A Fascinating Traitor

C >> Col. Richard Henry Savage >> A Fascinating Traitor

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BOOK III.

PRINCE DJIDDIN'S VISIT TO ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XI.

"DO YOU SEE THIS DAGGER?"

Morning in Delhi! The fiery sun leaped up, gilding once more the far
Himalayas and lighting the bloodstained plains of Oude. The golden
shafts twinkled on the huge colonnade, the vast ruined arch, the
crumbling walls, and the huge castled oval of Humayoon's tomb. In
the dark night, the monsoon winds wailed over the wreck of Hindu,
Pathan, and Mogul magnificence. The dark demons of Bowanee rejoiced
at a new sacrifice to the gloomy goddess; and the straggling jungle
was alive again.

In the vacant caverns, whence the sons of Mohammed Bahadur were
once dragged forth to die by daring Hodson's smoking pistols, their
slaughtered shades grinned over the ghastly vengeance of the barren
years.

The huge dome of the mosque hung in air over the vacant palaces
of the great Moguls, and the far windmill ridge, and the bastioned
walls of Delhi were bathed in golden light, while Alan Hawke slept
the sleep of exhaustion. And while Ram Lal Singh, secure in his
zenana, calmly greeted the cool morning hour with a smiling face
and a happy heart, in the lonely marble house, stern old Hugh Fraser
Johnstone slept the sleep that knows no waking.

The Chandnee Chouk awoke to its busy daily chatter, and old
Shahjehanabad sought its pleasures languidly again, or bowed its
shoulders once more under the yoke of toil.

The faithful sought the Jumna Musjid for morning prayer, and the
nonchalant British officials began to straggle into the vacant Hall
of the Peacock Throne.

Far away, the Kootab Minar, rising three hundred feet in air, bore
its mute witness to the splendor of the vanished rulers of Delhi,
the peerless Ghori swordsmen of Khorassan. But, even as the soldiers
of the old Pathan fort had marched out into the shadowless night
of death to join Ghori and Baber and Nadir Shah, so the spirit of
the lonely old miser nabob had sought the echoless shore.

When Simpson had unavailingly endeavored to awaken his master, the
locked doors were burst in at last by the anxious servants, and
they found only the tenantless shell of the mighty millionaire, as
cold and rigid as the iron pillar which veils to-day its mystery of
a forgotten past, when the jackals howl in the ruins of old Delhi.

Then rose up a wild outcry, and the sound of hurrying feet. The
alert old veteran servitor, with instinctive military obedience,
dispatched two messengers, on the run, to notify General Willoughby
and Major Alan Hawke. And then, with quick wit, he forbade the
gaping crowd to touch even a single article.

Not even the stiffened body, as it lay prone upon its face, was
disturbed. Simpson stood there, pistol in hand, on guard until
properly relieved, and as silent as a crouching rifleman on picket.
The whole room bore the evidence of a thorough ransacking, and the
disordered clothing of the nabob proved, too, that the body had
been rifled. The mysterious nocturnal visits returned to Simpson's
mind. "Could it have been some once-wronged woman?" he mused while
waiting for his "military superiors." For the simple old soldier
scorned all civilian control. His keen eye had caught the strange
facts of the fastened windows, the disappearance of the two mahogany
boxes, and the startling absence of the key of the chamber door.

"Whoever did this job knew what they came for and when to come!"
mused Simpson. He gazed at the window sill. There was the mark of
damp earth still upon it. "Just as I fancied!" growled Simp-son.
"They came in at the window, and when their work was done, left
by the door. There was more than one murderer in this job!" And,
then, certain old stories of a mysterious Eurasian beauty returned
to cloud the old man's judgment. "Was it robbery, or vengeance?" he
grumbled. "The black gang are in this, but their secrets are safe
forever! They are a close corporation--these devils!"

With certain ideas of an endangered life pension, and a sudden
yearning for the absent Hardwicke's counsel, stern old Simpson awaited
the coming of his betters. And, the ghastly news of Johnstone's
"taking-off" flew over Delhi to furnish a nine days' wonder.

