Caravans By Night Part 31

Kerth continued. "He told me the whole story.... That's all. And for that reason--and because she lied about Chavigny--I believe you should be wary of her. Balked affection is an unruly mount to straddle, and when a woman plans to make a fool of a man because he doesn't pay her any attention, and the man by his wits turns the affair so that _she_ is the fool--well, I'll say only that she's likely to cause trouble, especially if she has a Rajput strain in her blood."

Quiet followed. They rolled on toward the hotel. Trent was the first to speak.

"Just how did you do this?"--with a gesture that conveyed more than the speech.

In the semi-dark, un.o.bserved, Kerth smiled.

"Oh, it was easy enough," he drawled. "I determined to have a look at the instructions you received at Sarojini Nanjee's house, there in Benares. I didn't quite fancy the way she gave in to your request to take me along. When we returned to the hotel, I left you for a few minutes, if you recall. During that time I filled an envelope with blank paper, then went to your room and while we were talking, under the pretense of getting a match from your tunic, I exchanged envelopes."

"And you returned it that night?" Trent put in, with a smile.

"Yes, I was your nocturnal visitor. I left on an express for Calcutta that night. When I got there I haunted the environs of the old mandarin's establishment. The night you called I hid in the court--back of the house and just behind the room where you two were talking.... Oh, it was easy enough," he repeated.

"What about this?" Trent inquired, indicating the pendant.

"I intended to take a look through your cabin, on general principles, the first night out--and I happened along just as your servant and that other fellow staged their shindy outside your state-room. When you went on deck, I seized the opportunity. I found the pendant under the pillow and took it because I wanted to study the design--and--well, for other reasons, too. I didn't discover the Chavigny alias until later."

"I had the captain search the steerage pa.s.sengers for it," Trent said.

Kerth laughed. "I know you did--and I caused an inoffensive, fangless cobra to go to his Nirvana by hiding the thing in his gullet. I would have spoken to you on shipboard, but I was afraid of hidden eyes."

That explained the theft of the pendant on the _Manchester_ (thus Trent to himself), but who took it the first time, in Benares? Kerth was evidently ignorant of that. Guru Singh was the key to the riddle, and he silently cursed himself for having released him.

"What did you learn about the design?" he pressed on.

"A little," Kerth returned carelessly. "I spent this afternoon at the Bernard Library looking up all sorts of deities. The one on the piece of coral is Janesseron, the Three-eyed G.o.d of Thunder--a _Tibetan_ G.o.d."

Then, after a pause: "There may be some significance in the fact that the symbol of the Order is a Tibetan deity, and then, there may not.

I've formed a theory, and unless I'm greatly mistaken, you and I have a neat little sprint before we reach the so-called City of the Falcon. And if this city is where I believe it is, why, we.... But I'm antic.i.p.ating.

Anyway, I haven't the time to p.a.w.n off my theories upon you. I simply wished to let you know I wasn't in Bombay, and to return the piece of coral."

Another pause before he ventured:

"I suppose you're not at liberty to tell me how you came into possession of that?"--with a motion of his slim hand toward the pendant.

Trent considered, then replied, "Why, yes." And he told of finding Manlove in the ruined temple at Gaya. When he had finished, Kerth whistled softly.

"So!" he commented. "Chavigny at Gaya--but wait! When did I track him to the native _serai_ in Delhi?" He was silent for a moment. "It was Friday," he resumed, "no, Sat.u.r.day--I remember now. And what day was Captain Manlove murdered?... Monday--the twentieth? You see, then, that Chavigny would have had time to reach Gaya; but how in flaming Tophet did he get out of Delhi? You remember I told you I found blood-stains in his room at the _serai_.... Hmm. This is a complication. D'ye suppose Chavigny made a mistake--thought Manlove you? Yet why the deuce should he want to put you out of the way?"

A lengthy s.p.a.ce of silence followed. Kerth took up the conversation.

"I haven't the slightest idea why you went to that joss-house to-night; however, I'm glad I followed and"--he smiled--"saved one of the eyes of the empire."

"And I'm rather glad you followed, too"--this from Trent drily. "I sha'n't forget. I went there to meet a...." Followed a short description of Hsien Sgam, the Mongol, and an explanation of Trent's purpose at the House of the Golden Joss. Again, as he finished, Kerth whistled.

"Complication upon complication! D 'ye suppose he's one of the Order? I remember seeing him on the boat. What's his object in attempting to murder you? It's obvious that that was his purpose."

"I can't somehow adjust him with the Order," returned Trent. "He seems above that. He's capable of villainy all right--rather exquisite villainy, I imagine--but I can't a.s.sociate him with thievery and stolen jewels.... Did you see the face of the fellow who tried to kill me?"

Kerth nodded. "It was the priest who took you to that room. Oh, he was shrewd--or rather, the one who directed him! He had a maxim silencer on the revolver; and if I had been two seconds later, you would have had a steel morsel lodged somewhere between your chest and stomach. I didn't dare waste time to explain there; I was afraid there might be others, and two white men in a heathen prayer-house would have as much chance as a pair of bats in hades!" Kerth glanced ahead. "We'll be at your hotel in a few minutes," he announced, "and your shadow might be there, so I think I'll make my exit now. I'm leaving Rangoon to-morrow noon, as I daresay you are, too. I'll manage somehow to see you at Myitkyina."

He thrust one foot out of the gharry, upon the step, and stood there a moment, the reflection from pa.s.sing lamps upon his stained features. He was smiling his satanic smile--a rather impudent, careless expression.

"I think I shall pay another visit to the House of the Golden Joss," he said. "What you have told me of this Hsien Sgam interests me in him.

