After Finnerty and Swinton left Gilfain in the evening, the major said:
"If you don't mind, we'll stick to this elephant and ride on to the
keddah, where I'll take the bell off Moti; I won't take a chance of
having the sapphire stolen by leaving it there all night. I am worrying
now over letting Prince Ananda have Moti--I forgot all about the stone,
really."
"Worked beautifully to-day, didn't it?" Swinton commented.
"Yes. I fancy it saved the girl's life, at least; for if I'd not had
Moti I'd have lost out on the mix-up with Stripes. I'll get a metal
clapper to-morrow, but I doubt its answering; it will clang, and the
sapphire has a clinking note like ice in a glass. And, while an elephant
hasn't very good eyesight, he's got an abnormally acute sense of
hearing. Moti would twig the slightest variation in the tone of that
bell that she's probably worn for a hundred years or more--maybe a
thousand, for all I know. There's a belief among the natives that a
large elephant has been wandering around northern India for a thousand
years; it is called the '_Khaki Hethi_'--brown elephant."
Swinton looked curiously at the major. "Do you believe that?"
"Each year in this wonderland I believe more; that is, I accept more
without looking for proofs. It is the easiest way. Yes," he added, in a
reflective way, "I'll have trouble with Moti, I'm afraid; elephants are
the most suspicious creatures on earth, and she is particularly
distrustful."
"Don't bother about the sapphire," Swinton objected.
"Oh, yes, I will. I've got to take off the bell, anyway, to find some
substitute. If I don't, somebody'll poison Moti if they can't get the
sapphire any other way."
At the keddah the two dismounted and walked over to where Moti was under
her tamarind tree. Swinton became aware of the extraordinary affection
the big creature had for Finnerty. She fondled his cheek with the
fingers of her trunk, and put it over his shoulder, giving utterance to
little guttural chuckles of satisfaction, as though she were saying: "We
fooled the tiger, didn't we?"
Finnerty called to a native to bring him some _ghie_ cakes--little white
cookies of rice flour and honey that had been cooked in boiling _ghie_,
butter made from buffalo's milk--and when they were brought he gave the
delighted elephant one. She smacked her lips and winked at Finnerty--at
least to Swinton her actions were thus.
In obedience to the mahout she knelt down; but as Finnerty unlaced the
leather band that held the bell she cocked her ears apprehensively and
waved her big head back and forth in nervous rhythm. Patting her
forehead, Finnerty gave Moti the bell, and she clanged it in
expostulation. Then he took it away, giving her a _ghie_ cake. Several
times he repeated this, retaining the bell longer each time, and always
talking to her in his soft, rich voice.
Finally, telling the mahout to call him if Moti gave trouble, he said:
"We can walk to the bungalow from here; it isn't far, captain."
After dinner, as they sat on the verandah, Finnerty's bearer appeared,
and, prefaced by a prayerful salaam, said: "Huzoor, my mother is sick,
and your slave asks that he may stay with her to-night. The sahib's bed
is all prepared, and in the morning I will bring the tea and toast."
"All right," the major said laconically; and as the bearer went on his
mission of mercy he added: "Glad he's gone. I've a queer feeling of
distrust of that chap, though he's a good boy. He never took his eye off
that bell till it was locked up in my box. The mahout told me at the
keddah that Rajah Ananda was particularly pleased with Moti; had a look
at the bell and petted her when they got to the palace." Finnerty
laughed, but Swinton cursed softly.
"That means," he said, "that we've got to look out."
"Yes; can't use the sapphire on Moti again."
Finnerty rose, stretched his bulk, travelled to both ends of the
verandah, and looked about.
Swinton was struck by the extraordinary quiet of the big man's
movements. He walked on the balls of his feet--the athlete's tread--with
the graceful strength of a tiger. Coming back, he turned with catlike
quickness and slipped into the bungalow, returning presently, drawing
his chair close to Swinton as he sat down.
"You remember my tussle with the Punjabi wrestler?"
Swinton laughed. "Rather!"
"It wasn't a Punjabi--a European."
The captain gasped his astonishment.
