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Title:      Jimgrim (1930)
Author:     Talbot Mundy (1879-1940)
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.:  0300331.txt
Edition:    1
Language:   English
Character set encoding:     ASCII--7 bit
Date first posted:          March 2003
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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook

Title:      Jimgrim (1930)
Author:     Talbot Mundy (1879-1940)




Part One

The Reincarnated



Chapter One

"As the light is against the darkness, so are you and I against
each other."


It was one of those sun-drunken days in spring for which the South
of France is famous.  There was the usual nondescript crowd at Notre
Dame de la Garde--tourists, beggars, women selling candles and
rosaries--a few citizens of Marseilles in love with the view--a
few youngsters in love with each other.  In the distance the Chateau
D'If stood grimly silent in a sapphire sea.  The funicular railway
kept disgorging passengers, too lazy or too wise to make the climb
on foot, and I envied them.  I never could see why Jeff Ramsden will
insist on walking when there are easier ways to get there.  Churches
don't particularly interest me, and I would rather look at Times
Square on a warm night than at all the views in Europe.  I was
wishing myself on a chair at a cafe window watching the crowd in
the Canabiere, although the street is overrated and the beer is
beastly.  But it is no use arguing with Jeff.

He is a tank of a man-one-eighth of a metric ton of bone and muscle
that can go through anything on earth and come out mildly wondering
why other people got excited.

James Schuyler Grim was studying the view.  I don't know why.  He
stood on the steps of the church of Notre Dame de la Garde--in a
tweed suit and a tourist hat--looking like fifteen frontiers and
a wind howling over the snow.  When you looked at Grim you felt
you'd got to go and buy a ticket to somewhere comfortless, where
unexpected but important things are bound to happen.  And they do.

No matter which way Grim was looking, if anything happened within
the range of his vision you might bet your boots Grim saw it.  There
are two booths, one on each side of the church door, in which sisters
of the sacred order that has charge of the church sell souvenirs
and candles.  Grim was talking to one of the sisters, making jokes
that she was trying to pretend she didn't understand, and trying
not to laugh at, when he suddenly turned away from her and glanced
toward the platform at the top of the funicular railway, where an
iron railing protects the curious tourist from the fate he probably
deserves.  Grim moved so quickly that Jeff and I followed him down
three steps and gazed in the same direction.  It was worth watching--
if you like that kind of thing.

A man in a pepper-and-salt suit, not exactly shabby, but looking
as if he had slept in it, and wearing a brown derby hat that looked
as if he might have found it in an ash-can, suddenly jumped as
if shot.  He was lean;  he had an Adam's apple as big as your fist
and a collar two sizes too large;  his gestures were pantomimic,
and he seemed scared out of his wits.  What seemed to have frightened
him was an Arab, about sixty years of age, wearing a sea-captain's
blue jacket with three gold stripes on the sleeve, who had evidently
come toiling up the steps as we had done, and who had paused on
the top step but one.

The pepper-and-salt man seemed to try to run three ways at once.
He actually did start in our direction, as if the church door
suggested sanctuary;  but either he thought better of it or else
his lean legs got the better of his brain.  At any rate, he vaulted
the iron railing;  and before a sergeant de ville and two uniformed
employees of the funicular railway could lift a finger to prevent
him he jumped.  I don't know how many hundred feet it is from top
to bottom;  plenty, at any rate.  The sergeant de ville and the
other two leaned over to watch, and their shrug when he hit the
roof of the descending car and bounced off was as eloquent as
things French usually are;  it is always easier for me to understand
their shoulders than the things they say.  The sister in the booth
leaned as far as she could over her counter to ask Grim what had
happened.  A woman fainted.  Almost everybody else rushed to the
railing to witness a horror that they would have paid money not
to see if they had stopped to think a minute.  But the Arab sea-dog
smiled and came straight on toward the church door.

We three stood back to let him pass, and I noticed that he eyed
Grim rather strangely, as if he half-recognized him, but he said
nothing.  He stopped to buy a full-sized candle from one of the
sisters, and with that in his hand he strode in.  Then Grim spoke,
sideways, through the corner of his mouth, his lips not moving.

"Recognize him, Jeff?"

"Yahudi.  Haroun ben Yahudi."

"That was his vessel below in the harbor--the lateen rig by the
old wharf--did you see it?"

Grim followed him into the church.  We followed Grim.  It is a
strange scene in there--stranger then because that sea-scarred
Moslem lighted his fat wax candle and set it on the iron bracket
in front of the Virgin's statue along with thirty or forty others
already burning there.  From the roof-beams and against the walls
hang scores of marvellously fashioned models of ships, set there
by sailor-men of fifty generations;  as you look upward at them
they seem to be afloat in air.  And on the walls are countless
slabs set up by mariners acknowledging indebtedness to Notre Dame
de la Garde for perils on the high seas by her favour overcome.
As I think I said, I don't as a rule care much for churches;  but
that one got me by the throat;  it got Jeff too, who is a sentimental
giant.  I don't know whether it got Grim;  he was watching the Arab.
It got the Arab harder than it did me.

He was evidently not a convert to the Christian faith.  His grim
face with the windy, deep-set eyes seemed scornful of much that
he saw, and when a priest went by I thought scorn changed to anger.
He would have spat, but remembered his manners.  He ignored the
altar and he made no genuflections;  he seemed rather to stiffen
himself, as if pride obliged that.  Nevertheless, there was reverence
in him for something that he felt, though his eyes might not see it,
and one could almost share the emotion with him, it was so heartfelt,
simple and intense.  He showed no surprise when Grim touched his elbow.

"Hey, you, Jimgrim," he remarked in English, "you are like the
storms of these seas.  There is no knowing whence you will blow next;
and there are always shoals to leeward.  What now?"

"Pleasant voyage?"

"Now, by Allah's mercy, some men might have thought so--such as
like tales at a fireside.  But I made my landfall.  I suppose you
are one more difficulty.  I will overcome you also."

He strode past us, bought another candle at the church door, came
back, lighted it and stuck it on the bracket near the first one.

"I will overcome you also, Jimgrim.  What now?"

"Why pick on me?" Grim asked him.

"Flint picks on steel, and steel on flint," said Haroun ben Yahudi.

Grim laughed.  "Maybe I'd better buy some candles.  I saw you
overcome that other poor devil just now.  You did that very neatly."

"That one was afraid," said Haroun.

"I am not afraid."

"Then why candles?"

"Mash-allah!  Jimgrim, for a wise one you ask foolish questions.
For a thousand--aye, two thousand years, and longer, seamen have
known the spirit of this place.  Look around you.  Do you think
that none but Christians make vows?  Wallah-hi!  And are only
Christian vows on record?  In the Name of Names I ask you, does
a compass only work for Christians?  Does the North Star change
its station in the sky when Moslems set their course?  I know a
Moslem keel or two that avoided shoals where fish are spawning
in the hulks of broken Christian ships."

"You and I were friends once," Grim said quietly.

"Good friends.  And I wonder at the way of the Almighty.  He,
whose Prophet wrote in plain words all the length and breadth of
wisdom, leaving nothing but its depth to be plumbed by our
understanding, did a strange thing, Jimgrim, when He set you on
one side and me on the other.  Now, were you on my side you might
be a very great one, Jimgrim.  And I tell you, the great in this
life become greater in the next, where many, who thought they
knew what greatness is, are learning otherwise--too late!"

"Who said I'm against you?" Grim asked.

"I did.  As the light is against the darkness, so are you and I
against each other.  And God pity me, I wonder at His ways, who
brought this thing to pass;  because you are another whom fear
is afraid of, and such men are too few."

Then, at last, he acknowledged Jeff's existence.  Their eyes met
and Jeff smiled at him, showing short teeth in an iron jaw.  You
can tell from a glance at Jeff that if he lets his beard grow
three days it will look like chiselled bronze;  the substance of
a beard seems always there, although he blunts good razors on
its shadow.

"What port did you clear from?" Jeff asked, for the sake of politeness.
But when Jeff is trying to be polite he tries too hard.  He is only
lamblike when he expects to have to use his muscles presently on
several times his weight of adversaries.

"Basra."  But Haroun dismissed that fact as unimportant, from
which I gathered either that it had extreme significance or he
was lying.  "Bullram!  Born on the cusp of Aries and Taurus!  How
does Jimgrim ease your sheets when the gusts of anger glow, I wonder?
Lo, a bull's heart in a mountain's hide--a ram's eye for a distance--
and a ram's nose for an enemy!  I would that you, also, were on
my side.  Who is this one?"

The sensation was of being suddenly stripped naked by a connoisseur
in anthropology.  I was conscious of every weakness I possess--and
of Jeff's tremendous loyalty--and of Grim's mercurial alertness.
It was not good.

"Excuse me," said Grim.  "Major Robert Crosby--Captain Haroun
ben Yahudi."

"One of us," Jeff added.  It was the first time he had mentioned
that in my presence.  I felt better.

The old sea-dog eyed me for a moment longer as if he were studying
shoals and tides and changing winds.  Then he turned to Grim:
"I, too, have shipped such.  My mate--I found him in a Baghdad
brothel, drunk and sickening from hunger.  And I have a seaman
whom I took off the beach at Koweit.  Some do well--some otherwise.
I shipped that weakling whom you saw just now scared to hell.  Not
that this is as that one.  This one--Crosby do you say his name
is?--is of the sort that terror stiffens, though it makes him stupid.
Major, you said?  He is young for his rank.  They promote babies
nowadays;  and what airs they give themselves!  Born, unless my
eyes deceive me, under Libra.  Too much judgment--ever weighing
this with that and hesitating lest he put the wrong foot foremost.
However;  it is no light matter for two such men as you to find
a third one.  Were not two of you enough--aye, two too many?"

"Why did you ship that scareling?" Grim retorted.

"Why are you against me, Jimgrim?  Why did you come here looking
for me?  Hay-yeh, when the vultures gather in the sky I know
their purpose."

"You were the last man I was thinking of," Grim answered.

"Yeh-yeh--you were thinking of life and death;  and of why we
come into the world, and why we leave it.  And then I came.  I,
also, was thinking the same thoughts.  Then I saw you.  And I
said to myself, as doubtless you said also:  The Almighty does
not set two such men by chance upon the self-same threshold of
the Life to Come! Therefore, before one or other of us dies--"

It was the first time I had ever seen Jeff go into action.  He
was quicker than a lightweight;  it was incredible that he could
show such speed, with all that bulk and so much Herculean muscle.
The eye hardly followed him.  He seized the Arab's right wrist in
his left hand, jerked it backward, and a big, broad-bladed
sheath-knife clattered on the stone floor.

"Not here, Haroun--and not yet!"

"Very decent of you, Haroun, to have given warning," Grim remarked.
He picked up the knife and Jeff returned it to its owner, who
thrust it back into the sheath under his blue serge jacket.

I led the way out and the three of us stood on the concrete paving
below the church steps, where we could just see the two lateen-rigged
masts of Haroun's ship.  Beyond it, nearly in mid-harbour, a
French warship lay to her mooring--one of those old-fashioned
cruisers with funnels in pairs spaced wide apart.

"You have the right of it," said Haroun.  "That was neither time
nor place.  Doubtless God was displeased by the sacrilege, or else
the knife had struck home.  That would have saved you, Jimgrim,
from a worse fate.  Dorje--"

"Oh, are you taking Dorje's orders?"

"Dorje has a saying, that they are fortunate who die before the
game begins."

"You let his name slip, didn't you?"

"It is on all men's tongues."

"Yours let it slip, though.  What have you to do with Dorje, Haroun?"

The Arab's answer froze on parted lips.  A flash of bluewhite
lightning seemed to leap out of the cruiser's hold, so vivid, that
it hurt the eyes even at a distance.  It was instantly followed
by billowing smoke;  and in the midst of that we saw a deck lift
and the masts fall two ways.  In less than a tenth of a second
the cruiser broke in half amidships.  And then thunder, as the
two ends sank, their swirl obliterated by the smoke of the explosion.

"Remember the Maine," said Jimgrim.

Almost, it seemed, before the thunder reached us boats were racing
toward the scene of the disaster--motor-boats plying for hire,
some filled with passengers--yachts' launches--ships' boats--tugs.
We could see the floating debris and what looked like men's heads.

"Come and lend 'em a hand," said Jeff, but it would have taken
us at least twenty minutes to reach the harbour-front.

We were stormed by a swarm of loiterers and tourists asking us
what had happened.  Jeff answered them politely, so they backed
away from him, believing he suspected them of having sunk the
cruiser. I watched Grim for a hint of what he meant to do.  He
spoke, but I could not catch what he said because of the noise
the crowd was making.  However, I did hear Haroun answer him:

"Mash-allah!  That was also not the time and not the place.  But
it was simple.  To be King of the World, you, Jimgrim, it is
necessary to be simple--and as one-two, one-two as the Word of God."




Chapter Two

"I am an old man, Jimgrim. Help me."


Haroun glanced at each of us in turn, then walked away.

"He will go to the women," said Jeff.  "That's Haroun's one weakness."

"He has another," Grim answered.  "He can't resist the impulse
to crow before sunrise.  That's why Haroun still commands about
two hundred tons of dhow instead of being rotten with money and
having his own way.  I suppose I must tell the Prefect of Police
about him.  Come on to the Prefecture."

We descended in the funicular, to save time.

"I should think the Prefect of Police will be down near the scene
of the accident," I suggested, and Jeff answered irritably because
the elevator made him nervous.

"You would think that.  But French Prefects of Police know their
business.  The place to look for a Prefect, in a crisis, is where he
can be reached instantly by everyone who has to be told what to do."


The French police have a flair for recognizing the value of irregular
procedure on occasion and we were admitted at once to the Prefect's
inner sanctum.  But the Prefect--a neat man with a brown beard, who
looked like a naval officer--went on listening to the telephone,
giving curt answers in a quiet voice and making swift, precise
notes on a sheet of foolscap paper.  Three men in uniform stood
at the other side of the Prefect's desk;  one of them drew near us,
I suppose, to listen.

But there was an interruption.  The door opened and two detectives
entered, escorting Haroun, looking sheepish.

"Eh-h, you, Jimgrim!" remarked Haroun.  There were no handcuffs
on him.  One could not guess whether he had been arrested or merely
"invited" to call on the Prefect, who glanced at him once, swiftly,
and made one more pencilled note between abrupt communications
over the phone.

"Quick work," said Grim.

Then Haroun spoke in Arabic:  "You, Jimgrim, you and I were
friends once."

Grim nodded.

"And a knife is merciful.  By Allah, they would have slain me,
had I slain you, and the account would have been fair between us.
But is it merciful to throw a man such as me into prison, where
there is neither sun nor sea nor wind?  May the All-merciful deal
with me as being guilty of if, if I would have thrown you into
prison--though I would have slain you--yea, and why not?  You,
who lay in wait to trap me, should I not strike?  Would you not
have drawn steel, had I trapped you?"

"What do you ask of me?" Grim demanded.  "Pardon?"

"Nay.  Insh'allah, I will die needing no man's pardon.  May Allah
pardon me, in case I need it.  But a bargain, Jimgrim, is another matter."

Then Grim made one of his characteristic bold strokes, that his
friends sometimes recognized as bluff, but that his enemies mistook
as a rule for a sign of omniscience.

"There is no midway between us two," he answered.  "You are either
friend or enemy.  Which is it?"

"Wallah!  Do you bid me choose now?"

"Now or never.  Choose between me and Dorje."

Haroun hesitated.  Grim--and he must have been guessing--probed
for the source of hesitation.

"Is forgiveness one of Dorje's habits?  Will it please him to hear
of that cruiser--blown up--in the wrong place, at the wrong time?"

"Who shall protect me from his anger, Jimgrim?"

"Not I, at any rate, unless you tell the whole truth.  Who am I
that I should try to sail in two ships?  And can you do that?"

Mash-allah!  One ship is enough for me.  But which one?  If I had
known, Jimgrim, that you were in league against Dorje, I would not
have done his errand."

"Nevertheless, you did his errand."

"Haida sahah.  Truly had I slain you, all might have been well yet,
Jimgrim.  But that big ape Ram-is-den perceived my knife.  And now
I begin to perceive in all this the hand of Allah.  None can fight
against Him.  Nevertheless, if God wills, and I tell the truth,
will you put me in prison, Jimgrim?"

"This is not my country.  I am no keeper of prisons in this place,"
he said.

"Nay, I know it.  But for what did they arrest me, save for drawing
steel at you?  So if you, and those others, say I did not draw steel--?'

"There will then remain only that cruiser to account for!  Surely
that is nothing!" Grim suggested.

"Min jadd!  Jimgrim, as God is my witness, I did not do that;  nor
was it of my contriving, or by my will that it was done."

"Will they believe that?  Or will Dorje believe it?"

"As Allah is my witness.  I perceive I have no chance at all,
unless you believe it, Jimgrim."

Grim thrust home then:  "Chance?  What is it?  If you say you see
the hand of Allah, how can you talk of chances in the same breath?
Can you trim your sails to two winds?"

"This has been an ill wind, Jimgrim."

"No," Grim answered, "but a wrong course.  Haroun, when a wise
man sees the shoals, does he change his course or carry on?"

"You will have me on your side?  But at what price?  I am a man
of honour, Jimgrim.  Death is no great matter."

Grim shrugged his shoulders.  "It is no affair of mine," he answered;
and there was silence, for possibly sixty seconds.  It was so
noticeable that the Prefect looked up from his writing-paper.

"Send for an interpreter," he commanded.

A man left the room and Haroun tried to hide his nervousness;  but
he betrayed it by shifting his feet.  Then he began to strike his
colours, gradually.

"What did he say, Jimgrim?"

No answer.  Grim began to speak to Jeff in undertones. "You have
missed your tide," Jeff answered.  "Lie to your own anchor."

"Nay, I will not!  Tell him I need help.  In the name of Allah,
tell him I demand help."

"What about your bargain?  You spoke of a bargain," Jeff retorted.

"Say then, I will tell him all I know.  But he must save me from
the prison."

Grim, without moving his head, spoke to the Prefect quietly,
in French:

"He will talk. He will tell all he knows."

The Prefect seemed to speak into the telephone.  It probably
needed more civilized eyes than Haroun's to detect that his beard
interfered with the mouthpiece.

"So I gathered," said the Prefect.  "I learned Arabic in Aden."

"May I promise him liberty?"

"Yes, yes.  He can easily be shadowed, and he might commit
illuminating indiscretions."

Haroun almost shouted:  "Jimgrim!  In the Name of Names--"

The Prefect interrupted, laying the receiver on its hook:  "I'll
give you the latest information, gentlemen.  Seventeen survivors,
all in hospital or on the way there--thirty-seven dead recovered--
three hundred and eleven missing.  Divers are already on the scene.
A terrible disaster.  Or an unspeakable atrocity.  It remains to
be revealed, which."

Grim faced Haroun. "What was that you said?"

"I am an old man, Jimgrim.  Help me."

"Truth helps him who speaks it.  Will you tell all you know?"

"I will tell you, face to face, as one friend to another.  To
these others I will not speak.  What am I to them, or they to me?
And they would twist my words against me."

Grim caught the Prefect's eye.  He nodded.  "Very well," said Grim,
"if you will tell me all you know, and answer questions, I will
make no charge against you in the matter of that stabbing."

"But this other matter, Jimgrim?  It was not my doing."

"If you tell me all you know, and if I believe you not guilty, I
will do all I can to help you."

"But the prison, Jimgrim?"

"For the present, if you tell all you know, you shall go free."

"All?  But I will only speak in your ear, Jimgrim.  No spies!  No
listeners!  Your word on that?"

Grim caught the Prefect's eye again.  He nodded.  Grim spoke in
English.  "All right, Haroun.  We will talk where nobody can overhear."

The Prefect ordered a man in uniform to lead Haroun and Grim into
the next room, "where there have been many tales told that newspapers
will never print and judges will never hear," he added drily.




Chapter Three

"I am always Baltis."


It was as clear as daylight that the Prefect did not suspect Haroun
of having sunk the cruiser.  He had on his desk the cargo manifest
of Haroun's dhow--dates, hides and scrap-brass.  All except the
scrap-brass was consigned to reputable merchants;  but the latter
was invoiced to Haroun himself, marked on consignment for sale at
local market price.  As scrap it had been entered by the Customs
duty free, and no one seemed to know after that what happened to it;
however, Grim might elicit the information, and if not Grim, then
someone else.  Meanwhile, it was probably unimportant--merely
something to be checked up on the principle of examining every
minute detail.

A list of Haroun's crew was also on the desk, and all except one
were accounted for.  Two were in jail for a midnight brawl in the
redlight district.  The cook had shipped east as a deck-hand on
an Italian brig engaged in coral-fishing.  Two men were in the
seamen's hospital with boils described as serious.  The remainder
were reported standing by the ship, and, having spent their pay,
offering themselves "without enthusiasm" for 'long-shore jobs on
any terms whatever.  The one man unaccounted for was an
Italian-Greek-Frenchman, on the manifest as Guido Georges Marie
de la Tournee, rating carpenter and super-cargo, wages two pounds
ten a month, a cabin to himself and "captain's rations."

"Interesting," said the Prefect, "on a dhow of two hundred
tons.  There is a body in the morgue--However, I must ask you
gentlemen, if you please without consulting one another, to write
down, each of you, as fully as you can remember, every detail of
today's events as you observed them.  You may set down what was
said to you, and what you said, and what you overheard.  I invite
you also to state frankly why you are in Marseilles and why, with
evident collaboration, you arrived at this prefecture together,
or almost together, at a critical moment.  The formality will be
observed of separating you from one another while you write your
statements, to avoid collaboration, however unintentional that
might be."

At a nod from him men in uniform escorted us to different rooms,
where they supplied us with writing materials, and I heard the
Prefect hurry away in a car with the exhaust wide open.  My statement,
naturally, did not take long.  I signed it and went to stare out
of the window at a sordidly uninteresting street until someone should
come and get it. The official who escorted me into the room had said
"no smoking," so I lighted a cigar in the hope he would smell it
and come back sooner.  However, he did not, and I began to be
abominably bored until a private limousine drew up outside and a
woman, unescorted, opening the door herself, stepped out of it and
entered the prefecture.

I tossed the cigar through a broken window-pane as somebody ushered
her into the room I occupied, quietly closing the door behind her
and, unless I was much mistaken, locking it.  I don't know much
French, but I do know that French officials, and particularly the
police, do nothing without purpose and premeditation;  so I fell
on guard as tensely as if I had had a rapier in my right hand.  She
stared at me.  I stared at her.  And she was well worth looking at.

She was a sort of symphony in jade-green and Chinese yellow.  Her
long skirt made her look taller than she actually was.  Her tightly
fitting green hat with yellow lining framed intriguing features.
She looked vaguely Chinese, but her mouth and her chin might have
been Irish;  they would have made her fortune in the movies, except
for a slight scar on the upper lip that changed its line and added
a sinister touch that rather spoiled her smile.  Her nose was
agreeably impudent--coquettish;  and her eyes, although they did
not slant perceptibly, contained in them the mocking, curious
intelligence of all the Chinese women in the world.  She was
wealthily dressed;  she had a jewelled purse that had probably
cost at least three thousand dollars;  there were jewelled buckles
on her patent-leather shoes, that had Chinese-yellow heels;  and
she was wearing a jade necklace that almost bankrupts me to think
about.  I know jade.  Not even "the Old Buddha" ever had a better
string than that one.  She did not sit;  she stood and stared me
out of countenance, until suddenly she smiled and came toward me.

"Are you Jeemgreem?  Oh, I have so much wished to meet you."

"What made you look for me here?" I retorted.

"Eentuition!"

"May I know who you are?"

"I am the Princess Baltis."

"Wasn't Baltis the name of the Queen of Sheba?"

She nodded.  "I am always Baltis.  Each time I am reborn I am Baltis."

"And always a princess?"

"Always."

I suppressed an impulse to enquire what Solomon was doing now.  She
had the information at her finger-tips, as transpired later, but
for the moment I judged that was dangerous ground.  As "Jeemgreem" it
behooved me to be circumspect and to elicit other, less controversial,
statistics that might forearm Grim.  From the moment she spoke I had
no doubt whatever that her purpose was to trap Grim in a net of some
kind, or else to deduce him along a blind trail.  Intuition sometimes
guides me also, but not always.

"Why are you here?" I asked her, trying to imagine how Grim would
have brought motives to the surface.

"Jeemgreem, someone told me you are in Marseilles."

"What of it?"  I was painfully aware that "Jeemgreem" would have
managed her more subtly;  however, I am a very unsubtle person and
can do no better than my best in an emergency.  "Why do you trouble
yourself on my account?"  I said that because her perfume, and some
sort of mental allurement that she exuded, stirred in me the
self-defensive instinct that is usually impolite.  The words sounded
crass in my own ears.  However, she appeared to misinterpret
bluntness as a sign of superiority to ordinary conversational methods.
She came straight to the point:

"Jeemgreem, you and I can help each other--now as always.  We have
always helped each other.  When I was Baltis Queen of Sheba, were
you not my great ambassador?  You know that, don't you?  Certainly
you know it;  you, too, have the psychic memory.  When I was Baltis,
concubine of Cyrus, were you not my lover?  Did you not die in
the execution ash-pit rather than betray me?  When I was Baltis,
who danced and sang at Cleopatra's court, did I not help you--the
Roman Publius Carfax--to corrupt her army until it surrendered to
Octavianus without a blow?  When I was Baltis, dancing girl in
attendance on Suraj-ud-Dowlah--and you were Major Eyre Coote
commanding Clive's infantry--did I not, for your sake, undermine
the allegiance of Suraj-ud-Dowlah's generals, so that Clive's
little handful of troops defeated him at Plassey?  You know all
this, Jeemgreem.  And there were dozens of other occasions.  Always,
in every life, we have helped each other."

"You seem to have come down in the world," I suggested.

"You, too, Jeemgreem!  You were a general of Genghis Khan.  A
hundred thousand soldiers rode like whirlwinds at your nod in
those days.  But you know what Shakespeare said:  There is a tide
in the affairs of men . . ."

"I agree with Shaw," I said, "that Shakespeare is overrated.  I
don't understand poets."

"You never did!  No, nevaire.  You were always inartistic.  That
is why you have always needed me;  whereas I need your pragmatism
and your power of concentration.  Jeemgreem, our tide is turning--
yours and mine.  Destiny has kept us separated until now, in this
life, because now is the propaire moment.  I have come to warn
you not to interfere with Dorje--as I warned you when you were
Sir Francis Weston, and I was Ann Boleyn."

"Didn't you say your name is always Baltis?" I suggested.

"Always Baltis.  I have always known myself by my own name.  But
I have sometimes kept it secret.  The real reason why Henry the
Eighth of England caused me to be executed was that in a foolish
moment I revealed to him my real name, telling him that I was once
the Queen of Sheba, whereas he was nobody in those days.  He grew
jealous.  He made charges against me.  And they were partly true.
Yes--why not?  I did not love him.  But I did love you, Jeemgreem.
In those days you were vairee handsome, when you were Sir Francis
Weston.  And if you had listened to me, you would have r-r-run
as you will r-r-run now, if you listen to me."

"Do you think me a coward?" I asked.  It was difficult to think
of appropriate remarks to keep the conversation going.  Her apparent
sincerity was a bit bewildering.

"A coward?  I would r-rather call myself a pr-r-rude!" she retorted
with withering scorn.  "Is a tiger a coward, who r-r-runs from a
cage when the door is open for him?  Jeemgreem!  Solomon the Wise
has been reborn into the world, to be King of the World.  I tell
you what all the East knew long ago--that the King of the World
is coming!  The King of the World is Solomon reborn.  He is known
as Dorje!  Dorje the Darling!  Dorje, before whom presently the
kingdoms of the world will bow their necks!"

I nodded.  It seemed the only thing to do.  Then, suddenly, I
thought of another line of questioning:

"Wasn't it a rather strange coincidence that someone should tell
you of my arrival in Marseilles the day after I got here?"

"Coincidence?"  She spluttered with laughter.  "Jeemgreem, I have
hunted for you during three whole years.  I have spent more--much
more than a quarter of a million francs to find you.  When I
learned you were in Tibet I set men to watch all the passes by
which you possibly could recross the mountains.  Even so, you
escaped me.  Then, at last, I heard you were in Berlin--then in
Paris--then that you had booked your passage from Marseilles to
New York, on your way to Callao.  So I came to Marseilles.  This
morning an informant told me you were at L'Eglise de Notre Dame
de la Garde, where you spoke with Haroun ben Yahudi--that fool--
Dorje was a fool to trust him, half-Jew, half-Arab.  Dorje trusted
Haroun because in ancient days he was the captain of the fleet
that brought cedar down from Lebanon when the Temple was building.
Even Dorje makes mistakes."

She paused for breath.  She stared into my eyes and seemed in
doubt whether to take me into her confidence or not--then suddenly
threw caution to the winds:

"There are no witnesses. Jeemgreem--then that terrible--that
horrible, atrocious mistake--that cr-ruiser blown up too soon!
And with my own eyes I saw them capture Haroun.  I learned that
you came to the prefecture.  So I came also.  Jeemgreem, you must
get Haroun out of here before he tells secrets.  I know what they
will do to him.  They will place his thumbs in the jamb of a door,
and they will squeeze until he tells every single word he knows.
Jeemgreem--I have been to such great pains to find you--will you
do that trifle for me?  Will you use your influence--your wits--
your resourcefulness to get Haroun out of these men's clutches?"

I nodded, knowing what Grim had already arranged.

"I may depend on that?  It is a promise, from you to me?  In all our
lives on earth, whatever happened, we have always kept faith, Jeemgreem."

I nodded again.  "He shall not be tortured.  If you watch, you shall
presently see him go away from here."

She let a sigh of almost exquisite relief escape her, narrowing
her eyes as she felt its full surge through her system.  Evidently
Haroun had given her anxious moments.

"And now I must go, Jeemgreem, because if that Prefect returns
he will recognize me, and that--how soon will you come and see me,
Jeemgreem?  Listen--I have no card--write this:  I am staying at
the apartment of Madame la Comptesse de St. Etienne sur Saone,
Place de la Croix des Templars, Marseilles.  You must come soon.
You must come sooner than soon.  Within one--two hours--not later!
I will be there waiting for you.  It is number eighteen.  Stop
your taxi-driver at the corner of La Rue des Capuchins and let
him suppose you are going to dejeuner at the restaurant.  Then,
after he has gone away, walk to la Place de la Croix des Templars.
The apartment is up one flight of stairs.  You will be there?"

"If I may bring my friends," I answered.

"Jeemgreem, you and I must talk alone together."

"Then I won't come."

"When will you leave off being obstinate!  Oh, man's man--you were
always such a cautious fool with women!  Life after life, I have
seen you miss your opportunities because you would not trust me
until you had learned too late that I am wholly to be trusted!
Very well then, bring them.  I suppose you will bring that big
oaf Ramsden?"

"Him and Crosby."

"Who is this Crosby?"

"He may surprise you.  I have known him quite a long time."

"Warn him that he deals with danger!  I am not one to be deceived,
even by your friends, Jeemgreem!"

As she turned away from me she glanced back in a way that would
have brought thrills to the spine of a brass god.  Then she walked
to the door and scrambled on the panel with her gloved fingers,
making almost no sound.  But it opened.  She whispered to someone
and walked out.  Several seconds later I heard her limousine drive
away.  Then, I, too, went to the door.  It was not locked now at
any rate.  A man in uniform stood outside the passage.

"Why did you show her in here?" I demanded, in the best French I
can muster.

"But, Mo'sieur Grim, she said you wished that."

"All right," I answered.  "I have written out my statement.  You
may take it."  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I was
not James Schuyler Grim;  but on second thought it seemed more
tactfully neglectful not to.  "Who else knows that she has been
here?" I demanded.

"Nobody, mo'sieur."

I gave him one hundred francs, on sheer impulse.  If anyone had
asked, I could not have answered why I did it.




Chapter Four

"I'll take this case."


Bureaucracy, of course, inevitably strangles itself with red tape
sooner or later. Mere efficiency becomes the end aimed at, instead
of the means by which ends are attained. However, subject to that
limitation, the speed and accuracy of the Marseilles police dragnet
was almost incredibly good.  Perhaps an hour had elapsed since I
was conducted into that room to write my statement.  In addition
to I don't know what else, the police had meanwhile managed to
identify the body in the morgue as that of Guido Georges Marie
de la Tournee.  They had a full report, all ready for the Prefect,
of how he had committed suicide by leaping from the summit of the
funicular at Notre Dame de la Garde.  They had, furthermore,
identified him as a former Czarist spy of no particular attainments;
and they had dug up a record of his having been deported from India,
Cuba, the Argentine and the United States.  He appeared to have
had French citizenship papers and to have served two short terms
in prison, for assaults committed while under the influence, once
of absinthe, once of hashish, against former employers who, he said,
had insulted him.

His medical report was interesting.  He had been set down by the
prison doctors as "not insane enough for detention" but as evidencing
signs of persecution-mania.  One doctor, probably with time on
his hands, had filled up two sheets of foolscap about him.  As a
surgeon I was allowed to see it, and I formed the opinion that, if
I had been the prison doctor, the man would have been certified as
probably incurably insane.  However, there was another report about
him, and it was more to the point:

A detective had traced his movements since he left an establishment
in the red light district early that morning.  He had got into a
fight with a French sailor on shore leave from the cruiser anchored
in the harbour.  He had taken a mild thrashing without doing much
damage in return, and he had not seemed to resent that particularly;
but two waiters sweeping the front of a cafe had noticed that what
the sailor and his companions had said to him afterwards as he
slunk away had stirred him to almost maniacal frenzy.  According
to one waiter, he had shouted, "You shall all of you pay for it--
all of you!"  But the other waiter had reported him as saying, with
a savage oath in borderland French-Italian, "You are blow-flies out
of one bottle.  I will destroy all of you, bottle and all!"

He had then gone to a cafe, where he drank two stiff glasses of
cheap brandy.  After that he went to Haroun's ship, where he
disappeared through the hatch that led to the cabins below the
poop-deck.  Emerging presently, he loafed around until he found a
warrant-officer about to return to the cruiser in a small steam-launch,
whose owner had offered to take him gratis.  Guido Georges
Marie de la Tournee was seen to give the warrant-officer a package
wrapped in newspaper and tied with tarred string.  He was heard
to ask him kindly to deliver the package to one of the cruiser's
engineers, saying, "I don't know the officer's name but he left
this at Madame Reuben's."

Immediately after that he jumped into a taxi;  and the next that
was known of his movements, he had committed suicide.  The detective
added, however, that someone (name not given) told him that the
explosion on the cruiser took place within two minutes of the
arrival of the launch alongside and that the departing launch only
escaped destruction by a miracle.  He wound up the report with his
not unreasonable conjecture, that there might be some connection
between Guido Georges Marie de la Tournee, the package he had handed
to the warrant-officer, and the explosion on the cruiser, although
he remarked, too, on the obvious impossibility of wrapping in one
small package a sufficient quantity of explosive to wreak so much
havoc.  It was a good report, not shown to us, but read aloud over
the phone by an official, to someone at the military barracks, so
that I got the gist of it.

Then Grim reappeared with Haroun, and by the look in Grim's eyes,
and in Haroun's too, it was easy to see there had been revelations,
but neither of them made any remark.  Jeff Ramsden came in, with
one folded sheet of paper, just as the Prefect returned.  The
Prefect had walked.  There was mud on his shoes.  He appeared
excited, and he was rather out of breath.  He laid on the desk,
on top of the pile of reports, a small brass object that looked
like a section of one-inch pipe with an irregular shaped plug
screwed into either end.  He raised his eyebrows at Grim, who nodded.
Haroun stared at the brass thing on the desk as if he recognized it.
The Prefect beckoned Grim and Haroun back into the room they had
just left, closing the door, and I heard the key turn on the inside.

"What's that thing?" Jeff asked;  and before anyone could prevent
him he had picked up the piece of brass tubing, which appeared
battered and too light to contain anything, but I had time to
notice that one of the plugs was only partly screwed into the end
that Strange held in my direction, before a policeman sharply
ordered him to put it back on the desk.

"Might be a bomb," Jeff hazarded.  But I shook my head.  It was
too small, and not heavy enough.

We were then ordered to sit on chairs with our backs to the wall,
doubtless to prevent any further unauthorized investigations.  We
sat silent for a long time with nothing whatever to entertain us
except our own thoughts and frequent interruptions of them by the
telephone, which was answered by the Prefect's secretary.  Then
suddenly the door opened and Haroun walked out, apparently a free
man;  the Prefect appeared in the doorway, said something sotto
voce to a man in uniform who stood guarding the door opening into
the passage that led to the street, and once more closeted himself
with Grim.  Haroun, not seeming to glance in our direction, made
straight for the street and was let go without comment.

However, he was not so free as he perhaps supposed.  He had hardly
time to reach the street before the Prefect's secretary 'phoned to
someone in the building to follow and not lose sight of him;  reports
of his movements were to be 'phoned to the Prefecture every half-hour.
Ten more minutes passed before Grim came out, still talking to the
Prefect, who walked to the desk, thumbed over the papers, picked
up the piece of brass tubing, shook it, tried to unscrew the plug
that looked loose, failed, screwed it in instead, set it down
again on the pile of papers--and addressed us:

"I thank you, gentlemen.  It will take time to study your statements.
There appears to be no need to detain you any longer.  Should your
presence be required, I will send for you."

He bowed to Grim, signed to the man at the door to open it and
pass us out, picked up the piece of tube again, examined it, set
it down once more and gave an order rather irritably:

"When do they ever clean these windows?  Bring my magnifying glass,
and turn on the electric light."

Before we had time to reach the door the light over the Prefect's
desk was turned on and he made a sudden exclamation that made us
turn to see what caused it.  As we did so, a fuse blew and the
light went out.  Less than a second later the piece of tubing on
the Prefect's desk turned whitehot--set fire to the papers--and
appeared to burn up with them.  A revolver went off in a drawer--
six shots almost simultaneous.  There was a fusillade of pistol
shots as apparently every cartridge in the building went off and
a box of cartridges exploded in a cellar with a din like a machine-gun
battery.  There was shouting and a great noise of hurrying feet.
Then the wooden desk itself caught fire.  The sudden heat was so
intense that the Prefect backed away into a corner and when a man
came rushing in with a fire extinguisher he could not get near
enough to make proper use of the thing.  It was Jeff who put the
fire out.  He is afraid of nothing except cats and elevators.  He
found another extinguisher and a man's overcoat out in the passage;
shielding himself with the overcoat he charged in close and sprayed
a stream of fluid right into the heart of the fire.  It was out then;
of course, in a moment;  but the overcoat had caught fire;  Jeff
threw it on the floor and stamped on it while the other man sprayed
it with the few last drops of his extinguisher.  Jeff burned his
trousers and his eyebrows, but was otherwise not hurt.

Then the Prefect examined the desk, or rather what remained of it.
He let no one else touch it--made us all stand back.  There was
something he saw that he seemed unable to believe--or, perhaps,
that he thought no one else would believe unless he took every
possible precaution against interference.

"Bring a camera," he commanded.  "Camera and flashlight."

A man came in with a large, old-fashioned instrument and exposed
a dozen plates from different angles;  it took several minutes
because he had to reload his flashlight apparatus each time he
used it.  The smoke of the last explosion of magnesium powder had
hardly reached the ceiling when what remained of the desk collapsed
into a heap of charred dust.

"And not a trace left of that brass tube," said the Prefect.  "Not
only are all my records of this case destroyed, but that brass has
vanished.  You may come and look now, all of you.  Observe, please,
that the locks and screws are there, among the ashes, but there
is not even one fragment of that piece of tubing."

The locks seemed to have been fused by the terrific heat and several
of the screws had become stuck together.  A shapeless lump of metal
that I thought might be the brass tube turned out to be the fused
wreck of the telephone instrument.

It was Grim who suggested that the ashes should be analysed, weighed,
and their metallic contents separated.

"Dorje has invented something new, that's all.  Where did that
brass tube come from?"

"It was part of Haroun ben Yahudi's cargo," said the Prefect.
"Invoiced as scrap brass.  This piece was found in his cabin."

"Where is the rest of it?"

"That is what we hope to discover.  That is why I let him go.  He
is being watched.  I hope he will show us where it is."

"He said," said Grim, "that Guido Georges Marie de la Tournee sold
it to an absolute stranger for cash."

"Did he produce the money?" Jeff asked.

The Prefect shrugged his shoulders.  "He showed money.  But whence
he had it--?"

Someone ran in from the switchboard to say that the Prefect was
wanted at once on the 'phone.

"Who is he?  What does he want?"

"It is Eighty-one.  He says that Arab who just now walked out of
here has been murdered!"

"Did he catch the murderer?"

"He says, no.  A man ran from a side-street and plunged a knife
into the Arab's heart.  Several people saw it.  Eighty-one has
held two witnesses.  But the murderer ran back up the side-street
and vanished."

The Prefect walked into another room to use a telephone.  It was
on the tip of my tongue to tell Grim, there and then, about the
Princess Baltis.  But Grim drew Jeff aside and whispered.  Then
the Prefect returned.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I must invite you to write those statements
again.  It embarrasses me to put you to so much trouble, but you
see, everything was burned up--everything.  A devastation.  It
will be necessary to reconstruct this problem from the very
beginning and your statements may be of some assistance.  However,
I need not ask you to stay here and write them.  Have the goodness
to write them, if possible, without consulting one another and I
will send a messenger for them to your hotel this afternoon.
Meanwhile, please preserve silence.  Let me emphasize that.  Silence,
gentlemen, I pray you.  You are men of experience, who will readily
understand the paramount importance of a most discreet silence in
such matters as this.  In fact, if you were men of less--shall I
say distinction--it would be my duty to take routine measures to
prevent you from talking with anyone."

He bowed us out;  and for a man who must have been half-distracted
by the day's events he showed exceptional sang-froid.

As we passed into the street Grim smiled.  It was a sour smile.
There was discontent behind it.  "Without meaning to, I make men
like Haroun trust me," he remarked.  "Do you realize that I sent
Haroun to his death?  If he had not appealed to me, he would be
in a police cell this minute, alive and safe.  It isn't that the
brave old fellow had to die.  Death's nothing--and anyhow, Haroun
killed his dozens.  What hits me between the wind and water is
that Haroun depended on me to protect him."

"He had no right to," said Jeff.

Grim glanced at him and smiled again:  "Who wants his rights?  To
hell with rights!  They're only relative at best.  The only thing
a decent fellow asks is friendship and a clean death, standing up."




Chapter Five

"Imagine what would happen if--"


In the taxi I told Grim about the Princess Baltis.  He interrupted
before I was half through with my account of her:  "She's no more
a princess than I'm a Hottentot.  She's a French citizen, born
of Franco-Siamese and Chinese parents--educated at the Sorbonne--
wealthy--older than she looks--she must be thirty-two or thirty-three,
and looks twenty-three--but at that age she was already
the best spy the French Government ever had.  She was a spy at
seventeen.  The Germans sentenced her to death in Belgium, but she
escaped;  one German officer was shot and one got life imprisonment
for letting her slip, and at that they very likely had nothing at
all to do with it.  She's clever, and no one knows how she escaped."

We lunched at the hotel, where I finished my account of the
interview. Grim added:

"If she is in league with Dorje, we've a clue to work on.  She's
the only spy in the French service whom they haven't ever suspected
of double-dealing.  They think the world of her.  They give her
anything she asks for.  Not the slightest use reporting her;  they
simply wouldn't believe it, and she'd frame up a charge against
us as quick as winking.

"Haroun said," he went on, "that his secret orders were to obey
Guido Georges de la Tournee until he docked in Marseilles.  Guido
drove him almost crazy.  He said he lost his wind a hundred times
because Guido insisted on keeping at least five miles away from
any ship that was big enough to have electric light on board.  Can
you believe it?  He sailed that dhow 'round by the Cape to avoid
close quarters in the Suez Canal.  By the time he docked he was
so fed up with Guido that he threatened to destroy his dhow, in
exchange, I suppose, for the insult.  What do you deduce from that?"

"Guido put that brass thing in Haroun's cabin," I suggested.

Jeff said:  "And when he saw Haroun coming up the steps at the
top of the hill he supposed Haroun had found him out.  So he
jumped rather than face Haroun's knife."

"Or he may have thought," said Grim, "that the dhow was already
destroyed and Haroun was out for vengeance.  It's obvious that
Guido climbed the hill to watch the cruiser blow up.  He evidently
knew it would blow up as soon as that brass thing was delivered
on board.  Did you notice that nothing happened in the Prefect's
office until the electric light was turned on?  Then a fuse blew,
and the thing went white-hot, and every cartridge in the place
exploded.  Add that to the fact that Guido, on the voyage, was
afraid to go near ships that had electric dynamos--and we get what?
Some new kind of energy-converter.  And it must be extremely simple,
or Dorje couldn't manufacture it in quantity and ship it as scrap-brass.
Apparently electric current leaps toward it, becomes changed
in some way, sets off any explosive within a certain distance, but
destroys the thing itself.  Imagine what would happen if they could
distribute a few thousand of those things, close to arsenals,
for instance."

Jeff summed it up:  "An automatic fire-bug that destroys its own
evidence.  Nice for the insurance companies!"

"Grim," I said, "you've got to go and see that Princess."

"No," he answered, "you go.  Take Jeff with you.  Go and be Jimgrim
until she finds you out.  I leave this evening by plane for London,
where they'll probably give me information and perhaps carte blanche."

So Jeff and I went in search of her, not relishing our job.  "Tell
me more about her," Jeff demanded as we strode along together.

"She considers you a great oaf and she believes I'm wonderful."

"All right, let's play that hand," he answered promptly.  "She
dealt it."

"Any man can make a smart woman think him a fool," I objected.

"Play the fool with her and make her think you're clever," he
retorted.  And that was all the advice I could get from him.  As
we approached the address she had given he shoved one fist into
his pocket and strode along beside me as if we were off for a day's
fishing.  Even when we entered the apartment hallway and started
up the stairs he was whistling softly to himself, whereas I was
alternately hot and cold with nervousness.  I did not in the least
relish the prospect of matching wits with a woman said to be the
cleverest spy in Europe.  Nobody minds getting stabbed--shot--
strangled in a good cause;  but who likes to appear ridiculous!

We were admitted by a middle-aged, dull-looking French maid into
an apartment furnished in the late empire period--style that
always makes me irritable for some incomprehensible reason.  There
was a long corridor, with windows on the left hand looking into
a garden, and on the right hand was a row of gilded doors with
heavy brocade curtains.  A tall grandfather clock ticked solemnly.
There was an atmosphere of old-world peace, belied by an equally
evident tension;  it was too quiet;  one's footfall was smothered
in three-pile carpet, so that it felt like walking into ambush;
and at the end of the corridor there was a gilt-edged mirror that
aroused my suspicions--as it turned out, justly.

The corridor turned to the right.  We were ushered into a room
beyond the wall on which the mirror hung and I noticed at once
that there was a big ornately decorated cabinet against the wall
within the room, at exactly the place where the mirror hung outside.
It was particularly noticeable because the cabinet seemed out of
balance with all the other furniture;  it needed shoving three or
four feet further to the left, where its bulk and ornate grandeur
would have seemed less prominent.  Another thing I noticed was
that the cabinet was the only modern reproduction in a room that
was otherwise filled with what were apparently genuine period pieces.

The Princess rose out of a gilded chair to welcome us.  She had
changed her costume and was now dressed in peach-coloured silk,
with a turquoise necklace, and I think she looked even younger
than when I had seen her earlier that day.  The windows were all
curtained and the light was so dim and diffused that it was difficult
to see the small scar on her upper lip;  it was even difficult
to tell the colour of her eyes, that looked like pools of languid
mischief.  She contrived to create the impression of a rather
bored woman who invited, even challenged, us to entertain her.

"So you have come, Jeemgreem.  And you have brought your famous
and inseparable R-Ramsden.  Introduce him to me."

Jeff shook hands with her, as his way is, bluntly.

"You are like a siege-gun," she remarked, "safe and reassuring
until you go off.  I do not wonder that Jeemgreem takes you wherever
he goes.  And where is the other one--Cr-rosby, did you say his
name is?"

"Doctor Crosby has gone to London," I answered.

I thought I detected a change in her eyes, but she recovered
instantly and the tone of her voice was agreeably bantering:

"Ah, well--if Jeemgreem thinks so much of him he must be wonderful,
but I must have patience until I meet him.  Do be seated.  Jeemgreem,
what a surprising man you are.  You do not in the least look like
the hero of a thousand thrills!  Your reputation thrills me, but
you look like a shopkeepaire."

"Can't help my looks," I answered.

"R-Ramsden, on the other hand, looks just as one expects.  One
would say to him--or rather, one can imagine Jeemgreem saying to
him `Smash that obstacle,' or `Slay these men';  and one can see
it done as soon as spoken.  Of all the wonderful things I have seen,
I find it hardest to believe that this great R-Ramsden so worships
you as to follow you even into Tibet."

"No one asked you to believe it," I retorted.

"Yes," she said, "I must believe it.  Because oth-air-wise"--her
voice changed slightly--"my confidence might prove to be misplaced.
I make mistakes--not often.  Those that I make, like the surgeons
and the doctors, Jeemgreem, I provide with funerals at someone's
else expense.  Did Haroun leave the Prefecture?"

"Yes," I said, "and your man killed him."

She was taken off-guard, but recovered instantly.

"Was it not quick?  Jeemgreem, does that not suggest to you that
it is very unwise ever to trifle with me?"

"It suggests," I said, "that you and Jeff and I don't play the
same game.  We play ours straight."

"And was that not straight?  Straight from the shoulder?  Haroun
ben Yahudi had disobeyed.  He had permitted de la Tournee to steal
for his own use two of Dorje's weapons.  Two were missing from
the barrels in which they were delivered.  One caused that warship
to blow up.  And now they tell me that the other set on fire the
Prefecture.  Let me assure you that Dorje believes in swift
discipline as well as in obedient daring."

I managed to catch Jeff's eyes and I saw that the big man was
growing restless.  Probably he considered I had blundered, and I,
too, suspected I had.  The Princess was altogether too cocksure
of her own upper-hand;  she was daring to give me information that
would hang her unless I kept it secret.  We were evidently in a
trap of some kind.

"Don't let her move," I said to Jeff;  and with an air of huge
relief he went and stood between her and the window, close enough
to pounce on her if she should make a sound or movement.

I walked over to the cabinet that I had noticed when I came in.
For a few moments it puzzled me.  There was nothing in front that
would come open.  However, I examined the side nearest the door
of the room and found a small sliding panel, which opened easily.
Inside, the cabinet was black;  and there was an arrangement of
mirrors, which included the large mirror on the corridor wall outside.
The latter was made of "peephole" glass;  that is to say, it was
transparent toward whichever side happened to be brightly lighted;
and since the windows in the corridor provided plenty of light, and
the cabinet was black-dark, it was possible to look into the mirror
facing me and see reflected in it the whole length of the corridor
and anyone who might be entering through the front door.  Doubtless
the Princess had watched us enter, just as, now, I watched the
interesting movements of five men.

There were five doors in the corridor.  The doors stood ajar;  and
there was a man in every one of them.  First one and then another
would stick his head out.  They appeared to speak to one another,
but only a few abrupt words at a time.  And the startling thing was,
not that they were there but that they looked like gentlemen.  If
they had been thugs they might have been just as dangerous, but
not nearly so alarming.

Over my shoulder I told Jeff what I saw.  Then I turned the key
in the door.  I set a heavy piece of furniture against it and I
piled another piece on that;  against that barricade I shoved a
heavy, brass-inlaid table.  Then I returned to the cabinet to
make one more survey of the ambush and noticed that one of the
men was wearing, under neat civilian clothes, the boots of a
French infantry officer.

I told Jeff.  He beckoned me, and I stood guard over the Princess.
Jeff went to the nearest window, threw the curtains back, forced
the window open, tearing out two long nails with which it had been
secured against just that contingency, glanced outside, and grinned
at me.

"All right," he remarked.  "The road's clear.  Now, let's talk to her."

But I had acted "Jeemgreem" just about as long as I could stand
the strain, so I passed the buck to Jeff:

"You carry on.  I'll watch the corridor."

I returned to the cabinet, where I could glance into the mirror
and detect the slightest movement of the ambuscade without missing
what Jeff and the Princess said and did.  The ambuscade was patient
and apparently not expecting to be summoned into action just yet;
I saw one man produce a small blackjack and slap the palm of his
hand with it, but he tucked it out of sight again;  then he produced
a cigarette case, but another man gestured to him not to smoke,
so he put that away too.

The Princess spoke first:  "In every life that I have lived on earth,
that I remember, R-R-Ramsden, you have made your clumsy and ridiculous
attempts to interfere with me.  And you have always suffered for it.
Will you nevaire learn?"

"It is you who learn slowly," Jeff answered, so promptly that I
almost suspected him of believing her absurd claim to remember
the details of dozens of previous lives.

"That r-remains to be seen," she retorted.  "What will you do now?"

I could not have answered the question.  We had no weapons.  We
could not escape by way of the corridor.  If we should climb down
from the window into the garden we would be exposed to pistol shots
and there would still be the high wall to negotiate.  It seemed
extremely probable that at least one of the Princess's accomplices
was a French army officer, and I had proof that at least one of
the police obeyed her orders.  Even the Prefect might be her
accomplice, or at least her dupe.  If she was such a trusted spy
as Meldrum Strange said she was, attempts to expose her would only
meet with blank official incredulity, whereas, she could frame up
any charge against us that she pleased.  However, Jeff seemed
genially undisturbed.

"I don't have to do anything," he answered.  "Grim does the fancy
work.  My share is merely the manual labour."

"I don't think your Jeemgreem is such a genius," she answered.  She
seemed perfectly at ease, and as far as I was concerned she had a
perfect right to be.  As "Jeemgreem" I felt I had shot my bolt and
I could have cursed Jeff for passing the buck back to me.  He noticed
my embarrassment and his next remark was plainly meant to calm me
as much to annoy her, although it actually made me even more nervous
and left her scornful:

"I know what is going to happen.  You haven't known him as long
as I have."

"No?" she answered, lowering her eyelids.  "I have known him fifty
million years.  Is that a slight acquaintance?  But I am frankly
disappointed in him.  He stands staring in that mirror like a
fifty-franc-a-day detective;  whereas, if he were his true self, he would
have known what to do before this.   And he would have done it.
Jeemgreem, I am afraid, is paying for some weakness of former lives
by being a man of straw in this one--a man with a reputation greater
than he can sustain in a real emergency."

"We'll wait and see," said Jeff.

She nodded.  "I am in no hurry."

"Grim never is," he answered.

I supposed he was giving me time to think.  However, the only
thing that I could think of was the open window.  It might be
possible to gag and tie her without making any noise, and then
to escape by way of the garden before the men in the corridor
suspected anything.  But if we should do that, it would ruin Grim's
chance of making use of her in any way.  I kept silent, hoping that
Jeff would drop some hint that I might act on.  Then suddenly I
noticed a movement in the mirror.  Jeff, observing my changed
expression--he said afterwards that I looked as if I had won a
Derby sweepstake;  began talking to the Princess to distract her
attention.  "Reincarnation is rot," he announced, which surpised me,
more than it did her, because I happened to know he believes it.
"If you know so much about your former lives, come on now, tell
me what Jimgrim is going to do.  You ought to be able to guess that
from experience."

