MASKS AND FACES
Like many a wiser and a better man, Amber was able upon occasion to
change his mind without entertaining serious misgivings as to his
stability of purpose. Therefore, on second thought, he elected to
journey India-wards _via_ the Suez Canal rather than by the western
route. As he understood the situation, he had no time to waste; the
quicker way to his destination was the eastern way; and, viewed
soberly, the chance upon which he had speculated, that of overtaking
the girl's party somewhere _en route_, appeared a long one--a gambler's
risk, and far too risky if he did not exaggerate the urgency of his
errand. Rutton's instructions had, moreover, been explicit upon one
point: Amber was to enter India only by the port of Calcutta. In
deferring to this the Virginian lost several days waiting in London for
the fortnightly P. & O. boat for Calcutta: a delay which might have
been obviated by taking the overland route to Brindisi, connecting
there with the weekly P. & O. boat for Bombay, from which latter point
Calcutta could have been quickly reached by rail across the Indian
Peninsula.
Now Quain's letter to Labertouche went by this quicker route and so
anticipated Amber's arrival at the capital of India by about a week;
during all of which time it languished unread.
A nice young English boy in Mr. Labertouche's employ received and
stamped it with the date of delivery and put it away with the rest of
the incoming correspondence in a substantial-looking safe. After which
he returned to his desk in the ante-room and resumed his study of the
law; which he pursued comfortably enough with a cigarette in his mouth,
his chair tilted back, and his feet gently but firmly implanted upon
the fair printed pages of an open volume of Blackstone. His official
duties, otherwise, seemed to consist solely in imparting to all and
sundry the information that Mr. Labertouche was "somewhere up in the
Mofussil, hunting bugs--I don't know exactly where."
This was, broadly speaking, perfectly true, within the limitations of
the youth's personal knowledge. He was a pleasant-mannered boy of
twenty or thereabouts, with an engaging air of candour which
successfully masked a close-mouthed reticence, even as his ostensibly
heedless, happy-go-lucky ways disguised a habit of extreme caution and
keen and particular observation: qualities which caused him to be
considered an invaluable office-assistant to a solicitor without any
clientele worth mentioning, and who chose to spend most of his time
somewhere up in the Mofussil hunting bugs.
The Mofussil, by the way, is an extremely elastic term, standing as it
does in the vocabulary of the resident Calcutta-man, for the Empire of
India outside the seat of its Government.
Precisely why Mr. Labertouche maintained his office was a matter for
casual conjecture to his wide circle of acquaintances; although it's
not unlikely that, were he the subject of discussion, the bulk of the
wonder expressed would be inspired by his unreasonable preference for
Calcutta as a place of residence. The Anglo-Indian imagination is
incapable of comprehending the frame of mind which holds existence in
Calcutta tolerable when one has the rest of India--including
Simla--open to one. And Labertouche was unmarried, unconnected with the
Government, and independent of his profession; certainly it would seem
that the slender stream of clients which trickled in and out of the
little offices on Dhurrumtollah Street, near the Maidan, could hardly
have provided him with a practice lucrative enough to be a
consideration. On the other hand it had to be admitted that the man
kept up his establishment in Calcutta rather than lived there; for he
was given to unexpected and extended absences from home, and was
frequently reported as having been seen poking sedulously over this
plain or through that jungle, with a butterfly net, a bottle of
chloroform, and an air of abstraction. In view of all of which he was
set down as an original and wholly irresponsible. The first of which he
was and the second of which he emphatically was not.
