Chapter Five

An Audit by the Gods

(I)

Thus spoke the gods from their place above the firmament

Turning from the feasting and the music and the mirth:

"There is time and tide to burn;

Let us stack the plates a turn

And study at our leisure what the trouble is with earth."

Down, down they looked through the azure of the Infinite

Scanning each the meadows where he went with men of yore,

Each his elbows on a cloud,

Making reckoning aloud -

Till the murmur of God wonder was a titan thunder-roar.

"War rocks the world! Look, the arquebus and culverin

Vanish in new sciences that presage T. N. T!

Lo, a dark, discolored swath

Where they drive new tools of wrath!

Do they justify invention? Will they scrap the Laws that Be?

"Look! Mark ye well: where we left a people flourishing

Singing in the sunshine for the fun of being free,

Now they burden man and maid

With a law the priests have laid,

And the bourgeois blow their noses by a communal decree!

"Where, where away are the liberties we left to them -

Gift of being merry and the privilege of fun?

Is delight no longer praise?

Will they famish all their days

For a future built of fury in a present scarce begun?"

"Most Precious friend … please visit me!"

The one thing in India that never happens is the expected. If the actual thing itself does occur, then the manner of it sets up so many unforeseen contingencies that only the subtlest mind, and the sanest and the least hidebound by opinion, can hope to read the signs fast enough to understand them as they happen. Naturally, there are always plenty of people who can read backward after the event; and the few of those who keep the lesson to themselves, digesting rather than discussing it, are to be found eventually filling the senior secretaryships, albeit bitterly criticized by the other men, who unraveled everything afterward very cleverly and are always unanimous on just one point—that the fellow who said nothing certainly knew nothing, and is therefore of no account and should wield no influence, Q. E. D.

And as we belong to the majority, in that we are uncovering the course of these events very cleverly long after they took place, we must at this point, to be logical, denounce Theresa Blaine. She was just as much puzzled as anybody. But she said much less than anybody, wasted no time at all on guesswork, pondered in her heart persistently whatever she had actually seen and heard, and in the end was almost the only non-Indian actor on the stage of Sialpore to reap advantage. If that does not prove unfitness for one of the leading parts, what does? A star should scintillate—should focus all eyes on herself and interrupt the progress of the play to let us know how wise and beautiful and wonderful she is. But Tess apparently agreed with Hamlet that "the play's the thing," and was much too interested in the plot to interfere with it. She attended the usual round of dinners, teas and tennis parties, that are part of the system by which the English keep alive their courage, and growing after a while a little tired of trivialty, she tried to scandalize Sialpore by inviting Tom Tripe to her own garden party, successfully overruling Tripe's objections.

"Between you and I and the gate-post, lady, they don't hanker for my society. If somebody—especially colonels, or a judge maybe,—wanted to borrow a horse from the maharajah's stable,—or perhaps they'd like a file o' men to escort a picnic in the hills,—then it's 'Oh, hello, good morning, Mr. Tripe. How's the dog this morning? And oh, by the way—' Then I know what's coming an' what I can do for 'em I do, for I confess, lady, that I hanker for a little bit o' flattery and a few words o' praise I'm not entitled to. I don't covet any man's money—or at least not enough to damn me into hell on that account. Finding's keeping, and a bet's a bet, but I don't covet money more than that dog o' mine covets fleas. He likes to scratch 'em when he has 'em. Me the same; I can use money with the next man, his or mine. But I wouldn't go to hell for money any more than Trotters would for fleas, although, mind you, I'm not saying Trotters hasn't got fleas. He has 'em, same as hell's most folks' destiny. But when it comes to praise that ain't due me, lady, I'm like Trotters with another dog's bone—I've simply got to have it, reason or no reason. A common ordinary bone with meat on it is just a meal. Praise I've earned is nothing wonderful. But praise I don't deserve is stolen fruit, and that's the sweetest. Now, if I was to come to your party I'd get no praise, ma'am. I'd be doing right by you, but they'd say I didn't know my place, and by and by they'd prove it to me sharp and sneery. I'll be a coward to stop away, but—'Sensible man,' they'll say. 'Knows when he isn't wanted.' You see, ma'am, yours is the only house in Sialpore where I can walk in and know I'm welcome whether you're at home or not."

