The Three Sapphires Part 8

The maharajah now rose, clapped his hands, and when a servant appeared gave a rapid order. The servant disappeared, and almost immediately returned with a silver salver upon which were two long gold chains of delicate workmanship and an open bottle of attar of rose. The maharajah placed a chain about the neck of each sahib, and sprinkled them with the attar, saying, with a trace of a smile curving his handsome lips: "Sometimes, sahibs, this ceremony is just etiquette, but to-day my heart pains with pleasure because the son of my friend is here." He held out his hand, adding: "Prince Ananda must see that you have the best our land affords."

Chapter V

Swinton was glad when he saw his dogcart turn into the compound to take him to the keddah sahib's for tiffin. Lord Victor had been hypnotised by the splendour of Maharajah Darpore; he went around the bungalow giving vent to ebullitions of praise. "My aunt, but the old Johnnie is a corker! And all the tommyrot one hears at home about another mutiny brewing! d.a.m.n it, Swinton, the war chiefs who want every bally Englishman trained to carry a gun like a Prussian ought to be put in the Tower!"

An hour of this sort of thing, and with a silent whoop of joy the captain clambered into his dogcart and sped away, as he bowled along his mind troubled by the maharajah angle of the espionage game.

After tiffin with the major, and out on the verandah, where they were clear of the servant's ears, Swinton asked: "Who is the mysterious lady that rides a grey Persian?"

He was conscious of a quick turn of Finnerty's head; a half-checked movement of the hand that held a lighted match to a cheroot, and as the keddah sahib proceeded to finish the ignition he described the woman and her flight over the brick wall.

"She's Doctor Boelke's niece; she has been here about a month," Finnerty answered, when Captain Swinton had finished.

"I wonder why she risked her neck to avoid me, major?"

"Well, she's German for one thing, and I suppose she knows there's a growing tension between the two peoples."

Captain Swinton allowed a smile to surprise his always set face. "Do you know why I am here, major; that is, have you had advice?"

"Yes," the major answered.

"Very good," Captain Swinton declared. "I'll give you some data. Lord Victor's father, Earl Craig, is under-secretary to India. There was some extraordinary jumble of a state doc.u.ment intended for the Viceroy of India. Whether its misleading phraseology was carelessness or traitorous work on the part of a clerk, n.o.body knows, but it read that the sircar was to practically conscript Indians--Mussulman and Hindu alike--to fight against the Turks and Germans in the war that we all feel is about to come. This paper bore the official seal; had even been signed. Then Earl Craig's copy of it disappeared--was stolen from Lord Victor, who was acting as his secretary. A girl, with whom the young man was infatuated, was supposed to have taken it for the Prussians for use in India. The girl disappeared, and Lord Victor was sent out here for fear he would get in communication with her again. Neither Lord Victor nor the earl knows I am a secret-service man. Maharajah Darpore is marked 'low visibility' in the viceroy's book of rajah rating, and, as Earl Craig wanted an Anglo-Indian as a companion to his son, this seemed a good chance to investigate quietly. There's another little matter," the captain continued quietly as he drew from his pocket a sapphire in the rough.

"Where the devil did you get that, captain? I thought that old professor pirate had stolen it," Finnerty gasped.

"That's not the stone you lost last night, major."

Finnerty looked at Swinton incredulously as the latter handed him the sapphire, for it was exactly like the stolen stone, even to the inscription.

"Let me explain," Captain Swinton said. "Some time since one Akka, a hillman, came down out of Kululand into Simla leading a donkey that carried two bags of sapphires in the rough. n.o.body knew what they were, so, of course, he found it hard to sell his blue stones. That night the stones disappeared, and Akka was found in the morning at the bottom of an abyss with a jade-handled knife sticking in his back. He must have dropped over the rocks so quickly the killer hadn't time to withdraw his knife. About Akka's neck, hidden under his dirty felt coat, was hung this sapphire, and it was given to me, as I was put on the case. I took a trip up into Kululand with a hillman who claimed to have come in with Akka as guide. I got a very fine bharal head--almost a record pair of horns--and a bullet in my left leg that still gives me a limp at times, but as to sapphires in the rough I never saw another until last night."

Finnerty laughed. "India is one devil of a place for mystery."

Swinton related the incidents of the night before, and Baboo Da.s.s' story of the three sapphires, adding: "Of course that's Hindu mythology up to date, the attributing of miraculous powers of good and evil to those blue stones."

Finnerty shifted uneasily in his chair; then, with a little, apologetic smile, said: "I'm getting less dogmatic about beliefs and their tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs--absolute superst.i.tion, I suppose--and if a sapphire, or anything else, were a.s.sociated in my mind with disaster I'd chuck the devilish thing in the river."

