My hotel was smack in the middle of this city. Two white Rhodesian soldiers guarded the entrance. They checked my passport and other credentials and then waved me on through. I had wired ahead from Johannesburg for reservations, and the desk clerk had a room waiting for me. It was a large room, well-furnished and luxurious, and the bed looked soft and comfortable. As soon as the bellhop left, I locked the door behind him and started undressing. Right now, all I wanted was to get into that bed and get some much-needed sleep.
I took off my pants and suit-jacket and arranged them on a hanger I took from my suitcase. Then I crossed over to the closet to hang them up. Yawning, I opened the closet door and reached inside with the hanger.
"Mr. Victor, you are stepping on my foot!"
I jumped back and opened my eyes very wide. At first they saw nothing. Then they dropped and my jaw dropped with them as I saw the speaker.
Standing against the rear wall of the closet was an African pigmy. He was dressed in a neat blue suit with a maroon tie and a stiffly starched white shirt. The neatly shaped beard he sported left no doubt that he was a man and not a child. Nor was it only his ebony complexion that led me immediately to think of him as a pigmy, rather than an ordinary midget. It was also the blowpipe he held in one hand grazing the clean-shaven cheek above his beard. I'd seen such weapons before. The darts they discharge are usually tipped with a deadly poison which kills on contact.
"What do you want?" After my initial jump, I wasn't about to make any more sudden moves. He looked as if he knew how to use that blowpipe.
"I wish to speak with you, Mr. Victor. Do not be afraid. I mean you no harm." His English was Oxford-perfect.
"Oh, no?" I eyed the blowpipe with obvious suspicion.
"I am holding this at the ready to protect us both from the threat of intruders. It is not meant to threaten you. It is meant to protect you. There are dangers here of which you are not yet aware. Indeed, tonight Salisbury is a city fraught with danger for all. But the danger to you, Mr. Victor, is more specific and greater than to most."
"How so?"
"Hang up your clothes, Mr. Victor, and sit down, and I will explain."
I did as he said and then perched on the edge of the bed. He came out of the closet and took a chair opposite me. I noticed that he picked a chair against the wall which enabled him to keep an eye on both the window and the door. He continued to hold the blowpipe like a cigarette from which he was about to take a puff.
"Now, who are you and what do you want?" I asked.
"Call me Lagula. I'm an agent of British Intelligence."
"Let me see your credentials."
"Don't be foolish, Mr. Victor. I don't walk around carrying identification. Even before today, a British agent who did that would simply be asking to be shot."
"Granted. But how can I be sure you are what you say you are?"
"Does the name Charles Putnam mean anything to you?"
"Yes, it does."
"I was told to say that Charles Putnam said you should trust me. And I was told to identify myself further by delivering a rather peculiar message to you from Mr. Putnam."
"What message?"
"I am to tell you that Gladys is on ice and the Beatle fans are waiting."
I grinned. Occasional humor from the usually dour Putnam never failed to surprise me. And the message certainly seemed to vouch for the fact that Lagula was legit. I said as much by the way I untensed and relaxed against the pillows on the bed.
"What does the message mean?" Lagula asked.
"Nothing really. It's a private joke. But it says I should trust you. So go ahead and fill me in on the situation."
"Very well, Mr. Victor. First of all, you were followed from the airport."
"I know that," I interrupted.
"Yes. But do you know who followed you?"
"Not really. I'd guess he's an agent of S.M.U.T. Or possibly of a New York vice ring out to get me because they think I'm an agent of S.M.U.T." I decided against going into the tie-in between the vice ring and S.M.U.T. It was too complex, and I wasn't sure I understood it myself.
"Wrong on both guesses, Mr. Victor. The man following you is a Russian agent. His name is Vlankov. British Intelligence has a long dossier on him. But what we don't know is why he is following you. Have you any idea?"
"No," I said noncommittally.
"Mr. Victor, you must confide in me. Has it to do with S.M.U.T.?"
"Then he must be following you because he thinks you have discovered a lead to the whereabouts of Dr. Nyet."
"You know about Dr. Nyet?"
"I know that you are searching for her, and I know that she is important. I was told no more than that. Nor are you obliged to tell me any more than that. But if I am to help you, I should know why your quest has brought you to Salisbury."
I opened up a little then. I told Lagula that I had narrowed the identification of Dr. Nyet down to three girls and that one of the girls was now in Salisbury. I told him that I planned to shake Vlankov the next day and arrange a private meeting with Ilona Tabori.
"A good plan – if you live until tomorrow," he told me calmly.
What a happy little man! "I'll do my best," I told him. "And if that's all for now, I'd like to get some sleep."
"It is not all, but the rest can wait until morning. You go on and sleep. I shall remain here and do my best to see that you remain alive."
"Suit yourself." I pulled of my shoes, socks and shirt, doused the light, and crawled under the covers. In the moonlight I could barely make out the pigmy still sitting in the chair and fondling his blowpipe. I thought drowsily that his silhouette looked somehow lewd, and then I drifted into a deep sleep.
I was awakened by a body falling across me. An instant later the overhead light went on. A machete was buried in the pillow an inch from my skull.
"What the hell!" I pushed out from under the body, turning it over as I did so. There was a dart neatly embedded in the exact center of the throat. I watched, dazed, as Lagula crossed the room to retrieve it.
When he'd done so without comment, I gathered my wits together and took a good look at the dead man. He was a large Caucasian in his late twenties or early thirties. He had the leather-skinned look of an outdoorsman. His clothing was the rough corduroy favored by white men who work in the Rhodesian bush country. I'd never seen him before in my life.
"Who is he?" I turned back to Lagula.
"I do not know. But I can guess who he serves."
"Who?"
"T.U.M.S."
"No thanks. Never use them," I told him. "I've got a cast-iron stomach."
"I beg your pardon?"
"That's quite all right. Go right ahead. Never squelch a belch. That's my motto."
"Mr. Victor, I seem to have lost the thread of this discussion. T.U.M.S. -"
"- for the tummy. I know all about it," I told him. "It's very popular back in the States. Pregnant women live on them."
"Somehow, Mr. Victor, I begin to suspect that we are talking about two different things. The T.U.M.S. to which I refer has nothing to do with abdominal complaints."
"Not Tums for the tummy?"
"No. Whatever that is, no."
"Oh." I puzzled over it for a moment. "Then what -?"
"T.U.M.S. – T-U-M-S," Lagula spelled it out, "are the initials of the organization which I believe sent this man to kill you. They stand for Tactical Underground Masters' Society."
"Ours is an age of initials," I observed. "They permeate our whole society and wreak havoc with conversation. It's a master agent indeed who can keep them all straight. But in any case, I never heard of this outfit. What's their game?"
"It's complicated. T.U.M.S. is a group of white men who banded together to try to restore a sort of company rule to Rhodesia. You see, from 1889 through 1923, the country was ruled by the British South Africa Company. Cecil Rhodes, for whom Rhodesia is named, was general manager of that company, and the stockholders gave him a free hand in ruling the country. It was very profitable for them, and under his rule the native population was completely enslaved. T.U.M.S. wants to set up a similar corporation along the same lines. Only this one wouldn't be subject to English control. It would be run from right here in Salisbury."