There was a great crowd gathered around the garden walls of the
Marble House, as an officer of the guard galloped up with a platoon
of cavalry. "The General will be here himself, soon! What's all
this terrible happening?" said the young officer, as he took post
beside Simpson. "You have done well!" the soldier said, on a brief
report. "Let nothing be touched. My guard will prevent any one
leaving the grounds!" There was a sullen apathy as regarded the
unloved old egoist.

Major Alan Hawke sprang to his feet, hastily, as the excited Club
Steward, forgetting all his decorum, banged loudly upon the staff
officer's bedroom door. The young man was still in the dress of
night, as the Steward excitedly exclaimed: "Here's a fearful deed!
Hugh Johnstone has been murdered in his bed, and--they've sent for
you!"

Alan Hawke was staggered. "Get me a horse, at once! I must report
to the General! When, where, how? Tell me all! Send off a man for
the horse!" And, as Hawke hastily donned his uniform, he heard the
Hindu servant's story.

"Be off! Tell Simpson I go first to the General, and, then, I will
come over to the house!"

As Major Hawke strode through the clubroom, a half-dozen half-dressed
clubmen seized upon him. He waved off their inquiries, as an orderly
dashed up to the door.

"General Willoughby's compliments, Sir. You are to report to him
instantly at the Marble House! You can take my horse, Major! I'll
bring yours on." And so, lightly leaping into the saddle, the Major
galloped away, with an approving nod. "There'll be a devil of a
racket over this thing!" he reflected, as he dashed along. And he
chuckled with glee at his prudence in hiding away the dagger which
he had picked up in the garden. For, a moonlight-eyed Eurasian girl,
hidden in a little cottage, was the only human being in Delhi who
knew of the hasty visit her secret lover had made in the night. The
jeweled dagger of Mirzah Shah was now securely locked in a little
chest where Alan Hawke kept a few articles hidden away in the humble
home of the passive plaything of his idle hours. As he caught sight
of the Marble House, with its gathered crowds, he saw the gleam of
musket barrels, as a company of foot were picketing the vast garden
inclosure, and forcing back the excited crowd.

A non-commissioned officer swung open the heavy gates which would
only turn on their hinges once more for Hugh Johnstone going out
on his last journey. "The General awaits you, Major," said the
sergeant, touching his cap. "He has already asked for you." And
as Hawke rode up to the front door he was suddenly reminded of his
imperiled interests. "The drafts! They may be stopped now! By God!
I must see Ram Lal! I need him now and he needs me."

With an unruffled professional calm, however, Major Hawke reported
to the visibly disturbed General commanding.

With a single warning gesture of silence, General Willoughby drew
the Major aside. "I shall put you in entire charge here. I have
seen all the civil authorities. This is your affair. It touches
your mission. The Viceroy has been telegraphed, and you are to
guard the whole property here till we have his pleasure. Now come
with me and let us question Simpson. The rest are merely a lot of
apes."

And so Major Alan Hawke had ample time to arrange his private plan
of campaign as he guarded a respectful silence during Simpson's long
relation, for his thoughts were now far away with Berthe Louison,
and the lovely orphan, whose only confidante was his tender-hearted
dupe Justine Delande. But the acute adventurer's mind returned to
fix itself upon Ram Lal Singh, now blandly smiling in his jewel
shop, where the morning gossips babbled over Johnstone Sahib's
tragic death. "I must telegraph to Euphrosyne," thought the Major,
"and to 9 Rue Berlioz, Paris, for my will-o-the-wisp employer. But,
Mr. Ram Lal Singh, you shall pay me for what ruin Mirzah Shah's
dagger has wrought!"

The mantle of silence had fallen forever over the last night's
rencontre in the garden. With dreaming eyes Hawke mused: "It would
never do to tell any part of that story. What busines had I there?"
And, without a tremor, he stood by the General's side as they gazed
on the dead millionaire's body still lying on the floor.

