The Marriage of Meldrum Strange/Chapter 5

OMEHOW, woman has come to represent temptation in the minds of most of us. Doubtless she earned the stigma, and we the worse one, of being weak. Zelmira Poulakis in pale mauve Georgette was art so refined and simplified as almost to seem divine, so that Ommony wondered whether he could keep his own head. As to Strange, with himself to load the scale clandestinely, he felt no doubt whatever.

“Have you a plan?” he asked her, so well versed in Indian lore that he knew a woman’s plan prevails in spite of anything a man can do.

“Nothing,” she answered. “He ought to marry me. He ruined my husband.”

“Revenge?” asked Ommony, not relishing a campaign for that unprofitable stuff.

“No. My husband probably deserved it. But some of my money went too, and I was innocent. Strange needs a wife; he never had one. He kissed me once in New York, when I interviewed him as my husband’s emissary, and—well—I propose to conquer him, that’s all.”

That was frank enough. It was even credible. If money had been her sole aim she would never have needed to pursue Strange, limiting her scope to him. She was more marketable than the diamonds on her left hand, and no doubt scores of wealthy men had let her know it.

“Conquest, eh?” said Ommony. “Yes, Strange needs conquering.”

“He likes me,” she answered. “He is only so cruel and selfish that he fears marriage. But I can conquer him. I will make him generous. You’ll see!”

“Do you know what Strange will think, if he learns you are staying with this raja?” Ommony asked her. “Our Indian rajas have a certain reputation.”

“Poof! He knows better. He might pretend to think that. He is cruel enough to pretend anything. But he will know it isn’t true, so what does that matter? It is what one knows that influences, not what one pretends to think. He knows in his heart he likes me. He said—over afternoon tea in New York—he would choose me before any woman in the world, if he were of the marrying kind. I am of the marrying kind, and I choose him! Presto! That is the end of it!” And she clapped her hands, while Charley grinned.

“Can’t you have Strange come and rescue her from the raja?” asked Charley, fertile in screen-drama expedients.

“He wouldn’t come. He’d send for the police,” laughed Ommony. “No, we must have her rescue him.”

“From the raja?”

“From anything that makes him look ridiculous.”

“Wise man! I like you, Mr. Ommony,” Zelmira announced, her whole face sparkling with amusement.

The best, and the worst of us like to be liked, more particularly by a pretty woman. It gilds the edges of intrigue, and surely dulls conscience to the drab-gray underside of human schemes. Ommony began to like his task amazingly. He almost forgot the forest in determination to make Meldrum Strange a captive of this woman’s bow and spear.

“I-wish you’d tell the raja about Strange,” he said, after making Diana jump over his head a time or two—for he saw the raja coming. “Not too much, of course. Just say he’s a millionaire who wants to buy up Indian forest rights. Say you’ve heard he is staying with me. I think we can safely leave the rest to Strange, the raja, and Providence, assisted by Chullunder Ghose. You stumbled on a jewel in that babu. By the way—drop your handkerchief! Quickly!”

She obeyed. Ommony signed to Diana to pick it up. The dog brought it to him, not to her, and Ommony put it in his pocket.

“If ever Di comes, look for a letter inside her collar. You can send an answer the same way.”

“Ah! That dog! That dog!” said the raja, joining them. “A perfect beast! So intelligent! But some one will poison her one of these days, and then my friend Ommony will be disconsolate.”

He, too, it seemed, knew how to drop a hint. Perhaps he had seen the handkerchief incident, and guessed its motive. Ommony looked straight at him, and their eyes met.

“Then some one would have a personal fight on his hands with me,” he said blandly; and the raja, pinked, with an effort switched attention to Zelmira.

Ommony excused himself then, borrowed a fresh horse from the raja’s stable, and started back on the long cross-forest journey. After a while he took the jungli up behind him, jungli and dog taking turn about, the jungli between-whiles clinging to tail or stirrup, scouting ahead where he knew of leopard lairs, and not so weary as the fat horse at the journey’s end, three hours after dark, an hour too late for dinner.

Jeff was waiting in the dark by a wood-pile near the house, and the horse shied at him. The jungli fled.

“That rascal Chullunder Ghose is up to no good,” Jeff began, seizing a rein to hold the horse still. “Strange and I shot a tiger this morning.”

“Which of you?”

