A PIECE OF CORAL
Sunset was spreading a fan of flamingo plumes above Meera, a native
village to the northward of Gaya, when Arnold Trent (unaware that
Destiny had been hovering over him since Dana Charteris found the scrap
of paper, in Delhi, three days before) clattered out of the jungle and
along the nearly deserted main street. At the council-tree, where the
headman of the village sat and chewed betel-leaf, he drew rein,
listening to a low, eerie wailing that came from one of the whitewashed
houses.
"It is Chatterjee," volunteered the headman. "His Ratanamma is dead,
Dakktar Sahib."
Trent swung down from his saddle. "When did it happen, Ranjeet Singh?"
"Not an hour past, Dakktar Sahib."
Trent's eyes roved up and down the street. "Where's everybody? Meera
looks as if a plague had struck it."
Ranjeet Singh, who was a Jain, spat contemptuously.
"Some vermin-ridden priests from Tibet are at the Sacred Bo-tree," he
explained, "and the worshippers of Gaudama have swarmed thither, like
flies to a dung-feast!"
Trent smiled slightly and moved toward one of the whitewashed houses,
swinging along with the leisurely, easy stride of one poised on
well-controlled muscles. At the door he paused. It was dark within, and
a breath of offal and man-reek greeted him. After a moment he saw,
against the darkness, the pale silhouette of a white-clad figure. From
this figure came the eerie wails.
"Chatterjee!" Trent called.
The silhouette ceased wailing long enough to quaver: "Dakktar Sahib!"
The Englishman, his eyes now accustomed to the gloom, strode over to a
thong-strung bed and peered down at the form stretched upon it. Unable
to see clearly, he struck a match. The tiny flare flickered upon bare
brown skin.... Trent swore.
"Stop that damned nonsense!" he commanded. "Chatterjee, you've had some
infernal _hakim_ here again--against my orders!"
"My little Ratanamma, dove of my bosom, is dead!" wailed the man.
"Did you give her the medicine I left?"
"Yes, Dakktar Sahib! It was your medicine that killed her. The _hakim_
said so."
Trent swore again. "I've a notion to report you to the Karnal Sahib and
have you taken up! You old murderer! Didn't you know better than to let
some filthy, stinking _hakim_ burn her stomach with a hot iron?"
The native was wailing again.
"Listen to me, Chatterjee," said Trent sternly, gripping the man's
shoulder. "Who did this?"
"Your medicine, Dakktar Sahib!"
Trent shook him roughly. "Will you answer me--or...."
"Your medicine, Dakktar Sahib!" insisted the man.
Trent released him, realizing the futility of pressing the question.
"Very well. I'll report you to the Karnal Sahib and he'll have you
strung up by your toes!"
He left the house abruptly--followed by feverish, glowing eyes.
Out of Meera he rode, past the temple on the river bank and along the
jungle-lined road toward Gaya.
Trent was angry. But his face gave no indication of it. Twenty-three
years under a tropical sun (add the ten years at school in Britain and
you'll have his age) had baked his skin to a leather brown, and a third
of that time spent in the army had taught him that impassivity is man's
chief advantage--a citadel against the aggressive. He had, in the
vernacular of the times, a "poker face"--the mask of those who share
their secrets with few. In either mufti or khaki he was not particularly
handsome, and this evening, after a day of work in viscid heat, he was
almost ugly. Dust was ingrained into his skin, like an ocher pigment;
his throat and brows were moist with perspiration. Yet there was about
him something arresting and vital--a challenging strength that
pronounced him a man's man. And he was. He talked with men; ate with
men; lived with men; understood men. Scales that dip into earth-dust and
swing again to regions of exquisite idealism--the eternal weight and
counter-weight of Self. That was how he defined them. And his
definitions were usually metaphors. An idiosyncrasy. Give him a chair in
a dim room with one of Beethoven's sonatas swelling in throat-gripping
chords, or a pipe and congenial darkness somewhere close to the stars,
and he was in his prime element.
As for women.... That there had been one--one or more--at some time in
his life, nobody who knew him doubted; but it was the general opinion at
Gaya and thereabouts that he was as little concerned with women as with
anything else that habited the planet. Envious subordinates hinted that
at one time or other he had run afoul some feminine reef. When these
remarks drifted to Trent (and such remarks always do) he only smiled,
for he had a generous supply of humor packed away under his impassivity.
It was never known that he deliberately avoided women; it appeared that
he simply accepted them as a matter of form, inevitable as waves on a
sea, and sometimes as disastrous.