"I will now send for the civil authorities, and you, Major Hawke,
will represent me in the investigation. Your military future hangs
on this. Remember, now, that the Viceroy looks to you alone! I will
return here after tiffin. I will have some personal instructions
for you." And Alan Hawke now saw the farther shore of his voyage
of life gleaming out as General Willoughby left him to confer with
the arriving magistrates and civil police. "I shall marry you, my
veiled Rose of Delhi, and be master here yet, in this Marble House,
and, by God, I'll die a general, too!" he swore, with which pleasing
prophecy Major Alan Hawke calmly took up the varied secret duties
which joined a Viceroy's secret orders to the will of the General
commanding.

"I am a devil for luck!" he mused as he gazed down on the old man's
shrunken and withered dead face. "I will do the honors alone for
you, my departed friend," he sneered, "for I am the master here
now." The absence of all articles of value, the disappearance
of Johnstone's three superb ruby shirt-studs, and his magnificent
single diamond cuff-buttons, told of the greed of the robbers,
presumably familiar with his personal ornaments, while the terrific
stab in the back showed that the heavy knife had been driven through
the back up to its very hilt.

"We must find the dagger!" pompously said the civil magistrate.
"Major Hawke, will you give orders to have the whole house and
grounds searched?" And with a faint smile the Major politely rose
and set all his myrmidons in motion.

Even then the telegraph was clicking away a message to Johnstone's
lawyer and bankers in Calcutta, and to his young relative, Douglas
Fraser, of the great P. and O. steamship service. Before night the
crafty Calcutta lawyer had notified Professor Andrew Fraser, in the
far-away island of Jersey, and before Major Hawke himself received
the Viceroy's orders, through General Willoughby, Mademoiselle
Euphrosyne Delande, of Geneva, and the household at No. 9 Rue
Berlioz, Paris, both knew that the defiant old nabob had sailed
the dark sea without a shore.

Most of all surprised was Captain Anson Anstruther in London, who
pondered long at the United Service Club over an official message
from the Viceroy, telling him of the startling murder. The young
gallant's heart beat in a strange agitation as he examined the
previous dispatches of both Berthe Louison and the Viceroy.

"She had no hand in it, thank God!" mused the young aide-de-camp.
"Perhaps he was paid off for some of his old Shylock transactions--some
local intrigue, or the jealous lover of some Eurasian beauty,
dragged to his lair, has finished all, and revenged the accumulated
brutalities of thirty years."

There was a loud outcry of horror and surprise sweeping on now
from the social circles of Delhi to the clubs of Lucknow, Cawnpore,
Allahabad, Benares, and Patna to Calcutta.

In a day or two, men from Lahore to Hyderabad, from Bombay to
Nagpore and Madras, and in all the clubs from Calcutta to Simla,
had paused over their brandy pawnee to murmur, "Well! The poor old
beggar is gone, and now he'll never get his Baronetcy! Some of the
niggers did the trick neatly for him at last. They must have got
a jolly lot of loot!"

In which general verdict the glittering-eyed Ram Lal, hidden in
his zenana, did not share. For, when he had rifled and destroyed
the two mahogany boxes he summed all up his pickings with baffled
rage. "A couple of thousand pounds of notes, a few scattered jewels,
the sly old dog has spirited away his vast stealings! My work was
all in vain, save the vengeance!" And the oily Ram Lal, in the
zenana, drew a willing beauty of Cashmere to his bosom, and hid
his face from the chatterers of street and shop. He was safe from
all prying eyes in the Harem.

But, while the triumphant English Mem-Sahibs, of Delhi, shuddered
at the bloody details of old Hugh Johnstone's taking off, they
found abundant reason to point a moral and adorn a tale.

While the anxious Viceroy was busied at Calcutta, and General Willoughby
and Hawke were engrossed with the pompous funeral preparations at
Delhi, the ladies of the whole station unanimously condemned the
departed. For a cold and brutal foe of womanhood had died unhonored
in their midst, and none were left to mourn.