I was too busy watching the mirror to hear her answer, although
I remember the tone of her voice was mocking and coolly confident.
There were no sounds from the corridor but I suppose the front
doorbell rang.  The middle-aged, unpleasant-looking maid appeared
and the men vanished, closing the doors, although the man in
military boots left his door ajar about half an inch, so that he
could listen.  The maid opened the door and in walked the Prefect
of Police in uniform.  Grim followed him;  and hard on Grim's
heels came six policemen, the last of whom turned and closed the door
but not before I caught a glimpse of two more men in uniform outside.

I think the maid screamed, although I could not hear her.  I saw
her lips move, and the one door that was ajar was promptly shut
tight.  At a sign from the Prefect, two of the policemen seized
the maid, the door opened again, and they almost hurled her through
it into the arms of the two who waited outside seeming to expect
that.  Then again the door closed.  One policeman went and stood
on guard in front of each door in the corridor;  he at the door
that had been ajar tapped on it, several times, with increasing
vehemence.  I heard Jeff say:

"I never knew Grim to do anything anyone thought he would do."

And I heard her mocking answer:  "I can tell you what he will do
this time.  He will choose between death and obedience."

The door that was being rapped on opened gingerly.  The policeman
entered.  The Prefect, with a nod to Grim, followed and the door
closed.  Grim came forward along the corridor, apparently so
perfectly at ease that I felt like shouting to him to be on his
guard.  However, I contrived not to do anything as ridiculous as
that.  I went to the door and dragged away the barricade that I
had built up.

"What is that fool doing?" asked the Princess.  I unlocked the
door and swung it open.

"Jimgrim!" I announced.

And Grim walked in.  I closed the door behind him.




Chapter Six

"How many wives had Solomon?"


"Destiny!" said the Princess.

"How d'you do?" said Grim.

I walked back to the cabinet to watch the corridor.  It had occurred
to me that the Princess might have unexpected forces in reserve and
Grim would probably be grateful for a timely warning.  The Princess
had sprung to her feet.  She stood confronting Grim with an
expression that baffled analysis as, probably, her emotions did, too.

"So you are Jeemgreem!  Yes, yes, yes--of course you are!   And
I have made myself ridiculous by being taken in by that one!  I
will not forgive myself."  She tossed a scornful glance in my
direction.  "But I will not forgive him, also!"

"Let's waste no time on trivialities," said Grim.  "Be seated,
won't you.  I am here to talk to Dorje."

Jeff drew up a chair and Grim sat down in it, facing the Princess,
not six feet away from her;  but Jeff continued to stand between
her and the window, watching her gestures.  If she had produced
a weapon and if she had been as quick as a leopard, she would have
had no chance to use it.  I think she realized that;  from subsequent
experience of her I feel sure that she had a very deadly weapon
concealed in her dress, but she gave us no excuse at that time
for submitting her to search or any similar indignity.  Neither
did she give the least sign of curiosity as to how Grim had entered
without opposition from her accomplices, although it must have
puzzled and even bewildered her.  She was outwardly all self-assurance,
whatever her inner feelings might be.

"Jeemgreem, you are as handsome as you always were, in all your
lives," she remarked.  "You have not one straight feature, and
not one weak one.  You have understanding eyes.  What experience
you must have had with women!"

"About Dorje--" said Grim.

"I am another woman--one more, Jeemgreem.  I have had experience
with men."

"About Dorje--" Grim repeated.

In the mirror, I saw the man in military boots led out handcuffed
into the corridor, but the Prefect remained in the room for a while.
The policeman led his prisoner to the front door and handed him
over to someone outside, then returned and I saw him knock on
another door.

"As long as you and I have known each other, Jeemgreem, so long
we have both known Dorje, although we have not always known who
he is.  Dorje has been ripening, as it were, through very many
lives, developing his gr-reat wisdom and r-rounding it out.  When
he was Solomon he made many mistakes, of which one was idleness,
due to a sort of conceited pacifism.  When he was Karl Marx he
had to suffer in comparative obscurity, because he was laying his
mines at the r-root of the social structure, making possible the
r-ruin of civilization that is to take place now, so that Dorje
may be King of the World.  Without him as Karl Marx, what could
Lenin have accomplished?  What could Stalin do now?  But they--
those two are little nobodies compared to Dorje, who makes use
of them and will presently destroy what they have done, that he may
rebuild.  Dorje has chosen you to be one of his captains, Jeemgreem."

"How did he hear of me?" Grim asked.

"Smoke, won't you?"  He produced his cigarette case.  "Have one
of mine."

"Yes, let us all smoke.  Let me order some liqueurs, yes?"

"No," Grim answered,

By that time the Prefect had come into the corridor and was giving
orders with gestures imposing utmost silence.  In response to
repeated knocks the doors had opened and all except one of the
men I had seen had been searched and handcuffed.  Only one door
remained closed;  the Prefect ordered it forced and the policemen
did that very cleverly and quietly.  Two of them went in and
dragged a man out by the shoulders, quite dead;  he appeared to
have poisoned himself.  The Prefect sniffed his lips.  I imagined
him saying "cyanide."  The prisoners were marched out through the
front door, two policemen dragging the dead one with his heels
deep in the three-pile carpet.  Then the Prefect and one policeman
began examining the rooms.

"How did he hear of me?" Grim repeated.

"How could he have helped that, Jeemgreem?  Did not you, before
you went to Tibet, delay and annoy Dorje by arresting many of the
men in Palestine--in Syria--in Arabia--in Egypt--in India--who
were Dorje's useful tools and sometimes even Dorje's agents?"

Grim answered:  "In those days I had never heard of Dorje."

"Nevertheless, you compelled him to hear about you.  And Dorje
has a psychic memory that is even more remarkable than mine.  He
thought about you and remembered you in many past lives, weighing
this and that peculiarity of yours and studying your merits and
defects.  It is of paramount importance to him that he shall
choose none except excellent men for his actual council.  But do
you not see the advantage possessed by Dorje over those who are
opposed to him?  Which of the kings and generals and presidents
opposed to him can choose their captains and confederates by
studying them in the light of their behavior in former lives?
Those who are not themselves incompetents and blind fools--do
they not choose rogues and fools who betray and obstruct?  Even
as Karl Marx--so recently as that--Dorje had not developed psychic
memory.  But as Dorje he has it.  He remembered me.  He has
remembered you.  And when he learned that you had gone to Tibet
he suspected you had gone to meet those men who know the psychic
laws, so he supposed you would return ten times as proficient as
formerly.  Therefore he commanded me to find you, which was for
me an agreeable task, because I, also, remember you, Jeemgreem."

"Are you Mrs. Dorje?" Grim asked--and she almost shrieked with laughter.

"How many wives had Solomon?" she answered when her breath came--
or perhaps when she had taken time to think behind that screen of
possibly assumed amusement.

"Are you one of Dorje's wives?" Grim asked her.

She laughed again.  "What were Solomon's wives except hostages
and a machinery for intrigue with foreign courts?"

"Are you afraid of Dorje?" Grim asked.

"Jeemgreem, I have never been afraid, in all my life, of anything--
and of a man least."

In the mirror, I saw the Prefect bring out a chair into the corridor
and sit down making notes in a pocket memorandum-book.  The policeman
continued searching room after room.

"Very well," Grim answered.  "Since you're not afraid of Dorje--"

"Oh-la, la!  I know what comes next!  Jeemgreem, you believe you
have me at your discretion--is it not so?  You are too obvious,
Jeemgreem.  I suppose you have had this place surrounded by some
very stupid gentlemen in uniform.  Therefore, you will now say:
'Betray Dorje, Madame, and assist me to destroy Dorje and to r-ruin
all his plans, or go to the guillotine!'  It does not need a genius
to guess that, Jeemgreem."

"I am not in command of the French police," Grim answered, and
she stared at him for a moment.  Expecting a threat, she was
rather nonplussed by not receiving one.  However, she held her
own line:

"Look at me, Jeemgreem, and use your imagination."

Jeff Ramsden grinned and so did I.  We both supposed she was going
to try to hypnotize Grim, and it would be almost easier to do that
to a locomotive.  Any human being can be hypnotized, of course,
given the right circumstances and provided he is inexperienced
and not on guard.  Grim looked at her.  And he always uses his
imagination;  no need to tell him to do that.

"Do you see this scar on my lip?" she asked him.  "I was born
with it.  It is a memory mark.  It is something like the stigmata
that certain people have, except that this does not bleed.  It is
the mark that shows where I was shot when Bismarck ruled Prussia
and I was spying for that poor incompetent Napoleon.  But see this--"

She leaned forward, turning her shoulders to show him the back of
her neck.

"Do you not see that mark?  Is it not distinct and unmistakable?
That is the mark of the headsman's sword.  When I was Ann Boleyn
they had to bring him in great haste all the way from Calais,
because I had the right to be beheaded with a sword, not with an
axe, and there was not in England one swordsman who could do it,
though my neck was so little.  I died laughing, Jeemgreem, then
as always.  You were Sir Francis Weston, and you loved me--then
as always.  That time, you died under the axe--not smiling, I
believe, since you were always a serious person.  And besides,
they tortured you."

"What is your point?" Grim asked her.

"That the guillotine could not terrify me."

Grim lighted a fresh cigarette and tossed the butt of the smoked
one through the window.

"I don't see that it matters whether you are scared or not," he
answered.  "My point is, that I can link you up with the explosion
on that cruiser--"

"Can you, Jeemgreem?  Can you even link me up with Dorje?  Could
you put me in prison?  If you should succeed in doing that for
one day, could you keep me there?  I will tell you at least three
reasons why you could not."

"Shoot," said Grim, at his favourite game, getting someone else
to do the talking and, as usual, not to be hurried.

"I know too much about too many people, Jeemgreem, and if I should
be thrown into prison there would almost be a stampede by important
personages to get me out again.  Furthermore, although you may have
drawn a leetle net around me, I have agents who will draw a better
one around you and your friends.  You also know too much about too
many people.  If you should suddenly die would Downing Street or
the Quai D'Orsay command that crepe be hung on lamp-posts?"

"Would they mourn you?" Grim suggested, and she laughed back
gaily at him.

"They would be made to mourn.  Because Dorje, who is ruthless
toward traitors, avenges his friends.  If any government should
kill me--well, you know what happened to that warship;  and you
saw what happened to the records at the Prefecture.  We have a
weapon, Jeemgreem, that no government can guard against!"

Grim sat silent, tempting her, I think, to continue boasting.  So
far she had said nothing that a lunatic could not have said, and
her claim to remember incidents of past lives was no pronounced
symptom of sanity.  In the mirror, I saw that somebody had rung
the doorbell;  the Prefect himself answered the door.  A man in
uniform gave him an envelope.  He closed the door, frowned at
the envelope, shook it as if it might contain something dangerous,
hesitated, and then suddenly opened it.  He read what it contained
and, I thought, did not look disagreeably disturbed, although he
raised his eyebrows and made an extremely eloquent, though enigmatic,
gesture with his shoulders.  He looked almost amused as he copied
the message into his memorandum book.  Then, returning it into
the envelope, he came forward and flourished it toward the mirror.
He evidently knew all about that cabinet.

I went to the door and opened it.  He handed me the message without
showing himself in the doorway.  I closed the door and handed it
to Grim, to whom it was addressed.  Grim read it, as he always
reads everything, with one swift photographic glance, and handed
it to Jeff, who studied it for sixty seconds and then passed it
back to me.  It was addressed to Grim in care of the police and
marked "Urgent.  Please find him."  Its contents were brief.  The
signature was O and I don't know who "O" was--some confidant of
Grim's.  It was dispatched from Geneva.  "My office and all its
contents have been destroyed by a fire of unknown origin.  The
secret, confidential and other records are a total loss.  This is
irreparable.  Perhaps you will now believe that Dorje is what I
told you."

I returned to my observation post.  Through the open window we
could hear newsboys at the top of their lungs announcing special
editions about the warship disaster.  It seemed to me highly
improbable that the Prefect would remain indefinitely in the
corridor while excitement in the streets gained headway, and
since he knew about that mirror he might wish to signal to us
through it--perhaps to beckon me outside for instructions.  However,
he was betraying no impatience, beyond that he glanced once or
twice at his watch;  he sat examining his notebook, rocking his
chair on two legs, tapping his teeth with a pencil.

"Princess."  Grim seemed to have made his mind up what to do, and
I think she realized it because her attitude became vaguely less
relaxed and insolent.  "If I wished to get you out of the way, I
would not take the trouble to bring you to trial.  I don't understand
French criminal procedure, and I do understand that you have what
is known in the United States as 'pull.'  But a pull on a trigger--
you understand me?"

"You would shoot me?  You have not the disposition.  You are too
moral.  I am not in the least disturbed about your shooting me."

I thought, and I could tell by his face that Jeff did too, that
Grim had gone off on the wrong foot.  Certainly the Princess
thought so.  She looked triumphant again and rather scornful.
Grim looked at his wits' end and as if he were trying to hide
the fact.

"I don't have to pull triggers," said Grim.  "There are plenty
of others who would do that quite cheerfully.  I have decided,
however, to save your life--on conditions."

"You?  Save my life?  You are cr-razy!  I do not need to move in
order to kill all three of you this instant!"

"So I thought," said Grim.  "Let's settle that first.  Jeff, do
you mind watching her while I--"

He turned his back to her and walked toward the south wall of the
room, the wall that she sat facing.  He had been able to watch
her eyes from where he was sitting;  she had glanced in that
direction once or twice too often and too obviously carelessly
to escape Grim's omnivorous eye for detail.  I watched her face
while Grim walked straight toward the wall.  She and I appreciated
at the same moment that Grim, by talking like a mere dime-novel
blow-hard, had tempted her to crow--and sneer--and give away a
secret that she would have given perhaps all she had to keep
from him.

"Stop!" she said.  "I surrender.  What do you wish me to do?"

However, Grim went forward.  There was a mirror facing him--one
of those half-globular abominations in a gilt frame that distort
whatever is reflected in them.  He had raised his hand to feel
the panel on the wall beside it, when the wall moved--outward,
toward him.  There was a secret door there.  To protect himself
he stepped behind it as it swung open.  Out came three men, one
an officer in uniform.  They were armed, or at any rate one of
them was;  I could see the bulge of a revolver on his hip.  Grim
glanced at me.

"Vache!"  I think the officer in uniform said that, but it may
have been one of the others.  I was on my way to the door.  I
opened it and beckoned the Prefect, who summoned the man who was
searching bedrooms.  The two came and stood in the doorway, the
Prefect smiling to himself and the other man making a rather
nervous exhibition of his automatic.

"Colonel Zalinsky," said the Prefect.  "Monsieur Albertini.
Monsieur Hugo.  You are under arrest.  Colonel Zalinsky, you will
receive an escort to the barracks.  Monsieur Albertini, Monsieur
Hugo, you will accompany me."  He approached the two men in civilian
clothes and asked them for their weapons, speaking to them very
civilly.  They hesitated, glancing at the Colonel, who merely
scowled and scratched at his moustache, so they handed them over--
two pistols, and the Prefect laid them on a settee.  Jeff unloaded
them.  The Prefect went to the secret door and opened it wide;
there was a nicely ventilated closet in there, provided with a
window in the outer wall and with a cushioned bench that could
have seated half a dozen people.  He examined the place and then
ordered his man to make use of the 'phone in the corridor:

"Request a prisoner's escort for Colonel Zalinsky, who is under arrest."

Then Grim, with a gleam in his eyes that always reminds me of John
Paul Jones' retort  "I haven't started yet!" approached the Princess.

"Did I understand you correctly to say you surrender?" he asked.

"I did not say that.  If you had stopped, yes.  But you did not."

"Very well then, go with these men.  Monsieur le Prefect, I regret
that I can be of no more service to you.  It appears I was mistaken
when I said that the Princess Baltis, who is so notoriously of the
secret service, probably was employing her talents to uncover a
grave conspiracy.  Knowing how a secret service sometimes operates
without taking the local police into confidence, I presumed on your
very flattering familiarity with my record, and you were kind enough
to permit me to ascertain whether or not the Princess is on the
same dangerous and important mission as myself.  I have even presumed
to send a telegram to Paris to a certain Major Bonfils, with whom
I have worked in Syria.  I have put him to the inconvenience of
travelling here by aeroplane, and I shall have to apologize to
him also."

He was talking, rather obviously, to give the Princess time to think;
and she was thinking furiously, behind an almost Chinese mask of
inscrutability.  Colonel Zalinsky glared at her, his lips moving
but no word coming forth;  the sort of threats that he intended
would be, in any event, more convincing if suggested.  Spoken words
so often steal the thunder of a thought.  The other two men scowled
and tried to whisper to each other, but the Prefect courteously
stepped between them.

"Of what am I accused?" Zalinsky demanded suddenly, and Albertini
echoed him:  "We also, we demand to know that!"

"Of conspiracy against the Republic," said the Prefect, "and of
acts of commission and of omission that were contributory to the
explosion on the cruiser L'Orient."

"Ludicrous!" Zalinsky looked maliciously relieved.  "You have not
one scrap of evidence.  Who accuses me?"

But his relief was short-lived.  Grim's acid had eaten through
the immense assurance of the Princess Baltis.  Even in defeat,
however, she was debonair and changed sides with the gesture of
a reigning beauty bestowing prizes at a carnival.

"Moi, J'accuse!"  Then, in rapid French that it was very difficult
for me to follow:  "It is true, and this Jeemgreem is altogether
too astute!  I have brought these traitors to the door of justice--
and, I suppose, those others also, who were out there--you have
arrested them, yes?  I have wormed my way into their confidence,
and I will tell all I know.  Nevertheless, I assure you that this
Jeemgreem by impetuously interfering has upset many calculations
and has brought exposure too soon.  You have caught moths--flies.
Eagles you have let go.  Wolves--lions--tigers remain at liberty!
I am forbidden to name the source of my instructions, but you
force me to speak!  If you had arrested me--mon Dieu!--that would
have given warning to so many people, that--"

There was a knock at the door.  The Prefect's man opened it.

"Major Bonfils."

The Princess Baltis stood stock-still.  I watched her closely and
neither her face nor her eyes showed the least trace of emotion.
She even breathed steadily.  But it is hardly an exaggeration to
say that there vibrated from her something like the magnetism of
a leopard that sees sudden danger.




Chapter Seven

"No longer Number Seventeen?"


I can read and write French fluently;  and I can speak it so that
Frenchmen understand me when they genuinely try, which is not often.
But to follow closely a four-cornered, quickfire exchange of verbal
thrust and counter-thrust interspersed with professional argot and
the latest idioms and catch-words, is beyond my powers.  So I can
only give a resume of what happened after Bonfils came in, and
the greater part of it is summarized from scraps of Grim's subsequent
conversation.  Jeff talks better French than I do, but even Jeff was
a bit bewildered by the speed, and it took both of us weeks to
extract all the details, as a rule one detail at a time, from Grim,
who can be as laconic as a stone jug and who hardly ever fully
realizes that others are not so quick as himself to pick the fine
points from a maze of irrelevant suggestions, hints and purposely
confused statements of probable fact.

Looking back, it is easy enough to summarize.  The main point was
that the Princess Baltis, having thoroughly established herself
in the confidence of the French secret service, had done what almost
all spies do eventually, and that Bonfils knew she had been playing
false.  But it was also true that she knew a lot too much about
too many important people;  and in peacetime it is no simple matter
to dispose of anyone entrenched in that position, since a secret
service never courts publicity, and, ever since the Dreyfus scandal,
the French have been particularly touchy on that point.

But there was another complication.  Bonfils and Grim had been
intimate friends and they had helped each other in the Near East,
although employed by mutually suspicious governments.  They
understood each other's methods almost perfectly, and Bonfils
knew that Grim has very little personal use for nationalism.
Bonfils, as a Frenchman, would have liked to see France recognized
as the paramount power in the world and he habitually employed
his talents toward that end.  Grim--a citizen of the United States--
ex-major in the British Army--decorated by five governments and
trusted, as a rule, by all of them--has never had the slightest
interest in what he calls "parish pump politics" and rather agrees
with Doctor Johnson of dictionary fame, that patriotism is the
last resource of the scoundrel.  Grim is the deadly enemy of so-called
patriots who ruin other countries that their own may flourish,
and then rob their own for the sake of self-importance.  He holds
that vice and virtue know no boundaries, but that the world is at
the mercy of the ignorant, who think they do.  He also holds,
that in all countries, at all times, there are conscienceless
individuals, possessed of a certain psychic sense, who understand
how to manipulate crowd-opinion and who never hesitate to do so,
in order to make brave and decent men act damnably in the name
of patriotic common-sense.

So Grim is not easy to deal with, from the point of view of a
secret service bent on snatching credit for itself and for its
own nationals.  But on the other hand, Grim was already involved;
he understood the situation of the Princess Baltis;  he already
knew the nature of the problem to be tackled;  and his first words,
in French, as Bonfils entered the room, amounted, in the circumstances,
to a statement of his intention not to expose the Princess but to
use her as an ally, subject of course to Bonfils' approval.

"Congratulate the Princess.  She has netted a few of the small
fry very neatly.  She offered now to help us catch the big ones.
Can you spare her?"

Bonfils smiled engagingly.  He was a rather small man with a big
man's shoulders and a poet's way of using them, so that one word
conveyed an essay on things unsaid.

"Cordially!"

Bonfils' smile had malice--meant for the Princess, and she knew it;
however, he had the subtle courtesy to pretend it was meant for
Zalinsky.  He turned it on all three prisoners, and the two civilians
looked embarrassed, but Zalinsky showed his teeth under the long
moustache that almost hid the ferocity of a telltale upper-lip.
I did not catch Zalinsky's words;  he spoke sotto voce and extremely
rapidly;  but it was a threat, as obviously as a rattler's warning
is.  I learned from Grim, that evening, that what it amounted to
was a promise to create a much worse scandal than the affaire Dreyfus.
Bonfils made no audible answer.  Then the military escort came;
Zalinsky was informed that a car awaited him;  he swaggered off;
and hardly sixty seconds after that the two civilians were not so
courteously hustled downstairs to a motor-van provided by the Prefect.

Then the fun began--genuine fun, in which Bonfils vied with Grim,
and the Prefect competed with both of them, in efforts to force
the Princess Baltis so to compromise herself that she would never
be able again to escape from the toils they intended to weave around
her.  And she broke their toils as swiftly as they wove.  She was
like Penelope, who baffled all the suitors in Odysseus' absence.
It was surprising that she did not claim to have been Penelope in
a previous life, but that was about the only argument she did not
use;  and probably the only reason why she did not use it was that
it would have suggested Dorje as Odysseus and herself as being
faithful to him.

Taxed with having admitted to Grim, and to Jeff and myself, her
sympathy for Dorje and her complicity in Dorje's plans, she retorted
reasonably that she had supposed we were Dorje's agents and that
she had therefore assumed that attitude in order to tempt us to
trust her and reveal Dorje's secrets.  How should she know we were
authorized agents of the French Government?  And since we were
nothing of the kind it was obviously impossible to find fault with
her for not knowing it.  Besides, were we not intimates of Meldrum
Strange?  And had not she herself been sent by Bonfils to extract
from Strange's files a document considered scandalously anti-French?
If Strange was an abominable person, why were we, his self-confessed
friends, not equally fit subjects for her genius, forever ready as
it was to labour diligently for the sake of the Republic?

Taxed with interference without orders into an intrigue that she
had neglected even to mention to her superiors, she retorted with
the most marvellously impudent alibi that even a secret service
ever listened to.  She hinted--so adroitly that she avoided
compromising herself, and yet so convincingly that the thrust
went straight home--that the secret service itself had been
corrupted by Dorje's agents, so that she had not felt justified
in making a report until she knew to whom it could be made without
risk of playing into Dorje's hands.

She herself turned cross-examiner.  Did Bonfils not know--or had
he not at least suspected for two or three years--that someone by
the name of Dorje was attempting to destroy civilization in order
to get the entire world into his own control?  Did he or did he
not know it?  If he did not, what kind of an espionage officer
did he consider himself?  If he had known it all along, by what
right had he virtually shelved herself, who had never failed him?
Why had he not at once sent for her and assigned her to a task
for which she was much better fitted than anyone else in the service?
And since he had not sent for her, was she not justified in wondering
whether he, too, had been won over by Dorje's agents?

Bonfils told her why she had been dropped from the list of active
agents during the past year or so.  "You are too notorious.  Too
many people recognize you.  To employ you is to advertise that we
are conducting an investigation."

She exploded--ridiculed him--mocked him:  "Nevertheless, you have
the impudence to tell me that I worked without your knowledge?
If I am so obvious to other people, how is it that you say you
did not know I had employed myself in this affaire Dorje?
Furthermore, was it not you yourself who embraced me and commended
me because, in the affaire Habibullah, I acted without waiting
for orders?  Mon major, you are inconsistent."

She put up an equally vivid defence against the Prefect's charge
that she had guilty knowledge of the presence in Marseilles of
those strange instruments that did such damage.  Had she warned
him, he could have captured them before they were distributed and
hidden.  She accused the Prefect of having interfered and ruined
her last chance of discovering what had become of that shipment
of "scrap-brass."  She almost blamed him for the warship disaster;
she entirely blamed him for the fire at the Prefecture that had
destroyed so many valuable records.

"You, too!  Do you dare to say you did not know me?  After what
has been said by Major Bonfils, have you the effrontery to declare
that you did not suspect me of being engaged on an affaire outside
your province, in which it would be an impertinence for you to
interfere unless invited?  Why did you not consult me?  Why did
you not assure yourself before you came crashing into my delicate
plans, with your long nose and your big feet and your drove of
idiots whom it pleases your conceit to call detectives?"

Grim was the only one she spared.  She misunderstood Grim.  First
and last she feared his malice, all the more suspecting it because
no trace of it appeared.  As a matter of fact, his lack of malice
was his greatest strength and weakness;  keeping him clear-visioned
and able to weigh one set of circumstances with another, misleading
many a rash opponent into one rash step too many.  But those to
whom he had a right to look for support in a tight place left him
in the lurch for fear he might desert them.  Too many people think
that malice is an essential ingredient of courage.  Certainly the
Princess Baltis thought so, and she was on perpetual watch for it
in Grim, undoubtedly believing he possessed a brand of it that would
bowl her over should he loose it.

Me she roasted mercilessly, calling me a keyhole peeper.  She
insisted that my permanently bloodshot eye was ruined by the
draughts from keyholes and that my knowledge of French was picked
up in unmentionable places.  She demanded to know why she should
not have suspected me;  and, since flattery is the best weapon
to use against all defectives, why she should not have flattered
me by pretending to mistake me for Jeemgreem?  She roasted Jeff,
too.  She called him a buffalo--Jeemgreem's elephant--a monster,
tearing out the nails from window-frames--a "Type" who should be
showing off his strength for centimes in the streets of Paris.
Every word of that abuse was hurled at us with intent to suggest
by inference that Grim was a bird of a totally different feather.

Then she turned again on Bonfils, perfectly aware by that time
that if he could find a way to avoid exposing her he intended to
do it.  Her tongue and her very mercurial mind had probed the
situation.  Bonfils was not afraid of her, but others were, of
whom some were Bonfils' seniors in the service.  Bonfils had hardly
hinted at a tenth of one per cent of what he knew;  but then,
neither had she.  And what both of them knew, in addition to
numberless dangerous secrets, was that Dorje's scope was world-wide;
he was not in France or even on French territory;  no pursuit of
him, no check on him was possible without co-operation among many
nations, difficult to attain in principle and much more difficult
to put in practice.  Every possible weapon would have to be used
against him.  To throw her into the discard might prove fatal to
success, as well as disastrous to dozens of people whose secrets
she knew.  She led her ace, defiantly:

"Enfin--s'il vous plait, me mettez aux arrets!"

"You insist?" asked Bonfils--coolly enough;  he was not easily
bluffed into showing his hand.

"Why not?  You accuse me.  You insult me.  You invade my domicile.
You have submitted me to forcible detention in my own chair while
you amuse yourselves at peep-holes.  Then let l'affaire Dorje wait
while you prefer proper charges against me--in secret.  My improper
friends will have the impropriety to disregard the secrecy;  but
what does it matter who else is implicated, or on whose neck falls
the axe, provided Number Seventeen is punished for the crime of
having acted without orders from those who had condemned her to
inactivity and oblivion, not--no, no, not from jealousy--but
because she had served France too often and too well!"

It was a masterpiece.  It would have been a simple matter for
the authorities to accuse her of treason and try her in secret.
But if, as she suggested, she had friends who would avenge her
by revealing scandals, of which every government on earth has
plenty that it would be suicidal to make public, then Bonfils
was in a predicament.  And she was right, too, about the paramount
importance of a campaign against Dorje.  If Dorje was what he
appeared to be, then her own importance could be measured solely
by the value of the information she could produce against him,
no matter what her own previous complicity might have been.  The
question was, could she--would she betray Dorje?  Was she any
longer to be trusted?

With an eloquent motion of eyes and shoulders Bonfils beckoned
the Prefect and Grim outside into the corridor for a consultation
leaving Jeff and me to watch the Princess.  I was feeling a bit
irritated by her remarks about me, so I kept my distance.  On the
contrary, Jeff seemed to have enjoyed her criticism;  he urged
her to be seated and himself sat for the first time, facing her
near the open window.  Jeff is the last man in the world whom one
would suspect of delicate intuition, but as a matter of fact he
helps Grim far more by his diplomatic skill than by his physical
strength and courage, which are sometimes a source of embarrassment.
Unerringly he had spotted the lady's weakness, although I don't
know how.  Perhaps his own prodigious loyalty to Grim enabled him
to do it, since loyalty--like love between a man and a woman--is
a spiritual force that stirs and strengthens understanding.

"Would you like a tip from me?" he asked her.

I was standing where I could see her very clearly in the bright
light from the window.  For the first time, I thought she showed
genuine terror, although she did her utmost to conceal it.  Jeff
exudes good nature.  It had touched her, and like an animal at
bay she saw an opening but suspected it because it looked too o
pportune.  Jeff looked almost too guileless.

"Advice costs the giver nothing, but when was it not expensive to
take?" she retorted.

"You're right.  I wouldn't take advice from you," said Jeff, "if
it cost me a fortune not to.  But I thought you might be more
astute than I am."

"That is quite true.  I am more astute than you are."

But Jeff appeared to have lost all interest.  "Then you don't need
my advice," he answered.

"Tchutt!  You talk like a woman.  What is it?  If I listen to you,
need I do what you say?"

"I have changed my mind," Jeff answered.  "Why should I advise you?"

"Because I ask it!  Are you so ungallant that you can see me, in
what must look to you like an extremity, and yet withhold from me
whatever you think might help me?"

"It was a mere idea," said Jeff.

"Ideas are the source of actions.  Tell me then, what is it?"

"Put your faith in Grim, that's all.  Fool anybody else, but don't
play tricks with him;  there's neither fun nor money in it."

"Phooh!  You think your Jeemgreem is a paragon perhaps--a
reincarnation of all the strength of all his former lives, and
all the weaknesses forgotten?  A dangerous man to deceive?"

"I don't have to think about that," said Jeff, "I know it."

That was a typical Jeff Ramsden statement.  When he praises Grim
he has no more use for modesty than a buffalo has for a bicycle.
However, underneath exaggeration Jeff moves subtly toward his
objectives;  he was aiming at her strangely erroneous fixed idea
that Jimgrim packs a deadly species of malice among his equipment.
And even I, who am not a connoisseur of such matters, could guess
that she, to put it mildly, had not yet dismissed the desire, and
perhaps the intention to make Grim love her.  She was not by many
a dozen the first ambitious woman to conceive that plan or something
like it.

"Bah!  He hates me," she said suddenly.

"I never knew him to hate anyone," Jeff answered.  "Grim likes people.
That's why he understands 'em.  That's why the worst crooks trust him."

"Yes, and then he betrays them to the police."

Jeff laughed.  "I have seen Grim eat with murderers and sleep with
rebels.  He doesn't consider it his business to bring them to
justice, and I'll bet you Grim has saved more criminals from gun
and gallows than any other ten men living.  But he can protect
himself--none better."

"Then you advise me I should trust him?"

Jeff nodded.  Grim came in then, leaving the door slightly ajar,
and we could hear Bonfils and the Prefect talking rather noisily
in the corridor.  I think the Princess was intended to understand
that neither Bonfils nor the Prefect had an ear to a keyhole.  Grim
walked straight up to her.

"You'll have to go to Paris," he said, offering her a cigarette
and lighting hers and his with one match.  "A lot depends on you,
of course, but probably they'll overlook things if you undertake
to help us run down Dorje.  You will leave by 'plane, this afternoon,
with Bonfils."

For as long as sixty seconds the two looked into each other's eyes
and neither spoke.  Then Grim said:

"Dorje has lost the fight on this front.  Nobody knows yet where
the rest of those brass gadgets are, but they'll be traced.  You
can probably help.  I advise you to give them a list of everyone
you know who is in sympathy with Dorje or in any way connected
with him."

"But I have no list," she answered.

"All right, tell the names you can remember.  After that, your
usefulness in France is at an end;  and even if it weren't you
would be shot or stabbed as an informer.  So you join my crew
and work with me.  Is that agreeable?"

"You mean--you send me against Dorje?"

"No.  I will lead you against him."

"Jeemgreem, if I swear to you--"

He interrupted, flicking the ash from his cigarette.  "Oaths," he
remarked, "are ashes--of emotion.  Nobody was ever bound by one.
A fellow does things, or he doesn't;  it depends on the fellow
himself.  Dorje probably will do his best to scupper you for
having joined us, but you must take your chance of that.  We shall
all be taking chances."

"Jeemgreem--do you realize--what terr-r-iffic chances?"

"Probably not.  Thank heaven, few of us do realize the long odds
that we're up against or most of us would quit before the game
starts.  But let me make a few points just a mite more clear to you."

I was afraid he was going to threaten her.  She was just of the
type that instantly responds to threats by seeming acquiescence
and by secretly swearing to teach the threatener a lesson.  She,
too, thought he was about to threaten and her face assumed a
sweetness that disguised a very different emotion.  But Grim took
us all by surprise.

"I know that Dorje has the jump on us, and that it is going to
be very difficult to checkmate him.  I regard you as the most
important member of my crew.  I'm going to have to look to you
for information and advice.  I can't waste time mistrusting you.
You will find when you reach Paris that a body not unlike yours
has been found in the river, removed to the morgue and identified
as that of the Princess Baltis.  There will be a verdict of suicide--
a verdict comprehensible to anyone who knows anything about your
recent doings.  It may possibly reach Dorje's ears.  Let's hope so.
It releases you from momentary danger, and it saves the face of
the authorities who might have a hard time otherwise in explaining
to one another why you are not under close arrest.  You are dead.
You are no longer the Princess Baltis."

"Am I not--no longer Number Seventeen?"

"No number.  Find a new name.  Get a passport--Bonfils will attend
to that.  Meet me in Cairo at Brown's Hotel."

"You leave at once?"

"No.  But you do.  They won't want you in Paris a minute longer
than they have to keep you there.  Go straight to Cairo, hold your
tongue, and wait for me."

He took no notice of her excitement;  she was as breathless as a
caught fish.  He turned to Jeff and, taking Jeff's arm, walked to
where I was standing.

"You two fellows mind going to Cairo?  I'll take a 'plane to London.
Whoever gets to Cairo first waits for the rest.  Are we all agreed?
Then so long."  But he turned again toward the Princess Baltis.
"Madame Anonyme--au revoir.  J' espere que vous etes bien re-encarnee
encore une fois."

"Jeemgreem," she retorted, "vous etes incroyable.  Mais je commence
de le croire, quand-meme que tout le monde le dit!"




Chapter Eight

"Am sadist. Masochism to the devil!"


"Am most absqueamious babu."

It was a full, rich baritone, outside the door of Jeff's bedroom
in Brown's Hotel.  I did not recognize the voice, but evidently
Jeff did, for I heard his answer:

"You fat rogue, come on in.  I'm glad to see you."

I followed, having fretted for more than a week in Cairo with
nothing to do except wonder what was keeping Grim in London.  Jeff
had remained almost incommunicado all that time, because people
know him and they know that where he is Grim will presently appear.
He preferred not to answer questions.  People don't know me, so I
had wandered about a bit;  but I don't care much for Cairo or
tourists, and I had not gone far for fear of missing Grim's arrival,
so I was rather naturally bored.

"Am squeamish, so abstain from politics--verb very sap.  This
babu greets you, sahib.  You should see my passport.  Red ink--
green ink--certifying me as almost abstract personage, so guileless
and incompetent--so useless as to be above suspicion.  Let me
show you."

"Datum your passport.  You may have forged it for all I know, and
who cares?  Why are you here?"

"Jimgrim cabled me from London, one word--'Cairo.'  Here I am,
delivered right side up, in one piece.  What next?"  He was wearing
a black alpaca jacket and beneath that the rather sketchy orthodox
Bengali costume that revealed enormous hairy legs.  He was immensely
fat.  His feet were encased in new red Damascus slippers, which
he kicked off as he passed the threshold.  He had a huge head and
large alert brown eyes that viewed me with suspicion.  Jeff
introduced him:

"Babu Chullunder Ghose--an old friend."

I had heard of him.  Who has not, who has heard of Jeff and Grim?
But it seemed incredible that this mountain of obesity could be
the brave man who had scaled the passes into Tibet and had brought
Jeff's journal back with him.  He looked incapable of walking five
miles.  He was sweating and his feet looked fat and useless.  But
he was a good-looking man, with a buttery ivory skin and rather
heavy jaws blackshaded with the roots of whiskers.

"No use asking how you are," said Jeff.  "You're broke, of course,
but otherwise--"

"Am worse than broke.  Am indigent."

"But otherwise top-chop.  What's going on in India?"

"Simonization process, sahib.  Spraying worn-out car of Juggernaut
with juice of observations made by Royal Commission.  Have you
ever seen an old Ford held together by the new paint?  Let us hope
much.  Let us not be too prophetic.  Did you mention whisky?"

Jeff ordered drinks.  Chullunder Ghose sat cross-legged on Jeff's
writing-table like a big fat Buddha.  Rolling his handkerchief
into a ball he tossed and caught it in his bare toes.  I decided
that his feet were neither fat nor useless.

"How did you get here?" Jeff asked.

"Flew.  Never again!  This belly of mine contains no gyroscope.
Lost one stone, five pounds, seven ounces.  During a number of
hours lost also all belief in Providence, under whatever name.
Nevertheless, recovered somewhat after landing.  But I still
need whisky."

"How did you find me?"

"Came here first, naturally;  Rammy sahib's habits are as spots
on leopard--changeless.  Clerk at desk, without looking in register,
said no Jeff Ramsden staying here.  Dam-liar.  Had you not been here,
he would have looked in register.  I told him greatest art is lying,
therefore he should marry and study art.  He told a Sudanese to
show me to the front door, but I had already seen that.  So, since
they would not let me use the elevator, and since I had seen a
letter addressed to you in a pigeon-hole numbered 118, I walked
upstairs.  In all the universe, I wonder, is there any sweeter
music than the melody of cracked ice in a tall glass?  Strange,
that whisky should be vilified by almost all religions except this
babu's.  A Hedonist with epicurean tendencies.  After you, sahib.
Yes, please--just above the pretty--quite a bit above it--and now
fill her up-ah!  Sahibs, may the world not lack the crazy men we
need to keep us crazy also!"

That was talk.  He only sipped his whisky, eyeing me over the top
of the glass.  He seemed to be waiting for Jeff to hint I might
be trusted, before asking questions that perhaps I had no right
to hear.

"Jeff, sahib, did you ever almost die of curiosity?" he asked at last.

"Don't doubt I died of it lots of times," Jeff answered.

"That's what kills us all and gets us born again.  Crosby is curious
too.  He'll listen in."

The babu bowed in my direction with the gesture of a Buddha
bestowing benison.  "Am flattered.  May your honour not regret
same.  Who is the Princesse Chalawan de Sitlab en Siam?"

"I never heard of her," said Jeff.  "Why?"

"It is the why-ness of things that brought this otiose babu through
space, like Arjuna's arrow--air--sick--very.  Why Cairo?  Why should
Jimgrim wish to see me?  Why should a polylinguistic princess by
the name of Chalawan de Sitlab, occupying semi-regal suite in this
hotel, suborn its servants to inform her instantly when visitors
approach your honour?"

"How the devil do you know that?" Jeff asked.

"Am blameless.  Devil that resides in Jimgrim urging, this babu
was victim of impulse.  Never yet has Jimgrim sent for me to kiss me.
Inference is obvious that Jimgrim is again on war-path, meaning that
this babu will work and not get paid for it--except, of course, as
stipulated--stipulation not yet argued.  Have wife who thinks money
is only proof of masculine fidelity.  Am sole support of seven
married sons, whose offspring suggest astronomical figures, and
whose contempt for this progenitor increases in proportion to his
debts.  Consequently, must please Jimgrim.  So, when was approached
in corridor by negroid lackey asking if I visit one-eighteen, lied
instantly--quicker than trigger of automatic.  Walked full length
of corridor looking at numbers on doors, turned at the end of
corridor and saw said individual considering me from mat in front
of door of Suite A squatting on it.  Naturally, went at once to
Suite A which is at opposite end of corridor.  Screen in front of
door.  Door open to admit draught--maybe--possibly--perhaps;  but
it is easier to hear when door is not shut.  Do I bore you, sahib?"

"Bore ahead.  We're listening."

"Must please Jimgrim, same being easy if you give him all he wants;
but that is less easy.  Jimgrim asks three questions and expects
to be told everything from A to Z and from Einstein to twice two,
all in form of telegram of ten words.  Demanded to be told,
accordingly, who lives in Suite A!  Sudanese outpost on mat,
probably unable to pronounce suborner's name, instructed me to
go to hell in Arabic.  Stepped around screen, announcing self in
tone sufficiently immodest to avoid arrest for burglary.  Was
confronted by Syrian maid, who told me name of her employer.  Said
employer, radiantly visible in mirror through crack of door of
inner room, spoke rapidly to maid in Arabic, to this babu in
Hindustanee, to someone else invisible in French.  Unless mirror
lied (as I did) she is lovelier to look at than a daffodil in
lotus-coloured lingerie.  She asked me, was I from Jimgrim?  Naturally,
I answered No, since truth is deadly and a half-truth even more so.
So she asked me, did I come from Dorje?  To which I naturally answered
Yes, not knowing Dorje and being curious concerning everything to
which I am ignorant.  Then she summoned the maid and slammed the
door.  Plenty of time for observation.  Noticed locked trunk.  Name
Baltis rather heavily obscured by red paint.  Baltis--Sitlab backwards!
Syrian maid--mystery--mystery--her Highness will be pleased to speak
with me--alone--this afternoon--at four-fifteen.  Thus mystified,
this babu departed thence and hied him hither.  Rammy sahib, in the
name of all the devils in the universe, is our Jimgrim after Dorje?"

Jeff nodded.

"Oh my amiable aunt!  Have you seen the papers?  An explosion on
a warship--a fire in Marseilles--a fire in Parisa--fire in Geneva--
an explosion of a magazine in Toulon--a fire in Lisel--a fire in
Brest--a fire in Toulouse--and then silence!"

"Censorship," said Jeff.

"And Jimgrim--leads us against Dorje?  Oh, my infinite emotions!
Yes, please.  We shall not drink many before Dorje gets us."

"You said you don't know him."

"Rammy sahib, who does?  More--twice that much--fill her up with
soda--thank you.  Who knows who or where he is?  All Asia brags
that he is just beyond the skyline--coming--always coming.  The
King of the World is coming--they have said that for a hundred
years--for a thousand years.  Dorje is the genius who saw his
chance to capitalize on all that advertising!  It is what I myself
have often thought of doing--would have done same, only I lack
romantic appearance.  There is something about me that makes men
doubt my heroism.  Doubters are not good diehards.  Furthermore,
I am afraid of consequences.  Dorje is afraid of nothing."

"How do you know all this?" Jeff asked him.

"Oh, for God's sake!  Have I not been wooed by a woman who said
she was one of Dorje's thousand concubines?  Did she not tempt me
to be one of Dorje's million mouths?  This babu has mouth which
eats, I told her.  May I eat for Dorje?  But she requested me to
feed her, saying Dorje expects help from every man.  She ate my
dinner--and then told me that I may speak for Dorje or be silent;
but that if I speak against him silence will descend upon me with
a permanence suggested by a death certificate."

"Why should they pick on you?" Jeff asked him.

"Why not?  Is this babu not notorious for helping everyone except
himself?  Am form and substance of Gray's Elegy--am mute inglorious
Milton--personage called goat in U.S.A.--embodiment of hope eternal,
which is but a pseudonym for Sisyphus or back-seat on a bicycle
built for two.  Such pitiable optimists as this babu build all the
empires--and then die in agonies of unrewarded zeal.  That is why
Dorje picked on me."

"Do you mean that Dorje personally picked you?"

"Why not?  Winning consists in being won for.  Verb sap.  So if
Dorje cannot pick winners, kites and crows will presently be picking
Dorje.  Self am best bet in the universe, provided quid pro quo is
adequate.  But there were too few quids and too much quo."

"Have you a room?" I asked him.

"Not yet, sahib."

So I went down to the desk and had a chat with Dougherty, who
used to run a Raines Law joint in New York and is familiar with
several angles of the hotel business.  He made no bones at all
about letting Chullunder Ghose have a room that has been used
scores of times for some of the more refined and guileless
diplomatic interludes.  "It is the end room on that corridor and
seems utterly above suspicion.  On the one hand is a public lavatory,
and on the other a sort of butler's pantry and some linen-closets.
Anyone might talk in there until doomsday without being overheard,
if it were not for a narrow passageway between the closets and
the outside wall that was once used to connect that room with the
next one along the corridor.  The passage has been boarded up at
one end.  The holes in the boards are usually plugged up, but not
always.  I myself had used those rooms in 1916 to discover a
medical secret that was thought important to the Allies."

"I suppose you were seen to enter this room?"  I suggested, when
I had told Chullunder Ghose of the arrangement.

"Yes, sahib, not improbably--although I told that Sudanese that
he was wanted inside, and I locked him in, not wishing him to mind
my business.  I was in here before they could summon anyone by bell
to let him out.  But he who brought drinks--"

"Suliman," said Jeff, "has worked for me at intervals for fifteen
years.  I don't think he would talk about what goes on in here--
not unless someone bribed extremely high and scared him at the
same time."

Babu Chullunder Ghose began to grow excited.  Again he pulled out
his handkerchief and caught it between his toes repeatedly.

"Tell me about this princess, sahibs!  Tell me all you know about
her.  Then find someone who will summon her to visit me in that room."

So we told him all we knew, and that took less time than one might
suppose.  His vivid imagination leaped from one fact to another
with such rapidity that we could hardly keep up with him.  He
cracked his toes.  He cracked his big fat fingers.  He blew his
nose--and wiped his face--and threw his handkerchief--and caught
it with his foot--then suddenly resumed his Buddha-like composure
along with his normal air of what be calls Uriah-Heepishness.

"Am failed B.A. Calcutta, lynx-eyed examiners having prevented
this babu from using most ingeniously folded notes.  Am failed
promoter of so many enterprises that I suspect the akasic record
has forgotten half of them.  Am so well used to failure in all
personal affairs that I could write a book about it.  But its
publishers also would fail.  Am a merciful man;  why bankrupt
publishers?  Paradoxically flat broke, am physically fat, not
flat.  Nobody loves fat men.  Nevertheless, what woman but
confides in them?  They love but never trust the lucky lean ones.
They trust but never love us solidly embowelled drums of wisdom.
Failure, am I?  Sahibs, set me in a room with all the lovely women
in the world--and I will tell you all their secrets quicker than
a bird can pick the teeth of crocodiles!!"

The problem was to get him into that room unseen by the Princess
or her servants.  The more we could tell Grim about her, the better
for Grim and the worse for her, if she were contemplating treachery.
But she was no fool, and she undoubtedly knew which rooms we occupied.
If she should learn that Chullunder Ghose had visited Jeff's room,
it would be all up with any hope of getting her to confide in him.
We solved it by going ourselves to call on her.  We told the servant
on the mat--humiliated and suspicious from having been locked in--
that there was a box of flowers for her Highness in the lobby.  He
made the mistake of being insolent, which gave us an excuse to kick
him downstairs;  and that gave Chullunder Ghose any amount of time
to get into the end room unseen.  Then we knocked and the Syrian
maid took our cards but said her mistress could see nobody that
afternoon.  After that I went down to the desk and arranged with
Dougherty to send word to the Princess that the gentleman from
India would receive her at four-fifteen in room 195.  Then we hid
in the passage between the linen closets and the wall;  it was
tight quarters and abominably hot, but there was just room for
the two of us to peer through the holes in the wooden partition.

As a matter of fact, my prejudices at the moment were in favour
of the Princess.  I could not help remembering her remarks about
my being a keyhole peeper, and although Jeff's bulk made the
discomfort in that narrow passage almost unendurable, the fact
that he seemed to have no compunctions about what we were doing
was the only relief to the strain of my self-respect.  Knowledge
that she was a crook of unimpeachable impudence did not compensate
for the distasteful nature of the job.

However, almost from the moment she entered the room that aspect
of the situation vanished.  I was glad I was listening.  So was
Jeff.  We ceased even to be conscious of the stifling heat,
although sweat streamed into our eyes and our joints ached with
the strain of keeping still in awkward attitudes.  We could see
fairly well, and hear almost perfectly because Chullunder Ghose
had thoughtfully set two chairs between us and the window.

"Why should I come to see you?" she demanded.  "Why did you not
come to my apartment?"

I could not have answered her as Chullunder Ghose did.  She was
too beautiful and too regally dressed to be treated with anything
less than politeness, by anyone not incorrigibly hard-boiled.  But
the babu was boiled in India, where insults are the salt of
diplomatic conversation.

"Fortunately you obeyed me," he answered.  "What have you to say
for yourself?"

She retorted:  "I don't know you.  Give the password."

"It has been changed," he answered, "since you failed--and deserted
your post--and brought this situation on us.  If there is any reason
why you should not die before you do us any further injury, I am
commissioned to hear it."

"But who are you?" she demanded.

"Your judge.  Sit down and say what you have to say;  I will listen
unless you take too long about it."

She sat down facing him.  Chullunder Ghose assumed an expression
of placid indifference.  If she looked beautiful in his eyes, he
contrived perfectly not to suggest it.

"Give me proof," she demanded.  She seemed a totally different
woman to the one I had seen in Marseilles.  Then she had been,
if anything, over-confident.  "How did you find me here?  How did
you know I was coming?"

"I am not here to answer your questions," said Chullunder Ghose,
"but to receive your answer.  Have you anything to say?"

She made up her mind.  She sat back relaxed in the chair.

"If you are who you pretend to be, you may tell Dorje I have
changed sides.  As for you, if you think you can kill me, try it.
I have met a man who is greater than Dorje."  Then, lazily, as
if she no longer cared for anything, she let her eyes wander
around the room;  they dwelt on the papered wooden partition,
behind which Jeff and I lurked, for perhaps a second longer than
on any object.  "Dorje," she said, "has elements of greatness, but
he won't last.  He never did finish anything.  When he was Solomon,
the wealthiest king in the world, he went to pieces.  As Karl Marx
he could only sow seeds.  He has sown them again.  And another
will reap.  Tell Dorje that."

"May I tell him who is this paragon?"

She appeared to weigh this carefully, as if she felt tempted to
name the individual before whose rising splendour Dorje's destiny
had waned.  However, she smiled at last, as if enjoying what
she foresaw:

"Dorje will know soon enough.  As for you, let me out of this
room before I lose patience with you."

She had the gift of absolutely regal insolence, but Chullunder
Ghose had the equally great one of sublime cheek.  Smiling as if
fifty murderers were at his beck and call, he got up, bowed to
her and started toward the door;  but before he opened it he could
not resist one Fat Boy shot to make her flesh creep:

"Sad, that one so beautiful and talented must die so horribly,
and so soon.  How pleased I would have been to modify at least
the method, even though your life is forfeit."

She sneered as he opened the door for her.  "You sound," she said
"like one of Dorje's agents!  He invariably uses sentimental fools
who forget the countersign!"

We gave her time to reach her own apartment and then joined
Chullunder Ghose.  He was wiping his face with a towel, comically
forlorn but as shrewd as ever.

"Sahibs, if I were Dorje I would drown her, because if Dorje were
King of the World she would look for someone to defeat him.  If
I were God she would never have been invented, so the world would
be less interesting.  If I were you, I would go now back to Rammy
sahib's room and wait for what she does next, because she will
do it swiftly.  And if I were Jimgrim, I would not believe her
when she says she is now against Dorje, any more than she believed
me when I told her I am Dorje's agent.  Furthermore, she knew
there was someone behind that panel.  Oh, I like her!  This babu
is once again a slave of Hanuman, who is a god of fortunately
futile love-affairs.  I hope she dies in torments before she
disillusions me.  Am sadist.  Masochism to the devil!  But make
haste, sahibs, because she is not lethargic like a cobra or a
mongoose or electricity.  The speed of light lags like a hearse
when she thinks.  And take my word for it:  if she were off with
the old love Dorje, she would not have hinted at the new love
Jimgrim;  she would be too anxious to guard Jimgrim from Dorje's
anger.  Did I not say I would pick her secret like a pop out of
a weasel?  And the whole world for a battleground--oh, why was
I not born into Jimgrim's shoes!"



Chapter Nine

"Emperor Jimgrim--how does that sound?"


When we returned to Jeff's room there were two Arabs seated on
the mat outside the door.  They were dressed for the desert and
looked as hard-bitten as two dry bones.  Their faces, framed in
the flowing headgear that would make a Sphynx out of a tailor's
dummy, were further obscured by the gloom, but Jeff seemed to
recognize one of them.  I supposed it was one of his multitude
of rag-tag and bob-tail acquaintances, so I went on in and left
Jeff standing there.  Chullunder Ghose came in presently and asked
me who the men were.

"It would be just like Rammy sahib to invent excuses for a trip
on camel-back from here to Baluchistan.  It stands to reason that
if Dorje is in Cairo we should go to Tashkent, and by the most
uncomfortable means."

"Why do you think Dorje is in Cairo?" I demanded.

"I don't think.  I know Dorje is not here.  If he were here Jimgrim
would be here too.  I am afraid we leave from here by camel, for
parts unknown.  I am afraid we are tertium quids, like husbands
in Reno, U.S.A.  I think our Jimgrim uses us as generals use heroes;
he sends us off in one direction to deceive the enemy by getting
blown to smithereens, while he performs strategic retreat.  I
think he wants Dorje to believe he is in Cairo.  And at the same
time, I am damned if I know what I do think, except that camels
are an anachronism."

Jeff came in and the Arabs followed.  He unstrapped his travelling
rug and spread that in a corner for them.  They sat down like two
roadweary veterans who dourly mistrust civilization;  and when
they had studied the furniture frankly, and us secretively, they
relapsed into meditation.  Jeff did not go to the trouble of
introducing them, so I supposed they were old acquaintances who
had come to ask a favour, although it was a mystery how they should
have known he was in Cairo.  Chullunder Ghose whispered to me:

"Those two are from the Princess.  Watch them."

He had hardly finished making that remark when the Princess herself
entered.  She had sent her servant in advance to knock on the door,
but the man made no attempt to come in with her.  Jeff dragged a
chair up but she remained standing:

"It is about that man."  She nodded toward the babu, who salaamed
without betraying reverence.  He seemed intent on aggravating her.
"He is a dangerous fool, who just now boasted to me that he comes
direct from Dorje."

