similar signal to the one Chetusingh made with bare feet in the
passage in Wu Tu’s house in Bombay. It meant: