Caravans By Night Part 12

Not until the train jerked out of the station did the strain snap. He relaxed wearily upon the leather-lined seat, a steady hammer of pain at the back of his neck. He felt suddenly alone, intensely alone--a sensation that carried him back to his boyhood, to a night when he awoke in a strange, black-dark room. He shuddered involuntarily. His eyelids burned. Sleep--sleep. The engine seemed to purr that one word, and the swaying and rocking of the carriage lulled him into drowsiness.

He fell asleep, suddenly, with a picture of the hushed room--the diamond-winged dragonfly--painted upon his vision.

7

Trent was brought out of slumber by the sound of his name. He opened his eyes and perceived that the train was at a standstill. Heat pressed close about him, stifling him. Thrusting his head out of the window, he read the name of the station. He was but a short distance from Gaya. A telegraph messenger was walking along the platform shrilling:

"Major-rr Tr-rent Sahib!"

Trent called him, and as the train pulled out he tore open the envelope.

"Chatterjee found in river this morning," the message ran. "Stabbed. Let you hear particulars at Benares. Urqhart."

For some time after Trent read it he stared out of the carriage-window.

Chatterjee--stabbed. He let the words filter and re-filter through his brain, let them settle and sink in. They gave a new significance to the encounter with the native on the previous night. Chatterjee--stabbed.

Murdered? Or had he taken his own life--in remorse? But the river....

No. Murdered. That word stood out like wet type. Chatterjee--stabbed.

Why? Obvious enough. The native's look of fright explained that. Perhaps he knew who slew Manlove. Chatterjee, whose lips were sealed. Blind alley. He faced a wall behind which was hidden the ident.i.ty of Manlove's slayer. Manlove, who, to his knowledge, hadn't an enemy--

He stiffened at a sudden recollection; brought his fist down upon his thigh. Idiot! Colossal idiot! Why had not this occurred to him before?

It was fantastic, yet....

He procured from his pocket a pencil and an envelope, and scribbled on the back of the latter--scribbled a description of the woman he had met on the Meera road; of the cobra-bracelet, of the encounter and his suspicions. This he would send to Colonel Urqhart at the next station.

When he had finished, he read it, struck out a few words; folded the envelope; returned it to his pocket, and settled back in the seat to reflect upon the tragic immutability of circ.u.mstance.

CHAPTER IV

HOUSE OF THE SWAYING COBRA

Trent, rested only by short naps on the way, stepped from the railway carriage in the Cantonment Station, in Benares, and, after a ride past dusty red brick barracks, reached the hotel--a series of small houses, with one main building. To his disappointment he found no message from Colonel Urqhart. Nor was Euan Kerth there. Mr. Kerth had arrived, he was told, but was not in at present. Trent left word to be notified directly Kerth returned, and went to his room, in one of the out-buildings.

Several hours later, refreshed by a sleep, washed and shaved, he seated himself on the portico to wait for Euan Kerth. On one end, peddlers were besieging a group of tourists; on the other, a girl with bronze-colored hair sat reading, a native in a flowered chintz coat drowsing at her feet. There was something slumberous and torpid in the scene. India, like the world, relapsed into a lethargy after the tumult of war.

When he slipped his hand into his tunic pocket for his cheroots, he found, instead of smokes, a hard, cold object. Withdrawing it, he recognized, not without some surprise, the oval of coral he had found in Manlove's hand. He remembered that Merriton had left it on the table in his bungalow, and he had put it in his pocket with the intention of returning it to the Head of Police before leaving Gaya. He would have to send it back, now that a new complication had arisen--namely, the death of Chatterjee; it might prove a valuable clue.

He studied it. Time had mellowed the design and smoothed the once-sharp edges of the silver that rimmed the oval. Coral, he knew, was rarely used for purposes of ornamentation in India. Too, the three-eyed deity, a hideous figure, puzzled him, though he was by no means unversed in the symbolism of the many religions of the land. Coral and silver. The combination haunted him, was linked with an illusive fragment in his memory. It came to him suddenly. Tibet. Coral and silver from Tibet.

