The boy came and stood in front of him. “But Drucker Master has sorrow. I cannot be cheerful.” He actually reflected Bill’s gloom; his round, brown face sagged and even his fat shoulders were bowed under the weight of despair.
“Oh, go fix the bath! I’m going to cry if I have to keep looking at you.” The ghost of a smile flickered at the corners of Ramasinghe’s mouth, and he darted into the bathroom.
Later as Bill was shaving, he remembered the peculiar conversation about the elephant. He was puzzling over it when suddenly he remembered the bit about the spotted hands. With the clear mind of morning he suddenly remembered where he had seen hands like that. And in Bombay, too. He stopped, his razor poised for a stroke, and stared into the reflection of his incredulous eyes in the mirror. “I’ll be damned,” he said softly to himself, and then finished the stroke.
At nine o’clock he strolled into Carson’s office and said, “Could I bother you for a moment, sir?”
Carson looked up, his pale eyes filled with annoyance at the thought of a continuation of yesterday’s discussion. “Look, Drucker,” he said, “I’ve got nothing more to say about that letter. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Mr. Carson. It isn’t about the letter. I wanted to ask you the name of the Purtron man in Bombay.”
Carson looked at him in a peculiar manner and said, “Snider. Why?”
“Has he got white patches on the backs of his hands. Some sort of pigmentation trouble?”
“Yes. Get to the point.”
“Well, do you think that Snider would get mixed up in anything that wasn’t — well... legal? Anything phony?”
To Bill’s utter surprise, Carson’s pale face turned even paler, and then gradually flushed to a dark red. He half rose out of his chair, and bellowed at Bill, “Now get this straight, Drucker. You’re through with Purtron. Don’t try to cover up your own inability with any aspersions on other men in the company. I don’t think it’s in the best interests of the company to keep you on here until your replacement arrives. I can carry on here alone. Get yourself ready to leave within the week. I’ll make all the necessary arrangements and leave word at your hotel about your sailing date. You’re through working as of now! Now get out of here!”
Bill’s anger felt like a roaring flame inside of him. “Listen to me, you old fool.”
“I said shut up and get out! Do I have to have you thrown out?”
Bill lifted his arms in a hopeless gesture, and then let them drop at his sides. The room seemed blurred. He couldn’t see Carson distinctly. He turned on his heel and walked out to his desk. He cleaned out his personal belongings, and handed the key to his desk to the young Burgher girl who acted as stenographer for both of them. She looked up at him with quick sympathy, having heard Carson through the flimsy partition, but he didn’t trust himself to say anything except a mumbled good-by.
After he returned to the hotel, he used the rest of the morning in making out a complete written report of everything that had happened between Carson and himself, including a few pages on the work he had accomplished in Ceylon. At noon he crumpled the report up and threw it into his waste basket. He sat on the bed, buried his tanned young face in his hands, and wished for the ability to cry. Maybe crying would dissolve the stubborn lump that had been clogging his throat ever since he had received the copy of Carson’s letter to the home office.
He had a light lunch sent up to his room, and sat for a long time over the bitter coffee, trying to find some loophole in the walls that surrounded him. The longer he thought, the more often his thoughts reverted to the ebony elephants, and the strange activities of Snider. Since he could think of no way to approach Carson again, no way to defend his job, he decided that he might as well try to track down the elephant mystery. He realized that any kind of action would be better than sitting around feeling sorry for himself. He finished off the coffee and went down to the desk. He saw a familiar looking native standing at the desk, and realized that it was the driver that Carson used. The suave clerk spoke to him as he walked up, “Ah, Mr. Drucker. This person has come to take your vehicle. Does he have your permission?”
Bill glared and fished the keys out of his pocket and slammed them down on the dark wood of the desk. He realized that the desk clerk would guess that something had gone wrong and that Carson’s driver would fill in the blanks. He had at one time been flattered by the personal interest and curiosity of the hotel employees. Now he knew that even little Ramasinghe would know the nature of his trouble in another hour. He knew that little extra courtesies would no longer be given him, that he would hear whispers in the dining room. The hotel was a hotbed of gossip and intrigue. The heat makes any more active indoor sport too exhausting. He mentally adjusted himself for the barrage of sympathetic glances from his new acquaintances, said, “Send Ramasinghe up to my room,” and turned abruptly and went back upstairs. Old Carson worked fast.
Ramasinghe came noiselessly into the room and stood in front of Bill, his round dark face composed into an expression of subservient inquiry. Bill stared at him in silence, wondering how much loyalty lay behind those dark eyes. Finally he said, “Look, boy! Are you wondering how many rupees you can gouge out of me?”
To his surprise and immediate regret he saw tears well up in those dark eyes. “Drucker Master is a good master. Ramasinghe always do what you wish, not think of rupees.” The boy’s voice sounded a little husky, as though he were on the verge of tears.
“Okay, okay! I just wanted to make sure before I asked you to do something very special for me. Very important.”
Ramasinghe smiled brilliantly as he answered, “It is done!”
For a long time Bill explained and re-explained what he wished the boy to do. He made Ramasinghe repeat his instructions back until he was letter perfect. The boy loved mystery. His round eyes grew wide as he began to realize the implications of the instructions Bill was giving him. Bill was most explicit about telling the boy not to utter a word or a hint of his instructions to any of the other servants.
For the rest of the day Bill threw himself into a fever of physical activity. He walked many miles along the beach until all of his clothes were drenched with sweat. When he went to bed he dropped off immediately. The next morning he hired one of the markers at the Garden Club to play a long series of fast sets of tennis in the hot sun. Bill didn’t play his usual game. He was trying to play hard enough to forget Carson. But it was no use. Every time he had a chance to smash a drive he found himself imagining Carson’s face in front of his racket, and he would blast the ball either into the net or out of the court. The ragged little ball boy got an overdose of exercise chasing the vicious whistling drives that Bill smacked over. At one point the marker, who played the quiet, excellent game that all markers in the East play, misjudged one of Bill’s drives and the ball hit the rim of his racket, bounding high into Bill’s court. The marker had been playing net and he saw his difficulty. He tried to move into the back court, but he wasn’t fast enough. Bill ran up on the ball and smashed an overhand drive directly at the marker. The poor man had no chance to get his racket in front of it. It hit him in the pit of the stomach. He gave a startled “Oof” and dropped his racket. He looked at Bill in a peculiar manner as he picked it up. From that point on Bill had all he could do to handle the hot drives from the marker.
After a bath and lunch, Bill sat and stared out the window of his room at the long expanse of beach, trying to quiet his conscience about how his plans might affect Casey Lal. At one point he was ready to give up his plan, but the very tightness of the spot he was in, and the necessity of getting into some kind of action that would take his mind off his own troubles were enough to quiet his conscience. Besides, he rationalized, if Casey is messing with something too hot to handle, I may be saving him from some worse trouble in the future. In addition, he had felt a slight dimming of his liking for the Anglo-Indian pilot after the evening at the Grand.