Only Richard Manlove, also an army doctor, who shared his
bungalow, had penetrated beyond the outer-rampart of his seeming
seclusiveness--"Dicky" Manlove whom Trent first saw out in dead
Mesopotamia. Their friendship was a popular topic of discussion on warm
afternoons when feminine Gaya gathered to perspire under one common
punkah. So different, you know.... Young "Dicky"--a delicious boy ...
and the major--oh, rather a decent chap, a human manual of Hindustani
and all those other perfectly impossible languages, but ... well, it's
so disconcerting not to know what a man is thinking, isn't it?
Thus feminine Gaya catalogued him, and thus he appeared--immobile--this
late afternoon as he rode out of Meera.
His anger died as he trotted on, and by the time he came within view of
his bungalow, built on the flank of one of Gaya's hills, he was
watching, in a whimsical, almost detached manner, the fireflies dance
and reel in the dusk. When he drew nearer, he saw a figure in a white
dress leave his compound, a figure that paused at the diverging roads
not far from the bungalow, and, after a slight hesitation, chose the
branch in his direction. Instantly he indexed her as a stranger; no
female resident would think of using the isolated Meera road after dusk.
She wore a pith helmet with a veil. The veil was lifted, but as he
approached, she lowered it--curiously enough, he thought. He was certain
she had come from his compound; therefore, when she was within a few
yards, he drew rein.
"Your pardon...." as he lifted his helmet. "Do you wish to see me? I'm
Major Trent."
She halted, resting one hand upon a tree-trunk. He caught the glint of a
bracelet on her white arm, and, being a man to notice details, observed
a design worked in heavy relief upon it--a design that, in the half-tone
of the early night, was almost indistinguishable.
"No," came the answer from under the veil, in a voice with a soft,
thrilling timbre. "No."
He was still studying the bracelet out of the corner of his eye, and he
perceived that the intricate workmanship represented a king-cobra; its
hood was lifted in bizarre relief.... A barbaric ornament for a white
woman to wear, he thought.
"But, really," he persisted, "it isn't quite safe for you to go along
this road. Beasts, you know."
A pause. He saw the dark pools of her eyes upon him.
"Thank you," she murmured. "I thought I was going to the dak bungalow."
With that she turned and moved away in the direction of the metalled
main highway.
"Now, that's queer," he observed to himself, staring after her. "Anybody
with even bad sight could see that this road...." Certainly she was at
the compound gate. Why had she falsified?
He removed his helmet and furrowed his hair--a characteristic gesture;
then, still watching the woman, he jerked the reins and trotted toward
the bungalow.
2
A native servant in a white cotton _chuddah_ and turban switched on the
light in the living-room as Trent entered.
"Has Manlove Sahib come in, Ganeesh?" asked the Englishman.
"No, Dakktar Sahib."
Trent placed his helmet upon the table and sank into a chair.
"I sha'n't want anything to eat, so you may as well go. If Manlove Sahib
hasn't eaten, he can go to the barracks."
As the native quitted the room, Trent, at a sudden thought, called after
him.
"Ganeesh," he said, as his servant reappeared, "has anyone been here
this afternoon?"
"No, Dakktar Sahib."
"Didn't a lady call a few minutes ago?"
The man answered in the negative.
"Hmm. Very well. That's all."
Still puzzling over the strange woman, he removed a pipe and a sack of
tobacco from his shirt pocket, and when he had filled the bowl he
lighted it. For several minutes he drew upon the amber stem, looking
abstractedly into the whorls of smoke; then he picked up a brown volume
from the table and opened it at a leaf that was turned under.
Here was another trait that Gaya had not discovered. Frequently when he
was tired he turned to poetry--sometimes to books on the art-treasures
and ancient lore of India, Indo-China and China--for relaxation.
His eyes followed these lines:
Star of the South that now through orient mist,
At nightfall off Tampico or Belize,
Greetest the sailor, rising from those seas
Where first in me, a fond romanticist,
The tropic sunset's bloom on cloudy piles
Cast out industrious cares with dreams of fabulous isles.
He rather fancied that passage. Fabulous isles. His brain toyed with the
thought. For, although he walked down among mortals, sheathing himself
in indifference and impassivity, he kept, in secret, a ladder to the
stars--a concession to return at will to a guarded kingdom of his youth,
the dominion of Romance and Adventure. He would have dwelt in this
kingdom, secluded from earth, but for a thorn that was fastened deep
within him. This thorn had pricked him since that period of adolescence
when first visions and aspirations stirred in his boyish brain and set
him to dreaming of the future. It had goaded him relentlessly into
achievement, against the will of his adventurous spirit.
Strive as he might, he could not draw it out.
It was Ambition.
