The Three Sapphires

"Rajahs arrange their domestic matters to suit themselves. Much can be done with a pinch of datura, or a little cobra venom collected in a piece of raw meat that has been put with a cobra in a pot that sits over a slow fire. But if Ananda tries that game – You saw his brother-in-law, Darna Singh?"

Swinton nodded. "A Rajput!"

"Yes. Well, Darna Singh would stick a knife in the prince, knowing that he would become regent till Ananda's little son came of age; that is, of course, after the maharajah had been settled, for in spite of all his magnificent appearance he's just a shell – the usual thing, brandy in champagne and all the rest of it."

The trembling whistle of a small owl coming from behind the bungalow caused Finnerty to turn his head and listen intently. He rose and slipped along the wall to the end rail, where he stood silently for two minutes. Then he dropped over the rail and came back to Swinton from the other end, having circled the bungalow.

"An owl, wasn't it?" the captain asked.

"No; it was the call of an owl badly done by a native. There's some game on."

As he ceased speaking, there came floating up the road from a mango thicket the dreary, monotonous "tonk, tonk, tonk, tonk!" of the little, green-coated coppersmith bird. It sounded as if some one tapped on a hollow pipe.

"What about that? Is that a bird?" Swinton whispered.

"A two-legged bird." They both laughed softly. "I mean a native. If it had been a coppersmith bird, he wouldn't have stopped at four notes; he'd have kept it up. That fellow is tapping off on a piece of metal an answer to the owl."

"Here comes my tom-tom," Swinton said, as a groom, leading a horse in the shafts of a dogcart, appeared, coming up the road. Rising, he touched Finnerty on the arm and went into the bungalow, where, taking the sapphire from his pocket, he said: "I wish you'd put this in your box for to-night; I've got a curious, flabby streak of depression – as if I'd lose the thing."

"Have a peg – there's the Scotch on the table – while I put it away," and the major darted into his room.

"That's not my horse; I've been driving a chestnut," Swinton exclaimed, when they stood beside a cow-hocked, hog-maned bay whose eyes showed an evil spread of white.

"Yes, sahib; other pony going lame," the groom explained.

"One of those devilish, fiddle-headed Cabul ponies – less brains than a coolie," Finnerty growled. "You'll have to watch him going downhill, or he'll put you over the kud; I never saw one yet that wouldn't shy at a shadow." He stood watching the scuttling first rush of the horse, the groom madly scrambling to the back seat, till they had vanished around a corner.

The watchman, having heard his master's guest depart, now came from the servants' quarters to place his charpoy beside the door for his nightly sleep. Throwing away his cheroot and taking a loaded malacca cane from a rack, Finnerty said: "Gutra, there are rogues about; sit you in my room while I make a search."

Reaching the mango thicket, he stood behind a tree from where his eye could command the moon-lighted compound that surrounded the bungalow. At that instant from down the road floated up the call of a voice; there was a crash, and the high-pitched scream of a horse in terror. Finnerty was off; rounding a turn, he came head on into a fleeing syce, who was knocked flat, to lie there, crying: "Oh, my lord, the sahib is eaten by a tiger!"

Finnerty grabbed the native and yanked him to his feet. "Stop the lies! Tell me what's happened! Where is the sahib?"

"Have mercy on me, a poor man, huzoor; the tiger sprang from the jungle and took the sahib in his mouth like a leg of a chicken and went back into the jungle. I tried to frighten the tiger away by beating him with my hands; then I am running to tell you, my lord."

But Finnerty was speeding on before the man had finished.

Where the road swept sharply around the edge of a cliff, Finnerty almost stepped on Swinton, lying quite still beside a white boulder on the road. With a groan, he knelt beside the captain, apprehension numbing his brain; but the latter's heart was beating with the even pulsation of a perfect motor. He tipped back an eyelid; the dull blue eyes were as if their owner slept. He ran his fingers along the scalp, and just behind an ear found a soft, puffy lump, but no blood.

"Good old chap! You've just got a concussion – that's all," welled in relief from the Irishman.

Some chafing of the hands, a little pumping of the lungs by lifting the torso gently up and down, and, with preliminary, spasmodic jerks, Swinton sat up, rubbed his eyes, looked at Finnerty, and asked: "What time is it? I – I've been asleep – " Then, memory coming faster than his hesitating words, he rose to his feet, saying: "The pony and cart went over the kud."