“He wounded and I killed. We were back here for lunch. Chullunder Ghose was squatting on the veranda like a big brass idol. Strange began to talk to him. All afternoon, when he wasn’t taking a nap or smoking by himself, Strange has been questioning the babu, and what he hasn’t learned about this forest and one of the local raja’s—Chota Pegu I think his name is—wouldn’t fill a nut-shell. I couldn’t prevent it.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“If I could have broken the babu’s neck before he”

“You or I would have had to do his work. I expect he has done it better.”

“Listen. Don’t be overconfident,” said Jeff. “We used to employ that babu. He plays both ends from the middle always. Nothing he says or does is on the level. He’d sell you out to Strange for one rupee over and above what he could get from you”

“Let’s hope!”

“And then double-cross Strange!”

“Excellent!”

“Well, I’ve warned you,” Jeff grumbled.

“Be a good fellow and keep Strange occupied while I eat dinner. I’ll have one of the servants bring the babu to me in the dining-room.”

Ommony saw the horse stabled and the dog fed. Ten minutes later he was in the dining-room, with Chullunder Ghose cross-legged on the floor at his right hand.

“So you’ve moved without waiting for me?” he asked.

“Lot’s wife was made pillar of salt, according to Christian missionary. She looked back. Kaiser is in Holland, very hard up. He looked forward. Chinese suffer presently from foreign creditors. Stood still! Choice of three evils leaves enigma up to me. No advice available; no orders, except not to talk with servants; no consolation from Ramsden sahib, who threatens me with out-size boot. What can do but tickle ear of money-nabob with account of ripe apples in next orchard, whetting appetite of octopus for loot, which is envy of white man, always? What could do? Must say something! He is incarnation of inquiry armed with can-opener and too much zeal.”

“Did you tell about Madame Poulakis?”

“Nay, sahib. Told nothing this babu knows for certain. Truth is like savings bank account, for use in dire emergency. Direness not yet obvious. Spoke much of raja of Chota Pegu, intellectual gent with expensive leanings and no cash. Conversation turned on said aristocrat’s claim to own birthright in enormous tract of this forest. Did mention likelihood of same being exchangeable, like Testament swap, for mess of pottage—cash in this case.”

“How did you know about that?”

“Am all things to all men, sahib. To your honor, truthful. Was employed by raja of that ilk to make rounds of Hindu money-lenders in all cities, offering undiscoverable title as security for long-time loan. Was not inundated with success, but drew personal expenses in advance.”

To let such a person as Chullunder Ghose into a secret on equal terms would have been tantamount to asking him to take advantage of it. Ommony did not dare even to smile, much less confess that the babu had led up to his hand with perfect intuition.

“I gave you leave to sleep here one night,” he said presently, after turning the problem over in his mind.

“Am whelmed with gratitude!”

“Go in the morning—at break of day—before Mr. Strange wakes up.”

“On foot? By train? To Hades?”

“The raja of Chota Pegu’s horse is in my stable. Ride across the forest and return the horse to its owner with my compliments.”

“A red one? Sahib, I know that beast! Self am not expert in equitation. Forest, moreover, is full of leopards, tigers, elephants, and snakes of all sorts! Do not know way.”

“I will lend you a jungli.”

“Who will kill and eat me! Sahib, with your honor’s favor this babu will take train and change at Sissoo Junction.”

“You will leave with that horse before daybreak. You may have two junglis,” answered Ommony. “If you fall off they will catch the horse and put you on again.”

“You do not know, sahib, what such fear means to person of unathletic temperament!”

But Ommony did know, and knew, too, the only way short of banishment to keep the babu from jockeying for the upper hand of all concerned. Banishment was out of the question; he needed the babu’s services.

“You leave before daybreak on the red horse,” he insisted unsympathetically. “Keep out of Mr. Strange’s sight meanwhile.”

“But, sahib”

Ommony interrupted by glancing down at him. Their eyes met, and the babu understood. There are men who will listen to all sides of a case, but can never be wheedled when once they had given decision.

“What shall I do, then, at Chota Pegu?”

“My advice to you is to watch your step, Chullunder Ghose. I imagine your reward, if Madame Poulakis’ plan succeeds, will be proportioned to your zeal. But I assure you the penalty, in case the plan fails through any treachery on your part, will be out of all proportion to the importance of the matter in hand. Let that ride through the jungle tomorrow morning be a hint to you.”

“Sahib, hint at me with a riding-whip! Take bail! Let me sign a stipulation before witnesses! Only not that jungle ride!”

