PINK SATIN
Shaking with rage, Amber stood for a long moment with pistol poised and
eyes wary; then, bewildered, he slowly lowered the weapon. "Well," he
observed reflectively, "I'm damned." For the glittering thing he had
mistaken for a revolver lay at his feet; and it was nothing more nor
less than a shoehorn. While as for the babu, he had dropped back into
the chair and given way to a rude but reassuring paroxysm of gusty,
silent laughter.
"I'm a fool," said Amber; "and if I'm not mistaken you're Labertouche."
With a struggle the babu overcame his emotion. "I am, my dear fellow, I
am," he gasped. "And I owe you an apology. Upon my word, I'd forgotten;
one grows so accustomed to living the parts in these masquerades, after
a time, that one forgets. Forgive me." He offered a hand which Amber
grasped warmly in his unutterable relief. "I'm really delighted to meet
you," continued Labertouche seriously. "Any man who knows India can't
help being glad to meet the author of 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush.'"
"You did frighten me," Amber confessed, smiling. "I didn't know what to
expect--or suspect. Certainly,"--with a glance round the incongruously
furnished room--"I never looked forward to anything like this--or you,
in that get-up."
"You wouldn't, you know," Labertouche admitted gravely. "I might have
warned you in my note; but that was a risky thing, at best. I feared to
go into detail--it might have fallen into the wrong hands."
"Whose?" demanded Amber.
"That, my dear man, is what we're here to find out--if we can. But sit
down; we shall have to have quite a bit of talk." He scraped a heap of
gaily-coloured native garments off one end of the charpoy and motioned
Amber to the chair. At the same time he fished a cigar-case out of some
recess in his clothing. "These are good," he remarked, opening the case
and offering it to Amber; "I daren't smoke anything half so good when
at work. The native tobacco is abominable, you know--_quite_
three-fourths filth."
"At work?" questioned Amber, clipping the end of his cigar and lighting
it. "You don't mean to say you travel round in those clothes?"
"But I do. It's business with me--though few people know it. Quain
didn't; only I had a chance, one day, to tell him some rather startling
facts about native life. This sort of thing, done properly, gives a man
insight into a lot of unusual things."
Labertouche puffed his cigar into a glow and leaned back, clasping one
knee with two brown hands and squinting up at the low, discoloured
ceiling. And Amber, looking him over, was amazed by the absolute
fidelity of his make-up; the brownish stain on face and hands, the
high-cut patent-leather boots, the open-work socks through which his
tinted calves showed grossly, his shapeless, baggy, soiled
garments--all were hopelessly babu-ish.
"And if it isn't done properly?"
"Oh, then----!" Labertouche laughed, lifting his shoulders
expressively. "No Englishman incapable of living up to a disguise has
ever tried it more than once in India; few, very few, have lived to
tell of the experiment."
"You're connected with the police?" Amber's brows contracted as he
remembered Rutton's emphatic prohibition.
But Quain had not failed to mention that. "Officially, no," said
Labertouche readily. "Now and again, of course, I run across a bit of
valuable information; and then, somehow, indirectly, the police get
wind of it. But this going _fantee_ in an amateur way is simply my
hobby; I've been at it for years--and very successfully, too. Of
course, it'll have its end. One's bound to slip up eventually. You can
train yourself to live the life of the native, but you can't train your
mind to think as he thinks. That's how the missteps happen. Some
day...." He sighed, not in the least unhappily.... "Some day I'll dodge
into this hole, or another that I know of, put on somebody else's
rags--say, these I'm wearing--and inconspicuously become a mysterious
disappearance. That's how it is with all of us who go in for this sort
of thing. But it's like opium, you know; you try it the first time for
the lark of it; the end is tragedy."
Amber drew a long breath, his eyes glistening with wonder and
admiration of the man. "You don't mean to tell me you run such risks
for the pure love of it?"