"That Cabuli donkey thought the boulder a crouching wolf and shied, eh? The syce said a tiger had eaten you."

"He never saw the chita. Back around the turn I felt the dogcart tip up and knew the syce had jumped down, as I thought, to run ahead to see that the road was clear at this narrow turn. When I saw the boulder I looked around for him to take the pony's head, but he had vanished. As I walked the Cabuli up to the boulder, he suddenly went crazy with fright, and at that instant, with a snarling rasp, a chita shot from the bank just above our heads there, and, lighting on my pony's back, carried him over, the sudden whirl of the cart pitching me on my head."

"And you went out?"

"No, I didn't; not just then. I staggered to my feet – I remember that distinctly – and something hit me. That time I did go out."

"Good heavens – a plant! The syce, knowing what was going to happen, funked it and bolted – feared the leopard might make a mistake in his man."

"Looks like it."

"Then, as you didn't go over the bank, somebody tapped you from behind, thinking you had the sapphire in your pocket. We'll go back to the bungalow and come out in the morning and have a look."

As they tramped along, Finnerty remarked: "You said a hunting chita. There are none of them in these jungles; it must have been a leopard."

"No; I could see quite distinctly in the moonlight his upstanding, feathered ears and his long, lank body. I had a year at Jhodpore, and went out after antelope many a time with a hunting chita chained on a cart till we got within striking distance."

"Gad! That's why the brute took the pony for it – force of habit. And they sent that fool Cabuli – they knew he'd go crazy and topple over the bank. The stone was placed in the road, too."

As they went up on the verandah, Finnerty turned sharply, and, putting his hand on Swinton's arm, said: "Gad, man! That's why Ananda asked Lord Victor to dinner and left you out of it; he knew you'd dine with me here. They either meant to put you out of action or got to know you owned the sapphire that was used on Moti to-day and hoped to get it off your body."

"Looks rather fishy, I must say. The prince would not take a chance on an inquiry over the death of an officer unless, as in this case, it could not be taken for anything but an accident."

"The chita was his; he's got a couple in his zoo – well-trained hunting chitas the Nawab of Chackla gave him – and there are no wild ones about. It was a lucky touch of superstition that prompted you to have me put the sapphire back in my box; I saw a face at my window when I took it from the bell to give you. But we sold them out. How's your head?"

"It aches. Think I'd like to turn in, if you've got a charpoy for me."

Finnerty wakened from a sound sleep with a sense of alarm in his mind, drowsily associating this with the sequel of the frightened horse; then, coming wider awake, he realised that he was in bed and there was something unusual in the room. He was facing the wall, and a slight noise came over his shoulder from the table on which was his cash box. A mouse, a snake, even a lizard, of which there were plenty in the bungalow, would make as much noise. Turning his head and body with a caution bred of the solemn night hour, his bed creaked as the weight of his big frame changed. By the table there was the distinct click of something against tin, followed by the swish of a body moving swiftly toward the door. Finnerty sprang from the bed with a cry of "Thief! Thief!" meant to arouse the watchman. Just ahead of him, through the living room, a man fled, and out onto the verandah. Following, with a rush like a bull in the night gloom, Finnerty's foot caught in the watchman's charpoy, which had been pulled across the door, and he came down, the force of his catapult fall carrying him to the steps, where his outstretched hand was cut by broken glass. The thief having placed the charpoy where it was, had taken it in his stride, vaulted the verandah rail, avoiding the steps, whipped around the corner of the bungalow, and disappeared.

Scrambling to his feet, Finnerty was just in time to throw his arms around Swinton and bring him to an expostulating standstill.

"Glass!" Finnerty panted. "This way!" He darted to the wall of the bungalow, wrenched down two hog spears that were crossed below a boar's head, and, handing one to Captain Swinton, sprang over the end rail of the verandah, followed by the latter. They were just in time to see the brown figure of an all but naked native flitting like a shadow in the moonlight through a narrow gateway in the compound wall. From the jungle beyond the other wall came the clamorous voice of a native, calling for help; but Finnerty swung toward the gate, saying: "That's a decoy call to save the thief. He's gone this way."

As the two men, racing, passed from the compound, they swung into a native jungle path that led off toward the hills. There was little sense in their pursuit; it was purely the fighting instinct – Finnerty's Irish was up. A hundred yards along the path, as they raced through a growth of bamboos, something happened that by the merest chance did not spill one of their lives. Finnerty overshot a noose that was pegged out on the path, but Swinton's foot went into it, tipping free a green bamboo, four inches thick, that swept the path waist-high, catching Finnerty before it had gained momentum, his retarding bulk saving the captain from a broken spine. As it was, he, too, was swept off his feet.