Chullunder Ghose suddenly strode toward her, scowling straight
into her eyes:

"If I am not Dorje himself, who am I?" he demanded.

"Is he a madman?" she asked.

"Very well then, never mind who I am.  Dorje is in this room.
Which is he?"

She glanced at the Arabs and shrugged her shoulders.

"Did you see that, sahibs?  She knows Dorje by sight."

"Did you send this man to spy on me just now?" she asked Jeff.
"I shall go away at once if I am to expect this kind of thing.
Where is Jeemgreem?  Here in this boring place I have waited
patiently--stagnating--doing nothing--"

She paused and Chullunder Ghose nudged me.  His mild brown eyes
were masking, I thought, hurricanes of inward laughter.

The Princess stared at each of us in turn and then continued:

"I have done nothing--nothing, while I might have helped you
against Dorje, as I promised Jeemgreem I would."

"Na'am," remarked one of the Arabs.

"Who are those?" she demanded.

"No one in particular," said Jeff.  "Just friends of mine."

She looked at them suspiciously, then curled that scarmarked
upper-lip at Jeff and me:

"You are incompetents.  It is useless to hope to work with you.
Dorje is making his moves to be King of the World, while all you
do is loaf in bedrooms and submit me to humiliating espionage."

"Na'am," said the Arab again.

"Does he understand English?"  She turned on the Arab and tongue-lashed
him in fluent Arabic, but he took no notice of her.

"Wrong dialect," said Jeff.  "He isn't from the Fayoum."

"No matter."  She shrugged her shoulders again.  She seemed
exasperated almost to hysteria.

"You see," said Jeff, as gently as he could with that great
growling voice of his, "you don't know Grim yet.  When--"

"Know him?" she retorted.  "I am weary of him!  When I make promises
I keep them.  I promised help against Dorje--"

"Na'am," said the Arab, and I thought Chullunder Ghose would burst.
He was sweating with excitement about something.

"Yet what can I do?"

"You have done all you could," said the Arab.  "I have never had
more help from anyone."

She behaved perfectly, not pretending not to be astonished, but
controlling herself perfectly.  She was at her best when suddenly
alarmed, or in sudden emergency.  It was Chullunder Ghose who
threw all restraint to the winds, let go a roar of delight and
actually danced, like a big fat devotee of Siva, among the chairs
and suitcases.

"Jimmy sahib!  Jimgrim!" he shouted.  And there were tears in his
eyes.  "This babu knew you!  Dammit--did I sit still?  Dammit--
did I talk like son of sucking-pig from Sodom and Gomorrah just
to keep myself from giving college-yell of University of Hook-or-Crook?
Oh, Jimmy--Jimmy--Jimmysahib!  Jimgrim!  This babu says salaam up
from cockles of his being!"

"Cheerio, Chullunder Ghose," Grim answered.  "Come and shake hands."

"Sahib, this is Fountain of Youth!  This old babu is young again!"

Grim smiled, and anyone could have picked him out then from a
thousand men.  Without ceasing to smile, and with the babu's hand
still working his up and down like a pumphandle, he said suddenly:

"Lock that door, someone, and give me the key."

I was just in time to prevent the Princess from escaping, although
escape is hardly the proper word.  She had moved toward the door
as those rarely great actresses can who are on or off stage before
anyone knows it.  There was so little suggestion of flight that I
felt like a clumsy hoodlum when I intercepted her and turned the key.

"You remind me," she said, "of a pig on its way to the trough at
feeding-time."

I tossed the key into Grim's lap and offered her a chair, but she
took another one.  Chullunder Ghose hove himself up on to Jeff's
writing-table and squatted there, still chuckling at Grim, who
was talking now in undertones to the man on the mat beside him.

"Oh, beg pardon," he said suddenly, "I haven't introduced you,
have I?  This is Colonel Howard McGowan--Madame la Princesse
Chalawan de Sitlab en Siam--Jeff Ramsden--Bob Crosby--and Chullunder
Ghose.  Colonel McGowan is of the British Army--special service."

"I vote we drink.  Will the Princess join us?" asked McGowan.  He
was a man of Grim's height--taller, that is, than the ordinary, but
not so tall as to attract attention.  His face looked almost exactly
like an Arab's, hooked nose and all;  but for his Scots name I
would have guessed him as being of Hebrew ancestry and his eyes,
too, had the Hebrew liquid intelligence that seems to make so many
of them linguists and Jacks of any trade.  He was a man whom you
could no more help liking when he looked directly at you than you
could have helped wondering at the way he and Grim dissolved
themselves, apparently at will, into men of the wind-seared desert--
and then reasserted Western breeding at a moment's notice.

By the time the drinks came--champagne, at McGowan's suggestion--
we were all feeling pretty keyed up and expectant, but the sense
of strain had vanished and even the Princess had entirely recovered
her poise, which was what I think Grim wanted her to do, it being
one of Grim's extraordinary maxims that even an enemy at his best,
can be depended on, whereas an enemy in dire straits is likely to
do something unexpected.  He claims, for instance, that when Saladin
sent a horse to Richard Coeur de Lion, so that Richard might fight
on equal terms, Saladin was merely wise, not chivalrous.  He touched
glasses with the Princess.

"I depended on you to get in touch with Dorje's agents here," he
assured her, smiling.  "Thanks to you, we caught Tassim Bey--among
others--among others," he repeated.  "I was in Cairo before you
were.  Fooled you by that cablegram that made you think I was
still in London.  What makes you think Tassim is so important?"

His disarming manner of having just laid down a bridge hand and
discussing it unnerved the Princess far more than, I think, arrest
or terroristic tactics would have done.  No spy of the genuine
cosmopolitan variety has any sense of loyalty whatever, but they
all have gamblers' instincts and a sense of sportsmanship that
far transcends mere bravery.  Their strength is delight in danger.
Their weakness is vanity.  Their genius consists in almost
superhumanly skilful opportunism.

"Tassim is a weakling," she answered.  "Dorje will kill him if
you don't.  I suppose that person"--scornfully she turned her eyes
toward Chullunder Ghose--"saw Tassim in my room.  Perhaps he heard
Tassim talking;  and I know he saw me in the mirror.  What of it?
Did I not say I would help you?  And how could I have helped you
without intriguing with Dorje's people?"

"True," said Grim, "you couldn't have.  I acknowledge your help.
We could hardly have managed without you.  But wasn't it a trifle
drastic to propose to burn this hotel?  True, that might have
killed Jeff Ramsden and Bob Crosby, but--"

"You accuse me of that?" she demanded.

"I don't need to.  Your Syrian maid is the source of the--shall
I say rumour?"

"And you, with your experience of Syrians, believe her?"

"Why not?  She was chosen by Colonel McGowan, for the same reason
that you engaged her--because she had served you so well once before.
That time you were working for the French and she was set by the
British to watch you.  This time--"

"Tassim talked of firing the hotel," she answered.

"Is that why your locked trunk had this in it?" Colonel McGowan
asked her.

From under his voluminous robe he produced a piece of brass tube
that had plugs screwed into both ends.  One of the plugs was not
screwed home;  he took hold of it as if about to give it a turn
or two.  I saw her wince, but she controlled herself.

"How many turns does it need," McGowan asked, "to make it dangerous?"

"Just one," Grim answered, "but it's all right, go on, turn it if
you want to.  Even the elevator isn't running.  The hotel folk
have turned off the juice at the main switch."

McGowan held it toward the Princess.  "Turn it for us," he suggested
naively.  "You know how."

She refused.  "I have nothing to do with it--nothing."

Jeff Ramsden stepped into that breach.  "May I see it?"  He held
it close to the Princess, taking one end between thumb and finger
as if about to apply force.  "Which end do you turn--this one?"

Then she yielded, but without panic.  She spoke quietly:

"That end.  But if you turn it--and if there is current turned on
in the next building--or in the next but one--and if there is
anything explosive within quite a wide radius--you will be sorry
you turned it, that's all."

"Thank you," said McGowan.  "That is just what I wanted to know.
Who hid the dynamite in this hotel?"

"Tassim Bey," she answered, "said he thought of doing it."

McGowan studied me a moment.  "I wonder if you'd lend me a suit
of your clothes.  Shoes, too.  Can you fit me?"

I gave him the key of my room, telling him to help himself.

"If there is dynamite," he said, "I'll find it.  But I want to
search without starting talk.  The likeliest place is the storeroom.
I'll give my right name and say I think a package belonging to me
got in there by mistake."

I locked the door behind him and returned the key to Grim, who
was examining the brass tube.  Suddenly he looked up at the Princess.

"You'll find it hard to believe," he said, "but I actually didn't
know you had any of these in that trunk.  You were watched so
carefully in France after the Marseilles incident that, clever
though you are, it seemed impossible for you to hide anything
from us.  But I know now how you did it.  Changed trunks, of course.
Swapped them in transit.  Was there anything in this trunk that
you personally need?"

She nodded, too alert to trust herself to speak.

"It is being gone through by McGowan's men," Grim went on.  "You
may have back anything that doesn't interest us.  This"--he tapped t
he brass tube with the door-key--"was made in the railway workshops--
from memory;  I'm flattered that it fooled you.  We found several
real ones;  but they were all destroyed in making tests.  There
was one bad accident.  The censorship was clapped on.  Some of
them appear to have reached the United States;  there was an
unexplained explosion in New Jersey that killed more than a hundred
people.  The new motor-ship Dido has sunk in mid-Atlantic.  Maiden
voyage.  Seen to blow up suddenly.  No survivors.  Nearly three
thousand people missing.  One or two of these things may have been
on board the Dido;  almost anyone could hide one in his luggage,
and not a ship on the sea is safe from them until we find the
source of the supply."

Jeff made a gruesome suggestion.  "Any good mechanic could fix up
clock-work mechanism that would turn that screw at the end of any
given number of hours or days.  Ship a trunk in the hold of a liner--
no need for Dorje's man to be on board."

Grim stood and looked at the Princess.  When he spoke, there was
not a trace in his voice of criticism:

"So you see, we must catch Dorje.  And I need your help again."

"You--you need no help from anyone," she answered.  "You, the devil."

But Grim did not look like the devil.  I drew the conclusion that
either she loved devils or else that she did not think Grim was one.

"What will you do if you catch him?" she asked.

Grim took thought before he answered:  "I will know that then."

Chullunder Ghose suddenly slapped his fat thigh a resounding thwack
that startled all of us and voiced stark-naked nonsense:

"Am immoralist.  Am weaned on theory that right and wrong are
two sides of self-same silly nonsense.  Can do--that is sole test
of what anyone should do.  Can get through to Tibet?  Do it.  Can
take your goods?  Do it.  Can be Caesar and Napoleon plus Alexander?
Do same.  Why not?  Why did God make little apples?  Nobody knows,
but wise men eat same, not asking questions.  Were I Jimmy sahib--
beg his pardon, were I honourable Jimgrim, having at my mercy most
astonishing Princess who wears orchid lingerie and whose infinite
variety is soul of wit etcetera, would take same--stay not on
the order of my taking, either!  Exquisite emotions notwithstanding,
then would positively out-do Dorje.  Slam-bang--go right to it!
Dorje's game is obvious--down with everything and up with Dorje!
Dorje is doing it.  Opportunist policy is obviously do in Dorje
and seize reins of Dorje's power!  Emperor Jimgrim--how does that
sound?  And such a woman to share one's throne--oh, is the champagne
finished?  I would like to drink to that thought--Emperor Jimmy
Jimgrim--Empress Baltis--Banzai, as the Japanese say!"

The Princess stared at him, then spoke in a rather strained voice:

"Did I call you a fool just now?"

"Your mistake," he answered.

Grim astonished me.  Unsmiling, serious, he turned to Jeff and
asked him:

"How about that?  What do you say?"

Jeff astonished me almost more than Grim did:  "Who wants an
emperor's job?  Chullunder Ghose is right;  a man should do what
he can.  But can you?"

"Someone must," Grim answered.  "Dorje has laid his plans too well;
he has got to blow up every arsenal and warship in the world, and
who can stop him?  The damned things seem to suck up electricity
and turn it into a vibration that sets off all explosives within
a radius that depends on nothing but the strength of the current.
Destroy all warships and ammunition--then what?  The man with a
sword is master, isn't he?"

"And I can love you, Jeemgreem," said the Princess.  "Dorje I do
not love.  Few do."

Grim caught my eye.  "What do you think?"

The babu interrupted:  "Treason against governments that plot
against each other!  Treason against kings and dictators and
parliaments and congresses that never yet have thought of anything
except how to exploit the unorganized!  Dorje is right!  The only
thing wrong with Dorje is that Jimgrim is better.  It is treasonable
not to vote for Jimgrim.  Am not treasonable person."

"Dammit, Jim, go steady," Jeff urged.

"Jeemgreem," said the Princess, "I will show you Dorje.  I will
lead you to him.  You, not Dorje, should be King of the World.
Forgive me, Jeemgreem, that I worked against you.  It was a very
bad mistake.  From now on I am for you, heart and soul."

Grim smiled at her.  "Why should I trust you?"

"Smile at me!  Smile like that at me!  Look into my eyes, Jeemgreem--
read there what is in them!"

There came a knock at the door, and when I turned the key McGowan
walked in, in a suit of my clothes.  The Princess's hands were on
Grim's shoulders and she was talking to him in undertones;
Chullunder Ghose and Jeff, in equally low tones, were arguing
over by the writing-table.

"What's going on?" McGowan asked.  "Yes, found the dynamite--in
tin cans--in a case marked chicken soup.  But what's up?"

"Grim is considering taking Dorje's place," I told him.

"High time, too," he answered.  "Someone must.  Reuters have just
announced that three of our cruisers blew up in Portsmouth Harbour.
We're afraid that Woolwich Arsenal may go next.  Can't turn off a
whole world's electricity.  We know there's a plot here in Cairo
to blow up the Citadel.  Armstrongs--Vicker's--Maxim--Nobels--
Duponts--all the makers of explosive in the world are at their
wits' end what to do.  It's a sure thing that Dorje will put all
our armies and navies out of existence in less than a week.  Then
what price India?  What price China?  What price Egypt, the Sudan,
Arabia?  What price you and me if someone doesn't kill Dorje and
seize control, Grim's the man--can't beat him!"

"Jeemgreem," I heard the Princess say, "you and I died because we
loved each other, when you were Sir Francis Weston and I was--"

But I had heard enough of that stuff.  I approached Jeff Ramsden,
but as I did so he spoke past me at Grim:

"If you and Chullunder Ghose are right I'll eat my hat, but damn
you, do as you like, Jim.  I'll stick."

What could I do?  A man can't niggle when the world seems at a
madman's mercy.  I said, "All right, I suppose I'll stick too.
But I think Grim's crazy."




Chapter Ten

"Dorje!  Dorje!"


It was I who was crazy.  Anyone who knew Grim might have known
that he was merely fooling Baltis.  Jeff's reluctance justified
her in believing Grim was serious.  Mine confirmed her opinion.
Jeff was acting a part.  I was not;  but nobody except the Princess,
and perhaps Grim, believed I was not, and my genuine friendship
with Chullunder Ghose dates from that moment when he leaped to
the entirely false conclusion that I had acted the part of
conscientious objector simply to convince the Princess that I
knew Grim was in earnest.

"Sahib," he said to me afterwards, "this world is full of wise
men who are big fools.  It takes a fool like me to be wise on
the spur of a moment.  But even when said spur pricks this babu
to hilarious hocus-pocus, what use would cosmic wisdom be without
such genius as yours, that acts like prohibitionist asserting
booze is banished from the U.S.A. and looks as if he means it!
Spur of moment is supreme test.  But for you, that woman would
have doubted Jimgrim.  Now, however, she doubts nothing except
whether ex-Queen of Sheba is suitable person to overthrow Solomon-Dorje."

"Does she believe all that junk about her previous incarnations?"

"Certainly she does.  That is why she is also able to believe that
Jimgrim would like to be King of the World.  Sahib, all of us have
heel-of-Achilles hidden somewhere in our anatomy.  Some think they
can buy paradise with money.  Rammy sahib thinks that difficulties
were made by God for us to smash and that only infidels avoid them.
This babu is satisfied of ultimate futility of all things;
nevertheless, am chaste voluptuary, fearful of extremes and yet
pursuing them because there seems no end to anything and why grow
weary of the middle?  That woman, otherwise sane as an icicle,
thinks she was Baltis Queen of Sheba, and Ann Boleyn and God knows
who else;  so she can be caught in snares that would not fool
even a politician.  And I know Jimgrim's weakness, but I will
not tell that.  Yours is lack of imagination, but I will not
tell that also--will merely make note of same for future purposes."

I suppose he was right.  I could not imagine, for instance, why
Colonel McGowan had shown no trace of hesitation in accepting the
idea that Grim should dethrone Dorje and seize world-dominion.  It
had shocked me.  Why should it not shock him, a British officer
on British territory?  Surely the first impact of the idea should
have made him hesitate.  And why should he trust me, a stranger,
so unreservedly?  He invited me to go with him around Cairo, to
look the situation over, as he expressed it, and we went together
to his quarters where he changed into his civilian clothes.  There,
something of the doubt in my mind probably escaped into the
conversation.  At any rate, he enlightened me:

"Grim is a wizard at picking the right line and the right man.  He
has taught me more in one week than I had learned in twenty-five
years.  As a matter of raw truth, we are absolutely up against it,
and it's much worse than is generally known.  We don't know what
the deuce to do.  The troops are almost out of hand;  you see, we
hardly dare to let them have a round of ammunition;  one--just one
of those damned brass gadgets is enough to blow 'em all to Kingdom
Come if there's an electric current within a mile of 'em.  We're
taking no chances of that, let me tell you.  We're evacuating the
Citadel, reserve ammunition and all.  No electricity out in the
desert.  Then if Dorje's men fire the city, we can march back
with our ammunition, instead of being caught like rats in a trap.
But come on, let's get busy."

Cairo was in ferment.  Reuter's cablegrams announcing the sinking
of British cruisers, following on a series of similar disasters
in France and explosions all over the world, had set all Europeans
and all the educated Egyptians by the ears.  The London Stock
Exchange had suspended business;  almost every other bourse,
including the cotton exchange in Alexandria, had followed suit.
There was a rumour, backed by enormous clouds of yellow smoke in
several directions, that the warehoused cotton crop was burning--
and now, on top of all that, the most alarming certainty of all,
that the troops--the hated, irritating, guardians of British
overlordship--were on the march, evacuating Cairo, with their
ammunition wagons hurrying southward ahead of them.

Rumours--rumours--rumours--of a war in the Sudan, of an invasion
by mutinous Sudanese, of a sudden invasion by Italy at war with
France and England--a proclamation posted in the streets forbidding
the use of all private electric installations until further notice--
motorcycles roaring through the streets because the telephone was
discontinued--another proclamation, misspelled and with the ink
still wet, issuing warning that as an emergency measure Cairo would
have no electricity until further notice but that kerosene had
been requisitioned by the Government and would be rationed for
use in oil-lamps.  Crowds, volatile, inflammable, afraid, so
swarming in the streets and around the mosques that it was almost
impossible for a car to get through.  Then an idiotic story, put
in the form of a question by a frenzied storekeeper who jumped
on the running-board and yelled in McGowan's face, that the
Abyssinians were marching down the Nile a million strong.

"And what the hell can anybody tell 'em?" asked McGowan, when we
had got rid of that man.

Someone else was telling plenty.  Someone was making rumours by
the hat-full and spreading them through the bazaars and back-streets.
There was a story of an air-raid on the way, made plausible by
the roar of the planes of the Royal Air Force circling over the
city in groups of three with the laudable object of restoring
confidence.  But worst of all, there was a tumult gathering in
the throats of narrow lanes and an increasing growl of "Dorje!"
that occasionally swelled into a mob-roar--"Dorje! Dorje!" and
grew low again.  It appeared to be checked by the sight of bayonets,
and armoured cars, and two tanks;  but whether or not those street
patrols had ammunition or were merely bluffing nobody could guess.

"We know," McGowan told me, "that about a hundred of those
Dorje-dingbats are in Cairo.  And it's probable that they've an
electric-light plant hidden somewhere.  Start that up, and turn the
plugs on a few of those things--might as well shoot the men beforehand
as let 'em get caught with ammunition in their belts.  Dorje has
won Cairo.  Can he hold it, that's the question."

I asked McGowan about his own automatic;  I had seen him put one
in his pocket.

"Oh, we take chances at our trade," he answered.  "That's different.
The troops, of course, are mad-angry.  They think they are not
being trusted.  But believe me, they're too valuable just now to
be risked against a mechanical enemy that can kill 'em all at one
turn of a switch.  No, Dorje has won Cairo--for the moment.  And
the devil of it is, we don't know Dorje from a hole in the wall.
We don't know where he is, nor who he is, nor how many other cities
he is attacking at this moment."

"Do his gadgets blow up gasoline?" I asked.

"In certain circumstances, yes, apparently.  The Air Force reserve
supply tank burst into flames at half-past nine this morning.  They
say the petroleum wells are all on fire at Baku."

"For once then the Soviet Government isn't under suspicion?"

"Hell's bells, no.  They would hardly burn their own wells to
annoy the universe.  As a matter of fact, they're as rattled as
we are.  They're suffering worse.  There's an unconfirmed message
in code to the effect that the Mujiks have all gone Dorje and
are proclaiming a new dispensation with Dorje as King of the World.
And India--Jee-rusalem!  The cable is silent.  Figure for yourself
what that means."

I would not have believed that a city could change its hue, and
almost its identity, so suddenly as Cairo did that day.  It was
not only the smoke from the burning cotton barns, or the din of
the angering crowds in public squares and down the stenching
side-streets.  Chaos struck the place, changing it under our eyes, as
if it were a new Pompeii being blotted out by a new Vesuvius, only
with this difference, that nobody knew where to run and the mob
was possessed by a weird, unexplainable spirit of waiting for
something to happen.  The city was already at their mercy, and
they waited--waited.  Every plan, perhaps theirs also, if they
had one, had been rendered useless by the fact that electricity
and all explosives were out of commission.  A man with a stick in
his hand was as good as the next.  But who knew whose stick was
a hollow thing that held a brass tube?  And who knew that the troops
were without ammunition?

"Dorje!"  The growl of the word kept gaining above the tumult,
and the King of Egypt's mounted bodyguard, parading near the
palace with a fine air of fearless discipline, retired in front
of it sullenly, until the King and his entourage had time to crowd
into about a dozen motor-cars and stream away southward.  Then
the bodyguard fell back on the palace and sat their horses looking
sulkily ready for business--or almost ready--almost.  They, too,
seemed to me, if I can read men's faces, to be expecting something
that had not yet shown up--possibly a leader?

"Dorje," I said to McGowan, as we began to drive at greater speed
at last through quieter streets toward the hospital, "must have
been at this game quite a long time.  This is a prepared situation.
Seems funny to me that the secret services of six or seven powers
couldn't run him down and stop this before it happened.  How is
it you didn't find him?"

"Give me your guess," he retorted.

I suggested, "There ain't no such person," and McGowan rather
resented it, or seemed to.

"Too damned obvious," he answered.  "Nearly everybody said that
Ulianoff and Bronstein were nothing--not worth giving thought to--
until they blossomed forth as Lenin and Trotsky.  This bird has
studied their game and has gone them one better, that's all.  There
isn't a major government that hasn't files and files about the
Oriental rumour of a King of the World who is likely to come at
any minute.  It's a cult.  It embraces all religions.  We have
all of us known for years that even the Mahometans were listening
to it.  And we have all known there was something more than
communism at the bottom of the unrest that has run like a rot
through Asia.  But lay our hands on Dorje?  Fine-tooth combs catch
fleas, but Dorje--no, sir."

"There ain't no such person," I repeated.  "I will bet you all the
dollars I own against the middle of a doughnut that Dorje is a
myth invented by a committee."

Luckily for me he did not accept that bet.  Not another word
passed between us until we reached the new public hospital and
left the car in charge of McGowan's orderly.  I had no idea why
he had brought me to the hospital.  The European and Egyptian
members of the staff were standing by in good shape and there
was no evident symptom of panic except for what one can only
describe as atmosphere;  that, for lack of a better comparison,
suggested the incidence of a baffling epidemic.  There was none
of the orderly hurry of war-time, when everyone knows what to
do and there are only too few individuals to do it.  Here there
were plenty of individuals, all resolute--baffled--mystified.

We were informed, before we had asked a question, that the operating
rooms were reserved for emergency cases only, owing to the lack
of electric light.  But that did not interest McGowan, who was
abrupt and uncommunicative.  He gave my name, not his, and led me
as fast as I could follow him upstairs into a small room at the
end of a corridor.  The window-shade was down;  he jerked it up.
A nurse was in the room;  he ordered her out.  A screen was around
the bed;  he removed it.

"See what you make of that," he said and turned away, as if he
had already seen more than enough.

I looked down at a woman swathed in bandages.  She appeared to
have been burned;  the nature of the dressings suggested that.  But
her face was uninjured.  And except that her face was white and
tired by agony, it so resembled that of the Princess Baltis that I
thought, for at least a minute, it was she--herself--the Princess
lying there.




Chapter Eleven

"Stole my name.  Says she is Queen of Sheba, I am."


There was even a scar on the upper-lip.  I looked at the scar
closely and decided it was not a birthmark;  it might even have
been inflicted recently, and it seemed slightly larger as well
as slightly higher up than that on the lip of the Princess.

"Name?  Nationality?" I asked, and McGowan answered without turning
his head.  He was standing over by the door with his hand on the knob.

"Came from the Cape by way of Kenya, Nile steamer, and by train
from Khartoum.  British-Indian passport bearing evidence of having
been forged in Warsaw, but visas for almost every country in the
world apparently okay under the microscope.  Name given as Baltis,
Maharanee of Chota Korinpore, which is a small state in the northern
part of the Central Provinces of India.  Domicile given as Chandalia,
which is the capital of that state.  Cabled India, of course, at once;
but no reply--yet."

"Haven't you other means of checking up?" I asked him.

"London--India Office.  No record there of a Maharanee by that name.
Reply, in code, asks whether we are not confusing her with Baltis
understood to be French secret agent."

"Injuries caused--?"

"One of those damned brass tubes.  Suspected, without proof, of
having brought in dozens of 'em in her luggage.  Luggage, of course,
searched thoroughly;  nothing found of the slightest significance."

"Staying--?"

"At Mena House Hotel--out near the Pyramids."

"Where did it happen?"

"Nobody knows.  She was found lying in the garden of an unoccupied
villa belonging to Tassim Bey, who is under arrest but swears he
knows nothing about her."

"Why me?"

"Want your opinion."

"Has she said anything?"

"Not one word."

I decided the woman was listening.  It was impossible to be quite
sure of that, but I was almost sure that she was not unconscious.

"No use guessing," I said.  "I shall have to examine her injuries.
Call in the nurse."

McGowan stepped outside and closed the door.  He returned in a
minute and said the nurse was busy at the moment but would come
as soon as she had helped another nurse with bandages.  He had
obviously not spoken to the nurse, knowing I would not have dreamed
of removing those excellently applied dressings without the
permission of the doctor in charge of the case.

"An anaesthetic," I said, "is out of the question.  And unfortunately
in a case like this the agony is excruciating.  But if I'm to help
her there is nothing for it but immediate examination.  Tell the
nurse we shall need two or three others to hold her.  Oh, hello."

She had opened her eyes.  Her lips moved.  "Let me alone.  Let me die."

She seemed unable to move her head, so I drew up a chair and sat
where she could not see my face but where I could watch every
trace of emotion in hers.  Suddenly, outside, not far away, there
was a thud like the shock of a howitzer going off;  it shook the
building;  then came the shuddering blast of three explosions
one close on another, followed by the high-pitched uproar of a
crowd in panic.

She smiled.  I have seen many people smile like that on death-beds,
and especially criminals.  Some drunkards do it, and some drug-addicts.
It suggests a peculiar vanity;  and I have been told that when a
clever cross-examiner detects that smile on the face of a witness he
can usually extract the information that he wants by using artfully
half-hidden flattery.

"We have caught your twin sister," I said, "and she tells us that
your Dorje is only one of a committee, that her Dorje is the real
one.  Your Dorje, she says, is a traitor who has spoiled everything
by being ambitious for himself."

"Am I dying?" she asked.

"Undoubtedly.  You can't possibly live."

"Are we alone?"

"We shall be in a moment."  I turned to McGowan.  "Leave the room,
please, and close the door after you.  Then stand outside and see
that no one interrupts us."

He opened the door, closed it again and drew near, making less
noise than a cat.  He placed a hand on my shoulder to steady
himself and we both leaned as close as we dared, he listening
from behind me, but it was difficult to hear what she said.  She
mumbled, with only occasional spurts of quite distinct speech;
and even so, she said nothing at all until I jogged her memory.

"You can talk now.  He has closed the door behind him.  Your
sister said--"

"Bitch!  Liar!  Younger than me--I am one hour older--stole my
name--says she is Queen of Sheba--I am."

I jogged her memory again.

"Your sister says that you don't know the real Dorje."

"He will kill her.  Dorje loves me.  I will say to him, `She says
you are not real!'"

"How will Dorje get the message?"

Silence, in which I heard McGowan's wrist-watch ticking out of
step with mine.  I was afraid I had asked the wrong question.
McGowan nudged me, but I waited, not daring to add to her
reluctance to speak.  At last her lips moved:

"Where is Tassim?"

"I will find him," I answered.

"Who are you?"

I drew a long bow at a venture:  "Haroun ben Yahudi."

"Haroun?"  Instantly she spoke in Arabic and I missed some of
what she said, but McGowan got all of it.  "What are you doing
here?  Find Tassim.  Command Tassim to tell Dorje that woman
lies about him.  Dorje loves me.  He never did love her.  Say
that to him, Haroun.  Make him do it."

Silence again.  Then suddenly:  "Haroun, where is your ship?  Can
you put me in it?  Take me to him, Haroun."

She was more than half-delirious now.  The effort to speak was
burning up the dregs of her vitality.  She mumbled and neither
of us could distinguish a word of it.  Then, suddenly clearly again,
in Arabic:  "Haroun, bury me at sea if I don't reach Dorje.  But
sail swiftly, Haroun.  If you reach Karachi Dorje will come to me,"

She tried to sit up then, but the words she would have uttered
turned into an almost soundless scream as agonies of pain shot
through her, and she died before McGowan could summon the nurse,
who eyed us two as if she thought we had done murder.  Possibly
we had.  I don't know.  She might have lived another hour or two
without our interference.

"Tassim next," said McGowan.  "He is locked up and he hasn't said
much yet.  With this to go on--"

"No," I answered.  "Grim next.  Tell Grim and let Grim cross-question
Tassim."

"Right you are.  About all we've got is Tassim and Karachi, so far."

"Plus," said I, "the fact that Dorje is one man and not a committee."

"Think so?" he answered.  "I doubt it now.  To me it begins to
look almost probable that those two women have been dealing with
different men, and neither knew it."

"We see Grim first?"

"Right you are.  Grim sees Tassim."

However, Grim thought otherwise, and at that we had to spend two
hours looking for him, in a city that was more like Dante's hell
than Cairo.  Strange sects seem to spring into existence almost
in a moment whenever anything cataclysmic happens.  The mob lacked
nothing now but leadership to make it murderous.  Plundering was
already beginning.  There were outbreaks of fire in a dozen different
directions--obviously incendiary fires, because Cairo is not a city
that burns readily.  Where the smoke was thickest and the tumult
worst there were weird processions of mystics chanting that the
end of the world was at hand--Copts--Moslems--all sorts.  One long
procession of men, women and children were all stark naked.  The
police were a bit pathetic, sticking gamely to their posts but not
in the least knowing what to do;  I saw one of them arrest a naked
woman and then let her go because he saw the futility of it.

We were in no way molested, but officers in uniform were having a
hard time of it dodging sticks and stones, and around the jail
there was a big mob, composed of the worst elements of the city,
held at bay by scared policemen and a small contingent of British
infantry, who displayed their machine gun much more openly than
they probably would have done if they had had any ammunition.  A
British officer was shouting at the mob in Arabic, imploring them
not to compel him to fire on them.  It was about the only thing
he could do.

"They can have the jail the minute they make up their minds to
take it," was McGowan's opinion.  "Once some of the tough ones
are out of that place there'll be real trouble."

Grim was not at Brown's Hotel but had left a message for us.  We
found him at the High Commissioner's residence, where Chullunder
Ghose was enjoying an argument under the portico;  he had got the
goat of one of those rather old-fashioned British subalterns who
still believe that hauteur is the correct attitude toward inferior
races, and the subaltern's neck was beet root colour.  Grim, still
dressed as an Arab, and indistinguishable from one, came out and
talked to us;  he told us Jeff had recognized a man who might
prove to be important and had gone after him.  Before we had
finished telling him our story Jeff brought in his victim, an
enormous man, who looked like a Dervish and who appeared to have
made the egregious mistake of offering resistance.  Jeff was
holding him by one arm, but the arm seemed painful.  They were
both of them smothered in dust.  Jeff grinned, as is usual when
he has had, or expects to have, a genuine chance to use his muscles.

"Had to carry him part of the way, but he's good now."

He led his man straight in to the High Commissioner, which was,
to say the least of it, an unusual proceeding.  Grim, apparently
in haste to join Jeff, made one of his abrupt decisions.  He said
to me:

"You go with Chullunder Ghose and turn Tassim inside out."

He asked McGowan to keep out of Tassim's sight, and me to do no
more than play up to the babu.  Then he talked to the babu alone
for about two minutes before hurrying into the house to interview
Jeff's prisoner.

So the babu, McGowan and I got into McGowan's car and drove half
across Cairo again, to a place where prisoners can be kept for a
day or so without the publicity that might be caused by putting
them in the regular jail.  It looks not in the least like a prison;
it stands in the midst of a garden and thousands pass it daily
without suspecting its real purpose.  The entrance to it is through
a deserted-looking building used by the police for storing all
sorts of odds and ends, and along a path between stone walls that
are hidden by trees and shrubbery.

We were admitted by a one-armed Sudanese who wore five or six medal
ribbons on a non-military smock that looked as if it had been taken
from the lost-and-found rubbish bin and then washed threadbare.
He saluted McGowan like an automaton and relaxed immediately
afterward into an attitude of deferent familiarity.  McGowan
remained in the passage with him, talking a dialect of Arabic
totally unfamiliar to my ear;  but Chullunder Ghose and I were
led by another Sudanese to the door of a small room facing on an
even smaller inner courtyard.  He opened the door and locked us in.

Tassim Bey stood up to greet us.  He had been seated on a trestle
cot, there being nothing else in the room except the floor, on
which he could sit.  The cot was beneath the only window, which
was iron barred and devoid of glass.  There were no windows in
the other three walls of the courtyard, and only one small door
that looked as if it had been locked for half a century or so;
there was a short flagged path leading from that door to a well,
above which a rusty iron wheel was still hanging from a wooden beam.

Tassim Bey looked to me like a typical upper-class modern Egyptian
of the semi-political, travelled, alert, intellectual type.  As
he stood up he polished his finger nails on the cuff of his smartly
cut jacket.  He had bored eyes with a slightly simian expression
caused by their being set too close together and by their perpetual
search for something in which there might be something good for Tassim.
Lean, but with a tendency to stomach.  Stooped, but with an air of
stooping merely because it was the distinguished attitude.  Rather
pale faced, only slightly olive coloured.  A nose like Abdul Hamid's,
probably betraying a trace of Armenian ancestry.

No one could have looked more sympathetic than Chullunder Ghose.

"This babu makes obeisance.  May your honour very soon receive
reward of merit.  And may you have vengeance on your enemies.
That is my humble prayer."

"I don't know you," remarked Tassim.

"Naturally not.  Also, in said sad circs your honour's icy
incredulity is highest form of hot-from-pot good judgment.  I
admire same.  Never mind me.  Doubt me all you like--until I
tell you."

"Who is listening?" asked Tassim.

"No one, except this man."  A bit scornfully he jerked his head
in my direction.

"Who is outside the door?"

"No one--on my honour.  If I could open same, would prove it to
you.  But let us speak in low tones."

Tassim sat down, with his hands on his knees.

"I have nothing to say to anyone, except this:  I am unlawfully
imprisoned."

"Sahib, same here," said the babu.  "This man and my most respectful
self are prisoners as much as you are--held without warrant on
charges so unprovable that same are secret."

"You mean you are both prisoners along with me?"

"Verb sap."

"And you don't know why you are imprisoned?"

"Oh, yes.  Why is one thing.  Justice is another.  It being
essential that your honour should escape, this babu was ordered
to effect same."

"Ordered by whom?"

"Now, by Jiminy, I don't know.  Am too lately from Karachi, having
come as supercargo on dhow running cargo of contraband.  Your
honour doubtless will permit me not to enter into details--must
not speak too plainly in front of this person;  venial very, and
to a certain extent one of us, but only partially trusted because
we have goods on him.  Get me?  Nod is good as wink to blind horse."

"Man or woman?" Tassim asked him.

Seeing I was supposed to be a prisoner, and having promised to
play up to Chullunder Ghose, I assumed an air of bored resignation
and sat on a coconut fibre mat with my back to the wall.  Chullunder
Ghose remained standing.  "I understand you perfectly," he answered.
"It is, however, forbidden to repeat countersign in this person's
presence.  Nevertheless, there are two women, if you are asking
for information."

"Damn!" said Tassim.  "Do you speak Arabic?"

"Unfortunately, no.  Am very ignorant babu."

He talks Arabic better than I do, and he knew I could have followed
the conversation in that language;  but I understood the method
behind the prevarication.  Such men as Tassim, loathing all things
English except money, speak the English language spitefully, which
is to say indiscreetly.

"Two women?" said Tassim, lowering his eyelids.

"Both named Baltis."

"And both of them ordered you to effect my escape?"

"May I sit down?" asked the babu.  Evidently the pace was too fast
even for him;  he was inventing lies at random.

"My God, no," he answered at last when he was squatted in his
favourite position.  "Two women--same age--same name--just as
much alike as two fleas in an ear.  One says one thing, one the
opposite.  One says learn from Tassim Bey where to deliver the
contraband, then kill him to keep his mouth shut and here are
pounds Egyptian fifty.  See them."

He dived into an inner pocket and produced the paper money,
flourishing it in Tassim's face.  "Said the other release Tassim,
he is necessary to me.  Might as well tell me to build new pyramid
without straw.  But there you are;  she said it.  Fortunately, he
said otherwise, or this bewildered babu might have relapsed into
state of oh-my-God-ishness, no use whatever."

"He?  Who?" asked Tassim.

"Lord high-halleluiah head man;  and you know who that is, so
don't ask me.  Trouble is, that this babu delivered contraband
from Karachi as per orders.  But now where is it?  Nobody knows
except Tassim Bey, who is in hands of hated English, who also
don't know whereabouts of said stuff, but who intend to torture
Tassim.  But he tells."

"Bah!  They would never dare," said Tassim.  But he did not look
as if he believed his own words.

Men given to inventing atrocity stories end by convincing themselves,
if no one else.  He had turned a shade paler.

"Bah-bah black-sheep!  Same is kid stuff, proving nothing.  Why
are you in this place and not in jail?"  Chullunder Ghose retorted.
"British, scared stiff, mean to find that contraband.  Pragmatically
minded secret service experts, reasoning with candour logical in
said circs, argue what are agonies of one man compared to destruction
of Cairo and all explosives belonging to British Army of Occupation
including Air Force?  Can be managed secretly, and Tassim, if too
seriously injured or if uncommunicative, can be dropped down
disused well in courtyard and covered with stones.  There is
courtyard.  There is well--through window.  Obvious."

"How do you know this?" Tassim asked him.

"Person name of Baltis overheard same.  Heard Jimgrim say it.  Have
you heard of Jimgrim?"

"No.  Who is he?"

"Swine, devil, U.S.A. American;  in pay of British and in love
with Baltis who is making big fool of him.  She will stick him
in gizzard doubtless, or let us hope so.  However he said, and
I need not say who he is:  Tassim deserves fate of rat in trap
for daring to get caught.  Something in that, too, come to think
of it.  Nevertheless, important point is present whereabouts of
said contraband, known to Tassim only."

"Why to me only?"

"Because certain idiots went and killed themselves by making an
experiment.  It is true, they blew up Air Force gas tank many
other people and an ammunition wagon.  But of what use is that,
since no one now knows where remainder of cache is hidden?  Therefore,
he said, making use of Solomon-like logic:  go to Tassim and let him
tell you whereabouts of cache with absolute exactitude.  If Tassim
tells you, good.  If not, not good--at least for Tassim, whom the
police will torture crudely but efficaciously.  Nevertheless, if
he tells you, and word reaches me, not only will he not be tortured;
because the cache will be in my hands and the British will very
soon know it--very soon;  very soon indeed they will know it.  And
not even the British torture people when there is nothing to be
gained by it.   But furthermore, said he, if Tassim tells you,
then I will rescue him before the night is over, although I will
never forgive him for having been caught.  Henceforward Tassim may
consider himself dropped and utterly unknown to any of us."

"Oh, thank God!" said Tassim.

But he was not yet unsuspicious of the babu, who understood
that perfectly.

"If you are a prisoner, how are you to get word to him?"  Tassim
demanded suddenly.  "And how do you come to be a prisoner--you
and this man?"

Chullunder Ghose assumed his blandest air of impudence.

"Am automatic penny-in-slot astrologer, oh, yes.  Can answer all
questions on all subjects.  But one at a time.  And we have so
much time to waste before the police bring in their whips and
little bits of wire and God knows what else.  However, I will tell
you since you are curious.  This babu is not unknown to notoriety
as expert prestidigitator, if you know what that is."  Chullunder
Ghose kicked off a slipper and began his favourite trick of
catching his handkerchief between his toes.  "Am also expert
opportunist.  This man"--with a gesture of contempt he indicated
me--"is malpractitioner of disrepute but some skill.  Lost his
ticket.  Got caught selling opium to undergraduates at college
where he was teaching how to perform Caesarean operation.  Hard
up--betted, gambled--lost, of course, and presently wrote someone's
name on back of note.  So you see how he got into our hands.  And
he can pull teeth very expertly, so I brought him along, because
I happened to know that Sudanese ex-sergeant-major without pension
who guards this place has painful abscess.  So--you get that?"

Tassim nodded.  He seemed to be trying to remember whether or not
the Sudanese had a toothache.  Chullunder Ghose continued, giving
his imagination full rein now that he saw Tassim really weakening.

"Sudanese at gate was uncommunicative about everything except his
bad tooth.  Told him this man is debtor to me, who am exasperated
creditor and will oblige him, for sake of humiliation, to pull
tooth gratis.  So he admits us inside gate.  Am prestidigitator
as aforesaid.  While disgusting operation takes place, key of
this prison discovers itself as if by accident in my hand.  Easy.
Open door and walk in.  However, along comes British officer in
uniform who bangs at outer gate.  Strict orders--very strict
orders to admit no one, you being what is known as incommunicado.
What shall Sudanese do?  Damn poor devil without pension drawing
miserly pay from secret service fund, likely to lose job, sees
starvation staring at him, naturally pushes him and me in here
and returns to talk with officer, excusing delay on ground of
accident to mouth and spitting blood in proof of same.  So you
see how we got here.  We will get out by being let out, after
officer is gone and, also, doubtless, after being searched by
Sudanese who will appropriate my pounds Egyptian fifty, which
is why I said there is no justice when I first entered.  Having
got out, I will tell him very extra damn quick just where contraband
is hidden.  Then, before midnight, or not much later than that,
you also will find yourself out of this place.  So make haste
before the Sudanese comes and tell me where the stuff is."

Tassim Bey took his heart in his hands and told abruptly, in the
same sort of way that a scared man takes a header into ice cold water:

"In the new tomb east south east of Gizeh--the last one opened,
in which nothing was found."

"Very well," said the babu.  "And the other Baltis woman, what
about her?  Why did you not meet her in the garden of your
deserted villa?"

"I was afraid of her," said Tassim.  "She looked too much like
the other woman.  It was uncanny.  It made me creepy.  But I did
go to the garden, because I was afraid not to.  And in the dark
she looked so like the other woman that--well, I remembered that
the electricity never had been disconnected at the main switch,
which is in the gate house.  So I turned it on.  And she screamed
and a fuse blew--and I saw her drop something that was white-hot."

"Yes, and--"

"That is all.  I went away."

"You let her lie there?"

"I did not know she was lying there.  How should I know it?  I
could see nothing.  My eyes were dazzled, and it was dark.  I
tell you I saw nothing."

"When did you go to Brown's Hotel?"

"This morning."

"Did you tell the other Baltis?"

"No.  I tell you, I saw nothing.  What was there to tell?"

Chullunder Ghose got to his feet.  He bowed to me.

"Let us go, sahib.  Am eloquent and unscrupulous person, but
words fail me.  Kindly kick that door--make much noise;  my own
slippers are ineffectual.  Be good enough to summon keeper swiftly
before I forget my immorality and slay this reptile.  Did you hear
him?  He admitted it!  He left her lying there."

As the door opened and we passed out he turned and hurled a
Parthian shot at Tassim, who sat goggled-eyed, hardly even yet
realizing how completely he had been tricked.

"You are not even a mean white.  You are not even mean.  You are
a maggot.  May you reincarnate in the belly of a leprous jackal,
which is to say, in English, damn your dirty soul to hell!"




Chapter Twelve

"Delphic-oracally minded babu spilling noncommittal verb sap."


The army's precipitate flight from the scene had been strategic.
As we threaded our way across Cairo again to find Grim detachments
were re-entering the city from several directions, someone had
taken the responsibility of letting the men have rifle ammunition,
and we saw one volley fired over the heads of a mob that immediately
took to its heels, and I think that was the only volley fired
that afternoon.

We found Grim at the High Commissioner's in a big bay-windowed
room where sunlight formed a golden pool on the enormous Turkey
carpet.  In the midst of it sat Grim.  The High Commissioner was
not there, but his secretary was, and so were the legal members
of his council.  There were also three Egyptian officials of high
rank and a British Brigadier-General who was trying to disguise
for Grim under an air of professional incredulity.  As we were
ushered into the room I heard him say--

"Of course, sometimes an amateur does contribute something useful."

McGowan, ahead of me, gritted his teeth, and I saw Jeff Ramsden
turn the slightly deeper mahogany shade that forebodes trouble.
Introductions were perfunctory and a trifle hostile.  I took a
chair beside Jeff.  So did McGowan.  Chullunder Ghose sat on the
carpet close to Grim and I heard him murmur about a dozen words
in Pushtu, which was a pretty safe language in that company for
an interchange of confidences.  Grim made no response and the
Brigadier took up the cudgels again.

"I don't see that we've got any information of value from Mr.
Ramsden's prisoner.  It was an absolutely illegal arrest--"

"Hear, hear," said an Egyptian.

"Who arrested him?" Jeff answered.  "I didn't.  I did no more to
him than I would do to you if you should so far forget yourself
as to say to me half what he did.  I accosted him.  He called me
a gross name--I'll repeat it for you if you wish--then struck me
in the face and tried to run.  So I invited him to run the same
way I was going, and we bad a difference of opinion on that point.
I prevailed.  And as for getting nothing out of him--"

The Brigadier interrupted.

"Nothing of any value, I said."

"Yes," said Jeff, "I heard you.  We all heard you.  And you heard
him admit to me that he received his orders from a woman--"

"Who is dead, in the hospital," the Brigadier objected.  "He didn't
make one definite statement that's of the slightest use to us."

"Keep that personal," said Jeff.  "If you mean no statement of
the slightest use to you I'll not dispute it.  He knows at least
of the existence, and perhaps of the exact whereabouts, of a big
supply of those infernal machines."

"Rot-tommy-rot and nonsense," said the Brigadier.  "They had a
few and used them.  If they had had more--and if they had a leader
and a definite plan, they would have wiped out Cairo."

Jeff talked on stolidly.

"His boast that plenty more of the things will reach Egypt and
other countries without the slightest risk of detection probably
means that he knows they are smuggled in small sailing craft.  We
know of one consignment that reached Marseilles by dhow.  Any
number of dhows could discharge contraband along the Red Sea
coast line."

"Not from now on," said the Brigadier.  "Not an unsearched dhow
will reach the Egyptian coast.  We'll stop that little game.  It's
stopped already."

"Too late," Jeff answered, "if the stuff is already landed and
carefully hidden."

The Brigadier snorted.  "It isn't.  It's a mare's nest.  In the
first place, we haven't a scrap of proof that these infernal
machines actually exist.  I know you think they do;  but there's
nothing easier than to make even experienced men think they see
what they don't see."

"No explosions anywhere?" Jeff asked him.

"Yes, there have been.  My opinion is they were caused by Communists,
acting more or less simultaneously on orders from Moscow.  Dorje?
Another chimera--probably invented by that Baltis woman--as
imaginary as her own title of Princess.  A discredited French spy--
sent here for us to prosecute and save the French the inconvenience
and scandal.  I object to doing France's dirty work.  I say, send
her back to France and let's try using common sense for a change."

Grim was not listening to him;  he and Chullunder Ghose were
carrying on a conversation sotto voce, probably in Pushtu.  The
Brigadier suddenly grew aware of that and lost his temper.

"If there's a dump of these mysterious gadgets anywhere in Egypt,
show me!" he exploded.  "I'll give you two days.  After that, Major
Grim, you may rely on my determined opposition to your methods."

The Brigadier got up and stalked out of the room.  The Egyptian
officials followed him, at no pains to disguise their imitation
of the Brigadier's contemptuous ill-temper.  Instantly then Grim
faced McGowan.

"Do his worst at once?  That's what I played him for.  If he wants
to deport our Princess, can he do it?"

"Why not?"

"Can she be forced to return to France?"

"Not if she pays her own fare.  But that fool can send an official
cable to wherever she does go and she'll be held up at the port
of entry."

"I have heard of cablegrams that never reached their destination,"
Grim suggested.  McGowan nodded.  "He will deport her to annoy me.
See that she goes anywhere she pleases.  Now--do you know someone
who would lend us one of those Army searchlights in a truck?  Could
they pick us all up, say, at the hospital?  Good.  Sorry to seem
to use you as an errand boy, but I would do the same for you--I
think you know that."

The only one of us who really understood what Grim was driving at
was our babu.  When he appears to read thought I believe he is
exercising an extraordinary logical faculty that enables him to
reason like lightning.  He has absolutely no respect for anybody's
alleged ideals, conventions, prejudices or appearance, but looks
beneath those for the actuality and, having recognized it, knows
how that type of person will think and behave.

Grim must have told Chullunder Ghose that he would like Jeff's
prisoner released.  Obviously, to have asked that Brigadier to
release the man would have produced the exactly opposite effect.
The Brigadier was jealous.  And McGowan was helpless, in that
instance, because the Brigadier was his senior and might invoke
the rules of discipline.  But neither discipline, nor seniority,
nor red tape was of the slightest use against the audacity of
Chullunder Ghose.

It appeared that the prisoner--Mahdi Aububah by name, a Somali
of sorts--had been turned over to the red-faced subaltern for
safekeeping pending a decision as to what should be done with him.
As we passed out to the portico that subaltern approached us,
evidently hell-bent on another altercation with Chullunder Ghose;
he had probably thought up lots of things that he might have done.
He was haughty, hot-tempered and ignorant of the fact that Grim
was not an Arab;  and he made the crass mistake of thinking that
Chullunder Ghose was an obese, unwarlike person suitably to be
admonished with a kick.  Personally I would rather take my chance
of kicking a champion wrestler, who might be all beef and no brains.

As a non-Egyptian Arab he might be expected to get out of the
way of a British officer in uniform.  At any rate, that youngster
expected him to.  There was a collision in which the subaltern
had the worst of it, although Grim was polite in fastidious Arabic
which the subaltern did not understand.  Chullunder Ghose, noisily
chatting to me about nothing as an excuse for not looking where
he was going, bumped into the subaltern, who lost his balance and
fell backward into a flower bed.  Chullunder Ghose did not apologize.
The subaltern got up and kicked him.  Grim was just in time, with
a word in Arabic, to prevent Jeff Ramsden from interfering, and
Jeff's out-thrust arm stopped me.

Chullender Ghose, who is nothing if not a surprising person, slapped
the subaltern, suddenly, noisily, shamefully, straight in the face;
and all the inflammable indignation of about a dozen generations
of English squires, now concentrated into one young, peppery
descendant, burst into action.  "Did you see that, by God--he
hit me!"

The second kick missed.  Chullunder Ghose--portly, enormous,
ridiculous, but remarkably swift in short spurts, as an elephant
is or a hippopotamus--took to his heels, and the subaltern after
him.  With a judgment of speed worthy of a race-course jockey he
timed his spurts so as to keep the subaltern exasperated but
encouraged.  And instead of making for the main gate he elected
to follow a path between shrubbery and flower beds toward a
building that looked like a garage.  At one end of it four
Egyptian soldiers stood on guard before a door that seemed to
have been left partly open for ventilation, since the room into
which it opened had no windows.  The subaltern shouted to the
four soldiers to stop the babu.  They hesitated and then ran
toward him.  One of them tripped him by shoving a rifle butt
between his legs, and all of them, babu included, went down in
one whale of a roughhouse.

Gardeners, servants, chauffeurs, grooms, all sorts of people came
on the run from everywhere, but kept their distance when they saw
the subaltern in charge of operations.  And behind the screen that
they formed, Mahdi Aububah, Jeff's erstwhile prisoner, slipped
through the partly opened cell door and rather casually trotted
through an open gate to the highway and freedom.  I don't know
whether or not Chullunder Ghose had shouted to him, but I think not:
I believe the man had been watching his chance and took advantage
of it when it came.

That subaltern was almost precious as a maker of mistakes.  Jeff
Ramsden, who can out-sprint me by almost two to one, was in time
to prevent him from trying to thrash Chullunder Ghose with a stick
that he snatched from a gardener.  He almost struck Jeff, he was
so beside himself with temper.  But Jeff's deep voice and quiet
manner had a somewhat soothing effect.

"Dammit, he hit me in the face--didn't you see him?  I'll have him--"

"No, no, no," said Jeff.  "Too many witnesses.  Look to your prisoner.
He's gone.  You'd better catch him."

The rest was merely pitiable.  The youngster tried to save his
face by abusing the Egyptian soldiers in astonishingly bad Arabic,
and two or three minutes were lost while they talked back to him.
By the time he had come to his senses and hurried them off in
pursuit of the prisoner there was no longer a chance in a thousand
of overtaking him, and not one in a hundred even of learning which
way he had gone.  Chullunder Ghose, limping and rubbing his shin,
returned along the path toward where Grim was standing.  Jeff
turned to me.

"Tell Grim I'll join you at the hotel.  I'll overtake that young
fool and see if I can't save the day for him.  He doesn't deserve
it, but if I don't he'll make trouble for us.  He'll get
court-martialled, and he'll accuse the babu.  We'll get called as
witnesses.  No percentage in that.  I'll tell him Mahdi Aububah had
not been legally arrested--no warrant, not even a verbal order--so
he can't be court-martialled for letting him escape.  He probably
can be; but if he thinks I'm a possible friendly witness he'll think
twice before he sticks a spoke in our wheel."

