“No. Where’s Chetusingh? They’d have killed me it they’d killed him.”
“Murder,” she answered, “isn’t done in my house. Chetusingh isn’t here any
longer.” She began to unfasten his wrists, picking at the tight knots,
swearing at them, until the Chinese girl brought a knife. Warrender held out
his freed wrists for the girl to chafe. Her hands were strong, but so small
that he laughed and turned to Wu Tu.
“You do it.”
He sat beside her on the divan, setting his teeth because movement brought
surges of pain to his head. Wu Tu chafed his wrists and ordered ice, which
the Chinese girl brought in the crystal bowl and applied skilfully. Then, at
a glance from Wu Tu, the Chinese girl carried out the lacquered table, in
which the poisoned dagger was sticking upright, and brought in a silvered
brazier from which there oozed an erotic symphony of blended
perfume—soundless music that lazed on the air, half-visible as green
gray smoke. She washed the blood then from Warrender’s forehead.
“Better now?” Wu Tu asked him.
He reached over her lap, took the knife that she had laid beside her on
the divan and, without glancing at it, sent it spinning through the open door
beyond the screen.
“Much better,” he answered.
“Then listen—”
He interrupted. “Tell me what you know of Frensham.”
She looked straight in his eyes. “Blair—better make friends with me,
hadn’t you? You’re a fool if you don’t. You can’t make trouble for me. All
you have had from me is first aid, after coming here disguised and getting
into a brawl. Line up all my little widows if you like and see what
they
say! Two or three of them might even lodge a claim against you,
for hitting them when you were drunk. Could you deny it? What would you say
to the magistrate?”
Blair recalled instructions: “Walk straight into the trap and use your
wits!” His wits suggested that it might be wise to walk in looking not too
confident. He sat silent, letting his face express a medley of emotions. Wu
Tu talked on:
“People don’t love the police. And I have influence. If you were publicly
charged with a drunken assault in my house, could you keep it quiet? Half a
million Indians would seize that opportunity to make a scandal and to be more
bitter than ever against the British. Your commissioner would let you be a
scapegoat. And then what?”
“What do you suggest?” he asked after a moment.
“Let us be friends, you and I. I will make you famous!”
It went against the grain to nibble that bait, but he did it. “Will you
tell me about Frensham?”
“Yes! You think that perhaps I know. Perhaps I do know. Little widows
learn big secrets—sometimes. That is why I have them.”
“Where’s Chetusingh?” he asked suddenly.
“Hah! You saw him leave my house with a police pass! How should I know
where he went? And what if Chetusingh is my man? Eh? What of it? Didn’t he
turn Christian? Can’t he turn a coat again? I could afford to buy a thousand
of him!”
“Well—what of Frensham?”
“If I show you how to find him—if I give you that pig Zaman Ali to
hang, and all his riff-raff with him—are we friends, you and I?”
She lay back on the cushions, inbreathing the perfumed smoke. Her eyes
were excited. Her limbs, that were really tensely still, stole movement from
the fan-blown silk of her clothing. Even the whirring of the electric fan
contributed something to the sensuous effect; and through the open door
behind the screen came slow strains of half-smothered music. The trap was
plain enough. And Blair’s head ached. Wu Tu knew that, so he closed his
eyes—lay back lazily, dreading a prick from a poisoned
dagger—drugs—perhaps chloroform—glad that his head ached,
since it helped him cling to consciousness.
The Chinese girl approached in silence, watched him for interminable
seconds, and then laid cunningly sensitive hands on his temples and over his
eyes. If that was meant to hypnotise him, she was out of luck. It had the
opposite effect; it stirred alertness; it was even rather difficult to sham
sleep. Wu Tu leaned over him, perfumed, adding some kind of movement that did
have a calming effect, but the Chinese girl’s hands were an irritant. Between
their united efforts he was as fully awake as he ever had been in his
life.
“Blair!” Wu Tu leaned over him, breath to breath. In a tiger’s fangs a man
might feel the same sensation of numbed dreaminess; but the Chinese girl’s
fingers kept stroking his eyes, and he wondered whether she knew she was
keeping time to the pulse of his headache. She was undoing all the effect of
Wu Tu’s efforts. He lay still, breathing steadily, until at last she pinched
the lobe of his ear—he supposed, to find out whether he was conscious.
