Complete Works of Talbot Mundy, page 1014
She continued: “It is quite agreeable to you to be made use of by men who treat you as they would a weapon. They try you out, then use you, and you ask nothing better. You don’t expect to be rescued if you get into trouble. Your value is that you’re competent and silent. Their value to you is that they can let you do what you couldn’t without their leave and, at least to some extent, without their secret help. They wouldn’t turn you loose if they thought you might get into trouble for sentimental reasons. They wouldn’t risk using that kind of weapon. But is she a weapon such as you are?”
“Intelligence branch becoming sentimental?” Tom asked.
“No. Don’t be silly. And don’t try to make me think you’re not feeling a twinge of guilt. I am watching your eyes. Are you her friend?”
“I like her first rate.”
“Somebody told me that a hospital nurse has reported that Thö-pa-ga talks, even in his sleep, of Elsa Burbage. That may be a slight exaggeration. But it seems to be a fact that she has his confidence. I gathered there must be a very good reason for wanting Thö-pa-ga to confide in some one.
I have been asked to find out whether Elsa Burbage has in her the necessary steel to make it possible for her to go through with what perhaps may happen.”
“Then you know where she is?”
“No, I don’t.”
Tom scowled. But he detected the ghost of an observant smile, so he straightened out the frown. Nancy Strong continued:
“The men with whom you are dealing wouldn’t send one of their own daughters on such an errand as you’re letting Elsa Burbage undertake. In a way they resemble surgeons. Their sentiment ends where the operation begins. They trust nobody — not even one another. They can’t. They mustn’t. They must find out, but they must never be found out. They send a man or a woman into danger or worse as ruthlessly, and with as little compunction as a general who sends a platoon by night to a position from which he knows they can’t return alive. There are all sorts of problems. They can use all kinds of women, from a Mata Hari to an Edith Cavell, each in her own field.”,
Tom smiled reproachfully. “I said I’d listen. But — well, never mind, we’ve lots of time. Go ahead.”
“Yes,” she said, “I know you know all that. But you haven’t thought what it probably means for Elsa Burbage. A woman, Mr. Grayne, who doesn’t adventure off the beaten path is entitled to and usually gets conventionally humane and sometimes chivalrous treatment, even nowadays. But the minute she consciously oversteps the line, she has forfeited her feminine rights and privileges. She is no more entitled then to chivalrous consideration than, for instance, you are. No part of her is any longer sacred. She becomes a weapon. And a weapon that breaks, misfires, becomes rusty, or useless for any other reason, is simply thrown away.”
“What do you propose to do about it?” Tom asked.
“Nothing. I was asked to study and report, not to interfere or advise. But I was also asked to get in touch with you.”
“And to report on me, too?”
“Are you angry?”
“If I were, I wouldn’t let you know it.”
“Will you play fair?”
“Now what?”
“I have told you an intimate personal secret. Don’t you think it would be fair play to do me a very personal favor in return?”
“Say what you mean.”
“Send Elsa Burbage home to England!”
“Uh-huh. So, if you okay her, she may go to Tibet, but you don’t want the responsibility? Is that the idea?”
“You said you wouldn’t ask questions. Send her home, Mr. Grayne.”
“What makes you think she’d obey me? Do you think I would have any use for a girl who would scram because some one had told me that some one else said she was soft?”
“Very well. Will you try to persuade her to go home?”
“Because you told me your secret? Are the cases parallel?”
“If you know India, and the Hills, and Tibet, then you know I’m right. If you don’t know what I mean, then you had no right to bring a young girl to India.”
Tom conceded a point. “Well, you did lay your bet on the board, I admit. Okay, I will put it up to her. But I don’t guarantee the result.”
“Thank you. I believe you will keep your promise.” Suddenly she laughed. “But it’s a good example of why the individuals of whom we were speaking mustn’t trust each other. I had absolutely no right to exact that promise. It’s entirely personal between you and me.”
“I know better than that,” Tom answered. “You’re obeying orders and shielding the man who told you what to do. That’s proper. Tell you what. Move your things into my compartment and have it all to yourself. You’ll be more comfortable without some one’s feet in your lap. I’ll find a shake-down somewhere else on the train.”