Grim had not budged from where he stood observing the whole episode.
He made no remark, either to me or to the babu, when we got into
the car that McGowan had left for us, and he was silent all the
way to the hotel, which he entered by a back way as if he were
one of the hotel servants.  He said nothing whatever for nearly
an hour as we sat in Jeff's room with the door ajar while Chullunder
Ghose rubbed salve on his injured shin and pitied himself because
neither of us took any notice of him.

"In former incarnation this babu was Jeremiah.  Specialist in
lamentation.  Pessimistic optimist, infliction of pain is solitary
purpose of omnipotent province.  Nevertheless, work head off trying
to escape same.  What annoys me most is prophetic accuracy of
that ignorant child-soldier.  Called me bloody babu.  Do I not
bleed?  Yow!  I also hurt like agonizing damned in Dante's paradise."

Grim appeared not even to be thinking.  Even when Jeff came in
and the springs complained as he threw himself on to the bed,
Grim seemed to take no notice of his first remarks:

"That boy's in bad.  Too many people saw him act as an officer
shouldn't.  Mahdi Aububah has vanished."

Grim came instantly to life then.




Chapter Thirteen

"I have ordered sandwiches and claret."


Grim glanced at me.  "Do you mind getting the Princess?  No hurry,
if she's in a mood for confidences, but bring her in here as soon
as you can."

The Princess herself opened the apartment door.  She appeared, I
thought, rather relieved to have me call on her, but she was such
a magnificent actress and such an opportunist that she may have
been merely concealing disappointment.  At any rate, she instantly
made up her mind to take advantage of me, and as she had a low
opinion of my intelligence amounting almost to contempt she made
a rather bad beginning.  And because I had been annoyed by the
way Grim ordered me around, I made a good one.

"Ah," she said, "you notice, don't you, that my trunk is missing.
What does that mean?"

I answered:

"I don't know, unless it was true that McGowan's men went through
it.  I have come to say good-bye.  I'm off home."

"You are disgusted?  Come--sit down and tell me."  Then, suddenly,
as I sat beside her on a comfortable lounge, "Of course, Jeemgreem
sent you to extr-r-act my se-crets?"

"No," I answered.  I began to invent lies as wildly as Chullunder
Ghose.  "The truth is that he wanted me to come and pump you, but
I'm fed up.  I'm not constituted so that I can keep on mentally
torturing a woman.  I would have had you guillotined, hanged,
imprisoned--whatever is coming to you.  Grim won't do that."

"Tell me, why not?"

"He doesn't tell anybody why or why not."

"Then you don't know what all this means?"

"All what?"

"So many things.  They take away my trunk.  If they have opened it,
they have found three of those--those things.  You know what I mean?
Will Jeemgreem--will that man McGowan hand me over to the police,
or to the military?  There is martial law, is there not?"

"Yes," I said, "there's martial law.  I dare say they could take
you out and shoot you, after a secret trial in which you wouldn't
have a dog's chance.  Such things happen.  But I think McGowan
took the trunk in order to prevent that.  As long as he hides
the evidence, they can't convict you."

"Then what does this mean?  There is a Brigadier-General."

"Yes, I know him.  Go on."

"To me he came, to ask me about Jeemgreem, and about all of you.
Day before yesterday he came to me, secretly, in civilian clothes,
giving his wrong name;  but my servant discovered his right name.
He said there is a cablegram from London about Jeemgreem, and
about you others, and about me.  He more than hinted that I am
beautiful and that he is gallant.  Do you see?  A threat in one
hand, and what he thought was persuasion in the other."

She paused, wondering, I suppose, how stupid I might be.  As a
matter of fact, I was thinking nobody could blame the Brigadier
for feeling a bit gay in her company;  her magnetism had a way of
stealing on the senses, aided by the perfume she used.  Presently
she continued:

"That Brigadier-General told me that unless I appreciate on which
side my br-read is buttered someone will certainly look up my record.
Therefore I knew he had already done that.  It was evident that
he intended blackmail.

"Presently he became gallant, like a goat but not so engaging.
And he asked me where is Jeemgreem.  I did not know, but he did
not believe me.  He said I had better find out or he will have me
deported.  What does that mean?"

I said: "It looks as if you will be leaving the country.  Pretty
soon, too.  Military deportations are about as swift as telegrams."

"Does Jeemgreem--does he do that to me?"

I nodded.  "Seems so."

"Do you agree with it?"

"I was not consulted."

"Do you understand that he is throwing away pr-r-riceless assistance?
That he is acting dishonourably?  Let him think--let him say what
he likes of me--he struck a bargain, did he not?  He snatched me
away from my environment, at a time when I could easily protect
myself.  Now will he send me back there, to be at the mercy of men
who have had time to cover up their guilt, of which I then had
knowledge?  Am I to return discredited?  I tell you, I will sooner
kill--myself."

I think she intended to say she would sooner kill Grim, but changed
it.  Perhaps I betrayed what I thought.  At any rate, she produced
a small phial of cyanide capsules, taking good care not to let me
get hold of it.

"You will let him do this wrong thing?" she demanded.  "Do you
hate him?"

"I can't prevent him," I answered.

"Where is he?  Do you know where he is?  Then come with me to him
and help me to persuade him.  Do that, and I will always be your
friend--always, whatever happens."

I fell in with the suggestion, but not too eagerly, lest she
should suspect that was just what I wanted.  She rushed into her
bedroom, put on lipstick, rearranged her hair and changed into a
yellow frock as quickly as an actress touching up between cues.

"Now we are friends," she said, "you and I.  We help each other.
You shall learn what a friend I can be."

She took my arm and we walked along the corridor together, her
perfume hinting what her eyes and lips left unsaid.

"If you have offended Jeemgreem, I will help you to be friends
with him again--yes?"

In her day she had probably bamboozled scores of men by that quick
trick of hers of sex-suggestiveness.  But she never once impressed
me as a woman who actually was free with her favours;  her genius
lay in suggesting possibilities and she was clever enough to know
that the lure of the unattained is usually lost or lessened in
attainment.  Not that there was any limit to her tactics, with
a goal in sight or danger to be out-maneuvred.

Grim greeted us quite casually, although Jeff seemed nervous, as
if they had been discussing a plan that Jeff thought too far-fetched.
The smile on the face of the babu confirmed that impression;  he
loves sheer madness;  I believe his heaven will be a place where
fat adventurers can skate for all eternity on thin ice.

"Jeemgreem--" she began;  but Grim interrupted her.

"Have you a turban?  Green--yellow--red--it hardly matters.  Thirty
or forty yards of narrow silk would be about right.  Can you?  Would
you mind bringing it?"

I supposed he was making an opportunity to speak to me, so as soon
as she left the room I began to tell him what had happened.  However,
I had guessed wrong.

"Afterwards," he said, "if you don't mind.  She might come back
too soon and overhear."

Not one of us spoke again until she returned with a whole piece
of purple Lyons silk.  She was gone three or four minutes and
during all that time Grim studied his own face in Jeff's shaving
mirror.  When she came in and gave him the silk he passed it to
Chullunder Ghose.

"You do it.  Shall I sit here?"

The babu stood behind the chair and began binding the turban on
Grim's head.

"Jeemgreem--what means this about a deportation order?"

"What do you think it means?" he answered.

"You get rid of me?"

"You are no use--as the Princess Sitlab."

"Is that a kind way--a proper way--a wise way to dispose of me?"

"I can't think of a better.  Can you?"

His coolness seemed to disconcert her even more than the dread
of deportation did.  The babu, with a face like a Sphinx, went
on twisting away at the turban, arranging each fold with exact
precision;  and Grim's face seemed to change into some other man's
as he sat there staring at it in the shaving mirror.

"Jeemgreem--I will rather die than go to France."

McGowan came in, in uniform, sweating and wiping his face on a
dripping-wet silk handkerchief.  But under cover of the handkerchief
I saw him pass a small package to Jeff, who gave it to Chullunder
Ghose, who slipped it into Grim's pocket.

"Hotter than hell," he remarked.  "Good evening, Princess. Well,
it's all right.  Tassim had a French governess for his latest
lady-love.  She's decidedly out of a job, and she hasn't been
paid for so long that she's flat broke.  Anything to get home
to France.  A free third-class passage looks to her like a gift
from Providence.  I'm giving her your trunk, Princess--that big
one that we filched from your apartment--saved trouble--it has
your name on it.  She'll keep the underwear--the poor girl needs it.
Soon as the deportation order comes my men will put her on the
train and lock her in;  one man will go with her to Port Said,
where we have a berth all ready for her on a French boat, which
waits for the train and leaves directly afterwards.  She can tell
her own tale to the French authorities.  The Brigadier--"

"May go to the devil," said Grim.  "If he discovers the trick he'll
be too late anyhow."

Baltis stared at him:  "Jeemgreem--what do I do?"

"Change your frock," he answered.  "Put on something much less
noticeable.  Then come with us."

"Come where?"

"I intend to show you.  Between now and midnight we take a long
chance.  You, too.  You have fifteen minutes.  I have ordered
sandwiches and claret."

----------------



Part Two--Messiah of Tinsel




Chapter Fourteen

"Is it the key to Dorje's cypher?"


Believe me, Cairo burning kerosene and candles is a very different
place from Cairo lighted up.  Brown's Hotel was like an old-time
monastery;  even the shadows on the walls leaped with a sort of
restraint that reacted on people and made them move stealthily.
The suggestiveness of that subdued men's voices, and a feeling
of awe, not far from horror, very soon ensued.

Outside, the streets were in almost darkness, although the starlight
helped the dim lanterns of the pickets and patrols and there was
some light oozing through the cracks of doors and shuttered windows.
The authorities had clapped on a curfew regulation and it was
working with the surprisingly sudden efficiency with which most
things British do function when the first, invariably contemptuous
scorn of the unexpected has yielded to common-sense.

No cars were allowed in the streets, no pedestrians, no traffic
other than deliveries of food protected by written permit or provided
with an escort.  We were stopped at least twenty times by men whose
bayonets shone in the lantern-light and though McGowan's uniform
was sufficient passport, more than half a dozen officers demanded
to know our destination before they would let the car proceed.
McGowan gave a different one each time.  If reports were actually
turned in and coordinated, our behavior must have looked a bit
bewildering next day.

Of course, anyone who has his wits about him and is not limited
by scruples or under actual restraint can laugh at any restrictions
if he cares to.  There is no way to hog-tie intelligence.  No form
of human government can regulate even a tenth of the population,
all the time, against its will.  I don't doubt there was plenty
of lawlessness under way along those dark streets and in the narrow,
polyglot alleys, but there was an astonishing control of the surface
of things.  Under pretext of protecting them the politicians had
been silenced and the men who talk less about liberty, but who do
more to preserve it, had once more demonstrated that peace sleeps
paradoxically on the points of bayonets.  The strategy, so close
to panic, of evacuating all the ammunition and then, too soon for
the mob-rule maniacs, re-entering the city had succeeded.  But I
would dearly love to see the official cablegrams that flashed
over the wires of the world that night and during the days
that followed.

I would like, too, to have been able to read the thoughts of the
Princess, who sat beside me on the rear seat of McGowan's car.
She was wearing a hooded cape of striped silk--one of those
astonishingly simple adaptations that the French make from exotic
models, suggesting without defining Oriental inspiration.  She
had pulled the hood low over her forehead, so I could hardly see
her face, although we sat close because Chullunder Ghose was
jammed into the same seat on my right hand.  Jeff and Grim were
on the folding seats in front of us.  McGowan sat beside the driver.
After a long silence the babu nudged me and said:

"Sahib, difference between ecstasy and torture is merely poetic
distinction and poets are crazy.  Am passionately tortured by
ecstatic blue funk mixed with curiosity and would not swap with
Dorje himself.  Feel my emotions."

He thrust his wrist into my hand.  His pulse was going like an
airbrake piston.  Then the Princess whispered to me:

"I hope we all get killed in a ter-r-iffic climax.  I am so excited,
I can hardly sit still.  Where is Jeemgreem taking us?"

Then Grim, turning suddenly, spoke out of the corner of his mouth:

"To see your sister."

I could feel the rigour with which she suddenly controlled herself.
If Grim wanted her rattled he appeared to have succeeded.  He may
have purposely prepared her for a shock, because of his theory
that people at too great disadvantage almost never do the thing
expected of them.  Whether he expected her to behave as she did
when the actual shock came, I don't know.  I can only report
what happened.

In almost total darkness near the hospital two military trucks
were waiting for us, one containing a powerful searchlight driven
by a gasoline engine and the other jammed chock-a-block with men;
their officer was waiting for us on the hospital steps;  he
saluted McGowan, who gave him directions;  he and the trucks vanished.

Then, McGowan leading, we invaded the hospital, where flickering
candle-light cast spectral shadows on the white walls.  There was
someone screaming, in a room at the end of a passage, which
enhanced the effect--mystery--gloom--horror.  We were in single
file.  The Princess walked in front of me.  I saw her shudder.

"This way," said a surgeon.


They were ready for us.  A nurse unlocked a door as we approached
and turned her back as we entered.  She had been told we were not
to be recognized.  The surgeon came in with us, but there was a
screen in front of the door and he stood behind that with his
hand on the key--obviously a man whom McGowan trusted, but who
preferred not to know too much about what was not his concern;
he was a cadaverous-looking North-country Irishman, overworked
and melancholy.

The room was lighted by two candles, one on each side of the head
of a bed, on which was laid out, very beautifully cared for, the
body of the woman with whom McGowan and I had talked not very
many hours before.  In death she resembled our Princess even more
closely than she had done in life, but perhaps that was partly
due to the candle-light, which softened the lines of suffering.
Only the head and shoulders were visible, with dark hair arranged
on the pillow a bit too regularly to suggest sleep.

"Dead?"  The Princess's voice suggested the clash of engaging
bayonets.  Silence then, for I dare say thirty seconds.

"Dead," Grim answered.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"To Prove to you that she is dead."

"You recognize her?"

"Yes." Silence again.

"What is your purpose, Jeemgreem?"

"At the moment, to learn whether your statements agree with what
she said in the presence of witnesses before she died."

"She was always a liar.  And she hated me.  She was my twin sister,
and we fought from the day we were born.  She hated me because I
was the elder.  She stole my name Baltis.  When I befriended her
during the war, because we two so resembled each other that she
could pretend to be me and I could seem to be in one place when
I was actually engaged in espionage somewhere else, she betrayed
me to the Germans.  Then, believing I was executed, she found her
way to Dorje and again pretended to be me.  She made that scar on
her lip to heighten the illusion.  For a time she deceived even
Dorje.  And when Dorje found her out, he laughed.  `A too
significant coincidence,' said Dorje, `to be treated according
to rule.'  So he did not kill her.  He gave her a chance to redeem
herself into his favour by doing exceedingly dangerous work."

Grim turned suddenly and looked into her eyes that shone in the
candle-light like fiery jewels, but of no sort known to commerce.

"How do you know it?" he asked her.

For about ten slow seconds she answered his stare.  Then:  "Dorje
said so."

"When?"

"Not long ago."

"Where?"

"Everywhere!  What Dorje wishes one to know, one knows I tell you."

Suddenly she looked away from Grim and turned toward the bed,
approaching it almost on tiptoe as if reverence for death offset
resentment and she wished to make some sort of farewell gesture.
From where I stood it even seemed as if her eyes were closed and
that her lips moved, as if she were saying a prayer, as she stooped
over the dead woman's face.  I saw her draw a very deep breath, as
if sighing.  And then the light went out.  She had blown out the
candle and had flattened out the other with her right hand.

"Keep the door shut!"  That was Jeff's voice.

"Shut it is," said a voice at the screen.

Then McGowan:  "Dammit, where's my flashlight?"

I produced my lighter.  It refused to work.  I could hear the babu
groping on the floor and did him the injustice of supposing he was
so scared as to try to get under the bed.  Not a sound from Grim.
And apparently not one of us had matches.  I groped blindly,
reaching for the Princess and expecting to be met by a revolver
shot.  But I clutched Jeff's arm;  he was doing the same thing,
and expecting the same.

She could have shot us all easily.  But suddenly the babu grunted
and exclaimed, "I have it!"  He had found McGowan's flashlight on
the floor.  He switched it on.  The Princess was standing quite
still near the head of the bed.

Then Grim struck a match; there had been a box in his hip-pocket
all the time.  He carefully re-lit the candles, smiling to himself.
Chullunder Ghose laid a hand on his heart and bowed profoundly:

"Princess sahiba, this babu makes semi-absolute salaam.  It should
be absolute if only you had not let fall that flashlight when you
took it from McGowan sahib's pocket.  Self am sleight-on-handist
in excelsis, plus and then some, as U.S. Americans say with native
modesty.  Am personage whose praise is priceless.  For a female
woman that was not bad.  Ma'am to you.  None but a prestidigitatoress
of much promise would have caught it on her instep when she dropped
it, to prevent noise.  Ma'am I adulate you.  Kicking it under the
bed was also very verb sap--no end top-hole, I assure you."

"Nom d'un imbecile, you nudged me," she answered, smiling--but
the smile was tart and boded malice.  "Strange--strange how women
never love me," sighed the babu.  "Even wife of my own bosom is
indignant with me when she is caught in act of reprehensibility--
not seldom, too, believe me."

Grim looked carefully at the bed-clothes and McGowan turned the
flashlight on them, nodding.  Even so, it was several seconds
before I noticed they were slightly disarranged;  they had been
moved during those seconds of darkness and rearranged so deftly
that only a skilled eye would have noticed it at first glance.

"Wasn't this what you wanted?" Grim asked;  and he held out the
package that I had seen McGowan pass by way of Jeff to Chullunder
Ghose at the hotel--the one that the babu dropped into Grim's
hip-pocket while he was twisting on Grim's turban.

The Princess nodded.  "Maybe.  You humiliate me purposely.  What
is it?"

"See for yourself."

She opened the envelope.  Inside was a small cardboard box of the
kind in which druggists send pills to their customers.  It contained
what almost anyone would bury with its owner--what even a prisoner
would be allowed to retain--a cheap bronze chain about a yard
long and extremely thin, to which an amulet was fastened;  and
the amulet looked like a wad of paper very tightly pressed into
a leather bag of the sort in which some people carry their watches.

She turned toward the nearest candle as if to examine and perhaps
identify the thing.  And she was quick.  But Grim made a signal
to Jeff and Jeff was even quicker;  he caught her by both elbows;
and Chullunder Ghose filched the thing out of her hand.  He tossed
it to Grim.

"Why burn it?" Grim asked.

She showed a stiff lip--defiant.  But she was hanging on to herself,
I could see that.  Almost any kind of medical practice equips a
man for judging how near a person is to the borderland between
hanging on and letting go, and my practice has been peculiarly
educative in that respect;  but, of course, what is unpredictable
is the strength of that last quantum of resistance.  And I could
see that Jeff was pitying her, as I was also.  One by one Grim
stripped away the shreds of her own self-valuation:

"It can't be an identification tag.  Dorje isn't such a fool as
to label his agents."

"It is a talisman," she answered.  "There is a mantram written on it.
A man from India gave it to me, and my sister stole it."

Grim ignored that obviously lame lie.  It might turn out to be
ingenious, but it limped.  Its value was that it proved she was
weakening;  but he knew that already.

"And it can't be anything you need in order to do Dorje's work,
or you would not have been willing to burn it."

"I am no longer doing Dorje's work," she answered.  "Must I strip
my heart to you before these people?"

He ignored that, too, not giving her the slightest hint as to
whether or not he believed her.

"For the same reason, it can't be anything you need in order to
work against Dorje."

"It is nothing," she said.  "I told you:  it is merely a mantram."

"Then why go to all that trouble?"

"It has sentimental value."

"Then why burn it?"

Because I know it by heart.  And it is after all something sacred.
I did not wish it to fall into irreverent hands."

"Mine, for instance?  Are there--were there ever any duplicates
of this?"

"How should I know!"

"You say you know it by heart.  And you are against Dorje."

"Yes.  But how shall I ever make you trust me, Jeemgreem?  You
are blind when it comes to women.  Men, yes.  But a woman--you
are without passion--and that is, without understanding.  You do
not understand me.  If you were not so blind, you would see that
I truly am in love with you.  And when I love, I idolize.  And
how else shall I make you love me than by proving to you that I
am necessary to your very being;  because what is your being,
Jeemgreem, except doing?  Oh, I know you.  You and your love and
your work are the same thing.  Can you not read in my eyes that
I adore you?"

"You have just told me how blind I am."

"Jeemgreem, in all other matters--oh, what is the use of talking?
I must prove it to you."

"And if your trick had succeeded and you had burned this, you
could prove it more easily?"

"You are cruel."

"Because you know it by heart.  And if it were burned I might
have to depend on your memory?"

"A mantram.  What if I know a mantram?  What good would that do?"
she asked.

"It would be more than good," said Grim, "it would be excellent
if it should happen to be the key to Dorje's cypher."

She was silent.  "Is it?"

"It is a mantram."

"Is it the key to Dorje's cypher?"

"You are talking nonsense."

"Nevertheless, this babu--being high degree initiate of nonsense--
notices that Princess sahiba's fingers twitch like bally tearing
into tatters said absurdity!  Am destitute;  but will bet pounds
Egyptian fifty that Jimmy Jimgrim sahib has hit nail on apple of
its eye!  Oh, whoopee!  That is U.S.A., American for Let's Go,
Gallagher.  Am individual who decoded cypher despatch from German
G.H.Q. to Indian revolutionary council--and was locked up afterwards
for six months to prevent me from bragging of same, such is gratitude.
Krishna!  Let me see it!"

It was psychologically perfect--one more instance of the babu's
genius at playing into Grim's hands by making himself ridiculous.
He touched off her temper.  She turned on him.

"Animal!  I hope you try to solve it.  This time they will lock
you in a mad-house!"

He laughed.

"Goal of my ambition!  Everybody talking nonsense at
same time, free from obligations, debts, responsibilities and
labour--three meals daily.  Nevertheless, I bet you pounds Egyptian
fifty I can solve same."

"Then you with your ape's brain will be cleverer than--"  She
checked herself and Grim opened the amulet, gingerly unfolding
it under McGowan's flashlight.  It consisted of parchment-like
paper about four inches square with heavy writing on one side of it,
done with a brush and Chinese ink.  He read aloud:

"Forty-five minus forty-five equals forty-five."

"Obvious," said the babu.  "I knew that one."

Grim continued:  "Underneath that it reads, 'Bible, McClaughlin's
Dictionary, Encyc. Brit. Eleven."'

"Mantram--poetic--sacred!" said Chullunder Ghose.

"And beneath that:  'One to twenty-eight equals circle.  Nine,
ten, eleven are one, two, two-two.'  That's all."

"Yes, that is all," said the Princess.  "It is supposed to be a
magic formula."

"Why in English?" Grim asked her.

"It is the most-spoken language."

He smiled.

"In which Dorje publishes commands to his subordinates all over
the world?"

She flared up, possibly because the babu picked up one of the
candlesticks and held the light so that he could see every movement
of her face and she could not avoid seeing his mischievously
triumphant smile.

"You are crazy!  I have told you what it is.  Why do we stay here?
Are we to attend a funeral?"

Grim passed the paper, chain and leather sheath to McGowan:

"You've had it photographed?"

"Yes, here in the hospital.  Did it while she was unconscious--
gave it back to her before she died.  We've two copies for you--
one enlarged.  Are we ready?"

"Not quite," Grim answered.  He stepped up to the Princess and
Chullunder Ghose held the candle between them.  "Is it the key
to Dorje's cypher?  If not, why did you challenge Chullunder Ghose
to solve it?"

"It is not."

"How do you know it isn't?"

"Oh, very well, I don't know."

"I will give you your choice of three alternatives," said Grim.
"You may return to France, remain in Egypt as a military prisoner
charged with high treason, or cooperate with me.  Choose now."

"Do you mean I am to interpret that or--"

"Is it the key to Dorje's cypher?"

"Very well.  It is.  I won't interpret it."

"I wouldn't trust you to interpret it."

"Jeemgreem, if I thought you would trust me--how shall I make you?"

She stared at him.

"Prove up," he answered.  "Are we ready? Let's go."




Chapter Fifteen

"The Lord Dorje, the Daring--the King of the World!"


McGowan drove, letting the chauffeur act lookout, as we went at
top speed along the tree-lined road that leads southward toward
Gizeh.  It was almost totally dark between those trees.  The car
lights were switched off.  Grim sat facing the rear of the car
with his elbows on the back of the folding seat, speaking rapidly,
economizing words.

"Now the long chance.  Jeff's friend--Mahdi Aububah--bad bird--
fanatical--stupid--almost sure he brought a dhow-load of Dorje's
gadgets overland from the French Somali coast and cached 'em near
here.  Probably has a tough gang.  Tassim told Chullunder Ghose
and you, Crosby, that the cache is in the last tomb they opened. We
know where that is.  It's surrounded now by troops, and if the stuff's
there we'll find it.  But that's a mere detail.  We want Dorje."

"He is not in Egypt," said the Princess.

"No.  But you are.  And there are not more than ten quite dependable
people who know that your sister is dead.  Mahdi Aububah had orders
to report to her, and he has no way to know she is dead.  In the
dark you look exactly like her."

"I don't know him," she answered.

"But he knew her.  He had spoken to her.  He had given her at
least one of those gadgets.  At least that's probable.  If she
had brought the one that killed her all the way from the Cape,
it's likely she would have been more familiar with it and wouldn't
have got killed.  And it's equally probable that Mahdi Aububah is
not in command of his party."

"He is too big a fool," Jeff agreed.  "I used him once on safari
to Kilimanjaro from Dar-es-salaam.  Good in some ways, bad in others.
No good without someone to keep after him.  Taciturn, faithful,
brave, persistent--but a damned fool."

"He was allowed to escape," said Grim, "because he almost certainly
had nowhere else to go but to his captain."

"Was he followed?" I asked.

"He was.  While you three chased that subaltern I sent a good
man of McGowan's to keep close on his heels."

The Princess chuckled--maliciously.  It was her first chance to
get back at Grim by shattering his self-assurance.

"And you drive into the desert, by night, to find that one man?
Well--we will have a nice ride.  You are lucky, Jeemgreem;  but
not so lucky as all that."

"The luck was, that McGowan had left a good man at my disposal,"
he answered.  "He has already sent back word by motorcycle from
the outpost near the Minah Hotel.  We know the general direction
to take.  He will be on the lookout for us."

He leaned closer to the Princess and, at a whisper from Chullunder
Ghose, I lighted a cigarette so that the flare of the lighter let
him see her face better.  There was so much wind at the speed we
were making that I had ample excuse for flashing on the light at
least a dozen times.

"Let us understand each other," said Grim.

"Can you?" she answered.  "I understand you. But you me--?"

"You're what might be called a criminal," he said, "but definitions
don't mean much.  I could have had you guillotined in France, or
shot here, and I can hand you over whenever I please to what is
known as justice.  Some people would criticize me for not having
done that already.  However, your peculiar genius may prove useful.
So I am going to give you a chance."

"What then?"

"You are once more Baltis, but not the same one.  You are now
your sister.  And if you meet Dorje tonight--"

"I tell you, he is not in Egypt."

"No?  Well, if you meet him, tonight for instance, remember which
woman you are."

"Alors--what else?"

"Who knows?" he answered.

She was silent for several minutes.  But the atmosphere was vibrant.
Nobody knows what thought is, although science comes closer day
by day to grasping the principle behind thought-transference.  But
as I sat between her and Chullunder Ghose, and facing Grim, with
Jeff's broad back toward me, such a flood of suggestions poured
into my brain that my own long-standing prejudice against almost
all metaphysical theory was forced on the defensive.  I could
almost feel Grim's alert neutrality.  I could almost equally feel
Jeff's arrogant reliance on Grin's genius.  I felt sure that the
babu, on my right hand, was speculating as to what he would do if
he were the Princess;  and for the sheer, stark fun of living he
was hoping she would do it.  She, I knew, was turning over bargains
in her mind and was intensely puzzled by the complex knowledge not
only that Grim almost never made bargains, but that she herself
almost never kept them and that Grim knew it.  Presently she said:

"Of course, your information may be accurate.  It is possible
that you do know where Dorje is.  If we meet him tonight, I shall
choose between you."

"Very wise.  Choose Dorje," Grim advised her.  "Because he looks
like winning."

"Now you make me wish to choose you, Jeemgreem!"

"Reserve your judgment."

"Jeemgreem, I tell you, if you meet Dorje tonight, you are done for.
You can never defeat him--nevaire--without my showing you how."

"Never," said Grim, "is a long time."


I don't think another word was spoken until we drew up near the
Minah Hotel.  The Hotel was in absolute darkness;  not even a
candle-light was showing in the windows.  On our left the huge
form of the grandest and the oldest building in the world loomed
utterly unearthly, against purple night--the other two pyramids
dwarfed into insignificance by its majesty more than its size.
Gizeh is either the weight of proportion and silence, or the
silence of time in the face of eternity, fashioned in stone;  I
can never decide which.  A man who looked like an Egyptian, but
who turned out to be a Cockney Englishman, thrust his tarbooshed
bullet-head as close to Grim's as he could reach and began whispering,
but Grim told him to speak up, so that McGowan could hear from
the front seat.

"Followed 'im all the way 'ere, sir.  'E rode a bullock-cart part
o' the way, and part o' the way 'e ran like 'ades.  Then 'e jumped
another bullock-cart.  'E's in the pyramid--the big one."

"Where are the sheikh's men?" Grim asked.  He referred to the
Bedouins whose claim to guardianship of the pyramid is more or
less officially recognized.

"Gone, sir;  and it takes something more than a kick or a threat
to shunt those blighters.  The police 'ere at the station 'aven't
been relieved since trouble started.  They're grey-gilled and
don't know much.  Their telephone ain't working, and instead of
answering a feller's questions they do nothing but ask.  But one of
'em told me the pyramid Bedouins got scared o' ghosts and 'ooked it."

"What do you think?" Grim asked.

"Well, sir, I know them Bedouins 'as scooted;  and I know there's
more than jus' Mahdi Aububah in there, although the police say not."

"How do you know?"

"I was up close, nigh an hour ago.  I seen two, in the entrance,
keepin' watch;  and I heard 'em speak to someone inside."

"All right.  Follow us, and if anyone bolts keep after him.  Any
sign of the army?"

"Sure.  They've drawed a cordon, but it's awful wide.  Camel and
horse and infantry.  They're prob'ly patrolling the river, too,
in motorboats but that I can't say.  If somebody 'ud offer me a
ten-pun note to get through that cordon 'most anywhere, I'd make
it easy.  It's a joke, sir, if you asked me."

McGowan drove on, up the pyramid road that is white as a bone in
moonlight, but on a moonless night like that one it is merely a
river of dreamy mystery so dim with gloom that one can barely
trace its curve from fifty yards away.  A long way from the pyramid
he stopped and we all piled out.  Grim drew Jeff Ramsden aside;
McGowan listened to them while they whispered.  Presently Grim
beckoned Chullunder Ghose and I was left alone with the Princess.

"Does he think that Dorje is such a fool as to let himself be
taken in that trap?" she asked me.  Then, since I did not answer
because I did not know:  "If Dorje were in there, it would mean
it is the deadliest possible trap for trespassers.  But I think
he is not in there.  I think Jeemgreem is making us all ridiculous."

It occurred to me that Grim does nothing without motive.  He would
have asked me into that conference unless he wished me to keep an
eye on Baltis.  My actual impulse at the moment was to seize her
by the back of the neck and shake her, I wanted her scared--as
scared as I felt.  Fear is very often at least nine-tenths of the
substance of discipline;  and while I have almost never known Grim's
system to fail, as he applies it, I have also almost never trusted
it--until afterwards.  I agreed with her, only I would have put
it more strongly;  in my judgment we were going into a blind trap
and personal loyalty to Grim was the only excuse for following him.
If she should prove disloyal that might be the end of us.

But to use physical violence would have been a bit too emphatic,
although I am almost sure she was the kind of woman who is loyal
only to a man who thrashes her.  My problem seemed to be to trick
her, somehow, into cooperation with Grim during the next few,
probably intensely dangerous, minutes.

"I hate to be made ridiculous," I said.  "If Grim had sense he
would confide in you."

"That is it," she answered.  "How shall I make him listen to me?"

"Well," I said, "I'll tell you what I think.  For tonight it's
very likely neck or nothing, and it's too late to turn back.  But
Grim doesn't trust you.  I believe he actually counts on you to
try to betray him.  And he trusts himself to turn the tables on you.
That's his way of finally convincing you that he's the head man;
and if he once does that you're done for, he will simply use you
as a pawn in his game forever after, just as he uses me."

"Yes--like an err-rr-and boy!"

"I want to see him win this game," I went on, "and I don't believe
he will win it without your assistance.  The thing for you to do
is to convince him that he can trust you, especially if you get
an opportunity tonight to do the opposite.  Surprise him by your
apparently blind obedience.  If we all get killed, no matter.  If
we don't if we get out of this alive--he will have changed his
attitude toward you, and after that I'll be able to help you to
steer him along the right line.  Personally, I think you have
more brains than he has."

"I think--a leetle bit you like me?" she suggested.

"I think you're the most intelligent woman I ever met."

"You, too, you have intelligence," she answered.  "Good, I do it.
Afterwards we help each other.  But I think we go into a trap.
How gor-r-rgeous if we all get killed in one sensational affaire!
I adore to die that way."

Then Grim beckoned us and we all went forward in a group, Jeff
leading.  He looked like a factory owner on a surprise visit of
inspection at the new plant, with his fist in his right hip-pocket
and his air of deliberate, punchful personality.  Chullunder Ghose
drew back beside me:

"Did you annoy her?  Same was indicated as proper prescription.
Always, sahib, always irritate a woman in any emergency whatsoever.
She emerges forthwith.  Verb sap.  Very.  Shakespeare, who I was
in previous incarnation, should have said, `Oh woman in our hour
of ease, you're no good on a lover's knees;  but angry you're a
lil--and how!  So do get angry--do it now!'  Am terrified.  A kind
of yellowish-purple funk with spots on it is melting me.  That is
why I quote immortal poetry.  Nobody treats a poet seriously.  I
do not wish calamity to treat me seriously.  Is calamity a person?
I believe she is a female.  Are females persons?  Let me get at
that one.  Let me irritate her."

She was overtaking Grim.  He followed, I close on his heels.  He
pushed past her roughly, although there was plenty of room on the
road.  She resented it:

"Cochon d'un Indien! Vache!"

"French," he retorted, "is diplomatic language--very!  Damn French!
Damn you!  You are interloper! You imagine you will scheme your
way into Jimmy Jimgrim's confidence and make him hate me!  Bah!
You haven't brains enough!  In previous incarnation you were
Delilah who shaved Sampson.  But Jimmy Jimgrim wears no whiskers.
I bet you think, tonight, you make him love you.  I bet you can't!
Pounds Egyptian fifty.  Take me?"

"Silence!" Grim commanded.

The authorities have made it very easy for the tourist to invade
the pyramid.  There is a ramp and a system of steps, by which one
reaches the opening, about fifty feet above the level of the
ground on the north side.  As we approached I saw somebody drop
to the ground, not by the steps but by using the huge stone
courses as a stairway.  I don't think he saw us, but he was in
a tremendous hurry;  the moment his feet were on the sand he took
to his heels and ran southward.  He was a big man wearing a white
smock tucked into a pair of cotton knickers, but it was much too
dark to identify him.  Grim, quite casually, turned and stared
into the darkness behind us.  Almost instantly, not more than
fifty yards away, there was a sudden flick from someone's pocket
flashlight.  It was repeated a moment later twenty or thirty yards
farther southward.  McGowan's Cockney had given chase.  Grim
resumed his interest in the pyramid.

In another moment we were observed from the pyramid opening.  Fifty
feet above us I heard voices and someone challenged, in a low voice,
as if visitors were expected.  The challenge was repeated in several
languages--Arabic, Hindu, two that I did not recognize, and at last
in English:

"Who are you?"

To me the voice sounded something less than confident.  However,
there was no time for speculation;  Grim pulled me into the deep
gloom at the base of the pyramid and whispered:

"Go up with them.  Your job is to be mysterious and say nothing.
You're the unknown quantity.  Smile, look confident, do nothing,
and don't speak."

There was a stone missing from the second course;  he pulled himself
up into the gap and sat there, perfectly invisible from a distance
of two yards.  It was no use asking questions.  I followed the others,
overtaking them just as the challenge from above was repeated:

"Who are you?"

Jeff pushed the Princess forward, holding her by the arm, and
she answered:

"Baltis!"

"You come late.  He is waiting."  The words were English, spoken
with a turgid foreign accent.  Jeff nudged her and growled something
in an undertone.  She spoke again:

"I send someone."

Before there was time for the man above to answer her Jeff went
on up alone, important looking, as if he meant to buy the pyramid
provided it was up to sample.  He climbed as if there were no
such things as rifles or automatics.  The darkness in the mouth
of the opening was of the sort that the ancients used to sell in
sealed jars to the tourists of those days, and the silence was
of the same quality;  one's own heartbeats were like the noise
of marching men and a wristwatch ticked like the clangour of cymbals.
Looming up there against the astonishing starlight Jeff looked
twice his natural size until he strode into the opening and vanished.

The Princess stepped nearer to me and I think she was going to
whisper, but McGowan prevented her;  and then Jeff reappeared,
both hands in his pockets this time.  He spoke louder than necessary,
I suppose to make sure that Grim should hear him:

"All right.  Come on up."

McGowan stayed.  "Might be recognized," he whispered.  He was only
there to make sure that the Princess did not turn aside and hide
in the impenetrable shadows.  She, I and Chullunder Ghose made
the ascent, in that order, and I could hear the babu daring her
to try to rob him of Jimgrim's confidence.  Halfway up, when she
paused for breath, he changed his tone and pleaded with her, wiping
the sweat from his face in a way that almost suggested tears:

"Am lamentable babu.  Sorry I spoke roughly.  Please don't steal
all my credit.  Give me some chance!"

She ignored him.  When we reached the small level space at the
mouth of the opening Jeff bowed as if he were her dragoman, and
led the way in.  I went last then.  There were no lanterns.  It
was darker than death and stifling.  I know that entrance intimately,
but I had to grope like a blind man, and was not reassured by a
hand in the small of my back that held a knife for all I knew, and
by a thin voice like a eunuch's that mewed in my ear:

"Longesa--juldee--sita--kabadar--go on--all right--I shove--ham
poosh dioonga!"

I despise being "pooshed" from behind but Grim's injunctions had
been strict and permitted no speeeh, no resistance.  Fervently,
not for the first time, I cursed Grim's modus operandi.  With
the sweat running into my sightless eyes, that hand at my back
and that voice in my ear, my nerves seemed all short-circuited,
and the noise that the others made, clambering along ahead in
pitch blackness, making preposterous echoes, revived a dread of
the unseen with which destiny cursed me the day I was born.
Nowadays, almost always, I can conquer it;  but not that night.
Only they who suffer from the same form of hysteria can gauge
what mental effort it cost to climb that ascending passage and
arrive at the foot of the ramp of the Grand Gallery in fit
condition to remember, let alone obey, Grim's injunctions.

That damned old pyramid invariably reduces me to speechlessness.
Perhaps that is why I did obey, although I think I really had
myself in hand again.  At any rate, I controlled myself when
someone pushed past me from behind, although the temptation was
almost irresistible to hit out at him, and the next sixty seconds
were a nightmare.  Then suddenly someone switched on an electric
lantern and the strong light caused those incredibly marvellous
walls to seem to leap forth out of darkness.  Even a premonition,
that the man who had pushed past me might be up to deadly mischief,
vanished.  It always seems to me like sacrilege to stand in that
place;  and the sight of the names of the swine who have carved
them on the immortal granite makes me capable of mayhem.  The
name of John Smith was about three feet away from my eyes.  I
turned away from it and brought up face to face with the most
extraordinary person I had ever seen.

He was not more than five feet tall.  He had an enormous head with
a bulging forehead and deep-sunk eyes set wide apart.  He had a
thin neck that looked incapable of supporting all that weight;
a big torso, with a huge stomach and extremely long arms;  short,
fat legs and enormous feet.  He was sweating, and because of the
stifling heat in there he had discarded almost all his clothing.
His stance was insolent.  His upturned nose, with negroid nostrils,
indicated a colossal self-esteem.  The glance he gave me did more
to restore my nerves than anything else could have done.  It made
me ache to pick a row with him.  He and I hated each other instantly,
and he sniffed like a dog as he turned and faced the Princess.

We were all in a group--we, that copper-bellied monster and seven
others, including the leathery-looking mongrel Swahili-Somali-Hindu
who had pushed me from behind.  The remaining six were rather
dignified-looking men and three of them might be Persians;  the
other three had decidedly Mongoloid features.  He who had shoved
me up the passage was the only one who showed a weapon, but that
was a shuddersome, wave-edged knife with two blades and an ivory
handle.  There was no sign of Mahdi Aububah, so I supposed he was
the man I had seen scramble down from the entrance and take to
his heels.

In a language that I could not identify the copper-bellied captain
of that strangely assorted crew angrily ordered the man with the
knife to return to the entrance, and he went as if dogs were after
him.  I remembered to smile, and when the monster stared at me
again I thought he looked vaguely disconcerted.  Once more he
faced the Princess.

"Baltis!  Where d'yew get that garments?  What-a you been doing
all this long time?  All gone wrong--we waiting and no message!
What-a yew been doing?"

Instantly Chullunder Ghose spoke up.  He gave her no time to invent
a story of her own that might have upset Grim's calculations,
whatever those were.  He lied like lightning, prodded by the twin
horns of necessity and inspiration:

"Chupp!  Be silent, you abominable bungler!  Damn fool!  She has
had orders from Dorje.  Let her tell it."

"Dorje?" Copper-belly staggered for a moment.  "Dorje is not in
Egypt."  He glared at me again.  I remembered to smile.  He lost
a part of his arrogance.  His companions looked actually scared.
He stared again at her:  "You bring me cock or bull tale?"

I only wish I could tell what passed through her mind.  Completely
mystified, but certain that Chullunder Ghose had spoken as Grim
had told him to, and left now to her own resources, there was
nothing she could do but, as it were, follow suit.  She let her
lip curl.

"Bungler!" she retorted.  "Where is Dorje?  We were to meet Dorje
here, in this place."

He of the copper belly backed away from her.  "Who has fooled yew?
Yew go mad, eh?  I am Dorje's man here."

"Where is Dorje?" she repeated.

"Yew not know, eh?  Dorje get him a new woman!"

He backed farther away.  I saw Jeff's muscles tighten for a scrimmage,
and I was getting awfully tired of smiling like a  wise fool.  I
saw copper-belly make a signal with his left hand, and then out
went the light.  The Princess did not scream, but I heard Jeff
close with someone and there was a thud as his fist hit someone
else.  Then a voice--up aloft at the top of the ramp--said sternly:

"Turn that light on!"

It was so sudden and dynamic that it stopped the scrimmage.  It
was Chullunder Ghose who answered, loud and high:

"Who are you?"

"Dorje!  Turn that light on!"

It was I who found the lantern in the dark and snatched it from
its owner.  Luck, that--he was making for me.  I switched it on.
Jeff had copper-belly in a strangle-hold.  Chullunder Ghose had
dragged the Princess twenty feet away along the floor of the Grand
Gallery to keep her out of mischief;  she was struggling, not
knowing who had hold of her.  She had drawn a long, thin knife.
The lantern saved the babu by a fraction of a second.

At the top of the ascending ramp, as calm and cool to look at as
if he were the spirit of the genius who built the place--with his
back to the gloom of the low arch leading to the Great King's
Chamber--incredible, because there was no hint of how he got there--
turbaned, thinly smiling and alert, with folded arms, stood Jimgrim!

"Dogs!  Blunderers!  Idiots! I am Dorje!"

It was touch and go then.  It depended absolutely, solely on the
Princess.  Staggered, admiring, amused, aware that for the moment
the ace of trumps was in her hand, she seemed to hesitate, prolonging
the suspense, enjoying it.  The others stared at her.  She knew;
none else did;  she was Dorie's woman.  Then at last:

"Lord Dorje, you are greater than even I believed.  Greetings!
Down on your knees, you reptiles!  Bow to him--the Lord Dorje,
the Daring--the King of the World!"




Chapter Sixteen

"Can't make brain empty.  Can't listen."


Dared by Grim and nagged by Chullunder Ghose;  perhaps, too, with
my argument at the back of her mind, Baltis had reacted perfectly.
Grim's gamble--a throw of life's dice in the dark--was too bold
and too suddenly done not to delight her.

When, on the spur of that moment, she acknowledged herself as
her dead twin sister, and acknowledged Grim as Dorje, she did it
recklessly, thrilled by the danger and almost drunk with the
daring of the idea.  The drama of it had us all by the throat.
Grim--turbaned, laconic, inscrutable--suddenly seen in the glare
of an electric lantern standing at the top of that agelessly
ancient ramp in the heart of Gizeh, would have astonished almost
anyone into at least momentary obedience.  Grim had gambled on
the possibility that Dorje's men had never seen their master;
although, when he explained it afterwards, that part of his
strategy turned out to have been closely reasoned and at least
in line with probability.  Baltis almost exactly resembled her
sister and Dorie's men had no conceivable reason for supposing
she was not the woman who, to their probably certain knowledge,
did know Dorje intimately.  Grim had gambled on her convincing them.
She might have wrecked Grim's chances by denying him before those
men, but the really deadly risk Grim took was that he made her
the key to the future.  If he was going to pretend to be Dorje,
Baltis would be in a position to betray him whenever she pleased.
She fully realized it.  And she showed it instantly by trying to
humiliate and score off us.

"Down on your knees, you reptiles!"

Dorje's men did not obey the order, I suppose because I held the
light steadily on Grim and as long as I did that the rest of us
were in almost total darkness.  Grim spoke again:

"Baltis!  Come forward into the light!"

She obeyed.  I have seen nothing, anywhere, more graceful than
her movement as she stood near the foot of the ramp and bowed to
him with outstretched arms.  I think the feel of that splendid
shrine had hold of her and she was acting as Bernhardt used to,
her imagination for the moment making real the unreality she played.

"Lord Dorje," she began.

"Silence!  Every order I have given has been ignored or bungled
in the doing.  I blame you."

It was crafty.  Inflection of voice and attitude were indescribably
suggestive of a swordsman's way of tempting an opponent into
indiscretion.  She realized it, as he intended that she should.
No word, no gesture indicated that she was not his real target.
One sensed rather than perceived an invitation to the others to
join in and blame her for everything that had gone wrong.  He of
the monstrous head and copper-coloured belly went into the trap
without a second's hesitation, swaying forward into the stream
of light;  I let him have its full strength, leaving Grim for
the moment dimly outlined by the outer rays that made him look
more like a ghost than a man.

Torrents of words, in a language I did not recognize.  Eloquence
killing its own effect by too much emphasis that conjured hollow
echoes from the womb of Gizeh and changed it to cavernous sounds
like a thunder of waves in an underworld.  Stopped by Grim's voice,
like a cracked whip:

"Dunderhead!  Speak English!"  He pronounced the words as if he
were using a familiar but not his own native language.

"Lord Dorje, I wished only you to understand!"

"Since when do your wishes overrule mine?"

"Then I speak English.  Yes, she is wholly to blame.  She has
bewildered us.  She left us here--huh--so long time in this place--
and no water--none here--none now left.  So I sent Aububah.  And
he came back;  and he said she is making love in Cairo.  Huh!
Kill her!  Say it.  I wring her neck!"

It became evident that Grim had assumed the rights and title of
an autocrat as absolute as Bluebeard, although the secret of his
sway was not yet uncovered.  Knowing Grim by that time moderately
well, I doubted that his strategy could possibly succeed.  He is
almost the last man whom one could imagine dealing out sentences
of death for disobedience.  Determination personified, he is,
nevertheless, no killer.  Men used to a bloody tyranny are the
first to revolt when death and disobedience are no longer synonymous
terms.  Either they would know he was not Dorje because cruel
discipline was lacking;  or they would believe Dorje had weakened.
Either way Grim was in peril.  However, he carried a high hand thus
far.  His quiet, cold voice was much more effective than vehemence
might have been:

"You, who have failed to carry out my orders, dare to advise me
whom to spare and whom to kill?"

And then Chullunder Ghose, before the copper-coloured individual
could answer:

"Slay the right ones at the right time.  Do we follow the Lord
Dorje because he is either fierce or merciful?  Or because he is
wise and daring?"

"Light!" Grim commanded.  "You--set a light in the Great Chamber!"

Hesitating--slowly, because he feared some ghastly fate awaited
him--the copper-bellied man advanced up the ramp, feeling his way
through shadows cast by the light behind him.  When he reached
Grim he went on his hands and knees and crept through the low
opening into the Great Chamber where the so-called sarcophagus
stands.  There was long silence until light at last streamed and
vanished into it.  Then copper-belly came on hands and knees and
called down:

"He says everybody come!"

Jeff sent Baltis first.  I followed last, behind the last of Dorje's
men.  But I had not taken two steps up the ramp before I heard a
sound behind me.  It seemed to come from the so-called Queen's
Chamber, which is reached through a narrow opening that turns off
the ascending entrance passage before it reaches the Grand Gallery.
Lantern in hand, I turned back to investigate.

I looked into the so-called Queen's Chamber and explored the entire
length of the passage, drawing a blank, before turning back at last
to see what Grim was doing and to help if I were needed.

In the Great Chamber Grim was standing with his back to the stone
cistern which antiquarians insist on calling the sarcophagus.  It
does not resemble one;  it never was one;  it was never intended
to be one.  Dorje's men had used it as a tank to hold their drinking
water, and that, at any rate, was something more like its original
purpose than the use that the word sarcophagus suggests.  In fact,
allowing for different costume, and for the absence of the wood-wind
music that was probably essential to the rites, the scene as I saw
it may not have been so vastly less impressive than it was in the
days when they initiated priest-kings in the same room--five, six,
seven thousand years ago.

To my mind, that is the most solemn and the grandest place on earth.
It is not large, but its proportions are so perfect that the actual
dimensions don't much matter;  and the workmanship is so simply
magnificent that no human hand has ever been able to equal it
anywhere.  Light from a dozen candles, set in a circle on what
looked like a nail-keg in the middle of the floor, cast velvet
shadows on the smooth, red granite walls.  Baltis, still wearing
her hooded cape in spite of the heat, was standing facing Grim.
She might have been a priestess seeking the hierophantic blessing.
Most of Dorje's men stood stripped to the waist, with their backs
against the wall on Grim's right, although the copper-bellied man
was on his left hand.  Chullunder Ghose had shed most of his clothing
and looked exactly like a priest of some occult religion, albeit
a fat priest given to not too much austerity.  Jeff Ramsden in his
shirt-sleeves stood near the entrance.  Until I came in and stood
beside him Jeff was the only genuinely modern touch, because Grim,
in that mood and that turban, might have stepped out of a Persian
picture;  leaping shadows, warmed by the granite background, dimmed
the outline of his suit until he might have fitted almost any age
and any setting.

Copper-belly spoke:  "It is good yew come.  She ball it all up.
Can't get messages."

"Why not?" Grim demanded.

"How?  How get them?  Too much worry!  How make brain blank, and
all that excitement?  Sit still--sit still--sit still--nothing!"

Said Grim:  "What is worse than a fool?"

"Nothing," the man answered.  "Nothing."

Then, although I did not realize it at the moment, Grim   took
hold of and began to follow up the thread that was to lead to
all the information he needed:

"You accuse her.  But you are a fool, and I know she is not one.
Answer now--and don't let me catch you lying.  Have you forgotten
the general orders?"

"No, no.  I forget nothing--nothing!"

"It is easy to say that.  Prove it."

"Lord of men, he said--"

"Who said?"

"Lung-ten Rim-po-che, your councillor.  He came to me and said--"

"Where did he come to you?  When?"

"In Baghdad.  Now it is nearly four months since he came
to me, in the house between the shops of Gabriel de Sousa and the
Parsee Jamsetjee.  He came by night.  He said:  Now!  He who calls
himself Mahdi Aububah takes a dhow-load of the thunderbolts and--"

"Whence?  From what port?"

"From Karachi, All-wise.  Whither, I know not, but some place
north of Bab-el-Mandeb.  The meeting place, he said, is this place.
Huh.  Me, I am to wait for others, who will come and obey me.  But
I am to obey her.  Huh.  Because she knows it all.  Huh.  Orders--
he said shall come as usual to me.  But I am to tell her.  Huh.
Obey her.  Huh.  Couldn't get orders.  Couldn't hear um.  Huh.
She said--"

Grim made a sign of impatience.  "She shall speak for herself in
her turn.  I perceive the fault is yours.  Have you been drinking?"

"Water.  Hot.  Too little.  Out of that.  We filled it half-full.
Huh.  All gone now."  He pointed at the cistern.

"You say you can't get messages?"

"Huh.  I said, too much disturbance.  Can't make brain empty.
Can't listen."

Grim took another long shot in the dark:  "There is no disturbance.
This is the best place in the world.  What is the matter with you?
Have you forgotten the key?"

"No."

"Are you ill?"

"No."

"Have you not had enough training?"

"Huh.  That may be.  High there--low here.  Hear it all in mountains."

"Couldn't you hear in Baghdad?"

"Not much."

Then the longest shot of all.  It was a shot that saved civilization:

"I will have you tested.  If the fault is not yours, then you shall
be employed on other business.  Otherwise--"

The man was trembling.  "Lord Dorje--"

"Go to my place."

"Which place?"

"Perhaps I had better rid the earth of such an idiot!"

"But how--Huh--how I get there?  Officers all on lookout--Bombay?
No chance.  Karachi?  No chance.  Sikkim?  Bhutan?  Nepal?  Huh.
Not a rat get by--not now--not now this happened.  Huh.  How you
get there?"

"Do you question me, you bungler!"  Grim pointed with his forefinger
at Jeff Ramsden.  "You will go with that man.  He is not suspected.
He will take you through all barriers.  He will protect you;  and
you will show him the road to my place."

"Huh.  I don't know it."

"What is the nearest to it that you do know?"

"Chak-sam."

That is at the crossing of the Tsang-po, on the way to Lhasa.  Go
there.  I will send word.  You will find a guide awaiting you.
Give him the signal but answer no questions and ask none."

"Which signal?"

"The same that I have been sending you, these days past, and that
you say you can't hear!  You dog, you have forgotten it!"

"No.  Huh.  How could I forget that?"

Grim smiled scornfully.  He glanced to his right at the others,
who were standing with their backs against the wall.  They were
frightened.  I think they would have backed through the wall if
they could.  "You are all bunglers!  It begins to seem to me some
bungler chose you.  Do you know anything?  Which of you knows
the signal?"

Each man made a different gesture of assent.  They all knew it,
but none betrayed it.  I thought Grim was stumped.  But I was
reckoning (as Grim was not) without Chullunder Ghose.  The babu
piped up:

"Humbly this devoted servant makes salaam--and ventures to remind
your Mightiness that the signal was recently changed.  Perhaps
these miserable people only know the former one.  That might
account for much of all this thusness."

Jeff Ramsden, with a subtlety that one would hardly have expected
of him seconded Chullunder Ghose.

"It is against the law to give the signal unless there is need!"

Grim nodded.  "It is a wise law.  I will not change it.  However,
there is need now.  I command it.  Let them give the signal."