"One of Boelke's imported Huns." Finnerty gave a dry chuckle. "Ananda
isn't the only man that can get information. I knew there was a Prussian
wrestler here, and that he was keeping fit for a bout with somebody; I
had a suspicion that somebody was myself. You see"--and the major
crossed his long legs--"in spite of all our talk about moral force in
governing, physical superiority is what always appeals to the
governed--Ananda knows that deuced well. Now, hereabouts I have quite an
influence over the natives, because, while I give them a little more
than justice in any dispute, I can put their best man on his back."
"And Ananda, not being able to have you removed, wanted to shatter your
prestige?"
"He thought that if I were humiliated in being beaten by a supposed
native I'd ask to be transferred."
"Then it was all a plot, the other bout furnishing Boelke a chance to
taunt you?"
"Yes, and clever. That final scene in the 'love song' doesn't belong
there at all--I mean where the lover is resuscitated to challenge the
gods to combat; that emanated in Ananda's brain; and when I saw the
second wrestler come out painted black to represent Bhairava, I was
convinced there was deviltry afloat and that it was the Hun."
Swinton laughed. "He got a surprise, major, though he was a dirty
fighter. I saw the toe hold, but didn't see what happened to him."
"I gave him a paralysing something I had learned from a Jap in Calcutta.
If you stand up, I'll show you."
Finnerty clutched the captain's hip, and, with the tip of a finger, gave
a quick pressure on a nerve in the "crest of the ilium" bone. The effect
was extraordinary; a dulling numbness shot with galvanic force to the
base of Swinton's skull--needles penetrated his stomach.
"Marvellous!" the captain gasped, as he almost collapsed back into his
chair.
The major smiled. "That was a new one on my Hun friend, for I cracked
him there with the knuckles--almost brought the bone away."
"How many Huns has Boelke got?" Swinton asked.
"I don't know--three or four, and they're all service men; one can tell
the walk of a Prussian, soldier or officer. Nominally, they are
archæological men. Our paternal government actually supplied the prince
with Doctor Boelke, for he was in government service in Madras
Presidency, exploring old ruins."
"The prince is subtle."
"He is. All this temple row is his. This Dharama who wants to put the
brass Buddha in is really a half-caste--a tool of the prince's. Ananda's
plan is so full of mystery, neither I nor any one else can get head or
tail of it. He doesn't appear in these rows, therefore the Buddhists
think he is not a bigoted Hindu. So do the Mussulmans; and no doubt he
will tell these two sects that I, as the British raj representative,
fought against them. I think he's trying to get these two fighting
peoples, the Mussulmans and the Nepalese, with him against the British
if he comes out as a liberator. He's planning a propaganda so big that
these three sects will bury their differences under a leader who does
not stand for Brahmanism alone. I believe he's almost insane on this
idea that he can unite the natives, Mussulmans, Hindus, and Buddhists,
against the British raj. He bids for the Mussulman support by removing
himself from that nest of Brahmanism, the maharajah's palace in the old
fort, and secretly letting it be understood the Brahman's sway, with
their tithe of a sixth of Darpore revenue, will cease when he sits on
the _guddi_. There is an Asoka pillar in the Place of Roses that doesn't
belong there; he stole it from a temple, I fancy. On its polished sides
is a line of weathering showing that it was buried deeper than it is now
for centuries. He put it there to show the Buddhists that his palace is
in a sacred place--the true spot where Buddha received knowledge. He
knows that his own people will stick to his rule--they can't do anything
else--and he hopes to win the Buddhists by a crazy pose that he is the
new Buddha--a war Buddha, ordained to the task of giving them liberty."
"With German help?"
"Yes, if the rumours of war between Germany and Britain come true and
all Europe flames into a blaze, you'll see Ananda strike."
"Gad! If we could only nip him--find him with the guns!"
"That's what he's afraid of; that's why he wants to get rid of me."
"I have a feeling that he wishes I had not come," Swinton said. "I fancy
he suspects me. It's all mystery and suspicion. He'll hear about the
Buddhists' veneration for Burra Moti and you'll have her stolen next."
"Not without the sapphire in the bell--I won't put it in again. And I
warn you, captain, that you'll stand a good chance of getting a Thug's
towel about your neck, for they'll know you have one of the sapphires."