She nodded — understood him to mean he wasn’t angry.
“Isn’t there plenty of room for us both in here?”
“Yes, I suppose there is.”
Tom went in search of a porter to bring her belongings from the other compartment. He took his time about it. He put his own bag on the corner seat that Miss Strong had vacated, with a belligerent abruptness that amounted to an ultimatum. The seat was henceforth his. He wasn’t at all sure he wanted much more of Nancy Strong’s conversation. She wasn’t likely to tell him anything important, and it might prove too easy to tell her too much.
CHAPTER 17. “Guilty. I shouldn’t have done it.”
TOM tried to peer into Abdul Mirza’s compartment, but the blinds were drawn. So were the blinds of the other compartment, in which the staff of secretaries, or whatever they were, were as silent as dead men. He loafed about for a while in the corridor, but the compartment doors didn’t open, so after half an hour or so he returned and sat down again opposite Nancy Strong.
“Done Dutch aunting?” he hinted.
“No. I am just getting into my stride. It’s very good of you to listen. Do you know a little church in Bristol named St. John’s? A stone church, where the Clifton Road crosses the street that leads to the Suspension Bridge?”
Tom stared hard. Her eyes were laughing at him. It was a palpable hit, and he couldn’t hide it.
“Why didn’t you pull this out of the bag to begin with?” he retorted.
“It was at the bottom of the bag. And besides, I’m a woman. Please believe it is a sheer coincidence that I happen to know that church. I went there to attend my sister’s wedding, during the last year of the World War.”
“Well? What of it?”
“It’s your turn,” she answered. “Tell me.”
“So they know that, do they?”
“Oh, yes. But they would like to know more. Why did you marry Elsa Burbage?”
“Dammit, why shouldn’t I marry her?”
“You seem to think you shouldn’t have. Isn’t she—”
Tom interrupted. He spoke quietly, without emphasis, and yet every other word was like a hammer-blow. It was as if he were laying his thoughts on an anvil and cracking them up for his own analysis.
“I will tell you this much, Elsa Burbage is a little bit of a Cossacky-looking, well-bred smiler. She has as much pluck as intelligence. As much intelligence as good looks. Too good looking, as a matter of fact, but too intelligent to be spoiled by fools who’d like to paw her over. She’s on the level. Knows her stuff. I taught her most of it, but she learned a lot in the British Museum. She can read Tibetan as well as I can, and I’m rated an expert. I have a big strong-box in a bank vault chock-a-block with real stuff that I’ve not had time to study, let alone to translate. Elsa is to have all that, if I get bumped off. And there’s other stuff in there, that shouldn’t be seen for a generation. Elsa would know what to destroy and what to keep and what to publish. As I said, she’s on the level. She’d do the right thing. She couldn’t be tempted to do the wrong thing.”
“But she married you. Was that the wrong thing?”
“The worst break I ever made. A sentimental mistake. They’re the worst kind. I could have consulted a lawyer and made a will leaving the contents of the strong-box to her.”
“But perhaps you were afraid she might marry some one else?” said Nancy Strong. “You know the proverb: a mistress keeps a secret for a week, a wife as long as she loves you, a friend forever, but other men’s wives never leave off telling it.”
“No,” Tom answered. “I don’t own her. We agreed she can have a divorce, at my expense, on demand, at any time, provided she doesn’t swap horses in mid-stream. If she should fall in love, she’d have to wait until she could get a divorce, in Mexico or somewhere, without getting my name into public print. It was to be a strictly secret marriage, for strictly business purposes.”
“Now that the secret is out, she may have a divorce?”
“Yes. Why not? She’d better do it. D’you know why I’ve been trusted, quite a bit, by certain people?”
“I believe I can guess,” Nancy Strong answered. She was just plump enough to be unable to suppress a slight ripple of mirth. “You are probably known as a man who can’t be taken in or hoodwinked by any woman. Were you hood winked by Elsa Burbage?”