Picking himself up, the major said: "If I had put my foot in that noose I'd been cut in two. It's the old hillman's tiger trap – only there's no spear fastened to the bamboo. We can go back now; the thief is pretty well on his way to Nepal."

A cry of terror came from up the path, followed by silence.

"Something has happened the thief," Finnerty said. "Come on, captain!"

Again they hurried along, but warily now. Where a wax-leafed wild mango blanked the moonlight from their path, Finnerty's foot caught in a soft something that, as it rolled from the thrust, gleamed white. He sprang to one side; it was a blooded body – either a big snake or a man. Thus does the mind of a man of the open work with quick certainty.

The wind shifted a long limb of the mango and a moon shaft fell upon the face of Baboo Lall Mohun Dass. Beside him, sprawled face down, the body of a native, naked but for a loin cloth. Cautiously Finnerty touched this with his spear. There was no movement; even the baboo lay as one dead. The major's spearhead clicked against something on the native's back, and, reaching down, he found the handle of a knife, its blade driven to the hilt.

Finnerty held the knife in the moonlight toward Swinton, saying: "It's the 'Happy Despatch,' a little knife the Nepal hillmen carry for the last thrust – generally for themselves when they're cornered."

"It has a jade handle," Swinton added. "It's an exact duplicate of the knife they found in Akka's back at the bottom of the ravine in Simla."

"This is the thief we've chased," Finnerty declared, as he turned the body over; "but the sapphire is not in his loin cloth."

Swinton was kneeling beside Baboo Dass. "This chap is not dead," he said; "he's had a blow on the head."

"Search him for the sapphire," Finnerty called from where he was examining a curious network of vines plaited through some overhanging bamboos. This formed a perfect cul-de-sac into which perhaps the thief had run and then been stabbed by some one in waiting.

"It isn't on the baboo," Swinton announced, "and he's coming to. I fancy the man that left the knife sticking in the first thief is thief number two; must be a kind of religious quid pro quo, this exchange of a jade-handled knife for the sapphire."

Baboo Dass now sat up; and, returning consciousness picturing the forms of Swinton and Finnerty, remembrance brought back the assault, and he yelled in terror, crying: "Spare me – spare my life! Take the sapphire!"

"Don't be frightened, baboo," Swinton soothed. "The man who struck you is gone."

Realising who his rescuers were, Baboo Dass gave way to tears of relief, and in this momentary abstraction framed an alibi. "Kind masters," he said presently, "I am coming by the path to your bungalow for purpose of beseeching favour, and am hearing too much strife – loud cry of 'Thief!' also profane expostulation in Hindustani word of hell. Here two men is fight, and I am foolish fellow to take up arms for peace. Oh, my master, one villain is smote me and I swoon."

"You're a fine liar, baboo," Finnerty declared crisply.

"No, master, not – "

"Shut up! I mean, tell me why you sent this thief, who is dead, to steal the sapphire?"

"Not inciting to theft, sar; this thief is himself steal the sapphire."

"How do you know he stole a sapphire?" Swinton asked quietly.

Baboo Dass gasped. Perhaps his mind was still rather confused from the blow – he had been trapped so easily.

"Perhaps there was no other," Finnerty suggested seductively. "I believe you murdered this man, baboo; I fear you'll swing for it."

This was too much. "Oh, my master," he pleaded, "do not take action in the courts against me for felonious assault or otherwise. I, too, am victim of assault and battery when this poor mans is slain. I will tell, sars, why I have arrange to take back my sapphire in this manner."

"Your sapphire?" Finnerty questioned.

"Yes, sar – the sapphire that I am suffer the head shave for. Good authority is tell me it is in the bell on the elephant when Rajah Ananda is go to the palace."

"Phe-e-ew!" Finnerty whistled. "I see! Mister Rajah, eh? Did he tell you that I had the sapphire you lost?"

"Please, sar, I am poor man; let the good authority be incognito."

"Why didn't you come and ask for the sapphire?" Finnerty questioned.

"Master, if I come and say you have the sapphire has been looted from me with head shave, that is not polite – you are shove me with foot from verandah because of accusation."