"All the more reason for coming to the party, Tom."

"Ah-h-h! If only you understood!"

He wagged his head and one finger at her in his half-amused paternal manner that would often win for him when all else failed. But this time it did not work.

"I don't care for half-friends, Tom. If you expect to be welcome at my house you must come to my parties when I ask you."

"Lady, lady!"

"I mean it."

"Oh, very well. I'll come. I've protested. That absolves me. And my hide's thick. It takes more than just a snub or two—or three to knock my number down! Am I to bring Trotters?"

"Certainly. Trotters is my friend too. I count on him to do his tricks and help entertain."

"They'll say of you, ma'am, afterward that you don't know better than ask Tripe and his vulgar dog to meet nice people."

"They'll be right, Tom. I don't know better. I hope they'll say it to me, that's all."

But Tess discovered when the day came that no American can scandalize the English. They simply don't expect an American to know bow to behave, and Tom Tripe and his marvelous performing dog were accepted and approved of as sincerely as the real American ice-cream soda— and forgotten as swiftly the morning following.

The commissioner was actually glad to meet Tripe in the circumstances. If the man should suppose that because Sir Roland Samson and a judge of appeal engaged in a three-cornered conversation with him at a garden party, therefore either of them would speak to the maharajah's drill-master when next they should meet in public, he might guess again, that was all.

One of the things the commissioner asked Tripe was whether he was responsible for the mounting of palace guards—of course not improperly inquisitive about the maharajah's personal affairs but anxious to seem interested in the fellow's daily round, since just then one couldn't avoid him.

"In a manner, and after a fashion, yes, sir. I'm responsible that routine goes on regularly and that the men on duty know their business."

"Ah. Nothing like responsibility. Good for a man. Some try to avoid it, but it's good. So you look after the guard on all the palaces? The Princess Yasmini's too, eh? Well, well; I can imagine that might be nervous work. They say that young lady is—! Eh, Tripe?"

"I couldn't say, sir. My duties don't take me inside the palace."

"Now, now, Tripe! No use trying to look innocent! They tell me she's a handful and you encourage her!"

"Some folks don't care what they say, sir."

"If she should be in trouble I dare say, now, you'd be the man she'd apply to for help."

"I'd like to think that, sir."

"Might ask you to take a letter for instance, to me or his honor the judge here?"

The judge walked away. He did not care to be mixed up in intrigue, even hypothetically, and especially with a member of the lower orders.

"I'd do for her what I'd do for a daughter of my own, sir, neither more nor less."

"Quite so, Tripe. If she gave you a letter to bring to me, you'd bring it, eh?"

"Excepting barratry, the ten commandments, earthquake and the act of God, sir, yes."

"Without the maharajah knowing?"

"Without his highness knowing."

"You'd do that with a clear conscience, eh?"

Tom Tripe screwed his face up, puffed his cheeks, and struck a very military attitude.

"A soldier's got no business with a conscience, sir. Conscience makes a man squeamish o' doing right for fear his wife's second cousin might tell the neighbors."

"Ha-ha! Very profoundly philosophic! I dare wager you've carried her letters at least a dozen times—now come."

Again Tom Tripe puffed out his cheeks and struck an attitude.

"Men don't get hanged for murder, sir."

"For what, then?"

"Talking before and afterward!"

"Excellent! If only every one remembered that! Did it ever occur to you how the problem might be reversed ?"

"Sir?"

"There might one day be a letter for the Princess Yasmini that, as her friend, you ought to make sure should reach her."

"I'd take a letter from you to her, sir, if that's your meaning."

Sir Roland Samson, K. C. S. I., looked properly shocked.

There are few things so appalling as the abruptness with which members of the lower orders divest diplomacy's kernel of its decorative outer shell. "What I meant is—ah—" He set his monocle, and stared as if Tripe were an insect on a pin-point. "Since you admit you're in the business of intriguing for the princess, no doubt you carry letters to, as well as from her, and hold your tongue about that too?"

"If I should deliver letters they'd be secret or they'd have gone through the mail. I'd risk my job each time I did it. Would I risk it worse by talking? Once the maharajah heard a whisper—"

"Well—I'll be careful not to drop a hint to his highness. As you say, it might imperil your job. And, ah—" (again the monocle,) "—the initials r. s.— in small letters, not capitals, in the bottom left-hand corner of a small white envelope would—ah—you understand?—you'd see that she received it, eh?"

