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Though the end of my fate be tears, saith the widow, shall I take the end for the beginning? Short though this life be, I will laugh while I may, and not know sorrow only.

—From the Ninth (unfinished) Book of Noor Ali.

THE bishop did his best to understand Blair Warrender. They sprawled in deep chairs in the starlight. The bishop wiped sweat from his face. Warrender ordered a drink from a soft-footed servant in ghost-white and did his utmost to explain himself.

"I'm a policeman. I'm not in politics. It's my job to try to understand what's going on. I'm not permitted prejudices."

"All the same, you have them," said the bishop. "Mind you, we're not discussing religion, or even conventions, least of all politics. But surely you are prejudiced against the type of woman represented by this Wu Tu?"

"There is no worse public danger."

Warrender signed the chit for the drink with his left hand; his right was feeling in his pocket. He pulled out a sketch done in crayon.

"The woman you have in mind," he said, "looks something like this. Her place is a sort of vacation resort, a pleasure palace, if you wish to call it that, where she herself presides. Her real purpose is political intrigue, and, through it, power for herself. There was rather a long pause while the bishop examined the sketch. "If she's like that," he said, "one can imagine her hold over Chetusingh. But that only makes it more difficult. I am asking ,you to save him from her. What is that woman—Chinese?"

"No. The sketch exaggerates the Chinese touch, although it's there. She is Portuguese; Chinese-Sikh-French—born in Hongkong. She's a British subject. Anything else you'd care to know about her? I could tell you her bank balance and the names of her correspondents in Berlin, New York, Paris. Or about the young Chinese widows who help her to entertain."

The bishop stirred uneasily. "These racial mixtures almost baffle one's hope for humanity! If she looks like that she should be at Hollywood playing vampire parts. Beautiful, yes. But that's the pity of it. She suggests to me an octopus. She reached out one subtly mysterious tentacle and drew Chetusingh into her maw. May God have mercy on him."

"What do you propose?" asked Warrender. "There's no law I know of against a woman being beautiful and witty." The bishop handed the sketch back. "Who drew that?"

"I did."

"Possibly you, too, admire her too much. You didn't do that from memory. She must have posed to you for it. Well, you have talent."

"In my profession," said Warrender, "all a fellow's talents come in usefully. Besides, there's the inevitable retirement to bear in mind. When my day comes to draw a pension I mean to take up painting—and live. I'd rather be a duffer at that than die of boredom. However, what do you suggest?" He returned the sketch to his pocket.

"Less reprehensible people than Wu Tu are in prison," the bishop answered at last. "Such women break laws when it suits them. By breaking down character they induce other people to break laws. Like you, I am not in politics. But she is. It happens I know that. I have been told so by perplexed Indian Christians, who come to me for advice on their personal problems. To be in her kind of politics, but out of prison, suggests to me— I can only say tolerance on the part of the police. That may be convenient for the moment. It probably is. But—"

There was another long pause. The anger in Blair's eyes became less latent, but he sat still. The bishop again mopped the sweat from his face; then he drew out a cigar case, opened it, snapped it shut and returned it to his pocket without taking a cigar. "You are Chetusingh's friend," he said, "and he yours. I know you are his hero. He has admitted that to me many times in my house, before this Jezebel got hold of him. You have your public duty to perform, of course. But you are one of the few men in India to whom a wide discretion in the course of duty is absolutely necessary and is therefore permitted.

"It would be useless to deny that; I know it is true. What higher duty have you than you owe to a friend and comrade of an alien race, who has adopted our religion, in the teeth of a malignant opposition from his family and from his whole clan, simply because he admired our principles and our adherence to them? You can save Chetusingh from that woman by using your authority against her. Do it. Warrender, in the name of common decency, if for no other reason."

"Have you spoken with Chetusingh?" Blair asked him.

"Yes. But I haven't his confidence since he fell into that woman's clutches. He used to ask my advice. Now, on the rare occasions when I see him, he is either flippant or silent and, I think, resentful."

"Rajput pride is touchy stuff," said Blair. "You may have flicked him on the raw." He passed his cigarette case to the bishop and their eyes met straight for a moment. His were baffling, although the bishop's were as easy to understand as plain print: he was hiding nothing. "I will do what I can," he said after a moment, and there was nothing obscure about that remark. It was a full stop.

"Bless you," said the bishop. He lighted the cigarette. The flame of the match revealed embarrassment as he snatched at thought after thought for a change of subject. "By the way," he asked off-handedly, "any news about Brigadier-General Frensham?"