"Listen, baboo!" the major said, not unkindly. "Prince Ananda has duped you. He made you believe that I had your sapphire, which is a lie, because it was another. Then he persuaded you to hire a thief to steal it – "

"Not persuading, sahib; he make threats. I will lose my place with Hamilton Company, also the Marwari woman who plotted to me the head shave is murdered, and I am fearful of knife."

"A fine mess of things, now, major," Swinton observed. "Looks to me as if that woman stole Baboo Dass' sapphire for the priests; then Ananda had her murdered, recovered the jewel, and put our friend, here, up to stealing this last one; that would give him the three."

"I think you're right, captain." Finnerty turned to the baboo. "You bribed this thief to steal the stone out of my box, some servant having told you it was there, and you waited on the trail here for him."

Finnerty had forgotten about the bamboo trap; now it came to his memory with angering force. "You black hound!" he stormed. "You were a party to putting up that bamboo trap that might have killed us!"

But the baboo denied all knowledge of ways and means; the thief had represented himself as a man quite capable of arranging all details – all Baboo Dass was to do was hand over twenty rupees when the thief delivered the sapphire on the jungle path. At any rate, he was now very dead and could not dispute this story.

"Sahib, I am too much afraid; this evil jewel is bring too much trouble. I will go back to Calcutta. Please, sar, forgive because I am too polite to make demand for the sapphire."

Finnerty pondered for a minute. There was absolutely nothing further to do in the matter. No doubt a temple man had got Swinton's sapphire now and they probably would never see it again.

He turned to the native. "I think you had better go away, baboo; Darpore is not a healthy place for men who cross our gentle friend up on the hill."

"Thank you, kind gentlemans. Please, if I can saunter to the road with the sahibs because of jungle terrors."

Eager in pursuit, the men had run blithely over the ground in their bare feet; now they hobbled back, discussing the extraordinarily complete plans the thief had made beforehand. The broken glass on the step was an old dodge, but the utilisation of a tiger trap to kill a pursuer was a new one.

While they had been away, the servant had found Gutra, securely bound and gagged, lying in the compound, where he had been carried. He had been wakened, he declared, by the thrusting of a cloth into his mouth, but was unable to give an alarm.

As Finnerty gazed ruefully into his empty box, he said: "I knew the thief was after the sapphire; that's why I raced to get him. Too devilish bad, captain!"

"I don't understand why he took a chance of opening the box here; the usual way is to take it to the jungle and rifle it there," Swinton said.

"Oh, I was clever," Finnerty laughed. "See, I put four screw nails through the bottom of the box into this heavy table, knowing their ways, and somebody who knew all about that and had opportunity to fit a key did the job, or helped. The watchman hadn't anything to do with it. They're all thieves, but they won't steal from their own masters or village."

Finnerty had the broken glass that littered the steps brought in, saying, as he picked out a gold-draped bottle neck: "A man is known by the bottle he drinks from. The villagers don't drink champagne to any large extent, and there are several pieces of this caste. Here's half a bottle that once held Exshaw's Best Brandy, such as rajahs put in a glass of champagne to give it nip. Here's a piece of a soda-water bottle stamped 'Thompson, Calcutta,' and everybody in Darpore but Ananda drinks up-country stuff."

"Which means," Swinton summed up, "that the glass is from Ananda's place – he outfitted the thief."

Finnerty replaced the glass in the basket, putting it under the table; then, as he faced about, he saw that Swinton, leaning back against the pillow, was sound asleep. He slipped into a warm dressing-gown, turned out the light, left the room noiselessly, and curled up in an armchair on the verandah, muttering: "It must be near morning; it would be a sin to disturb him."

Chapter XII

Finnerty had slept an hour when he was wakened by the raucous voice of a peacock greeting dawn with his unpleasant call from high up in the sal forest. A cold grey pallor was creeping into the eastern sky as the major, still feeling the holding lethargy of the disturbed night, closed his eyes for a little more of oblivion. But Life, clamorous, vociferous, peopling the hills, the trees, the plain, sent forth its myriad acclaim, as a warming flush swept with eager haste up the vaulted dome, flung from a molten ball that topped the forest line with amazing speed.