“No, I wasn’t. I’ve told you what she is. I’ll back my judgment against yours or any one’s. In fact, that’s what I did do. She was wild to come to India, and to help me to enter Tibet. She had worked so hard, and schooled herself, and saved her money, and kept physically fit, and so set her teeth into the job of making herself useful to me, that I yessed her. I shouldn’t have. But I did. I even said I’d try to get her into Tibet. She deserves it. She’s ace-high to any deuce of an adventuress I ever met.”
“But that isn’t why you married her?”
“Yes, that’s one reason. If I should get bumped off, she might stand a better chance as my legal widow than if people should find out she’d merely tagged me along. I’ve seen several women get a hell of a cold deal because they couldn’t show a marriage certificate. And they were damned good women; I’m not talking about kept women or Shanghai passage-beggars.”
“You admit you made a bad break.”
“Only time in my life I was sentimental.”
Nancy Strong a bit too visibly suppressed an Old Faithful geyser of amusement. She used her handkerchief. It did sound a bit like a sneeze. But she controlled her voice perfectly:
“Hadn’t you better ask her to go away and divorce you? Didn’t you say, in Mexico?”
“I’ll have to think that over.”
Tom went out and paced the corridor. He had something else to think about. Dowlah. Abdul Mirza. Noropa. For fifteen or twenty minutes he kept an eye on the doors of two closed compartments. However, no luck yet. So he returned and sat down again.
“Verdict?” Nancy Strong asked.
“Guilty. I shouldn’t have done it. It was probably vanity. I guess a psychoanalyst would say I craved a she-disciple, to make me feel like a guru. Elsa will stick to her guns, mind you. Why shouldn’t she? But the marriage has ruined the team. If I order her home, she can claim privilege. If I should offer any mushy reasons for avoiding danger, she can quote our bargain. We agreed, she’s entitled to take all chances, at her own risk, same as I am.”
Nancy Strong opened her bag and snapped it shut, but she made no other sign of having reached a climax. Her voice was normal:
“Would you like me to suggest in the proper quarter that she should be sent home? That would not involve you. She would never know who advised, or who ordered it. She need never know that you and I discussed her.”
“Go to hell,” Tom answered. “Before I’d do her any dirt like that, I’d brain you with a monkey-wrench and throw the wrench into the works. If you or they want her run out of India, say it to me. I’ll pull my freight and hers, too. I know how to get to Tibet without double-crossing a good kid.”
Nancy Strong rippled all over with laughter.
“Very creditable, Mr. Grayne! One of these days, when you do fall in love with a girl, I wonder what lengths you won’t go to for her sake. She will be able to count on you when her back is turned, won’t she! Very well, I promise I won’t suggest any official move of that sort.”
“Care for some dinner?”
She laughed again. “You have a grand way of denying anger. Yes, I would like dinner. Do you trust me to keep my promise?”
“If they order her deported, I will know at whose door to deliver the bouquet,” he answered.
“And if they don’t — no flowers, Mr. Grayne, by request.”
“Understood and agreed. Let’s go eat.”
No sign of Abdul Mirza, nor of any of his companions, except that a waiter was removing soiled dishes from the prime minister’s compartment, but he had closed the door behind him before Tom could get a glimpse. However, it wasn’t that compartment that interested him as much as the other. Prime ministers, as a rule, don’t do their own dirty work; they look the other way while some one does it who can be repudiated after the event. The other compartment door was shut, blinds drawn, and not a sound within.
However, he had better luck after dinner. A silk-clad secretary sort of person came out of Abdul Mirza’s compartment and entered the other one just as Tom entered the corridor on his way from the dining-car. Nancy Strong, behind him, was left imagining what she pleased. Tom passed the door in time to get one swift glimpse before it slammed shut. He had seen what he wanted.
“Do you sleep well on a train?” he asked when he and Nancy Strong had sat down again facing each other.
“Yes. I usually turn in early and sleep till daylight.”
“Okay. I won’t disturb you. I may find some one to talk to. Might talk all night.”
“Talk to me, if that’s your trouble.”