Tom Tripe bridled visibly. Neither the implied threat nor the proposal to make use of him without acknowledging the service afterward, escaped him. Samson, who believed among other things in keeping all inferiors thoroughly in their place decided on the instant to rub home the lesson while it smarted.

"You'd find it profitable. You'd be paid whatever the situation called for.

You needn't doubt that."

Tess, talking with a group of guests some little distance off, observed a look of battle in Tom Tripe's eye, and smiled two seconds later as the commissioner let fall his monocle. Two things she was certain of at once: Tom Tripe would tell her at the first opportunity exactly what had happened, and Samson would lie about it glibly if provoked. She promised herself she would provoke him. As a matter of fact Tom gave her two or three versions afterward of what his words had been, their grandeur increasing as imagination flourished in the comfortable warmth of confidence. But the first account came from a fresh memory:

"No money you'll ever touch would buy my dog's silence, let alone mine, sir! If you've a letter for the princess, send it along and I'll see she gets it. If she cares to answer it, I'll see the answer reaches you. As for dropping hints to the maharajah about my doing little services for the princess,—a gentleman's a gentleman, and don't need instruction— nor advice from me. If I was out of a job tomorrow I'd still be a man on two feet, to be met as such."

A man of indiscretion, and a diplomat, must have fireproof feelings. As Tess had observed, Samson blenched distinctly, but he recovered in a second and put in practise some of that opportunism that was his secret pride, reflecting how a less finished diplomatist would have betrayed resentment at the snub from an inferior instead of affecting not to notice it at all. As a student of human nature he decided that Tom Tripe's pride was the point to take advantage of.

"You're the very man I can trust," he said. "I'm glad we have had this talk. If ever you receive a small white envelope marked r. s. in the left-hand bottom corner, see that the princess gets it, and say nothing."

"Trust me, eh?" Tripe muttered as Samson walked away. "You never trusted your own mother without you had a secret hold over her. I wouldn't trust you that far!" He spat among the flowers, for Tom could not pretend to real garden-party manners. "And if she trusts you, letters or no letters, I'll eat my spurs and saber cold for breakfast."

Then, as if to console himself with proof that some one in the world did trust him thoroughly, Tom swaggered with a riding-master stride to where Tess stood talking with a Rajput prince, who had come late and threatened to leave early. The prince had puzzled her by referring two or three times to his hurry, once even going so far as to say good-by, and then not going. It was as if he expected her to know something that she did not know, and to give him a cue that he waited for in vain. She felt he must think her stupid, and the thought made her every minute less at ease; but Tom's approach, eyed narrowly by Samson for some reason, seemed to raise the Rajput's spirits.

"If only my husband were here," she said aloud, "but at the last minute— there was blasting, you know, and—"

The prince—he was quite a young one—twenty-one perhaps—murmured something polite and with eyes that smoldered watched Tom take a letter from his tunic pocket. He handed it to Tess with quite a flourish.

"Some one must have dropped this, ma'am."

The envelope was scented, and addressed in Persian characters. She saw the prince's eyes devour the thing—saw him exchange glances with Tom Tripe—and realized that Tom had rather deftly introduced her to another actor in the unseen drama that was going on. Clearly the next move was hers.

"Is it yours, perhaps?" she asked.

Prince Utirupa Singh bowed and took the letter. Samson with a look of baffled fury behind the monocle, but a smile for appearance's sake, joined them at that minute and Utirupa seemed to take delight in so manipulating the sealed envelope that the commissioner could only see the back of it.

The prince was an extremely handsome young man, as striking in one way as Samson in another. Polo and pig-sticking had kept him lean, and association with British officers had given him an air of being frankly at his ease even when really very far from feeling it. He had the natural Oriental gift of smothering excitement, added to a trick learned from the West of aggressive self-restraint that is not satisfied with seeming the opposite of what one is, but insists on extracting humor from the situation and on calling attention to the humor.