"Well ... perhaps not altogether. But we needn't go into details, need
we?" Labertouche's smile robbed the rebuke of its sting. "The opium
simile is a very good one, though I say it who shouldn't. One acquires
a taste for the forbidden, and one hires a little room like this from
an unprincipled blackguard like Honest George, and insensibly one goes
deeper and deeper until one gets beyond one's depth. That is all. It
explains me sufficiently. And," he chuckled, "you'd never have known it
if your case hadn't been exceptional."
"It is, I think." Amber's expression became anxious. "I want to know
what you think of it--now Quain's told you. And, I say, what did you
mean by 'news of the Fs.'?"
"News of the Farrells--father and daughter, of course." Labertouche's
eyes twinkled.
"But how in the name of all that's strange--!"
"Did I connect the affair Rutton with the Farrells? At first by simple
inference. You were charged with a secret errand, demanding the utmost
haste, by Rutton; your first thought was to travel by the longer
route--which, as it happens, Miss Farrell had started upon a little
while before. You had recently met her, and I've heard she's rather a
striking young woman. You see?"
"Yes," admitted Amber sheepishly. "But--"
"And then I remembered something," interrupted Labertouche. "I recalled
Rutton. I knew him years ago, when he was a young man.... You know the
yarn about him?"
"A little--mighty little. I know now that he was a Rajput--though he
never told me that; I know that he married a Russian noblewoman"--Amber
hesitated imperceptibly--"that she died soon after, that he chose to
live out of India and to die rather than return to it."
"He was," said Labertouche, "a singular man, an exotic result of the
unnatural conditions we English have brought about in India. The word
renegade describes him aptly, I think: he was born and bred a Brahmin,
a Rajput, of the hottest and bluest blood in Rajputana; he died to all
intents and purposes a European--with an English heart. He is--was--by
rights Maharana of Khandawar. As the young Maharaj he was sent to
England to be educated. I'm told his record at Oxford was a brilliant
one. He became a convert to Christianity--that was predestined--was
admitted to the Church of England, a communicant. When his father died
and he was summoned to take his place, Rutton at first refused.
Pressure was brought to bear upon him by the English Government and he
returned, was enthroned, and for a little time ruled Khandawar. It was
then that I knew him. He was continually dissatisfied, however, and
after a year or two disappeared. It was rumoured that he'd struck a
bargain with his prime-minister, one Salig Singh. At all events Salig
Singh contrived to usurp the throne, Government offering no objection.
Rutton turned up eventually in Russia and married a woman there who
died in childbirth--twenty years ago, perhaps. The child did not
survive its mother...." Labertouche paused deliberately, his glance
searching Amber's face. "So the report ran, at least," he concluded
quietly.
"How do you know all this?" Amber countered evasively.
"Government watches its wards very tenderly," said Labertouche with a
grin. "Besides, India's a great place for gossip.... And then," he
pursued tenaciously, "I remembered something else. I recalled that
Rutton had one very close friend, an Englishman named Farrell--"
"Oh, what's the use?" Amber cut in nervously. "You understand the
situation too well. It's no good my trying to keep anything from you."
"Such as the fact that Colonel Farrell adopted Rutton's daughter, who,
as it happens, did survive her mother? Yes; I knew that--or, rather,
part I knew and part I guessed. But don't worry, Mr. Amber; I'll keep
the secret."
"For the girl's sake," said Amber, twisting his hands together.
"For her sake. I pledge you my word."
"Thank you."
"And now ... for what purpose did Rutton ask you to come to India?
Wasn't it to get Miss Farrell out of the country?"
"I think you're the devil himself," said Amber.
"I'm not," confessed Labertouche; "but I am a member of the Indian
Secret Service--not officially connected with the police, observe!--and
I know a deal that you don't. I think, in short, I can place my finger
on the reason why Rutton was so concerned to get his daughter out of
the country."
Amber looked his question.
"You read the papers, don't you, in America?"
"Rather." Amber smiled.
"You've surely not been so blind as to miss the occasional reports that
leak out about native unrest in India?"