Because of it he had buried a dream that at odd moments returned and
haunted him, like the poignantly sweet odor of lavender rising from
packed-away treasures. Reckless, this dream, dangerous. To forsake the
dull earth; drink freedom from the winds. A passion for the open
spaces--to explore the fabulous isles. But the lure of uncharted seas
and archipelagoes beyond the sunset, sheer and calling as they were,
could not entice him to trample tradition. Ambition had won. And he
beheld himself now, at thirty-three, a romantic soul armored in realism;
at heart a boy who had never broken away from the age when flapping
canvas and groaning timbers cause a queer clutching in the throat. His
reckless impulses and desires were bitted and diverted into
accomplishment. He was a success. But there were times, often in the
dead of the night, with the jungle solitude challenging speech, when he
realized that, in his own eyes, he was a failure.
He sighed unconsciously, almost inaudibly, and his sea-green eyes
softened to gray as he fashioned, extravagantly, a blue dragon in the
tobacco smoke that coiled sinuously toward the ceiling; sighed, as he
often did in the quiet of his own quarters where only the walls might
hear.
His thoughts switched involuntarily to the present (and his eyes lost
some of their grayness, for their color seemed to change with his moods)
and focused upon the communication he had received that morning. Under
the precise military wording he sensed another element. Mystery. After
all these prosaic years was he to be drawn out of his cocoon of
medicines and gauze bandages and have his adventure? In all probability
the affair would prove drab enough. Adventure? Well, hardly. Things of
the sort set forth in the dispatch were usually rather unpleasant. Yet
it intrigued him. Blindfolded. And was not that it?
"... temporarily attached to ... Euan Kerth ... a woman called the
Swaying Cobra...."
Fragments of the communication filtered through his brain. Strange. From
pills and antiseptics to that! It _was_ leaving a cocoon! What a joke to
tell Manlove. Dear old Manlove--this with warmth.
The sounds of walking in the compound announced the object of his
thoughts. The footsteps drew nearer, crossed the veranda, and Manlove,
uniformed and helmeted, entered.
"Rum day," he said. "Hot as Tophet; everything wrong."
Trent made no comment; only nodded.
"There's a big shindy up at the Sacred Bo-tree," the other added. "Some
Tibetan lamas are there. I stopped by with Herrick."
He took off his helmet, the removal revealing to the light a tanned,
boyish face and a healthy thatch of hair; mopped his forehead and flung
his headgear carelessly across the room. That was his way, to appear
careless. But at heart he was not; he liked small boundaries (while
Trent craved larger ranges), homely things. He looked forward to the
time when he would come into possession of "Gray Towers," ancestral
abiding-place of the Manloves. Of course, he didn't want his
grandfather, more familiarly known as the Old Fellow, to die or anything
like that; he was simply prepared for the inevitable: The Right
Honorable Richard Auckland Manlove, sitting in the House of Lords and
presenting Colonial improvement measures, for India in particular; no
longer "Dicky" Manlove, irresponsible adventurer, but carrying the
ponderous dignity of the name.... It was all very impressive....
"Mrs. Dalhousie is giving a lawn party to-night," he announced, taking a
chair. "Impromptu. She told me to drag you along, if you'd come."
"Sorry," returned Trent. "I'm leaving for Benares early in the morning.
I'll be occupied to-night. Orders from Delhi."
Manlove withdrew a cigarette case from under his tunic, opened it, took
out a smoke and placed it between his lips before he spoke.
"Deuce you say! Not transferred?"
"Temporarily detached; special service. You and Conningsby will have to
take charge while I'm away." He smiled. "Been reading the papers
lately?"
Manlove lighted his cigarette, glancing furtively at Trent. The latter
was staring into the blue haze of smoke, half humorously, as though he
found something amusing in the vaporous clouds.
"Certainly"--thus Manlove.
"Anything new about the jewels?"
Manlove smiled to himself. He hadn't lived in the same house with Arnold
Trent for fourteen months without learning _something_ about him. The
old sphinx, he thought good-humoredly.
"Nothing important"--briefly. "However, I understand, from Granville,
that the Department believes an international thief--Chavigny's his
name--mixed up in it."
"Wonder where Granville got that?"
"Oh, rumors are plentiful, especially at stations like this where
everybody's chief occupation is talk."
"That all?"
Manlove nodded and said nothing, for he knew Trent.
"Have you approximated the value of the stolen gems?" queried the
latter, then went on: "Millions of pounds! And have you wondered how the
devil they're going to hide the loot, or get it out of India? Such well
known jewels can't be sold--"
"Unless they're re-cut," put in Manlove. He smiled wisely. "By Kali and
all the other deities, you don't mean that you, expert in cholera and
dysentery, are about to--" He chuckled. "Well, I'm damned!"
