Читать книгу The Thunder Dragon Gate - Talbot Mundy - Страница 10

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LOGAN'S is a queer place. Its proprietor is Greek and the cooking Chinese. It stands at a corner where a busy street becomes a tributary of the Chandni Chowk and never less than thirteen nations mix into a stream that readily becomes a turbulent vortex. Any wind of politics can whip that swarm into a tantrum. In time of riot it is one of the first points that the armored lorries and machine-guns visit. European and American ladies have frequently been spat on at that corner by oriental gentlemen of prejudice and peculiar views.

Tom Grayne, at three minutes to nine, with his hands in his pockets, was more alert than he looked, but he was almost not alert enough. As he crossed the street toward Logan's a Ford roadster whipped around the corner, driven by a nondescript in a dirty turban. It missed him by less than an inch. As he turned his head to try to recognize the driver or take the car's number, a second Ford, coming the same way, actually touched him as it whirled by. He stepped backward against a burly Sikh, who cursed him savagely, inviting a blow, that would have led to a fight, that would have brought the police. Tom knew better than to get himself into police toils.

He grinned at the Sikh: "Run and tell them what you would have done if you'd dared!"

He walked into Logan's, where Dr. Lewis was already seated at a table. He sat down facing him and laid the box of chewing-gum on the table.

"Doped out yet what ailed that liver you were boiling?"

"Yes. A very rare poison, distilled from the roots of a small plant that grows in Sikkim. It takes twenty or thirty roots to yield a few drops of the stuff. It's sure death in a couple of days—attacks the liver—and seems to break it down in a way that I don't understand. I'm sending some of it to O'Mally. He won't make much of it steeped in alcohol—or I think not. But he'll enjoy the poison—three drops that would kill I don't know how many people."

Eiji Sarao entered. He nodded and smiled to Tom and took a table whence he could watch without turning his head. Tom spoke to Lewis:

"The two sticks of gum that are lying loose on top are new ones that I bought half an hour ago at Catesby and Simonds. Take one."

"Why? I hate the stuff."

Tom insisted. He took the other loose stick, broke off the paper.and chewed it. Lewis followed suit. Both chewed. They ordered dinner.

"After dinner, take the box," said Tom, "and have it analyzed." He explained why, and how he had come by the box. "Eiji Sarao," he added, "is having a whale of a good time watching us chew. Don't look at him. He's grinning to himself like a Chinese idol—cocksure funeral-to-morrow kind of grin. Any news at your end?"

"Yes. Quite a bit. A man who said he had come recently from Giang-tze, showing what may have been forged credentials from the Tashi Lama of all improbable people, came to the hospital and demanded to see Thö-pa-ga."

"How did he know he was in there?"

"That's the point. I asked him. He was nonplussed for a second, but they're quick to cover up, are those Northerners; they're not like Indians. An Indian only thinks he's inscrutable; whereas a trained Tibetan, is. He told me Thö-pa-ga has been expected for a long time, so he was on the lookout for him. He said that a patient who was discharged this after noon had run and told him. Lie, of course."

"Sure. Eiji Sarao told him, that's a safe bet. Did your visitor interview Thö-pa-ga?"

"No. Thought of letting him. Thought better of it. I said he's too ill. He isn't. Lungs are right enough. He'll get well at a high altitude, but he has been eating the wrong kind of food—such slush as this, for instance. Altitude and monastery grub will soon put him to rights. I didn't even tell Thö-pa-ga he'd had a visitor."

"Good."

"But he knew it."

"Uh-huh?"

"I was sent for in a hurry. He was sitting up in bed raving. Said he'd seen a shang-shang, so there must be some one come from Tibet."

"Any one else see it?"

