§
that’s colonel’s daughters for you, covetous and stupid, God bless ’em. — S.M.
On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance*.
And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars;
But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night beneath the stars.
kif, probably. It’s not just the natives who smoke it. Bloody boring, a posting in Nepal. — S.M.
He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temple dripping red;
He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day*,
And the Colonel’s daughter watched beside his bed.
lazy malingering tosser. — S.M.
He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;
She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;
He bade her search the pocket saying ‘That’s from Mad Carew’,
And she found the little green eye of the god*.
if you saw this coming, you are not alone. — S.M.
She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do*,
Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;
But she wouldn’t take the stone§ and Mad Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he’d chanced his life to get.
here’s gratitude for you: the flaming cretin gets himself half-killed to fetch her a birthday present and she throws a sulk. — S.M.
§
which shows she wasn’t entirely addle-witted, old Amaryllis. — S.M.
When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,
She thought of him* and hurried to his room;
As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro’ the gloom.§
the least she could do, all things considered. Note that M.C. being stabbed didn’t stop her having her bally party. — S.M.
§
poetic license at its most mendacious. You imagine an orchestra conducted by Strauss himself and lilting, melodic strains wafting across the parade ground. The musical capabilities of the average hill station run to a corporal with a heat-warped fiddle, a boy with a Jew’s harp and a Welshman cashiered from his colliery choir for gross indecency (and singing flat). The repertoire runs to ditties like ‘Come Into the Garden, Maud (and Get the Poking You’ve Been Asking For All Evening)’ and ‘I Dreamt I Dwelled in Marble Halls (and Found Myself Fondling Prince Albert’s Balls)’. — S.M.
His door was open wide*, with silver moonlight shining through;
The place was wet and slipp’ry where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew§,
’Twas the vengeance of the little yellow god.
where were the guards? I’d bloody have ’em up on a charge for letting yak-bothering clod-stabbers through the lines. — S.M.
§
how much worse than being stabbed with a pretty knife, eh? — S.M.
There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,*
There’s a little marble cross below the town;
There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the yellow god forever gazes down§.
yes, J. Milton skimps on his poetical efforts by putting the first verse back in again. When Uncle Bertie or the bank manager’s sister read it aloud, they tend to do it jocular the first time, emphasising that rumty-tumty-tum metre, then pour on the drama for the reprise, drawing it out with exaggerated face pulling to convey the broken heartedness and a crack-of-doom hollow rumble for that final, ominous line. I blame Rudyard Kipling. — S.M.
§
Have you noticed the ambiguity about the idol? Is it only one eyed because M.C. has filched the other, or regularly configured like Polyphemus and now has its single eye back? Well, Mr Hayes was fudging because he plain didn’t know. To set the record straight, this was always a Cyclopean idol. And the poet didn’t hear the end of the story. — S.M.
Oh, I know what you’re thinking — if Mad Carew’s emerald-pinching escapade led to a twit-tended grave north of Khatmandu, how did he fetch up un-stabbed in our London consulting room, presenting a sickly countenance? Ah-hah, then read on…
IV
‘I took the eye from the idol,’ Carew admitted. ‘I don’t care what you’ve heard about why I did it. That doesn’t matter. I took it. And I didn’t give it away. I can’t give it away, because it comes back. I’ve tried. It’s mine, by right of… well, conquest. Do you understand, Professor?’
Moriarty nodded. If he understood, that was more than I did.
‘I had to fight — to kill — to get it. I’ve had to do worse to keep alive since. They’ve not let up. They came for me at the hill station. Nearly had me, too. If letting them have the stone would save my hide, I’d wish it good riddance. But it’s not the gem they want, really. It’s the vengeance. Blighters with knives have my number. Heathen priests. That’s an end to it — they think, at any rate. Some say they did get me, and I’m a ghost…’
I’d not thought of that. He didn’t look like any ghost I’d run across, but, then again, they don’t, do they. Ghosts? Look like what you’re expecting, that is.
‘I didn’t just take this thing. I copped a fortune in other stones and gold doodads, too. Not as sacred, apparently. Though most folk who bought from me — chiselled at a penny in the pound, if that — are dead now. Even with miserly rates of fencing, I netted enough to buy out and set myself up for life. Thought I could do a lot better than Fat Amy Framington, I tell you.
‘Resigned my commission, and left for India… with the little brown men after me. More of ’em than I can count. Some odd ones, too — brown in the face, but hairy all over. White hairy, more brute than man. There are a few of ’em left in mountain country. Mi-go or yeti or Abominable Snowballs. They’re the trackers, when the priests let them off their leashes. They dogged me over India, into China… across the Pacific and through the States and the Northern Territories. Up to the Arctic with them after me on sledges… they have yeti in Canada too, Sasquatch and windigo. I heard the damned beasts hooting to each other like owls. Close scrape in New York. Had to pay off the coppers to dodge a murder charge. Steam-packet to Blighty.
‘They nearly got me again in a hotel in Liverpool, but I left six of ’em dead. Six howling bastards who won’t make further obeisance to their bloody little yellow god. Now I’m here, in London. The white man’s Kathmandu. I’ve still got this green lump. Worth a kingdom, and worth nothing…’
‘This narrative is very picturesque,’ Moriarty said, ‘though I would quibble about your strict veracity on one or two points. You could place it in the illustrated press. What I fail to perceive, Major Carew, is what exactly you want us to do?’
Carew’s eyes became hooded, shifty. For the first time, he almost smiled.
‘I heard of you in a bazaar in Peking, Professor. From a ruined Englishman who was once called Giles Conover…’
Him, I remembered. Cracksman, and a toff with it. Also enthusiastic about precious stones, though pearls were his line. Why anyone decided to set a high price on clams’ gallstones is beyond me. Conover went for whole strings. Lifted the Ingestre Necklace from Scotland Yard’s Black Museum to celebrate the centenary of the burning down of Mrs Lovett’s Fleet Street pie shop. I’ll wager you know that story. [35]
35
See: James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest (attr.), ‘The String of Pearls: A Romance’,