Mandarin-Gold (25 page)

Gunn leaned on his fists, and hated himself for he realized, deep inside him, that this was not the end of these terrible things; this was only the beginning. He would betray other, men, and seduce other women, break other promises and friendships if doing these things furthered his own fortunes. For the aim now was money. And then more money; and with more money, more power; and with enough power, the strength of cruelty, the knowledge you could do what you wanted, anywhere, at any time. And eventually you were so rich and so strong that no-one in all the world could stand against you. And then — what?

Outside the porthole, under the dying moon, the silver sea streamed past him.

The Parsee was standing as usual in the wide window of his house, telescope in his hand, watching the boats in the bay. He saw the
Hesperides
when she was still a mile off and raked the decks with his glass, trying to pick out Crutchley, but the distance was too great and the light from the sea was blinding.

He called for his servant.

'The
Hesperides
will dock by dusk,' he told him. 'Address yourself to it and inform Mr Crutchley that I will see him here immediately his ship is made fast.'

The servant bowed and went out into the waning, afternoon, down between the crumbling walls of the ancient houses to the quay. The boom of the church bells striking the hour drove out flocks of birds above him.

A berth had already been cleared, but the vessel came in as slowly as a blind man without a guide. Fernandes was a careful captain, and when the hull brushed against the thick rope buffers with a gentle creaking of timbers, not one fleck of tar or paint was displaced.

The servant walked up the gangway to Crutchley's cabin. Another man was standing in the doorway; fatter, older, tougher than Crutchley, with grey grizzled hair and a huge stomach. He was smoking a cheroot. MacPherson looked down at the servant without interest or recognition, although Gunn had warned him who he was when he saw him waiting on the quay.

'Where number one Clutchley? Parsee want see him topside,' the servant said in pidgin. He always used pidgin to the crews; everyone understood it.

'Mr. Crutchley is with us no longer,' MacPherson replied in Cantonese, turning bloodshot eyes to the darkening heavens. He crossed himself; these heathen always associated the delineation of the cross with death.

'What has happened Clutchley, eh?' asked the servant, fear tightening his throat like a vice. Danger gongs beat in his servile mind.

'It is too terrible to tell you. The Parsee would only punish you if you brought bad news to him.'

'You
come tell him then,' said the servant quickly. He had not risen to his position as the Parsee's confidant by being slow in passing a chance of punishment to others.

'I dare not leave the vessel,' replied MacPherson earnestly, 'for there is something else. Plague. Do not approach too close to me.'

'Why for you not warn me, eh?' asked the servant nervously, plucking at his sleeves.

‘I do so now. Let the Parsee come here so that I can explain to him what has happened. Then we must stand out off shore until the fever has burned itself out.'

The servant padded off back through the alleyways up to his master's house, fear prodding spurs on his heels. The Parsee listened to him in silence.

The Parsee chewed his lips, thinking. Plague and other terrible fevers sometimes swept like fire through ships, and even decimated towns and islands. But so far his crews had not suffered from them. Maybe this infection came from trading along an unknown shore?

He would request his son-in-law to discover the truth of the matter, and with him he would send six servants with staves in case there was some infamy aboard. The thought of this other unknown nameless man in the
Hesperides
troubled him. And what ship had he left — and why?

Mr Bonnarjee, the Parsee's son-in-law, was a plump man in his late twenties, with soft breasts and a smooth skin, fleshy as a capon's wing. His muscles were clothed with fat, and when he walked he walked slowly, because to hurry made him breathless. He smelled of sweet scent and jasmine oil, and his hair was thick and black. Four bearers carried him in his sedan down to the docks and two more trotted behind him, carrying six long bamboos.

Bonnarjee could see no movement aboard the
Hes-
perides;
no smoke from the galley; no face at a porthole; no snatch of song from the fo'c'sle. Then he saw MacPherson's head in Crutchley's doorway.

'Is it
safe
to come aboard?'

'Of course it's safe,' replied MacPherson. 'Do not believe lies that servants and inferior people may tell you. There is far greater danger from those with long ears on the quay.'

'No,' said Gunn from behind the door. 'I am a doctor, and I personally guarantee you will not.' Then he closed the door behind Bonnarjee and turned the key in the lock.

'Who are you both? Where is Captain Fernandes?' asked Bonnarjee, puzzled. He suddenly felt nervous. He was on his own in a locked cabin with two men who were, of course, his inferiors in breeding and wealth; and yet he feared them in an animal way. And even through the heavy scent he wore he smelled the sharp sweat of his own alarm.

'Ah!' said Bonnarjee in relief. The knowledge of profit expelled all thought of fear; the drum of his heart slowed immediately. 'Then the only casualties from the plague have been Lascars?'

'We have lost some of the original crew,' admitted Gunn.

'Who are
you,
anyway?' asked Bonnarjee.

'I am a snip's surgeon. And I think I had better give you some protection against the plague. It
can
be carried on the air, you know. But modern medical science has made great discoveries to combat it.'