Trent moved to a desk in a corner of the room, unlocked it and took out
a long, official-looking document. This he handed to Manlove, then
resumed his seat. The latter unfolded it and let his eyes travel down
the sheet.
"Has the heat gone to their heads at Delhi?" he demanded when he had
finished. "Almighty God, why detach a perfectly good doctor, when they
have a whole list of Secret Service men?"
Trent only smiled. The younger man waved his hand toward the paper.
"Surely this isn't all?"
"You know as much as I do. I leave in the morning for Benares. At the
hotel I'm to meet a fellow called Kerth--"
"Euan Kerth," Manlove interrupted, his eyes upon the document. "You've
heard of him, haven't you? He's the best of his sort in India. He's been
in Tibet; was one of Younghusband's interpreters in nineteen-four.
Speaks Hindustani, Burmese, mandarin Chinese, Tibetan, and God knows
what else! You and he ought to hit it off fairly well together. But go
on."
"I'm to meet him at the hotel," Trent resumed. "Just what part he plays,
I don't know yet. There I'm also to find a message from this Swaying
Cobra woman, and meet her at a place named in the message. And--well,
that's all." He smiled. "Enlightening, isn't it?"
As he finished, Manlove strode to the door and tossed away his
cigarette. There he paused, peering out.
"Where's Ganeesh?" he asked, looking over his shoulder.
"I let him go for the evening. Why?"
"Just saw some one leave the compound; must have been he." Manlove
returned to his chair. "Trent, I envy you--even if they are balmy at
Delhi. This doctoring heathens isn't all it's colored up to be. It's
getting on my nerves. I even dream about fever and stinking _fakirs_."
Trent consulted his wrist-watch. "I have to ride up to Colonel Urqhart's
and make a report. Remember the chap at Meera, Chatterjee? Some _hakim_
burned his child's stomach with an iron. Of course she died. I'm going
to make an example of him." He rose. "I have to wash up a bit. I suppose
you're going to the lawn party?"
"Think not," decided Manlove. "I'll be here when you return."
"Care to ride up with me?"
"No. I'm rather tired."
Trent went to his bedroom and Manlove lighted another cigarette. He'd
miss the old sphinx, he told himself. Good old Trent! Why hadn't he
married? Frequently he asked himself that question; never Trent. There
must be a reason, he mused, flicking the ashes from his cigarette. Maybe
there had been a woman--a typhoon. The typhoon sort could raise the
deuce with a chap like Trent. Perhaps.... He stifled a yawn. Damn India;
damn its climate. He hadn't taken his leave this season; it was about
due now. A jolly trip home; see the Old Fellow; see "Gray Towers."
He heard Trent moving about in the rear. He couldn't picture him
sleuthing it. Queer world anyhow. And Benares. What was afoot?
Another yawn. He flung his half-smoked cigarette through the doorway,
and it fell upon the veranda in a mild shower of sparks, and lay there,
its red tip glowing like a malevolent little eye.
3
It was after nine o'clock when Trent rode out of Sahib's Gaya and around
the shoulder of a hill toward his bungalow. A golden moon floated in
nebulous haze--an electric disc that transfused its heat into the night.
The earth steamed and sweltered, and the perfumes of tropical blossoms
stole out of the jungle and exhaled a heavy languor.
Trent, pipe clamped between his teeth, sweat running into his eyes from
his helmet-band, jogged along, thinking leisurely (as men do in warmer
climates) of the woman of the cobra-bracelet, and thinking more of the
bracelet than the woman. It was one of his peculiarities to collect rare
ornaments; among his curios he had a bangle of a Nepalese princess, a
Burmese bell from a pagoda in the Pyinmana district, and a
silver-chased, turquoise-inset teapot from Tibet. The bracelet the woman
wore was finely wrought, and its design not of the ordinary; this he
recognized, even though he had but a glimpse of it. A king-cobra with a
lifted hood. And the wearer.... Why had she lowered her veil--why had
she denied that she came from his compound? Mystery.... But, he
reflected, mysteries were not rare; mysteries, to such as he, in the
jungle; in the ruins and tumbled grandeur of ancient temples; in the
dim, dark bazaars, spice-reeking, where filth mocks British law, and
Love and Death are one....
A white figure, ahead in the scented gloom, broke into his thoughts, a
figure that at first was distinguishable only as a stain of pallor on
the roadway. Trent experienced a quickening of interest. She of the
cobra-bracelet? No. He could see now. Not a woman; a native. The man was
moving at a swift gait, almost running; but as he drew nearer, he
halted, looking about irresolutely, nervously. And at that moment (he
was not more than ten yards away) Trent recognized him and reined in his
mare.
"Chatterjee!" he called. "D'ye want to see me?"