"No."

"They tell me it's in headlines in the London papers."

"Yes."

"Three months missing, and no trace—no clues—is it another of these insoluble mysteries?"

"Perhaps," said Blair. "Good night, sir."

"Good night. You forgive my confidences?"

"Nothing to, forgive. I won't discuss them."

"Sphinx! Well—I enjoyed the dinner immensely. Good night."

Blair walked to police headquarters, answering the salutes of constables on duty with a nod and a stare that seemed to act like a tonic. They stiffened. Responsibility in some way sat more valiantly on their shoulders for having seen him. At headquarters. Indian subordinates stirred as a tuning-fork answers a master-tone. He spoke to one dark-eyed veteran, who stood at ease with the familiarity of friendship, and who nodded—deep unto deep.

"All has been ready," the Indian answered, "since the chief telephoned at eight-thirty." Later, at nearly eleven o'clock, a Pathan walked out, muttering, through the side-street entrance to the detention cells. It was an unusual hour, but he could hardly be anything else than a released, prisoner. He swaggered with the sulky-jaunty truculence, of a Pathan recovering lost dignity, but he looked rather lost and feckless without a weapon. He thrust his way between the passers-by, and took the street past the King Edward Memorial Hospital toward the dera of the Kabuli Afghans, where the horse-traders stay who come down from the North to sell fat-rumped ponies to inexperienced British subalterns, and to spread through teeming slums and credulous bazaars amazing tales of Northern Asia in arms. As he stood for a moment, etched and shadowed by the naked electric light outside the dera entrance, a bearded Afghan, on his way out of the dera, paused and stared.

"By God, what wonders next?" the Afghan exclaimed. "O Ismail, what knife-feud brought thee hither? It was in Poona I last saw thee. Was the Poona hasheesh too strong? Or did the Sellers of Delights neglect thee when they had thy money? What now?"

"Get thee back to Kabul, to thy wife!" Ismail retorted. He pushed past the Afghan, swaggering through into the shadowy saddle- and spice-smell of the dera, vanishing along a corridor, under a stairway. A key that creaked noisily turned behind him. Then the Afghan followed and stood listening, but all he heard was the thump of a mattress or something like it against the door on the inside. He could see nothing through the keyhole, so he went away about. h!s business with the slippered, awkward gait of a middle-aged man who has spent two thirds of his life on horse- or camel-back.

Near midnight, he whom the Afghan had addressed as Ismail walked out of the dera with another Pathan and the two walked solemnly along the empty streets until they reached the dismal quarter where the mill-hands sleep like corpses in the gutter; thence, on through even narrower, shuttered and winding alley-ways toward a more prosperous section, where a Hindu temple loomed, its shadow lit by little lamps that looked choked by the hot dark.

Near there a police patrol stopped them: it was only three days since some Moslems had butchered a sacred cow in that temple entrance, and there are more ways than that of defiling Hindu temple steps. But both men shelved passes, and the signature on them worked like magic. The police did not even wait to watch which way they went.

They took a rather wider street, where tired trees loomed against the stars. Near the end of the street they made peculiar signals on the door of a balconied house. There were beggars lurking in the shadows, as always near such houses: some of them stirred like graveyard ghouls, observed for a moment and then dozed again: they wasted no importunity on Pathan night-errants. But there was one near the door, all eyes, amid smelly rags, in shadow. He might be a Bauriah—one of the criminal tribe that shams asceticism to impose on poetry. He spoke:

"Protectors of the poor, nine who have entered this house gave me nothing. The Allknowing seeth. The Allseeing knoweth. Alms! Alms!"

"Allah is all around thee! Allah protect thee! Await His pleasure!" answered the Pathan who had been addressed as Ismail. He gave him nothing.

The heavy door opened inward cautiously. The two passed in, in silence, into darkness, standing still until the outer door was shut and bolted,at their backs. Then an inner door opened suddenly into an electric lighted hall, where a number of low-caste, well-dressed servants lurked around a heavy wooden stairway, and on the tiles, beside a heavy mat, was a row of slippers, some new, some old. but none of Bombay craftsmanship. Both Pathans kicked off their footgear: he knew as Ismail tripped on the mat, uncovering a pair of imported brown-and-white shoes that looked incongruous in that place, but he appeared not to notice them.

"See that I get my own again," he ordered, scowling so fiercely that the custodian of slippers cringed. Then he led up the dark teak stairway without ceremony. But a drumstick, pulled by a cord from below, thumped on a gong up above to announce him, and a door at the stair-head opened before he reached it.