As Gunn spoke, he opened his trunk, took out a scalpel, wiped the blade on cotton wool, dipped it in a small jar of greasy ointment, and holding out his hand, seized Bonnarjee's left wrist. Before the man could protest, he nicked the flesh, slightly, and then held the ointment on the blade against the cut.

Bonnarjee watched the little bead of blood trickle down his brown flesh so intently that he did not notice MacPherson's hand as he raised it to strike him across the back of his neck. Then the floor rippled beneath his feet like a shallow sea, the walls dissolved, and darkness swallowed him.

'Get him on the bed,' said Gunn quickly, tossing away the scalpel and the ointment. 'Gag him and tie his wrists and his ankles. He will come round soon, and if I'm not back here in one hour make him write a note — my life for his — and send one of the crew up to the Parsee's house with it. Meanwhile, stand off five hundred yards into the harbour, and observe my instructions!'

'My God, it's risky,' said MacPherson nervously. 'The Parsee is a dangerous man.'

'The world is full of dangerous men,' retorted Gunn. 'But we are most dangerous of all because we have so little to lose.'

He put a hand under the folds of Bonnarjee's robe, found a scented red silk handkerchief, pushed it in his right-hand trouser pocket, and walked down the gangway. The Parsee's six men waited patiently by the sedan. They raised their bamboos ready to club him if the senior servant gave the word. Gunn pushed them aside and spoke to him over their inferior heads.

'Take me to the Parsee!' he commanded. 'Immediately.'

The servant bowed, recognizing him. Gunn climbed into Bonnarjee's sedan, the bearers lifted the poles, and trotted obediently back up the hill. The servant led him into the house, along tiled corridors to the familiar room overlooking the sea. The Parsee turned from the window, and his face puckered with surprise, but only momentarily.

'Dr Gunn,' he said, holding out both hands, smiling a welcome. 'What a pleasure to see you back so soon! And I thought you were aboard the
Trelawney,
possibly at Singapore, or even in Calcutta by now?'

'You thought nothing of the kind,' replied Gunn shortly, ignoring the outstretched hands. The Parsee nodded dismissal to the servant. The double doors shut silently.

'You knew quite well that I did not return to the
Trelawney,'
Gunn continued as soon as they were alone. 'Your man here, no doubt on your instructions, suggested I join the
Hesperides
— so conveniently owned by you and your creature, Crutchley, who marooned me.

'You thought by doing this that I would lose my life. Then you would keep your three thousand pounds
and
your secret. And, despite all this, you still can — under certain conditions.
My
conditions.'

'I do not understand what you are talking about,' the Parsee replied in a puzzled voice.

'Then I will endeavour to make myself clearer to you. I rejoined the
Hesperides
through the help of a Scot, MacPherson. He is aboard her now, out in the harbour. Crutchley is no longer involved.'

'What do you mean?'

The room was suddenly quiet.

'I mean that Crutchley decided to go ashore instead of me. He took my place, in a manner of speaking, and before he left he signed over his shares in the company to me.'

'You have proof of this?'

'I have,' said Gunn. 'But I only brought a copy of the document, which Captain Fernandes has witnessed. The original is in a safer place than on my person, since you and your servants outnumber me.'

He handed a piece of paper to the Parsee, who read it, then placed it under a quartz paperweight on his desk.

'You were saying?' he said quietly.

'I was saying that you could still keep your secret —
our
secret — under certain conditions. These are that you make over to me — on consideration of your cheque for three thousand pounds, which I will return to you — your controlling shares in Crutchley & Company.'

'Why should I do that?' asked the Parsee, smiling at the absurdity of the proposal. 'You speak like a fool or a dreamer. And yet I cannot believe you are either. You are trained as a man of science.'

‘I am also a man of my word,' said Gunn. 'And you will do as I say, because your son-in-law is aboard the
Hesperides.'

'To do that, you would have to sail out into the bay. The ship, as you can see from your window, has now anchored off shore. Any attempt to board her by force will be met by force, and she carries twenty cannon. In such circumstances, my colleague, Mr MacPherson, would open a sealed envelope I have left in his keeping. It is an account of our transaction — your secret. How many of your enemies would rejoice in such an opportunity to ridicule your family name — and Mr Bonnarjee's virility?

'Also remember that your son-in-law is asleep. I have drugged him. If I do not return, he will quite simply never wake up again. It is useless torturing me to tell you the name of the drug because, although I would no doubt do so, that would not help Mr Bonnarjee. Unless
I
return to administer the antidote, which is not readily available here, he will die within an hour.

‘Thus you have rather less than sixty minutes to make over this company. Otherwise, you should send your servants to remove your son-in-law's corpse to your tower of silence, to be devoured by the carrion birds, as is the custom under your religion.'

'If I had not seen you before,' said the Parsee slowly, measuring out each word painfully, 'I would be convinced you were mad. What you propose is intolerable. It is blackmail and attempted murder. And I thought I was dealing with an English
gentleman.'