Part 22

“I hadn’t wanted the thing before, but that settled me. I very much doubted how the conjurer had got possession of it and I had no wish to be mixed up in an affair of any sort. I told him definitely that while I appreciated his motives I shouldn’t deprive him of so great a treasure. He seemed really concerned, and Fraser told me afterwards that for one of that tribe to be under what he regarded as an unrequited obligation was a dishonour. I should probably have had some trouble to get him off, only just then we heard Valasquez returning. Calico hastily wrapped up the relic, stowed it away among his wardrobe and, with his most ceremonious salaam, disappeared.

“‘Do you know anything about the tooth of the ape-god Hanuman, Valasquez?’ I asked him some time later. The ‘Portugoose’ seemed to know a little about everything and in consequence of my dependence on him he strayed into a rather more free and easy manner than might have passed under other conditions. But I’m not ceremonious, you know, Wynn.”

And Carrados laughed and agreed.

“‘The sacred tooth of Sira Hanuman, sir?’ said Valasquez. ‘Oh, that’s all great tom dam foolery. There are a hundred million of them. The most notable one was worshipped at the Mountain of Adam in Ceylon until it was captured by my ancestor, the illustrious Admiral d’Almeydo, who sent it with much pomp and circumstance to Goa. Then the Princes of Malabar offered a ransom of rupees, forty lakhs, for it, which the Bishop of Goa refused, like a dam great fool!’

“‘What became of it?’ I asked, but Valasquez didn’t know. He was somewhat of a liar, in fact, and I dare say that he’d made it all up to show off his knowledge.”

“No,” objected Carrados; “I think that Baldæus, the Dutch historian, has a similar tale. What happened to Calico?”

“That was the worst of it. Some of our men found his body lying among the tamarisk scrub two days later. There was no doubt that he’d been murdered, and not content with that, the ghouls had mutilated him shamefully afterwards. Even his cheeks were slashed open. So, you see, the tooth of Hanuman had not protected him.”

“No,” assented Carrados, “it had certainly not protected him. Was anything done--anyone arrested?”

“I don’t think so. You know what the natives are in a case like that: no one knows anything, even if they have been looking on at the time. I suppose a report would be sent up, but I never heard anything more. I always had a suspicion that Calico, with his blend of simple faith and gipsy blood, had violated a temple, or looted a shrine, to save his son’s life, and that the guardians of the relic tracked him and revenged the outrage. Anyway, I was glad that I hadn’t accepted it after that, for I had enough excitement without.”

“What was that, Jim?”

“Oh, I don’t know, but I always seemed to be running up against something about that time. Twice my tent was turned inside out in my absence, once my clothes were spirited away while I was bathing, and the night before we broke up the camp I was within an ace of being murdered.”

“You bear a charmed life,” said Carrados suggestively, but Tulloch did not rise to the suggestion.

“It was a bit of luck. Those dacoits are as quiet as death, but for some reason I woke suddenly with the idea that devilment was brewing. I slipped on the first few things that came to hand and went to reconnoitre. As I passed through the canvas I came face to face with a native, and two others were only a few yards behind. Without any ceremony the near man let drive at my throat with one of those beastly wavy daggers they go in for. I suppose I managed to dodge in the fraction of a second, for he missed me. I gave a yell for assistance, landed the leader one in the eye and backed into my tent for a weapon. By the time I was out again our fellows were running up, but the precious trio had disappeared.”

“That was the last you saw of them?” asked Carrados tentatively.

“No, queerly enough. The day I sailed I encountered the one whose eye I had touched up. It was down by the water--the Apollo Bander--at Bombay, and I was so taken aback, never thinking but that the fellow was hundreds of miles away that I did nothing but stare. But I promised myself that in the unlikely event of ever seeing him again I would follow him up pretty sharply.”

“Not under the wheels of a London General again, I hope!”

Tulloch’s brown fist came down upon the table with a crash.

“The devil, Carrados!” he exclaimed. “How did you know?”

“Parkinson was just describing to me a rather exotic figure. Then the rest followed.”

“Well you were right. There was the man in Holborn, and of all the fantastic things in the world for a bloodthirsty thug from the back wilds of Hindustan, I believe that he was selling picture post cards!”