"Which way?" demanded copper-belly, and Chullunder Ghose stepped
promptly into that breach:

"Mightiness!  This babu bows!  Wisdom of sparing this individual
was not apparent until now to anyone except the All-wise!  But I
now perceive what you did--that he has an element of merit, since
at least he guards that signal!  He is not like the fool who
betrayed it to--"

He stopped abruptly, staring at Baltis, who looked too innocent
not to be up to mischief.  She was standing naturally, with her
hands at her sides, not smiling.

"Thought so.  Old signal!  Look here!"  He held his hands exactly
as the Princess held hers, with his left thumb touching the palm
of his left hand.  "Four-eh?"  He moved his right hand, thumb in
natural position, merely to call attention to it.

"Five, eh?  Now reverse it.  Right hand, four--left hand, five.
Then reverse it again--left hand, four--right hand five.  I said
it was old stuff, didn't I?  Forty-five, minus forty-five, equals
forty-five.  They have been making that old signal during last
five minutes.  Now let us sing hymn `Bicycle built for two,' which
is appropriately up-to-date!"

Grim smiled at the Princess.  "You, too, Baltis?  Are you using
the old signal?"  I don't believe he knew, or she either, whether she
had done it deliberately in order to help him or half-unconsciously
from force of habit.  But he was so pleased to have learned it that
he offered her a chance to lead into his hand again.  She did it.

"Dorje," she answered, "don't show these blunderers the new one.
They are too stupid.  Send not one, but all of them to Chak-sam."

Grim nodded.  "Nevertheless," he said to copper-belly, "when you
reach Chak-sam, use the old one.  It will serve your purpose."




Chapter Seventeen

"Harlem!"


We all have our besetting sins;  and almost all our sins, except
the cowardly ones, are simply more or less distorted virtues.  My
one predominant obsession, that has got me into endless difficulties,
is a craving to row a bit more than my weight.  I don't know how
to await my turn, and stand aside, and let the other fellow do his
own job unaided.  For a man of my temperament it is not easy to
learn to do that.  But it sometimes happens that a vice turns inside
out and becomes, for the moment, a qualified virtue.  It did that night.

It occurred to me to patrol the pyramid interior again, and discover
what McGowan might be doing at the pyramid entrance.  There was
not going to be any fight in the Great Chamber and I was simply
wasting time there as a mere spectator.  Besides, Jeff Ramsden
could probably lick that whole crew single-handed, to say nothing
of Grim and Chullunder Ghose, who are resourceful experts when it
comes to rough-house tactics.  Baltis, furthermore, appeared to
me to be playing Grim's game loyally at last, so that she did not
need any more watching than Grim and Chullunder Ghose could devote
to her while Jeff stood sentinel over the only exit from the Chamber.

So I took a flashlight that Jeff had seized from someone, slipped
out, not doubting that Grim would notice me, and groped my way
downward toward the entrance.  It was a good thing that I am no
believer in discarnate entities who haunt this earth of ours;  it
would be easy for a superstitious person to go crazy, alone, inside
that pyramid.  The light served perfectly to stir such shadows as
not improbably gave birth to all the legends about ghosts and demons,
and it seemed to multiply the silence as well as to destroy all
sense of earthly time and space.  Before I had gone twenty paces
down the great ramp I had begun to feel like a dead man in another
world.  It seemed like an eternity since I left the others in the
Great Chamber.  I could not hear their voices.  My mental picture
of them was as dim as of the half-remembered scenes of years ago.
Bats added to the weirdness, flitting past me so closely that I
could feel the wind they made.  I had to remind myself repeatedly
that I don't believe in "spirits";  but I only mention that because
it helps to explain what condition of mind I was in before I was
halfway to the entrance.

I hurried, not at all sure I was not hurrying for fear of that
dreadful darkness and the solemn echoes of my footfall.  Sounds
ahead startled me.  I switched off the flashlight and slipped it
into my pocket to leave both fists free.  I had almost reached
the point where Al Mamoun's men dislodged a triangular limestone
block a thousand years ago and thus discovered the ascending passage,
which is still blocked by a tremendous granite plug.  Al Mamoun's
men quarried around that through the softer limestone, so that
the passage makes a forced turn and the going is not particularly
easy.  There I waited, irritated by the ticking of my wristwatch
because it sounded to me like the beat of a hammer on brass.  I
could hear footsteps.

One by one--there is no room for two at a time--eleven men, each
one with a lighted taper in his left hand and a wave-edged dagger
in his right, came stealthily around the turn and paused before
beginning the ascent.  Although I was close to them I was probably
quite invisible unless the light from their tapers should gleam
on a stud or a button.  I closed my eyes as much as I could do
and still see, to prevent my eyeballs from reflecting light.  And
I tried to examine their faces;  but that is not easy to do by
smoky taper-light that makes incalculable shadows leap and
intermingle in the Cimmerean throat of Gizeh.

I thought I could recognize one as the man who was sent by copper-belly
to the entrance;  and another, I was almost sure, was the
man Aububah.  If it was he, he knew Grim by sight and probably by
name;  he also certainly knew Jeff;  and though he might mistake
the Princess for her sister, it was impossible to imagine him not
denouncing Jeff, and Grim too the moment he should set eyes on them.
There is no other way out of the pyramid--no possible escape.  We
were like rats in a trap.  I could see the butts of revolvers
protruding from more than one cummerbund.  And I had no weapon.


Flocks of thoughts occurred to me, including the exactly accurate,
unwelcome one that I was scared stiff.  I could not imagine why
McGowan had left the place unguarded, or why Grim had not ordered
that motor-truck with its officer, searchlight and squad of infantry
to keep within hail.  Excepting the two faces that I thought I
recognized, the others all looked like those of Afghans, or at
any rate of Northern Indians;  and the only half-likely guess I
could make was that these were the guards of "thunderbolts," to
whom Mahdi Aububah had run when we first approached the pyramid.
The man whom copper-belly sent to watch the entrance might have
gone instead to bring Aububah back;  these others might have
insisted on coming also.  But if so, where was McGowan's
motorcycle Cockney?

The men at the rear began to talk impatiently, obviously urging
the others forward, although their words, in a strange tongue,
reached me in a jumble of echoes.  I had to stop them somehow.
It occurred to me that most of them were probably as scared as I
was, and they had no means of knowing I was unarmed.

"Ya ashab, min di?" I demanded.  "Ho there, who are you?"  I made
my voice as solemnly portentous as I could--not too loud, but
sepulchral.  And I suddenly remembered the silver case in which
I always carry a few concentrated drugs for use in emergency.  I
snapped the lid.  It sounded like the click of a revolver being
cocked.  Nine of them, in panic, promptly fled around the corner
of Al Mamoun's quarry-hole.  However, the other two came forward,
which was not so satisfying.

It was not Aububab.  It was not the man whom copper-belly sent
to guard the entrance.  I had never seen either of them.  Holding
the flashlight out at arm's length, so as to remain almost if not
quite invisible, I switched it on full in the eyes of the first man.
He was no Oriental, although he was dressed in a cotton amami,
smock and loin-cloth, and his skin looked almost butter-coloured.
His features were negroid, but a lot too intellectual and too
nearly like a white man's not to suggest something other than
jungle and desert.  His resemblance to Aububah was vague after all;
it almost vanished in strong light.  His eyes, I thought, were
used to spectacles, although he wore none at the moment.  I could
see one gold tooth.

"Harlem!" I said abruptly.  Then, before he could answer, and
forgetting for the moment that there are tough men where I did
not doubt he came from:  "Put that rod down butt-first on the
floor where I can reach it!"

He was scared, or I should have died that instant.  But he was
as tough as they come.  Instead of obeying he pulled his weapon
and emptied all six chambers at me.  All six bullets clipped the
stone within inches of where I crouched.  The din in that narrow
passage was terrific and I suppose that scared the wits out of
the man behind him, who fired too.  His first shot almost winged me.
His second shot smashed his companion's backbone.  He fired a
third shot that seared the skin of my right fore-arm and went out
through the sleeve at the elbow.  Then he turned and ran.  I could
hear all ten men scampering like frightened animals toward the
entrance.  But I could also hear hurrying footsteps behind me.
I seized the dead Negro's revolver and reloaded it with shells
that I found in the roll of his loincloth.  A man leaped out of
the dark.  I almost shot him.  It was McGowan.  He laughed.  "I
saw those fellows coming, so I hid in the Queen's Chamber, hoping
to surprise them from the rear.  However, it can't be helped now."
We went together to the entrance, but there were a million pitch-black
shadows.  Any number of men could have hidden within fifty
feet of us in the gaps of the pyramid courses.  It was several
minutes before we dimly saw dark forms hurrying across the sand
toward the second pyramid.

Then Grim came, in a hurry.  "Are you hurt?  Sure?  Put some
stinkum on it, anyhow.  Who did the killing?"

I told him.  He seemed to be listening to me, as it were, with
one ear and with the other to be alert for footsteps.  But suddenly
he concentrated on me.

"Listen, Crosby.  This is my fault.  I ought to have made things
clearer to you.  I wanted those men in here.  That's why we left
the entrance unwatched."

I objected.  "How could you have tackled them?  Eleven armed men--
and on top of that other gang?"

"Easy.  They'd have had to duck to get into the Great Chamber.
Jeff would have disarmed them one by one.  If they had turned
back they would have had to deal with McGowan behind them."

"What if they had tackled McGowan first?"

He shrugged.  "Still easier!  Mac would have acted bellwether
and led 'em straight into the trap.  Was Aububah among them?"

"No," I said, "but that was what I feared.  He might have been,
and he'd have recognized you.  He'd have told them you're not Dorje."

"That might have been a good thing.  When that copper-bellied
fool discovered what an ass he'd made of himself he might have
blabbed all he knows.  He hasn't told it all yet, by a long shot,
but we have the signal, and we know as much as he does about
Dorie's headquarters.  We can get to Chak-sam on the Tsangpo
without his help.  I know now how Dorje transmits his orders,
although we've work to do on that yet.  And we have the key to
his code.  But I need to find out whether his agents can communicate
with Dorje, and if so who does it, and how."

"Doesn't Baltis know that?" I suggested.

He nodded.

"Yes, undoubtedly.  But what a chance for her to get the whip hand,
if I had to depend on her!"

"Then why not let her go to prison?"

"Because I count on her to do the wrong thing at the right time,
and to give us the break that we'll need as thirsty men need water."

I sighed.

"Then we're off for Chak-sam?"

"Yes.  The authorities can deal with Dorje's agents easily enough.
They're fine-tooth-combing Cairo now, and the same thing is going
on in a dozen countries.  We go after Dorje."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

We were gazing through darkness that was the shadow of the pyramid--
ponderous--seeming almost as heavy and solid as Gizeh herself.
Beyond that zone of gloom the desert was made vaguely luminous by
starlight.  Away in the distance there were what looked like
enormous fireflies, of which, however, there are none in that
bone-dry land.  The long cordon of troops was at ease;  men were
lighting their pipes.

Grim did not answer, so I asked again:  "What are we waiting for?"

"For those men, who just now ran from you, to do something.  I don't
think they will dare to leave that dead man lying there;  they'll
want to bury him or dump him in the Nile.  And they won't dare to
wait until morning.  If we've any luck they'll send Aububah to
investigate.  And if we're awfully lucky--just plain dog-lucky
and my hunch is right--the man they may have come to meet may
possibly be on his way to meet them."

"Who is he?"

"I don't know.  But I suspect it could hardly be that copper-bellied
fool, who I think was chosen for his job because he has a certain
sort of mental receptivity."

"Shush!" said McGowan.  "Here comes someone!"  And we ducked back
into the total darkness within the entrance.




Chapter Eighteen

"Eight-six-four-one-nine-seven-five-three-two."


It was not Aububah.  It was someone in the pink of condition, who
could spare the breath to whistle softly to himself as he climbed
in the oppressive heat radiated by the   pyramid.  It was someone
who knew the way perfectly, to whom almost total darkness presented
no obstacle whatever.  And it was someone either utterly devoid
of caution or else so sure of himself as to feel that caution would
be out of place.

The moment his head reached about the level of our feet Grim flashed
a light full in his face, but he took no notice of it.  He was a
white man, wearing dark, smoked spectacles.  He had a short brown
beard, carefully trimmed, and was very neat in his whole appearance.
His hands were in the hip-pockets of a suit of tussore silk, well
tailored.  Except for the spectacles he looked like one of those
athletes who refuse to grow old and retire;  a man of means, perhaps,
who delighted in mountain climbing, or perhaps an explorer.  He
looked like a man whose self-assurance was the result of the achievement.

"Bertolini!" McGowan whispered.

Everyone who knows Egypt at all has heard of Walter Sandro Bertolini,
the blind antiquarian so cordially hated by the dealers in antiques
because he could tell the age of things by touch;  well hated, too,
by Egyptologists because of his irreverence for their opinions,
and because of the intolerant originality of his own.  There is
hardly an important newspaper in any country that has not printed
his vitriolic comments on the findings of men whose judgment is
regarded as authoritative.  His own book on the pyramids of Egypt
has been condemned by almost every important critic in the world.
The sort of man who would rather be wrong all by himself than
right in good company, and yet who had the mortifying gift of
being right so often that it was impossible to ignore him.  He
had never told how he was blinded--never mentioned it--resented
questions on the subject--prided himself on being able to dispense
with eyesight.  Certainly he had abnormally sharp ears;  he heard
McGowan's whisper.

"Yes," he said, "Bertolini.  Forty-five years old this morning."

Grim answered him:  "So that forty-five years ago you were--"

"Forty-five!" he remarked.  "What silly piffle!  If you know who
I am, why go through all that rigmarole?  I'm Bertolini.  Who
are you?"

"I'm Number One," Grim answered, "sent to warn you.  However,
put me through the rigmarole.  I might be a spy."

"Very well.  How do you count nine?"

"Eight-six-four-one-nine-seven-five-three-two," Grim answered,
"and the date being the thirtieth, the key is two-two."

"Which would that be?"

"Second volume of McClaughlin's Dictionary."

"All right.  Who is with you?"

"Baltis--among others."

"She is dead.  I know it.  Died in hospital.  Not hearing from
her I naturally supposed there had been an accident.  I made my
own enquiries.  They were so secretive at the hospital that I
knew she must be in there.  I got the story from the nurse, who
used to be a friend of Isidore Toplinsky, who works with Rothov."

I always carry a pencil clipped to the edge of my handkerchief
pocket.  I felt McGowan reach for it and I heard an old envelope
crackle as he wrote down both names.

"I told her to tell that story," Grim answered.  "Let me get my
hands on you," said Bertolini.

Grim pushed me.  I stepped between them.  Bertolini fingered me
with the uncanny supersensitive blind man's touch that suggests
a portrait painter's stare and a surgeon's exploring finger-tips
combined in one.

"H-m!  Medical?  Military?  What name?"

Grim, from behind me, rested his chin on my shoulder.

"Major Robert Crosby," he answered.

"I'd have known if you'd given your wrong name.  But what does it
mean?  I advised Dorje to let the military alone.  The time to
undermine the armies is when the panic sets in.  Army men always
go off half-cocked.  I suppose it's you who brought on this wretched
fiasco in Cairo.  I warned Dorje to let natural unrest take care
of things, and let the Communists--reds--radicals take the blame.
Has Dorje lost his wits?  Here's Egypt rotten with nationalism--
India seething--China committing suicide--the Kurds boiling over
and being massacred by Mustapha Kemal so thoroughly that all Persia
will go hysterical--Mussolini with a million Italians in prison--
England, Germany, the United States with millions of unemployed--
native unrest in South Africa--religious strife in   Malta--civil
war in Brazil and Bolivia--Russia reducing bread rations in order
to buy machinery with which to stave off absolute bankruptcy--
Australia flat broke--Japan so worried by internal politics that
she's even willing to reduce her Navy--Spain on the edge of a
revolution--the French war party, Poland and Yugoslavia abetting
them, itching to thrash Germany before Germany gets too strong--
all Germany drilling under the guise of athletics--an almost perfect
situation, not quite ripe but ripening faster every minute.  And
that damned fool Dorje spoils it by this penny fireworks policy
of blowing up cruisers and burning a bit of cotton in a warehouse!"


Grim pushed me aside, which was a relief.  There is something
horrible about fencing with a blind man;  it was made worse, not
better, by his confidence that no one would do him violence, and by
the obvious fact that some of his faculties were amazingly developed.

"I was sent," said Grim, "to call a halt.  The signals have not
been coming through."

"Stuff and nonsense!  They have.  I've had 'em all," he answered.
"I've relayed 'em.  Effectively, too.  Do you know of the riots
in Alexandria?  Caught the authorities napping--perfect!  Scores
of young students all over the world are learning to pick 'em up
better and better.  You say Baltis is here?  Let me talk to her."

Grim nudged me.  "Do you mind bringing her?"  But Bertolini heard
that and objected.

"None of your inspired conversations, thanks!"  He pushed past
Grim and vanished into the dark passage, going much faster than
a man with eyesight could have done;  he evidently knew every
inch of the way intimately.  McGowan remained in the entrance.
Grim and I followed, hurrying with the aid of the flashlight;
but we did not overtake the blind man until we found him kneeling
beside the dead body of the Harlem Negro.  He spoke as if he could
see us with his shoulder-blades.

"Who killed Honey Foxman?  Shot in the back.  What had he done?
Scared you?  Good tough nigger, and no harm in fifty of him!  I
could handle Honey like a pet dog!  Counted on him, too, to do a
lot of good in the United States;  he was the sort that can start
a riot in no time.  Who shot him?"

"I did," Grim answered.  "He was bragging too loud about his
friend Bertolini."

"Is that so?  Mentioned me by name?  I wonder how he knew my name?
He had never seen me.  He knew me as the spirit of Rameses.  I
never spoke to him except in a dark room."

"How did you know it was dark?" Grim objected.  "You can't even
feel light."

"Idiot!  There aren't windows in a tomb!  Why do you suppose I've
preached, day in, day out, for years, that there isn't a tomb worth
hunting for on the site of Cairo?  I've a marvel of a place.  I'm
the voice in the tomb.  I had Honey Foxman studying to be
Master-magician of Osiris, reincarnation of Hamarchis and Captain of
the Cohorts of the King of the World in the United States!"

Grim took one of his intuitive long shots:  "Too many people know
about that tomb.  Honey Foxman bragged about it--one more reason
why I shot him.  I could walk right to it."

"Smart, aren't you!"

"Yes.  It's my job to be.  You were blaming Dorje just now. I'm
not sent here to blame anyone, but to straighten out this mess if
it can be straightened.  Blame will be apportioned afterwards.
Is there room for fifty people in that tomb of yours?"

"Fifty?  Five hundred."

"All right.  Take my man there.  He's a greater expert than even
you are.  There's no co-ordination.  You're running one department--
someone else another--and so on.  Send out a call for your men--I
mean the head men, not the rank and file.  We'll have a conference.
Does Mahdi Aububah know the place?"

"That idiot?  No.  Baltis was supposed to get in touch with me, so
that I could tell her to tell him where to deliver the thunderbolts.
They should have been in my place long ago.  If they had been, there
would have been none of this premature rot and nonsense."

"How are we to get them in there now without being caught?"

"I don't know," Bertolini was fingering the dead man's body.  Grim
was watching him.  "Perhaps after all we'd better blot out Cairo
and have done with it."

"Maybe," Grim answered.  "Let's find out first what Dorje has to
tell us.  Dorje sees things on a big scale."

"All right."  Bertolini had found what he was looking for.  It
was in the dead man's amami, which is a sort of turban.  Whatever
it was, he slipped it into his pocket.  Then he started forward.
He had not gone more than a dozen paces before Grim said:

"Half a minute, there's blood on you, off Foxman.  Take your coat
off."  Grim pulled the coat down over his back by the collar so
that his arms were pinioned.  "No, it's not blood after all--mere
innocuous dirt.  Go ahead."  He jerked the coat back in position.

"Damn you!" Bertolini remarked, without emphasis but with a coldly
vicious intonation.  "I will have you understand I don't like
being touched!"

"I sympathize," said Grim.  "I hate it, too.  But blood on your
coat, at a time like this--"

"You have picked my pocket!"

Bertolini faced us, livid with indignation.  I turned the full
light in his face but he seemed not to know it.  Rage changed his
entire expression;  he was no longer a handsome man;  he looked
like a maniac, and he thrust his lower jaw and neck so far forward
that almost a hump appeared between his shoulders.

"Hand that thing back!"

"What thing?  Perhaps you dropped it?" Grim held what he had
toward the rays of the flashlight, so that I saw it, too.  It
was a tiny, blue memorandum book of the kind that expensive j
ewellers give away as an advertisement.  There were only a few
words on each page in fine Italian handwriting;  but beneath them,
and sometimes over them, Foxman had scrawled other words in pencil.

"I never drop anything!"

"If it's important I advise you to go back and look," Grim answered.
He pulled out his own notebook and I held the flashlight while he
copied the entries, doing it as swiftly as some illustrators draw.
And Bertolini, needing no light, retraced his steps fretfully,
stooping to feel the granite floor with fingers that were as good
as another man's eyes;  it took him several minutes because he
left no inch unfingered;  Grim had finished copying before the blind
man reached the corpse.  He passed the memorandum book to me.  I
followed Bertolini and said:  "There--is that what you're looking for?"

"What? Where? Where is it?"

I dropped the little book on to the dead man's back (he was face
downward), and at the same time made a noise on the stone with
my foot so that his ears should not catch the sound of the book
falling.  Then I told him what I saw.  He pounced on it--fingered it.

"Hot!" he remarked.  "You had it in your fingers!"

I answered:  "I would have, if I'd seen it first.  What is it?"

"None of your business!" he snapped and turned back toward where
Grim waited for us.  But he did not pause when he reached Grim.
He hurried forward, muttering, and because he knew the way so well
he soon outdistanced us, so that Grim had opportunity to whisper:

"Now we're all set!  That's a list of the names and addresses of
nineteen people.  French--Greek--German--Italian--English--Egyptian.
Bertolini seems to be the kingpin;  Foxman was his messenger,
among other things.  Have you got that gun?  Whatever you do,
don't shoot Bertolini. We need him."

Grim whistled--three notes on an ascending scale.  The babu,
carrying a lighted candle and looking like a pot-bellied Roman
senator, came waddling down the grand ramp and met Bertolini
midway.  He was an utterly impassable obstruction and exceedingly
polite about it:

"Salaam, sahib.  You are King of England, doubtless.  How is Her
Majesty?  Yes?  No?  Thank you, I am very well.  And if, as your
Majesty says, I am damned, I am at least damned pleased to meet you.
No, am obesity made manifest and cannot make room for you or anyone.
No, you are mistaken. I am not that fool who is the temporary tenant.
I came to count the money in the gas-meter.  It was not there.  I
suspect Queen Cleopatra of having come to life to collect more
revenue for one of her gentleman friends.  Are you the landlord?"

One can always count on Chullunder Ghose to clown through anything
to gain time.  He has been known to hold up the Bombay-Calcutta
train for an hour in order to prevent a Maharajah from keeping an
appointment with a banker;  he got thirty days in jail for it, and
in the jail he made the acquaintance of a man with whom he
cheerfully agreed to bomb the Viceroy;  so that the Viceroy is
still in the land of the living.  He gave us plenty of time to
overtake Bertolini.  And then:

"We would like to talk to the Princess," said Grim.

Bertolini objected:  "No, no.  I will see her alone."  But
Chullunder Ghose had already grasped the essentials of the
situation;  he had turned and scurried back ahead of us, and
Grim said:

"Careful, Bertolini!  Watch your step.  There's been some oil
spilled here and the ramp's as slippery as ice.  Let me walk
ahead of you."

"Oil?" he retorted.  "Nonsense!  I could smell oil fifty feet
away if there was any."

But, as luck would have it, there had been some cooking done and
someone actually had spilled oil within smelling distance.
Bertolini sniffed, detected it and became a shade more gracious.

"No, no.  I don't need help.  Don't touch me.  I tell you, I hate it."

However, he let Grim go ahead of him and Grim went slowly.  By
the time we reached the head of the ramp Chullunder Ghose had
had ample time to use his fertile imagination.

As those who know the pyramid will not need telling, at the top
of the Grand Ramp there is a low passage about three and a half
feet high that leads into a small ante-chamber, from which there
is another short, low passage into the Great Chamber.  Bertolini,
negotiating the slippery summit with the ease of a cat, ducked
exactly at the right moment without groping, stood upright the
moment he reached the ante-chamber, crossed it, ducked again
without groping and passed through the second passage.  Grim
remained in the ante-chamber, motioning to me to follow Bertolini.

The candles were all lighted, and someone had produced two oil
lanterns as well.  Jeff, with his back to the wall near the entrance,
jerked his head to call my attention to two men who were not in
the Chamber at the time I left.  There could only be one possible
explanation of that.  Above the Great Chamber there are so-called
chambers of construction, very difficult of access by means of
notches cut in the south-east angle of the Grand Gallery.  They
must have been in hiding up there;  and the fact that Jeff now
had two revolvers, one in each hip-pocket, was good enough evidence
that he had disarmed them as they entered.  They looked like Hindus,
and they were filthy with bat manure.  One wore spectacles;  the
other was dressed as a European;  and they both looked like young
intellectuals of the kind who make the rounds of the universities
before returning to India to envenom politics in the name of
spiritual vision.  Excitable, but not excitingly attractive men.

Baltis, sick of the heat and tired of standing, was on the floor,
on her own folded cloak, with her back to the wall, close to where
Jeff stood.  The others, except copper-belly, were all leaning
against the wall;  he leaned against the cistern, with his elbows
on it, rolling his great head sideways to watch first one, and
then another.  Chullunder Ghose had already squatted on the floor
at the right hand of Baltis, close enough to her to whisper,
although I doubt that he could have done that without Bertolini's
keen ears detecting it.  Bertolini went straight to her, exactly
as if he could see.

"Are you Baltis?  Why didn't you come straight to me?"

"I have Dorje's orders."

"And a fine mess you've made of them!"

I could see Chullunder Ghose touching her shoe with his fingers;
she kicked his hand away irritably.  It may be that the momentary
irritation, added to the insolently domineering manner of Bertolini,
prevented her from playing her own hand.  Anyhow, she craftily
protected Grim by admitting that she did not know who Bertolini was,
and then intentionally blundering to bring an awkward climax to
a head.  She was quite capable of doing that.  I believe she still
cherished the thought of finally betraying Grim, for the sheer
mischief of asserting her own genius, and it would not in the
least have troubled her that she must die too, if she could only
make her end dramatic and sensational.  Perhaps she thought that
opportunity not sensational enough.

"One would think you were your sister," Bertolini went on,
snarling.  "How many times have you told me what a treacherous
fool she is, obeying her own inclinations instead of orders.  And
now you do the same thing!  Why the devil didn't you come to me?"

That stung her.  There had plainly been a more than common jealousy
between those twins.  It made her hate the man who spoke of her
sister's criticism.  But she needed a clue as to how to answer him,
so she still sparred for an opening, and I held my breath.  I
think we all did.

"Do you wish me to tell you in front of all these people?"

"Who are they?"

"Ku-sho and his company."

"That fool!  Useless idiot!  Skin him alive!  I asked you, why
didn't you come straight to me?"

If she had thought for a week she could not have imagined a retort
more suitable:

"I was ordered to investigate you before trusting you.  Dorje is
far from pleased.  Reports have reached him.  The reports seem
false.  So I will come and see you now.  But if you are wise you
will make me a full report of all your doings."'

"Oh."  He turned livid.  His tyrannous temper so changed his
expression that I thought for a moment he would seize her throat
and try to throttle her.  However, he mastered his facial muscles,
and in a moment there remained only a smile of malignant cunning
that he probably supposed was pleasant.

"Very well.  Come now and see me.  Come to my place.  I will show
you everything."

"Tomorrow," she answered.  "I am too tired now.  I must sleep.

"Where?"

Chullunder Ghose spoke up for her.  "The sahiba will go to Brown's
Hotel, Suite A."

Bertolini nodded, obviously memorizing the room number.

"Who are you?  Are you the fat fool who got in my way just now?"

"Am fat wise man.  Am expert who invented formula that, nine,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one make forty-five;
and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine make also
forty-five;  and by subtracting one from the other we have self-same
figures in another order, namely, eight, six, four, one, nine, seven,
five, three, two--which once again is forty-five;  and we have key
to code which puzzles unintelligence departments of lots of governments.
Therefore speak to me respectfully.  Am Ph. D. of University of Guile.
Am pundit plus."

"Are you the tinker who is to come to my place to advise me?"

"No, the thinker!  Am appropriately learned expert to do any
emergency job whatever.  If the boss says Sizzle on a hot plate,
this babu invents asbestos anti-sizzlum pad, like camouflage on
top-side lid of Tophet, and squats as per invoice.  Did the boss
say, Do it?"

"Yes.  Get a move on.  I came here on donkey-back.  You'll have
to walk."

"Am good guesser.  I guess I won't walk--not all that distance!
Hercules was penny-ante charlatan compared to this babu.  Hercules
was what U.S.A. Yankees call sucker.  Self am reincarnation of Adam,
who let Eve pick apple, ate same and did not give her any."

"Nonsense!"  Bertolini answered.  "I and my donkey are well known
and can get by sentries unquestioned.  You will get through, too,
if you walk beside me."

"I don't wonder you need an investigation!" said the babu.  "Which
of you manages Dorje's business--you or the donkey?  How do you
suppose a big fat man like me, who can be seen from a mile away,
would come to a place like this, on Dorje's business, without as
good credentials as the King would have if he were travelling incog.?
I am supposed to be--in fact, I am--a trusted agent of the Indian
Intelligence Department.  Do you think Dorje employs only nit-wits?
Do you think you could have escaped police investigation if there
were not more than one important Egyptian on Dorje's secret list?
I envy you your naive vanity!  You believe yourself a crafty king-pin,
which must be very pleasant;  but you are actually only a little
piece of the machinery, under observation, and replaceable.  I came
here by motor-car.  So did this lady.  We go back by motor-car.  And
so do you.  We drop her at the hotel.  Then we go to your place.
And if you think you are the only guiley conversation salesman who
can get through a line of sentries, you are going to learn something.
You are safer with me than I with you."

"My donkey--I can't leave it here," said Bertolini.  "It would be
recognized."

"Can it ride in motor-car?  You need your brain investigated, not
only your behaviour!  Your donkey shall be brought to you tomorrow--
unless someone needs it for another purpose.  Now let us go to your
place.  Come on!"

Out-bullied, the blind bully smiled malignantly, stared all around
him as if he could see, turned suddenly, and walked out, stooping
under the low entrance without using his hands to feel his way.
Baltis went next, hustled by Chullunder Ghose, who was in a hurry
to get a word with Grim.  But Grim was no longer in the antechamber.




Chapter Nineteen

"So I will bring on all of us a tragedy, unless--"


As I have said more than once, that ramp is slippery.  Baltis--
small blame to her--collapsed from the heat and sheer weariness
I had to carry her down the ramp, in no way aided by the irritating
dance of the electric lantern that Chullunder Ghose held as he
hurried to overtake Bertolini and to find Grim.  Bertolini, of course,
was unaffected by light or darkness;  leaping and bewildering shadows
made no difference to him.  I believe that I, too, could have done
better in absolute darkness, since I knew the way almost as well
as he did.  Jeff's shout, from behind me, did not help matters.

"Look out for yourself, Crosby!"

Jeff, as I learned afterwards, had entered the antechamber, on
his way to the step at the head of the ramp, where he hoped the
air would be more breathable.  He intended to remain there and
to keep Dorje's people inside until Grim should decide what to
do with them.  But as he ducked through the opening into the
ante-chamber, both those bat-fouled Hindus doused the lights and
rushed him.  He collared one.  The other scrambled out between
his legs, but Jeff caught him by the foot and held on.  Everything
would have been all right if panic had not seized the crew that
remained in the Great Chamber.  They had been fooled and had
betrayed their master;  they may have hoped, in one mad rush,
to undo the betrayal by destroying us.  Or, they may have been
suddenly seized by an animal impulse to fight their way out of
a trap and abandon everything--escape--hide--vanish.

At any rate, they rushed Jeff.  It possibly occurred to them that
the very last thing he would do would be to use the two revolvers
he had taken from the Hindus.  If so, they guessed rightly.
Probably no man ever lived who was more dependable than Jeff in
a matter of that kind.  He was so utterly loyal to Grim that he
would rather be killed than put a hitch in one of Grim's plans.
Grim needed time to send Bertolini away with Chullunder Ghose.
Bertolini must not be alarmed.  And God knows there was noise
enough without revolver shots.

But how to describe that fight in total darkness!  It is impossible.
I can't even remember the order in which incidents occurred, any
more than one can remember details of a nightmare.  It was almost
as quick as a nightmare--nearly as confusing;  and the psychological
effect of fighting in the very womb of Gizeh, overwhelmingly
outnumbered by men whose organization and plans were still almost
as mysterious as the origin and purpose of the pyramid itself, must
be considered before I am blamed for a hazy account of what happened.

I had a flashlight in my pocket.  To reach it I had to set the
Princess down and before I could use it the whole scrambling
avalanche of hysterical humans was on top of me, with Jeff on
his back in the midst of it.  Two men's teeth were in his right
arm (but I did not know that until afterwards).  His left fist,
though men were hanging on it, was going like a piston.  So were
his legs, though men were clinging to those too.  As a matter of
fact, before he reached me, there were three men out of action,
one dead, with his skull crushed on the edge of the granite step
at the top of the ramp.  That dead man was Ku-sho--copper-belly--
but none of us knew it.  Jeff was giving them plenty to keep them
occupied, and he was using head as well as muscles.  He had thought
of the revolvers.

Naturally, every single one of those scrimmaging madmen had thought
of them too.  That was one reason why they were all on top of Jeff
together.  But he had thrown the revolvers away;  one slithered
past me, down the ramp.  One man, who had a wave-edged dagger,
was so eager to grab the revolver that he forgot his own weapon
until about the moment when the scrimmage reached me.  When he
did remember it he drew and plunged it to the hilt between the
shoulder-blades of the Hindu who wore spectacles, where it stuck
tight.  But that was another thing learned later on.

Instinct governed me.  I picked up Baltis to protect her.  Down
I went--down under them, as the weight of all those scrambling
humans struck my legs, and I clung to my burden as we used to
hug the ball on the football field, wishing to God some unexpected
referee would blow his whistle.  Fighting never did amuse me,
anyhow.  I believe Jeff likes it.  Someone smashed me in the mouth,
and I declare it was Jeff, although he says it wasn't, because if
it had been I would have no teeth left and it only loosened two.
It felt like an eternity before we brought up, all in a pulsating
heap together, at the wall at the foot of the ramp.

Then Jeff's prodigious strength had something firm to use for
leverage.  He was like an earthquake.  I suppose I helped him,
although I imagine not much;  I was almost half out from the
shock of that blow in the teeth.  He hove that mass of humans
off him something in the way that blasting powder heaves off
debris.  And he had his wind left, which was more than I had.

"Where's your flashlight?" he asked.

The flashlight answered him.  I had dropped it when I went down
under.  I suppose it slid down with us.  One of the Mongolians
had picked it up and now he used it, directing the light straight
at us, to his own undoing;  Jeff's fist struck him like a hammer
on the jaw and he crumpled, but the flashlight crumpled with him--
smashed to smithereens as it struck the stone floor.

However, that brief flash of light was actually all we needed and
we were safer in total darkness once we had the lay of things.
Baltis was as limp as a corpse and I supposed she had suffered
internal injuries in spite of my efforts to protect her.  Jeff
was bleeding.  I knew I was, although nothing to matter.  But
the enemy were in a bad way.  That one glimpse of them was as
encouraging to us as reinforcements would have been.  Jeff's
fists and feet had done terrific punishment, and they were not
the sort of men who thrive on that stuff;  whereas the more you
hurt Jeff, the more deliberately gamely he fights and the keener
his sense of strategy, which sometimes does not fully wake up
until he is rather hard pressed.

"Into the passage!"

He shoved me with his elbow.  He admitted afterwards he would
have knocked me into the passage if I had as much as hesitated;
and it is a fact that he once saved Grim's life by a punch in
the jaw that knocked his head out of the way of an Afghan's tulwar.
If there's fighting, you either jump when Jeff says jump, or you
get moved on in spite of yourself, your self-esteem and your
opinions.  He takes full charge of operations.  And he grins
immensely afterwards, if you should waste words on remonstrance.

There was nothing whatever for me to do but to back away into
the darkness, carrying Baltis who was not particularly heavy and
who was beginning to show symptoms of recovering consciousness.
Jeff backed down the passage after me and we retreated step by
step until we had passed the entrance to the so-called Queen's
Chamber.  There Jeff halted and I heard his fist swat someone
like a pole-axe;  whoever he hit crawled into the passage toward
the Queen's Chamber and lay there calling to his friends;  I
think two, or perhaps three, of them followed him, and Jeff let
them go by because they were as good as out of action in that
low, narrow tunnel.

And then Grim came.  "Are you fellows hurt?  You've saved our
bacon!  I was afraid Bertolini would hear the rumpus, but Chullunder
Ghose clowned a panic and made enough din to drown yours.  He almost
carried Bertolini to McGowan's car.  They're waiting for Baltis.
Is she all right?"

He had a flashlight but did not use it.  I heard her murmur,
"Jeemgreem!" and I think she threw an arm around him.

"Jeff and I will do the rest of this," he said.  "Get her to the
car and on your way back tell McGowan what has happened."

So I don't know just exactly how Grim discovered that copper-belly
was dead.  I only know that between them they drove all the rest
of that gang into the Queen's Chamber and that Grim got a clip on
the forehead that made the blood run into his eyes.

My head was a bit woozy, but by the time I reached the entrance
and the fresh air I felt almost fit to carry Baltis back to Cairo.
I believe I would not have minded trying!  I defy anyone to hold
that woman in his arms and not like her, to put it mildly.  In
attempting to tell this story as it happened, I have probably
not done her justice.  Idiot and malignant little traitress
though she was in some ways, she was wonderful in others.  I
laid her on one of the pyramid courses and wondered whether it
would be safe to strike a light in order to look through my pocket
kit of first-aid remedies.

There was no sign of McGowan.  I could hear what sounded like a
motor-truck, but it was impossible to judge its direction or how
far away it might be.  Baltis, as most normally healthy people do,
had begun to recover the moment that decently breathable air
reached her lungs, and it is one of my heretical theories that
nature, once stirring, is best left to her own devices, so I put
back the kit, proposing to give her about two minutes before
carrying her further.  However, I overestimated her need.  She
sat up without help and spoke low but audibly, which was a very
certain symptom of returning strength.

"Where is Jeemgreem?"  (I answered her.)  "Do you think
he will trust me now?  I could have betrayed him.  I could have
caused you all to be killed.  I could have escaped with those men;
and I could have done much work for Dorje elsewhere.  Now--do you
think--will Jeemgreem trust me?"

I answered, I was sure he trusted her.  But I did not say he
trusted her to get the breaks for him by trying to betray him.
However, I believe she understood me.  I was probably not in such
good shape myself that I could talk without giving my meaning away.

"What do you do with me now?" she demanded.

I told her: "To the hotel."

"You tell Jeemgreem I am not so simple as he imagines.  I love him.
You say that.  And because I love him I will help him as no one
else can."

I said:  "He counts on you to do that."

"Yes?  But does Jeemgreem count on me to help him for philosophic
reasons?  I am as pragmatical as he is!  Furthermore, I am as
ruthless!  If you have true affection for him you will tell him
what I say."

I promised.

"Very well.  Then, say this: he is winning--just this little
skirmish, and that makes me love him more than ever.  But the
big fight comes, which he shall not win unless he loves me also."

It was a strange time and place to discuss the strategy of love,
in which some idiot has said that all is fair.  But she seemed
on the verge of revelation, and although Chullunder Ghose was
waiting and probably half frantic with impatience, I cast about
in my mind for an answer that might tempt her to indiscretion.
However, there was no need.  She continued:

"He may think that he can leave me here in Egypt.  He may think
that he can silence me by shutting me in prison.  And he is
ruthless enough.  But I also, I am ruthless.  I enjoy to die
dramatically, as I always did do, in every life that I have lived--
and there are plenty of future lives in which to love each other.
It would be too tame if there were no tragedy once in a while.
So I will bring on both of us a tragedy unless he--"

Interesting, but not important, as I saw it at the moment.  Threats
nine time out of ten amount to nothing.  So I picked her up and
carried her as fast as I could toward where we had left the car.
However, when I told Grim afterwards about that conversation he
took it seriously and said he would not dream of leaving her behind,
and always after that he treated her with a shade more show of
confidence than formerly.  I say, show of confidence.  From first
to last he never once confided in her;  and he never once accepted
as a fact one single scrap of information from her except such
as she revealed in her efforts to win the whip hand over him.
So far, she seemed the only really capable agent Dorje had.  The
others, the moment danger showed itself, seemed to run around
like ducks with their heads cut off.  But all conspiracies are
like that;  there are never more than half a dozen, if as many,
dependable desperadoes--all the others merely follow those if
they succeed--desert them if they fail.

For the moment Baltis, who was a genuine desperado, had Chullunder
Ghose to deal with;  and he was as full of exasperation as a boiling
kettle, having Bertolini on his hands and being anxious to get away
before Bertolini could learn what a trap he was in.  The chauffeur
was a thoroughly reliable old-timer of McGowan's, stupid enough
to take no interest in anything but food and wages, clever enough
to seem more stupid than he was in order to avoid mistakes;  so
there was no anxiety on his score.  But there was an awful risk
that some more of Dorje's men might appear at any moment and give
the game away.  Bertolini was perhaps not exactly suspicious, but
he was puzzled and as I drew near the car I heard the babu say to him:

"As to that, we will see what messages we get when we sit quietly
in your place."

The moment I opened the car door and began to help Baltis in, the
babu turned on me and damned me like a criminal to help bolster
Bertolini's growing doubt of him.

"You keep this important agent waiting while you philander in the
darkness!  Just because you heard me say I will investigate him
you forget that he is the head man here until or unless removed
by direct order from headquarters!  I will report you to the Lord
Dorje himself as one who grows slack at critical moment!"

Then he nudged me by way of apology, as if that were necessary,
and turned his tongue loose on Baltis, who was much less likely
to endure his impudence, her sense of humour having had a hard siege.

"Damn you!" he exploded.  "You women!  You keep everybody waiting,
always!  If the King of the World succeeds in spite of women he
will work a miracle!  I have told him that not once but many times!
If he fails, it will be because of a woman--I have told him that, too!"

She perfectly understood that he was merely talking for Bertolini's
benefit;  and the importance of keeping the blind man deceived
until we had uncovered his secrets, must have been equally clear
to her.  It is not likely, either, that she had forgotten Bertolini's
comments on her own shortcomings and she probably understood she was
in danger from him.  But she could not resist her natural impulse
to annoy the babu and, if possible, to make his blood run cold
with forebodng.

"Yes," she retorted.  "Dorje's fate is in a woman's keeping ever
since he announced himself!  Yours, too!"

"What is that--announced himself?" Bertolini demanded.  But then
the car moved off and I was left standing, wondering what new
dilemma was in store for our ingenious babu.  I wished I had kept
Baltis with us.  She could have ridden the donkey.  If she had
happened to get killed, we could have spared her, it seemed to me.
I had already forgotten I felt sorry for her.




Chapter Twenty

"It's only being caught off-stage that actually hurts."


Like most successful men of action, McGowan had a genius or
choosing his assistants.  If a less efficient and alert man
than Lieutenant Allison had been in command of that motor-lorry
with its searchlight and squad of infantry, that night would
probably have been our last on earth.  However, I must explain
what had happened.

After listening to learn what line Chullunder Ghose would take
with Bertolini, and having assured himself that copper-belly and
his gang were not being troublesome, Grim left the ante-chamber
and hurried for a conference with McGowan at the pyramid entrance.
There he yielded to McGowan's protest that it was unsafe to neglect
those visitors who had fled when Honey Foxman was shot in the back.
They agreed to signal for the motor-lorry, and to do that McGowan
had had to make a circuit of the pyramid, which takes time.

He did not dare to signal from the entrance, because of the risk
of being seen by Dorje's men, and there was the added difficulty
that he did not know exactly where the lorry was in hiding.  So,
as I say, he made a circuit--and then climbed the pyramid--no mean
feat in total darkness.  From the summit he had only dared to make
three or four quick flashes, but he had been answered instantly,
and by the time he had got to the foot of the pyramid Lieutenant
Allison and the lorry were almost within hailing distance.  However,
he did not dare to hail them;  Dorje's men might be lurking anywhere
in the shadows.

He took the lesser risk of walking out to meet the lorry, getting
in its way and hoping rather than expecting not to be shot by some
keen-eyed riflemen.  Luckily, Allison spotted him.  So McGowan
got into the lorry, and from that moment there began to be action
that would have satisfied even old-time movie patrons.

I am not quite sure that McGowan had not lost patience with Grim's
peculiar tactics, although he never dropped a hint of it, that I
heard.  At any rate, with or without Grim's concurrence, he had
decided on a clean-up;  and one of the most marvellous things I
have ever seen was the instantaneous, mechanically perfect response
of the cordon of troops from the moment the lorry went into action.
Someone--I have no idea who--not only had trusted McGowan implicitly,
but had imposed exact cooperation in a plan that must have been
decided on, in almost no time at all, at a conference during the
day's confusion.

As the lorry approached the south side of the pyramid McGowan
ordered the searchlight turned on.  It flooded all the lower
courses of the masonry with a white glare in which hardly a snake
could have hidden.  It was answered instantly by a revolver shot
from one of Honey Foxman's gang lurking somewhere in a gap in
the broken masonry;  he probably aimed at the lens in the hope
of smashing it, but he hit the driver of the lorry, whose crew
cut loose with a machine-gun while Allison himself took the wheel
and two men picked up the wounded man.  Then the lorry came on
again, spurting rifle and machine-gun fire and wiping out the
shadows with its roving eye.  One moment there was a broad path
of light in front of it;  the next it was sweeping the pyramid;
and there must have been twenty-five or thirty men in hiding,
every one of whom aimed at the light and tried to smash it with
revolver fire.  Each shot from the pyramid courses was instantly
answered by a belt or half a belt from the machine-gun, and in
the glare from the light I saw several men come tumbling headlong.

Two thoughts worried me.  One was, whether the car containing
Chullunder Ghose and Bertolini was already far enough away to
permit the babu to invent a plausible enough explanation of the
firing, which the blind man's sharp ears could not fail to detect.
The other was that the searchlight could inevitably sweep in my
direction in a moment.  There was nothing to distinguish me as
friend or enemy--no cover where I was at the moment--nothing for
it but to walk straight forward, wondering what the next world
looks like, if there is one.  And sure enough, about fifty bullets
clipped the macadam road on either side of me before McGown spotted
who I was and yelled to me to come and attend to the wounded driver.

Unless you have steady light and instruments, there is not an
awful lot that you can do for a man with a revolver bullet in
his shoulder, especially in a crowded motor-lorry that is bumping
over sand and broken masonry.  However, I stopped the bleeding.
By that time there was no more shooting from the pyramid;  they
were turning the searchlight in every direction and potting at
fugitives.  I had time to observe what the cordon of troops was doing.

Searchlights--I would never have believed there were so many in
all Egypt.  They were advancing ahead of the troops in a wide arc
with one end extended toward the pyramid and the other, away to
the south of us, curving around toward the Nile.  They did not,
of course, at one time make a perfectly unbroken zone of light
in front of them, but there was not an inch of ground that those
searchlights did not sweep, and it was impossible to see beyond
them except for moments when two lights diverged and one could
glimpse between.  One could only imagine the supporting troops,
converging like ribs of a fan.  I wondered what would happen if
that tremendous quantity of active electric current should disturb
the as yet uncovered cache of Dorje's thunderbolts.  What would
happen, for instance, to the ammunition in the men's belts?  I
did not know they had none.

Meanwhile, there was another of our men hit and McGowan himself
was half-stunned by being pitched off the back of the lorry when
we struck a lump of limestone masonry that lay covered with blown
sand;  so I had my hands full, although McGowan recovered rapidly
and very soon took charge again.  They maneuvered until they had
the searchlight turned full on the pyramid entrance--that is to
say, at a considerable upward angle, and to do it they had to back
away about a hundred and fifty yards, so as to avoid impenetrable
shadow on the few flat feet where there is standing room.

The maneuver made the lorry an almost perfect target.  A mere
handful of Dorje's men, instead of following the others across
the sand and being shot down, had climbed to the higher courses
and now kept up a determined, long-range fire with their revolvers
in the hope of putting the searchlight out of action;  they could
have escaped then pretty easily toward the Nile, where they would
at least have had a slim chance, although there was undoubtedly
a whole flotilla of boats on the watch.  They were clever;  they
never fired twice from the same spot, and it is not easy to aim
upward;  they had acres of irregularly broken masonry in which
to hide, and they only needed one lucky hit to smash the searchlight
or put the power-plant out of business.

Allison solved it.  He suddenly switched the searchlight off, as
if it had been smashed, and the din the engine made before they
throttled it helped out the illusion.  Even above that din we heard
one man shout to the others from higher up.  I caught the word homar
(donkey).  I told Allison where Bertolini's beast was standing tied
to a lump of broken granite;  it was a fine white Muscat mare as
capable of speed as any animal of that size can be;  to the
imagination of a desperate fugitive, particularly if he happened
to be wounded, it probably seemed like lightning on four feet.

I had signed the donkey's death warrant, but she never knew what
hit her and she had company into the next world, if that was
consolation.  Pausing, directing the searchlight, counting seconds,
calculating how long it would take those men to scramble down
the courses, Allison suddenly switched the light on.  He gave
no order.  The machine-gun stuttered. Five men and the donkey
went away from this world with the suddenness of shadows caught
by sunlight--only that these left their shadows in a graceless
heap behind them.  I heard a sergeant:

"Lad, y're learning!  You may buy beer on the strength o' that.
I'll drink wi' you!"

Then Jeff--gigantic--he bulks like a barge in darkness--standing
in the entrance, shouting down to us to prevent a hail from the
machine-gun.  The searchlight, swerving upward, caught him and
reduced his size as if he had been re-focussed.

"We've prisoners as soon as you can spare some men!" `Allison
went in, and six men after him.  McGowan stayed in charge of the
lorry;  he spared me one man and I went to see if there were any
wounded among the machine-gun's victims.  I found three, of whom
one was almost dead.  The second one we came on--he was lying on
the second--lowest course of masonry--struck upward at me with a
wave-edged dagger and had to be held down by the rifleman while
I improvised a tourniquet to prevent him from bleeding to death.
The third man fired his last shot as we drew near;  it clipped
about a third of an inch of skin and hair from the side of my
head but did no other damage.  He had a smashed leg--it was almost
shot off--but he tried to hide himself among the shadows, and
when we did what we could for him he bit the soldier through the hand.

We had to return and get help, and even so the utmost we could
do was to carry those three wounded men and lay them on the sand
where they could be found by an ambulance crew later on.  We had
water for them, from the riflemen's bottles, and there was a
first-aid outfit on the lorry that provided temporary bandages;
beyond that and a few cigarettes they had to take their chances,
which were nothing to feel cock-a-hoop about.  We had no time to
search them or the dead for clues about Dorje just then.  Grim came,
looking like a serious casualty himself because of the cut on his
forehead;  but he took one look at the semicircular cordon of
advancing searchlights and then spoke to McGowan:

"Signal, if you don't mind."

"O.K.  Signal," said McGowan.

Up went the searchlight skyward and described a circle three times,
then descended and was switched off.  That was twice repeated.
There was sudden darkness.  Almost exactly together the advancing
searchlights were switched off, one only, away to the rear,
continuing to send a long pencil of light toward the sky.  It
was possible then to see the troops behind the searchlights;
companies and squadrons had closed in on one another until they
looked like one sickle-shaped brush-stroke painted rather deeper
than the midnight gloom around them.  They were grimly mysterious--
ominous--almost impossibly silent.

"Shall we go?" said Grim.

McGowan left two men in charge of prisoners and wounded.  Jeff
climbed into the lorry and demanded antiseptic for the bites in
his arm, so my attention was again occupied, but I did not miss
much.  We jolted forward slowly without running lights, skirting
the second and third pyramids and narrowly avoiding open tombs
that were hard to distinguish from shadows.  Grim whispered to me:

"This looks like catching a mouse with a herd of elephants, but
wait and see.  If Dorje's cache is where we think, they might have
got through to Cairo with enough dingbats to destroy the city.
They're desperate.  I should say we've one chance in a million."

I asked the obvious question:  "Why not wait for daylight?"

"Too many people got the wind up," he answered.  "The politicals
want Cairo cooled off, if it should leak out that there's a cache
of these thunderbolt things in the desert.  We're lucky there's a
red-hot general commanding;  he doesn't believe a word about the
cache, so Mac says, but he's giving us full rope to prove our
theory or eat crow.  He's all right.  But he'll try to make us
eat crow at the show-down.  Why not?  Who wouldn't?  So I think
there'll be fireworks."

"Then we start for Chak-sam?"

"Not unless we're right on this hunt.  If there's no cache where
we're looking for it, they'll remind me I'm a United States American,
to whom a visa to visit India cannot be granted just at this time
for fear of the danger to my health and morals.  However, they
play fair.  They don't like us outsiders on the team.  But if we
pull this off they'll give us carte blanche--almost."

We had passed the third pyramid and swung on south by east on bumpy
ground.  McGowan ordered one flash from the searchlight then, to
show our whereabouts, and it was answered by a zig-zag movement
of the beam of light behind the troops.  We began to go slower.
Suddenly we stopped.  Allison switched on the running lights.
McGowan's motorcycle Cockney leaped out of a shadow and came
running toward us, exposing himself to the light for fear he
might be shot unless recognized.  He was out of breath and unable
to talk in a low voice;  his speech came in gasps, so we all heard
what he said, although McGowan jumped to the ground to talk with him":

"Sir, you're close up!   There's nigh on fifty of 'em, scared
desperate, all 'iding in and around that tomb.  Them that couldn't
crowd in dug a funk-'ole for 'emselves in the sand what come out
o' the tomb.  They've killed Mahdi Aububah with the butt-end of
a rifle, maybe thinking it was 'im who brought the troops down
on 'em.  They've got lots o' firearms, but l couldn't get near
enough to tell what kind."

"Did you overhear anything?"

"Yes, sir, but not much.  One man said in Arabic that they'd
better die there than be hanged like dogs on a Christian gallows."

"How far away are they?"

"'Alf a mile.  Maybe a bit less.  Maybe a bit more.  I dunno.
I've 'oofed it."

"Where's your motorcycle?"

"Busted.  Pitched 'ead-first into a open tomb and cut my 'ead;
it's all bloody."

So I had one more job of bandaging, but I heard what followed.
McGowan, Allison, Grim and Jeff went into conference, as the
business bosses say at tea-time.  They agreed to signal to the
general.  Up went a beam from the searchlight and McGowan, with
Grim agreeing word by word, dictated to Allison, who wrote the
message down and then dictated to the sergeant-signaller, who
jerked a little gadget and made Morse code flashes on the sky.

"Cache believed discovered.  Reported held by more than fifty
riflemen.  Distance about half mile.  May we wait for daylight?"

It was nearly five minutes before the answer came dash-dotted
by the searchlight at the army's rear:

"Send demand for unconditional surrender, failing which within
sixty minutes action will ensue without further warning."

"Orders are orders," said McGowan.  "He can't say afterwards he
wasn't told.  He doesn't believe in the thunderbolts."