Getting no response, she pressed the bruise on the back of his head. He was
not sure whether he winced at that or not; however, he thought not, because
she stood by after that and did nothing, while Wu Tu spoke:
“Blair! You are asleep—asleep—asleep. You hear me
speaking—Wu Tu speaking, whom you know as Marie. You obey Marie because
you trust her, and because she knows how to promote you to money and high
position. You know the police are fools. You know the police will waste time
following some unimportant people who are using Chetusingh’s and your passes.
But you will say nothing about that. You will let them do it, while you do
real work. You know how to find where David Frensham is. You will go to
Henrietta— straight from here to Henrietta. You love Henrietta and she
loves you. You will make her tell you what she knows.
“Blair, you are a man! You impose your will. You will have your own way
with your woman. You are strong. You love with the strength of a savage. She
shall tell you her secrets. Henrietta shall tell you her secrets—all
her secrets. You will make her tell them. Henrietta is your woman.”
Nothing could be better calculated to make him shy of Henrietta. Blair’s
instincts were savagely decent. If he loathed one insolence more than
another, it was to be told how to govern his private thoughts. Left to
himself, he might have fallen utterly in love with Henrietta; he knew that.
But her father had tactlessly tried to encourage him; he had almost never
even to himself confessed that reason for shying off, but it was true, and he
knew it was true.
As a police officer he was perfectly willing to die blindly obeying
official orders; as a private individual he would much rather die than have
his private judgment interfered with, uninvited. That Henrietta’s father and
even Henrietta herself should have talked it over with the commissioner was
their privilege, no doubt. Blair had his privilege too; he could go his own
way.
But what the devil did all this mean? How had Henrietta become involved
with Wu Tu? They had Held some conversations, said the commissioner, to his
certain knowledge; but one thing, at least, was unthinkable; he was no such
cad as to imagine that Henrietta even guessed what Wu Tu was trying to do to
him. To be told whom he should love, by a notorious quarter-caste, and to be
instructed by her how to behave toward the object of his directed emotions,
was only less abominable than Wu Tu’s gall in daring even to mention
Henrietta’s name. He was enraged to the depths of his savage obstinacy. But
he lay still.
Wu Tu spoke to the Chinese girl. He cursed himself for not knowing more
than ten words of the Chinese language. He heard the bead-curtain jingle as
the girl left the room.
“Sleep—sleep—you are asleep!” said Wu Tu.
Shortly after that he heard a man’s footsteps in the corridor, barefooted,
rutching along the carpet with irregular
steps—thump-shuffle-thump-thump-shuffle-thump-thump. He knew that
signal—listened. It was repeated. It was in his and Chetusingh’s code,
known to nobody else and devised for emergencies. Twice repeated, it could
hardly be coincidence. It meant:
“Carry on independently of me for the time being.”
The stair-head door opened and shut, and the Chinese girl returned into
the room. She resumed manipulations with her hands on Blair’s temples and
presently—he supposed, to find out whether he was
conscious—pressed the bruise on his head. He winced perceptibly, but
she appeared not to notice it. Wu Tu spoke with her lips so close to Blair’s
face that he breathed her perfumed breath.
“Blair! You will go straight from here to the commissioner. You will say
to the commissioner that Zaman Ali and his gang are escaping from Bombay with
stolen passes and will probably scatter. Let the police pursue them. You will
say that Wu Tu told you she is going to Lahore, with all her companions. You
will tell him you yourself should go at once to Henrietta Frensham in order
to question her, because Wu Tu says that Henrietta knows what happened to her
father.
“You will say that Wu Tu gave you good advice and is assisting the police.
You will insist on seeing Henrietta. Should the commissioner refuse, you will
be mutinous. You will put in for leave. If the leave is refused, you will go,
nevertheless; you will depend on Wu Tu to protect you with secret
influence.
“You must see Henrietta—you must see her. You will see her. Nothing
shall prevent it. She loves you and you love her. You will make her tell her
secret. And to help you—to remind you—Wu Tu’s eyes shall watch
you— always—always. You shall see Wu Tu’s eyes by day and night.