With much pretentious wagging of shapely heads, and much mysterious
innuendo, they spoke lightly of the departed one, and failed not
to mentally unroof the Silver Bungalow. The baffled ladies scented
a social mystery!

Wild rumors of splendid orgies, strange tales of a wronged woman's
vengeance, lurid romances of the flight of the French Countess
with a younger lover, after despoiling her aged admirer; all these
things were "put in commission" and vigorously circulated.

The principal party interested in these slanders, was, however,
now calmly gliding on toward Aden, while the dead millionaire was
alike oblivious to the lovely daughter whom he had crushed as a
bruised flower, the haughty woman who had defied him in his wrath,
and the administration of the million sterling which was the golden
monument over his yawning grave! The silk-petticoat Council of
Notables in Delhi decided by a tidal-wave of womanly intuition,
that the gallant and debonnair Major Alan Hawke would marry "the
lovely and accomplished heiress," and so the white-bosomed beauties
of the capital of Oude turned again lazily to their respective sins
of omission and commission, and to the glitter of their respective
booths in Vanity Fair!

The club gossips waited in vain for the reappearance of Major Alan
Hawke, whose entire personal effects were bundled hastily away to
the marble house, where the adventurer now ruled pro tempore. It was
late in the night when Major Hawke had achieved all the preparations
for the funeral of the murdered man, upon the following day.
Simpson and a squad of non-commissioned officers watched where the
flickering lights gleamed down upon the dead nabob.

Making his last rounds for the night, Major Hawke, with a soldier's
cynical calmness, enjoyed a cheroot upon the veranda, as he bade
his captain of the guard take charge until his return. The Major
had most carefully examined the five bills of exchange which now
occupied his attention, and his mind was now busied with the dead
man's golden store. He now contemplated a visit to a man whose
conscience bothered him not, but whose bosom quaked in fear when
Hawke's letter, sent by a messenger, bade Ram Lal await him at
midnight.

"Does he know?" gasped Ram Lal, with chattering teeth, and yet he
dared not fly.

An early evening interview with General Willoughby had disclosed
to the Major the inconvenient fact that the dead nabob had left
a carefully drawn will, whereof Andrew Fraser, of St. Heliers,
Jersey, and Douglas Fraser, of Calcutta, were executors. "There
is a duplicate will here in the Bengal Bank," so telegraphed the
solicitor, "and I have now notified both the executors. I presume
that Mr, Douglas Fraser will return here at once, as he is absent
in Europe on leave. It may be a week or more until he receives the
sad intelligence."

Alan Hawke softly smiled at those touching words, "Sad intelligence."
It was only the perfunctory regret of the shark-like lawyer, and
the secretly rejoicing heirs. "This is not a case where the one who
goes is happier than the one that's left behind," mused Hawke. "I
must settle matters rapidly with Ram Lal, for if the will leaves
the property to Nadine, she must be mine at all costs!

"Shall I not send a well-armed man with you, Major?" asked the
Captain. "It is very late!"

"Thanks, Jordan," lightly said the Major. "I've a good revolver
and my service sword--a priceless old wootz steel tulwar. I'm good
for a dozen Pandies! I'm used to Thug--and Dacoit, to bandit and
ruffian. I have a little private business to attend to, and I'll
come home in a trap!"

By a strange chance, Major Alan Hawke, the distinguished favorite
of fortune, slunk along in byway and shadow till he reached the
cottage, where a lovely woman, flower wreathed, with child-like face
and timid, mournful eyes, anxiously awaited him. "I'll be back in
two or three hours," he carelessly said, as he tossed her a roll
of rupees. Then, with a long, slender package hidden in his bosom,
he stole out after a long circuit and entered Ram Lal's compound
by the rear entrance, always at his use.

"It is just as well not to make any little mistake just now," mused
Hawke, as with cat-like tread he sped through the old jeweler's
garden. And the "prevention of mistakes" consisted in the heavy
Adams revolver which he carried slung around his neck and shoulder
by a heavy cord, in the handy Russian fashion.