Henry Charles Beresford Labertouche was, in person, a quiet and
unassuming body, with nothing particularly remarkable about him save
his preference for boot-heels nearly three inches high and a habit of
dying his hair--naturally greyish--a jet-black. Inasmuch as he was
quite brazen about these matters and would cheerfully discuss with
comparative strangers the contrasted merits of this hair-dye and that
and the obvious advantages of being five feet nine and one-half inches
in height instead of five feet seven, his idiosyncrasies were not held
against him. Otherwise he was a man strikingly inconspicuous; his eyes
were a very dark brown, which is nothing remarkable, and his features
were almost exasperatingly indefinite. You would have found him hard to
recall to memory, visually, aside from the boot-heels, which might
easily have been overlooked, and the black hair, which was, when all's
said, rather becoming than otherwise. Living with two native servants
in a modest bungalow somewhere between Chitpur and Barrackpur, he went
to and from his office, or didn't, at his whim, with entire lack of
ostentation. Soft-spoken and gifted with a distinct sense of the
humorous, he would converse agreeably and intelligently upon any
impersonal topic for hours at a time, when the spirit so moved him. As
an entomologist his attainments were said to be remarkable; he was
admittedly an interested student of ethnology; and he filled in his
spare time compounding unholy smells in a little laboratory connected
with his suburban home. This latter proceeding earned him the wholesome
fear and respect of the native population, who firmly believed him an
intimate of many devils.
Such, at least, was the superficial man.
Now upon the morning of the day that found the steamship _Poonah_
nuzzling up the Hooghly's dirty yellow flood, Mr. Labertouche's clerk
arrived at the Dhurrumtollah Street office at the usual hour; which, in
the absence of his employer, was generally between eleven o'clock and
noon. Having assorted and disposed of the morning's mail, he donned his
office-coat, sat down, thumbed through Blackstone until he found two
perfectly clean pages, opened the volume at that place, tipped back his
chair, and with every indication of an untroubled conscience imposed
his feet upon the book and began the day's labours with a cigarette.
The window at his right was open, affording an excellent view, from an
elevation of one storey, of the tide of traffic ebbing and flowing in
Dhurrumtollah Street. The clerk watched it sleepily, between
half-closed eyelids. Presently he became aware that an especially dirty
and travel-worn Attit mendicant had squatted down across the way, in
the full glare of sunlight, and was composing himself for one of those
apparently purposeless and interminable vigils peculiar to his
vocation. Beneath their drooping lashes the eyes of the clerk
brightened. But he did not move. Neither did the Attit mendicant.
In the course of the next half-hour the clerk consumed two cigarettes
and entertained a visitor in the person of a dapper little Greek
curio-dealer from the Lal Bazaar, who left behind him an invitation to
Mr. Labertouche to call and inspect some scarabs in which he had
professed an interest. It was quite a fresh importation, averred the
Greek; the clerk was to be careful to remember that.
When he had gone the clerk made a note of it. Then, glancing out the
window, he became aware that the Attit mendicant, for some reason
dissatisfied, was preparing to move on. Yawning, the clerk resumed his
street coat, and went out to lunch, carelessly leaving the door
unlocked, and the memorandum of the Greek's invitation exposed upon his
blotter. When he returned at three o'clock, the door of Mr.
Labertouche's private office was ajar and that gentleman was at his
desk. The memorandum was, however, gone.
Mr. Labertouche was in the process of opening and reading a ten-days'
accumulation of correspondence, an occupation which he suspended
temporarily to call his clerk in and receive his report. This proved to
be a tolerably lengthy session, for the clerk, whose name appeared to
be Frank, demonstrated his command of a surprising memory. Without
notes he enumerated the callers at the office day by day from the time
when Labertouche had left for the Mofussil with his specimen-box and
the rest of his bug-hunting paraphernalia; naming those known to his
employer, minutely describing all others, even repeating their words
with almost phonographic fidelity.
Labertouche listened intently, without interrupting, abstractedly
tapping his desk with a paper-cutter. At the end he said "Thank you,"
with a dry, preoccupied air; and resumed consideration of his letters.