The native did not answer, only fixed upon him a mute, terrified stare,
and crashed through the high, dense undergrowth at the side of the road.
The sounds of his flight grew fainter as he plunged deeper into the
jungle.
Trent stared at the spot where he disappeared. His first impulse was to
follow--an impulse that he cast aside. Now that was odd, he thought.
What in flaming hades was the matter with him? For a moment he sat in
mystified silence, then he kicked his mount lightly in the flanks.
A day of incidents. First, the dispatch from Delhi, then the veiled
woman, now this encounter. From where had the native come? The bungalow?
Perhaps he was merely on his way from Meera, for the road passed his
quarters. But he knew natives never walked when it was possible to ride.
Anyhow, that didn't explain his actions. Confound it, he'd have trouble
with that fellow yet! This as he branched off from the main highway and
clattered along the driveway to his compound.
Not until he reached the gate did he observe that the house was dark,
squatting in gloomy secrecy among the surrounding trees. At first it
puzzled him; then he decided that Manlove had probably gone to bed.
When his mare was stabled, he made his way into the living-room. In the
dark he struck his knee on a sharp projection and swore. He fumbled for
the light-switch; blinked in the sudden glare. A yawn and an indolent
stretch. He'd get a good sleep and--
"Hello!" he exclaimed, as his eyes trailed across the room to an
over-turned chair. "What the devil!"
A piece of bronze, some Hindu god, lay on the floor, gleaming
sinisterly, and a picture--its regular place was on the desk--had fallen
to the floor. An insidious thought took root in his brain. With quick
strides he reached Manlove's room. It was empty, the bed unused. Its
desertion hurt him--a queer sensation, that. He whirled about, returned
to the living-room and halted, irresolute.
"Manlove!"
Silly to call, he thought. Perhaps Manlove had gone to the lawn party.
But the over-turned chair and the idol did not look well. Thieves?
Or.... Suddenly the meeting with Chatterjee shaped into significance. He
knew the workings of the native brain, and a frightful possibility
suggested itself.
An electric torch lay on the table. He reached for it; stood with his
hands poised in the air, thought temporarily suspended from action. For
his eyes, lowered involuntarily, fastened upon a small, dark spot on the
matting.
Regaining the power to move, he stooped. A sudden sickness seized him.
Unmistakable. But why did blood affect him? Blood. The discovery added a
spark to his suspicions. His imagination painted a swift, vivid picture.
The look of terror on Chatterjee's face.... Manlove, the innocent....
But no! It couldn't be!
In possession of the torchlight, he strode out upon the veranda. There
he discovered a trail of spots identical with that on the matting, a
trail that led down the steps. He made a quick search of the compound. A
sense of helplessness smote him. Manlove, perhaps somewhere within
calling distance, yet unable to summon him....
He halted at the gate. On the left was jungle, dark and hushed; on the
right, a few lights in the nearest bungalow. Across the road was the
mouth of a narrow path which he knew led to the ruins of an old temple
hidden behind the rank foliage. At thought of the ruins an impulse made
him forsake the compound and follow the path.
Less than two hundred yards from the road the growths thinned. Looming
before him, spectral in the yellow mystery of the moonlight, was the
temple. The outer court was throttled with weeds. Luxurious vines
trailed from ruined pillar to ruined wall and wove a sanctuary for
vipers. At the end of an avenue of crumbled columns gaped the black
entrance of the inner court. An impalpable vapor steamed up from the
moist plants and bathed the ruins in a dream-like haze, as the blurred
waters of the ocean engulf and make fantastic the myriad rock-palaces of
the sea-bottoms.
The dark inner court challenged Trent, and he snapped off the light and
moved between the stone sentinels. A power, terrifying in its vagueness,
pressed upon him, locking his muscles in a tension. A bat, startled out
of hiding by the ring of his footsteps, flapped up from the parapet and
wheeled across the moon's face. But for that, and an occasional rasp of
an insect, the temple was swathed in a hush.
In the doorway of the inner court he paused. He groped for the shattered
frame; clutched something tangible; fought against a terrible paralysis.
Yellow moonshine poured through a rent in the ceiling, drenched the
walls and formed a honey-hued pool on the flagging.
In the wan light lay a human form.
A deadly inertia coiled about Trent's brain and body. For a moment he
was unable to think, to do other than struggle against the constricting
coils of horror. But at length he broke the rigor. A few steps brought
him to the pool of moonlight. He knelt; switched on the torch; saw the
face. Dull agony spread from his throat to his limbs. In that instant he
seemed to slip back through a millennium and endure the concentrated
pains of a hundred bodies--a flame of cosmic anguish burning down
through the dim jungles of time.