"Yes; the servants have it on their tongues now--they've been spying on
us, I know."
"That reminds me!" Finnerty rose, went to his room, opened his steel
box, turned up the low-burning lamp, and unlaced the sapphire from the
bell. Raising his head, he caught a glint of a shadowy something on the
window; it was a shift of light, as though a face had been suddenly
withdrawn.
"Damn it!" the major growled, locking the box.
"Either somebody is peering over my shoulder all the time or this
mystery is getting on to my nerves."
He went along to the verandah, and, putting the sapphire into Swinton's
palm, hiding its transference with his own hand, said: "Slip that
quietly into your pocket, and when you get home hide it."
"I don't value it much," Swinton answered.
With an uncertain laugh, Finnerty declared: "I'd throw it in the sea.
Like the baboo, I think it's an evil god. I mean, it will be if Ananda
gets the three sapphires together; he'll play up their miracle power;
they'll be worth fifty thousand sepoys to him."
They smoked in silence till Swinton broke it: "I found a little notebook
the murderer of Perreira dropped that evidently belonged to a British
officer, though leaves had been torn out here and there for the purpose
of destroying his identity. The man himself didn't do this, for there
were entries in a different hand at the pages these leaves had been torn
from--sort of memos, bearing on the destroyed matter."
"If the identity were destroyed, captain, how do you know an officer
owned it?"
"For one thing, he had used an army code, though changed so that I could
only make out bits of it; and in two or three places the other has
written the word 'captain.' One entry in code that I've partly worked
out is significant: 'Darpore, March.' And that entry, I gather from
other words surrounding it, was written in England. The second
handwriting wasn't Perreira's; I have his on that envelope he addressed
to me. The latter entries are in a woman's hand."
Strangely there was no comment from Finnerty. He had pulled the cheroot
box toward him and was lighting a fresh smoke.
"What do you really know about the Boelke girl, major?" the captain
asked pointedly, his blue-coloured wax disks of eyes fixed in their
placid, opaque way on Finnerty, who, throwing away the match he had held
interminably to his cheroot, turned to answer: "She popped into Darpore
one day, and I don't think even Doctor Boelke, who is supposed to be her
uncle, expected her. You know India, captain--nothing that pertains to
the sahibs can be kept quiet--and I hadn't heard a word of her coming.
Boelke gave out that she had been living in Calcutta while he was up
here, but I don't believe that; I think she came straight from Europe. I
probably would not have met the girl--Marie is her name--but for an
accident. Up on an elephant path that leads to an elephant highway, a
great, broad trail, we have elephant traps--pits ten feet deep, covered
over with bamboos, leaves, and earth that completely hide their
presence. One day I was riding along this trail, inspecting, when I
heard, just beyond a sharp turn in the path, a devil of a row, and,
driving my mount forward, was just in time to throw myself off, grab
that grey stallion by the nostrils, and choke him to a standstill. He
had put a hoof through a pit covering and gone to his knees, the sudden
lurch throwing the girl over his head; and there she was, her foot
caught in a stirrup, being dragged in a circle by the crazed beast, for
she was gamely hanging onto the rein."
"She'd have been trampled to death only for you. And to-day you saved
her life again."
The major gave a dry laugh. "I think she was in a temper over it, too."
"What's this station gossip about Ananda's intentions?"
"The girl doesn't seem like that; to me she's the greatest mystery in
all this fogged thing. She speaks just like an English girl."
"Perhaps she's one of Ananda's London flames, and the relationship with
Boelke is only claimed in a chaperoning sense. He couldn't marry her,
having a princess now."
"Rajahs arrange their domestic matters to suit themselves. Much can be
done with a pinch of datura, or a little cobra venom collected in a
piece of raw meat that has been put with a cobra in a pot that sits over
a slow fire. But if Ananda tries that game----You saw his
brother-in-law, Darna Singh?"
Swinton nodded. "A Rajput!"
"Yes. Well, Darna Singh would stick a knife in the prince, knowing that
he would become regent till Ananda's little son came of age; that is, of
course, after the maharajah had been settled, for in spite of all his
magnificent appearance he's just a shell--the usual thing, brandy in
champagne and all the rest of it."