“And when you get there,” Ommony went on, ignoring the babu’s outburst, “look about you. Get to know people—as for instance, priests. If I should send word to you by jungli to meet me in a certain place, why not keep the appointment? If the raja asks you about Mr. Meldrum Strange, you may say”

“Let me memorize your honor’s wisdom!”

“—whatever occurs to you as good sense at the moment. Bed now! There’s a cot in the out-house.”

THE babu shuffled off, his bare feet rutching on the polished floor, and Ommony joined his guests on the veranda. But Meldrum Strange proved taciturn, not even loosening his tongue under the influence of questions about the tiger he shot that morning. He was not diffident about having shot a tiger without Ommony’s permission; he made that obvious. From the first he had challenged Ommony’s right to have any say in such matters. But there was a new challenge noticeable in his whole demeanor. Abruptly, without apology, he announced his intention of retiring early and walked off with hardly a muttered good night.

“The old man’s cooking something,” Jeff said, as soon as they heard the bed-room door slam.

“Did he overhear me speaking to the babu?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t care what he cooks. He’ll choke on it!”

“Pity I didn’t choke him yesterday!” Jeff grumbled. “Strange is no fool when it comes to business. All the way home this morning, after we shot the tiger, he was telling me what a magnificent property this forest is. He has made up his mind to have it. That beastly babu has told him how to get it. All he’s wondering now is how to meet the raja of Chota Pegu without arousing your suspicion.”

“That’s all arranged,” said Ommony. “If I know Chota Pegu he’ll be here soon after breakfast with his best horse foundered under him. I sha’n’t be here. This is the order of the day: Chullunder Ghose rides away before it’s light. In all likelihood he’ll meet the raja and have word with him. I leave an hour later. If I chance to meet the raja I’ll have word with him too. You see him next, and leave him alone with Meldrum Strange. They’ll cook up something or other between them; and there’s nothing we can do until we find out what that is. There’s only one point to be careful on: Are you sure the babu didn’t tell Strange about Madame Poulakis?”

“Pretty sure. Strange would have blown up if he had told.”

“If the raja says anything to you about her—I expect he won’t—just warn him that’s a dangerous subject. If Strange once learns she’s near”

“He’ll run! He’ll run like the wind!” said Ramsden, half-smilingly.

“Why is he so afraid of her?”

“He’s afraid of himself. He likes her too well. He’s afraid of the papers. If he should marry her, they’d dig up the scandal about her first husband in Egypt, scare-heads, and a full page in the Sunday supplement. He’s afraid the scandal might be made to stick to him. If she wins, Ommony, I’ll stick to Strange; he’ll be worth it, with her to take the brute out of him. He has imagination, brains, and a kind of courage. She’ll give him a heart.”

Ommony turned in and lay awake until after midnight, tossing and retossing the problem over in his mind. He was aware of Strange doing the same thing in the next room—brain against brain, greed against conservation, selfishness against a life de voted to the trees. But the odds were in favor of Ommony, and he fell asleep first. Fate’s dice, he felt, were loaded against the millionaire.

He was awakened long before dawn by Strange calling to Jeff Ramsden. Jeff came from his tent in pajamas to sit on Strange’s bed, and for a while there was only audible an irregular jumble of explosions from Strange and Jeff’s deep monosyllabic answers. But once he caught words:

“Why don’t you go straight to headquarters and have it out with the Government, if you want the forest?” Jeff Ramsden insisted.

“Don’t be an ass! They’d listen to him, not me. Whatever I offered, they’d think they might get more. Odds are, they’d call in competition. Parcel it out in the end to coolie contractors. This has got to be done quietly—jockey ’em into a false position—crowd ’em to die rails, and walk away with it. Ommony’s a fanatic. You can’t buy or bull-doze his sort. Nothing to do but beat ’em to it.”

“Well, I’ve told you what I think,” Jeff answered.

“You think with your biceps! You’ve a head that ’ud make first-class wienerwurst!”

Ommony fell asleep again. But he was up before dawn, helping Chullunder Ghose to mount the red horse, charging two junglis to deliver the babu safely at Chota Pegu, and seeing to it that they started off by the back way, behind the house, out of sight from Strange’s bed-room window. He breakfasted alone, and was on the way himself less than an hour later, leaving only one horse in the stable, and no chance for destiny to miss-fire, because that one horse was so sore-backed from carrying Jeff's weight that none could ride him. Strange, who disliked walking, would have to stay near the house that morning.

