The Monkey God | Page 9

knick-knack was
an inexpensive piece of Japanese work, executed in polished brass, and
represented a diminutive monkey in the act of holding his paws before
his mouth--one of the familiar "speak no evil" symbols to be found in
every curio store. Just then it glittered in a ray of the afternoon sun as
though it were burnished gold instead of hammered brass. The young
man's eyes shone with a sudden fierce light of jubilation as they
encountered the toy, and he moved a step nearer the study door.
"Ye-es, this ve'y ni-ce cover for ni-ce lady's table--" he drawled,
fumbling in the side pocket of his overcoat beneath the cotton cloth
which still draped his arm.
"Darwaza bundo!" Rosalie exclaimed shrilly. The peddler started as
though stung by a yellow-jacket, his right arm writhing under the
covering of the sheet of embroidery like a snake beneath a blanket.
With a furious movement he whipped the cloth from his shoulder,
wrenched something from his pocket and wheeled, backing toward the
study with long, cautious steps.
"LOOK out, Uncle Harvey!" Rosalie's warning came sharply. Next

instant she launched herself across the room like a fury, rushing
between the Armenian and the astonished Professor.
"Dog, son of filth, unworthy offspring of a he goat and a bad smell!"
she spat at the hawker in a torrent of Hindustani, her amber eyes
glowing balefully, her lovely mouth distended like that of an angry cat.
There was a flash of steel in the afternoon sunlight, something like a
flickering flame leaped to life in the girl's right hand and swept forward
and down like a cracking whiplash. The peddler screamed with
amazement and pain and dropped the object he had half drawn from his
pocket.
Rosalie's slim, silk-and-satin-shod foot shot out, kicking the thing out
of reach as she menaced the wounded huckster with a ten-inch,
wavybladed Malay kris.
"Tie him up, Uncle Harvey," she bade, thrusting her knife forward to
within an inch of the Armenian's belt buckle, then, to the peddler,
"Stand still, grandson of a toad, or by the Three Holy Ones, I shall slit
your unclean throat and pour forth your vile blood as an offering to
Kali!" The peddler followed her advice to the letter, though his
frightened glance turned this way and that, any direction but toward the
girl's fierce eyes and the glittering, razor-sharp blade of her dagger.
Seizing a length of lace from the open suitcase, Forrester hastily
twisted it into a rope and trussed the huckster's elbows behind him--a
far more effective manner of binding than strapping the wrists
together--then tore a length from one of the cotton embroideries and
bandaged the fellow's wounded wrist.
"Sit down," he ordered curtly, motioning the captive to a chair; then to
Rosalie:
"I hope you know what you're about, young woman. If you've run
amuck, we're in for a tidy little lawsuit, if not for a criminal
prosecution."

"Hou!" Rosalie laughed, lapsing into oriental vernacular, which she
still did under the stress of excitement. "Behold, my lord, what your
slave has discovered." With a quick fillip, she removed the fez from the
peddler's head, displaying a small device in red painted on his forehead
near the hairline.
It was a small crescent which nearly enclosed a tiny disc within its
horns, and Forrester started at the sight. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed.
"Why, it's the caste mark of a follower of Siva!"
"YES, my lord, it is nothing less," the girl replied with a triumphant
smile. "When this base-born descendant of a hyena and a mangy female
monkey appeared at my master's house, wishing to show me his
detestable wares, I was about to send him on his way, but the day is
warm for winter and he put up his hand to wipe his brow, so that I did
behold the caste mark for an instant as he put back his cap. Many an
Armenian have I seen--we had hundreds of them in Singapore--but
never have I beheld one who wore the sign of Siva.
"Then I did remember, master of my life, how the villainous Chandra
Roi (may the vultures devour his eyeballs!) sometimes hired these Siva
fellows to do his filthy work when even the Chinamen would not, and I
knew this one came to my master's house for no good.
"Two nights ago when Milsted Sahib spoke of the loss of his image of
Hanuman, the others knew not what he referred to, but you and I, my
lord, knew that Hanuman is the Monkey God of the people of Hind,
and though in this land the monkey dances to the music of hand organs,
in India he is a very sacred beast.
"I knew, too, that Milsted Sahib was killed by someone, for did I not
behold