These seemed to interest him little; one after the other he gave to his
clerk, saying "File that," or "Answer that so-and-thusly." Two he set
aside for his personal disposition, and these he took up again after
the clerk had been dismissed. The first he read and reconsidered for a
long time; then crumpled it up and, drawing to him a small tray of
hammered brass, dropped the wadded paper upon it and touched a match to
it, thoughtfully poking the blazing sheets with his paper-cutter until
they were altogether reduced to ashes.
Quain's was the second letter. Having merely glanced at the heading and
signature, Labertouche had reserved the rather formidable document--for
Quain had written fully--as probably of scant importance, to be dealt
with at his absolute leisure. But as he read his expression grew more
and more serious and perturbed. Finishing the last page he turned back
to the first and went over it a second time with much deliberation and
frequent pauses, apparently memorising portions of its contents.
Finally he said, "Hum-m!" inscrutably and rang for Frank.
"He left New York by the _Lusitania_, eh?" said Mr. Labertouche aloud.
The clerk entering interrupted his soliloquy. "Bring me, please," he
said, "Bradshaw, the _News_--and the latest P. & O. schedule." And when
Frank had returned with these articles, he desired him to go at once
and enquire at Government House the whereabouts of Colonel Dominick
James Farrell, and further to search the hotels of Calcutta for a Miss
Farrell, or for information concerning her. "Have this for me
to-night--come to the bungalow at seven," he said. "And ... I shall
probably not be at the office again for several days."
"Insects?" enquired the clerk.
"Insects," affirmed Mr. Labertouche gravely.
"In the Mofussil?"
"There or thereabouts, Frank."
"Yes, sir. I presume you don't feel the need of a capable assistant
yet?"
"Not yet, Frank," said Labertouche kindly. "Be patient. Your time will
come; you're doing famously now."
"Thank you."
"Good-afternoon. Lock the door as you leave."
Immediately that he found himself alone, Labertouche made of Quain's
letter a second burnt offering to prejudice upon the tray of hammered
brass. He was possessed of an incurable aversion to waste-paper baskets
and other receptacles from which the curious might fish out torn bits
of paper and, with patience, piece together and reconstruct documents
of whose import he preferred the world at large to remain unadvised.
Hence the tray of brass--a fixture among the furnishings of his desk.
This matter attended to, he lost himself in Bradshaw and the Peninsular
& Oriental Steamship Company's list of sailings; from which he derived
enlightenment. "He was to come direct," mused Labertouche. "In that
case he'll have waited over in London for the _Poonah_." He turned to
the copy of the _Indian Daily News_ which lay at his elbow, somewhat
anxiously consulting its shipping news. Under the heading of "Due this
Day" he discovered the words: "_Poonah_, London--Calcutta--Straits
Settlements." And his face lengthened with concern.
"That's short notice," he said. "Lucky I got back to-day--uncommon
lucky!... Still I may be mistaken." But the surmise failed to comfort
him.
He drew a sheet of paper on which there was no letter-head to him and
began to write, composing deliberately and with great care.
The building in which his offices were located stood upon a corner; at
either end of the long corridor on the upper floor, upon which the
various offices opened, were stairways, one descending to Dhurrumtollah
Street, the other to a side street little better than an alley. It may
be considered significant that, whereas Labertouche himself was not
seen either to enter or to leave the building at any time that day, an
Attit mendicant did enter from Dhurrumtollah Street shortly after Frank
had gone to lunch--and disappeared forthwith; while, in the dusk of
evening, a slim Eurasian boy with a clerkly air left by the stairs to
the alley. I say a boy, but he may have been thirty; he was carefully
attired in clothing of the mode affected by the Anglo-Indian, but wore
shoes that were almost heelless. His height may have been five-feet
seven inches, but he carried himself with a slight, studious rounding
of the shoulders that assorted well with the effect of his large
gold-rimmed spectacles.
He stumbled out of the alley into Free School Street and set his face
to the Maidan, shuffling along slowly with a peering air, his
spectacles catching the light from the shop-windows and glaring
glassily through the shadows.