“Possibly a very natural thing to be doing in the circumstances.”

“What circumstances, Wynn?”

“Those you are telling me of. Go on.”

“That’s about all there is. When I saw the man I was so excited, I suppose, that I started to dash across without another thought. You know the result. Of course he had vanished by the time I could look round.”

“You are quite sure he is the same?”

“There’s always the possibility of a mistake, I admit,” considered Tulloch, “but, speaking in ordinary terms, I should say that it’s a moral certainty. On the first occasion it was bright moonlight and the sensational attack left a very vivid photograph on my mind. In Bombay I had no suspicion of doubt about the man, and he was still carrying traces of my fist. Here, it is true, I had less chance of observing him, but recognition was equally instantaneous and complete. Then consider that each time he has slipped away at once. No, I am not mistaken. What is he after, Carrados?”

“I am very much afraid that he is after you, my friend,” replied Carrados, with some concern lurking behind the half-amused level of his voice.

“After me!” exclaimed Tulloch with righteous indignation. “Why, confound his nerve, Wynn, it ought to be the other way about. What’s he after me for?”

“India is a conservative land. The gods do not change. A relic that was apprised at seven hundred thousand ducats in the days of Queen Elizabeth is worth following up to-day--apart, of course, from the merit thereby acquired by a devotee.”

“You mean that Calico’s charm was the real original thing that Valasquez spoke of?”

“It is quite possible; or it may be claimed for it even if it is not. Goa has passed through many vicissitudes; its churches and palaces are now in ruins. What is more credible----”

“But in any case I haven’t got the thing. Surely the old ass needn’t murder me to find out that.”

The face he appealed to betrayed nothing of the thoughts behind it. But Carrados’s mind was busy with every detail of the story he had heard, and the more he looked into it the less he felt at ease for his impetuous friend’s safety.

“On the contrary,” he replied, “from the pious believer’s point of view, the simplest and most effective way of ascertaining it was to try to murder you, and your providential escape has only convinced them that you are now the holder of the charm.”

“The deuce!” said Tulloch ruefully. “Then I have dropped into an imbroglio after all. What’s to be done?”

“I wonder,” mused the blind man speculatively, “I wonder what really became of the thing.”

“You mean after Calico’s death?”

“No, before that. I don’t imagine that your entertaining friend had it at the end. He had nothing to look forward to, you remember; he did not wish to live. His assassins were those who were concerned in the recovery of the relic, for why else was he mutilated but in order to discover whether he had concealed it with more than superficial craft--perhaps even swallowed it? They found nothing or you would not have engaged their attention. As it was, they were baffled and had to investigate further. Then they doubtless learned that you had put this man under an undying obligation, possibly they even knew that he had visited you the last thing before he left the camp. The rest has been the natural sequence.”

“It seems likely enough in an incredible sort of way,” admitted the doctor. “But I don’t see why this old sport should be occupying himself as he is in the streets of London.”

“That remains to be looked into. It may be some propitiatory form of self-abasement that is so potent in the Oriental system. But it may equally well be something quite different. If this man is of high priestly authority there are hundreds of his co-religionists here at hand whose lives he could command in such a service. He may be in communication with some, or be contriving to make himself readily accessible. Are there any Indians at your boarding-house?”

“I have certainly seen a couple recently.”

“Recently! Then they came after you did?”

“I don’t know about that. I haven’t had much to do with the place.”

“I don’t like it, Jim,” said Carrados, with more gravity than he was accustomed to put into the consideration of his own risks. “I don’t like the hang of it at all.”

“Well, for that matter, I’m not exactly pining for trouble,” replied his friend. “But I can take care of myself anyway.”

“But you can’t,” retorted Carrados. “That’s just the danger. If you were blind it would be all right, but your credulous, self-opinionated eyes will land you in some mess.... To-morrow, at all events, Carlyle shall put a watch on this enterprising Hindu and we shall at least find out what his movements are.”

Tulloch would have declined the attention, but Carrados was insistent.

