The Winds of the World Part 17

"Very well."

Kirby dived through his door, while Warrington went behind the shay to have a good look for causes. He could find none, although a black leather ap.r.o.n, usually rolled up behind in order to be strapped over baggage when required, was missing.

"Didn't see who took that ap.r.o.n, did you?" he asked the risaldar; but the risaldar had not known that it was gone.

"All right, then, and thank you!" said Warrington, walking off into the darkness bareheaded, to help the smell evaporate from his hair; and the shay rumbled away to its appointed place, with the babu's loin-cloth inside it on the front seat.

It need surprise n.o.body that Colonel Kirby found time first to go to his bathroom. His regiment was as ready for active service at any minute as a fire-engine should be-in that particular, India's speed is as three to Prussia's one. The moment orders to march should come, he would parade it in full marching order and lead it away. But there were no orders yet; he had merely had warning.

So he sent for dog-soap and a brush, and proceeded to scour his head. After twenty minutes of it, and ten changes of water, when he felt that he dared face his own servant without blushing, he made that wondering Sikh take turns at shampooing him until he could endure the friction no longer.

"What does my head smell of now?" he demanded.

"Musk, sahib!"

"Not of dog-soap?"

"No, sahib!"

"Bring that carbolic disinfectant here!"

The servant obeyed, and Kirby mixed a lotion that would outsmell most things. He laved his head in it generously, and washed it off sparingly.

"Bring me brown paper?" he ordered then; and again the wide-eyed Sikh obeyed.

Kirby rolled the paper into torches, and giving the servant one, proceeded to fumigate the room and his own person until not even a bloodhound could have tracked him back to Yasmini's, and the reek of musk had been temporarily, at least, subdued into quiescence.

"Go and ask Major Brammle to come and see me," said Kirby then.

Brammle came in sniffing, and Kirby cursed him through tight lips with words that were no less fervent for lack of being heard.

"Hallo! Burning love-letters? The whole mess is doin' the same thing. Haven't had time to burn mine yet-was busy sorting things over when you called. Look here!"

He opened the front of his mess-jacket and produced a little lace handkerchief, a glove and a powder-puff.

"Smell 'em!" he said. "Patchouli! Shame to burn 'em, what? S'pose I must, though."

"Any thing happen while I was gone?" asked Kirby.

"Yes. Most extraordinary thing. You know that a few hours ago D Squadron were all sitting about in groups looking miserable? We set it down to their trooper being murdered and another man being missing. Well, just about the time you and Warrington drove off in the mess shay, they all bucked up and began grinning! Wouldn't say a word. Just grinned, and became the perkiest squadron of the lot!

"Now they're all sleeping like two-year-olds. Reason? Not a word of reason! I saw young Warrington just now on his way to their quarters with a lantern, and if he can find any of 'em awake perhaps he can get the truth out of 'em, for they'll talk to him when they won't to anybody else. By the way, Warrington can't have come in with you, did he?"

Kirby ignored the question.

"Did you tell Warrington to go and ask them?" he demanded.

"Yes. Pa.s.sed him in the dark, but did not recognize him by the smell. No-no! Got as near him as I could, and then leaned up against the scent to have a word with him! Musk! Never smelt anything like it in my life! Talk about girls! He must be in love with half India, and native at that! Brazen-faced young monkey! I asked him where he got the disinfectant, and he told me he fell into a mud-puddle!"

"Perhaps he did," said Kirby. "Was there mud on him?"

"Couldn't see. Didn't dare get so near him! Don't you think he ought to be spoken to? I mean, the eve of war's the eve of war and all that kind of thing, but-"

"I wish you'd let me see the Orders of the Day," Kirby interrupted.

"I want to make an addition to them."

"I'll send an orderly."

"Wish you would."

Five minutes later Kirby sat at his private desk, while Brammle puffed at a cigar by the window. Kirby, after a lot of thinking, wrote:

"Risaldar-Major Ranjoor Singh (D Squadron) a.s.signed to special duty."

He handed the orders back to Brammle, and the major eyed the addition with subdued amazement.

"What'll D Squadron say?" he asked.

"Remains to be seen" said Kirby.

Outside in the muggy blackness that shuts down on India in the rains, Warrington walked alone, swinging a lantern and chuckling to himself as he reflected what D Squadron would be likely to invent as a reason for the smell that walked with him. For he meant to wake D Squadron and learn things.

But all at once it occurred to him that he had left the babu's loin-cloth on the inside front seat of the shay; and, because if that were seen it would have given excuse for a thousand tales too many and too imaginative, he hurried in search of it, taking a short cut to where by that time the shay should be. On his way, close to his destination, he stumbled over something soft that tripped him. He stooped, swung the lantern forward, and picked up-the missing leather ap.r.o.n from behind the shay.

The footpath on which he stood was about a yard wide; the shay could not possibly have come along it. And it certainly had been behind the shay when they left barracks. Moreover, close examination proved it to be the identical ap.r.o.n beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Warrington began to hum to himself. And then he ceased from humming. Then he set the lantern down and stepped away from it sidewise until its light no longer shone on him. He listened, as a dog does, with intelligence and skill. Then, suddenly, he sprang and lit on a bulky ma.s.s that yielded-gasped-spluttered-did anything but yell.

"So you rode on the luggage-rack behind the carriage, did you, babuji?" he smiled. "And curled under the ap.r.o.n to look like luggage when we pa.s.sed the guard, eh?"

"But, my G.o.d, sahib!" said a plaintive voice. "Should I walk through Delhi naked? You, who wear pants, you laugh at me, but I a.s.sure you, sahib-"

"Hush!" ordered Warrington; and the babu seemed very glad to hush.

"There was a note in a corner of that cloth of yours!"

"And the sahib found it? Oh, then I am relieved. I am preserved from pangs of mutual regret!"

"Why didn't you give that note to Colonel Kirby sahib when you had the chance? Eh?" asked Warrington, keeping firm hold of him.

"Sahib! Your honor! Not being yet remunerated on account of ring and verbal message duly delivered, commercial precedent was all on my side that I should retain further article of value pending settlement. Now, I ask you-"

"Where was Ranjoor Singh when he gave you that ring and message?" demanded Warrington sternly, increasing his grip on the babu's fat arm.

"Sahib, when I have received payment for first service rendered, my disposition may be changed. I am as yet in condition of forma pauperis."

Still holding him tight, Warrington produced twenty rupees in paper money.