Automatically his hand went to the heart, but before his trained fingers
touched the breast he knew that to feel was useless. Dark moisture
stained the tunic-front. He unbuttoned the garments. Knife wound!
Manlove had been dead at least a half hour.
The infinitesimal fraction of a minute that he knelt there might have
been an hour for the multitude of irrelevances that sped through his
brain. Orders. Benares.... And he had cursed when he struck his knee!
Had Manlove ridden with him to Colonel Urqhart's this would not have
happened. Urqhart; what an absurd name.... Murder. In a vague manner he
wondered who had done it; in a vague manner he felt angry. Dead.
Impossible. This must be a dream, a horrid nightmare. Damn these
nightmares! It was the heat ... heat.... His comrade.... Kasvin....
Kut-el-Amara. And this was the end! The futility of things swept him, a
chill and shuddersome tide that served to wash some of the tangles from
his thoughts.
He rose. He felt giddy, and the inner court, with its shadows, its pool
of moonshine, swam in a throat-gripping vertigo. But it passed swiftly.
Out of the mental chaos emerged a coherency: perhaps the one who had
done this was still in or about the temple. The remembrance of
Chatterjee immediately appeared to deny it. A solution of the affair
unreeled quickly. Chatterjee, the avenger ... a fatal mistake. That
explained the native's look of terror when he met Trent on the road,
explained his flight.
Nevertheless, Trent made a search of the ruins and returned to the body.
The face, outlined boyishly in the pallid moonlight, commanded his gaze
with hypnotic insistence. Now that the first acute horror had dwindled,
he was conscious of an abysmal loneliness, an ache that habited every
nerve and fiber of his being.
He must notify Colonel Urqhart. But the body, what of that? He couldn't
leave it lying in this den of vipers. The very suggestion horrified him,
although he knew the body was but a husk of flesh. He had some
authority; he'd act on his own responsibility.
An involuntary dread ran through him as he slipped his hands under the
inert form and lifted it. His sight blurred, but he moved with a steady
stride across the courtyard and through the gate. Upon reaching the
bungalow, he laid the body upon the bed in Manlove's room. When he
switched on the light, the boyish features again compelled his gaze.
Manlove had told him of the dream of "Gray Towers," of the House of
Lords; and the memory of it, returning through the stupefaction that
still surrounded him, sent a poignant charge into his throat. To have
his dream perish like this! Whatever a man's philosophy of immortality,
death remains a shock.
He was about to leave the room when his attention was arrested by the
gleam of a bright object in the lifeless hand. He was forced to pry open
the fingers. The gleaming thing proved to be a piece of reddish stone.
Coral. It was oval-shaped and some six inches in circumference. An
intricate design was overlaid in silver upon the smooth salmon-hued
surface--a human figure. The oval was edged with silver, and at the top
was a tiny clasp. The clasp was broken. He studied the silver design. It
was evidently some sort of deity, but different from any he had ever
seen--an ugly little god with three eyes.
What was it? he wondered--part of a necklace, an ornament? The broken
clasp testified that it had been wrenched from its fastening. Perhaps in
a struggle--_the_ struggle....
Temporarily dismissing it from his thoughts, he left it lying upon the
table and went to the telephone.
4
Meanwhile, at the dak bungalow, which looks out upon the main street of
Sahib's Gaya, the _khansammah_, a ghostly figure in his white garments,
sat on the covered portico and watched a gharry approach in a whirl of
dust.
The carriage was jerked to a halt at the compound, and from its dim
interior appeared a form.
It was the strange Memsahib, the _khansammah_ observed to himself.
Strange, indeed, he reflected; Memsahibs rarely wore veils, and those
they affected were gossamer, cobweb-like affairs that hid not a feature.
But this Memsahib wore an almost opaque veil, a veil which she lifted
only to eat and when in her room. She had a beautiful face, and well
that she covered it from befouling eyes. For the _khansammah_ was a
Mohammedan.
She was very generous, this Memsahib, oh, very generous, indeed! True,
she asked many questions--about Major Trent Sahib and his friend, the
other Dakktar Sahib--but she paid for the information. She had been at
the dak bungalow only since morning, and he hoped she would remain
longer. Business was none too good.
Thus ran his thoughts as the woman alighted from the gharry and crossed
the compound.
When she reached the steps he rose and rendered a salaam. As usual, her
veil was lowered. He sensed a repressed excitement in the manner that
her white hand closed upon the post of the veranda; a bracelet shone
softly on her arm.
"_Khansammah_," she began, in a low, vibrant voice that made him think
of the golden tongue of a certain singing-nautch he had once heard,
"When does the next train leave for Mughal Sarai? Do you know?"
"Hah, Memsahib!"--with regret. "Must you leave? Has not my
hospitalit_ee_ been all the Memsahib could--"
"Of course," she broke in, impatiently. "But the train?"
