Dead Reckoning by Parkinson C. Northcote Page B

of intelligence upon which his operations might be based. He acknowledged that Chatelard might have an agent in Malacca, perhaps some Dutch Eurasian with French sympathies, perhaps some Javanese trader working merely for pay. With twenty thousand inhabitants, it would not be easy to find the spy among them. As for a fast outrigger sailing canoe, he had seen nothing of the sort but had to confess that he had made no study of the native small craft. When asked about Delancey’s brother, Michael, he was more forthcoming.
    â€œThere was a man here of that name when I first arrived. We thought at first that he was French and planned to take him into custody as a possible revolutionary. It appeared, however, that he was a native of Jersey, speaking English with only a trace ofa foreign accent. He had been at sea but had sustained some back injury and came ashore, setting up in business as a small tradesman. His shop, I remember, was near the bridge and he lived with a Malay woman who had several children by him. I supposed at first that he was addicted to drink or drugs but was told by the police that he was merely eccentric. He was said to be especially interested in the primitive people of Malaya and was often to be seen practising with a blowpipe.”
    â€œA blowpipe?”
    â€œYes, a weapon used mainly in hunting. I have one here.” The Resident took a slender dark-coloured stick from a corner of the room. Delancey saw that it was over five feet long, hollow, and shaped at one end like the mouthpiece of a bugle. His host took a dart made of bamboo, sharp at one end and fitted at the other end with a pith ‘cork.’ Inserting the dart, which exactly fitted the blowpipe, Farquhar inflated his cheeks and blew with pursed lips into the mouthpiece, like blowing the bugle but with an almost explosive puff. The dart was embedded an inch deep in the woodwork on the far side of the room.
    â€œIt is not lethal in itself,” Farquhar explained, “but the point is dipped in poison from the Ipoh tree. They use the same sort of blowpipe in Borneo, I am told.”
    â€œDo the Malays use it?”
    â€œNo, they are more advanced in the ways of civilization. Nor do they live in the jungle. They live along the riverbanks and use firearms. Here, for example, is a small ‘lela’ or brass swivel gun of the type they mount in their war prahus.” He pointed to a rather ornate weapon of almost modern appearance.
    â€œPerhaps they learnt about firearms and cannon from the Portuguese?”
    â€œThey had no need! The Malays had artillery before the Portuguese reached the Indian Ocean. I have sometimes wondered whether cannon were not actually invented here. This town, I believe, is where spectacles were first manufactured. People ingenious enough for that might have invented cannon as well.”
    â€œBut why do you think that probable?”
    â€œWell, they had the blowpipe which embodies all the principles of the firearm except for the explosive. Their Chinese friends and neighbours had the gunpowder. It would require no genius to combine the two ideas. In one way, of course, the blowpipe is superior to the firearm for it is silent. The expert will seldom miss at twenty yards but if he does the monkey or parrot—or human, for that matter—is still unaware of the danger and may be the target for another shot. When Malacca was taken by Albuquerque in 1511 the Portuguese suffered more casualties from blowpipe darts than from the defenders’ artillery or elephants. They did not die immediately, of course, the poison often taking an hour or two to produce a fatal result.”
    â€œHow interesting!” said Delancey. “But my brother, from what you say, would seem to be no more eccentric than you or I.”
    â€œI am not sure about that. He had gone native, as one might say, and may even have become a Muslim. He went away rather suddenly, no one knew why, but left his Malay