The trembling whistle of a small owl coming from behind the bungalow
caused Finnerty to turn his head and listen intently. He rose and
slipped along the wall to the end rail, where he stood silently for two
minutes. Then he dropped over the rail and came back to Swinton from the
other end, having circled the bungalow.
"An owl, wasn't it?" the captain asked.
"No; it was the call of an owl badly done by a native. There's some game
on."
As he ceased speaking, there came floating up the road from a mango
thicket the dreary, monotonous "tonk, tonk, tonk, tonk!" of the little,
green-coated coppersmith bird. It sounded as if some one tapped on a
hollow pipe.
"What about that? Is that a bird?" Swinton whispered.
"A two-legged bird." They both laughed softly. "I mean a native. If it
had been a coppersmith bird, he wouldn't have stopped at four notes;
he'd have kept it up. That fellow is tapping off on a piece of metal an
answer to the owl."
"Here comes my tom-tom," Swinton said, as a groom, leading a horse in
the shafts of a dogcart, appeared, coming up the road. Rising, he
touched Finnerty on the arm and went into the bungalow, where, taking
the sapphire from his pocket, he said: "I wish you'd put this in your
box for to-night; I've got a curious, flabby streak of depression--as if
I'd lose the thing."
"Have a peg--there's the Scotch on the table--while I put it away," and
the major darted into his room.
"That's not my horse; I've been driving a chestnut," Swinton exclaimed,
when they stood beside a cow-hocked, hog-maned bay whose eyes showed an
evil spread of white.
"Yes, sahib; other pony going lame," the groom explained.
"One of those devilish, fiddle-headed Cabul ponies--less brains than a
coolie," Finnerty growled. "You'll have to watch him going downhill, or
he'll put you over the kud; I never saw one yet that wouldn't shy at a
shadow." He stood watching the scuttling first rush of the horse, the
groom madly scrambling to the back seat, till they had vanished around a
corner.
The watchman, having heard his master's guest depart, now came from the
servants' quarters to place his charpoy beside the door for his nightly
sleep. Throwing away his cheroot and taking a loaded malacca cane from a
rack, Finnerty said: "Gutra, there are rogues about; sit you in my room
while I make a search."
Reaching the mango thicket, he stood behind a tree from where his eye
could command the moon-lighted compound that surrounded the bungalow. At
that instant from down the road floated up the call of a voice; there
was a crash, and the high-pitched scream of a horse in terror. Finnerty
was off; rounding a turn, he came head on into a fleeing syce, who was
knocked flat, to lie there, crying: "Oh, my lord, the sahib is eaten by
a tiger!"
Finnerty grabbed the native and yanked him to his feet. "Stop the lies!
Tell me what's happened! Where is the sahib?"
"Have mercy on me, a poor man, huzoor; the tiger sprang from the jungle
and took the sahib in his mouth like a leg of a chicken and went back
into the jungle. I tried to frighten the tiger away by beating him with
my hands; then I am running to tell you, my lord."
But Finnerty was speeding on before the man had finished.
Where the road swept sharply around the edge of a cliff, Finnerty almost
stepped on Swinton, lying quite still beside a white boulder on the
road. With a groan, he knelt beside the captain, apprehension numbing
his brain; but the latter's heart was beating with the even pulsation of
a perfect motor. He tipped back an eyelid; the dull blue eyes were as if
their owner slept. He ran his fingers along the scalp, and just behind
an ear found a soft, puffy lump, but no blood.
"Good old chap! You've just got a concussion--that's all," welled in
relief from the Irishman.
Some chafing of the hands, a little pumping of the lungs by lifting the
torso gently up and down, and, with preliminary, spasmodic jerks,
Swinton sat up, rubbed his eyes, looked at Finnerty, and asked: "What
time is it? I--I've been asleep----" Then, memory coming faster than his
hesitating words, he rose to his feet, saying: "The pony and cart went
over the kud."
"That Cabuli donkey thought the boulder a crouching wolf and shied, eh?
The syce said a tiger had eaten you."