"At midnight, Memsahib. But it is unlike_lee_ the Memsahib can get
accommodations, for there is ver_ee_ much travel at this time of the
year--oh, ver_ee_ much!"
"At midnight," she repeated, as though she had heard only that.
Then she entered--and the _khansammah_ thought he saw her pause, falter,
as with a sudden stroke of weakness.
5
And again meanwhile--
The moon paled, sank. Its senescent glamour lingered upon the towering
plinth and fluted pillars of the temple of the Sacred Bo-tree, seven
miles south of Gaya-town. A warm wind fretted the tapering leaves of the
holy tree; the sunken courtyard was a cistern of gloom where tiny yellow
lights swam like foam-flecks on a dark sea. These flecks of light,
forming a semi-circle about the Sacred Bo-tree, were many little
butter-lamps. Their glow revealed a man seated on the Diamond Throne
(just as Gaudama sat on the same spot in a buried century and
contemplated his Dewa Laka); revealed his yellow features, his tonsured
skull and magenta robes; revealed the stone image of Buddha that looked
down from the shrine with an expression of serene omniscience; revealed
the row of crimson-togaed monks that knelt within the semi-circle of
butter-lamps and murmured prayers.
The man on the Diamond Throne sat motionless. Only his lips moved, and
his eyes. A hint of guile showed in his face. He repeated a _mantra_
automatically, for his thoughts were elsewhere.
This was no other than his Holiness the Grand Lama of Tsagan-dhuka, who
had pilgrimaged from his Tibetan abby to the Sacred Bo-tree--the first
journey of the sort to be made by a lama of high rank since the visit of
that venerable pontiff, the Tashi Lama.... Behold him, then, in the
magenta robes of his office, squatting upon the Diamond Throne, reciting
a Buddhist prayer.
The patter of bare feet on stone caused him to shift his gaze to the
gloom beyond the courtyard. His black eyes squinted, and he traced the
outline of a palanquin. The primitive conveyance came to a halt. A
figure in loose robes took shape between the parted curtains; the light
of the butter-lamps fell upon a man in scarlet, a man who descended into
the sunken courtyard and approached the Diamond Throne. No mere priest,
this newcomer, for he wore a mitre-shaped hat; a very obese, very
pompous personage as he waddled up to his Holiness of Tsagan-dhuka.
The crimson cardinal spoke; and had anyone who understood Tibetan been
standing close by, he would have heard:
"His Excellency the Governor of Shingtse-lunpo has arrived."
The Grand Lama ceased his _mantra_.
"Tell him I shall be with him when I have finished my reflections."
The cardinal bowed and took his leave. The curtains of the palanquin
blotted out his corpulent person. Again the patter of naked feet sounded
above the surreptitious whispering of the Bo-tree.
A cryptic smile slid across the Grand Lama's eyes; the lids dropped to
hide it. He resumed the prayer.
"_Om mani Padme hum...._"
Thus he sat--just as Gaudama sat on the same spot in a buried century.
However, the Abbot of Tsagan-dhuka was not contemplating his Dewa Laka.
Above him the plinth of the temple strove skyward, secure in the
knowledge of the riddle of Life and Death.
6
A half hour after Trent took the receiver from the telephone, Colonel
Urqhart and Merriton, Head of the Police, rattled into his compound in a
dog-cart. Accompanying them were several officers to whom Trent spoke by
name.
"... And you found him in the ruined temple!" exclaimed the colonel, in
the living-room, when the customary formalities had been observed. "Good
God, major, what a pity! The poor, poor boy! His father and I were
friends, y' know."
"I'm positive Chatterjee did it," declared Trent. "You see...." And he
told of the encounter on the road and the subsequent events.
"What were you saying, major?" asked the Head of the Police, coming out
of the bedroom just as he finished. "But first--what's this?"
He held out the oval of silver-overlaid coral, and Trent explained how
he had found it.
"Some sort of native charm, I dare say," observed Merriton. "Tell me
about this Chatterjee."
When Trent had retold his story, the Head of the Police enquired:
"Where's the telephone? Ah! I see it!"
* * * * *
It was nearly midnight when Colonel Urqhart and Merriton prepared to
leave.
"Major," said Trent's commanding officer, "you'd better get some sleep.
Eckard and Gerrish will remain to--"
"Sleep?" echoed Trent.
"You'll need it if you're going in the morning--and you _are_ going?
Orders, y' know. There's nothing you can do here. I'll personally attend
to everything."
"Of course I'll go." This from Trent as he passed his hand wearily over
his forehead. "However, I shall sit up to-night. Eckard and Gerrish can
remain--but I'd rather be alone."