Ommony, too, took the trail for Chota Pegu, but in no hurry. He had all the dogs with him—a sure sign he was out on no forty-mile journey. At the foot of the lookout rock he tethered the horse, with a couple of junglis close at hand to watch for leopards, then climbed the obelisk-like rock, and waited, turning a pair of field-glasses at intervals on the face of a bare hill, over whose rock-strewn summit the track to Chota Pegu zigzagged not many miles away.

It was an hour and a half before he saw a horseman hurrying like an insect, downward among the distant rocks. Then it occurred to him there was another trail available to a man in a great hurry who knew the forest well. He called down to the junglis, and one of them started away through the trees like a fantom, followed by Diana and the other dogs. (Hereditary junglis are as dirt beneath the feet of an hereditary prince; but a white man’s dogs are not to be despised.)

In course he heard barking—Diana’s echoing bell, and the yap-yap of the others. Then Diana came streaking down the lane with filtered sunlight poured on her between the trees, so that she looked like a golden god-thing. She climbed in a hundred leaps, and lay down panting, making no remark. There was nothing untoward. But the yap-yap of the other two continued, coming nearer, with now and then an angry shout from some one, who, perhaps, would rather not have his exact location known. Ommony pulled tobacco out, and lighted his pipe. The gradually closing view of Destiny contented him.

Two dogs, belligerent and pausing every now and then to yelp another challenge, galloped into sight, climbed the rock, and lay down gasping beside Diana. The drumming of hoofs pursued them. In a minute more the raja of Chota Pegu reined in a sweating stallion, whose legs were trembling, glanced at Ommony’s tied horse, looked up, and nodded angrily.

“Keep your dogs chained!” he shouted. “Why don’t you thrash your junglis oftener? I’ll kill the next beast that gets in my way! them! They drove me like a buffalo at milking time! Get some decent dogs, why can’t you!”

“Come up, and rest your horse,” called Ommony. “Why blame the dogs for good luck? We might have missed each other.”

Soft answers turn away wrath sometimes. They usually turn violence into vehemence. Occasionally they take all the wind out of a man’s sails, suddenly.

“Were you expecting me?” the raja asked; and his voice betrayed him. He had hoped to get in touch with Strange before Ommony could forewarn or prevent. Now he was wondering how Ommony could possibly have divined his purpose. He was bewildered. He felt like one who sees the ruin of his calculations.

“I’m merely delighted to see you,” Ommony answered. “Come on up.”

SO THE raja hitched his horse beside Ommony’s, and climbed slowly, turning matters over in his mind. He had to make some excuse for being there, at that early hour, on a horse so obviously foundered—some excuse that could not compromise him.

“Have a seat,” suggested Ommony; and the raja produced a cigaret, after one inquiring glance into Ommony’s eyes, East studying West and learning nothing.

“What’s your rush?” Ommony asked knocking his pipe on the rock and refilling it.

The raja hesitated. How much had Ommony guessed? He had to answer something.

“Madame Poulakis told me of an American millionaire, staying at your place,” he said at last. “She heard of him yesterday from you. I’ve never seen one of the breed, and I’m curious.”

“Almost eager,” ventured Ommony.

“Yes. I propose to invite him to call on me before she goes away. She can help entertain him.”

He knew how lame his excuse had sounded, and waited for Ommony to provide him a better cue; but Ommony was leading, not following suit.

“Did you meet any one on the way?” he asked, with eyes averted. If he had wanted the raja to lie he would have looked straight at him and forced the pace.

The raja thought rapidly, and saw no sense in an evasion.

“Only a babu, bringing back the horse I lent you yesterday.”

“Have word with him?”

The raja thought again. He thought so long that the answer to the question became obvious.

“We spoke. He’s a man I have trusted on occasion. Is he in your confidence?”

“Heaven forbid!” said Ommony, grinning.

The raja looked relieved, but it did not last long. Elbows on knees, pointing the stem of his pipe at him, Ommony cleared the issue and clouded it in one breath.

“See here,” he said quietly, Dutch-uncle fashion. “If you want to meet Meldrum Strange there’s no objection. He’s a free man; you’re a raja. But—if you propose to do business with him—anything along the lines you hinted to me yesterday—count me against you. Understand? I don’t want Strange owning any of this forest—don’t want him owning even a doubtful claim to a reversionary interest. Are we clear as to that?”