His left hand steadied the peculiar parcel which he had so carefully
hidden. An amused smile flitted over his face when old Ram Lal
opened the door of the snuggery, where Justine had first listened
to a lover's sighs. "Poor girl! I wish she were here to-night!"
tenderly mused the sentimental rascal, as he waved away Ram Lal's
bidding to a splendid little supper.

"I came here to talk business, Ram, to-night" sternly said Hawke,
who had inwardly decided not to taste food or drink with the past
master of villainy. "He might give me a gentle push into the Styx,"
acutely reflected the Major. "Sit down right there where I can see
you," said Hawke, his hand firmly grasping the revolver, as he
indicated a corner of the table, after satisfying himself that the
shop door was locked. He then quickly locked the garden door and
pocketed both the keys.

"What do you want of me?" murmured Ram Lal, who had noted the
semi-hostile tone, and who clearly saw the butt of the revolver.

"I want to talk to you of this Johnstone matter," said the soldier,
ignoring all other reference to the "dear departed." This coolness
unsettled the wily jeweler, who trembled as Hawke laid a long red
pocketbook down on the table before him.

The wily scoundrel shivered when the Major, with his left hand,
pushed over to him five sets of Bills of Exchange for a thousand
pounds each. Ram Lal's eyes dropped under the brave villain's
steady gaze, and he slowly read the first paper. He well knew the
drawer's writing:

DELHI, August 15, 1890.

L 1,000.

Thirty days after sight of this first of exchange (second and
third unpaid), pay to the order of Alan Hawke one thousand pounds
sterling, value received.

HUGH FRASER JOHNSTONE.

To Messrs. Glyn, Carr and Glyn, London.

"What do you wish me to do, Sahib?" tremblingly faltered the old
usurer, as he carefully noted the fifteen papers. A sinking at the
heart told him that he was in the power of the one man in India
whom he knew to be as merciless as himself, for a kindred spirit
had fled when the drawer of the Bills of Exchange died alone in the
dark, his bubbling shriek stopped by his heart's blood. The Major
sternly said in an icy voice, as he fixed his eyes full on his
victim:

"I wish you to indorse, every one of those papers. I wish you
to make each one of them read five thousand pounds. You have done
that trick very neatly before, and to put the additional Crown
duty stamps upon them." Ram Lal had started up, but he sank back
appalled as he looked down the barrel of Hawke's revolver.

"Keep silence or I'll put a ball through your shoulder, and then
drag you up to General Willoughby. He will hang you in chains if
I say the word." Alan Hawke was tiger-like now in his rapacity.

"I will leave the first set with you, and you will now give me
your check on the Oriental Bank for five thousand pounds. The other
drafts you will have all ready for me to-morrow and bring them to
me at the Marble House."

The jeweler groaned and swayed to and fro upon his seat in a mute
agony. "I cannot do it. I have not the money," he babbled.

"You old lying wretch. You have screwed a quarter of a million
pounds out of Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan here," mercilessly
said the torturer.

"I will not! I cannot! I dare not!" cried Ram Lal, dropping on the
floor and trying to bow his head at Hawke's feet.

"Get up! You old beast!" commanded Hawke. "By God! I'll shoot and
disable you now and then arrest you! Tell me! Do you know that
dagger?" With a quick motion, still covering the cowering wretch
with his pistol, Hawke drew out the package from his bosom, clumsily
tearing off a silk neck scarf-wrapper with his left hand. He laid
down on the table the blood-incrusted dagger of Mirzah Shah. The
golden haft, the jeweled fretwork and the broad blade were all
covered with the life tide of the great man whom no one mourned in
Delhi.

"Mercy! Mercy!" hoarsely whispered Ram Lal, with his hands clasped,
as in prayer.

"I know whose it is!" pitilessly continued the tormentor. "You
dropped it, you fool, when you ran against me in the garden in
your mad haste to get away! One single rebellious word and I will
march you to the nearest guard post! Now, will you do what I wish?"