"At any rate, major, the main thing, so far as my mission is concerned, is that if Prince Ananda happens to get possession of the three sapphires every Buddhist--which means all the fighting Nepalese--will believe the expected Buddha has arrived."

"By gad! And the three sapphires are in Darpore--the one that was stolen from me last night, the one stolen from Baboo Da.s.s, and this one."

"Prince Ananda has yours; I saw Boelke purposely tip over that table.

But who stole the one from the baboo I don't know; it couldn't have been a raj agent, for it belonged to the maharajah."

"Where did they come from?" Finnerty queried.

"Yours, of course, was on Burra Moti's neck, and she must have been attached to some temple; Akka probably murdered some lama who had this one about his neck; where Prince Ananda got the third one I don't know."

"By Jove!" Finnerty e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "It was a hillman that Moti put her foot on. He had been sent to steal that bell, as he couldn't carry the elephant."

"Here's another thing," Captain Swinton said. "In the United States there has been arrested a clique of Hindus who have sold a great quant.i.ty of rare old jewels, gold ornaments, and sapphires in the rough.

Machine guns and ammunition were bought with the money obtained, and quite a consignment is somewhere on the road now between China and India."

"Great Scott! Up this way--to come in through Nepal?"

"The stuff was shipped from San Francisco to Hongkong, and though the British government had every road leading out of that city watched, they never got track of it. Our men there think it was transshipped in Hongkong harbour and is being brought around to India by water."

"Does the government think the maharajah is mixed up in this?"

"I'm here to find out. He mystified me to-day. Gilfain thinks he's magnificent--as natural as a child. But he's too big for me to judge; I can't docket him like I can Ananda. He was as regally disinterested over the disappearance of that sapphire as the Duke of Buckingham was when his famous string of black pearls broke and scattered over the floor at the Tuileries; but the prince was seething."

Finnerty waved his cheroot in the direction of the palace hill. "The trouble is up there. Ananda is wily; he's like a moon bear he has there in a cage that smiles and invites you to tickle the back of his neck; then, before you know it, the first joint of a finger is gone."

A little lull in the talk between Swinton and Finnerty was broken by a turmoil that wound its volcanic force around the bungalow from the stables. Finnerty sprang to his feet as a pair of Rampore hounds reached the drive, galloping toward a tall native at whose heels came a big hunting dog.

"Faith, I was just in time," Finnerty said as he led the two hounds to the verandah, a finger under each collar; "they'd soon have chewed up that Banjara's dog."

The Rampores were very like an English greyhound that had been shaved; they were perhaps coa.r.s.er, a little heavier in the jaw. A panting keeper now appeared, and the dogs were leashed.

Seeing this, the native approached, and in a deep, sombre voice said: "Salaam, Sahib Bahadur!" Having announced himself, the Banjara came up the steps and squatted on his heels; the long male-bamboo staff he carried betokened he was a herdsman.

"What do you want, Lumbani?" Finnerty queried.

"Yes, sahib, I am a Banjara of the Lumbani caste. The sahib who is so strong is also wise in the ways of my people."

"I wonder what this will cost me in wasted time," the major lamented in English. "I judge his soul is weighted with matters of deep import."

Then, in Hindustani: "That's a true Banjara dog, Lumbani."

"Yes, sahib, he is one of that great breed. Also in the sahib's hands are two thoroughbred Rampores; they be true dogs of the Tazi breed, the breed that came from Tazi who slept by the bedside of Nawab Faiz Mahomed five generations since. The sahib must be in high favour with the Nawab of Rampore, for such dogs are only given in esteem; they are not got as one buys bullocks."

"What is it you want?" queried Finnerty.

The Banjara looked at Swinton; he coughed; then he loosened the loin cloth that pinched at his lean stomach.

"This dog, sahib--Banda is the n.o.ble creature's name--has the yellow eyes that Krishna is pleased with; that is a true sign of a Banjara." He held out his hand, and Banda came up the steps to crouch at his side.

At this intrusion of the native's dog, the patrician Rampores sprang the full length of their leash with all the ferocity that is inherent in this breed. A pariah dog would have slunk away in affright, but the Banjara's yellow eyes gleamed with fighting defiance; he rose on his powerful, straight legs, and his long fangs shone between curled lips.

"Good stuff!" Finnerty commented, and to his groom added: "Take the hounds away. He's a sure-enough Banjara, Swinton," he resumed in English. "Look at that terrier cast in the face, as though there were a streak of Irish or Airedale in him."

Indeed, the dog was a beauty, with his piercing bright eyes set in the long, flat head that carried punishing jaws studded with strong teeth.

The neck was long, rising from flat, sloping shoulders, backed up by well-rounded ribs and arched loins leading to well-developed quarters.

The chest was narrow and deep, and the flanks tucked up.