The raja nodded angrily.

“They are my personal private rights,” he retorted.

“Exactly,” said Ommony. “Then you do as you personally, privately jolly well please with them. But count me out. I refuse my official backing.”

“Ah! Hah! I understand. Unofficially”

“Unofficially I give you this advice. If you let Meldrum Strange know Madame Poulakis is at your place he’ll stay away.”

“Thanks. You save me then from a mistake. Aha! Downy old dodger! I see through you! Officially unbending, eh? Unofficially hoping; isn’t that it?”

He slapped Ommony on the thigh in the well-known fashion of the hale and hearty West—as per instruction book of Western manners.

“Tell me; what kind of man is this Strange to deal with?”

“Hard,” said Ommony.

“Subtle?”

“No. Crushes like a python.”

“Slow?”

“Quick, I should say, when he makes his mind up.”

“Greedy?”

“Absolutely.”

“Cautious?”

“Yes.”

“What is his weakness?”

“Dread of publicity.”

“Ah!”

There was silence for about a minute, in which Ommony would have given a year’s pay for the gift of reading what was in the raja’s mind. At the end of it the raja stood up, straightened himself, and salaamed to the dogs with both hands.

“I apologize!” he said with a big grin. “You saved a faux pas. You brought me to the fount of wisdom. When you visit me there shall be sheep’s bones—and no strychnine!”

He waved his hand jauntily, and started down the rock, awkwardly because of long spurs. Half-way down he turned and called back.

“Downy old dodger! After this you will retire, of course! I will meet you in Paris!”

Ommony ignored the innuendo. In India a man grows used to misinterpretation of his motives. Even if he could have proved, black on white, that Strange had not bribed him the raja would have continued unconvinced.

“Don’t take my horse,” he warned. “That bay’s an old friend.”

“A very old one—yet fresher than mine!”

“I won’t have him ill-treated.”

“Pooh! Use him for tiger-bait! That is all he is fit for!”

Ten minutes earlier the raja would have deemed it dangerous to jest in that strain. Now he judged himself a sharer of Ommony’s guilty secret, with privileges accordingly. But Ommony relighted his pipe and watched him canter away without letting that disturb him. Nothing need disturb a man, except his enemy find out the truth; the more lies for the enemy to lose himself among the better.

Presently he came down off the rock and rode his rounds as if the day’s work in the forest were his sole concern. There was a new fire-lane acutting, and he superintended that, contriving to let the hours slip by without any underlings observing that he was simply squandering time. It was high noon before he headed homeward, and met Jeff Ramsden waiting for him at the lane-end, near the house.

“They’ve put you on ice,” said Jeff. “The raja has been here all morning, and the poor fool thinks he can outwit Strange.”

“I think he can, too!” grinned Ommony.

“He has offered to sell Strange his rights in the forest.”

“Has money changed hands?”

“No, but the raja has suggested you’re corruptible!”

“I am!”

Jeff’s ponderous shape encloses an unsubtle mind that detests even the suggestion of dishonesty.

“I could have smashed the brute for hinting it!”

“What did the raja say, for instance?”

“Nothing definite. When Strange suggested you might have objections the brute answered by moving his hand like this, and smiling.”

“And Strange?”

“Saw a great light suddenly! It dawned on him the check-book was the key to your position.”

“So it is!”

“I’m all at sea,” said Jeff. “Are you joking?”

“No. I intend to raid Strange’s bank-account as surely as he means to raid my forest. Old fellow, I have sold my soul for a promise by Zelmira Poulakis,” said Ommony, grinning. “The forests must redeem me. Out of corruption shall come forth trees.”

“This is over my head,” Jeff grumbled.

“So shall the trees be in time!”

“Ommony, I warn you: Strange has teeth. Take his money on his terms, and he’ll grind you to the ground. Many a man has rued the day he took a”

Jeff hesitated. Ommony filled in the word.

“—a bribe from him? I’ll take blood-money! He and the raja”

“They’re thick as thieves,” said Jeff.

“Thick or thick-headed?” asked Ommony.

“Strange is playing with fire made of ennui, debt, and the lure of a gay city. He’ll burn his fingers, Jeff, and come to me for salve and bandages. You wait and see.”

“I know Strange, and you don’t,” Jeff answered ambiguously.