"Surely you don't mean----"
"I assuredly do mean that the Second Mutiny impends," declared
Labertouche solemnly. "Such, at least, is my belief, and such is the
belief of every thinking man in India who is at all informed. The
entire country is undermined with conspiracy and sedition; day after
day a vast, silent, underground movement goes on, fomenting rebellion
against the English rule. The worst of it is, there's no stopping it,
no way of scotching the serpent; its heads are myriad, seemingly. And
yet--I don't know--since yesterday I have hoped that through you we
might eventually strike to the heart of the movement."
"Through me!" cried Amber, startled.
Labertouche nodded. "Just so. The information you have already brought
us is invaluable. Have you thought of the significance of Chatterji's
'Message of the Bell'?"
"'_Even now,_'" Amber quoted mechanically, "'_The Gateway of Swords
yawns wide, that he who is without fear may pass within; to the end
that the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil._'" He shook his head
mystified. "No; I don't understand."
"It's so simple," urged Labertouche; "all but the Gateway of Swords. I
don't place that--yet.... But the 'Body'--plainly that is India; the
'Scarlet Evil'--could anything more fittingly describe English rule
from the native point of view?"
Amber felt of his head solicitously. "And yet," he averred plaintively,
"it doesn't _feel_ like wood."
Labertouche laughed gently. "Now to-night you will learn something from
this Dhola Baksh--something important, undoubtedly. May I see this
ring--this Token?"
Unbuttoning his shirt, Amber produced the Eye from the chamois bag.
Labertouche studied it for a long time in silence, returning it with an
air of deep perturbation.
"The thing is strange to me," he said. "For the present we may dismiss
it as simply what it pretends to be--a token, a sign by which one man
shall know another.... Wear it but turn the stone in; and keep your
hands in your pockets when we're outside."
Amber obeyed. "We'll be going, now?"
"Yes." Labertouche rose, throwing away his cigar and stamping out its
fire.
"But the Farrells?"
"Forgive me; I had forgotten. The Farrells are at Darjeeling, where the
Colonel is stationed just now--happily for him."
"Then," said Amber, with decision, "I leave for Darjeeling to-morrow
morning."
"I know no reason why you shouldn't," agreed Labertouche. "If anything
turns up I'll contrive to let you know." He looked Amber up and down
with a glance that took in every detail. "I'm sorry," he observed, "you
couldn't have managed to look a trace shabbier. Still, with a touch
here and there, you'll do excellently well as a sailor on a spree."
"As bad as that?"
"Oah, my dear fallow!"--it was now the babu speaking, while he hopped
around Amber with his head critically to one side, like an inquisitive
jackdaw, now and again darting forward to peck at him with hands that
nervously but deftly arranged details of his attire to please a taste
fastidious and exacting in such matters--"Oah, my dear fallow, surely
you appreciate danger of venturing into nateeve quarters in European
dress? As regular-out-and-out sahib, I am meaning, of course. It is
permeesible for riff-raff, sailors and Tommies from the Fort, and soa
on, to indulge in debauchery among nateeves, but first-class
sahib--Oah, noah! You would be mobbed in no-time-at-all, where we are
going."
"All right; I guess I can play the part, babu. At least, I've plenty of
atmosphere," Amber laughed, mentioning the incident of the peg he had
not consumed over Honest George's bar.
"I had noticed that; a happy accident, indeed. I think"--Labertouche
stepped back to look Amber over again--"I think you will almost do. One
moment."
He seized Amber's hat and, dashing it violently to the floor,
deliberately stamped it out of shape; when restored to its owner it had
aged five years in less than half as many minutes. Amber laughed,
putting it on. "Surely you couldn't ask me to look more disreputable,"
he said with a dubious survey of himself in the mirror.
His collar had been confiscated with his tie; his coat collar was
partially turned up in the back; what was visible of his shirt was
indecently dirty. His polished shoes had been deprived of their
pristine lustre by means of a damp rag, vigorously applied, and then
rubbed with dust. An artistic stain had been added to one of his
sleeves by the simple device of smudging it with the blacking from his
shoes. As for his hat, with the brim pulled down in front, it was
nothing more nor less than shocking.