"He never saw the chita. Back around the turn I felt the dogcart tip up
and knew the syce had jumped down, as I thought, to run ahead to see
that the road was clear at this narrow turn. When I saw the boulder I
looked around for him to take the pony's head, but he had vanished. As I
walked the Cabuli up to the boulder, he suddenly went crazy with fright,
and at that instant, with a snarling rasp, a chita shot from the bank
just above our heads there, and, lighting on my pony's back, carried him
over, the sudden whirl of the cart pitching me on my head."
"And you went out?"
"No, I didn't; not just then. I staggered to my feet--I remember that
distinctly--and something hit me. That time I did go out."
"Good heavens--a plant! The syce, knowing what was going to happen,
funked it and bolted--feared the leopard might make a mistake in his
man."
"Looks like it."
"Then, as you didn't go over the bank, somebody tapped you from behind,
thinking you had the sapphire in your pocket. We'll go back to the
bungalow and come out in the morning and have a look."
As they tramped along, Finnerty remarked: "You said a hunting chita.
There are none of them in these jungles; it must have been a leopard."
"No; I could see quite distinctly in the moonlight his upstanding,
feathered ears and his long, lank body. I had a year at Jhodpore, and
went out after antelope many a time with a hunting chita chained on a
cart till we got within striking distance."
"Gad! That's why the brute took the pony for it--force of habit. And
they sent that fool Cabuli--they knew he'd go crazy and topple over the
bank. The stone was placed in the road, too."
As they went up on the verandah, Finnerty turned sharply, and, putting
his hand on Swinton's arm, said: "Gad, man! That's why Ananda asked Lord
Victor to dinner and left you out of it; he knew you'd dine with me
here. They either meant to put you out of action or got to know you
owned the sapphire that was used on Moti to-day and hoped to get it off
your body."
"Looks rather fishy, I must say. The prince would not take a chance on
an inquiry over the death of an officer unless, as in this case, it
could not be taken for anything but an accident."
"The chita was his; he's got a couple in his zoo--well-trained hunting
chitas the Nawab of Chackla gave him--and there are no wild ones about.
It was a lucky touch of superstition that prompted you to have me put
the sapphire back in my box; I saw a face at my window when I took it
from the bell to give you. But we sold them out. How's your head?"
"It aches. Think I'd like to turn in, if you've got a charpoy for me."
Finnerty wakened from a sound sleep with a sense of alarm in his mind,
drowsily associating this with the sequel of the frightened horse; then,
coming wider awake, he realised that he was in bed and there was
something unusual in the room. He was facing the wall, and a slight
noise came over his shoulder from the table on which was his cash box. A
mouse, a snake, even a lizard, of which there were plenty in the
bungalow, would make as much noise. Turning his head and body with a
caution bred of the solemn night hour, his bed creaked as the weight of
his big frame changed. By the table there was the distinct click of
something against tin, followed by the swish of a body moving swiftly
toward the door. Finnerty sprang from the bed with a cry of "Thief!
Thief!" meant to arouse the watchman. Just ahead of him, through the
living room, a man fled, and out onto the verandah. Following, with a
rush like a bull in the night gloom, Finnerty's foot caught in the
watchman's charpoy, which had been pulled across the door, and he came
down, the force of his catapult fall carrying him to the steps, where
his outstretched hand was cut by broken glass. The thief having placed
the charpoy where it was, had taken it in his stride, vaulted the
verandah rail, avoiding the steps, whipped around the corner of the
bungalow, and disappeared.
Scrambling to his feet, Finnerty was just in time to throw his arms
around Swinton and bring him to an expostulating standstill.
"Glass!" Finnerty panted. "This way!" He darted to the wall of the
bungalow, wrenched down two hog spears that were crossed below a boar's
head, and, handing one to Captain Swinton, sprang over the end rail of
the verandah, followed by the latter. They were just in time to see the
brown figure of an all but naked native flitting like a shadow in the
moonlight through a narrow gateway in the compound wall. From the jungle
beyond the other wall came the clamorous voice of a native, calling for
help; but Finnerty swung toward the gate, saying: "That's a decoy call
to save the thief. He's gone this way."