A young Chinese girl, as insolent as fate, in a jacket and trousers of blue-and-amber flowered silk, confronted him beneath a gilded dragon. Behind her, down a long corridor, there was mandarin-palace loot—jade—crystal —lacquer—gossamer curtains—rose-hued light from hidden electric bulbs—a smell of sandalwood— a haze of incense—weird, dim music. She herself looked like an antique, sloe-eyed, with a black fringe straight across her forehead. She was smoking a cigarette in a long jade tube. Her intensely intelligent eyes —no other gesture—observant, indifferent, self-assured— directed both men toward a doorway twenty steps along the corridor on the left hand. She closed the stair-head door behind them and followed, blowing smoke-rings.

The Pathans swaggered through a clattering curtain of metallic beads into a room part Indian, part Chinese, richly carpeted. There was a long, deep divan. On the floor were heaped cushions of gorgeous colors. Opposite the door a gilded dragon-screen concealed one corner: and beside that, on a mandarin's throne, sat the woman who owned the place. Her age might not be guessed. Good humor and the full flood of physical health obeyed intelligence, concealing all but what she chose should seem: and she was lovelier to the eye than any cream-and-honey quadroon who ever maddened Paris. Forbidden knowledge, that had not wearied her, laughed forth from dark eyes and carmined lips. Eurasian, slim, so marvelously formed and subtly strong that the ease of her poise suggested motion, she was dressed in jet-black silk. The jacket, open at the throat, revealed a daffodil-yellow lining and a throat that Rodin might have thumbed from creamy meerschaum.

A big diamond flashed in her dark hair. Pearls on the lobes of her ears stole glow and color from her skin. She had jade bracelets that clashed when she moved, but no other jewelry: there were no rings on her strong hands, and her hands looked young. But even younger and more graceful were the naked feet that lazed below the black silk, which suggested rather than revealed impudently shapely legs. A hint, but no more than a hint of Chinese hovered near her eyes: they were the eyes of the devil, beautiful with love of dangerous living.

"Hello. Warrender," she said.

"Evening, Wu Tu," he retorted. He seemed undisturbed by being recognized, but her eyes darkened.

"Don't you call me that—you!"

"Very well, don't call me Warrender."

"Blair—eh?"

"I am Ismail ben Alif Khan."

"But why the masquerade? Why don't you come alone to see me? Why bring Chetusingh? Why do you choose to dress like Orakzai Pathans? They fight like dogs and love like pigs, except when they are drunk with hasheesh; then they sleep like stuffed pythons."

"Let me see behind that screen," said Blair.

But Chetusingh forestalled him—too late by a stride; as he reached it, a low door hidden by the screen thumped shut and a bolt clicked. She seemed indifferent. "You have at least the manners of Pathans."

Chetusingh moved one wing of the screen away from the wall, so that he could watch the low door. Then he and Blair sat on the divan, drawing their feet up under them. Blair said something in a low voice and Chetusingh went to the curtained door, glancing into the passage both ways, returned and sat down again.

"You are as stupid as Pathans," said Wu Tu. "You know well, Chetusingh, that men are not murdered in my house. I don't permit it. Otherwise, why do you think that a Rajput Chr-r-ristian" (she filled the words with venom) "was here night after night—and no knife in his liver? Tell me."

There was no impatience in her voice—no anger in her eyes, even when Chetusingh smiled without answering. She was only making conversation while she eyed Blair Warrender. It was his smoldering gaze that amused her. She mocked him:

"Take care! Beware of my merry widows!"

Weirdly half-heard chords of eastern music from another room counter-pointed the inflection of her voice. "Ismail ben Alif Khan the Orakzai" (her voice and her smile were almost a caress) "is no concern of mine. But Blair—"

She lingered on the word. Her sinuous ease, giving scented heat and mellow light wove and again rewove imagined calm; but its weft and its woof were danger, beyond guessing.

"My merry widows shed humility and meekness and all those vices when they left home. Do they care for a Pathan's dignity? What if one of them should pull that turban off and laugh at an Englishman's clipped head?"

"There are nine men here to whom I wish to speak," said Blair abruptly.

"Set a new spy at the outer door! There are ten men. I would not describe them as your bodyguard!" Then she added in the vernacular, "Diwaza bund hai."

The news that the outer door was locked made Chetusingh stir uncomfortably. Wu Tu drew some paper money from her bosom and without glancing at it tossed it into Chetusingh's lap.