"Anything, anything, Sahib!" begged the cowering wretch. "Put it
away, put it away!"

"Now, quick!" said the Major. "First, give me the check! Then indorse
all these drafts right here in my presence. I will negotiate the
others myself. You can send on the first one through your bankers.
Your name on all of them will make them go without question." The
alert adventurer watched Ram's trembling fingers achieve the work.
"Do not dare to leave your own inclosure till you come directly
to me to-morrow, when you have altered all those drafts to read
five thousand pounds each. I have charge of the estate of the man
whom you butchered like a dog. I have a guard of two companies of
soldiers, and you will be arrested as a murderer if you attempt to
leave, save to come directly to me with these papers."

Alan Hawke lit a cigar and then took a refreshing draught from a
pocket flask.

"Now open your strong box and show me your jewels! I want some of
them!" The sobbing wretch at his feet demurred until the cold nozzle
of the pistol was pressed against his forehead. "I will make the
English bankers pay the other four bills; but, you brute, did you
think that I would let you off with a poor five thousand pounds?
Harken! I go to England in a week! Then you are safe forever!
Bring out all your jewels! You got fifty thousand pounds from the
old man! I know it!"

Begging and beseeching in vain, Ram Lal crawled to his great iron
strong box studded over with huge knobs, and, after a half an
hour's critical selection, Alan Hawke had concealed on his person
four little bags, in which he had made the shivering wretch place
the choicest of his treasures.

"Call up your man now. Do not stir for an instant from my side! If
the drafts are not with me before sundown to-morrow, you will be
hung in chains, and the ravens will finish what the hangman leaves!
Remember--my boy! The rail and telegraph will cut off any little
tricks of yours! And," he laughed, "you will not run away; you
have too much here to leave. It would be a fat haul for the Crown
authorities. I will keep my eye on you, near or far. I will be with
you always. We have our own little secret, now!"

"I will obey--only save me! Save me, Hawke Sahib. I will do all upon
my head, I will!" pleaded Ram Lal, whose vast fortune was indeed
at the mercy of the law.

"Call up your servants. Get out the carriage. Go back to your women.
Make merry. You are perfectly safe, but only if you obey me!" was
the last mandate of the triumphant bravo. When he stepped out of
the house, attended by the frightened murderer, Alan Hawke whispered
from the carriage: "Your house is under a close watch--even now.
Remember--I give you till sundown, and if you fail, I will come
with the guard! I shall seal up the dagger and leave it here with
a message to the General Willoughby Sahib to be given to him, at
once, by one who knows you! So, I can trust you. Nothing must happen
to your dear friend, you know!" he smilingly said in adieu, as Ram
Lal groaned in anguish.

Alan Hawke had closely examined the vehicle, and he sat with his
drawn revolver ready as he drove down the still lit-up Chandnee
Chouk. In a storm of remorse and agony, the plundered jeweler was
now doubly locked up in his room. "I must do this devil's bidding!"
he murmured. "Bowanee! Bowanee! You have betrayed your servant!"
was his cry as he sought the safety of the Zenana.

Major Hawke tasted all the sweets of a great secret triumph as he
cast up his accounts. "The five thousand pounds frightened from
this old wretch, Ram Lal, really squares me with the estate of the
'dear departed.' The jewels are worth twice as much more, and, with
Ram Lal's indorsement all the other drafts on Glyn's bank are as
good as gold. There is twenty thousand clear profit. I will send
them on now for acceptance, openly, through the Credit Lyonnaise
when I get to Paris. For Berthe Louison will give me, also,
a good character. Old Ram's indorsements make them perfectly good
anywhere. I had better hide the details of this windfall, out
here. And, now, thank Heaven, I am 'fixed for life,' and I can go
in boldly and play the Prince Charming to Miss Moneybags, the fair
Nadine." He tossed a double rupee to the driver, as the sentry
swung the gate, but, hastily called him back as Captain Jordan
said, hastening from the house:

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