“You must let me have my way in such an emergency, Tulloch,” he declared. “Of course you would say that it’s out of your power to prevent me, but among friends like you and I one acquiesces to a certain code. I say this because I may even find it necessary to put a man on you as well. This business attracts me resistlessly. There’s something more in it than we have got at yet, something that lies beyond the senses and strives to communicate itself through the unknown dimension that we have all stood just upon the threshold of, only to find that we have lost the key. It’s more elusive than Macbeth’s dagger: ‘I have thee not and yet I see thee still’--always just out of reach. What is it, Jim; can’t you help us? Don’t you feel something portentous in the air, or is it only my blind eyes that can see beyond?”

“Not a bit of it,” laughed Tulloch cheerfully. “I only feel that a blighted old heathen is leading himself a rotten dance through his pig-headed obstinacy. Well, Wynn, why can’t he be rounded up and have it explained that he’s on the wrong tack? I don’t mind crying quits. I did get in a sweet one on the eye, and he’s had a long journey for nothing. Eh, what?”

“He would not believe.” Carrados was pacing the room in one of his rare periods of mental tension. Instinct, judgment, experience and a subtler prescience that enveloped reason seemed at variance in his mind. Then he swung round and faced his visitor.

“Look here, Tulloch, stay with me for the present,” he urged. “You can go there for your things to-morrow and I can fix you up in the meantime. It’s safer; I feel it will be safer.”

“Safer! Good lord! what could you have safer than a stodgy second-rate boarding-house in Hapsburg Square? The place drones respectability. Miss Vole, the landlady, is related to an archdeacon and nearly all the people there are on half-pay. The two Indians are tame baboos. Besides, if I get this thing I told you of, I shall be off to South America in a few days, and that ought to shake off this old man of the tooth.”

“Of course it won’t; nothing will shake him off if he’s made the vow. Well, have your own way. One can’t expect a doctor of robust habit to take any reasonable precautions, I know. How is your room situated?”

“Pretty high up. Next to the attics, I imagine. It must be, because there is a little trap-door in the ceiling leading there.”

“A trap-door leading to the attics! Well, at all events there can’t be an oubliette, I suppose? Nor a four-post bed with a canopy that slides up and down, Jim; nor a revolving wardrobe before a secret passage in the oak panels?”

“Get on with you,” retorted Tulloch. “It’s just the ordinary contrivance that you find somewhere in every roof when the attics aren’t made into rooms. There’s nothing in it.”

“Possibly; but there may be some time. Anyway, drive a tack in and hang up a tin can or something that must clatter down if the door is raised an inch. You have a weapon, I suppose?”

“Now you’re talking, Wynn. I do put some faith in that. I have a grand little revolver in my bag and I can sleep like a feather when I want.”

“Little? What size does it take?”

“Oh, well, it’s a .320, if it comes to that. I prefer a moderate bore myself.”

Carrados opened a drawer of his desk and picked up half-a-dozen brass cartridges.

“When you get back, throw out the old ones and reload with these to oblige me,” he said. “Don’t forget.”

“Right,” assented Tulloch, examining them with interest; “but they look just like mine. What are they?--something new?”

“Not at all; but we know that they are charged and you can rely on them going off if they are fired.”

“What a chap you are,” declared Tulloch with something of the admiring pity that summed up the general attitude towards Max Carrados. “Well, for that matter, I must be going off myself, old man. I’m hoping for a letter about that little job and if it comes I want to answer it to-night. You’ve given me a fine time and we’ve had a great talk.”

“I’m glad we met. And if you go away suddenly don’t leave it to chance the next time you are back.” He did not seek to detain his guest, for he knew that Tulloch was building somewhat on the South American appointment. “Shall Harris run you home?”

“Not a bit of it. I’ll enjoy a walk to the station, and these Tubes of yours’ll land me within me loose-box by eleven. It’s a fine place, this London, after all.”

They had reached the front door, opened it and were standing for a moment looking towards the yellow cloud that arched the west end of the city like the mirage of a dawn.