As the two men, racing, passed from the compound, they swung into a
native jungle path that led off toward the hills. There was little sense
in their pursuit; it was purely the fighting instinct--Finnerty's Irish
was up. A hundred yards along the path, as they raced through a growth
of bamboos, something happened that by the merest chance did not spill
one of their lives. Finnerty overshot a noose that was pegged out on the
path, but Swinton's foot went into it, tipping free a green bamboo, four
inches thick, that swept the path waist-high, catching Finnerty before
it had gained momentum, his retarding bulk saving the captain from a
broken spine. As it was, he, too, was swept off his feet.
Picking himself up, the major said: "If I had put my foot in that noose
I'd been cut in two. It's the old hillman's tiger trap--only there's no
spear fastened to the bamboo. We can go back now; the thief is pretty
well on his way to Nepal."
A cry of terror came from up the path, followed by silence.
"Something has happened the thief," Finnerty said. "Come on, captain!"
Again they hurried along, but warily now. Where a wax-leafed wild mango
blanked the moonlight from their path, Finnerty's foot caught in a soft
something that, as it rolled from the thrust, gleamed white. He sprang
to one side; it was a blooded body--either a big snake or a man. Thus
does the mind of a man of the open work with quick certainty.
The wind shifted a long limb of the mango and a moon shaft fell upon the
face of Baboo Lall Mohun Dass. Beside him, sprawled face down, the body
of a native, naked but for a loin cloth. Cautiously Finnerty touched
this with his spear. There was no movement; even the baboo lay as one
dead. The major's spearhead clicked against something on the native's
back, and, reaching down, he found the handle of a knife, its blade
driven to the hilt.
Finnerty held the knife in the moonlight toward Swinton, saying: "It's
the 'Happy Despatch,' a little knife the Nepal hillmen carry for the
last thrust--generally for themselves when they're cornered."
"It has a jade handle," Swinton added. "It's an exact duplicate of the
knife they found in Akka's back at the bottom of the ravine in Simla."
"This is the thief we've chased," Finnerty declared, as he turned the
body over; "but the sapphire is not in his loin cloth."
Swinton was kneeling beside Baboo Dass. "This chap is not dead," he
said; "he's had a blow on the head."
"Search him for the sapphire," Finnerty called from where he was
examining a curious network of vines plaited through some overhanging
bamboos. This formed a perfect cul-de-sac into which perhaps the thief
had run and then been stabbed by some one in waiting.
"It isn't on the baboo," Swinton announced, "and he's coming to. I fancy
the man that left the knife sticking in the first thief is thief number
two; must be a kind of religious _quid pro quo_, this exchange of a
jade-handled knife for the sapphire."
Baboo Dass now sat up; and, returning consciousness picturing the forms
of Swinton and Finnerty, remembrance brought back the assault, and he
yelled in terror, crying: "Spare me--spare my life! Take the sapphire!"
"Don't be frightened, baboo," Swinton soothed. "The man who struck you
is gone."
Realising who his rescuers were, Baboo Dass gave way to tears of relief,
and in this momentary abstraction framed an alibi. "Kind masters," he
said presently, "I am coming by the path to your bungalow for purpose of
beseeching favour, and am hearing too much strife--loud cry of 'Thief!'
also profane expostulation in Hindustani word of hell. Here two men is
fight, and I am foolish fellow to take up arms for peace. Oh, my master,
one villain is smote me and I swoon."
"You're a fine liar, baboo," Finnerty declared crisply.
"No, master, not----"
"Shut up! I mean, tell me why you sent this thief, who is dead, to steal
the sapphire?"
"Not inciting to theft, sar; this thief is himself steal the sapphire."
"How do you know he stole a sapphire?" Swinton asked quietly.
Baboo Dass gasped. Perhaps his mind was still rather confused from the
blow--he had been trapped so easily.
"Perhaps there was no other," Finnerty suggested seductively. "I believe
you murdered this man, baboo; I fear you'll swing for it."
This was too much. "Oh, my master," he pleaded, "do not take action in
the courts against me for felonious assault or otherwise. I, too, am
victim of assault and battery when this poor mans is slain. I will tell,
sars, why I have arrange to take back my sapphire in this manner."
"Your sapphire?" Finnerty questioned.
"Yes, sar--the sapphire that I am suffer the head shave for. Good
authority is tell me it is in the bell on the elephant when Rajah Ananda
is go to the palace."