"You'll do," chuckled Labertouche approvingly. "Just ram your hands
into your trouser pockets without unbuttoning your coat, and shuffle
along as if nocturnal rambles in the slums of Calcutta were an everyday
thing to you. If you're spoken to, don't betray too much familiarity
with the vernacular. You know about the limit of the average Tommy's
vocabulary; don't go beyond it." He unbolted and locked the door by
which Amber had entered, putting the key in his pocket, and turned to a
second door across the room. "We'll leave this way; I chose this place
because it's a regular rabbit warren, with half a dozen entrances and
exits. I'll leave you in a passage leading to the bazaar. Wait in the
doorway until you see me stroll past; give me thirty yards lead and
follow. Keep in the middle of the way, avoid a crowd as the plague, and
don't lose sight of me. I'll stop in front of Dohla Baksh's shop long
enough to light a cheroot and go on without looking back. When you come
out I'll be waiting for you. If we lose one another, get back to your
hotel as quickly as possible. I may send you word. If I don't, I shall
understand you've taken the first morning train to Darjeeling. I think
that's all."
As Amber left the room Labertouche extinguished the lamp, shut and
locked the door, and followed, catching Amber by the arm and guiding
him through pitch darkness to the head of the stairs. "Don't talk," he
whispered; "trust me." They descended an interminable flight of steps,
passed down a long, echoing corridor, and again descended. From the
foot of the second flight Labertouche shunted Amber round through what
seemed a veritable maze of passages--in which, however, he was
evidently quite at home. At length, "_Now go ahead!_" was breathed at
Amber's ear and at the same time his arm was released.
He obeyed blindly, stumbling down a reeking corridor, and in a minute
more, to his unutterable relief, was in the open air of the bazaar.
Blinking with the abrupt transition from absolute night to garish
light, he skulked in the shadow of the doorway, waiting. Beneath his
gaze Calcutta paraded its congress of peoples--a comprehensive
collection of specimens of every tribe in Hindustan and of nearly every
other race in the world besides: red-bearded Delhi Pathans, towering
Sikhs, lean sinewy Rajputs with bound jaws, swart agile Bhils, Tommies
in their scarlet tunics, Japanese and Chinese in their distinctive
dress, short and sturdy Gurkhas, yellow Saddhus, Jats stalking proudly,
brawling knots of sailormen from the Port, sleek Mahrattas, polluted
Sansis, Punjabis, Bengalis, priests, beggars, dancing girls; a blaze of
colour ever shifting, a Babel of tongues never stilled, a seething scum
on a witch's brew of humanity....
Like a fat, tawdry moth in his garments of soiled pink, a babu loitered
past, with never a sidelong glance for the loaferish figure in the
shadowed doorway; and the latter seemed himself absorbed in the family
of Eurasians who were shrilly squabbling with the keeper of a
vegetable-stall adjacent. But presently he wearied of their noise,
yawned, thrust both hands deep in his pockets, and stumbled away. The
bazaar accepted him as a brother, unquestioning, and he picked his way
through it with an ease that argued nothing but absolute familiarity
with his surroundings. But always you may be sure, he had the gleam of
pink satin in the corner of his eye.
Before long Pink Satin diverged into the Chitpur Road, with Amber a
discreet shadow. So far the latter had been treading known ground, but
a little later, when Pink Satin dived abruptly into a darksome alleyway
to the right, drawing Amber after him as a child drags a toy on a
string, the Virginian lost his bearings utterly and was thereafter
helplessly dependent upon the flutter of Pink Satin, and unworried only
so long as he could see him, in a fidget of anxiety whenever the
labyrinth shut Labertouche from his sight for a moment or two.
It was quiet enough away from the main thoroughfare, but with a
sinister quiet. Tall dwellings marched shoulder to shoulder along the
ways, shuttered, dark, grim, with an effect of conspirators, their
heads together in lawless conference. The streets were intolerably
narrow, the paving a farce; pools of stagnant water stood in the
depressions, piles of refuse banked the walls. The fetid air hung
motionless but sibilant with stealthy footsteps and whisperings....
