Free The Bradmoor Murder by Melville Davisson Post

it a shilling. I must pay for the yacht I have borrowed, out there’—she indicated the sea with her hand—‘and Imust live on the Mediterranean for the rest of the time I am here. I wouldn’t last three months in an English climate. It will take a lot of money. You will be the richest Rajah in India.… I shall have to ask you to divide with me.’
    â€œMahadol thought she was crazy, but he found out differently in a moment.
    â€œ ‘I can’t be annoyed with you,’ he said, and he put out his hand toward the bell cord. She came close to his chair then, and looked down at him.
    â€œ ‘Mahadol,’ she said, ‘if you put your hand on that bell cord you will never be the Rajah of Gujrat!’
    â€œThat brought him up. She saw the hesitation in his face, and quickly took advantage of it.
    â€œ ‘We are a queer people,’ she said. ‘We object to direct methods. The natural way, of course, when a man is in one’s way, is to kill him.… Succession by assassination is the oldest method of succession in the world. But it is not favored just now in England. I doubt if one who came into his succession by the direct and effective instrumentality of murderwould be confirmed in his titles by our English Office.’
    â€œMahadol got up. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.
    â€œThe woman looked at a jeweled watch on her wrist. ‘Do you remember Leouenheim? … Well, I have his report. I got it out of his lodgings at the residency the night before he disappeared. I don’t overlook anything.’
    â€œShe seemed to study the face of the jeweled watch.
    â€œ ‘I knew what you were doing, Mahadol, and I didn’t object to it, don’t get a wrong impression. I am quite willing for you to be the Rajah of Gujrat, provided you are generous.’
    â€œThere must have been the menace of the devil in her vulture face.
    â€œ ‘No doubt you are generous, but I prefer to be sure of it. I prefer, in fact, to take no chances on your generosity.’
    â€œShe fumbled with the jewels on the watch.
    â€œ ‘I can turn Leouenheim’s report over to the Foreign Office.’
    â€œShe said that the man’s face changed, that it became the color of a handful of ashes. He kept repeating what he had said before.
    â€œâ€˜What do you mean?’
    â€œShe knew where she had him! She was no fool to go about with threats and nothing behind them. That’s what made her the greatest blackmailer in the world; she always had the data.
    â€œShe went on.
    â€œ ‘You looked pretty carefully through all the papers Leouenheim left behind him when he followed the Rajah the next day. It was like a German to write a report. You thought of that.… But you were thinking behind events, Mahadol. I had already thought of it.’
    â€œHer voice was soft, like the flying of a killer owl.
    â€œ ‘Don’t be misled. The report is in Leouenheim’s handwriting; no one could imitate it. It would be authenticated in any Foreign Office in the world.’
    â€œMahadol did not move. The woman looked leisurely about the room for a cigarette, and when she got it she squatted down on a rug before the creature’s big feet. Then she went on:
    â€œ ‘The morning following the night on which the Rajah was supposed to disappear, youbrought the abandoned uniform, pretty well cleaned up—washed, in fact—and showed it to Leouenheim. He took the coat of the uniform with him. The next day he came to see you. And what he said to you put the fear of God in you, Mahadol. He said:
    â€œ ‘ “The Rajah is dead!”’
    â€œShe paused and watched the smoke rings from her cigarette climb slowly toward the ceiling. She was in no hurry. She wanted her words to sink in to the bone.
    â€œ ‘Leouenheim didn’t know where the Rajah was; he had not seen him; he had talked with no one. He did not know