They were making good progress. To insure that it continue, Bullock selected a stout stick. When they met their first patrol he squatted down in the bushes between Tang and Bier and tapped the big stick in his palm. They got the message.
But Bullock’s main preoccupation was the murder attempt. As he hobbled along he tried to re-enact the crime in his mind, imagining himself first as the little Chinese slinking out of the narrow shadows and up onto the veranda, eyes darting like evil almonds, rawhide dripping between his teeth — Bullock shook his head.
He tried again, imagining himself to be the big-nosed American. But it still didn’t work. He tossed his imaginary tangle of string hammock and rawhide aside in disgust. There was just no way a man could lace a string hammock with wet rawhide using only one hand.
Then was it Lotus Lane? Bullock shook his head again. Pretty Mary Lacks Vitamins. That summer Bullock had wangled permission to attend a Mountie seminar: “Murder: Did You Ever Ask Yourself Why?” given by Dr. Montague Dabkin. The celebrated criminologist had insisted that murder motives have remained unchanged since time immemoriaclass="underline" Politics, Money, Love, Vengeance. To help them remember, Dabkin had given a mnemonic sentence: Pretty Mary Lacks Vitamins. Well, Politics was out. And you don’t go into the medical missionary line if you’re interested in Money. Love? Macpherson was hardly God’s gift to women. And Dr. Lane had more motive for Vengeance against others than against a harmless Canadian doctor.
Macpherson broke into Bullock’s thoughts. He signaled everyone to take cover. They squatted down in the bushes and scanned the trail. Who would it be this time? Bullock had taken his place between Tang and Bier. He wagged his stick meanacingly. Then he frowned. The first hat that appeared on the trail was broad-brimmed like his own. Other hats followed. A patrol of Mounties? Bullock grinned. A patrol of Mounties to the rescue!
“Put up your dukes,” said Tang and Bier simultaneously. Both sides of Bullock’s head burst into pain, then darkness rushed in on him.
Bullock’s eyes ached when he cracked them open to the late afternoon sun. He was following Macpherson and the others in a makeshift litter carried by four boys in broad-brimmed hats, plaid neckerchiefs, shorts, and woolen knee socks. A middle-aged Mandalasian, similarly dressed but wearing a whistle, was fanning him with a frond. Boy Scouts. “Good Godfrey,” said Bullock dejectedly. The litter hit the ground with bone-shattering force.
The man with the whistle leaned over Bullock. “Ah, sir, you must excuse the boys,” he said. “You see, ‘good Godfrey’ bears a striking phonetical similarity to the Mandalasian for ‘Put me down this instant or I shall be displeased with you.’ This strange coincidence I have puzzled over more than once.”
He offered Bullock his hand. “Bay Den Pol, at your service,” he said. “The boys and I are on our way to the Boy Scout Jamboree in Rangoon.” In a half whisper he added, “Would you mind returning the boys’ salute? They think you are the Scoutmaster General.”
Bullock snapped off a quick salute. The boys proudly hoisted the litter and started down the trail again. At the next high point of land Bay Den Pol said, “Look, the Kinkong valley. On the other side is the border.”
“Listen,” said Bullock, “no offense meant, but I’ve got some top-level police work to finish up. I’d like to put my thinking cap on, okay?” Bullock folded his arms, furrowed his brow, and settled back in the litter. There would be Embassy people at the border. They’d demand the culprit’s name and expect more from a Mountie than a feeble, “Search me.” He reviewed his thinking from re-enactment of crime to Pretty Mary Lacks Vitamins and found his logic flawless. If that wasn’t bad enough, his leg developed a fierce itch.
“I understand you were set upon by the American and the Chinese gentleman simultaneously,” said Bay Den Pol when it was obvious that Bullock had doffed his thinking cap. “That reminds me of the old Mandalasian folktale of how Krog the Crow and Lopti the Stork, though Natural Enemies, Joined Forces to Steal the Tail of Chee-Chee the Peacock. Have you heard that one?”
Bullock scowled as though he had more important things on his mind. But he listened. He could never resist a good story.
“Well, it came about this way,” said Bay Den Pol. “Each afternoon Chee-Chee the Peacock, resplendent in his magnificent tail and yellow kid gloves, would strut through the forest catching the hearts of the ladies. His amorous successes set the green worm of envy gnawing deep in the vitals of Krog the Crow and Lopti the Stork. From the cornfield Krog would mutter, ‘Fancy Dan.’ From the frog pond Lopti would sneer, ‘Dude.’ And each resolved to steal the magnificent tail for himself.
“Now one stormy night as Lopti peered in through the transom of Chee-Chee’s fashionable pied-a-terre, who should arrive to peek in at the letter slot but Krog. Now Krog and Lopti were natural enemies. After all, the one was black, the other white. The one squat, the other tall. The one had a short beak, the other a long. Yet together they watched as Chee-Chee banked the fire and bolted the door. Then he locked his tail inside a stout clothes press, placed the key between the mattress and the box springs of his bed, blew out the candle, and retired.
“The stork, thinking how he could not gain entrance through the sooty chimney without pointing the finger of guilt at himself, sighed. The crow, thinking the key was tucked far out of reach, sighed. As one man they looked at each other and sealed the bargain with a wink. In a twinkling the crow flew down the chimney and unbolted the door. Then, thanks to his long beak, the stork plucked the key from its hiding place. The two divided up the elegant plumage and went their separate ways.”
They were down on the mud flats now, the litter boys wading knee-deep in soft ooze. Macpherson and the others had crossed a shrunken river channel and reached a ruined temple on a rise of land.
“Noo Noo, my wise old peasant nurse, always delighted in the moral of this story,” said Bay Den Pol, struggling along beside the litter. “ ‘Bay Bay,’ she would say, ‘politics makes strange bedfellows.’ ”
“Good Godfrey!” exclaimed Bullock.
It was almost dark. Bullock stood on one leg in a backwater pool and washed the mud from his uniform as best he could. Bay Den Pol and his Boy Scouts had marched on ahead, promising to call the Canadian Embassy from the first telephone booth across the border. Bullock wanted to look presentable for the press photographers when they arrived.
Well, another case was as good as closed. He imagined the Prime Minister’s surprise at finding him at his old post, guarding the flowerbeds in front of the Parliament Buildings. (“Back so soon, Bullock?” “Mission accomplished, Mr. Prime Minister.” “You’re a wonder, Bullock. We’ve got our eye on you.” “Thank you, sir. Here, let me get that car door—”) With a smile on his face Bullock hobbled back to the temple, stopping only to cut and strip a pole from a nearby stand of bamboo.
His four companions were having after-dinner coffee around a masked fire — tire-tread sandal prints had suggested that Neutralists were in the vicinity. Bullock noted at once that someone had been into his survival kit. If they’d wanted some pemmican, he thought peevishly, all they had to do was ask.
Well, no matter. He took out a small Canadian flag and tied it to the pole. Then, as the others watched with mild interest, he stuck the pole in the ground, saluted the flag, and announced, “I claim this no-man’s-land for the Dominion of Canada.” Accepting a cup of coffee from Lotus Lane with a polite nod, Bullock continued, “And now that this is officially Canadian soil, I arrest you, Tang, and you, Birch Bier, alias Michael Patrick Finn, for attempted murder.”