While he was stationed at Darjeeling he frequently saw men from Phari and Gyangste with coral and silver ornaments.

He continued to stare at the oval. The ugly face of the three-eyed little G.o.d seemed to mock him; challenged him to fathom the power that impelled these waves of mystery that lapped up and touched him, and receded with their secrets. It brought a vision, too, of the hushed room at Gaya.

That was a hurt which only the ointment of time could heal. The tissues of human relations.h.i.+p mend slowly. His friends.h.i.+p for Manlove had taken seed deeply, in a measure unconsciously, nurtured by months of intimate companions.h.i.+p; and now his sensitive nature tingled and throbbed at the violence with which it had been wrenched from its roots.

With the murder looming in his thoughts, his mission shrank. Adventure!

Fabulous isles!... Queer how last night's stars lose their fever and pa.s.sion when they become a memory. But perhaps the work would distract him. At least it was different, and in his present mental condition the very thought of medicines and human ills was intolerable.

Shadows lengthened between the buildings; the peddlers and tourists disappeared; the bronze-haired girl had closed her book and lay back in the chair, staring into s.p.a.ce. Upon her he unconsciously focussed his attention, and as he contemplated her, impersonally and as he would an inanimate object, she s.h.i.+fted her eyes to him, stared coolly, turned away, rose and entered her room.

And Trent forgot her.

A few minutes later, as he was at the point of making another inquiry about Euan Kerth, he saw a man leave the central building and move toward the portico where he sat--a man who approached and spoke his name.

"Major Trent?"

They shook hands. Kerth was an immaculately dressed fellow, with smooth, olive-tinted features. A rather Mephistophelian face. A small black mustache, carefully waxed, helped the suggestion. His hair was s.h.i.+ny-black, as were his eyes, and his dark complexion was only emphasized by white twills and a white felt hat. His fingers were long and slim, almost too well-shaped to be masculine. Something very fine and sleek, Gallic rather than Anglo-Saxon--that was Euan Kerth.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting," he apologized in a too-long-in-the-tropics drawl. "I've been with the Commissioner. You arrived this afternoon?"

Trent nodded. He saw behind the a.s.sumed languorous air a keen, searching glance; Kerth was measuring him as he was measuring Kerth. He came to the tentative decision that he wasn't quite sure he liked him.

"Sit down, won't you?"--perfunctorily.

Kerth dropped with lazy grace into a chair and sat with his legs sprawled wide apart. He proffered some of the blackest cheroots Trent had ever seen.

"My Tamils," he explained, with an indolent smile. When the smokes were lighted, he asked: "Just how much do you know of this little party we're about to start, major?"

"As little as possible, I think."

Kerth puffed on his cheroot. "Ever heard of this woman who styles herself the Swaying Cobra?"

"Never."

"Neither have I." A pause. "Of course you've heard of Chavigny?"

Trent's answer was a smile.

"We almost got him the other day, in Delhi. We traced him to a native serai--Queen's Serai; but he eluded us. Left only a few blood-stains on the floor of his room. Blood-stains sometimes tell a lot, but they didn't in this instance. But Chavigny's bottled up in Delhi. Yet"--Kerth smiled--"yet I wouldn't be at all surprised if he pulled the wool over the Department's eyes. Of course you think he's involved in this affair?"

Trent's eyes followed the spiral of smoke from his cheroot.

"He might be," was the slow reply, "and, again, he might not. What does Sir Francis think?"

A wry smile. "He rarely confides in the Department. At any rate, I don't fancy we'll encounter this Chavigny. You know he's been running at large under the name of Leroux--Gilbert Leroux. Remember that; might be useful some time. If you want my opinion--But I'm sure you don't. Now, as for this Swaying Cobra--"

But he was interrupted as a porter appeared and salaamed.

"Major Trent Sahib?" he enquired.

Trent nodded and received an envelope with his name written upon it.

"Pardon me"--this to Kerth as he tore off the end.

The missive was written in English, in feminine handwriting, and carried a faint, illusive odor--that of sandalwood.