"Go and play with the little widows!"

Chetusingh was well taught. He examined the money before he tossed it back to her. Then he glanced at Blair, who nodded. Chetusingh walked out into the corridor and turned left. The Chinese girl parted the curtains, making the beads jingle to attract attention; at the hardly noticeable movement of Wu Tu's hand she withdrew and followed Chetusingh.

"Now you are not afraid to talk to me," said Wu Tu.

"No," he answered.

She drew her legs up under her and arranged a cushion so that she could loll back comfortably.

"Would you like a drink? Smoke? No? Let us be frank with each other."

He smiled. "Jenny, are you ever frank with anybody?"

"Always! But don't you call me Jenny. I am that to the fools whom I entertain in my house, and who borrow money from me secretly, and who slip—slip—slip into my power—it would surprise you to know—"

"It wouldn't. You needn't brag about it. I could give you a partial list of your creditors."

"To the Sikhs and the men from the North I am Soonia."

He nodded. "Soonia Singh in Berlin, Paris, New York, Brussels?"

"You know too much. I am Wu Tu to my enemies. To you, Blair—"

"Suit yourself. If you prefer it, I will call you Marie."

"That is my true name—Marie d'Alençon. It is on my passport. Let us talk truth to each other. Why have you stayed away? And, why send Chetusingh? Do you think that nine-and-eighty nights ago I let you sketch me— sat to be stared at by your eyes, that torture because they see so much, and burn, and tell me little—do you think I did that for Chetusingh's sake?"

"Do you suppose I came here to make love to you?" he retorted. "Chetusingh was spying on you. You know that."

"Why him? That convert-puritan so careful of his soul that he draws in his breath when he tells unavoidable lies! I tortured him. He would have bored me to death if I had not made trouble for him. I let his bishop know that he has been dealing in unchristian plans."

"Why?"

"Because 'I know how he feels toward that bishop—as a chela toward his guru. Yet he might not explain to the bishop, who feels toward him as guru to his chela. Are there hotter hooks than that on which to draw a convert?"

"Probably not. What I asked you is, why did you do it?"

"To bring you here. Why else? I could have had him beaten to death in the streets, and none the wiser, but I wanted you here. It wasn't easy" (her eyes smiled reminiscently) "to reach the bishop's ear and make him think he thought of that. But why didn't you come alone? I want you!" She leaned back on the cushion, put her arms behind her head, smiled —and her smile seemed all surrender. "Don't I look good? Don't you like me?"

"Yes. I can like without smashing and grabbing. There are ten men here. What are they doing?"

"People come here for amusement."

"Murder amuse them?"

"Not in my house, if they murder one another, sometimes—elsewhere—that is not strange. When was murder anything but a natural consequence of"—she spoke slowly, almost purring—"intruding—unwisely—amid emotions not understood?"

He got up. "You may as well come with me," he said. "I am going to interview those men."

"Wait!" Her dark eyes suddenly grew liquid with excitement. There was a change in her voice. Beyond, or beneath, or around its luring, lazy sensuousness there was an unguarded overtone of danger, like a wolf's yelp very far off, coming nearer. "Three months ago, when you sketched me, I said—"

"Yes, I know what you said."

"You savage! Blair, your cruel heart glows through your eyes! You love strength. You love nothing else. You are on the side of the law by accident. You have no morals—none, I tell you! You are only loyal. And to what are you loyal? England? You would dread to live in England. You would leave India unless it were a battle-ground for all your talents. You love battle, because it makes you feel your strength, and you are drunk with strength! So to what are you loyal?"

"To the job," he answered.

"Not you! You are loyal to your hunger, just like any other savage! Duty? That is nothing to you except that it means to be strong—stronger—strongest—and then stronger again beyond the dream of devils! That is why you love danger."

"Do I? Well, what of it?"

"Love me! I am danger!"

"You love strength in order to corrupt it, Wu Tu."

"Call me Marie! Are you incorruptible? You dare me? Think a minute! I can snap my fingers, Blair, and ruin you."

"Try it," he answered.

"You policeman!" She stood up and faced him, laughing. With a naked toot she kicked his shin, triumphant, daring him. She wasn't afraid of his strength; she craved it. "Love me, you savage! I will give you the keys of India—of Asia! You devil, love me!"

"Savages don't love," he answered. "Give me a cigarette and don't be silly."

He returned to the divan. She followed and sat beside him, curling up at one end with her naked feet toward him. She tossed him her platinum cigarette case.