Читать книгу Caravans By Night - Harry Hervey - Страница 5

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Night wove its shuttle across the sky, beading the dusk with stars. The Southern Cross lay mirrored in the Sarasvati and the Khan, and in the lake at Sukhnewás; it pulsed above the gardens of Lal Bagh, above Sharifa Street and those other narrow highways that vein the Holkar's capital; it peered down inquisitively into the gloom of the Great Bazaar as Muhafiz Ali, having finished a meal of curry and rice, quitted his shop and hurried toward the dâk bungalow.

That this Leroux Sahib had commissioned him to copy a jewel-pattern of the Maharajah's regalia no longer presaged evil in his mind. Nor did he seek an explanation. True, it mystified him. But there were some things one should not know. And, to him, the secrets of the Government were numbered among these. The Raj had banished the old order of things, for no more did princes sit in golden howdahs upon caparisoned state elephants; nor did they indulge, as of old, in the venerable pastime of pigsticking; they rode in automobiles and played a game on horseback with an absurd ball....

Muhafiz Ali had ceased long ago to wonder at the baffling mechanism of the Government, and satisfied himself with the assurance that Allah did not intend he should understand.

So Raj meant Riddle.

When he reached the dâk bungalow he found Leroux Sahib sitting upon the veranda. The white man led him inside.

"Well?"—this with a gleam of the black eyes.

"I will do it, O cherisher of the poor."

"The price?" The Mussulman named an outrageous figure—and held his breath. The man inquired:

"How long will it take?"

"Seven days; perhaps less."

The sahib frowned, tugged at his yellow beard.

"I must have it in five days."

"Impossible, O Burra Sahib!" A pause. "Unless—of course—"

A smile. "Not another rupee do you get, you old brigand!" he declared good humoredly. "And five days, I say. Settled? Thirty-five rupees extra when it is done, half the price in advance."

He drew from his pocket a wallet and counted out a number of Government of India notes.

"Remember, this is to be quiet," he cautioned. "I will call now and then to see how you are coming on."

As Muhafiz Ali made his way back to the bazaar, he congratulated himself upon getting so easily the price he had set upon the work, and regretted that he had not inflated it a little more. However, he was well pleased with the day's business. He paused once on the homeward journey to place a four-anna bit in the bowl of an emaciated, ash-painted fakir who sat before the alms-house, and arrived at his shop in a state of excellent spirits.

He made a light and opened the chest in which he kept his necklaces. The instant he saw the top tray he detected a flaw. Unlike most merchants, he was very careful in the arrangement of his necklaces; in one tray were agates, in another blue sapphires; thus with all his beads.

And a string of creamy-luster Mirzapore jade lay in the tray with the clear, deep-green fei tsui.

A cold suspicion uncoiled in his brain. He stood motionless. This could mean but one thing: some one had entered his shop while he was away. He quickly counted the necklaces. None were missing. Nor did a hasty inventory of the lower tray show that anything had been removed. The other chests were under the protection of European padlocks.

Who had entered his shop, and why? Nothing had been stolen. The door was locked.... But the rear! Ah! The court! Why had he not thought to barricade that also against thieves? But had a thief disturbed the beads? A thief would have taken them. After all, was not it possible that he had placed the necklaces in the wrong tray? Possible, but not probable. No, he was certain a hand other than his own had dropped the jade from Mirzapore in with the fei tsui stones.

Yet, he told himself, he had not been robbed. So why be uneasy? But he could not rid himself of the uncanny suspicion that devil-business was afoot. He would feel more secure had he not lost the Sulaimaneh ring.

Upon an impulse he went to the door and peered into the street. The shop of Venekiah, the Brahmin, was dark. From a nautch-house close by came the muffled throbbing of tom-toms—a restless pulse of the night. A man in a Punjabi head-dress lounged under a rheumy incandescent further along the dim street.

Muhafiz Ali turned back, gravely troubled. He locked the door.

Of a certainty devil-business was afoot.