“Well, good-bye, old man,” said Tulloch heartily, and they shook hands. At the touch an extraordinary impulse swept over Carrados to drag his friend back into the house, to implore him to remain the night at all events, or to do something to upset the arranged order of things for the next few hours. With the cessation of physical contact the vehemence of the possession dwindled away, but the experience, short as it was, left him white and shaken. He could not trust himself to speak; he waved his hand and, turning quickly, went back to the room where they had sat together to analyse the situation and to determine how to act. Presently he rang for his man.

“Some notes were taken after that little touch in Holborn this afternoon, Parkinson,” he said. “Have you the address of the leading motor-bus driver among them?”

“The London General, sir?”

“Yes; the man who was the first to stop.”

Parkinson produced his memorandum book and referred to the latest of its entries.

“He gave his private residence as 14 Cogg’s Lane, Brentford, sir.”

“Brentford! That is fortunate. I am going to see him to-night if possible. You will come with me, Parkinson. Tell Harris to get out the car that is the most convenient. What is the time?”

“Ten-seventeen, sir.”

“We will start in fifteen minutes. In the meanwhile just reach me down that large book labelled ‘Xavier’ from the top shelf there.”

“Yes, sir. Very well, sir. I will convey your instructions to Harris, sir.”

It was perhaps rather late for a casual evening call, but not, apparently, too late for Cogg’s Lane, Brentford. Mr Fitzwilliam--Parkinson had infused a faint note of protest into his voice when he mentioned the bus-driver’s name--Mr Fitzwilliam was out, but Mrs Fitzwilliam received the visitor with conspicuous felicity and explained the circumstances. Fitzwilliam was of a genial, even playful, disposition, but he had come home brooding and depressed. Mrs Fitzwilliam had not taken any notice of it--she put it down to his feet--but by cajolery and innuendo she had persuaded him to go to the picture palace to be cheered up, and as it was now on the turn of eleven he might be expected back at any moment. In the meantime the lady had a favourite niece who was suffering--as the doctor himself confessed--from a very severe and unusual form of adenoids. Carrados disclosed the fact that the subject of adenoids was one that interested him deeply. He knew, indeed, of a case that was thought by the patient’s parents to be something out of the way, but even it, he admitted, was commonplace by the side of the favourite niece. The minutes winged.

“That’s Fred,” said Mrs Fitzwilliam as the iron gate beyond the little plot of beaten earth that had once been a garden gave its individual note. “Seems strange that they should be so ignorant at a hospital, doesn’t it?”

“Hallo, what now?” demanded Mr Fitzwilliam, entering.

Mrs Fitzwilliam made a sufficient introduction and waited for the interest to develop. So far the point of Carrados’s visit had not appeared.

“I believe that you know something about motors?” inquired the blind man.

“Well, what if I do?” retorted the bus-driver. His attitude was protective rather than intentionally offensive.

“If you do, I should be glad if you would look at the engine of my car. It got shaken, I fancy, in a slight accident that we had in Holborn this afternoon.”

“Oh!” The driver looked hard at Mr Carrados, but failed to get behind an expression of mild urbanity. “Why didn’t you say so at first?” he grumbled. “All right; I’ll trot round with you. Shan’t be long, missis.”

He led the way out and closed the door behind them, not ceasing to regard his visitor with a distrustful curiosity. At the gate he stopped, having by that time brought his mind round to the requirements of the situation, and faced Carrados.

“Look here,” he said, “what’s up? You don’t want me to look at no bloomin’ engine, you know. I don’t half like the whole bally business, let me tell you. What’s the gaime?”

“It’s a very simple game for you if you play it straightforwardly,” answered Carrados. “I want to know just how much you had to do with saving that man’s life in Holborn to-day.”

Fitzwilliam instinctively fell back a step and his gaze on Carrados quickened in its tensity.

“What d’yer mean?” he demanded with a quality of apprehension in his voice.

“That is complicating the game,” replied Carrados mildly. “You know exactly what I mean.”

“And what if I do?” demanded the driver. “What have you got to do with it, may I ask?”

“That is very reasonable. I happened to be in the car following you. We were scraped, but I am not making any claim for paint whatever happened. I am satisfied that you did very well indeed in the circumstances, and if a letter to your people--I know one of the directors--saying as much would be of any use to you----”

“Now we’re getting on, sir,” was the mollified admission. “You mustn’t mind a bit of freshness, so to speak. You took me by surprise, that’s what it was, and I’ve been wound up ever since that happened.” He hesitated, and then flung out the question almost with a passionate directness: “What was it, sir; in God’s name, what was it?”

