Part 28 (1/2)
”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 indors.e.m.e.nt 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 indors.e.m.e.nts 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:
”Orders are waiting for you now, with the General. Let me give you a trusty Sergeant. Drive right up there, Major. The General sent word that he awaits you.” And so the Major sped away to his chief.
No human being in Delhi ever knew the purport of the orders which General Willoughby handed to Major Hawke, on this eventful evening, but much marveled all Delhi that the favorite of fortune was absent from the funeral of the late Hugh Fraser Johnstone, Esq., of Delhi and Calcutta.
He had vanished, with no P.P.C. calls, and a hundred-pound note tossed to the poor little Eurasian girl in the cottage was her whole fortune in life now.
But a grave-faced civilian public official, with Major Williamson, of the Viceroy's general staff (a late arrival from Calcutta), ruled over the marble house in place of Major Alan Hawke ”absent upon special duty.” Only Ram Lal knew of the real destination of the lucky man, who was only free from care when he had sailed from Bombay direct for Brindisi, on the fleet steamer Ramchunder.
”I am safe now,” laughed Alan Hawke, who rejoiced in the easy tour of duty before him. ”To repair to London and to report to Captain Anson Anstruther, A.D.C., for special duty.” Such were the Viceroy's secret orders. It was General Willoughby who had absolutely invoked secrecy.
”Wear a plain military undress, and you must avoid most men, and all women. Keep your mouth shut and you may find your provisional rank confirmed.”
To Berthe Louison's secret agents, the Grindlay Bank at Delhi, Major Hawke had delivered a sealed envelope. ”Use this only at your sorest need. I will see Madame Louison probably before she has any orders for me, as to her private affairs.” When the envelope was opened the words ”Major Alan Hawke, Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, Switzerland,” gave the only address which the adventurer dared to leave. And it was that which the cowering Ram Lal Singh copied when he brought to Alan Hawke the four sets of altered Bills of Exchange, and the Bank of England notes for the check of five thousand pounds.
Major Hawke surveyed the skillfully raised Bills of Exchange and carefully examined them in a dark room with a light, and also before the glaring sun rays. ”A splendid job, Ram Lal,” he gayly said. ”You must have given them a coat of size and then moistened and ironed them.” The old rascal gloomily accepted the professional compliment. ”I observe that you have labored to protect your own indors.e.m.e.nt,” sportively remarked the Major.
”And now you will return to me my jewels?” timidly demanded Ram Lal.
”Do you wish me to send the dagger of Mirzah Shah to General Willoughby?
It is deposited here, with a sealed letter,” coldly sneered Hawke.
”Should anything happen to me or, to these drafts, it would be sent to the General, and you would hang. No, I will keep the jewels.”
And then Major Hawke thrust the s.h.i.+vering wretch out, having liberally paid to him, through Grindlay, the balance due by Berthe Louison.
”I swear that I did not get a single jewel from--from him. He has hidden them,” pleaded Ram Lal.
”Ah! I must look to this” mused Hawke, when Ram Lal had been frightened away with a last stern injunction:
”Obey my slightest wishes or you will hang! I will have you watched till I return! There are eyes upon your path that never close in sleep!” Ram Lal shuddered in silence.
Delhi soon forgot the man whom the great stone now covered in the English cemetery, and only General Willoughby and the easy-going civil authorities knew of the cablegram: ”Coming on with full power from Senior Executor.--Douglas Fraser, Junior Executor.” The cablegram was dated from Milan, for two keen Scottish brains were now busied with plans to save and care for the worldly gear so suddenly abandoned to their care by Hugh Johnstone. Though Delhi was swept as with a besom, no trace of the cowardly a.s.sa.s.sins was ever found, and only old Simpson, waiting, in final charge as household major domo for Douglas Fraser's arrival, could enlighten the perturbed commanding General with certain vague suspicions. But Ram Lal slept now in a growing security.
”It is clear that the master was watched in his secret preparations for the voyage home,” said Simpson, ”and some outsiders, with the help of some traitor among the blacks, paid off an old score. I could tell of many an old enemy which he gained in these twenty years.” sadly said Simpson. ”I feel they only mussed up the room to give an appearance of robbery. The mahogany boxes were merely part of master's old wedding outfit in London, and I know that they were only filled with toilet articles and little medical stores. They only lugged them off to make a show.”
And General Willoughby, following up Simpson's clues, easily discovered a shady side of Johnstone's past life, not compatible with the pompous panegyrics of the Indian press, the resolutions of a dozen clubs and societies, the minutes of the Bank of Bengal, and other mortuary literature of a complimentary nature. It was some old curse come down upon the defenseless man in his old age! And so no one ever sought for the solution of the mystery in the deep dejection of Ram Lal Singh, who vainly mourned for his lost jewels and money. Fear tied his hands, and his tongue was palsied by guilt. He vindictively, however, raised his customary ”rate of usance,” and swore in his own hardened heart that the needy borrowers of Delhi should recoup him fully before a year. The one Star gleaming in the dark night of financial blackness was the vengeance upon the man who had tricked and despoiled a fellow-robber thirty years before.
Major Hawke on his homeward way counted up a goodly store of twelve thousand pounds in money, jewels of nearly the same value, and the skillfully raised and properly indorsed drafts on London for twenty thousand more. ”If I can only get these pa.s.sed by the executors I am a made man for life,” mused the Major as the Ramchunder sped over the blue Arabian sea. ”If I discover the secret of the stolen jewels, they must yield, to save both family honor and money; if I don't, then, Ram Lal must save his life and protect the drafts. I will negotiate them with the Credit Lyonnais, in Paris, and force Berthe to help me. No one shall rob me now,” somewhat illogically mused the brilliant adventurer, proud of his life-work.
At Calcutta, the n.o.ble Viceroy had already given to Major Harry Hardwicke and Capt. Eric Murray his orders for their performance of a delicate duty.
”You will find Captain Anstruther to be my personal as well as official representative in London, and Her Majesty's service demands prudence in this grave affair. So but one set of confidential cipher dispatches have been sent on, and Captain Anstruther will have charge of the whole delicate affair. Should either of you meet Major Alan Hawke in London, or out of India, your commissions will depend on guarding an absolute silence as to the whole Johnstone affair. You are trusted, and not watched, gentlemen,” said the great n.o.ble, ”and he is watched, and not trusted. Now, I have done all I can for you, as this duty takes you home and brings you back at the expense of her Majesty's government. You will not fail to communicate with me from Aden, Suez, and Port Said, as well as Brindisi, and to report if Madame Louison has received at each place her telegrams and proceeded on her journey in safety. Her Majesty's consuls will, in each place, aid you in every way. Should I decide to drop or quash the whole affair, my young kinsman, Anstruther, represents me, personally as well as officially.”