"He never will," Grim answered.  "Some men can't believe what
isn't in the books.  However, he's a good sport.  We can't grumble.
Who goes?"

"You do," said McGowan.  "You're likeliest to be able to talk
them into unconditional surrender."

"I would like a witness," said Grim.

"Yes, of course.  All right;  Allison, you go with him."

"And the guide would save time.  Is he fit for duty?"

"Me, sir?  That ain't duty, it's a pleasure!  My 'ead's as good
as gospel--'tain't broke--only shook up!"

"And a bodyguard," said Grim.

"Make haste then--pick your own."

"Care if I take my own crowd?"

"'Course not."

So there were four of us, including Jeff and me, who followed
that excellent Cockney through the darkness with nothing but his
sense of direction to guide us.  He was as keen as a terrier
hunting rats.  He was one of those men whose passion it is to
pull out chestnuts from the fire for other people, well contented
if only his beneficiaries make the utmost use of what he finds.
A priceless man, impossible to bribe or frighten.

A handkerchief was too small, so we fastened a shirt to a stick
and took two flashlights to illuminate it.  Grim took the flag.
He divided us:

"No use all getting shot."

Twenty paces to his right went Allison--Jeff twenty paces to his
left.  I followed, twenty paces to the rear.  And the Cockney led,
like the fellow who carries the drag for a crack pack, that is to
say not thoughtful for our comfort.  He took an almost straight
line, and the going was so evil that we took a full eleven minutes
to negotiate that scant half-mile.

We arrived breathless in the bottom of a hollow like the trough
of a wave, caused by wind having whipped out the sand;  and for
a minute we all lay there, breathing deep.  Then Grim moved, and
the Cockney said:

"Straight up ahead of you, sir.  Not an 'undred yards now."

So we climbed to the top of the sand-wave, where Allison and Jeff
switched on the flashlights and Grim stood bathed in light with
the white flag waving slowly as high over his head as he could
hold it.  I counted ninety seconds before at least a dozen heads
showed fifty yards away and a harsh voice shouted:

"Di e di?"  ("What is that?")

"Arba'in Khamseh!"  ("Forty-five")  Grim answered.

The entire conversation took place in Egyptian Arabic, and there
was not a great deal of it.

"Sixty thousand dogs!" came back the answer.

"That is the true word, but who told it to you?--and who are you?"

"Have you heard of Jimgrim?"

It was a reasonable question.  He is so well known by that name
from end to end of the Near East that it was hardly likely that
at least one of them would not know him by reputation.

"Curses on his religion!  What does he want?"

"I am Jimgrim.  I have come to advise you to surrender."

"What is offered?"

"Nothing.  Dorje's cause is lost.  Unless you surrender unconditionally
--and at once--you will be wiped out."

There was a long pause, probably for consultation, but we could
not hear voices.  Grim's voice broke the silence:

"I make no promise except that--if you surrender--I will do what
I can for you.  Probably only those who have committed murder will
be hanged.  I advise those of you who have killed no one to compel
the others.  I will count one hundred, slowly.  Wahid--itnein
--talateh--"

The answer was a savage howl of laughter and three rifle-shots.
Out went the flashlights and we all ducked below the sand-hill,
except young Allison, who rolled over and over.  I had to grope
for him in total darkness.  A hail of bullets swept over our heads
and I estimated more like a hundred than fifty rifles.  Then there
was sudden silence and a voice yelled:

"Curses on your religion, Jimgrim!  If you are afraid to see ten
thousand dead men, take away your army!"

Then another storm of bullets swept above us.  Allison was hard hit.
Jeff carried him, and as we crawled away over the rim of the hollow.
I saw the army's searchlights all come blazing into action.  There
was a roar from the distant motors as the cordon closed in on the
cache, at high speed, flooding the sand in front of them with
flowing light.  Ahead of us we could see McGowan's searchlight
racing forward, tossing its rays as the lorry wheels bucked over
ridges of sand.  We hurried.  There was no guessing what would
happen, or what surprise those fanatics had in store;  our cue
was to beat it as fast as we could.  Something not remotely unlike
panic lent us wings, and if Jeff had not had to carry Allison and
we had not waited for Jeff, we would probably have lowered the
world's sand-track record for a quarter of a mile.

Finally Jeff's wind gave out.  We lay down and I tried in the dark
to feel where Allison was hit.  He died as I laid my hands on him--
as decent a young officer as ever stopped a blackguard's bullet.
Then the thing happened that has been so variously described,
since it was seen by many thousand men and no two witnesses ever
see or remember anything exactly as it happened.  My account is
very likely no more accurate than scores of others.  I can say
what I remember, that is all.

The cordon of searchlights closed in, in an almost perfect segment
of an arc.  McGowan's lorry bumped and thundered past us.  And
then suddenly I felt something that I can't describe.  It suggested
static, although I don't know how or why it did, and it made one's
skin tingle and one's teeth and ears ache.  All sound ceased instantly
--or seemed to--as every searchlight went out at the same moment and
every truck came to a standstill.  It was almost as if the universe
had gone dead.  A plane, that I had not even noticed circling in
the night, crashed within three hundred feet of where I lay.  As
nearly as I remember, at about the instant when that happened and
when six or seven other planes were falling in all directions,
there began a white-hot glow at the place where the cache was
supposed to be hidden.

It was next thing to impossible to watch it, it increased so
rapidly and its glare grew so prodigious.  For a moment, but
only a moment, it showed the hues of decomposing metals.  And
it only lasted about a minute--perhaps less.  I believe I saw
human figures fleeing from it, caught in its heat and instantly
cremated;  but they were gone like swift shadows, and that may
have been imagination.  I can only say that when I think of it, and
close my eyes, there is a very vivid mental picture of human figures
leaping in the white-hot glare of the hell of the Fundamentalists.

For a minute or two, when the glare died, we were all blind.  It
was as if we had stared too long at lightning.  I was almost deaf,
too;  I could not make sense of Grim's remarks to Jeff, although
he was close beside me.  Jeff picked up Allison, not knowing he
was dead, and carried him toward McGowan's lorry.  Our flashlight
was out of action;  Allison, of course, had dropped his, and the
one Grim took from Jeff was so hot that it burned him and he had
to throw it away.  Dorje's infernal machines had absorbed every
atom of electricity anywhere near them in the act of destroying
themselves and Dorje's men.

Dazed, I followed Jeff, who groped his way toward McGowan.  Grim
was on ahead of us.  The first words I distinguished clearly as
the vague paralysis left the region of my ear-drums, were McGowan's:

"Maybe he'll believe us next time!"

"No," said Grim, "he'll say it was a meteor or an earthquake."

McGowan laughed.  "Perhaps he'll say we planted it to make ourselves
a reputation!  Anyhow, the old boy broke a record as well as his
planes and dynamos.  I'll bet you that's the first time an army
left its ammunition on the desert and advanced behind a screen of
unprotected trucks.  Say that for him!  Who's that?  Who's gone
west?  Allison?  Oh, damn!  I'd rather have lost--"

He did not say whom he would rather have lost, but his next phrase
was a bit suggestive:

"Grim, I'd trade you any six brass hats on earth for Allison.  That
boy had brains and guts too."

"Allison won't kick.  He died up front," Grim answered.  "It's
only being caught off-stage that actually hurts."




Chapter Twenty-One

"What has our babu done to them, I wonder?"


Once, when I was younger, I used to believe the official reports
of events.  Medical training, of course, taught me that almost no
one ever knows the real reasons why people do things or refrain
from doing them;  but I did believe official blue books, and it
always seemed to me that Lincoln's theory, that you can fool all
of the people some of the time, conceded too much.  But I think
now that people prefer to be fooled until so long after the event
that the actual truth takes on the hue of fiction.  And I know
that numbers of extremely competent men are so peculiarly credulous
that in the face of facts they will believe anything whatever except
the true explanation.

That general was a case in point.  I never met him, never even
saw him.  Grim did, and privately, afterwards, he and McGowan
laughed with Jeff, Chullunder Ghose and me about the conversation
they had with him under the stars while the army engineers waited
for a destroyed tomb to grow cool enough to be examined.

But it would be very unfair to give the general's name.  He failed
in nothing except imagination, and his handling of the troops that
night was patient, resolute and ingenious.  He did not believe in
the existence of Dorje, or his "thunderbolts";  but he played fair
and gave us every opportunity, his only mistake having been that
he risked quite a number of aeroplanes and lost them along with
their crews.  Not one member of the air force employed that night
survived to talk about it.  Every electric device within a mile
and a half of Dorje's cache not only fused but was made irreparably
useless.  Even motor vehicles whose engines were not running at
the moment were put out of action by the exhaustion of their batteries,
which occurred with such sudden violence that the batteries were
wrecked.  The only reason why the army was not wiped out was that
every round of ammunition had been left under guard on the desert
five miles away.

But the general maintained his disbelief in Dorje's thunderbolts,
and in Dorje also.  There was not a trace of them after custodians
had in all probability turned the plugs on dozens, perhaps hundreds
of them, in the hope of escaping just before the critical moment
and then watching the army blown to smithereens by the explosion
of the ammunition in the men's belts.  But they were probably
ignorant men incapable of estimating how much electricity so many
searchlights would develop or at what range it would become effective.
Anyhow, they were caught;  and the immeasurable heat--as intense,
perhaps, as that developed by a meteor in contact with the atmosphere--
that entirely consumed the brass tubes, did more than incinerate
those men within its radius.  It dissolved them into gas, bones and
all.  There was not a trace of them discovered.

So there was no one to be questioned after the event, and there
was no tell-tale evidence except a hot hole in the ground that
looked volcanic and that might have been caused by a meteor or
by a terrific bolt of lightning.  There had been a tomb there,
but now there was none.  Stone weighing tons had vanished.
Something new in thermo-dynamics had been invented.  Someone had
discovered how nature converts vibration into heat and dissipates
the concentrated heat into another vibration that has other
characteristics and effects.

But the general declared it was the Communists and that a cache
of some kind of explosive smuggled in by agents of Moscow for the
use of Egyptian malcontents had gone off.  He accounted for the
absence of noise by suggesting that the shape of the tomb might
have had the effect of a silencer.  The effect on batteries and
magnetos he ascribed to shock.  And you know what the newspapers
said.  They had their information from official sources.

"It's probably some new sort of explosive," the general admitted.
"Or they may have rediscovered Greek fire.  No one knows what that
was;  no one knows what its explosion would have done to electrical
instruments because there was no electricity in those days."

And because no traces of them could be found he denied that all
the guardians of the cache could have been killed.  He was sure
that most of them escaped, so all the troops were promptly put
to work to find them, with the result that scores and scores of
said-to-be suspicious characters were rounded up and thrown in
prison, where, being wholly innocent, they accused one another
and gave birth to fabulous stories about Communist activities.
Some of those tales are still going the rounds.

But he was a courteous general, and though he considered Grim a
visionary and Dorje a mare's nest, he thanked Grim for his
"opportune assistance" and provided us with camels, since there
was not a car or even a motorcycle whose ignition was not completely
ruined.  He sent an Egyptian orderly along with us, too, to take
charge of the camels and return them.

It was almost daybreak when we entered the city and were challenged
by a sergeant in charge of a guard at a street corner.  We had been
given no password, and McGowan had stayed with the general;
moreover, the sergeant was bored and wanted news, so he accused
us of stealing army camels, which our orderly thought was a fine
joke, so the orderly said nothing.  Bruised, tired, sleepy and
craving a bath before anything else, we were not in a mood to
solve problems by the exercise of humour, or even to realize that
this wasn't a problem and that the sergeant was only joking with us.
However, Grim amused him with a yarn about the searchlights having
quit because the army swore too badly about working overtime;
and Jeff borrowed a cigarette from him, which is always an excellent
way to open negotiations.

"Our Indian friend has mine," said Jeff, and the sergeant stared
at us again by the light of a kerosene lantern.

"Were you gentlemen the friends of Maharajah Gautama Sri Krishna
Hanuman Asoka Sahib of Bengal?  I think that was the name."

"We are his worshipful admirers," Grim answered.  "What has
happened to him?"

"Sir, he has the Maharanee with him, and they'd blind Bertolini
the archaeologist in the car.  Is one of you gentlemen Major Grim
by any chance?  Well--he left word that his chauffeur would pick
you up at Brown's Hotel;  and he said it would be all right for
you all to come to breakfast without shaving."

"Had he the password?"

"No, sir.  But he was riding in a service car and it was Colonel
McGowan's chauffeur, so I let him pass without argument.  My
orders are not to interfere with anyone who can give a decent
account of himself.  That one was a prince all right.  I wish
there were a few more like him.  Affable?  He told me, any time
I go to India he'll get me transferred to his own corps of lancers--
says the pay's about double what we get and the chances of promotion A1.
Took my name, too--had the Maharanee write it for him on an envelope."

We rode on, bidding baths good-bye.  The only conceivable meaning
of "breakfast without shaving," was that Chullunder Ghose needed
us in a hurry.  McGowan's car was waiting near the hotel;  as
soon as the camels were out of sight we piled in;  and before
we had slammed the car door we were off, the chauffeur treating
us to an exhibition of fancy driving that was too impetuous to
be based on mere desire to get his night's work done and go to
breakfast.  We fairly flew toward the region of Nile-bank villas
where the better class of houses stand in walled gardens.

There was no name on the gate of the house where we drew up--nothing
to distinguish it from a score of others that had gardens sloping
to the Nile, except that the shrubbery topping the wall was a bit
more dense and the house was invisible through the bars of the
iron gate because of a turn in the drive which curved around some
sort of outhouse screened by a clump of bamboo.  For a blind man's
house the grounds looked too well kept.  There was an atmosphere
of wealth and good taste.  Yet we knew it was Bertolini's house
because his donkey's hoof-prints were deep in the dust outside the
gate, and there are not many people living in that kind of house,
even in Egypt, whose donkeys use the front entrance.

The gate opened mysteriously, pulled by someone unseen, and the
chauffeur drove in without ceremony, down a drive along which, on
either hand, Egyptian statuary alternated with well-kept palms.
Dawn was breaking;  the place looked clean and peaceful in the
early light, and there was a pond in which a group of flamingoes
preened themselves with an air of never having been neglected or
disturbed since Noah left the Ark.

It was a big white stucco house.  All the blinds were drawn, and
behind two of them, on the ground floor, there was candlelight.
The front door opened as we drew up under the portico, and a
Chinaman dressed in good black silk stood bowing to us, shaking
himself by the hand.

Grim spoke low, hardly moving his lips, so that the chauffeur
should not hear him.  "Remember now, no shooting!  We're ditched
if we do.  Bertolini knows there's something wrong;  and he's
crafty, or he wouldn't be Dorje's agent.  He'll argue that if
we're enemies we'll shoot on provocation.  Then we can be charged
with murder or attempted murder--no bail--and he'll have time to
cover up before we can prove anything.  It wouldn't surprise me
to discover he's been warned by some Egyptian official that
we're on Dorje's trail;  if so, he'll know we have no warrants--
no authority.  If he thinks there's half a chance we're 'us'
he'll play the old game--get us foul of our own net."

The Chinaman in the doorway seemed a bit disturbed about our lack
of haste.  He came forward and opened the car door, smiling blandly
but looking displeased when Grim ordered the chauffeur back to the
hotel to wait for McGowan.  However, the chauffeur was gone before
the Chinaman could protest.

"We're filthy," said Grim.  "Can we clean up?"  Instead of hurrying,
he grew deliberate.  He paused in the hall to admire Egyptian
antiquities, with which the house was as full as a museum;  he
lingered to examine scarabs in a glass case: "May I have a
candle?  Light's too dim.  I can't see."

"No, no, not now," said the Chinaman.

"Why not?"

"Lavatoly this way."

He led and we followed, but we took a long time in there, washing
blood off our faces and tidying up.  The Chinaman stood watching
us, as obviously irritated as a disturbed owl, and as silent and
outwardly still.  We had to ask him for towels.  Grim took off
his turban, examined it and decided to re-bind it with the outside in.
He asked the Chinaman to help him.

"That take too much time.  You use hair-blush."

But apparently Grim had no sense of time.  He bound the turban on
as carefully as a woman getting ready for a fancy dress ball.

"Baltis here?" he asked.

No answer.  Grim repeated the question.

"You come soon.  You see."

"You're garrulous!" said Grim.  "If you want me to hurry, come
and help me with this."

So the Chinaman stood behind him to put a hand on the folds at
the back and to guide the silk as layer carefully was added above
layer.  Jeff, done spluttering in the basin, rubbing his stubble-black
face with a towel, watched the mirror--noticed Grim's
expression--saw the movement of his eyelids.  So did I, but I did
not know just what it meant.  Jeff, on the way to his jacket that
hung on a hook on the door, had to pass behind the Chinaman.  He
turned suddenly.  His left hand clapped the towel over the Chinaman's
mouth;  his right arm, descending, crushed the Chinaman's to his
sides and pinned him helpless.

"I'd a hunch to wear this thing," said Jimgrim, and removing the
turban he used it.  It was vastly better than a rope.  I helped
him, and between us we bandaged the towel in place besides trussing
the Chinaman's arms and legs until he was as immobilized as a mummy--
almost.  He could still breathe.  We could still investigate his
pockets, of which he had several in the lining of his loose black
jacket.  Jeff pulled out a pad made of medical cotton and gauze,
well folded in a linen handkerchief.  I found a sealed glass flask
containing about a pint of some colourless liquid.  It might be
chloroform.  There was no cork;  it had been sealed by melting
the neck of the flask in a Bunsen-burner, and the only way to get
the stuff out was to break the bottleneck.

"Don't open it," said Grim.  "It's possibly as new and deadly as
the thunderbolts."

He went on searching.  Tucked in the waistband of the black silk
pants he found a Yale key;  it was wrapped in a scrap of paper
and enclosed in a small leather purse that fastened with a snap.

"Master-key."  The letter M was stamped on the metal. "Look at that,
will you."  He held the scrap of paper toward the candle in a
sconce near the mirror.  Scrawled on it in heavy pencil were the
words "Sweet A."  Stooping again to continue his search he kept
up a running comment while his fingers felt the seams.  "Sweet
Adeline is rather far from home.  Suite A is the number of Baltis'
apartment at the hotel.  Oh, hello--here's something."

He stood up again to examine his find in the candle-light.  It
was a token made of gold, no larger than a dime and beautifully
done by hand.  In high relief on one side was a Tibetan Dorje--
the short lamaic sceptre with a crown at each end.  On the reverse
was a pyramid composed of forty-five stars.

"Stowed in the seam of his pants' leg.  This man may be Bertolini's
boss, disguised as a sort of confidential butler;  else why the
gold token and why the air of authority?  If he had been obeying
orders he would never have let us keep him waiting all that time.
Whoever gave him the orders would have come to see why the delay?
But you can't make a Chinaman talk--not his sort;  so let's leave him."

Grim pocketed the token and blew out the light.  Jeff locked the
lavatory door and pocketed the key;  then he opened the door of
a room in which we had seen candle-light at the edge of the
window-blinds.  The candles were still burning;  there were fresh
cigar-butts--nine of them--on ashtrays spaced around a table made from
slabs of cypress looted from ancient tombs.  There were nine
chairs of the same material.  The other furniture was all museum-stuff
and no doubt priceless, if you like that kind of thing.  I
would as soon live in a pawnshop.  There was a mummy, up-ended,
naked, with a sheet of plate-glass covering its coffin, at the
far end of the room.

Grim merely looked in, counting the cigar-butts.

"Ten then, unless Bertolini smokes.  Not many blind men do.  Two
others kept a lookout--see those chairs displaced beside the window--
twelve then.  What has our babu done to them, I wonder?"

Grim's movements were almost leisurely, although he made almost
no sound as he walked, so he may have been listening.  Jeff pulled
up the blinds and we left the door of that room open for the sake
of the light that it admitted to the hall.  Then Grim led quietly
along a passage to the right and stood still.

I was following so close I almost stepped on his heels.  There
were three doors at the end of the passage, one at each side and
one facing us.  They all had Yale locks, of the sort that snap
shut when you close the door and that can be opened from the
outside only with the key, unless the latch is held back by a
sliding button that manipulates a pin.  As silently as possible
Grim tested one door, then another--the one facing us;  it was
unlocked;  it opened into a small square waiting-room, in which
there was an electric bell and a numbered indicator.

Facing the door was a cushioned bench.  Above that was a shelf
containing Chinese books in paper bindings.  On the right hand
were a plain chair and an equally plain wooden table.  On the
left hand was a papered wall, entirely bare except for a gilt-framed
reproduction, three by two, of Botticelli's Graces.  The frame was
heavy and securely fastened to the wall with screws at top and bottom.

Grim let out a low whistle.

There was a lighted candle on the table.  Grim took it and examined
the picture.  He tinkered with it--tried to push it sideways--
downward--upward--but nothing happened.  He clapped his ear to it--
listened and seemed encouraged--tried again, feeling the wall with
the palms of his hands.  Then suddenly he handed Jeff the candlestick
and whispered:

"Have you matches?  Blow that out then if you see this even looks
like moving."

I shut the door.  It was as stuffy in there as a bear's den and
there were smells such as only a Chinaman knows how to brew--no
window and no ventilator.  Grim resumed his efforts, until at
last his fingers found a small lump on the edge of the frame
farthest from the door.  He pressed it, and found that the
picture and glass moved inward on a hinge.  Then Jeff blew out
the light.




Chapter Twenty-Two

"Play this as you would your last ten dollars in a poker game!"


The entire wall slid sideways--a mere screen that concealed an
"icebox" door a pace or two beyond it.  Light shone through a
small round aperture in the door and we all stepped at once as
close to the door as we could crowd ourselves to avoid being seen.
After listening for about a minute Grim raised his eyes to the
level of the hole and peered through.  We could hear voices, but
there was apparently no one on guard at the door.  Grim put his
arm through the hole--groped--tried to move a bolt of some sort--
failed and whispered to Jeff to try it.  Jeff succeeded.  The
door swung inward on hinges that had been oiled quite recently.

We descended a stairway of plain deal boards into a vestibule of
ancient masonry, that led into a gallery, which overhung an ancient
burial chamber.  On our way we passed the guardian of the door,
apparently a Greek with a touch of Egypt in him, lying dead on
his side with a knife between his shoulder-blades.  He had been
dead less than an hour--perhaps less than thirty minutes.  He had
been slain with his own knife, drawn from the sheath in his red
cotton sash.

In the midst of the floor beneath us there was a round hole through
which the top of a ladder protruded.  Evidently Bertolini's "tomb"
had been excavated on more than one level.  There was a masonry
stairway, very narrow, leading to the gallery and it appeared that
if we only had some weapons we could hold that stairway against
all comers.  It curved sharply on itself;  no one on the way up
would be able to use a revolver until within four steps of the top,
and then only with his left hand.  It was like one of those
stairways built into the walls of the Tower of London.

One man sat still on a lump of broken stone beneath us, slapping
the palm of his hand with a blackjack eighteen inches long.  There
were numbers of lighted candles set in niches in the rock walls
and the light from those threw the gallery into deep shadow, so
that though he glanced up he did not see us.  Probably the slight
sounds we had made were over-balanced by the noise of argument
and scuffling that came through a rectangular opening in the wall
directly facing us.

"Who killed that guard?" demanded Grim, in Arabic.  The man sprang
to his feet.  Then he answered in English:  "I did.  He was on
the death list.  He admitted a police spy."  Then suddenly:  "Who
are you?  Who let you in here?"

"I am Dorje," Grim answered.

The man staggered.  He almost fell backward in his effort to peer
through the shadow in order to see Grim's face.

"The lord Dorje?" Arabic again.  "May peace descend on you and
bless your--"

"What have I to do with peace?" Grim answered.  He touched my
pocket.  I passed him the flask I had found on the Chinaman.
Then he whispered to Jeff, and Jeff motioned to me to follow him.
"What are those fools doing in there?"  Grim demanded in a loud
voice.  As I followed Jeff I heard the answer:

"There was a trial and they tortured a man.  He talked about our
plans to strangers.  It is the rule of this lodge that each of
us must torture him in turn, after which he is let down into this
hole to die when Allah pleases.  We are a very faithful lodge--"

Jeff was in haste, so I heard no more of that speech, and Jeff
said nothing until we had gained the butler's room.  "More flasks!"
he said then, starting in at once to hunt for them.

"Grim thinks they're probably deadly, and so is the gang we're
up against."  He shook the table--tipped it--set his knee on it
and strained until the muscles cracked and one half of the top
came away in his hands, revealing ten flasks like the one I had
given Grim, only that five of these were twice the size.  We
filled our pockets.  Each of us took one in either hand.

"I'll bet that Chink is one of Dorje's head men--perhaps Bertolini's
boss," said Jeff.  "Why else should he be the keeper of this
ammunition--if it is ammunition?  Come on--Grim may need us."

Grim did.  He was keeping himself back, in shadow.  Beneath him,
the chamber seemed to swarm with men, although that was due to
movement and to semi-darkness, someone having put out more than
half the candles.  Their actual number was not more than a dozen,
of whom the leader was a Chinaman with the loose-looking shoulders
and physical strength of a Shanghai longshore coolie.  They were
all armed.  Knives--revolvers.  One man had a sawed-off shotgun.
Jeff took his stand at the head of the stair.  I went and stood
near Grim, taking advantage of the shadow by stooping as much as I
could without cutting off my view over the stone front of the gallery.

The Chinaman spoke insolently, in a language totally unknown to me,
although I caught the word Dorje.

"Wants to look at me," Grim whispered.  "Says he knows Dorje by
sight.  Stand by for trouble."

Through the opening in the wall that faced us two men dragged in
one between them--one who still lived, tortured, gagged and with
his arms bound.  They dropped him feet first down the hole in the
midst of the floor, and the Chinaman laughed.  Then he spoke English:

"If you are Dorje, come down.  Let us see you."

"Bring Bertolini," Grim answered.

The Chinaman laughed again, but under cover of that he gave an
order to the man nearest to him.  I warned Jeff in a whisper that
there were four men edging toward the stairway.  The Chinaman
pulled another man forward by the arm to act as interpreter--a
man who might be a Sicilian, but who spoke with a Chicago accent:

"You're not Dorje.  How many are you?  How did you get in?"

I repeated my warning to Jeff.

"I ordered you to bring Bertolini," Grim answered.

"Heard you the first time!  We've put Bertolini on the spot.  He's
no good.  This man's chief now."  He glanced at the Chinaman.
"Bertolini gets his when the bell rings."

"Sneaking up the stair," Jeff whispered;  only Jeff's whisper is
more like a watch-dog's growl.  "Shall I wait for the word?"  The
man with the Chicago accent talked on, obviously to gain time,
and the Chinaman took advantage of it to back away toward the
opening in the far wall.

"We're all sick o' being told nothing and kep' idle.  You ain't
Dorje.  You ain't cops, or you'd ha'--"

Suddenly he drew an automatic.  And he was quick on the trigger.
Six bullets chipped the rock behind us as Grim and I stepped
sideways into other shadows, just as Jeff said calmly: "Here
they come, Jim."

"Let them have it!"

I saw Grim hurl his own flask at the Chinaman.  Mine hit the
Chicago spokesman on the shoulder and broke into fragments.  Jeff
hurled two flasks down the stairway.  It is difficult to tell
what happened then, although we lingered as long as we dared--two,
possibly three seconds.  Instantly the liquid contents of the
glass flasks changed into a dense white vapour that filled the
entire chamber to a height of nine or ten feet.

There was no noticeable smell.  It was woolly, heavy-looking stuff
that expanded as swiftly as steam but remained, for as long as we
watched it, almost as flat as water on its upper surface.  It did
not put out the lights;  they shone through it as I have seen
candles shine through loose snow.  But it appeared to smother sound.
There was a ghastly silence.

"Snappy!" said Grim, and we ran for our lives until we reached
the "ice-box" door and slammed it.  Jeff stuffed a cushion into
the round peep-hole and punched it in tight with his fist.

"I hope we haven't killed our babu," I suggested.  "If he's
anywhere underground--and if that stuff creeps--it may reach him
through crevices--tunnels--"

"Let's go!"  Grim put a flask of the stuff in his pocket.  Jeff
and I did the same and followed him, closing but not locking the
door of the butler's room.  With the pass-key he had taken from
the butler Grim opened the door on our left.  There was another
unpainted deal stairway and Grim led the way down, but I lingered
to fasten the catch on the springlock, so that the door would open
readily if we should need to retreat in a hurry.  About twenty
feet down in the dark a lantern burned dimly, in a niche in a
very old masonry wall, into which had been fitted a modern door
made of stout unpainted oak.

Grim inserted the master-key and again I made sure of retreat by
fastening back the spring-bolt.  There was a long passage that
turned on itself and brought us to a stairway hewn from solid
limestone, lighted by three candle-lanterns set in niches and by
a kerosene lamp near a door at the bottom.  It was more than fifty
feet from top to bottom of that stairway, and it was very ancient.

At the foot of the stairs was a circular vault with the door on
the far side.

"Understand," said Grim, "we've no search warrant, and no legal
right in here whatever.  We're not even accredited.  If we make
a bad break we'll be out of luck.  We've no proof that the stuff
in the flasks is actually deadly.  If those men recover they can
take us from the rear.  On the other hand, if they're dead we
answer for it, unless we get what we're after and prove a whole
case to the hilt.  So play this as you would your last ten dollars
in a poker game.  Each watch the others.  And remember:  what we
need is evidence, not dead men for the undertaker."

He inserted the key.  And once again I made sure of retreat by
fastening back the spring-bolt.




Chapter Twenty-Three

"Now!  Go the limit!"


The smell of coffee greeted us.  There is no need to tell an old
campaigner what that means to men who lack food and sleep.  We
were like tired horses sniffing crushed oats.  There was a well-tanned
horse-hide curtain at the far end of a twenty-foot passage,
and beyond that was warm light, which turned out to be from many
lanterns and from the glow of a charcoal fire in a big copper pan
on a tripod.

Grim parted the curtain and strode in, motioning to us to keep
behind him, so I had to look over Jeff's shoulder, because Jeff's
breadth almost filled the passage.  I was backed against the curtain
and I dare say its movement suggested there might be a number of
people behind me.  That may possibly account for our immediate
reception.  No one started to his feet and no one fired at us,
though there were several revolvers in the room.

The place looked like a mortuary chapel, but it was much less
evenly proportioned than, for instance, the passage by which we
had entered.  A natural cavern had been hewn out and adapted for
the purpose, leaving the roof and some parts of the walls in their
original condition.  The entire floor had been hewn to such depth
as to leave what may have been an altar or a bier in the center;
and at the opposite end from the door there was a platform
contrived in the same way, occupying the entire width of the
chamber-twenty-five feet, more or less.

At the right-hand end of that platform, which had a depth of
eight or nine feet, there was a natural protrusion of the rock
wall which had been carved into a throne as grand as anything
that Rodin ever chiselled.  Its proportions perfectly suggested
all the majesty and ponderous insolence of olden priesthood.  On
that sat Bertolini.  He was no longer wearing spectacles;  his
eyes were closed;  he looked like a scholarly anchorite in meditation;
even when he moved there was the same effect of spiritual calm
suggested by the drooping eyelids;  outdoors they were protected
from the sun by goggles, so that they were whiter than the rest
of his face.  But when he turned his face toward us the effect was
different;  he became a hater, nervously alert.  Above his head,
exactly in the comer of the wall, there was a natural crack in
the rock, that led upward, growing gradually wider, until it spread
into a hole up near the roof, as a river flows into the sea.

There was nobody else on the platform.  In a semicircle on the
floor around the brazier, with their backs to the wall, sat seven
men on prayer-mats.  There were coffee cups beside them.  Facing
them, not far from Bertolini, but below him, there were five more,
also on mats with their backs to the wall.  They were of different
nationalities, well dressed.  One man, in a suit of raw silk, was
undoubtedly German;  another looked English;  three wore Arab
costume, and of those one seemed to be a muallim (Moslem teacher).

Chullunder Ghose sat back toward us, also on a prayer-mat, hands
on thighs, his big head sunk a little forward as if thought weighed
more than muscle could support.  He looked fatter than ever--enormous.
He was squatting well to one side of the stone bier, in a position
where he could watch Bertolini and everyone else.  He had the
coffee-pot beside him;  it was no Turkish coffee--good United
States dripped nectar;  and instead of turning his head when we
entered he poured some, so that the aroma reached our nostrils.

"And as I told you that he would be, here he is!" he announced.
It did not occur to me at the moment that he had seen us reflected
in the polished copper of the pot from which he poured.

"Who?"  Bertolini sat bolt upright.  "Is Titai with him?"

"No," said Grim, "but Titai, if that's your butler, sends his
compliments and says he'll see you later."

Bertolini recoiled as if someone had slapped his face.  "Damn
that Chinaman!  His insolence grows unbearable.  How the devil
did you get in here?"

"I passed myself in."

"Through three locked doors?"

"Why not?"

"Who are you?"

"Major James Grim!"

If a bomb had gone off it would hardly have caused more alarm.  I
heard two revolvers click, but the only hand that I actually saw
move was Bertolini's;  he let it fall between the throne and the
end wall, and since he produced no weapon I concluded he had touched
an electric bell-push.  The other men held strained, alert,
breathless silence.

"Jimgrim?  Of the Intelligence?" said Bertolini.

"Does it surprise you?" Grim asked;  and I saw his game now.  He
had given Chullunder Ghose a cue and was simply marking time until
the babu had acted on it, or returned another.

"What do you imagine?" the babu asked.  "That Dorje has no agents
in the secret services of all the countries in the world?  You
must be crazy.  I don't wonder--no, indeed I don't--that Dorje
ordered you to be investigated!"

Chullunder Ghose had passed the buck back.  Grim carried on:

"You have balled things badly.  If I can save you, Bertolini--but
how can I?"

Bertolini's lean right hand dropped out of sight again.  I saw
his shoulder move;  he was pressing on something, almost certainly
a bell-push.  "Your credentials are lacking," he retorted.  "I
hear three of you.  I have a hole here that has taken more than
three at a time into the Nile--many more than three who could not
NAME THE NAME RIGHT!"  He almost screamed the last four words.
Then he leaned over the right arm of the throne and there was no
longer any doubt whatever that it was a bell-push he was furiously
pressing with one finger after another.  "NAME THE NAME!" he shouted.

"I don't need to," Grim answered.  "Feel this."

He walked toward him, and to do that he had to pass between the
group of seven and the group of five.  There was plenty of light.
He let them see the small gold token that he held between finger
and thumb.  I heard the hammer of one revolver click to half-cock.

"Feel it!"

Bertolini took the token in his fingers.  "You could have stolen
that," he answered, "Get off the platform!"  With a trick of sleight
of hand he made the token vanish.  There was no knowing where it
had gone.  "Do you hear me?"

Jeff and I felt for our glass flasks, but I failed to see how we
could use them without putting Grim out of business.  We would
have had to throw the things and beat it down the passage:  even
Chullunder Ghose would have been lucky to escape.  And all twelve
men pulled out revolvers.

"Jim's out!" said Jeff in my ear.  It was the only time I ever
heard him admit that there was no hope.  "Beat it while you can.
I'll stay and--"

I believe Jeff still thinks that I started to run but recovered
in time to save my self-respect.  What I actually did was to draw
back the curtain a little and shout down the passage:

"Stand by for a rush, you fellows!  If a shot's fired, come in
on the run--no waiting!"

And I contrived to drop my memorandum book behind the curtain and
to kick that skidding along the stone floor of the passage.  To me
it did not sound in the least like lurking men, but then I knew
what it was and the others did not.  It served.  It raised at any
rate a doubt in thirteen minds, including Bertolini's.

"So that's why my men haven't answered my summons!" said Bertolini.
"Bring your men in here!"

I had made a mistake.  Grim, as he told us afterwards, having
observed that natural crack in the wall, had followed it downward
with his eye until he noticed something not quite normal in the
darkness on the far side of the throne on which Bertolini sat.
He was wondering why they had made Chullunder Ghose sit where he
could not see into the shadow beyond Bertolini, and why the lamps
had been grouped so as to cast that shadow.  There was no light
near where Bertolini sat.  Imagination aiding eyesight, he had
not exactly seen, but sensed an opening in the wall beyond the
throne, and his intention was to enter that, if necessary, and
to hold up Bertolini and his gang by threatening to bomb them
with a glass flask.  He had counted on us, of course, to follow
suit, and on Chullunder Ghose to save himself by getting behind us.
I had ruined that move.

"Bring them in!" Bertolini repeated.

Grim switched plans in a fraction of a second.

"If I do," he said, "you're done for.  They are your men!  They're
the gang you rang that bell for!  They're the pretty boys who were
to fix me!  Imbecile!  Do you suppose you can set yourself up as
an independent without Dorje knowing it?  And do you suppose he'll
know it without sending somebody to pull your plug?  What do you
take Dorje for?  A sort of small-town politician who swaps pork
for votes?--Put up those revolvers--I'll give you thirty seconds!"

They obeyed, although the German hesitated and one Arab only stuffed
his weapon under his abayi.  Evidently they had had a taste or two
of Dorje's discipline.

"Self," remarked Chullunder Ghose, "am under the influence of Dorje
so much that am Dorje-minded, absolutely.  Don't give a damn who dies,
who lives.  Notwithstanding which, our Jimmy Jimgrim, being of the
secret service, is of much more use to Dorje than yourselves.  And
Dorje oils good tools.  You'd better listen."

Grim was signalling to Jeff.  They have a private code of not more
than a dozen hardly observable gestures, indicating such essentials
as "safe for the time being"--"stand by, dangerous"--"leave it to
me"--"go to it."  I know seven of the signals.  That one meant
"Now!  Go the limit!" and Jeff's limit is nothing that anyone else
can predict;  it includes everything except cats and elevators.
Calmly, almost casually, in a low voice he remarked to me:

"You'd better show 'em one flask.  One's enough."

So I drew the flask out of my pocket and held it high where everyone
could see it.  Jeff strode forward until he reached the nearest of
the group of seven.  It was the German.

"You first.  Lay your gun on that stone altar!"

Bertolini jumped up.  "What is happening?"

"We're being sensible," said Grim.  "My orders are to spare you
all if possible--particularly you."

"Obey him!" said Bertolini and sat down again.

The German eyed my flask and Jeff's fist bulging in the right
hip pocket.  Then he got up and laid his automatic on the stone.

"Both guns!" Jeff commanded.  The German drew a smaller automatic
from an inside pocket.  He laid it alongside the first one.

"Now your knife!"

"Wahrhavtig, ich habe keine!"

"Get back there then.  You next."

Psychologically speaking they were knocked out.  Even the Arab
who had stuffed a revolver under his abayi obeyed orders, although
he called the others cowards and "worms in the bellies of dogs,"
in spluttering Arabic that told the whole tale of the state of
his nerves.  Unloading one by one, Jeff let the shells fall on
the floor and tossed the empty weapons into the corner.  Chullunder
Ghose, who was watching Grim, did not even dodge the pistols as
they curved in a long, low parabola over his head.  Perhaps Jeff
meant it as an inspiration to him.  If it was a hint, he took it.

"As was saying antecedently to disarmament conference, at which
am happy to observe that minority sentiment received magnanimous
consideration, am expertly dubious about your understanding of
the secret code.  Am otherwise at loss to explain how such mistakes
have happened.  Will resume interrogation."

"Have I gone mad?" asked Bertolini.

"That is what this committee of investigation wishes to discover,"
said the babu.

Bertolini almost staggered to his feet.  He stood swaying, pressing
both hands to his blind eyes.  He was a madman if ever I saw one--
incurable, with egomania embittered by a consciousness of creeping
weakness of the will.  One reason why we had disarmed that crowd
so easily was that they had already lost faith in the blind despot;
they could see the sick will waning even faster than the outworn
body and nerves.

"Repeat to me the cypher.  Then explain it." said the babu.  "I bet
you I will spot the mistake in half a jiffy.  Who knows it?
Potz-blitz-Donner-wetter, you first!"

"None of us knows it," said the German.  "Only he does.  We must
come to him for--"

Sounds interrupted him.  There were footsteps approaching along
the passage by which we had entered.




Chapter Twenty-Four

"Gad, what a team she'd have made with her twin!"


Grim signalled it was my job.  Fully expecting that the men we
gassed had come to life and at last were answering Bertolini's
electric bell, I parted the horse-hide curtain and stepped through
swiftly.  No use hesitating.  There was no one in the passage.  I
saw the door at the end shut silently.  So it was all to do over
again, and I was in doubt whether to creep up and spring the latch
so that no one could enter, or whether to take all chances.

There was perfume in the air--faint, but it stirred memory, and
in some strange way it stopped the skin from crawling up my spine.
I did not realize how scared I had been until I suddenly felt
less scared.  I decided caution was as useless as guesswork and
went straight ahead--jerked the door open--and then wasted no more
time whatever.  Baltis--with her throat in a Chinaman's fingers!
He had her down on her knees and her hands were wrenching at his
wrists.  He tried to turn on me.  He could not free himself.  He
went down like a steer under the pole-axe when I hit him.  Then,
before I even thought of stopping her--I was watching to see
whether the Chinaman was actually out or not--she did something
to the bracelet on her left wrist, knelt, and struck him with it
on the neck.  While I helped her to her feet she readjusted
the bracelet.

"It is for myself I wear this.  Where is Jeemgreem?"

"Poison?" I asked.

She nodded.  "Where is Jeemgreem?"

"Give that to me.  You might use it on Grim."

"It is for myself I keep it.  Where is Jeemgreem?"

She was rubbing her throat with her right hand;  the man had
almost torn her muscles out, and her voice was hoarse-choked.  But
she had the vitality of an animal, and the pluck of one besides;
in addition, she had taken some sort of stimulant since I last
saw her.  Her eyes betrayed that.  She could stand unaided, so I
turned to push open the door into the passage.  It was locked.  I
suppose when I opened it I had accidentally released the pin that
held the bolt back.

It was hard to know what to do then.  If I should hammer on the
door, of course, Jeff or the babu would come and open it, but that
would leave only two to handle thirteen men and well might be the
signal for a stampede.  On the other hand, if I waited that might
worry them.  I might be badly needed in there.

I decided to wait.  That would give them, at any rate, opportunity
to take their own time about coming to look for me.

"How did you get here?" I demanded.  I took her arm and led her
toward the hanging lantern, to examine her throat.  The skin was
lacerated by the man's long nails, and it was likely the bruises
would swell, so that she wouldn't be able to talk much presently.
It seemed a good idea to get her to talk while the going was good.
Mercurochrome was all I could do for her;  I had a phial of that
in my silver pocket-case and I used lots of it.

"You laugh at me?"

In that uncertain lantern-light the red stuff made her neck look
comically ghastly.

"Yes," I said.  "I see you really were Anne Boleyn.  You've the
headman's trademark.  But how did you get here?  Weren't you at
the hotel?"

She glanced down at the Chinaman and I stopped to examine him.  He
was stone dead;  whatever poison she had in that bracelet was as
quick as cyanide, but there was none of the characteristic crushed-almond
cyanide smell.

"Tell me," I said, "or I'll take that bracelet from you."

"Yes, I was at the hotel.  That fat Indian left me there.  I went
to Suite A.  I was filthy.  A hotel servant, staring very much,
unlocked for me the door.  I bathed.  I drank champagne with cognac."
(She had also taken something stronger, but that was her affair.)
"I went to bed.  I could not sleep.  So I got up again and dressed
myself, wondering what I should do.  And in my mirror I saw that
Chinaman.  Through the window he entered, very silently.  There
was a glass flask in his hand."

"This Chinaman?"

"Yes, that one.  And I guessed that flask held some of Dorje's
stuff.  So I knew they think I am my sister and someone--Bertolini
very likely--has said 'Kill her!'  That stuff turns into fluffy
vapour--no smell--no noise.  It kills.  It leaves no mark--no trace.
It vanishes.  And then the doctors say 'Heart failure,' or perhaps
'A blood clot';  because its effect may differ, although its action
is always the same."

"You have seen it used?"

She nodded.  "In the war, but not often.  There is very little
of it.  Even Dorje can only make it in small quantities and it
is dreadfully expensive.  It is known as Catalyst A--because it
is the catalyst that causes death most swiftly to combine with
anything that breathes.  I knew what that Chinaman had in the flask.
And he knew that I had seen him in the mirror.  So he stepped back,
and his foot slipped on something outside, so that there was a
moment before he could recover.  Then he threw the flask and smashed
it on the bedroom floor.  But by that time I had reached the door,
and was outside in the sitting-room, where I had time to snatch
this dress out of a closet;  and I put it on out in the corridor.
I hoped the Chinaman would think I was dead."

"Did you summon anyone?"

"Of course not.  If I had made a fuss they would have kept me
there answering questions and I could not have found Jeemgreem
to warn him;  I decided if I am on Dorje's death list there is
no longer the least doubt in my mind as to whose side I am on.
So I left the hotel to look for Jeemgreem.  It was already daylight.
I saw Colonel McGowan's car.  The chauffeur recognized me.  I
ordered him to drive me to wherever it was that he had taken
Bertolini and that fat Indian.  He obeyed, driving very swiftly."

"How did you get in?" I asked her.

"The gate was shut and no one opened it, although I rang the bell.
The chauffeur wished to drive me away again, saying he must return
at once to wait for Colonel McGowan;  but he also told me that
Jeemgreem and you and Jeff Ramsden are somewhere in this place.
So I sent him away.  I did not wish him to see me climb the wall.
And then I could not climb it, so I did not know what to do.  And
that Chinaman came and found me vainly trying to lift that great
gate off its hinges."

"Did he go for you?"

"Not he.  I think he thought I did not recognize him.  He unlocked
the gate.  I went in with him.  He was very civil.  He unlocked
the house door.  And he told me to wait in the hall while he went
for someone.  He looked first in one room--then another--then another.
Then he went upstairs.  So I, too, began opening doors.  I found
my way down here.  I had opened that door.  I was listening in the
passage from behind a leather curtain, when that Chinaman came on
me from behind and seized my throat.  He put a hand over my mouth.
I bit him, but I could make no sound;  and he dragged me out here,
where he tried to kill me.  That is all.  Then you came."

Jeff opened the door abruptly.  "What's up?"  He stared at Baltis,
thinking the mess on her neck was blood.  "Better carry her in here.
Seen McGowan?"

"Where is Jeemgreem?"  She went ahead of us into the passage.  Jeff
looked worried.

"Bertolini," he said, "has cracked badly.  If we don't look out
his brain will go completely before Grim gets him to explain that
cypher.  Chullunder Ghose is almost at the bottom of his bag of
tricks.  It's, a blank wall."

Baltis heard him.  She waited for us and demanded to be helped,
but refused to be carried.  She put a hand on Jeff's shoulder.
From behind I put my hands under her arms, but she shook me off.
The passion, that had made her stab the Chinaman in the neck like
a she-cobra, was still raging in her and she struck at whatever
irritated;  it was probably lucky for me that she had covered up
the deadly fang of her bracelet.

"Jeemgreem learns the cypher, does he?  Bertolini tells him?  And
they put ME on the death list!"

Physically she was weakening.  Emotionally she had flared up, and
there was no guessing how far that indignant heat would carry her.
When we had passed through the horse-hide curtain she tried to
stand alone but had to cling again to Jeff's arm, and in the
stronger light her face looked ghastly;  cunning and desperation
fought with almost overwhelming weakness.

"Jeemgreem!" she said--and then stared at the crew who were still
on the prayer-mats with their backs to the wall.  One by one she
studied them, until at last her eyes sought Bertolini and she clung
to Jeff's arm with both hands as if to economize her strength and
have plenty to launch at the blind man.  She reminded me of a beaten
boxer saving himself for the clang of the bell and hoping to land
meanwhile with one venomous punch.  Instinct governed her.
"Jeemgreem, if you wish to understand that cypher, let me speak
with Bertolini."

Grim nodded.  Jeff passed her to me, his instinct, habit, training
keeping him at his post as guardian of the exit.  She protested,
but she could hardly stagger unaided, so she took my arm and I
led her toward the platform.  Bertolini was muttering like a
drunken man, with his chin on his chest, and Grim was listening
but evidently making nothing of it.

I had to lift her to the platform;  there was no step.  As I did
that I tried to get her bracelet, but there was no pulling it off
over her hand and Grim shook his head when I held out her wrist
toward him.

"Poison," I explained.

"Yes," he said, "most snakes have that."

The sneer enraged her.  He added insult:  "It's all they're good for."

Chullunder Ghose sprang to his feet and backed away toward where
Jeff stood near the entrance.

I suppose I was standing too close to her to see the signal she made;
my attention was divided, too;  I had noticed what Grim must have
seen when he first approached the platform--a square hole in the
wall no higher than the seat of Bertolini's throne;  one could
only see it by looking around the throne, and I may have been
doing that.  At any rate, I did not see her signal, but Chullunder
Ghose did and he divined its purpose instantly.

Out went a light with a crash as the German smashed it.  He wasted
no time at all;  he charged straight for the horsehide curtain,
kicking over another lantern on his way and lowering his head to
butt Jeff in the solar plexus.  Jeff took care of him of course;
but he knocked him sideways;  the German crashed into the babu,
who was caught off balance, and the two went down in a flailing
heap together, punching at each other.

It was as quick as a bar-room roughhouse.  Light after light went
out.  The man who rushed me trod on a revolver cartridge and did
a split like a comedian so that my fist missed him by several
inches.  As he fell he grabbed my leg.  Another man knocked me
backward and I fell in Bertolini's lap and experienced all the
sensations of instant death;  imagination made me absolutely sure
that the glass flask in my right hip-pocket had struck the stone
arm of the throne.  That it did not break was one of those things
that make a man want to believe in miracles.

Then someone got me by the throat, and there were two men hanging
to my left arm.  Underneath me Bertolini struggled like a fish in
a net.  All the lanterns were out except one;  I could see one
somewhere.  And the harder I used knees and feet and right fist,
the nearer my right hip-pocket approached the arm of the throne.

Grim had the lantern.  Presently I saw him.  It was his fist that
felled the man whose fingers clutched my throat.  I saw Baltis,
too, on hands and knees, quite near me.  I believe it was she who
helped to pull me clear of Bertolini;  and then, for a few seconds,
Grim and I had to fight with our backs to the wall at the back of
the platform, and the brunt of that business fell to me because
Grim had the only lantern and to save that seemed almost as
important as not to break the glass flasks in our pockets.

It was too dark to see what Jeff was doing.  The place sounded
like a shambles when a wounded steer has broken loose.  But Jeff
is such a coolly calculating and terrific fighter that he probably
could have held that exit almost indefinitely if Baltis had not
been there, and if Chullunder Ghose had held his tongue, and I
mine.  Small blame to him, the babu hates fighting and prefers
to use his wits.  He had kicked a man in the stomach and then
busied himself throwing the empty revolvers down the passage to
prevent the enemy from getting them.  But he kept one;  and two
or three cartridges came kicked along the floor toward him, of
which one fitted.

"Jimmy Jimgrim sahib, shall I shoot?" he called out.

"NO!" Grim answered.  He and I had got the best of it at last at
our end and to shoot, if you are winning, is to shoot your evidence
as well as add hysteria to what is bad enough already.

"Come and get these flasks out of our pockets!"  I shouted.  "Then
protect those with your pistol."

Baltis had not known until then that we had those flasks.  I felt
her snatch mine from my pocket at the moment when a punch-drunk
Levantine rushed me for one last effort to crack my head against
the wall.  I side-stepped him and grabbed her.  Grim's fist downed
the Levantine and in the same second Baltis tried to hurl the
flask against the wall.  She dropped it.  Grim caught it--tripped
on the legs of the man he had knocked down--fumbled it (he had
the lantern in one hand)--and sent it spinning into the square
hole in the wall beside the throne.  I heard it smash.  Then Grim
fell and the lantern went out.

"So now we all die!" Baltis said calmly.  "It is not a bad death."

"Out of here!" Grim shouted.  "Hurry up, Jeff-grab the babu!"

He seized Baltis and said quietly to me, "Bring Bertolini;"  so I
dragged him off the throne and hoisted him like a sack.  It was
pitch-dark.  I had to scramble from the platform to the floor and
then head for the noise where they were fidgeting to be first into
the passage.  I tripped on a man's legs and staggered on to a
cartridge, fell and lost sense of direction.  I had thought Grim
was ahead of me.  He was not.  It was his hand that helped me up
again.  Jeff's voice gave direction:

"This way!  This way!"

Then the babu fired his pistol to give us a flash to see by and
we entered the passage all together with the battered survivors
of Dorje's gang fleeing ahead of us.  Jeff had picked up three
who could hardly stagger and had shoved them toward safety.  The
last one slammed the door in our faces, but as there was no way
of holding it on the far side and the lock was toward us they
gained nothing by that.  They were met by McGowan descending the
stair with a flashlight in one hand and his automatic in the other;
and behind McGowan was a view of the puttied legs of armed men.
I was holding the door for Grim;  he was a long time coming;  I
almost turned back to look for him, fearing he had been caught
and overcome by the fumes from the flask.  However, he came at
last with Baltis in his arms, and in the mixed light from the
hanging lantern and McGowan's electric torch both of them seemed
to be laughing.

"Hello, Mac."  He set Baltis down, letting her slide slowly to
the floor, where she sat with her back to the wall.  Then he
glanced at Bertolini, whom I had laid not far away.  "What's
wrong with him?"

"Dead," I answered.  On his neck above the jugular, there was a
puncture that might have been made by a snake with one fang;  by
the lantern light it was hardly visible, but it was plain enough
when McGowan turned the torch toward it.

"Baltis' bracelet," I whispered, and Grim nodded:

"Gad, what a team she'd have made with her twin!"

McGowan did not hear that.  He interrupted:

"What killed twelve men in the other cavern?  We got in by a
tunnel from the garden and broke down a door.  They're as dead
as mummies, and not a sign of how it happened."

"Gas," Grim answered.  "You can have some for analysis."  He
passed his flask to McGowan.  Baltis spoke up hoarsely; her
throat was swelling:

"I hope you open it!  I hope your friends are with you when you do!"

McGowan took no notice of her.  "There's a tunnel," he said,
"that seems to lead from that cavern to this one, and there's
an electric bell at the entrance.  Have you seen an opening at
this end?"

"Yes," Grim answered.  "Gad, you're lucky!"

"How d'you mean?"

"I dropped a gas-flask in there--broke it."

"And the fun is," Baltis interrupted, rubbing her throat, "that
nobody can ever prove--that there was anything--in the bottle!
It becomes gas--it kills--it vanishes--it leaves no trace!"

She loved the humour of it.  She appeared to wish that Grim were
such another as Dorje with similar weapons.  Grim ignored her as
McGowan had done.

"Why did Bertolini keep such watch over the tunnel?"

"We'll give the gas time.  Then we'll go, look, see," McGowan answered.




Chapter Twenty-Five

"People don't want problems.  They want answers.  And they want
the answers wrong, I tell you!"


"Who killed Bertolini?" asked McGowan.

"I did," Grim answered.

McGowan stared, but not so hard as Baltis did.  McGowan's men
had rounded up the prisoners and marched them elsewhere.  We
were waiting down there for the gas to vanish out of the tunnel
as Baltis said it would and as it already had done from the cavern
where a dozen dead men lay.  We had not yet dared open the door
of the room we had recently left, and I don't think any of us were
in a hurry to go into action again, we were so dead-weary, bruised
and starved.  McGowan had sent one of his men to try to cook some
breakfast for us up in Bertolini's kitchen;  and the Chinaman
whom we had trussed up in the lavatory had been brought down and
placed facing us, back to the wall with the gag removed but his
hands and feet still fastened.  He glared balefully at Baltis and
I think he thought she was her sister.  But not a word would he say.