"Yes. The head nurse. Thö-pa-ga is in a small room with his bed by the open window. There's no fire-escape there, but the wall is easily negotiable by any active person. I could climb it myself. In fact, we all suspect that window has been used to deliver forbidden drugs to patients. There's a locked fly-proof screen, but the wire gauze was recently damaged by a violent patient who tried to commit suicide. It was repaired, but the repair was badly done—probably on purpose—and the fact wasn't brought to my attention. It is quite easy, from outside, to detach and pull outward a whole corner of the wire gauze. Thö-pa-ga had asked for shaving tackle and a mirror. The head nurse let him have them. It's usual, unless forbidden in special cases. She had let him have one of those nickel-framed magnifying mirrors that was left behind by a patient and never claimed. Safety razor. She had left him with the mirror against his knees, leaning back against a heap of pillows, with his back to the window, shaving him self. He started raving before she had reached the next room. She was back in the nick of time to see through the window what she said (and she may have been right) was a Tibetan devil-mask. But she said it was green, which hardly fits. She's a good, strong, level-headed woman, but she may have been too badly frightened to observe it accurately. Thö-pa-ga had seen it in the shaving mirror, magnified and probably distorted. First he said it was a shang-shang. Then he said it was his own soul looking at him! The nurse had to keep him from cutting his throat. He had the blade out of the safety razor. So she couldn't look out of the window; and, of course, by the time they'd sent for me the thing was gone. I raised particular hell, but no one who had any business in the yard below would admit having seen anything."

Tom watched Eiji Sarao get up and go. They nodded to each other.

"If I were the Indian Government," he said to Lewis, "I would run Mr. Eiji Sarao out of the country so fast that he'd burn the tracks."

"And the evidence, too!" Lewis answered. "Understand me, I'm entirely ignorant of what it's all about or what the Government intends. I know nothing about you. Nothing. You called on me, mentioned the name of a mutual friend, and I'm living up to the Welsh reputation for hospitality."

"Quite so."

"So I'm going to introduce you, simply as an act of hospitable kindness, to a rajah. Have you eaten enough of this ullage? Like some dessert? More coffee? Let's go then. He's the Rajah of Naini Kol, which is a little bit of a principality tucked away in the Hills a couple of hundred miles from here."

"I think I've heard of him. Isn't he the scientist?"

"M-m-yes. He dabbles. He can afford it. His name is Dowlah, which it shouldn't be. He's a descendant on the female side of the famous Suraja-ud-Dowlah of Clive's day. Adopted or something. Anyhow, he hasn't inherited political ambition. He neglects his subjects, which is very fortunate for them; they're backward, but they're pretty decently ruled by a fat prime minister, who's too afraid of them to try any tyranny and too honest to steal; a damned rogue but a good bloke, if you understand me. He has his points. Dowlah has traveled a good deal, but he lives most of the time nowadays in Delhi. He is one of my private patients; I had to treat him for a nervous condition induced by too much effort to become a scientist without the necessary mental training."

"Strange hour to call on him, isn't it?"

"I'll tell you another peculiar thing. We're going to call on him without any one knowing but you, he and I. I'm going to leave you alone with him. Come and see me in the morning at the hospital and I'll let you know what reaction I get from this chewing-gum."

They took a taxi to Lewis's club, where Lewis squandered nearly two hours talking to acquaintances while Tom, on a veranda chair, sat staring at the night. But at last Lewis borrowed a friend's auto, driven by an ex-sepoy. They were whirled after that through so many streets that Tom was hard put to it to keep his sense of direction. Obeying orders, the ex-sepoy, a Mahratta, doubled and redoubled on the course until there was no longer the slightest question of their being followed. The car stopped at last in almost total darkness, beneath neem trees, on the western outskirts of the city.

Lewis dismissed the car. He and Tom walked to a high teak gate that opened in response to knocks and admitted them into a heavily scented garden. A fountain splashed. A path led to a front door, in a house that looked centuries old but recently modernized. An ancient, white-bearded attendant in a white smock emerged like a ghost from the shadows, greeted Lewis profoundly, and rang the bell.