But the spell was broken. Conversation lagged. It was barely ten o’clock when Tom strolled down the corridor and claimed the lower berth on which he had left his bag. He sprawled with the bag under his elbows, so that he could see under the blind into the corridor. It was midnight, or later, before he moved from that position. Then he opened the door, making hardly a sound, and tiptoed out.
He was almost too late. By the time he reached the car ahead there was some one standing by the door of the compartment in which Nancy Strong lay asleep. A very tall, bare-headed man in a dark suit. He had opened the door and was trying to peer into the dark interior. His back was toward Tom. The corridor lights were turned low. There were deep shadows.
Train thief? Hardly likely on a modern express train.
There is a whole caste of professional thieves whose only means of livelihood is robbing Indian trains and their passengers. So almost anything was possible. But the man looked familiar.
Tom crowded himself against the curve at the end of the corridor. The man appeared to be listening. He opened the door a trifle wider. Apparently the slight squeak of the hinges awoke Nancy Strong or perhaps she hadn’t been asleep. She switched on the light. The man scooted away, along the corridor toward the car ahead. Tom didn’t follow; a train corridor is a mean place for a fight, especially with some one who probably carries a knife, or worse. Instead, he went and told Nancy Strong to lock the door on the inside.
“I’ve found a man to talk to. Good night. See you in the morning.”
He went and turned in — slept like a top. He didn’t wake until the train neared Siliguri.
CHAPTER 18. “I’ve no right to look in his pockets.”
“SILIGURI! Change for Darjeeling!”
Pulses begin to beat faster at Siliguri. There the two-foot gauge Himalayan Mountain Railway awaits the transcontinental mails. Six hundred feet above sea level, six thousand feet below Darjeeling, and piping hot from the snipe and rice swamps of Bengal, Siliguri is the threshold of another world. The plains cease. The mountains begin. The early morning excites imagination — sends it leaping from forest to forest, across the intervening tea gardens, toward the grandest view on earth, where the Himalayan ranges rise against the northern sky.
Tom pitched his bag to a Lepcha porter on the platform and followed it. He was the first passenger to leave the train. There were all sorts of people on the platform, all in motion — Lepchas, Gurkhas, Tibetans, Bengalis — tea-planters in Terai hats — British and Indian soldiers — police — gazelle-eyed women — beggars and thieves and princes’ sons. Tom told his porter to go and wait for him “perhaps a long time” in the shade near the auto-parking place.
He knew the station well. A score of strides and he was hidden in the almost dark room where the emergency oil-lanterns stand in a row on a shelf. There was only one small dirty window, rather high up; he had to stand on a box and clear a peephole through the dust. He saw Abdul Mirza and his companions, and presently Nancy Strong go hurrying after their baggage toward the narrow gauge train. But no Noropa — not yet. He was almost beginning to lose hope that Noropa had seen him enter the lamp room, when he caught sight of a man coming along the platform from the rear end of the train.
Sure thing! Unmistakably Noropa, in an ill-fitting, hurriedly-made bazaar suit and a Lepcha turban, looking like a school-teacher. He was wearing spectacles, probably plain glass. He was stooping a little to make his great height less noticeable. No bag, no porter. He threaded his way through the dwindling crowd as if he had business at the far end of the platform.
There was a momentary tumult of excitement, just in front of the window, where some Indian passengers were being met by noisy friends and relatives. Some one’s caged monkey got loose and a dog gave chase. Shrieks, shouts, roars of laughter. Noropa was very clever, the way he snatched the opportunity to step sideways and make for the lamp-room door. He didn’t dash in. He stopped and stooped to tie his shoe-lace, so as to look back and make sure he was unobserved. Then he entered quite quietly.
But he didn’t shut the door swiftly enough. He drew his weapon just a fraction of a second too soon; the light shone on it before the door shut and Tom recognized the kind of weapon he had to deal with. That was half the battle, but the other half wasn’t so simple. He didn’t want a corpse on his hands, nor even a badly injured man. He didn’t want a police investigation. He would never be forgiven if he set police investigators on the qui vive.