"Am a liar too, on suitable occasion," Chullunder Ghose remarked.
"But suitability seems incognito.  I don't recognize it."

Grim said, looking at McGowan:  "I killed Bertolini to save Baltis."

"Was she worth it?" asked the babu.  "Bertolini understood the
cypher.  If you had left him alone in a room with me and something--
say a copying press in which to crush his fingertips, I would
have solved it!"

"Save her from what?" asked McGowan.

Grim's index finger traced a noose around his throat and then
repeated it to make sure Baltis understood.

"They might not hang me," he suggested.

"No.  Of course they wouldn't."

"But--they would--hang--her."

"And if this babu is asked for evidence, she will be shamefully
and undramatically dead to all intents and purposes from moment
when he takes the witness stand!  Am expert witnees!  Furthermore,
am deaf.  Yor purposes of lawful evidence, I did not hear our
Jimmy Jimgrim say he slew corpus delicti."

"Yes," said McGowan, "they'd hang her all right.  If I were you
I'd let 'em do it.  She is no more use.  If she won't tell what
she knows I don't see why you should shield her."

"She will tell," Grim answered, "in exchange for my telling who
killed Bertolini."

Baltis looked indifferent.  She rubbed her throat with both hands
and took her time before she answered:

"I killed Bertolini.  He had idiotically bungled Dorje's business.
He had presumed to put me on the death list, which was not his
business at all.  I am his superior, to whom obedience was due.
And there was a third reason:  Bertolini was about to tell the
secret of the cypher."

"Same no longer being secret," said Chullunder Ghose.  "It reads
this way:  forty-five minus forty-five equals forty-five.  And
that is easy.  Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two,
one-are forty-five.  Reverse that order-forty-five again.  Subtract
one from the other and we have the self-same figures in a different
order, namely:  eight, six, four, one, nine, seven, five, three, two.
That then evidently is the order in which the numerals should read
for decoding purposes.  How goes the rest of it?"

McGowan spoke up:  "Bible, McLaughlin's Dictionary, Encyc. Brit. Eleven."

"Undoubtedly those are the books," said Chullunder Ghose, "to
whose lines and pages we must refer for the explanation of given
numerals.  That is also easy.  What next?"

McGowan spoke again from memory:  "One to twenty-eight equals circle.
Nine, ten, eleven are one, two, two-two."

"Thirty-one numbers," said Grim.  "Those might refer to the days
of the month, the circle meaning the full moon.  How many volumes
has the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica?"

"Twenty-eight," I said, "omitting the index."

"So perhaps from the first to the twenty-eighth we should consult
the Encyclopaedia--volume one on the first, volume two on the second,
and so on."

"I suspect it is not so easy as all that," said Chullunder Ghose.
"A skunk emits a smell to stupefy his adversary.  Would not Dorje
do that also?  How many volumes has the Bible?"

"King James version--usually one," I answered.

"Atcha, sahib.  On the twenty-ninth we consult the Bible, which
is oftener than many Christians do it.  Self, am substitutionist
with pantheistic prejudices;  one religion failing to excuse my
tendencies, I substitute another--always.  Am familiar with Bible,
having frequently consulted same for proof of theory that nobody
knows more than he can find out.  What about McLaughlin's Dictionary?"

"French-English," I answered.  "Two volumes."

"So we know that," said the babu.  "On the thirtieth we consult
volume one, and on the thirty-first volume two of McLaughlin's
Dictionary.  Not too troublesome.  I hate French, it is such an
accurate language.  But we all hate something.  Rammy sahib hates
cats.  Jimmy Jimgrim sahib has no word for how he feels regarding
people who think they are better than others.  Now what?"

"That's the rub," said Jeff, who likes concrete problems on which
he can use force.

"Let's look through Bertolini's pockets," Grim suggested.

There was nothing much.  A handkerchief--watch--keys--a little
money--a new cheap memorandum book.  The latter contained nothing
except a folded half-page from a Cairene daily paper, from which
the date was missing.  Grim examined it.

"We win!" he said abruptly after half a minute.  He handed the
sheet to McGowan.

McGowan nodded.  "Obvious.  We have clerks who watch the daily
papers.  The agony column is always clipped and pasted in a
scrap-book.  We have known for, I should say, nine years that
Bertolini paid for those occasional strings of numbers.  But then
he was known to be a crank on numerology among other things.
Have you read his treatise on the Pyramid?  It was just like him
to publish a string of numbers without explaining them.  We all
thought he was warning us in his own opinionated and obscure way
about the date of the end of the world.  In fact, when asked
about it he admitted that.  He used to say that people who couldn't
understand the figures weren't entitled to the information, and
that most people are idiots who will be exterminated like vermin
when the end of the world comes.  Bertolini was what you might
call crusty."

The piece of newspaper was passed from hand to hand and reached
me finally.  At the top of the column headed Public Notices there
were several lines of figures that resembled, for instance, a
list of the numbers of bonds drawn for redemption:  only there
was no accompanying text.  Simply the numbers, separated into
groups by means of hyphens.  No signature--no initials--not one
word of explanation.

"He was blind.  He himself couldn't read it," I objected.

"Precisely," said Grim.  He glanced at the Chinaman sitting
sulkily under the lantern.  Then he glanced at Baltis, sideways.
She understood him.

"Do you still--think--you can--manage-without me?" she answered.

"Numbers are a universal language," Grim said quietly.  "Yes, I
can manage now nicely without you.  Good-bye!"  He glanced at
McGowan.  "Could one of your men take her upstairs?"

McGowan summoned a man.  "Escort the Princess Baltis into Bertolini's
house and let her lie down if she wants to.  But watch her, and
call another man to watch with you.  I will hold you answerable."

Baltis changed expression.  I saw her hand go to her bracelet and
quicker than I could cry out she had struck at Grim's neck.  Jeff
sprang at her.  But Grim had guessed what to expect and caught
her wrist.  Jeff held her while Grim took off the bracelet and
passed it to McGowan.

"Interesting piece for your museum," he remarked.  "I've finished
with her.  She can go now."

She was led away in something like a stupor and the soldier had
to call another man to help him carry her up the winding stairway.

"Jail, I suppose?" said McGowan when she was out of earshot.

"No," Grim answered.  "I need her badly."

"For the cypher?"

"Lord, no.  That's as clear as daylight.  I'll explain it in a
minute.  I've been watching for a real chance to get her goat so
thoroughly that she'll go all limits to get vengeance.  She can
endure anything except contempt, so I pretended to despise her.
Candidly I think she's splendid stuff.  Let her go, Mac.  She
can't return to France.  There's only one thing she can do--one
man she can go to--Dorje!  If she can get to Dorje, so can we."

"But how the devil can we let her go?" McGowan asked.  "If we do,
she will know why we do it.  She will lead you on a false trail."

"I'm as easy to lead as a loose pig," Grim retorted, "and she
knows we have the Chak-sam clue.  She probably won't try to reach
Chak-sam;  she'll head for some place in India where she knows
she can get in touch with Dorje.  He may come to meet her,
although it's hardly likely.  Much more likely he'll order her
to come to him;  and if he doesn't have her killed in ambush on
the way--and if she stands the climate and hardships--we can follow."

"But how are we to let her leave the country?"

Breakfast came--strong tea and what the soldier said was omelette.
Maybe it was;  at any rate, we ate it.  Then, Chullunder Ghose
inventing ingenious details, Grim and McGowan between them worked
out a scheme.  A friend of theirs named Jean Roche at the French
Consulate-general was to be asked to approach Baltis and to offer
her a forged passport and credentials if she would agree to escape
from Egypt with his assistance and to do a little dirty work in
India for the French.

"He can say he wants the low-down on the probability or otherwise
of native armies joining in a revolution," Grim suggested.

And she can go by 'plane," said McGowan.  "We had an application
six or seven days ago from the French for permission to use our
airports for a flight to Delhi.  It isn't granted yet, but I believe
it will be.  If so, I can very likely persuade Jean Roche to smuggle
her on board and make the pilot take a confidential letter to the
Indian Intelligence.  You'll follow--?"

"Hard on her heels.  We're ready the minute we've got this cypher
ironed out.  Shall we all take a chance on that gas being gone?"

"Give it ten more minutes," said McGowan.  "What's the secret of
the cypher?"

Grim smiled at the babu.  "You tell.  What's the secret of the
famous Indian trick of sending news without wire or signal?"

McGowan snorted.  "If you know that, you know what our smartest
men haven't been able to discover.  It's done all right, but I
don't believe the Indians themselves could tell you how it's done."

"Those who could tell, won't;  and those who would tell, can't
because the new words to explain it haven't been invented," said
Chullunder Ghose.  "Am personal antithesis of secrets.  Not only
can't keep one but hate to try to do it.  Nevertheless, am neither
Webster nor a psychiatrical contortionist who can elucidate the
said-to-be subconscious subterfuges of the mechanical instrument
known as the brain.  Same swims in thought the same as a frog in
a bottle of alcohol.  You stir the alcohol--the frog moves.  You
stir the sea of thought--and brains think--or they think they think,
which shows what piffle words are.  How do you suppose that Jimmy
Jimgrim sahib guesses accurately six times out of seven what to
do next?  How do you suppose I understand him and can do what he
wants me to do without his saying anything?  How do you suppose a
world goes mad and butchers ten or eleven million men without
knowing what it is fighting about?  It is because the brain is
a machine that does exactly what it is told to do;  and if you
don't tell it, someone else will.  In India we teach ourselves
to use our brains as listening machines, since that is easier
than hard work.  Our trouble is too many people send us such
perplexing contradictory absurdities to think about;  and too
few understand the trick of tuning in to what is worth getting.
And besides, jazz stirs them to excitement, whereas symphony
suggests that there are problems.  People don't like problems.
They like answers.  And they like the answers wrong, I tell you.
Now I bow and take a back seat.  Jimmy Jimgrim is from Tibet,
where they teach such matters.  Let him tell it."

Grim did tell.  Ten minutes trailed into an hour while he explained,
as far as can be done when scientific words have not yet been
invented for the purpose.  I did not believe him.  Neither did
McGowan.  My mind, while I try to keep it tolerant of other men's
opinions, refuses to take seriously explanations that are not
demonstrable by scientific method.  For him to say, as he did say,
that the Eastern trick consists in emptying the brain of thought
in order that it may pick up other thought deliberately broadcast
or else latent in the layers of the mass mind, left too much
still to be explained.  His argument that orators, with nothing
in the world to say, can stir men's minds by stilling thought
with trickery of voice and gesture, and then fill them with emotion
that induces them to go away and vote in opposition to their better
judgment, seemed to me unconvincing.

But he knew what he wanted to say, and he did his best to say it,
in a language that is singularly lacking in appropriate terms.

"The difficulty is," he said, "that though we are all being
constantly bombarded by a perfect barrage of thoughts from all
directions, so that lots of people go mad because they are
oversensitive to it, there are very few who are able to train
themselves to select the thoughts they wish to think and to
reject the others.  I believe Dorje's messages are--to use a
stock phrase--thoughts sent on a certain wave-length.  Trained
brains intercept them."

"Is yours trained?" asked McGowan.

"Partly.  I keep thinking of a string of numbers."

"So do I," said Chullunder Ghose.

"So do I," said Jeff.

"Without telling each other, let's all three write down what we
get," said Grim.

He, Jeff and Chullunder Ghose wrote on leaves torn from McGowan's
note-book.  They passed to me what they had written.  I read aloud:

"4-3-2-9-2-5-9-8-7-1."

There were the same figures, in the same order, on each sheet of paper.

"And Jeff and I are only partially trained," said Grim.

"Chullunder Ghose comes by it naturally."

"What the devil do the figures mean?" McGowan wondered.

Grim glanced at the black-clad Chinese butler.

"They are meant, I think," he said, "for Bertolini, who could
very likely get them but, being blind, could not have looked them
up, for instance, in a code-book, if there is one, as I think
there must be.  Someone loose that fellow's legs.  He has heard
our conversation, so we'd better take him with us, or he might
talk to the wrong man while our backs are turned.  Besides, we
need a man who knows to go ahead of us and make sure that the
gas has gone out of the tunnel."  He looked straight into the
man's eyes.  "If he won't talk, he shall serve us somehow!"




Chapter Twenty-Six

"Even Lenin never had the nerve to blow his horn as loud as that!"


There was no smell or sign of gas in the rock-hewn chamber where
we had fought with Bertolini's gang, but there were five men lying
on the floor who had died so instantaneously that their nerves
had not had time to make their muscles move and register pain or
even a spasmodic struggle.  There was a careful autopsy performed
on them, and on the dead men in the other cavern, late that evening
and not a trace of anything was found that could explain why or
how they had died.  They were dead;  the life was separated from
their bodies;  that was all that even chemical analysis could answer.

Nor was there the slightest trace of gas or of any detectible
rare element within the tunnel leading downward from the cavern,
although later in the day men came and chipped small pieces from
the stone and those were crushed and chemically tested.  Nobody
believed our tale about the gas until a too incredulous laboratory
expert opened one of the glass flasks taken from the drawer in
the Chinese butler's room.  That expert and his five assistants
died so swiftly that the only good they did was to suggest how
other unexplained deaths, in many countries, might have happened.
There are nine of those flasks remaining for some genius to open,
if he dares, and analyse if he can find a way to do it.  And there
may be others;  nobody knows how many gallons of that deadly liquid
Dorje sent to different quarters of the globe for the removal of
objectionable people.  All we do know is that Dorje's factory is
now as lost forever as the secret of the means by which men built
the Pyramid, of blocks that weigh eight hundred tons apiece, before
even wheels were in regular use or steam and electricity were known.
We know no more, comparatively, than the ancients did;  their
ignorance of what we know was probably not greater than our
ignorance of principles they understood.  And when a man like
Dorje taps a new vein of the infinite resources of the universe,
he leaves our ablest scientists as ignorant as cavemen gaping at
a radio receiving set.

Grim was quite sure the Chinaman was Bertolini's intimate if not
his master.  He was equally sure, although he had no proof, that
Bertolini had a code-book hidden somewhere and that the Chinaman
knew where it was.  But I don't think that even Grim with his
inductive imagination guessed to what fanatical extremes that
Chinaman would go to keep the information from us.

It was a square hole three feet high, but it formed the opening
of a circular descending shaft, thirty or thirty-five feet deep,
that had difficult steps cut spiral-wise around it.  We had to
descend with our bodies pressed close to the wall, while a soldier
lay in the square opening overhead and showed the way with an
electric torch.  The Chinaman seemed used to it.  He went down
as adroitly as a sailor and reached the bottom several seconds
ahead of Grim, who came next and was racing to overtake him.

But McGowan had brought extra torches and we each had one.  At
the bottom with our hands free we could use them;  so the Chinaman
fled down a six-foot tunnel in a glare of white light and he very
soon came to a standstill, realizing that he had no chance of
hiding from us and that whatever he did we could see him.  I believe,
too, that he was stiff from being tied;  his tendons hurt him.
Anyhow, he slowed down, Grim overtook him, and by that time we were
hard on Grim's heels.

It was partly a natural tunnel, partly hewn;  the ancient burrowers
had followed a fault in the rock, and wherever they came to pockets
they had hewn them into rectangular chambers of all shapes and sizes,
so that the passage was irregular and not unlike the Roman catacombs.
There were skeletons in some of the chambers, and I paused long
enough in the entrance of one large chamber to make sure that
several skeletons in there were those of men who died quite recently;
the flesh appeared to me to have been removed with acid.  In another
place there were female skeletons, two of them with long dark hair
still clinging to the skulls.

There was a gap in the floor that we jumped, Grim following the
Chinaman and we pursuing Grim.  Jeff jumped it like a catapulted
hayrick, but Chullunder Ghose seemed as light on his feet as a
full balloon, although he came down on the far side awkwardly,
slid, and sat down so hard that his belly shook and he dropped
his flashlight down the hole.  It was switched on, and it fell
on something that prevented it from breaking.  I turned back to
help him.  He and I looked down into a cave illuminated by the
torch, which lay undamaged on a pile of filthy-looking sacks.

"Come on," I said, "we can examine that hole later."

"Said the dentist to the man with toothache.  Now or never, sahib.
You do what you jolly well dam-choose about it!"

Down he went feet first on to the pile of sacking, ignoring rough
steps hewn into the rock wall.  I saw him roll off the sacking
and vanish.  Arguing that Grim was not likely to need me since
he had Jeff and McGowan, I followed the babu, landing on the sacking
heels first.  Dry things cracked under my weight.

I opened one and a broken skull rolled out of it.  The floor was
spread a foot deep with the broken bones of human skeletons--not
mummies.  Nailed to the walls of the cave with iron spikes were
parts of other skeletons still held together by dry ligaments
that broke and let the bones fall as the babu touched them.  Of
the hundreds in there, some looked old enough to have been dead
for centuries;  but I counted ten, on walls and floor, that at
the first glance I could swear had marrow in their bones.

"Look out!" said the babu suddenly.

The Chinaman came sprawling down the hole and landed on hands
and knees on the loose mass of ribs and skulls and thigh-bones
that concealed the floor.  He was up in a second;  he rushed me
with his head down, clutched my jacket as I dodged him, tore it
and then charged Chullunder Ghose.  The babu fled.

"Come on, sahib!  I say, come on, dammit!"

He switched his light out.  In another second he was clambering
the rough steps.

"Come on, sahib, for the love of--"

So I switched my light out too, although I couldn't see why I
should run from a middle-aged Chinaman who was already out of
breath as well as stiff from being gagged and tied.  I could
hear Grim coming, and the others close behind him.  My hand
touched the babu's foot.  He switched his light on--jumped for
the sacking again, taking me with him, and we rolled together
off the sacks on to the floor.  But he held his torch as if it
were a gun and he were fighting.  He kept it full on the Chinaman.
Grim--Jeff--McGowan crashed on to the sacks.  Jeff and the babu
spoke together:

"Doubled on us!  Ducked around a Y-shaped passage!  Sahib, he
has swallowed it!  I guessed he did not come down here for nothing!
I saw where it came from!"

I sprang at the Chinaman.  So did Grim--Jeff--McGowan.  He was
gagging.  He had swallowed something that stuck in his throat,
but he fought like a bear-cat.  We held him, and by the light
of the babu's electric torch I tried to force him to disgorge
what was choking him.  He bit my fingers to the bone.  It needed
all the strength of Jeff's two hands to force his jaws apart;
and even then, though he was dying of strangulation, he resisted
and kept on struggling to swallow something that would not go
either way;  his will was such that he could overcome the natural
instinct to disgorge, even though I used every trick I knew to
make him do it.

I had no instruments.  To save the man's life, if for no other
reason, I had to take desperate measures, and whether I killed
him or not is something that the Book of Judgment, if there is
one, must determine.  I got the thing out, and he bled to death.  He
would have strangled to death, I believe, if I had not done that;
and if he had contrived to swallow what I pulled out from his throat
he would undoubtedly have died, not quite so quickly but in great pain.

It was a tube, of such diameter that it was a mystery how he had
got it into his throat at all.  It was three and a half inches
long and made apparently of bronze--at any rate of some copper
alloy, very ancient and extremely thin--so thin that at one place
where it was broken it had turned up like paper and would certainly
have pierced the lining of his stomach, had it ever got that far.
It was screwed together in the middle and contained a roll of
exceedingly thin, strong paper that had been thumbed and handled
so often as to be entirely discoloured on the outside.  Grim
unrolled it, and his fingers trembled.

It was nearly a yard long, entirely covered on the inside with
Tibetan characters, which neither McGowan nor I could read.  We
held the torches. Grim, Jeff and Chullunder Ghose pored over it, the
babu breathing through his nose and almost squealing with excitement.

"We have him!" he shouted.  "We have him!"

He danced, impiously posturing like Krishna with his flute, whereas
he should have danced like Siva.  The thighs of a skeleton crashed
from the wall to the floor.

"Symbolic of the end of Dorje!  Read it, Jimgrim sahib!  Read it!
Translate!"

"What were those numbers?" Grim asked.

"Four, three, too, nine, two, five, nine, eight, seven, one,"
I answered.

"This," said Grim, "is all divided into numbered words and sentences.
The numbers are not in sequence.  There's a sentence at the bottom,
numbered one, that seems to be the signature.  It reads 'I am Dorje
the sceptre of that which shall be.  I am Maitreya.  I destroy
that I may rebuild.  Dorje is my body and Maitreya is my spirit.
I am dual and I bring forth the third, which is a new dispensation."'

"Hot stuff!" said McGowan.  "Even Lenin never had the nerve to
blow his horn as loud as that."

"But there are lots of number ones," said Grim, "at least a dozen
of 'em.  The numbers seem to run from one to nine;  and then from
one to nine again, and so on.  And the words and sentences, except
that last one, don't make sense in the order in which they stand,
not even if you read them in the order four, three, two, nine,
two, etc."

"Omit that last one," Jeff suggested.  "That's the signature.  That
leaves nine numbers."

"And transpose them!"  The babu was dancing again--dancing on
skulls and ribs and thigh-bones.  "Forty-five from forty-five
leaves eight, six, four, one, nine, seven, five, three, two.  So
we start with the eight figure.  Which would that be?"

"Three," Grim answered.  "Good-you're right.  It makes sense.
Give me a paper and pencil and for God's sake hold that torch-light
steady."  He scribbled.  "Wait a minute.  There are two twos in
the figures we got, and two nines."

"All right," said McGowan, "aren't there lots of twos and nines
on that sheet?  Try the first two for the first;  the second two
down the line for the second;  the first nine, and then the second
nine--how does it read then?"

"Give me your notebook."  Using Chullunder Ghose's broad back for
a table, swearing at him irritably when he moved, Grim covered half
a dozen pages.  "Yes," he said at last, "we've got it.  Listen:
'I find fault.  Slay those who moved too soon.  Those who escape,
betray them to their governments.  Continue until I order otherwise
to attribute blame for every outbreak and every destruction to
whichever social rebels in each country are already most notorious.
Continue to excite rebellion against all governments.  Double and
redouble all precautions concerning shipments of my lightning and
my breath of anger (God, what a name for the stuff!) even to the
extent if necessary of destroying those who have served their
destiny by bringing these to the appointed places.  Concentrate
on spreading unrest and a feeling of impending cataclysm.  Observe
greater secrecy.  Remember you are only one of many who obey me.
My conquest is not hastened by your consulting with one another,
which can lead only to confusion.  Drink your inspiration from
its source, which I am.  I am Dorje, the sceptre of that which
shall be.  I am Maitreya.  I destroy that I may rebuild.  Dorje
is my body and Maitreya is my spirit.  I am dual and I bring forth
the third, which is a new dispensation!"

"General orders!" said McGowan.  "Hot and heavy!  Got to hand it
to him!  How about those figures in the daily paper?"

"What was the date?  The twenty-ninth?" Grim asked.  "We can't
read those, then, till we get a Bible."

The babu yelped excitedly.  "Am three in one!  Am most observant
babu in the universe;  am champion long-distance heavy-weight
deductionist from Kanchenjunga to Peru;  am humble servant.  All
three!  Just a minute.  I saw where Celestial sword-swallower of
Dorje's predigested pilot-book abducted same!  I bet you!  I bet
everybody.  Pounds Egyptian fifty!  Who bets?  Wait a minute?"

He began to burrow among bones that almost filled the opening of
a six-foot cavity in the middle of the end wall, tossing jaws and
ribs and thigh-bones to the floor like a terrier enlarging a rat-hole.

"Torches!  Torches!  Why does no one bet me?"

He dragged forth an armful of bones and we flooded the hole in
the wall with white light.

"There you are!  I said so!  Why should something so important
that a Chinese swallows it be hidden here, and not lots of other
improbable things?  Law of improbability is only mystery that
always functions!  Is it likely?  No.  Then seek and ye shall
find it!  Look, I tell you!"

One would have thought he had found Dorje himself, so jubilant he
was.  However, what he found was all we needed at the moment--a
big Bible, a complete set of the Encyclopoedia Britannica and two
volumes of McLaughlin, along with a set of work-sheets done in
pencil giving sets of figures evidently meant for insertion in
the agony columns of newspapers all over the world.  There was
even a list of newspapers, including more than fifty in the U.S.A.

McGowan read off the figures from the Cairene daily paper.  Chullunder
Ghose transposed them, using the order 8, 6, 4, 1, 9 ,7, 5, 3, 2;
8 becoming 1, 6 becoming 2, and so on.  Grim decoded, turning from
page to page of the Bible and jotting down the indicated words.  The
first number preceding a hyphen were page numbers, the next gave the
line on the page, and the next gave the word.  The message read:

"Men of Egypt, laugh if they say these calamities are caused by
this or that.  Know ye they are the deeds of him ye look for who
shall rule all peoples from his high place.  Therefore let each
of you according to his own ability strive to bring your rulers
into despair and contempt.  Pay no taxes.  Lend not to your rulers.
Obey no laws of their making.  Cause the wheels to cease turning.
Answer no man.  And beware ye of rash speech with one another.  I
am that I am."

"That smells a bit of Bertolini--lacks the Nelson touch," said Grim.
"However, now we're all set."

I suggested that such messages were hardly likely to accomplish
much in civilized countries, but McGowan snorted:

"Have you forgotten our war-time propaganda?  Was there ever
anything less credible than that?  And who didn't believe it?
Why, even our own propagandists did!"

"Sink a few more battleships," said Jeff.

"Blow up a few more arsenals," said Grim.

Chullunder Ghose almost shouted.  He was screeching with excitement:

"Smash a bottle of that liquid in the House of Commons--in the
House of Representatives in Washington--in the French Chamber of
Deputies--in the Berlin Reichstag--kill off all the politicians!
And no trace of how it happened!  Dorje might turn out to be a
godsend after all!  Am not yet convert to cause of Dorje, but I
feel premonitory symptoms!  If he would also guarantee to kill
wife of this bosom--but that is too much to imagine!"

"We can stop him now," said McGowan.  "We'll have his code copied
at once, and that roll translated.  We'll distribute copies to
every secret service in the world.  It should be easy to track
down the men who insert the advertisements.  They'll squeal on
the others.  Then what?"

"Chak-sam," Grim answered,

"'Plane, of course?"

"If you can manage it.  For God's sake, Mac, get word to them at
Delhi not to tie us up with red tape.   Tell 'em anyone may have
the credit.   What we want is leave to cut loose and behave like
crazy men."

"I'll do my best.  But just how crazy?"

"From the hour I land in India, I'm Dorje!  His technique is to
be mysterious and let no one see him.  I'll force his hand or bust.
You fellows game?"

We nodded.  "Maybe I look meek, but I'm a tough guy," said the babu.
"Was in jail in U.S.A. and know all about bloody murder.  Nobody
can scare me, except emancipated wife."

"And, Mac, will you make sure Baltis gets to India?"

"I will.  Who wants her here!"

That evening McGowan brought us secret news of the Italian disaster--
the first of three terrific ones in three days--the explosion of
the arsenal near Genoa that killed a thousand men.  The earthquake
made it easy for the censors to exclude it from the news;  and when
it did leak out it was blamed on the anti-Fascisti, seventeen of
whom were hanged and others sent to life imprisonment.  He also
told us that a big 'plane would be ready first thing in the morning,
for India, via Baghdad.




Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Deify me, and I bu'st.  But I bu'st you also!"


Grim was jubilant.

"Can you stay awake?" he asked us.  We had had four hours' sleep
on cots and sofas in McGowan's apartment.  "We can sleep in the
'plane," he suggested.  "There'll be nothing else to do.  There'll
be another big one tuned up and waiting for us in Baghdad.  It's
a rotten trip.  Nothing to do but bump the bumps and hear the
engines sing until we get to Delhi.  Listen to this."

He began to read us excerpts from a pile of papers in a box marked
secret that McGowan had left with him.  They were decoded cablegrams
received during the past twenty-four hours and they provided the
first real glimpse that any of us except Grim had into McGowan's
actual importance in the secret service network.  There are probably
not ten men in the whole world, foreign editors of newspapers
included, who are kept so accurately posted as McGowan as to the
details of subversive events.  There was hardly a sentence from
any cablegram that could have been published without causing a
panic somewhere.

Unemployment and increasing discontent in England, Germany, the
United States, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Scandinavia,
Australia, South Africa--the list was endless.

"Deify me and I bu'st!" observed Chullunder Ghose.  "But I bu'st
you also!  Verb sap.  Easiest way to dispose of inconvenient
phenomena is to call same frauds or miracles.  Diabolize or deify.
It is true that Asia looks for coming of Lord Maitreya and new
dispensation.  Has been looking for a long time.  Hope deferred
maketh the heart grow more and more inclined to listen to hot-air
salesman.  Am same.  Frequently have contemplated going into the
Maitreya business--was prevented by a too keen sense of humor.
Cannot laugh at self and at same time be a super-Jupiter.  Am
Munro-ish also like U.S.A.--nervous of competition.  What succeeds
by saying one thing can be house-of-cardishly upset by someone
saying something else.  As unimportant babu, slander is my best
advertisement.  But as King of the World I can tolerate
neither truth nor lies nor competition.  Am intolerable.  Prick
me and I blow up!"

"How can you prick a man you can't find?" Jeff objected.

"Dorje's strength consists in being undiscoverable.  His agents
all seem to be pretty futile people, and they don't know where
he is.  Perhaps Baltis has seen him;  but have any of the others?
Probably ninety per cent of 'em don't even know they are Dorje's men."

"Exactly," said Grim.  "That's how he has got away with it and
how we catch him.  If we don't, he has the world whipped, because
he is doing what every conqueror has always done--playing on the
world's ignorance and jealousy, and using propaganda of all three
kinds, secret, political and religious, backed up by drastic violence.
Every conqueror has had something new to sell, and Dorje has gone
them all one better, this being an age of science.  Dorje has
discovered something they've known in Tibet for centuries:  how
to send out thought-waves so that other people get them.  Thought
wave-lengths are like radio wave-lengths, only different in degree
and impulse.  This wave-length reaches one kind of person--that,
another.  Very few guess what is happening to them.  So he needs
hardly any organization;  he makes use of other people's.

"For instance, in Italy he can stir the anti-Fascist element.  In
France, the Communist.  In Russia, the anti-Communist.  In England,
the unemployed.  In India, any and every one of a dozen political
and a hundred religious factions--each against the other, and the
lot against the British.  In China, Communist against Nationalist.
There isn't a country in the world he can't reach."

I objected.  "There can't be force enough in one man's brain to
send out waves to all the people in the world.  It needs horsepower,
for instance, to send out radio."

"But," Grim answered, "if the energy is there already and all Dorje
has to do is use it, what then?  He doesn't have to create it.
Nobody creates energy.  A machine, or a gun, or a brain, or a human
body is only a rather clumsy means of using the same energy that
turns the world around.  A so-called dynamic man is merely one
adjusted by temperament or training to a certain sort of thought-wave,
or energy-wave, or whatever you like to call it.  He responds
to and distributes that particular type of energy.  That is what
Dorje understands.  And what I don't doubt that he also understands
is what Chullunder Ghose just hinted at:

"He can't stand competition--mustn't tolerate it for a moment."

"You?" I asked him.  "Do you mean that?  Are you going to compete?"

He nodded.  "Force him out into the open.  Why find Dorje?  Why
not make him come and find me?"

"He will send his thugs instead, with a bottle of `death's breath,'"
I suggested.

"Yes," he said, "we'll have to take tall chances."

"Same are like tall women," said Chullunder Ghose.  "They look
impressive but are not so deadly as the short ones.  You should
see my wife--height four feet seven, but emancipated--very."

Then McGowan came, with news of Baltis.  "All O.K.  She'll arrive
in Delhi shortly after you chaps.  Dammit, I feel sorry for her.
She perfectly understands she's being imshied off to India to
serve as bait.  She might commit suicide."

"Not she," Grim answered.  "Everybody has faith in something.  Hers
is in reincarnation.  She honestly believes she was the Queen of
Sheba, and Anne Boleyn, and all the rest of 'em.  That's the crazy
side of her religion.  The sane side is, she'll endure anything
rather than kill herself, because that would cause her to reincarnate
as a foredoomed failure.  No.  She'd kill Dorje or me.  But herself?
I think not."




Chapter Twenty-Eight

"In indelible ink?"


Every tourist in the world knows what happened.  While we were
speeding toward Delhi in a 'plane provided for us by the Royal Air
Force, McGowan and his staff were sending cablegrams in code to
London giving a detailed explanation of Dorje's cypher, and London
was distributing the information to all the governments of the
civilized world through the embassies and legations, along with
a careful description of Dorje's "thunderbolts" and the glass
flasks containing his "death's breath."

Consequently tourists were exasperated by the questions they were
forced to answer at every frontier they crossed, and by the minute
inspection of their baggage.  Droves of them were detained for
special enquiries and were less annoyed by that than by the
evasiveness and apparent indifference of their own ambassadors
and consuls to whom they complained.

Like most emergency precautions, those were probably overdone.
However, numbers of Dorje's thunderbolts were found in baggage
that looked innocent, and numbers of probably innocent people were
hard put to it to explain how, when and where the things were hidden
among their belongings.  Some of those are still in prison and
extremely likely to remain there for a long time, along with the
guilty, of whom many had unenviable records and were consequently
easy to convict.

But those intense and annoying precautions, though they undoubtedly
reduced disaster to a minimum, did not prevent the Hull, the Essen
and the Angora explosions that caused so much havoc, and the latter
of which, by destroying all reserves of ammunition, prevented the
Turkish army from annihilating the invading Kurds.  There were
also serious disasters caused by the examination of the captured
thunderbolts;  incautious officials turned the plugs in the thread
at the end, with the result that fires were started and electric
light plants put out of commission along with trolley systems,
telephones and factories that used electric current.  Governments
were unanimous in keeping silence about Dorje.  For one thing,
there was no evidence against him--that is to say, no legal evidence,
because the thunderbolts destroyed themselves and left no trace.
It might have been much wiser to tell the truth and so unite all
factions in one indignant and alert defence against a common foe;
but it seemed at the moment more convenient to all the governments
to blame their pet domestic adversaries.  So those arrested were
accused, according to the country in which they happened to be at
the moment, as Communists, "Reds", Anarchists, Fascists, anti-Fascists,
Monarchists, Republicans, Carlists, Semites, anti-Semites,
revolutionaries pure and simple, counter-revolutionaries, Socialists
or anti-socialists as the case might be.  In more than one country
the Pope was accused of conspiring to conquer the world by force
of arms and even nunneries were searched for hidden stores of arms
and ammunition.

In India there were nearly as many explanations as there are
factions.  Gandhi was an obvious suggestion;  in prison though
he was, it was simple to associate him and his followers with
the awful affair at Cawnpore, where the arsenal exploded on the
day we landed and a quarter of the city, along with thousands of
men, women and children, was obliterated.  But the Hindus blamed
it on the Moslem fanatics;  the Moslems blamed it on the Hindu
Nationalists;  and the Sikhs blamed both or either;  while a
number of noisy agitators of the opportunist type accused the
British-Indian Government, asserting that the explosion had been
deliberately caused, to provide an excuse for drastic military
measures.  And incredible though that was, thousands of ignorant
people believed it, and not only in India;  it crept into print
in a number of countries.

On the other hand, there was a saner, less sensational report that
the explosion had been caused by agents of the Afridis who were
then invading the Peshawar district on the North-West frontier
and who were too well armed, and too well informed and organized
not to be at least suspected of collaboration with powerful
interests in India itself.

Delhi--or at least that part of it where the new great Government
buildings stand and the official nerves of India meet in one
imposing but too vulnerable ganglion--was in a state of tension
such as even India had not produced since the days of the Mutiny.
The Intelligence Department, normally the best informed and most
efficient in the world, was as overloaded as a switch-board on
the New York Stock Exchange when millions of shares are dumped
on to a slumping market.  The office into which we were led by
a uniformed guide was as quiet as a morgue--too quiet.  There
were too many sentries.  Officers walked much too calmly through
the waiting-room and down the corridors, betraying tension by an
overdone restraint.  And when a voice fell on the silence it was
as startling as a pistol shot in church.

We were kept waiting forty minutes before we were shown into the
office of a general who was glad to see Grim but was not so cordial
toward Chullunder Ghose.

"I have had dealings with you," he remarked.  "You are on my
black book."

"In indelible ink?" the babu asked him, and the general nodded.

"Then please tear out the entire page, general sahib.  My akasic
record is already bad enough without another one in this world
also.  Besides, I have credentials--new ones, uncontaminated yet."

Grim gave the general a letter from McGowan in which the babu was
emphatically praised and recommended.  The general read it, scowled
and refused to yield:

"I don't care.  I refuse to take him into confidence.  He has a
bad record and has been in prison three times to my knowledge."

"On the other hand," said Grim, "I understand him and he understands me."

"Do you think he has reformed?" asked the general.

Chullunder Ghose gulped.  "Never!  Am not so contemptible!  Reformers
and reformed are all dishonest scoundrels.  The rest are honest
scoundrels, of whom self am Admirable Crichton.  You put a reformer
or a reformed person in your job, and see how soon Dorje, for instance,
will abolish the job altogether!  Respectability?  I don't give a
damn for it!  Am last equationist.  That is to say, appearances may
go to the devil unless they serve my purpose;  and the only problem
that concerns me is, what do you or I intend to do about it?  Life
is a personal business.  I am personally pleased to work for Jimmy
Jimgrim sahib against Dorje;  but for you I would not work on any
terms whatever.  If you feel about me as I do about you, we will
both of us go to the devil;  but I think the devil would receive
me pleasantly, whereas your brass hat and your shoddy morals would
annoy him.  That is my opinion, and if I were a lawyer I would
charge you money for it."

"You may leave the room," said the general, and I saw a flicker
in the wrinkles at the comer of Grim's eye.  Chullunder Ghose went,
waddling out importantly, and when the door had closed behind him
the general continued, smiling:  "That is the worst of that man.
One of the best we ever had in some ways, but incorrigibly impudent.
I can't have dealings with him.  If you care to trust him, you must
do so at your own risk and on your own responsibility."

"I think it's just a question of understanding him," Grim answered.
"He's a rare bird.  He would ten times over rather die than let a
man down."

"Well, you manage him.  As a matter of fact, Grim, if the situation
weren't so serious I should have to dispense with you and Ramsden.
I can't employ you.  I can't put you on the pay roll."

"Do you mean you won't recognize me?"

"Officially, no.  Personally you and I have been friends since
the day we first met.  If you go after Dorje I can't protect you
or even promise to back you up in any way whatever.  You must act
in your private capacity with no more than my personal encouragement
and good will."

"Suits me," said Grim.  "Do you know where Dorje is?"

"Nobody knows."

"If he were in Delhi you would hear of it, of course?"

"Within the hour, most likely.  Within the day, at any rate."

"If his presence in Delhi were reported to you, would you dare
not to arrest him?"

"I can dare anything.  But what's the idea?"

"I am Dorje."

The general stared, leaned back and drummed his fingers on the desk.

"There is no other possible way to uncover him," said Grim.

"His very loose organization has got a bit out of hand and gone
off half-cocked before he was ready.  It's a cinch he's lying low
and covering his tracks;  he won't move a finger to protect the
fools who made the big mistake."

"Do you suspect where he is?" asked the general.

"Probably in Chinese Turkestan.  Perhaps in Tibet."

"Then how can he possibly know what has been happening during the
past ten-twenty days?  I can swear he has not used wireless;  we'd
have caught that in a minute.  There's a single wire to Lhassa;
I have a record of every message, both ways, since the wire was
first installed.  The same goes for the wire to Ladakh.  Of course,
the Chinese have a wire of their own from somewhere in Turkestan
to Pekin, but it takes about a week to get a message through and
it has to be transmitted so many times that it arrives all garbled.
Do you suppose the Russians have run a wire that we don't know of,
over the Pamirs?"

"No," Grim answered.  "Dorje is as much a problem to the Russians
as to all the rest of us.  Dorje is using thought-waves, of a
scientifically determined wave-length, to send code numbers to
individuals all over the world who have been trained to get them.
We have a book they use to interpret the numbers."

"Yes," said the general, "McGowan rushed a photostatic copy to me,
in the 'plane that brought you."

"There must be another book," said Grim, "containing other numbers
and another set of words--phrases--sentences, that someone--very
likely only one man, or a woman--uses to send messages to Dorje.
He would not be likely to entrust that to more than one or two
people, even if he could find more than one or two people in the
world who could be trained and trusted.  Otherwise, they might
start sending messages to one another.  There is some one person,
somewhere, who can get the world news--probably it's some one in
a foreign office, or at any rate a government department--someone
high up--who is sending code--thought-messages to Dorje.  I believe
that code book and that person are in India."

"Why?"

"Several reasons.  It would be easier to teach an Indian to work
the trick.  In a certain degree the Indians are used to it;  it
would only need developing and training.  Again:  Dorje has not
been getting all the news."

"What makes you think so?"

"His message that we caught in Egypt, ordering his agents to
discontinue action and wait for orders.  A ruthless devil such
as Dorje must be, in receipt of information that his agents had
produced major disasters in a dozen countries, would be likely
to order them all to cut loose and wreak general havoc.  Why not?
So it looks as if his information man is hampered by the censorship.
Isn't the censorship screwed tighter here than anywhere?"

"The thread might break if we took one more turn at it!"

"I'm guessing, but I think that information man is probably a rather
high official here in Delhi--someone who had access not so long ago
to all the bulletins, but who somehow or other no longer has it.
If so, you can find him by a process of elimination.  However, don't
move too fast.  Give him time to get word through to Dorje that
there's someone here in Delhi masquerading as himself."

"Do you realize the risk?" Grim smiled--nodded.

"It would be safer to pose as the Pope, or as the Viceroy of India,"
said the general.  "At least five hundred million people, to whom
religion means more than food and drink, await the coming of the
Lord Maitreya under one name or another.  It's the strongest and
most dangerous undercurrent in the world today, and it includes
all Asia--even China and Japan.  Dorje has stirred that undercurrent
so adroitly that the whole of Asia awaits the new dispensation--
expects it.  These political disturbances are symptoms.  They're
ready--on tip-toe--listening and looking for the new Messiah.  Look
what they did to Gandhi--almost deified him.  I tell you, if Gandhi
hadn't been a man of iron will and decent spirit they'd have done it!
And they'd have killed him if he had lost his head for half a minute!
Dorje--you play Dorje and they'll mob you.  They'll demand a miracle.
Fail, and they'll tear you to tatters!"

"I will take that chance if you permit," said Grim.

"I couldn't think of it.  I forbid it absolutely."  The general
glanced at Jeff and me.  "I want you all to understand me.  I
forbid that.  I would like to talk to Grim privately, if you two
excuse us."

So Jeff and I returned to the waiting-room, where I sat discouraged.
But Jeff understood the situation rather better.

"The old game," he said, grinning genially.  "Now there are no
witnesses, he'll give Grim carte blanche.  If Grim fails, Grim
can get it where the chicken got the axe.  If Grim succeeds, all
honour to the Secret Service!  That's how bureaucracies work;
their promises are so evasive that they're not worth breaking,
but their hints mean 'help yourself and pass the bottle!'  Wait
and see."

We waited--endlessly.  If we had known that Grim and the general
were going over Dorje's cypher and the code book that we found
in Bertolini's cavern, we might have gone for a walk and returned
in a couple of hours.  However, Jeff continued genially patient
until Chullunder Ghose smiled his way in through a door that opened
into secretaries' offices.  Then Jeff became suddenly ill-tempered.

"You damned fool!" he exploded, sounding all the more violent
because he kept his voice low.  "Why the devil did you insult
the general?"

"Sahib.  I bet you pounds Egyptian fifty.  Have not yet had time
to see a money-changer;  otherwise would bet you rupees."

"What do you bet?"

"Rammy sahib, I bet you I got out of that room very neatly, and
that you can't think of any other way I could have done same and
appear to have a message from the general to someone else.  Am
fish in water hereabouts.  Know all the holes and comers.  Lend
me a thousand rupees."

"What for?"

"I wish to bet you handsomely.  I wish to bet you that I know how
Dorje has been getting news of world events.  He did until several
days ago, but now he does not."

"What the devil do you mean?"

"Now he knows only Indian events, unless he has another intermediary."

"Not so loud," said Jeff, "that man on duty at the door might overhear."

"Have personal old friend in this department--very friendly person--
name of Hari Kobol Das--he did me out of good job once and got me
sent to prison, but he never knew I knew who did it.  Was at one
time teacher of a class in Sanskrit, which was cover-up job for
an undercover study of the Sanskrit sciences.  Had to get money
somehow, and it takes a long time to make dummy replicas of ancient
manuscripts and substitute same for the real ones stolen from the
temple libraries.  Hari Kobol Das and this babu experimented with
thought transmission, which is intricately but not too lucidly
explained in certain ancient books.  I stole them, which is how
he had me put in prison, but no matter."

"Where are the books now?" Jeff asked.

"Back in the temple library.  He did not have me put in prison
until he had translated the books and had begun to study the
translation, and grew jealous and began to fear that I might
learn something.  He was like a man who has discovered gold;
he wanted all of it.

"Just now I went through that door.  As I passed through I was
halted, but I said the general sent me;  and before the man could
ask to whom had the general sent me, I saw Hari Kobol Das sitting
all alone at a desk in a little office at the end of the corridor.
So I replied that I was sent to Hari Kobol Das, and he pretended
he was very glad to see me, though he feared I came to ask a favour.
So I told him I was prosperous and came from Europe;  and I did
not ask him why a man who knows as much as he, should be satisfied
with such an unimportant place in such an office.  He had scissors
and a paste-pot.  He was clipping items from the Indian daily papers
and pasting them into a scrap-book.

"When he learned I was from Europe he began to ask me for the latest
news.  I pretended to wonder at that.  I said, surely you have all
the news in this place.  He said, yes, until recently I clipped the
bulletins decoded from the secret cablegrams from Europe, but now
no longer;  they have put me to this task, which is not so interesting.
And he began to question me.  But I denied that I had any news;
I said the ship on which I came was not equipped with radio except
for purposes of S.O.S.  But he knew that was a lie, because I told
him I travelled first-class on a P. & O. liner.  So he reminded
me that he and I are old friends who can trust each other.  And
at that I let him understand that I had come straight to him
from the general's office.  So he supposed I am one of the general's
secret agents.

"Presently he hinted news is valuable.  There is money to be
picked up, he said, buying and selling rupee paper, which goes
up or down according to the world news.  If there were disasters
all over the world, for instance, it would go down as soon as
the news was known, and if I had advance information I could
sell high and buy low.  Do you know of any such disasters?  Such,
for instance, as this business at Cawnpore?

"So I told him he should learn that by thought-transference, and
left him.  But as I turned away he begged me not to repeat our
conversation.  And of course I said I would not.  But I bet you
pounds Egyptian fifty that if anyone possessed of faculties should
search the dwelling place of Hari Kobol Das, he would discover
there a code book showing how he thinks the news to Dorje over
thought-waves of a certain length."

Then Grim came through the general's private door.  And by the
look in Grim's eyes it was easy to see that what had been said
in confidence to one man was as different as what had been told
to three as chalk is from the cheese on tasters' tables.




Chapter Twenty-Nine

"But you must kill him!"


Grim calls his own sudden feats of induction "following the Middle
way."  Jeff calls it tight-rope walking.  And Chullunder Ghose
describes it as "the inside-out-ishness of paradox pursued to
ultimate improbability, which is the essence of the quest for
truth."  But then, Chullunder Ghose claims he can understand Einstein.

The babu was too cock-a-hoop with his discovery of Hari Kobol Das,
and a bit too pleased with his own astuteness.  As we drove in
the general's car to an address that Grim whispered to the chauffeur,
Jeff aired his view of it:

"No one of Dorje's calibre would be such a damned fool as to
trust a man of that type.  If Hari Kobol Das has brains enough
to wring the juice out of a Sanskrit treatise on thought-wave-lengths,
and not guts enough to make himself a power in the land
on the strength of it, then Hari Kobol Das is a piker.  Pikers
can do nothing but a piker's job, and anyone of Dorje's weight
must know that.  The nearer we get to Dorje, the more power you'll
find his real captains have.  They won't be pasting clippings in
a scrap-book."

"There are traitors," said Grim, "in every camp."  But it was not
clear at the moment what he meant by that remark.  He appeared
excited.  I imagine we all would have been if we had known what
he was contemplating.

We went where I hoped we were going--to the Chandni Chowk--to
Benjamin's, where anyone may go without exciting comment.  Nineteen
expeditions out of twenty buy their second-hand stores from Benjamin,
and get their information from him, too, if they want it dependable.
His great dim store is like a mausoleum of the memories of caravans.
The smells of Asia live there.  Camel-saddles, reeking with the
sweat from Samarkand, lie heaped between the stacks of canned
provisions, blankets, overcoats and boots.  Tibetan devil-masks
scowl from the walls between tulwars, spears, Persian knives and
all sorts of obsolete weapons.  There is a pervading smell of musk.
There is some of everything, from saddle soap to coral nose-studs
for Zenana ladies.  And whatever you buy from Benjamin is what he
says it is--exactly that.  They say he is as rich as Croesus.  But
he is disconsolate because he has no sons, and even his son-in-law
Mordecai died in a storm in the throat of the Zogi La on the way
from Tibet.

Benjamin met us--old--old--bearded--in a little skullcap--red-rimmed
around the eyes--wearing spectacles nowadays, down on his nose;
he looked at us over them.  And he was as pleased to see Grim and
Jeff as if they had been his own sons returned from the grave.
He almost ran ahead of us into the windowless lamp-lit office at
the rear, where receipts and letters hung on long, old-fashioned
filing hooks and a portrait of the Tashi Lama, looking like Elihu
Root in a bathrobe, stared from an ebony frame on the wall above
a roll-top desk.  There he embraced them--kissed them--and then
looked at me.  He took no notice of Chullunder Ghost until he had
examined me from head to foot, blinking as he peered at me above
his glasses.

"Jimgrim!" he said.  "Jimgrim!  And you, Jeff!  It is better than
meat and drink to see you two again before I die!  And who is this
one?  Is he one of you?  Well, you know best.  You trust him?  That
is a recommendation.  And you still trust that one?"

He stared at the babu, shook his head, showed him a box in a corner
to sit on and then offered us the bentwood chairs.

"Food presently--my daughter shall spread her best for us.  Hey-yeh,
what memories.  Well, Jimgrim, what now?  What is it this time?
For you never come to see me unless your nose is up-wind like a
lean dog's:  Either you seek Sham-ba-la, or you hunt some devil.
What now?"

"Dorje," Grim answered.

"Yeh-yeh, I might have known it!  Seven years ago I said that
Dorje must be reckoned with sooner or later--just as I told them
that Mustapha Kemal would get a grip they can't break.  It was I
who told them that the Dalia Lama would be driven out of Lhassa.
And that was Dorje's doing--I said so.  I told them also about
the Tashi Lama;  and that, too, was Dorje's doing.  But they
laughed.  Was I right, Jimgrim, or was I wrong?  They only listen
to me after it is too late.  Dorje has stolen the wind in the
sail of the myth of the Lord Maitreya.  It is likely your last
journey if you think of hunting Dorje."

"We are on our way," Grim answered.  "May we camp here?  May we
use your subway?"

"Kek-kek-keh!  Subway!  What a name for it!  You may use everything
I own, Jimgrim.  You will stay here?  You will sleep in my house?"

Grim nodded.  "Who are the most expert prostitutes in Delhi?" he asked.

"Hey-yeh-what now?  There are three important ones.  Sumroo,
Damayanti and Vasantasena.  But Vasantasena grows old."

"Who is Hari Kobol Das?"

"That rat?  Never trust him, Jimgrim!  I believe Vasantasena uses
him to spy on them.  And they use him to spy on her.  She tells
him things to say to them.  They tell him things to say to her.
Tss-ss-a cheap one, making here and there a little blackmail money,
which he loses at the quail fight or at Ganji's gaming house.  He
thinks he has a system.  It is based on sending thought into another's
head.  It was from him, they say, Vasantasena got the copies of the
Sanskrit books that Babu Jamsetji translated for her--and then died,
it was said, of a sting of a scorpion.  But there are more ways than
one, Jimgrim, of increasing a scorpion's venom.  I have heard of
gangrene being painted on the claws and on the sting.  They say,
too, that Vasantasena herself made secret copies before she
surrendered those books to a temple because the priests were
after her.  But who knows?  All I know is that she buys from me
the musk that I get from Kulu, for the perfumes that her maid makes.
So I took some to her, myself in person.  And I am old, Jimgrim,
but I am neither blind nor deaf."

Grim made no comment.  He apparently knew Benjamin too well to
interrupt him with unnecessary questions.  And after a minute's
stroking at his beard the old man went on:

"Nine.  Is nine the residue of nine from nine?"

Grim nodded.  "Forty-five is four and five--that's nine.  And
forty-five from forty-five is--"

"Eight, six, four, one, nine, seven, five, three, two," said Benjamin.

"Which are forty-five--four and five--nine again."

"You have it, Jimgrim.  Nowadays Vasantasena loses customers to
Sumroo and Damayanti.  But there are others who come in their place.
I noticed that if one should say nine to the man at the outer door
in any language, he asks how many are left if nine are taken;  and
whoever answers nine may pass into the courtyard, where the inner
guard stand--she who slew the younger son of Poonch-Terai in '17
and hid the body in a sweeper's cart, so that none knew who had
done it, except those who have ears to the ground.  And if he
should ask such a question as how many miles has your honour come,
the answer should be forty-five miles, whereat he will probably
ask how many hours that journey took?  And if the answer should
be forty-five hours, then that person is admitted to the stair-head,
where a maid asks other questions in a voice so low I could not
overhear.  There come strange people to Vasantasena."

"Hari Kobol Das among them?"

"Often."

"Does he come here?"

"Sometimes.  He comes to spy on me.  I humour him by paying him
a little money now and then to tell me lies about the European news.
And I tell him other lies because I know he will repeat them to a
certain general to whom I do not choose to seem too well informed.
They have a way, those generals, of dealing harshly with a man
like me, if I should know too much."

"Could you get word to Hari Kobol Das?" Grim asked him.

"Could you bring him here without arousing his suspicion?"

"Why not?  I can pretend I have secret news."

"I want him to learn that Dorje is in Delhi."

"You are mad!  Jimgrim, of all the madness--"

"Call me any name you care to, Benjamin, but--"

"Jimgrim, if I say that Dorje is in Delhi--"

Strong old fingers like a sculptor's began combing at the
long beard.  Red-rimmed, scandalized, and it seemed to me terrified
eyes scanned each face swiftly and the babu's turn came.

"Jimgrim, send that one away!"

"No," Grim answered.  "Chullunder Ghose is as much my friend as
you are.  A general told me this afternoon that you paid the lien
on the dhow of Haroun ben Yahudi, months ago, so that he could
clear from Karachi, for Marseilles, with a mixed cargo, including
scrap brass."

"What of it?  Eh?  What of it?  Is my money not mine?"

"And that you sold that fleet of dhows that you used to send each year
to Zanzibar."

"True.  True enough.  As you said, Jimgrim, I am old.  It was time
I should get rid of that liability.  Dhows were profitable once,
but not so nowadays.  It is no secret that I sold them."