“What was it?” repeated the blind man’s level voice persuasively.

“It wasn’t me. I couldn’t have done nothing. I didn’t see the man, not in time to have an earthly. Then we stopped. Good Gawd, I’ve never felt a stop like that before. It was as though a rubber band had tightened and pulled us up against ten yards squoze into one, so that you didn’t hardly know it. I hadn’t nothing to do with it. Not a brake was on, and the throttle open and the engine running. There we were. And me half silly.”

“You did very well,” said Carrados soothingly.

“I did nothing. If it had been left to me there’d have been a inquest. You seem to have noticed something, sir. How do you work it out?”

Carrados parried the question with a disingenuous allusion to the laws of chance. He had not yet worked it out, but he was not disposed to lay his astonishing conclusions, so far as they went, before the bus-driver’s crude discrimination. He had learned what he wanted. With a liberal acknowledgment of the service and a reiteration of his promise to write, he bade Mr Fitzwilliam good-night and returned to his waiting car.

“Back home, Harris,” he directed. He had gone out with some intention of including Hapsburg Square in his peregrination. He was now assured that his anxiety was groundless.

But the next morning all his confidence was shattered in a moment. It was his custom before and during breakfast to read by touch the headings of the various items in the newspapers and to mark for Greatorex’s later reading such paragraphs as claimed his interest. Generally he could, with some inconvenience, distinguish even the ordinary type by the same faculty, but sometimes the inequality of pressure made this a laborious process. There was no difficulty about the larger types, however, and with a terrible misgiving finger-tip and brain had at once grasped the significance of a prominent heading:

FATAL GAS EXPLOSION HAPSBURG SQUARE BOARDING-HOUSE IN FLAMES

“Are you there, Parkinson?” he asked.

Parkinson could scarcely believe his well-ordered ears. Not since the early days of his affliction had Carrados found it necessary to ask such a question.

“Yes, sir, I’m here,” he almost stammered in reply. “I hope you are not unwell, sir?”

“I’m all right, thanks,” responded his master dryly--unable even then not to discover some amusement in having for once scared Parkinson out of his irreproachable decorum. “I was mentally elsewhere. I want you to read me this paragraph.”

“The one about Dr Tulloch, sir?” The name had caught the man’s eye at once. “Dear, dear me, sir.”

“Yes; go on,” said Carrados, with his nearest approach to impatience.

“‘During the early hours of this morning,’” read Parkinson, “‘52 Hapsburg Square was the scene of a gas explosion which was unhappily attended by loss of life. Shortly after midnight the neighbourhood was alarmed by the noise of a considerable explosion which appeared to blow out the window and front wall of one of the upper bedrooms, but as the part in question was almost immediately involved in flames it is uncertain what really happened. The residents of the house, which is a boarding establishment carried on by Miss Vole (a relative, we are informed, of Archdeacon Vole of Worpsley), were quickly made aware of their danger and escaped. The engines arrived within a few minutes of the alarm and soon averted any danger of the fire spreading. When it was possible to penetrate into the upper part of the house it was discovered that the occupant of the bedroom where the explosion took place, a Dr Tulloch who had only recently returned to this country from India, had perished. Owing to the charred state of the body it is impossible to judge how he died, but in all probability he was mercifully killed or at least rendered unconscious by the force of the explosion.’ That is all, sir.”

“I ought to have kept him,” muttered Carrados reproachfully. “I ought to have insisted. The thing has been full of mistakes.” He could discover very little further interest in his breakfast and turned to the other papers for possible enlargement of the details. “We shall have to go down,” he remarked casually. “Say in half-an-hour. Tell Harris.”

“Very well, sir.”

Greatorex, just arrived for the day, and diffusing an atmosphere of easy competence and inoffensively general familiarity, put his head in at the door.

“Morning, sir,” he nodded. “Tulloch’s here and wants to see you. Came in with me. Hullo, Parkinson, seen a ghost?”