They protect. They remind.”
The Chinese girl touched his hand with the end of a lighted cigarette. It
was only the least touch. He endured it. Then some scented females came and
peeped at him. They giggled and made silly jokes. Wu Tu sent them all out of
the room but followed, and he heard her talking to them in the corridor in
Hindustanee. He could not hear what was said, but he had no doubt she was
instructing them what to say if questioned. He began to wonder when to wake
up.
Presently the stair-head door shook to the thump of policemen’s cudgels.
Wu Tu hurried in and shook him, slapping the backs of his hands and
commanding him to wake. He let her grow half-hysterical before he opened his
eyes, sat up and stared.. She faced about toward the curtained doorway, and
there stood Govind Singh, a veteran from police head-quarters, with two
constables at his back.
“
Hokee mut
—drunk said Wu Tu and shrugged her shoulders. “You
should teach your officers not to be quarrelsome when they are drunk. This
one came to not much harm, but he was fortunate.”
Govind Singh, bearded, erect, official, with a row of medal-ribbons,
strode into the room and picked Blair’s turban off the floor. He put it on
him, a bit clumsily, neither man saying a word; as Govind Singh helped him to
his feet his eyes did not reveal that Blair’s hand, clutching his arm, was
making dot-dash signals. Looking sternly disapproving, and lending Blair the
use of his left arm, the veteran started for the door; but his right hand
clutched the paper money that Wu Tu let fall for the Chinese girl to pick up
and give him as he shouldered his way through the curtain.
Blair said nothing to Wu Tu, but smiled as he passed her. He seemed
puzzled, as if searching memory. Her answering smile, as she put her fingers
over her eyes and peered at him between them, was
assured—contented—knowing. Outside, in the dark street, out of
earshot of the darker shadows, as Blair marched beside Govind Singh at the
head of six policemen two by two, the Sikh spoke:
“Should I have come, sahib?”
“I expected you sooner.”
“Idiots returned saying Chetusingh came forth from Wu Tu’s house with many
men and ordered them back to the
khana
. They said he showed them his
pass. What does that mean?”
“Report it to the commissioner.”
“And Wu Tu? What of Wu Tu, sahib?”
“How much did she give you? I wasn’t looking.”
They tramped all the rest of the way to police headquarters in
silence.
Under sun or stars there is no saying, of fool or wise man,
that is nearer the truth than that now is the appointed time. But it may be
the time for waiting. And it may be the time for patience. When I said to my
Teacher: “Tell me what to do now, I will do it,” he went fishing.
—From the Seventh of the Nine Books of Noor
Ali.
DAY dawned mystically as it always does in Indian hot
weather. It is said that children born at daybreak bring with them into the
world a mysticism and a great sense of beauty that they never lose.
The driver was a Sikh who never heard of nerves, so the commissioner’s car
wove like a shuttle amid creaking bullock-carts and sleepy pedestrians.
“Are you quite sure your head is all right?” the commissioner asked. It
was the second time he had asked that since they, sped over the bridge that
connects Bombay with the mainland.
“Aches a bit. It’ll be all right in the train.”
Blair Warrender sat relaxed and leaned his head back. Telling the
commissioner—being cross-examined by him—had been hard work. He
retorted with a question: “Did they describe the man who used my pass?”
“Vaguely. He was seen by lamplight. The guard at the bridge-head took it
for granted he was you. The pass said Ismail ben Alif Khan. There was a
thumb-print on the attached photograph and everything appeared to be in
order. He said the photo resembled the bearer. That, of course, is
questionable. He probably didn’t look carefully. As a matter of routine he
phoned headquarters after the man was gone. Headquarters got me out of bed at
once. Zaman Ali was not at the
dera
.”
“Was the man alone?”
“Yes.”
“Chetusingh’s pass was used by nine men?”
“In a stolen Ford truck, at three forty-five a.m. There’s nothing against
the owner of the truck. The men are at large; they’ll turn up somewhere,
using the passes, and get arrested. The point is, Zaman Ali double-crossed
himself. He is using the stolen passes to draw a red herring behind his own
trail. He thinks he’s thrown us off the scent. He hasn’t.”