Preferable to this seemed even the infinitely more dangerous and
odorous Coolootollah purlieus into which they presently passed--nesting
place though it were for the city's most evil and desperate classes.
In time broad Machua Bazaar Street received them--Pink Satin and the
sailorman out for a night of it. And now Pink Satin began to stroll
more sedately, manifesting a livelier interest in the sights of the
wayside. Amber's impatience--for he guessed that they neared the
goldsmith's stall--increased prodigiously; the shops, the stalls, the
thatched dance-halls in which arose the hideous music of the nautch,
had no lure for him, though they illustrated all that was most evil and
most depraved in the second city of the Empire. He was only eager to
have done with this unsavoury adventure, to know again the clean walls
of his room in the Great Eastern, to taste again the purer air of the
Maidan.
Without warning Pink Satin pulled up, extracted from the recesses of
his costume a long, black and vindictive-looking native cigar, and
lighted it, thoughtfully exhaling the smoke through his nose while he
stared covetously at the display of a slipper-merchant whose stand was
over across from the stall of a goldsmith.
With true Oriental deliberation Pink Satin finally made up his mind to
move on; and Amber lurched heavily into the premises occupied by one
Dhola Baksh, a goldsmith.
A customer, a slim, handsome Malayan youth, for the moment held the
attention of the proprietor. The two were haggling with characteristic
enjoyment over a transaction which seemed to involve less than twenty
rupees. Amber waited, knowing that patience must be his portion until
the bargain should be struck. Dhola Baksh himself, a lean,
sharp-featured Mahratta grey with age, appraised with a single look the
new customer, and returned his interest to the Malay. But Amber
garnered from that glance a sensation of recognition. He wondered
dimly, why; could the goldsmith have been warned of his coming?
Two or three more putative customers idled into the shop. Beyond its
threshold the stream of native life rolled on, ceaselessly fluent; a
pageant of the Middle Ages had been no more fantastic and unreal to
Western eyes. Now and again a wayfarer paused, his interest attracted
by the goldsmith's rush of business.
Unexpectedly the proprietor made a substantial concession. Money passed
upon the instant, sealing the bargain. The Malay rose to go. Dhola
Baksh lifted a stony stare to Amber.
"Your, pleasure, sahib?" he enquired with a thinly-veiled sneer. What
need to show deference to a down-at-the-heel sailor from the Port?
"I want money--I want to borrow," said Amber promptly.
"On your word, sahib?"
"On security."
"What manner of security can you offer?"
"A ring--an emerald ring."
Dhola Baksh shrugged. His eyes shifted from Amber to the encircling
faces of the bystanders. "I am a poor man," he whined. "How should I
have money to lend? Come to me on the morrow; then mayhap I may have a
few rupees. To-night I have neither cash nor time."
The hint was lost upon Amber. "A stone of price----" he persisted.
With a disturbed and apprehensive look, the money-lender rose. "Come,
then," he grumbled, "if you must----"
A voice cried out behind Amber--"_Heh_!"----more a squeal than a cry.
Intuitively, as at a signal of danger, he leaped aside. Simultaneously
something like a beam of light sped past his head. The goldsmith
uttered one dreadful, choking scream, and went to his knees. For as
many as three seconds he swayed back and forth, his features terribly
contorted, his thin old hands plucking feebly at the handle of a
broadbladed dagger which had transfixed his throat. Then he tumbled
forward on his face, kicking.
There followed a single instant of suspense and horror, then a mad rush
of feet as the street stampeded into the shop. Voices clamoured to the
skies. Somehow the lights went out.
Amber started to fight his way out. As he struggled on, making little
headway through the press, a hand grasped his arm and drew him another
way.
"Make haste, hazoor!" cried the owner of the hand, in Hindustani. "Make
haste, lest they seek to fasten this crime upon your head."