"I shall always be grateful to you," he said, smiling into Tess's eyes with his own wonderful brown ones but talking at the commissioner. "If I had lost this letter I should have been at a loss indeed. If some one else had found it, that might have been disastrous."

"But I did not find it for you," Tess objected.

Utirupa turned his back to the commissioner and answered in a low voice.

"Nevertheless, when I lose letters I shall come here first!"

He bowed to take his leave and showed the back of the envelope again to Samson, with a quiet malice worthy of Torquemada. The commissioner looked almost capable of snatching it.

"Mrs. Blaine," he said with a laugh after the prince had gone, "skill and experience, I am afraid, are not much good without luck. Luck seems to be a thing I lack. Now, if I had picked up that letter I've a notion that the information in it would have saved me a year's work."

Tess was quite sure that Tom had not picked the letter up, but there was no need to betray her knowledge.

"Do you mean you'd have opened a letter you picked up in my garden?" she demanded.

His eyes accepted her challenge.

"Why not?"

"But why? Surely—"

"Necessity, dear lady, knows no law. That's one of the first axioms of diplomacy. Consider your husband as a case in point. Custom, which is the basis of nearly all law, says he ought to be here entertaining your guests. Necessity, ignoring custom, obliges him to stay in the hills and supervise the blasting, disappointing every one but me. I'm going to take advantage of his necessity."

If he had seen the swift glance she gave him he might have changed the course of one small part of history. Tess knew nothing of the intrigue he was engaged in, and did not propose to be keeper of his secrets; if he had glimpsed that swift betrayal of her feelings he would certainly not have volunteered further confidences. But the poison of ambition blinds all those who drink it, so that the "safest" men unburden themselves to the wrong unwilling ears.

"Walk with me up and down the path where every one can see us, won't you?"

"Why?" she laughed. "Do you flatter yourself I'd be afraid to be caught alone with you?"

"I hope you'd like to be alone with me! I would like nothing better. But if we walk up and down together on the path in full view, we arouse no suspicion and we can't be overheard. I propose to tell some secrets."

Not many women would resist the temptation of inside political information. Recognizing that by some means beyond her comprehension she was being drawn into a maze of secrets all interrelated and any of them likely to involve herself at any minute, Tess had no compunction whatever.

"I'll be frank with you," she said. "I'm curious."

Once they walked up the path and down again, talking of dogs, because it happened that Tom Tripe's enormous beast was sprawling in the shadow of a rose-bush at the farther end. The commissioner did not like dogs. "Something loathsome about them—degrading—especially the big ones." She disagreed. She liked them, cold wet noses and all, even in the dark. Tom Tripe, stepping behind a bush with the obvious purpose of smoking in secret the clay pipe that be hardly troubled to conceal, whistled the dog, who leapt into life as if stung and joined his master.

The second time up and down they talked of professional beggars and what a problem they are to India, because they both happened as they turned to catch sight of Umra with the one eye, entering through the little gate in the wall and shuffling without modesty or a moment's hesitation to his favorite seat among the shrubs, whence to view proceedings undisturbed.

"Those three beggars that haunt this house seem to claim all our privileges," she said. "They wouldn't think of letting us give a garden party without them."

"Say the word," he said, "and I'll have them put in prison."

But she did not say the word.

The third time up the path he chose to waste on very obvious flattery.

"You're such an unusual woman, you know, Mrs. Blaine. You understand whatever's said to you, and don't ask idiotic questions. And then, of course, you're American, and I feel I can say things to you that my own countrywoman wouldn't understand. As an American, in other words, you're privileged."

As they turned at the top of the path she felt a cold wet something thrust into her hand from behind. She had never in her life refused a caress to a dog that asked for one, and her fingers closed almost unconsciously on Trotters' muzzle, touching as they did so the square unmistakable hard edges of an envelope. There was no mistaking the intent; the dog forced it on her and, the instant her fingers closed on it, slunk out of sight.

"Wasn't that Tripe's infernal dog again?"

"Was it? I didn't see." She was wiping slobber on to her skirt from an envelope whose strong perfume had excited the dog's salivary glands. But it was true that she did not see.

"May I call you Theresa?"

"Why?"

"It would encourage confidences. There isn't another woman in Sialpore whom I could tell what I'm going to say to you. The others would repeat it to their husbands, or—"

"I tell mine everything. Every word!"