Good luck, major!"

With a wave of his hand he swung down and disappeared in the street.

3

When Trent reached the hotel he found Tambusami waiting, with no news of Guru Singh, and the Englishman dismissed the native and went to his room.

As he undressed, the coral pendant lay upon the table before his eyes and he stared at it fascinatedly--stared until the coral blended in with the silver and met his gaze like a monstrous blood-shot orb.... It was hard to believe that Chavigny was at Gaya, that it was the Frenchman who murdered Manlove. Chavigny--Gilbert Leroux. What reason had he to kill Manlove, unless, as he theorized before, the guilty one had been discovered at the bungalow by his victim and in the ensuing struggle the latter was stabbed? Or, as Kerth suggested, he might have mistaken Manlove for Trent, although he could think of no reason why Chavigny should desire his death. And there was Chatterjee--Chatterjee, who died with his secrets.... Chavigny at Gaya! It was incredible. Of course the piece of coral might have been left as false evidence, a blind. But who, other than a member of the Order of the Falcon, would possess the ornament, and would a member of that mysterious band have left the symbol to be found by the police?

Provided Chavigny was the murderer, would it not be natural for him to take steps to recover the pendant, once he discovered its loss? Perhaps it was he who stole it in Benares. But that did not seem likely, in the light of Guru Singh's actions. For why should Chavigny wish to return the oval to him? If....

Then Trent had an inspiration. Was the attempt to kill him at the House of the Golden Joss the work of Chavigny? But what of the Buddhist priest? Chavigny might have bought him; paid him to kill Trent. To go further, it was possible that Chavigny was on the _Manchester_.

Chavigny, an illusive personality, ever at his heels, like his own shadow! There was something intriguing in the thought. And it was plausible--plausible, too, that Chavigny, the notorious Chavigny, was the Falcon, the head of that nebulous order.

Theories, Trent concluded--only theories. He locked the pendant in his trunk and switched off the light.

As he lay in darkness, while lizards chirruped on the floor and the ceiling, a sense of cavernous aloneness enveloped him. It thronged with poignant thoughts. Manlove.... It seemed an age since he stood in the bungalow at Gaya that last morning. So much had happened since then--much to distract. Yet always, niched away in the subconscious, was the hurt, wearing deeper with a bruising force. Trent's nature was sterile for the average seeds of intimate kinships, but now and then--not more than half a dozen times in his life--one fell upon fertile soil. There was something fresh and strong in his a.s.sociation with Manlove. (An essence thrice sweet in the memory.) Their personalities seemed to have entered into a mystic communion of comradeship--a bond not of words nor demonstrations, but feeling. That was why he felt so keenly the bruise of it.

Gone, too, was the woman who had materialized from his world-scroll into intimate palpability, bringing the rich gift of her presence--and leaving the bitter-sweet pangs of her departure. He would find her again, for she had fixed herself in the inner-penetralia of his being.

But the period of waiting!... Waiting--love's Gethsemane since the first simian creatures battled in the wildernesses of a still-hot planet.

As he lay there, reflecting upon these things, he experienced an ache, a sensation of isolation, that was reminiscent of his boyhood--of a night when a shadowy being of antiseptics and sick-room odors roused him from sleep with the announcement that the man who had fathered him into existence was no longer in the house.

It dulled only when a sleepy intoxication came over him, and as he surrendered to it he visualized, in a dim, hazy way, a falcon, and it lay in a welter of blood.

CHAPTER VIII

"BEYOND THE MOON"

At noon the next day Trent drove to the station where Tambusami, having attended to his luggage, was waiting. The Englishman looked for Kerth among the travelers on the platform, but saw no one who even resembled him. However, he reflected as the train pulled out, Kerth might have changed his ident.i.ty and pa.s.sed within a foot of him without his knowledge!

When Pegu lay behind, he shifted his attention from the "Rangoon Gazette" to the endless panorama of paddy fields and scrub jungle. Yet he could not altogether divert himself. Invariably the landscape faded, to be replaced by the recollection of some recent scene: the court of the joss-house; the ride along Strand Road with Euan Kerth. But more frequently his mind was possessed with an image of starry l.u.s.ter and russet hair. The memory of Dana Charteris occurred suddenly, unexpectedly, in the very midst of other thoughts. She seemed a central force about which musings, retrospections and quandaries revolved. He found himself separating from their short a.s.sociation certain incidents and looking back upon them as through stained gla.s.s. He pictured her under the black and gilt scroll in the Chinese quarter; in the dusk of the Bengali theater; in the bow of the _Manchester_, beneath the sprinkled flame of tropic stars. These portraits arranged themselves in a mosaic--an exquisite inlay of romance. Romance. He clung to the word.

"The doctrine of Romance and Adventure--" She had said that "... in mellower years, to close your eyes and dream of wandering in the 'Caves of Kor' or the time you spent on a pirate island." She had the spirit of youth eternal--youth with its orient mirages. He was having the Great Adventure now. Soon it would be over. And then? Back to the old routine--medicines and sun-scorched villages. (The thought was new, strange. Had he ever been a doctor? It seemed so long ago!) But in the years to come, at night, over his pipe, he could dream of it all. The memory of things--that was life's recompense for taking them away.

Shortly after seven o'clock he arrived in Mandalay. As he left his carriage, he saw a familiar figure--Kerth, scar, drooping eyelid and all; saw him again, an hour and a half later, when he boarded the Myitkyina train.

A perceptible coolness invaded the carriage that night, and when Trent awakened in the morning he looked out upon jade-green hills. The scenery, as well as the people who stood on the railway platforms, had changed. Great fern trees and immense clumps of bamboo grew on the hillsides.