A flock of parrakeets swooped like swallows through the air with high-pitched cries; from the feathered foliage of a tamarind came the monotonous drool, "Ko-el – ko-el – ko-el – ke-e-e-e-el!" of the koel bird, harbinger of the "hot spell;" a crow, nesting in a banyan, rose from her eggs, and, with a frightened cry, fled through the air as a hawk cuckoo swooped with shrill whistle as if to strike. The cuckoo, dumping from the nest a couple of the crow's white eggs, settled down to deposit her own embryo chick. From the kennels came the joyous bark of Rampore hounds, and from a native village filtered up the yapping cries of pariah dogs.

Far up the road that wound past the bungalow sounded the squealing skirl of wooden axles in wooden wheels, and the cries of the bullock driver, "Dut, dut, dut, Dowlet! Dut, dut – chelao Rajah!" followed by the curious noise that the driver made with his lips while he twisted the tails of his bullocks to urge them on.

Finnerty thought of the stone on the road, and, passing into the bungalow, wakened Swinton. "Sorry, old boy, but we'd better have a look at that stone – there are carts coming down the hill."

"Bless me! Almost dropped off to sleep, I'm afraid!" and the captain sat up.

When they arrived at the scene of Swinton's adventure, Finnerty, peering over the embankment, said: "The dogcart is hung up in a tree halfway down. I expect you'll find that chita at the bottom, kicked to death by the Cabuli."

Swinton, indicating an abrasion on the boulder that might have been left by the iron tire of a wheel, said: "My cart didn't strike this, and there are no other iron-wheel marks on the road; just part of this beastly plot – to be used as evidence that the stone put me over the bank."

"They even rolled the boulder down to leave an accidental trail. There's not a footprint of a native, though. Hello, by Jove!" Finnerty was examining two bamboos growing from the bank above the road. "See that?" and his finger lay on an encircling mark where a strap had worn a smooth little gutter in the bamboo shell two feet from the ground. Both bamboos, standing four feet apart, showed this line of friction. "Here's where they held the chita in leash, and, when you arrived, took off his hood and slipped the straps. We'll just roll that boulder off the road and go back to breakfast."

"Oh, Lord!" the major exclaimed, as, midway of their breakfast, there came the angry trumpeting of an elephant. "That's Moti, and she wants her bell. She's an ugly devil when she starts; but, while I don't mind losing some sleep, I must eat."

"The devil of it is that all this circumstantial evidence we're gathering isn't worth a rap so far as the real issue is concerned," the captain said from the depths of a brown study.

"I understand," Finnerty answered. "It proves who is trying to get rid of us, but the government is not interested in our private affairs – it wants to check Ananda's state intrigues."

"And also we won't mention any of these things to our young friend whom I hear outside," Swinton added, as the voice of Lord Victor superseded the beat of hoofs on the road.

As he swung into the breakfast room, Gilfain explained cheerily: "Thought I'd ride around this way to see what had happened; my bearer heard in the bazaar Swinton had been eaten by a tiger – but you weren't, old top, were you?"

"My dogcart went wrong," Swinton answered, "so I stayed with the major."

"What made me think something might have happened was that the bally forest here is pretty well impregnated with leopards and things – one of Ananda's hunting chitas escaped last evening and he was worrying about it at dinner; says he's a treacherous brute, has turned sour on his work, and is as liable to spring on a man as on a pronghorn."

"Was the prince anxious about me in particular?" the captain asked innocently.

"Oh, no; he didn't say anything, at least."

Finnerty sprang to his feet as a big gong boomed a tattoo over at the keddah. "Trouble!" he ejaculated. "Elephant on the rampage – likely Moti."

The bungalow buzzed like a hive of disturbed bees. A bearer came with Finnerty's helmet and a leather belt in which hung a .45 Webley revolver; a saddled horse swung around the bungalow, led by a running syce.

The major turned to Swinton. "Like to go?"

"Rather!"

Finnerty sprang down the steps, caught the bridle rein, and said: "Bring Akbar for the sahib, quick!"

Soon a bay Arab was brought by his own syce. "Come on, Gilfain, and see the sport!" And Finnerty swung to the saddle. "It's not far, but the rule when the alarm gong sounds is that my horse is brought; one never knows how far he may go before he comes back." To the bearer he added: "Bring my 8-bore and plenty of ball cartridges to the keddah."

When they arrived at the elephant lines, the natives were in a fever of unrest. Mahadua had answered the gong summons and was waiting, his small, wizened face carrying myriad wrinkles of excited interest. Moti's mahout was squatted at the tamarind to which she had been chained, the broken chain in his lap wet from tears that were streaming down the old fellow's cheeks.