"Or they'd try to work me on the strength of it for little favors—"

"Wait until you know me! Little favors don't appeal to me. I like them big—very big!"

"Honestly, Theresa—"

"Better call me Mrs. Blaine."

"Honestly, there's nothing under heaven that—"

"That you really know about me. I know there isn't. You were going to tell secrets. I'm listening."

"You're a hard-hearted woman!"

She had contrived by that time to extract a letter from the envelope behind her back, but how to read it without informing Samson was another matter. As she turned up the path for the sixth time, the sight of Tom Tripe making semi-surreptitious signals to attract her attention convinced her that the message was urgent and that she should not wait to read it until after her last guests were gone. It was only one sheet of paper, written probably on only one side—she hoped in English. But how -

Suddenly she screamed, and Samson was all instant concern.

"Was that a snake? Tell me, was that a snake I saw. Oh, do look, please!

I loathe them."

"Probably a lizard."

"No, no, I know a lizard. Do please look!"

Unbelieving, he took a stick and poked about among the, flowers to oblige her; so she read the message at her leisure behind the broad of his back, and had folded it out of sight before he looked up.

"No snakes. Nothing but a lizard."

"Oh, I'm so glad! Please forgive me, but I dread snakes. Now tell me the secrets while I listen properly."

He noticed a change in her voice—symptoms of new interest, and passed it to the credit of himself.

"There's an intrigue going on, and you can help me. Sp—people whose business it is to keep me informed have reported that Tom Tripe is constantly carrying letters from the Princess Yasmini of Sialpore to that young Prince Utirupa who was here this afternoon. Now, it's no secret that if Gungadhura Singh were to get found out committing treason (and I'm pretty sure he's guilty of it five days out of six!) we'd depose him—"

"You mean the British would depose him?"

"Depose him root and branch. Then Utirtipa would be next in line. He's a decent fellow. He'd be sure of the nomination, and he'd make a good ruler."

"Well?"

"I want to know what the Princess Yasmini has to do with it."

"It seems to me you're not telling secrets, but asking favors for nothing."

"Not for nothing—not for nothing! There's positively nothing that I won't do!"

"In return for—?"

"Sure information as to what is going on."

"Which you think I can get for you?"

"I'm positive! You're such an extraordinary, woman. I'm pretty sure it all hinges on the treasure I told you about the other day. Whoever gets first hold of that holds all the trumps. I'd like to get it myself. That would be the making of me, politically speaking. If Gungadhura should get it he'd ruin himself with intrigue in less than a year, but he might cause my ruin in the process. If the local priests should get it—and that's likeliest, all things considered—there'd be red ruin for miles around; money and the church don't mix without blood-letting, and you can't unscramble that omelet forever afterward. I confess I don't know how to checkmate the priests. Gungadhura I think I can manage, especially with your aid. But I must have information."

"Is there any one else who'd be dangerous if he possessed the secret?"

"Anybody would be, except myself. Anybody else would begin playing for political control with it, and there'd be no more peace on this side of India for years. And now, this is what I want to say: The most dangerous individual who could possibly get that treasure would be the Princess Yasmini. The difficulty of dealing with her is that she's not above hiding behind purdah (the veil), where no male man can reach her. There are several women here whom I might interest in keeping an eye on her— Tatum's wife, and Miss Bent, and Miss O'Hara, and the Goole sisters— lots of 'em. But they'd all talk. And they'd all try to get influence for their male connections on the strength of being in the know. But somehow, Theresa, you're different."

"Mrs. Blaine, please."

"I know Tom Tripe thinks the world of you. I want you to find out for me from him everything he knows about this treasure intrigue and whatever's behind it."

"You think he'd tell me?"

"Yes. And I want you to make the acquaintance of the Princess Yasmini, and find out from her if you can what the letters are that she writes to Utirupa. You'll find the acquaintance interesting."

Tess crumpled a folded letter in her left hand.

"If you could give me an introduction to the princess—they say she's difficult to see—some sort of letter that would get me past the maharajah's guards," she answered.

"I can. I will. The girl's a minor. I've the right to appoint some one to visit her and make all proper inquiries. I appoint you."

"Give me a letter now and I'll go tonight."