"But it is a secret that Dorje's thunderbolts were shipped in dhows
from Karachi to the coast of the Red Sea, and to Egypt, and to
Marseilles, and to other places."

"What do I know of Dorje's thunderbolts?"

"Or of Dorje--eh, Benjamin?  Or of the fact that Dorje used your
'underground,' as Mordecai called it, for the transportation of
his thunderbolts from Chak-sam to Karachi?"

"It is a lie, Jimgrim!"

"So the general supposes.  But the thunderbolts did reach Karachi.
And I have travelled by your 'underground,' so I know it exists
and how carefully Mordecai planned and perfected it.  If Mordecai
had lived, that secret chain of hand-to-hand communication would
have reached Siberia."

"True, Jimgrim.  True enough."

"And the Gobi desert."

"Eh? Eh?"

"So that whatever was found in the Gobi could be smuggled either
north or south?  Why did you and Mordecai devise that 'underground'?"

"Before I helped you into Tibet I explained that, Jimgrim.  Has
the government not a secret service network, like a spider-web
that reaches in all directions?  And what a government can do well,
an intelligent man can do better.  Their system is expensive.
Mine has been a source of revenue to me."

"Yes.  Has been.  When did Dorje steal it?"

"How do you know he stole it, Jimgrim?"

"Because I know you, Benjamin.  The general told me that you are
no longer a problem--no longer suspected--no longer watched, except
as a matter of routine."

"Tschuh-tschuh!  Hari Kobol Das--that imbecile!"

"He remarked that since Mordecai died you have lost ambition and
that you finally abandoned your 'underground,' at just about the
time when he had clapped a hundred men on to the job of tracing it."

"Well?  What if I washed my hands of it?  What of it?  There was
nothing illegal, except a little matter of some customs duty now
and then.  But at my age should I make myself trouble?"

"Benjamin, men like Mordecai, and you and I, and Jeff, and Crosby,
and Chullunder Ghose, don't quit because old age creeps on us.  We
die with our boots on.  And if someone steals the boots, we try to
steal 'em back.  We don't squeal.  And we don't have change of heart.
And if we know of buried cities in the Gobi Desert, we don't give
up scheming.  But if we grow old, we possibly look for a partner.
And we sometimes trust the wrong man.  Why did you trust Dorje?"

"Jimgrim--"

"And when Dorje stole your system, as I have no doubt he did, why
did you--yourself--in person, as you told me just now, put yourself
to the humiliation of delivering musk to Vasantasena?  Benjamin--
the richest man in Delhi--"

"Not the richest, Jimgrim.  I have had losses."

"And the proudest--too proud to go to a general and reveal the
system that has baffled the Indian secret service all these years--
delivering an ounce or two of perfume to a prostitute!  And
memorizing numbers!  Trying to trap Dorje, Benjamin?  Well, so
am I.  And I don't betray old friends--not on any terms, or for
any reason.  So if you wish, you may hold your tongue.  I won't
humiliate you."

"Jimgrim, if you knew what I know of the Gobi!"

"I can guess."

"Cities--cities--buried cities by the dozen!  Libraries--perhaps
a million years old!  Sciences, forgotten when the Gobi sank
under the sea!  And let that secret out?  Tschuhtschuh!  The
Chinese would pour in the burrow like rats.  They would dig for
the gold.  They would destroy everything.  No water--no food--no
transportation.  But that would not prevent the Chinese if they
saw one golden chest that came out of the Gobi.  They would overrun
like rats, and die like rats;  and like rats they would win in
the end!"

"And you told Dorje!"

"Nay, I did not.  Dorje knew it.  And he has wrested secrets from
the buried cities.  But he learned that I knew.  And he learned
of what you call my underground.  So he came and made a bargain
with me.  And as you say, I trusted him.  He has the most vast
intellect and breadth of understanding I have ever met.  And
within one twelve-month, Jimgrim, he had thrust me to the background
--he had turned against me all the men who--Jimgrim!  May the
maggots of Gehenna crawl into his soul, and may he know that in
the outer loneliness!"

"Never mind his soul.  I'm here to get his body!  Are you going
to help--or have you lost your spirit?  Is cursing all you're good
for nowadays?"

"Jimgrim, I swore I would never trust another man born of a woman!
But I am old.  I have no sons.  I think you will not succeed in
finding Dorje, let alone catching him.  I think that Dorje can
defeat the whole world with his knowledge of things unknown to
other people.  But I will make this bargain with you.  Kill him.
And I will reveal to you the secret of the Gobi Desert!  I will
bequeath that to you.  It shall be yours and Jeff's--and to do
with whatever you will!  But you must kill him!"

"Are you going to help me?"

Benjamin nodded.

"All right.  Send for Hari Kobol Das;  and when he comes here,
tell him Dorje is in Delhi.  Then one other thing.  A lady who
calls herself the Princess Baltis will arrive by 'plane, perhaps
tomorrow and perhaps the next day.  She has French credentials
and a British secret service visa.  She will go to the Kaiser-i-hind
Hotel, because she will be told to go there by the officer who
examines her passport.  Do you know a woman whom you could trust to
go and meet her?"

"My daughter--"

"Splendid.  I want Baltis told that the lock--of the gate of the
trail--that leads to Dorje's nest--is--?"

"In Vasantasena's house," said Benjamin.

"And I thought this babu knew how many beans make five!" remarked
Chullunder Ghose.  "I sigh myself into a back seat.  I absquatulate
myself.  I am gentleman named Anon--"

"That's a good one," Grim said quietly.  "Ahnon Mirza--Persian
merchant--you can play that.  Benjamin can tog you as a Persian.
Snap right into it and go and spend some money at Vasantasena's
place this evening."

"I have pounds Egyptian fifty."

"You will need two or three times that much.  Benjamin, cash me
a draft on London for as much as a fat Persian ought to squander
in a brothel."




Chapter Thirty

"Dorje is in Delhi!"


Hari Kobol Das turned out to be a Hindu of the kind who wear
second-hand London suits that have been sold to dealers by the valets
of extravagant young men of fashion.  He was considerably over fifty
years of age and would have looked much less incongruous in one of
Gandhi's cotton caps and shorts.  Clean-shaven, he attempted to
look twenty-five in spite of gold-rimmed spectacles and a wrinkled
forehead that bulged like that of a professor from the U.S. funnies;
and he wore a straw hat perched a trifle to one side that made him
look more like a dark Goanese than a Hindu.  He carried a cane,
with which he slapped his striped pants.  And he was obviously nervous.

Grim and I observed him through two knot-holes in the rear wall
of Benjamin's dim office.  Chullunder Ghose had been arrayed an
hour ago in gorgeous silks and had departed through the back door.
Jeff had gone to the Royal Air Force hangar to get news, if he
could, of the progress of the French plane that was bringing Baltis.
Benjamin was in a mood that Hari Kobol Das was at a loss to understand.

"You owe me money, Hari Kobol Das.  Why don't you pay me?"

"Why do you speak to me in English?"

"Because you wear English clothes.  You look so like an Englishman
that I feel you ought to pay your debts, as all English gentlemen do."

"Is that why you sent for me?"

"Yes.  It is three years since I lent you money and you have never
even paid the interest.  Nevertheless, you appear to expect me to
keep on giving you secret news, so that you may go to your employer
and pretend to be a good spy--whereas, as a matter of fact, you
are only a poor pretender.  Tschey-yey!  You believe you can make
a quail win fights by sending thoughts into its head!  And you
have lost my money betting on such imbecility.  Pay me, if you
want the secret that I know now."

"You have news?  Better tell me, Benjamin, or I will tell the
general some things about you that will--"

Benjamin acted perfectly.  He exploded.  He gave a word and gesture--
perfect imitation of an old Jew terrified by threats and tantalized
by inability to get his money back.  He rose out of his chair and
trembled.  He appeared to attempt to recover his dignity.  He
muttered Hebrew phrases.  He began to speak a dozen times, and
checked himself.  He sat down, staring, scandalized above spectacles
down on his nose.

"And is this gratitude?" he asked.

"Gratitude is the humiliating vice of unimportant people,"
remarked Hari Kobol Das, who had apparently been memorizing
modern phrases.  "You had better tell your news."

"But if I tell you--?"

"I will protect you.  I stand very high in my department."

"Dorje is in Delhi!"

"Incredible!"

"But you must not tell anyone except your general!"

"Where is Dorje?"

"I don't know.  I only know he is in Delhi."

"How do you know?"

"I saw him.  I have spoken with him."

"Where?"

"Here."

"In this office?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"This afternoon."

"What did he say to you?"

"Nothing."

"What does he look like?"

That was how we got our first reliable description of the man of
mystery.  Baltis had given us five or six descriptions of him,
each one different;  it was part of her method to maintain her
own value by elaborating mystery.  But Benjamin believed that Hari
Kobol Das had probably seen Dorje, so he described him accurately:

"He is of medium height, but looks big.  He looks as if he might
be Chinese, Afghan, Irish and American Indian all in one.  He has
big eyes that can suddenly grow small, and a small mouth that can
suddenly grow big, particularly when he laughs.  He has a nose
that looks as if it smells the history and the meaning of
everything on any wind.  And he carries his head like a woman
who brings water from the well."

"That is Dorje!  But how was he dressed?"

"Quite plainly, like an Englishman.  But on his finger was a gold
ring in the form of coiling serpents that hold an uncut ruby in
their coils.  And over the English clothes he wore the hood and
kirtle of a Ringding Gelong Lama from Tibet."

"That is Dorje!"

"Do you know Vasantasena?" Benjamin asked.

"Yes.  You know I know her."

"I advise you not to mention it to her."

"Why?"

"I don't trust her.  I would tell the general if I were you."

"Would you?  I don't believe you.  Else, why not tell the general
yourself and get the credit for it?  I believe you play a trick
on me.  You wish to prove to Dorje that I am unfit to be trusted.
I shall certainly tell Vasantasena, because if Dorje is in Delhi
there are going to be some killings and I do not choose to be a
victim.  If you are not careful I will tell Vasantasena that you are
treacherous and that you sent for me to persuade me to betray Dorje."

"No, no, no!  Oh, no!" said Benjamin.  "Not that!  Could you be
such an ingrate?  That you may get some credit for yourself I tell
you something--and you betray me?"

"Well, be careful.  If I catch you playing tricks with me and
withholding information, I will certainly not spare you, but will
report you both to the general and to Dorje!"

He smiled conceitedly.  He posed as a person who might tell a
great deal if he chose to.  But he reminded me of one of those
incompetents who hang around the fringes of societies--extremely
learned in the text, perhaps, of occult books but absolutely
void of any occult gifts excepting cowardice, chicanery and
self-esteem.  When he had gone, and the door of the great gloomy shop
was closed behind him, Grim and I came out of hiding and Benjamin
said what he thought:

"You are crazy, Jimgrim!  I have done what you demanded, but I
tell you:  that fool will go to Vasantasena straight away, and
he will tell her Dorje is in Delhi.  She knows Dorje.  She has
seen him.  She is like all important prostitutes, she has a horde
of spies, like rats, who run her errands.  She is a clearing house
of secrets--a schemer--a power in Delhi--and a woman of great
intelligence.  She will pump that fool as dry of information as
a dead bat.  And the next thing you know, she will be sending
peeled eyes, and tickled ears, and curious noses to visit this place!"

"We won't put her to all that trouble," Grim answered.  "I want a
Ringding Gelong Lama's outfit.  Have you one?"

"Yes.  But I might as well give you a shroud!  You will be detected.
You will be stabbed, and they will throw you, shroud and all, into
a rat-pit.  What the rats leave of your bones they will probably
send in a bag to the general's office with the compliments of Shiva!"

"Sort me out a Kashgari trader's kit for Jeff.  He can talk that
language perfectly to anyone except a man from Kashgar."

"And for Major Crosby, I suppose, a nautch-girl's costume!  Jimgrim,
you have lost your senses!  You will go to Vasantasena?  Then I bid
you good-bye.  You will never see tomorrow's sunrise!"

Jeff came, dropped at the front door by a hooting car that belonged
to the Royal Air Force, driven by a subaltern to whom intrigue was
as incomprehensible as speed and bombs were sweetly reasonable logic.
Jeff had all the news he went for:

"Baltis gets here any time.  The French 'plane turns out to be a
record-beater.  They've wirelessed that they're running short of
gas and may not quite reach Delhi, but they're due, if they can
carry on, about nine-thirty.  So the Air Force has a squadron
looking for them, to guide them to a landing place in case they
can't quite make the distance."

"All right, Crosby, you go 'as is'."  Grim stared at me thoughtfully.
"Your story is that Baltis is in need of medical attention.  You
are one of her gang.  You're the doctor she trained in Paris to be
sent to the United States to do a little strategic poisoning of
key-men like the President and the Chief of Staff and a few of
the hot men in the secret service.  You were sent here to replenish
the supply of vegetable poison.  Go to the hotel and wait for her,
but don't let her see you until Benjamin's daughter has told her
Dorje is in Delhi.  Then tackle her and refuse to be shaken off.
The point is this:  I think we're right in guessing that Vasantasena
is the hook-up between Dorje and his agents, but there may be several.
I count on Baltis to pick the right one."

I objected:  "But suppose she heads off somewhere else.  How can
I let you know?  How can you trace us?"

Grim laughed.  "Baltis will be shadowed by the general's experts
from the second she steps out of the 'plane until she gives them
the slip--and that won't happen too soon.  Don't show fight,
whatever happens.  If you're trapped, we'll come and get you."

So I left them disguising themselves with the aid of the protesting
Benjamin, whose old age had not lessened his ability to criticize,
nor yet the lively skill with which he pulled out garment after
garment from chests and drawers and lockers--rejecting this,
selecting that--and even choosing perfumes that, as he expressed
it, made them "stink like where they should be from;  because
the wrong stink stirs suspicion quicker than a clumsy gesture.
A man from Kashgar might--yey--yey, he will unconsciously copy
the gestures of Delhi but he will smell of loess dust.  And a
man from Tibet will smell like a yak in a shed--yes, though you
wash him for a whole year.  I have perfumes that suggest such
characteristics, and it might surprise you to learn what prices
wise ones are willing to pay to get them."

I never saw Benjamin's daughter until nearly ten o'clock that
evening. Baltis came to the hotel escorted by an Air Force officer,
who insisted on ordering cocktails and tried to amuse her--I
suppose to give spies time to take up tactical positions;  I
saw none of the spies, but he took his leave quite suddenly, so
I suppose someone made him a signal.  Immediately after that,
Benjamin's daughter turned up, looking like a middle-aged ayah.
She was followed by a porter carrying a suit-case, but she took
that from him when she reached the door of Baltis' room;  and
when she knocked she was admitted instantly, Baltis probably
supposing she was someone sent by the authorities to play servant
and act as a spy.

I gave them fifteen minutes to get acquainted.  Then I went to
the door and met Benjamin's daughter already on her way out, but
without the suit-case.  They had been quick.  Baltis was already
arrayed in Indian costume and both her hands were full of native
jewellery that Benjamin had sent along with the clothing;
otherwise, she would have locked the door in my face.  She was
as pleased to see me as a bird to see a tom-cat, but I forced my
way in, so she made the best of it, but there was murder in her eye.

She had risen to the occasion--recovered all her natural, ebullient
impudence.  Hope, I suppose, had sprung triumphant in her thought
of being met by one of Dorje's agents with a suitable supply of
clothing and the news that Dorje was in Delhi.

"Where is Jeemgreem?" she demanded.  I offered to take her to Grim.

She nodded, studying herself, and I think me also, in a full-length
mirror while she tried on Benjamin's jewellery--astonishing,
barbaric stuff that suited her perfectly.  By the time she had
made her choice of necklaces, anklets, and bracelets she was like
a houri of an Oriental dream;  and when she had done smiling at
herself she turned on me with a look of candid triumph.

"You are sent to spy on me because Jeemgreem hopes I will communicate
with Dorje.  So I will be fr-r-ank.  I will tell you the plain truth."

I supposed a thumping lie was coming.  But I was mistaken.  Grim's
method, I think, had undermined her self-confidence to the point
where she ceased to calculate the odds but betted her last stake
on one forlorn hope.  And she encouraged herself by discouraging me
--or by attempting that.

"I am spied upon also by Indian agents.  But I go where spies are
not admitted.  Jeemgreem had his chance to be my fr-r-iend.  But
he spur-r-ned it;  and he tr-r-eated me as I do not choose that
any man shall tr-reat my offer of myself.  I am against him, as
he shall presently discover!  As for you--you keyhole peepaire!--
I will shoot you deader than a mouton if you disobey me!"

She had stolen one of the Air Force automatics!  She did not make
the amateur's mistake of holding it so far in front of her that I
could kick it or knock it upward.

"Before they shall have come and found your car-r-case, I will be
out of that window and gone to where all the police in the world
can nevaire find me!"

Benjamin's daughter evidently had brought all kinds of comforting
assurance.

"My orders," I said, "are to watch you and go wherever you go.
But I have definite instructions not to interfere."

She nodded.  "It will be simpler if I take you with me.  This is
a city where a woman looks less noticeable if she has an escort.
Get out through that window--down the fire-escape--go to the end
of the garden--wait for me beside the door in the wall.  And if
the door is locked, find someone who will open it."

I obeyed.  I knew she could not escape through the hotel without
being followed by government spies;  and I was sure she intended
to shoot if I should even hesitate.  Grim had most emphatically
asked me not to show fight;  I had that excuse with which to
salve a somewhat chastened vanity.

The garden was a tawdry quarter of an acre, with a chair or two
for after-dinner cigarettes and sad geraniums in red pots flanking
a red-brick path that radiated stored heat like a baker's oven.
I was probably seen;  an Indian night has more eyes than its sky
has stars;  but it was nothing to stir more than idle curiosity
that a sahib should use the fire-escape to reach the garden.  The
door at the end of the garden opened when I touched the latch.  I
waited, and saw the light go out in Baltis' room.

A minute later, walking--looking like an ayah--shrouded in a cheap
black sari that shadowed her face and made her look bulky and
misshapen, she followed me;  and I don't doubt she was also seen.
But there was certainly nothing wrong about an ayah leaving by
the back way, and if the secret service spotted her, and followed,
then they did it so adroitly that I saw no hint of it.  I opened
the door in the wall and passed through ahead of her.  She closed it.

"I will shoot you dead, unless you do exactly what I say!"

There was a taxi standing with its motor idling, clocking up the
rupees, six feet from the garden gate.  The driver leaned out and
opened the door.  She jumped in.

"Hurry!" she commanded.  So I followed and she ordered me to take
the front seat, where she could keep me covered with the automatic.

The driver started without being told and drove two or three hundred
yards before he asked for orders.

"Vasantasena!"

Evidently Benjamin had left our destination undetermined to allow
for Baltis having secret links with Dorje of which we knew nothing.

"See here," I said, "you throw that pistol through the window.
I'm your doctor.  I'm the man you trained to send to the United
States, to poison Presidents and other superfluous people.  I have
met you here in order to obtain supplies of vegetable poison that
is deadly but leaves no detectable trace.  That's Grim's story.
You tell it."

She laughed.  "The only story you and Jeemgreem need is an obituary
notice.  Your last opportunity was in that hotel room.  Yes, you
are quite right--I no longer need this."

To my astonishment she leaned out then and dropped the automatic
in the shadow of a passing bullock-cart.

"Now disobey me if you dare!"

I think she thought the taxi-driver certainly was one of Dorje's
men, and it was not my cue to disillusion her.




Chapter Thirty-One

"Grim seems to have dug up someone to ballyhoo him."


We arrived at a gate in a wall, where, even though it was almost
midnight, jewellers and such-like people sat on mats through which
we were observed by someone who was in no iron brackets.  It was
a rather wide gate, made of teak, with iron studs, and there was
an iron-barred window in it, through which we were observed by
someone who was in no haste to admit us.  He gave the merchants
ample time to pester us with offers of golden bracelets and I don't
know what else, which they insisted would procure us "great
consideration" in Vasantasena's salon.

I walked up to the grille in the gate and demanded, in Hindustani,
in the name of nine abominable devils, why were we kept waiting;
and I noticed that the merchants and their hangers-on kept at a
discreet distance.  There were probably government spies among
them, but the spies undoubtedly already knew the rigmarole of
word and counter-word;  it would be impossible to keep such a
formula secret from men who have nothing to do but ferret out
such matters.  Those who were not spies (if there is such a person
in India) were careful to avoid the appearance of trying to listen.

The individual behind the gate suggested in excellent English that
if I had nine devils with me I had better leave them outside.  I
remarked that, if so, nine would remain to enter with me.  Then I
heard him unfasten the bolt of the gate, so I turned and helped
Baltis get out of the taxi and we walked through, into a courtyard
full of statuary, flanked on one side by the house and on two others
by a garden wall.  The entrance to the house was in the left far
corner;  but between us and that there were obstacles in the form
of not less than a dozen truculent-appearing loafers in clean white
clothing, who observed us with the air of watchdogs.  The man who
had admitted us looked worse than any of them--bigger, uglier,
less willing to be done out of an excuse for fighting.  He demanded
the "dasturi," meaning the customary tip, so, seeing there were
two of us, I gave him the equivalent of twenty dollars, which he
tucked into his cummerbund so abruptly that I knew I had grossly
overpaid him.  However, he salaamed to us, which was something,
since it impressed the others, who lined themselves against the
wall as we advanced.  But when we had passed them they formed
themselves into a group between us and the gate, so that it seemed
a simpler matter to enter that courtyard than to escape from it.

There was not a glimmer of light from the house;  such narrow
windows as there were presented blank teak shutters to the night.
And there was no electric light, presumably because--Vasantasena
did not choose to have her premises invaded by the electricians
and inspectors.  But there was a bright oil lantern above the house
door, and beneath that stood a man who wore a Persian dagger tucked
into his waist-band.  He had a scar on his face, and two fingers
missing;  he was handsome in a picaresque way, but looked as tough
as a rat-pit terrier.  He, too, demanded the dasturi.  He demanded
the first.  It began to be apparent how the expenses of such a
household are provided.  Luckily I had lots of money with me.

Then he asked me whether I would mind waiting forty-five minutes.
I told him we would not wait one minute.  He replied:

"If I can arrange to cancel the forty-five minute delay, how many
minutes would your honour be willing to wait?"

I answered' "Forty-five."

He said:  "Well, that will cost you forty-five rupees!"

I answered: "Get it if you can, you robber!"

He grinned.  He understood English perfectly.  However, then he
asked, in Hindustani:  "Does your honour count nine in the usual way?"

I hesitated, recalling the order of the numbers, not wishing to
make a mistake;  but Baltis thought I had forgotten.  She piped
up promptly--arrogantly:

"Eight-six-four-one-nine-seven-five-three-two!  Now let us in,
you whelp of forty-five dogs--you forty-five times spat-upon and
cursed imbecile!"

She had a gift for doing unexpected things.  She suddenly removed
the voluminous, cheap, black cotton sari and stood resplendent in
the lamplight, looking as native Indian as himself and lovelier
than one imagines Bluebeard's women were.  She handed him the sari.
Under cover of it possibly she exchanged some kind of secret signal
with him.  He immediately bowed and thumped the door with both
hands, drumming at the same time with his fingers.

The door opened.  Until it closed again behind us we could not
see the woman, who had backed away behind it into a sort of
sentry-box niche in the wall.  She was an old woman, dressed from head
to foot in crimson, rather wheezy, and extremely fussy with the
lock, and bolt, and strong brass chain.  She finally swung a big
iron bar in place that fitted into the sockets in the masonry.
There was no doubt we were locked in.

There was a short hall, then a stairway--steep--of teak--well
lighted by about a dozen silver lamps with crimson shades, and
carpeted an inch deep, so that footfalls made no sound whatever.
On a landing at the stair-head, grouped against a gold-striped
crimson curtain, there were three young women dressed as modestly
as virgins.  Their gestures were modest.  It was their smiles,
and the wordly-wise, impudent laugh in their eyes that suggested
they were possibly not there to guide the righteous into church.

Baltis went upstairs ahead of me.  She made signals to me to linger
on the stairs and give her time to show credentials, but I ignored
them.  Even so, I was unable to detect the secret sign she undoubtedly
made;  it was possibly something she did with her lips or her eyes;
and I could see no answering signal, although the pretty little
minxes at the stair-head glanced at one another and became immediately
respectful.  Their bracelets and golden anklets clashed;  their
beautiful white teeth appeared between carmined lips;  they fluttered
with a genuine excitement, and then two of them came running down
the stair to take her hands and help her to the top--an utterly
unnecessary courtesy--she was at the top in a moment, whispering
to the third girl, and I was too late to have a chance to overhear.

To right and left of the gold and crimson curtains there were
full-length mirrors, framed in painted wood that had been carved with
suitably obscene but legendary, more or less symbolic figurines
in very high relief;  and I detected human eyes that peered through
the dark interstices.  I could hear giggling, too, suppressed as
if it was intended to be heard but only discreetly noticed;  it
produced an atmosphere of unchaste mystery, increased by the muffled
sounds of string and wood-wind music rhythmically punctuated by a
muted drum.  And there was a lascivious perfume.

Baltis vanished through the gold and crimson curtain, spirited
away by one of the three girls.  I followed, but I was held back
for a moment by the other two, who stood straight in my way and
laughed, not yielding until the curtain had done swaying.  Then
I stepped through into a perfect maze of curtains, with mirrors
between them that multiplied confusion, and there was no knowing
which way to turn until another woman stepped out from behind a
mirror, beckoning and smiling as if I were her long-lost lover
home at last with half a lakh of rupees itching to be squandered
on her.  She beckoned and I followed, feeling about as comfortable
as an infidel on the way to be examined by the Holy Inquisition.

Not a sign of Baltis.  An amazing curtain, figured with all the
colours of the prism, moved on a rod and revealed a passage lined
with carved wood panels, lighted by coloured lamps that gave the
walls a soft, warm glow.  A door on the left.  My guide opened it
and, when I hesitated, tried to push me through, smiling persuasively
as if she thought we understood no words in common.  It was a small
room.  There was a hag in there who had no teeth and looked as if
she might have rheumatism--lockers, shelves, drawers and a couple
of chests on the floor against the wall.  One chair.  Nothing
noticeably dangerous.  I went in.

My guide said something in an undertone.  The hag immediately
drew forth from a locker a voluminous long cloak of maroon silk
lined with peach-coloured satin.  She threw it over my shoulders.
I was urged to sit down.  In a moment the hag had my shoes off,
provided me with soft peach-coloured slippers that had pointed
toes and figures stamped all over them.  I was offered a turban
and refused it.  I was offered a fez and refused that.  But they
took away my straw hat, and that was the last I ever saw of it.
A girl came, probably not more than ten years old, apparently as
timid as a mouse but quite as acquisitive-looking, who hung two
long garlands of flower-buds around my neck.  I was told then in
good plain English that it was time to pay the usual dasturi;
and when I produced some money I could almost feel their eyes
weighing my wallet, so I used a little sleight-of-hand trick that
is well worth practising and stowed it away in one pocket while
they thought I put it in another.

"Where is the sahiba Baltis?" I demanded.

That appeared to be the signal to induct me into deeper mysteries.
My guide apparently forgot that she understood English.  She resumed
her gesturing, inviting me to follow her.  She led me along the
passage to a shut door at the far end.  There was a grille.  She
knocked and someone opened the grille half an inch or so.  We waited,
and again the grille opened.  Whispers.  Then a sudden burst of
louder music as the door swung wide into a passage that turned
sharp to the left and opened without any other door into a long,
high-ceilinged room.

The first person I saw was Chullunder Ghose.  He looked drunk,
lolling on a deep divan that faced the entrance, and he was being
entertained by--rather, he was entertaining--half a dozen dancing-girls.
There were two beside him on the divan;  two were on the cushions
near his feet;  and one was bringing him a tray with glasses on it;
they were laughing at his jokes, and one of them had pulled the turban
down toward his eyes, which made him look peculiarly rakish and amused
them almost to hysterics.

There were at least two dozen other dancing-women in the room,
most of them older than those who were making merry with Chullunder
Ghose, and none of them dressed more puritanically than a Broadway
chorus-girl.  However, they were behaving quietly;  there was
nothing obscene about their gestures.  As I entered, half a dozen
of them started a sort of group-dance in the middle of the floor;
and though they were well trained, and seemed to enjoy it, there
was nothing about it to make even a tourist think he was immersed
in India's sin.

The music was behind a screen of lacily carved sandalwood.  Around
three sides of the room there were divans spaced at regular intervals,
and nearly all of them were occupied by men of various races, who
gave me one glance and then watched the dancing in the sort of
sullen mood in which impatient people await events of more importance.
There was very little conversation, although the girls were trying
to start some and a group of three were closing in on one grim
Afghan-looking person with the evident intention of stirring him out
of his gloom.

No sign of Baltis.  I recalled her boast that all Grim needed now
and I too, was an obituary notice.  No sign of Grim.  No Jeff.

On my right, at the end of the room, was a dais, not remotely
unlike one of those high beds of state on which royalty used to
sleep;  only the curtains were draped from a balcony that overhung
the dais and extended from wall to wall.  On the right hand of
the dais, in the teak wall, was a door.  The balcony was something
like a choir-loft in a small church, except that its timbers were
more richly carved, and I could see that there were two doors at
the back, and one at the end, half-hidden by heavy curtains.

The strange thing was that no one appeared to object to my presence.
My guide motioned me to an unoccupied divan not far from the door
and then went away, smirking a bit mysteriously but not, so far
as I could detect, speaking or signalling to anyone.  A young
girl with an almost white skin and a perfume that suggested rose
leaves in an ancient Persian jar set a small, low table before
me and brought a cool, coloured drink in a tall glass.  Another
girl brought coffee.  Then they both sat down on cushions near
me and appeared to wonder what to do to entertain this barbarian.
They smirked at each other and stared at me when they thought I
was not observing them.

Chullunder Ghose seemed not to notice me at all, so I took my cue
from him.  He appeared to me to be the only person in the room,
except the half-dozen girls whom he was keeping in gales of giggles,
who was not waiting in impatient boredom for something to happen.
A Pathan two seats away on my left seemed savagely indignant about
something and when a good-looking girl approached him he sent her
away with a stinging reprimand;  it brought a retort from her that
almost fetched him to his feet and for a second I thought there
was going to be murder.  However, he simmered down, and the girl
joined the two who were studying me.

I counted the men in the room.  Including myself and Chullunder
Ghose there were nineteen of us, of whom four were gambling in a
sort of alcove by themselves and two were smiling cynically as
they turned the pages of an illustrated book.  The only weapon
in sight was a dagger;  I could see its hilt protruding from the
waistband of a Mongolian-looking person who was dressed like a
Cossack, high kaftan and all.  He sat cross-cornerwise from the
Pathan and watched him;  I believe it was his presence that
prevented the Pathan from springing at the girl who had traded
an atrocious insult for a fierce rebuke.  He looked relieved when
a woman came through the door beside the dais and beckoned the
Pathan, who arose and followed her, swaggering in a way that
suggested he was not so sure of himself as he seemed.  As the
door closed behind him I thought I heard scuffling and a thud,
but a burst of music almost at the same moment made it impossible
to be sure.  However, I noticed that the four men who were gambling
glanced at one another nervously and the Mongolian-looking person
in the kaftan smiled.

Not many minutes after that, Jeff entered by the same door near
the dais.  He looked enormous in his Kashgar clothing.  He might
have stepped out of an oriental story book.  He thrilled the
dancing-girls, who clustered around him chattering like birds in
an aviary, and it was astonishing to see how perfectly he played
his part--no ladies' man but an excellent actor--tipping them
appropriate small sums "to say a prayer for him,"  "to remember
him in their dreams," "to bestow on the poor in the name of
gratitude for pleasant hours"--a suitable remark to each, that
served its purpose.  Evidently Jeff knew all the ropes.  They let
him alone, he having disgorged a just proportion of the overhead.

I saw him exchange glances with Chullunder Ghose.  He then
approached me and bowed profoundly, talking loudly in the Kashgar
dialect as if he knew I understood it, but which, of course, I did
not.  But between the stately, sonorous sentences he interspersed
plain English:  "--Baltis raising hell--in there with Vasantasena--
invite me to sit down with you, you damned fool!--"

So I acted as well as I could the part of a rather patronizing
British official who had chanced to meet him in the Kashgar country,
and after he had gone through all the rigmarole of modestly
declining such an honour he sat beside me on the divan.  Then,
until he was quite sure no one overheard us, he continued to
lavish polite speeches on me, which I answered in a low voice
in English, telling him all that had happened since I left him
at Benjamin's.  Jeff's voice grew more and more subdued until he,
too, spoke English;  but even then, at intervals he interspersed
it with louder remarks in the Kashgar dialect for the benefit of
dancing-girls who kept on passing to and fro.

"My own opinion is that Grim has--buyerda tukhesutdin bilak hama
nersa talaledur--you can get everything here but chickens' milk--
my opinion is that Grim has balled it badly this time.  He had
announced himself as Dorje and demanded a room to himself where
he will send for all and sundry when it suits him.  Vasantasena
is in a fine stew.  Baltis got to her--I suppose she knew all
about her before she left France--sai buida tort tufak tortilarsi
kok tufak--(I found) four heifers in the desert, and all of them
beautiful blue heifers--and as plain as a pike-staff she's taking
a seat on the fence, so that she can jump off either way--denounce
Grim or support him, depending on whether Grim endorses her or not.
She gave Vasantasena nearly all that jewellery that Benjamin supplied.
They're as thick as thieves already, sitting on one dais and exchanging
compliments--yollgha tushgan patikdin panah berghil, Khudayim--from
quicksand on the road, good Lord deliver us--"

I glanced up.  I think it was Chullunder Ghose's face, across the
room, that made me do it.

"Grim is probably exploring," Jeff went on.  But suddenly he, too,
noticed the babu's attitude and glanced as I had done toward the
balcony above the dais.  There had appeared a face--a face and
shoulders--elbows resting on the railing of the balcony--long
fingers so exactly underneath the chin that they suggested something
horrible that grew where normally a beard might be.  A monstrously
impressive face, as handsome as the devil;  no more oriental than
it might be Irish, English, French, German or Scandinavian;  no
more European than it might be Hindu, Mongolian, Turkoman or even
Chinese.  It was a racial blend, made humorous, mysterious and
terrible by crimson lamplight shining upward, and by shadow, and
by the suggestive, graceless grins of two Tibetan devil-masks that
hung beneath it, one on either hand, on the balcony panels.

The face spoke, and it brought the whole room to startled silence.
Even music ceased.  The voice had a strange, dull quality, as if
emotion were something long ago forgotten and only the man's will
remained.  But the voice filled the room and the syllables were
as distinct as one, two, three.  I heard my own name, mispronounced.

"What is he saying?" I asked Jeff.

"The Lord Dorje the Daring commands the immediate presence of
Ahnon Mirza, Said Akhun (that's myself) and Major Crosby.  Let's go.
Grim seems to have dug up someone to ballyhoo him."

But I think Jeff felt the kind of premonition I did.  And I know
Chullunder Ghose turned gray beneath his weathered ivory skin.




Chapter Thirty-Two

"Dorje!"


There was a sensation--tension--as we three strode toward the
centre of the room.  The face had vanished, leaving behind the
same sort of effect that a monster might produce by peering,
head and shoulders, from a pond and then submerging.  There were
the ripples.  What was it?  The dancing-girls were awestruck and
as suddenly quiet as birds that have seen the shadow of a hawk--
until the music resumed, and then one of them laughed and they
all joined in, not knowing why.  That gave us opportunity to speak.
Chullunder Ghose tried to control his voice, but it came in a
scared whisper, and there was sweat on his jowls:

"Rammy sahib, have you seen the garden?  There is something there
that the girls think is Indra's chariot.  They are forbidden to
look, so they have all peeped.  They are forbidden to speak of it,
so they told me."

"Grim got wind of it," Jeff answered.  "That's why he wanted a
room to himself.  Maybe he has contrived to see it."

"It has neither wings nor wheels," said the babu.

"Get a move on," Jeff insisted, "and wake up, babu-ji.  Let's
overlook no bets."

They were already dancing again, in several groups in front of
the seated men-folk, and the dance was neither so restrained nor
decent as it had been.  But that was obviously done to disguise
a very different excitement.  We were watched, as we walked to
the door beside the dais, by every eye in the room.  As we passed
through the door and I closed it behind us there began a buzz of
conversation, blended with the music and the clash of anklets
and the rhythmic thump of bare feet.

We found ourselves in a low, wide passage, lighted by one lamp.
There was a door in front of us and a door on our left.

"Straight ahead," said Jeff.  But Chullunder Ghose, more scared
than I had ever seen him, had nevertheless completely re-established
self-control.  His wits were functioning.

"There might be a window here," he remarked.  "That business of
overlooking bets is why Napoleon lost Waterloo!"

He tried the left-hand door, and being a native of that land he
knew the likely ways to open it.  He groped--found something--
pressed--pulled.  The door moved inward, and the lamplight shone
into a bare room not much larger than a good-sized closet.  On
the floor, face upward, lay the Pathan.  He was gagged.  His arms
were tied.  A knife--his own, it might be--stuck hilt-upward from
his throat, and they had spread his coat neatly beneath him to
prevent the blood from pouring on the floor.

"Women did that," said the babu.  "Men would have spoiled a curtain
or a carpet.  But they were experts.  See how the edge of the blade
is upward.  Amateurs strike edge-down.  I am all in favour of
annihilating the Pathans, but what had this one done, I wonder."

He was about to stoop over the body to look, I suppose, for clues
on which to base deduction.  Jeff seized him by the shoulder, too
late.  Before he could get that door shut, the other door at the
end of the passage opened and two women stood there, smiling.
One, obviously, at the first glance, was Vasantasena;  she was
wearing some of the jewellery that Benjamin had sent for Baltis,
but even without that there could have been no doubt of her identity.

She was not young.  She may have been forty-five or fifty years
old.  But she had the kind of ageless spirit in her that Salome
may have had, that makes experience and maturity more luring and
much deadlier than youth, because more interesting and alert with
calculated guile.  The day had gone by when she counted on mere
surface charm, or even on mere familiarity with what men crave.
She had become an artist.

And at that, she was no faded flower.  She was a strong tree.  She
had the figure of a naiad.  There was passion in her eyes, and
humour.  At the corners of her mouth there lurked that laughter
at the inconsistencies which makes life tolerable;  it might make
even hell endurable, and heaven something else than abstract ennui.

She spoke English easily, but with an accent which suggested that
she knew too many languages to speak even one of them thoroughly
well.  I have no idea why she spoke to me, unless it was because
I was so obviously not an oriental.  She looked like a woman who
would inevitably tackle difficulties first.

"You mock my enemy?  You admire his happening?  But I prefer you
should mind your own business.  Yes?"

"When in doubt," said Jeff out of the comer of his mouth to me,
"go forward."  And he led the way.  Then, aloud, to her, in the
sort of guttural and toothy Hindustani that a man from Kashgar
speaks:  "The Lord Dorje sent for us."

"For me also," she answered.  "Should I tell him it was you who
slew that Orakzai Pathan, perhaps he may reward you.  Who knows?
Or he may take pity on the poor dead homeless one and send you
to keep him company.  Let us go and inquire."

She led the way, along another passage, to the right.  The other
woman was a mere mute sycophant with scandalized, serious eyes,
who opened and shut doors and did her best to make us feel we were
in the presence of might, and mystery.  She was the sort that kings,
queens, and presidents employ to call attention to the brilliance
that might shine better without such advertising.  She ushered
and fussed us all into a room whose wooden walls were covered
with astonishingly painted indiscretions of smiling gods and
gazelle-eyed goddesses.

At one end was a dais heaped with cushions, and beyond it was a
door.  Above the dais was another balcony, exactly like the one
in the room we had left.  Shaped something like a horseshoe, and
extending around two thirds of the room, its center exactly
opposite the dais, was a deep lounge, also heaped with cushions.
At the end that faced the dais there were windows concealed by
painted iron shutters and embroidered curtains.  There were many
flimsy little tables;  only one bright lamp, that looked like
gold encrusted with precious stones, was suspended by gold chains
from the ceiling.

Grim sat on the dais, cross-legged.  He was dressed in a brown
Tibetan cloak, like a monk's.  But it was lined with scarlet silk
that rather chastened the face of austerity, and he had a golden
girdle that suggested there may possibly be solaces on earth as
well as abstract affluence in heaven.  Benjamin had stained and
rubbed his skin until it looked like leather;  and if that had
been my first introduction to Grim, I don't think that anything,
ever again, could have made me like or trust him.  He looked
treacherous, proud, cruel, arrogant, calm--almost, for the moment,
I believed his was the face that had looked from the balcony in
the other room.  Almost.  Grim's was not quite large enough--not
coarse enough.  But the resemblance was astonishing.  I could
hardly recognize him.

With a gesture that was equally unlike his own he signified that
we might take our places on the horseshoe lounge.  Vasantasena,
solemn as a priestess, set us the example, but as she led the way
I thought her back suggested laughter and excitement, and I know
Chullunder Ghose did.

"Sahib," he whispered, "Jimmy Jimgrim is in dutch dam--desperately
now.  Believe me.  Go and talk to him.  As European you cannot
be expected to have any manners.  Go now."

So instead of following Vasantasena I turned back toward the dais.

"Chief," I said aloud, "I have a message for you."

"Speak low," he commanded, in Hindustani.  So I bowed toward
him, whispering:

"What do you want us to do?  Chullunder Ghose believes we're trapped."

"I think so, too," he answered.  "They murdered a Pathan--"

"I know that.  There is nothing to be done but carry on and see
what happens.  If you get the opportunity, tell Jeff he's not to
try to rescue me.  I've seen something, through a window.  If I
disappear, you fellows try to follow, but don't try to keep me
from getting killed, or any rot like that."

I think he would have said more, but Baltis entered, through the
door on the right of the dais facing the one that we had used.
And she was no longer the victim of Grim's indifference.  Demurely,
but with confidence and laughter in her eyes, she climbed on to the
dais and arranged a heap of cushions near him so that she might lie
on her elbows and study his face.  She spoke low, but I overheard her:

"Jeemgreem, if you love me you shall live--not otherwise!"

She was excited.  She looked like a refinanced gambler staking
all her new resources on one throw.  The part suited her.  There
was something sportsmanlike as well as tempting in manner.  I
believe her plan was to persuade Grim to escape that minute,
although she afterwards insisted that she had no plan whatever
but was trusting to the inspiration of a moment.  Or--she may
have intended murder:  she was capable of that.  She began to
whisper to Grim, and in his part of Dorje he could hardly object
to her laying a hand on his shoulder.  Had not Dorje as many wives
as Solomon?  And has a wife no privilege?

Vasantasena called me and I faced about.  She beckoned.  I wanted
to make sure that Baltis should not draw a knife and drive it into
Grim's heart.  But there was that message to Jeff, who was seated
near Vasantasena, and he made a motion with his hand for me to
come and sit beside him.  Then I noticed an expression on Chullunder
Chose's face--horror again.  He was looking upward at the balcony,
which I could not see from where I stood.  Perplexed, I decided
to go and tell Jeff what Grim said;  and as I took my place beside
him he and I together saw the face the babu had already seen.

It was the same we had seen in the first room, in exactly the
same attutide.  This time,--though, it did not speak;  it vanished.
And before I had finished giving Jeff Grim's message the door on
the right of the dais opened.  It opened wide.  Someone in the
gloom beyond the door was examining the room.  A dull voice made
an exclamation--one word.  Then the owner of the face came striding
in and someone closed the door behind him.  Baltis almost shrieked;
I saw her seize Grim's arms, and Grim shook himself free.
Vasantasena chuckled with a sound like poison bubbling in a cauldron.

"Bow to the Lord Dorje," said Vasantasena, awkwardly, in English.

The newcomer faced Grim and smiled, showing stained and irregular
teeth.  Then he stepped to one side of the dais and faced us all.
He had his hands behind him and he stood like a man too used to
power to assert his own authority--his feet apart--shoulders a
trifle stooping--big head hanging forward--strong--lean--dressed
like Grim, except that this man's cloak and hood were lined with
yellow and not scarlet silk.  The hood was thrown back, showing
a crisp crop of short black hair.

"Who are you?" Grim asked, speaking English too.  I think Grim
knew already.

"I was Dorje!"

Silence, for about a second.  Then a gasp from Baltis.  She began
to speak to him in rapid French.  Instead of answering, he pointed
at her with one finger of his left hand and then swung his arm
in the direction of the lounge where we sat.  She obeyed him;
and when she had sat down near me he spoke to her in English in
his dull, disinterested voice:

"You failed.  And your sister (he pronounced it shishter) let
the cypher out (he pronounced it shypher).  Do not lie to me."

"Dorje--" she began.

He interrupted.  "You know what you get."

Then he turned toward Grim, and he and Grim observed each other
for several seconds.

"It would be usheless," he said presently, "to try to kill me, I
am well protected."

"Probably," said Grim.

"Am I to take your name--since you have taken mine?  I like mine
better.  They have spelled yours to me.  Jinkrin?"

"Jim Grim."

"Grim, eh?  Libra--sun in Taurus--moon in Aries--born, I dareshay,
probably at high noon.  Courage--judgment--why should you shuppose
you could defeat me?"

"Try anything," said Grim.

He nodded.  "I alsho.  I will try you.  You are coming with me.
Bright young--what is your name?  Jinkrin--Jimkrin?--never mind it,
I will give you a good name--you shall be my--"

Baltis and Vasantasena, almost with the same voice, interrupted:

"Dorje!  Dorje!"

He snapped his fingers.  It was like a whipcrack.  Both doors opened.
In came three men through either door, all hooded;  and as Jeff and
I sprang to our feet they turned long tubes toward us.

"Keep still, you fellows.  No use courting certain death," said Grim.
Chullunder Ghose began to test the iron shutters, Baltis walked forward.

"Very well," she said, "kill me!"

Dorje made a gesture with his finger and the tube-men held their
weapons up.  She approached Dorje.  He turned and struck her--one
blow that sent her reeling backward.  She fell, writhing.  I picked
her up;  she was winded;  not hurt badly.

"Nothing doing, you fellows," said Grim.  "No sense in bucking
the impossible."

Vasantasena began to suspect there was something wrong with her
arrangements.  She shook her waiting woman--whispered--shoved her,
and the woman went running toward the right-hand door.  One of
the tube-men turned his weapon on her.  I suppose it went off,
but there was neither sight nor sound;  the woman merely fell dead,
and Dorje took no notice.  I could smell no gas.  Vasantasena
screamed and Jeff swore savagely between his teeth.

"Come!" said Dorje, pointing to the door.  Grim glanced at us.
"So long, you fellows."

Dorje snapped his fingers.  The door opened.  Dorje gestured with
his head.  Grim walked out.  Dorje followed.  The six tube-men
stood and faced us with their backs toward the open door until
someone outside whistled.  Then they backed out one by one, the
last man closing the door after him.  We heard the heavy bolts click.

I went in a hurry for the other door, but that was locked, too,
on the outside.  I examined Vasantasena's waiting woman.  She
seemed lifeless, but I laid her on the lounge beside the window.
Jeff was wrenching at the shutters.

"Get me a tool--a weapon--anything!" he grumbled, "Dammit, let's
get out of here!"

Chullunder Ghose went looking for a tool.  He overturned the dais--
found a two-foot-high bronze image underneath it, almost solid--
brought that.

"Anybody else smell fire?" I asked.  "Smell it?" said Jeff.  "Can't
you hear it?"

He took the bronze, obscene god from the babu and began to rain
blows on the iron shutter, making enough din to awaken Delhi,
while Vasantasena beat her breasts and rushed here and there,
trying the doors, screaming, beating on the panels with her fists--
then running back to scream in Jeff's ear, until I dragged her away.
I could hear dim, distant screams now and the crackle of flames.
There was a hot stench.  Smoke began to creep along the floor cracks,
and there was more of it, up where wall met ceiling.  There was
nothing to do but watch Jeff work.  I saw flame lick under the door
before he broke the shutter down at last with a crash of window
glass, and found another outside shutter of thick teak.  He could
not smash that, but the bolt broke.

"Out with the women!"

I had the curtains ready.  Four of them tied end to end were long
enough.  The floor was well alight now and the heat was terrific,
but I almost had to throw Vasantasena through the window.  I believe
she wanted to commit suttee.  However, she went down hand over hand
fast enough when she found there was nothing else for it.  I took
Baltis then and held her while I slid to the ground.  The babu
followed me.  Then Jeff, with his coat on fire;  and before he
reached the ground the flames had eaten through the rope, so that
he fell at my feet and I smothered the burning coat with garden dirt.

"Now, where's Grim?"

We had to run for it to escape the crashing timbers and the clouds
of hot smoke bursting between cracking walls.  The entire house
was already done for--tinder, generations old and drier than match-wood.
As I looked back the roof collapsed amid a roaring holocaust
of sparks and flame.  It was by the light of that that we saw where
Grim had gone.

The thing--it resembled nothing we had ever seen--arose, not more
than fifty yards away from us, from beyond a clump of ornamental
trees that shaded a fountain in Vasantasena's garden.  It reflected
the flames.  It was long, cylindrical, had no propeller--no wings.
It arose quite leisurely.  It appeared to me made of metal and
had fluted sides, like corrugated iron.  I guessed its length at
fifty feet, its diameter at fifteen.  It shone like silver, blood-red
where its corrugations caught in the firelight.  It went straight
up until it was almost lost to sight, then shot away toward the
northeast.  It appeared to me to go as fast as sometimes the moon
appeared to move between the rifts of storm-blown clouds.

"Is that the end?" asked Baltis.  "What now?"

"The beginning!" said the babu.

Jeff laughed.  "We will talk about the end at Chak-sam on the
Tsangopo River!"




Chapter Thirty-Three

"Here is darkness.  Curse me, sahib!"


No one--at least no one to whose credence anyone attached the
least importance--believed one word of our account of the
astonishing machine in which Dorje had escaped from Delhi;
least of all the general, to whose house we hurried as soon as
the fire-brigade and the police would let us, and who received
us in pyjamas.  He had already received three accounts of the
burning of Vasantasena's house.  He was inclined to believe a
spy's report that we set fire to it.  His doubt of us was irritated
by the fact that we had lost sight of Baltis and Vasantasena, who
had escaped in the confusion.

"I will send my car for you to your hotel after breakfast," he remarked.

"Checkmate!" said I, as we returned to our taxi.  It was then three
in the morning.

"He is," Jeff answered.  "Generals plug gaps through which they
might attack the enemy and forget the one through which the enemy
escape.  He'll send for us at about nine-thirty.  We have six hours
and twenty minutes."

"In which to do what?" I demanded.  I could see no prospect of
our overtaking Grim or of ever learning what had happened to him.

"In which to thank God that we're warned," said Jeff.  "Get out
of this, Chullunder Ghose.  Tell Benjamin we're coming by the
back door."

But the babu had a better notion.

"Rammy sahib, Benjamin expects us.  That Jew hears everything.  He
will have heard already that Vasantasena's house is burnt.  He
will suspect the authorities of suspecting us.  Therefore he will
deduce we are in difficulties.  To whom else should we go but to
him?  So he will keep the back door open, and he will stage a
camouflage.  And he will not suspect us of being such innocents
as to arrive in the same taxi that has waited for us where a
general's myrmidons could murmidate driver of same.  Let us
emerge discreetly, you first.  Thusly.  At first dark corner
you vociferously say, in driver's hearing, I am stink in nostrils
of obscenity, or some such platitude familiar to him, in order
that his penny-wise profundity may leap to circumstantial conclusion.
Get me?  Visibly exasperated by your honour's criticism, I stop
cab and get into seat beside driver, for obvious purpose of
borrowing from distance the enchantment is said to lend to
disenchanted and humiliated objergatee.  I preoccupy attention
of said driver while your honours get the hell from here into
the shadows, if I may be excused for quoting poetry of U.S.A.
United States.  Thus we drive on, leaving you to find your way
to Benjamin's on foot, or even in another cab, as case may be."

"All right.  But how will you get out of it?"

"Through needle's eye of opportunity!  See--here is darkness.
Curse me, sahib!"

Jeff did a perfect performance.  He even scandalized the driver,
and an Indian cabman is no chaste stickler for polite speech.  The
babu went into a paroxysm of indignant righteousness, stopped the
taxi, clambered out, and held the driver's close attention while
we slipped out through the far door.  As we vanished down a
side-street I could hear the babu's voice, disconsolate, in
Hindustanee:

"Drive on!  Drive on!  It is bad enough to have one's ears burned.
Look not backward lest you lose your eyesight!  Drive on!  Let us
swiftly be rid of such blasphemous drunkards!"

Jeff's Kashgar costume blended him into the Delhi darkness, and
his intimate familiarity with Delhi slums and by-ways made it a
simple matter to find our way to Benjamin's.  But my European
clothes were more conspicuous and it seemed likely that one of
the ubiquitous government spies would turn in a report before
morning of my having been seen wandering the street--a white man
walking with an Asiatic.  It would be simple to follow us to our
destination.  I suggested to Jeff that it might be wiser for me
to walk alone to the hotel.

"Trust Benjamin," he answered, but I did not.  I was in a mood
to trust no one and nothing.

However, Jeff's confidence was not misplaced.  Systems of spies
in contact with a centralized bureaucracy and backed by armed
force, automatically foster similar resources in the governed.
Short of extermination, never in the whole world's history has
any government succeeded in suppressing a nation's freedom of
communication or destroying its ability to conspire and contrive
expedients.  Even the Prussians failed in Belgium.  Drasticism
and alertness only sharpen wits.

There was a man near Benjamin's back door who saw us coming while
he held the attention of two constables by telling them a long
unlikely tale about conspiracy to loot the store and carry off
the daughter of a nearby silversmith.  He threw his arms up in
apparent despair at their incredulity.  But that was a signal.
Instantly, from nowhere, there exploded one of those sudden riots
that sweep like a flurry of wind downstreet and carry all before
them until they cease in an equally sudden calm and no man knows
what caused it or why nobody was hurt.  Both constables were swept
around a corner, blowing whistles and trying to use their truncheons
on the heads of men who merely pushed them down an alleyway and
vanished, while we entered unobserved through Benjamin's back door.

"Tschuh-tschuh!  You have been a long time on the way!" said Benjamin.
"I expected you sooner."

Others also expected us.  Benjamin led us to a cellar of whose
existence even Jeff was ignorant--and Jeff once lay hidden in
Benjamin's place for days on end, when secret agents of the since
exterminated Nine Unknown were after him.  There was a trap-door
hidden beneath blankets heaped on a false floor that swung on a
pivot.  A stairway led between stone walls into a place resembling
one of those chambers in the Roman catacombs where fugitives from
authority survived in spite of ancient Rome's intelligence department.
It was lighted by imported American candles struck into ancient
brass vases, and furnished with comparatively modern cots and
camp-chairs bought by Benjamin from some expensively equipped explorer.

Forth from an inner chamber stepped Vasantasena, looking like an
actress of classic tragedy.  She had beaten her breasts.  She was
demanding deeper misery than anyone had ever felt.  Her eyes burned
like those of a parched and hungry tigress.

"She mourns her women," remarked Benjamin.  "They--and her faith
in Dorje and in all her false gods--all were burned in her house.
There is only hate left."

Vasantasena did not speak, but I thought she did not hate Benjamin,
although she might have said she did, if she were asked.  Behin