"Phe-e-ew!" Finnerty whistled. "I see! Mister Rajah, eh? Did he tell you
that I had the sapphire you lost?"
"Please, sar, I am poor man; let the good authority be incognito."
"Why didn't you come and ask for the sapphire?" Finnerty questioned.
"Master, if I come and say you have the sapphire has been looted from me
with head shave, that is not polite--you are shove me with foot from
verandah because of accusation."
"Listen, baboo!" the major said, not unkindly. "Prince Ananda has duped
you. He made you believe that I had your sapphire, which is a lie,
because it was another. Then he persuaded you to hire a thief to steal
it----"
"Not persuading, sahib; he make threats. I will lose my place with
Hamilton Company, also the Marwari woman who plotted to me the head
shave is murdered, and I am fearful of knife."
"A fine mess of things, now, major," Swinton observed. "Looks to me as
if that woman stole Baboo Dass' sapphire for the priests; then Ananda
had her murdered, recovered the jewel, and put our friend, here, up to
stealing this last one; that would give him the three."
"I think you're right, captain." Finnerty turned to the baboo. "You
bribed this thief to steal the stone out of my box, some servant having
told you it was there, and you waited on the trail here for him."
Finnerty had forgotten about the bamboo trap; now it came to his memory
with angering force. "You black hound!" he stormed. "You were a party to
putting up that bamboo trap that might have killed us!"
But the baboo denied all knowledge of ways and means; the thief had
represented himself as a man quite capable of arranging all details--all
Baboo Dass was to do was hand over twenty rupees when the thief
delivered the sapphire on the jungle path. At any rate, he was now very
dead and could not dispute this story.
"Sahib, I am too much afraid; this evil jewel is bring too much trouble.
I will go back to Calcutta. Please, sar, forgive because I am too polite
to make demand for the sapphire."
Finnerty pondered for a minute. There was absolutely nothing further to
do in the matter. No doubt a temple man had got Swinton's sapphire now
and they probably would never see it again.
He turned to the native. "I think you had better go away, baboo; Darpore
is not a healthy place for men who cross our gentle friend up on the
hill."
"Thank you, kind gentlemans. Please, if I can saunter to the road with
the sahibs because of jungle terrors."
Eager in pursuit, the men had run blithely over the ground in their bare
feet; now they hobbled back, discussing the extraordinarily complete
plans the thief had made beforehand. The broken glass on the step was an
old dodge, but the utilisation of a tiger trap to kill a pursuer was a
new one.
While they had been away, the servant had found Gutra, securely bound
and gagged, lying in the compound, where he had been carried. He had
been wakened, he declared, by the thrusting of a cloth into his mouth,
but was unable to give an alarm.
As Finnerty gazed ruefully into his empty box, he said: "I knew the
thief was after the sapphire; that's why I raced to get him. Too
devilish bad, captain!"
"I don't understand why he took a chance of opening the box here; the
usual way is to take it to the jungle and rifle it there," Swinton said.
"Oh, I was clever," Finnerty laughed. "See, I put four screw nails
through the bottom of the box into this heavy table, knowing their ways,
and somebody who knew all about that and had opportunity to fit a key
did the job, or helped. The watchman hadn't anything to do with it.
They're all thieves, but they won't steal from their own masters or
village."
Finnerty had the broken glass that littered the steps brought in,
saying, as he picked out a gold-draped bottle neck: "A man is known by
the bottle he drinks from. The villagers don't drink champagne to any
large extent, and there are several pieces of this caste. Here's half a
bottle that once held Exshaw's Best Brandy, such as rajahs put in a
glass of champagne to give it nip. Here's a piece of a soda-water bottle
stamped 'Thompson, Calcutta,' and everybody in Darpore but Ananda drinks
up-country stuff."
"Which means," Swinton summed up, "that the glass is from Ananda's
place--he outfitted the thief."
Finnerty replaced the glass in the basket, putting it under the table;
then, as he faced about, he saw that Swinton, leaning back against the
pillow, was sound asleep. He slipped into a warm dressing-gown, turned
out the light, left the room noiselessly, and curled up in an armchair
on the verandah, muttering: "It must be near morning; it would be a sin
to disturb him."