He stopped as they turned at the end of the path, and wrote on a leaf of his pocket-book. Behind his back Tess waved her secret letter to attract Tom Tripe's notice, and nodded.

"There." said Samson. "That's preliminary. I'll confirm it later by letter on official paper. But nobody will dare question that. If any one does, let me know immediately."

"Thank you."

"And now, Theresa—"

"You forget."

"I forget nothing. I never forget! You'll be wondering what you are to get out of all this—"

"I wonder if you're capable of believing that nothing was further from my thoughts!"

"Don't think I want all for nothing! Don't imagine my happiness—my success could be complete without—"

"Without a whisky and soda. Come and have one. I see my husband coming at last."

"Damn!" muttered Samson under his breath.

She had expected her husband by the big gate, but he came through the little one, and she caught sight of him at once because through the corner of her eye she was watching some one else—Umra the beggar. Umra departed through the little gate thirty seconds before her husband entered it.

Blaine was so jubilant over a sample of crushed quartz he had brought home with him that there was no concealing his high spirits. He was even cordial to Samson, whom he detested, and so full of the milk of human kindness toward everybody else that they all wanted to stay and be amused by him. But Tess got rid of them at last by begging Samson to go first ostentatiously and set them an example, which he did after extracting a promise from her to see him tete-a-tete again at the earliest opportunity.

Then Tess showed her husband the letter that Tom's dog had thrust into her hand.

"You dine alone tonight, Dick, unless you prefer the club. I'm going at once. Read this."

It was written in a fine Italic hand on expensive paper, with corrections here and there as if the writer had obeyed inspiration first and consulted a dictionary afterward—a neat letter, even neat in its mistakes.

"Most precious friend," it ran, "please visit me. It is necessary that you find some way of avoi—elu—tricking the guards, because there are orders not to admit any one and not to let me out. Please bring with you food from your house, because I am hungry. A cat and two birds and a monkey have died from the food cooked for me. I am also thirsty. My mother taught me to drink wine, but the wine is finished, and I like water the best. Tom Tripe will try to help you past the guards, but he has no brains, so you must give him orders. He is very faithful. Please come soon, and bring a very large quantity of water. Yours with love, YASMINI."

He read the letter and passed it back.

"D'you think it's on the level, Tess?"

"I know it is! Imagine that poor child, Dick, cooped up in a palace, starving and parching herself for fear of poison!"

"But how are you going to get to her? You can't bowl over Gungadhura's guards with a sunshade."

"Samson wrote this for me."

Dick Blaine scowled.

"I imagine Samson's favors are paid for sooner or later."

"So are mine, Dick! The beast has called me Theresa three times this afternoon, and has had the impudence to suggest that his preferment and my future happiness may bear some relation to each other."

"See here, Tess, maybe I'd better beat him and have done with it."

"No. He can't corrupt me, but he might easily do you an injury. Let him alone, Dick, and be as civil as you can. You did splendidly this evening—"

"Before I knew what he'd said to you!"

"Now you've all the more reason to be civil. I must keep in touch with that young girl in the palace, and Samson is the only influence I can count on. Do as I say, Dick, and be civil to him. Pretend you're not even suspicious."

"But say, that guy's suggestions aggregate an ounce or two! First, I'm to draw Gungadhura's money while I hunt for buried treasure; but I'm to tip off Samson first. Second, I'm to look on while he makes his political fortune with my wife's help. And third—what's the third thing, Tess?"

She kissed him. "The third is that you're going to seem to be fooled by him, for the present at all events. Let's know what's at the bottom of all this, and help the princess and Tom Tripe if it's possible. Are you tired?"

"Yes. Why?"

"If you weren't tired I was going to ask you to put a turban on as soon as it's dark, and dress up like a sais and drive me to Yasmini's palace, with a revolver in each pocket in case of accidents, and eyes and ears skinned until I come out again."

"Oh, I'm not too tired for that."

"Come along then. I'll put up a hamper with my own hands. You get wine from the cellar, and make sure the corks have not been pulled and replaced. Then get the dog-cart to the door. I'll keep it waiting there while you run up-stairs and change. Hurry, Dick, hurry—it's growing dark! I'll put some sandwiches under the seat for you to eat while you're waiting in the dark for me."