THE SWORDS AND BHAG
THE little party moved away, leaving Michael alone with the baronet. For
a period, Gregory Penne watched the girl, his eyes glittering; then he
became aware of Michael’s presence and turned a cold, insolent stare
upon the other.
“What are you?” he asked, looking the detective up and down.
“I’m an extra,” said Michael.
“An extra, eh? Sort of chorus boy? Put paint and powder on your face and
all that sort of thing? What a life for a man!”
“There are worse,” said Michael, holding his antagonism in check.
“Do you know that little girl—what’s her name, Leamington?” asked the
baronet suddenly.
“I know her extremely well,” said Michael untruthfully.
“Oh, you do, eh?” said the master of Griff Towers with sudden
amiability. “She’s a nice little thing. Quite a cut above the ordinary
chorus girl. You might bring her along to dinner one night. She’d come
with you, eh?”
The contortions of the puffy eyelids suggested to Michael that the man
had winked. There was something about this gross figure that interested
the scientist in Michael Brixan. He was elemental; an animal invested
with a brain; and yet he must be something more than that if he had held
a high administrative position under Government.
“Are you acting? If you’re not, you can come up and have a look at my
swords,” said the man suddenly.
Michael guessed that, for a reason of his own, probably because of his
claim to be Adele’s friend, the man wished to cultivate the
acquaintance.
“No, I’m not acting,” replied Michael.
And no invitation could have given him greater pleasure. Did their owner
realize the fact, Michael Brixan had already made up his mind not to
leave Griff Towers until he had inspected that peculiar collection.
“Yes, she’s a nice little girl.”
Penne returned to the subject immediately as they paced up the slope
toward the house.
“As I say, a cut above chorus girls. Young, unsophisticated, virginal!
You can have your sophisticated girls: there is no mystery to ’em! They
revolt me. A girl should be like a spring flower. Give me the violet and
the snowdrop: you can have a bushel of cabbage roses for one petal of
the shy dears of the forest.”
Michael listened with a keen sense of nausea, and yet with an unusual
interest, as the man rambled on. He said things which were sickening,
monstrous. There were moments when Brixan found it difficult to keep his
hands off the obscene figure that paced at his side; and only by
adopting toward him the attitude with which the enthusiastic naturalist
employs in his dealings with snakes, was he able to get a grip of
himself.
The big entrance hall into which he was ushered was paved with earthen
tiles, and, looking up at the stone walls, Michael had his first glimpse
of the famous swords.
There were hundreds of them—poniards, scimitars, ancient swords of
Japan, basket-hilted hangers, two-handed swords that had felt the grip
of long-dead Crusaders.
“What do you think of ’em, eh?” Sir Gregory Penne spoke with the pride
of an enthusiastic collector. “There isn’t one of them that could be
duplicated, my boy; and they’re only the rag, tag and bobtail of my
collection.”
He led his visitor along a broad corridor, lighted by square windows set
at intervals, and here again the walls were covered with shining
weapons. Throwing open a door, Sir Gregory ushered the other into a
large room which was evidently his library, though the books were few,
and, so far as Michael could see at first glance, the conventional
volumes that are to be found in the houses of the country gentry.
Over the mantelshelf were two great swords of a pattern which Michael
did not remember having seen before.
“What do you think of those?”
Penne lifted one from the silver hook which supported it, and drew it
from its scabbard.
“Don’t feel the edge unless you want to cut yourself. This would split a
hair, but it would also cut you in two, and you would never know what
had happened till you fell apart!”
Suddenly his manner changed, and he almost snatched the sword from
Michael’s hand, and, putting it back in its sheath, he hung it up.
“That is a Sumatran sword, isn’t it?”
“It comes from Borneo,” said the baronet shortly.
“The home of the head-hunters.”
Sir Gregory looked round, his brows lowered.
“No,” he said, “it comes from Dutch Borneo.”
Evidently there was something about this weapon which aroused unpleasant
memories. He glowered for a long time in silence into the little fire
that was burning on the hearth.
“I killed the man who owned that,” he said at last, and it struck
Michael that he was speaking more to himself than to his visitor. “At
least, I hope I killed him. I hope so!”
He glanced round, and Michael Brixan could have sworn there was
apprehension in his eyes.
“Sit down, What’s-your-name,” he commanded, pointing to a low settee.
“We’ll have a drink.”
He pushed a bell, and, to Michael’s astonishment, the summons was
answered by an under-sized native, a little copper-coloured man, naked
to the waist. Gregory gave an order in a language which was
unintelligible to Michael—he guessed, by its sibilants, it was
Malayan—and the servant, with a quick salaam, disappeared, and came
back almost instantly with a tray containing a large decanter and two
thin glasses.
“I have no white servants—can’t stand ’em,” said Penne, taking the
contents of his glass at a gulp. “I like servants who don’t steal and
don’t gossip. You can lick ’em if they misbehave, and there’s no
trouble. I got this fellow last year in Sumatra, and he’s the best
butler I’ve had.”
“Do you go to Borneo every year?” asked Michael.
“I go almost every year,” said the other. “I’ve got a yacht: she’s lying
at Southampton now. If I didn’t get out of this cursed country once a
year, I’d go mad. There’s nothing here, nothing! Have you ever met that
dithering old fool, Longvale? Knebworth said you were going on to
him—pompous old ass, who lives in the past and dresses like an
advertisement for somebody’s whisky. Have another?”
“I haven’t finished this yet,” said Michael with a smile, and his eyes
went up to the sword above the mantelpiece. “Have you had that very
long? It looks modern.”
“It isn’t,” snapped the other. “Modern! It’s three hundred years old if
it’s a day. I’ve only had it a year.” Again he changed the subject
abruptly. “I like you, What’s-your-name. I like people or I dislike them
instantly. You’re the sort of fellow who’d do well in the East. I’ve
made two millions there. The East is full of wonder, full of
unbelievable things.” He screwed his head round and fixed Michael with a
glittering eye. “Full of good servants,” he said slowly. “Would you like
to meet the perfect servant?”
There was something peculiar in his tone, and Michael nodded.
“Would you like to see the slave who never asks questions and never
disobeys, who has no love but love of me”—he thumped himself on the
chest—“no hate but for the people I hate—my trusty—Bhag?”
He rose, and, crossing to his table, turned a little switch that Michael
had noticed attached to the side of the desk. As he did so, a part of
the panelled wall at the farther end of the room swung open. For a
second Michael saw nothing, and then there emerged, blinking into the
daylight, a most sinister, a most terrifying figure. And Michael Brixan
had need for all his self-control to check the exclamation that rose to
his lips.