The colonel cast a glance toward Manlove's room.
"Poor chap!" he sighed. He extended his hand. "Well, good luck, major. I
probably won't see you again before you leave."
They shook hands, and the colonel and Merriton departed. Not until the
sounds of the dog-cart had dwindled did Trent discover that the Head of
Police had left the piece of coral on the table. His first impulse was
to call after him, but he decided to give it to him later, and dropped
it into his pocket.
Through the seemingly endless night Trent kept vigil beside the
curtained bed where Manlove lay. He sat huddled in a chair, his face
expressionless; frequently he rose to pace the floor; on several
occasions one of the men in the next room heard him murmuring to
himself. Shortly after midnight (about the time the veiled Memsahib's
train roared out of Gaya toward Mughal Sarai) it began to rain. That was
the prelude to a storm that crashed and tore in a fury about the
bungalow. In the dead silence following, when the damp heat shut in and
stars sparkled in the rain-swept sky, jackals chattered mournfully in
the jungle.
The last stars passed and the earth awoke in a bath of gold. Ganeesh,
with a frightened, awed expression, crept in hesitatingly with tea, and
behind him came one of the officers.
"I'll have to get ready to leave now, Eckard," Trent said laconically to
the officer, when he had gulped down the hot liquid.
Twenty minutes later, washed and shaved, he came out of his bedroom and
found Colonel Urqhart waiting for him.
"Just came by to tell you Merriton hasn't found Chatterjee yet,"
announced the colonel. "Cleared out, it seems. But they'll get him."
"Uncommonly nice of you, Colonel," returned Trent. His face was drawn,
his eyes veined with red, and a pallor underlay his tanned skin.
The colonel waved his hand toward the door. "My cart's outside. I'll
drive you to the station. 'Bout time, isn't it?"
Trent nodded. He strode to the door of Manlove's room and halted on the
threshold, looking with dry eyes into the hushed apartment. A
diamond-winged dragonfly lay dreaming on the window-sill ... the white
face shone through the mosquito-curtain.... Thus Trent stood for a
moment, then he turned and joined the colonel.
He talked very little during the ride to the station, and Colonel
Urqhart did not press conversation. In the midst of chattering native
passengers and a few whites, with an engine puffing heat into the
already suffocating air, he parted with the colonel,--a handshake and a
few perfunctory words--and settled down in his carriage.
Not until the train jerked out of the station did the strain snap. He
relaxed wearily upon the leather-lined seat, a steady hammer of pain at
the back of his neck. He felt suddenly alone, intensely alone--a
sensation that carried him back to his boyhood, to a night when he awoke
in a strange, black-dark room. He shuddered involuntarily. His eyelids
burned. Sleep--sleep. The engine seemed to purr that one word, and the
swaying and rocking of the carriage lulled him into drowsiness.
He fell asleep, suddenly, with a picture of the hushed room--the
diamond-winged dragonfly--painted upon his vision.
7
Trent was brought out of slumber by the sound of his name. He opened his
eyes and perceived that the train was at a standstill. Heat pressed
close about him, stifling him. Thrusting his head out of the window, he
read the name of the station. He was but a short distance from Gaya. A
telegraph messenger was walking along the platform shrilling:
"Major-rr Tr-rent Sahib!"
Trent called him, and as the train pulled out he tore open the envelope.
"Chatterjee found in river this morning," the message ran. "Stabbed. Let
you hear particulars at Benares. Urqhart."
For some time after Trent read it he stared out of the carriage-window.
Chatterjee--stabbed. He let the words filter and re-filter through his
brain, let them settle and sink in. They gave a new significance to the
encounter with the native on the previous night. Chatterjee--stabbed.
Murdered? Or had he taken his own life--in remorse? But the river....
No. Murdered. That word stood out like wet type. Chatterjee--stabbed.
Why? Obvious enough. The native's look of fright explained that. Perhaps
he knew who slew Manlove. Chatterjee, whose lips were sealed. Blind
alley. He faced a wall behind which was hidden the identity of Manlove's
slayer. Manlove, who, to his knowledge, hadn't an enemy--
He stiffened at a sudden recollection; brought his fist down upon his
thigh. Idiot! Colossal idiot! Why had not this occurred to him before?
It was fantastic, yet....
He procured from his pocket a pencil and an envelope, and scribbled on
the back of the latter--scribbled a description of the woman he had met
on the Meera road; of the cobra-bracelet, of the encounter and his
suspicions. This he would send to Colonel Urqhart at the next station.
When he had finished, he read it, struck out a few words; folded the
envelope; returned it to his pocket, and settled back in the seat to
reflect upon the tragic immutability of circumstance.