The Abominable: A Novel

decapitated heads, four lopped-off arms, and strangely shriveled-looking dead hands. For the first time I noticed, about fifteen yards behind this large flat boulder, a tall pile of what could only be the two men’s intestines. I could see no other evidence of their bodies.

“Metohkangmi,” said Jimmy Khan, and his two lieutenants grumbled and nodded assent. “Yeti.”

“All right,” I said. I staggered away from the trophy stakes and heaps of body parts and found a small boulder to sit on. “Whatever you say, Mr. Jimmy Khan.”

“I’ve found no bullet wounds in the skulls or other detached parts,” said Dr. Pasang, as if that gave forensic support to the bandits’ idiot yeti theory.

As Khan grinned, I gave Pasang a look that should have melted him but somehow didn’t. Perhaps my melting powers were being interfered with by the tremendous headache that continued to throb.

“What next?” I asked.

“Well, Mr. Khan and his associates allowed me to raise the one tent so that I could cut the bullet out of you and let you rest a few hours,” he said softly, “but they won’t allow their camp to be set up anywhere near here. Evidently they feel that Guru Rinpoche, Dzatrul Rinpoche at Rongbuk Monastery, will be displeased when he hears of the violence here today.”

“I thought the Guru Rinpoche liked spreading stories of yetis being up here in the Rongbuk Valley,” I said. “Remember the fairly new mural in the monastery? It helped keep his people and monks away from the hills here.”

“Well, Mr. Khan and his friends insist that we start on the voyage back to the east right away—this afternoon. They have Mongolian ponies for both of us.”

“We can’t leave here,” I said, shocked. “Reggie and the Deacon…”

“Will not be coming down…this way at least,” said Pasang. “Of this I am certain. So we should go with Jimmy Khan and his friendly bandits, Jake. They’ve offered to lead us almost due east from here and then south again across the high Serpo La. That will take us straight down into India. And since we’re traveling so lightly, and if the weather on the high pass holds, the entire trip back might be made in three weeks or less rather than five weeks the way we came in. Jimmy Khan and his band will ride with us and protect us the whole way to Darjeeling, providing a palanquin for you if your wound and headache begin acting up.”

“He must be demanding something for all this friendly help,” I said dully. “Even his old friend Reggie had to pay him so that we could pass through his band’s territory.”

“I offered to pay him one thousand pounds sterling when we’re safe at Lady Bromley-Montfort’s plantation.”

“What?” I cried. “We don’t have a thousand pounds to pay these bandits with! We don’t have a hundred quid between the two of us.”

“You forget, Mr. Perry,” Pasang said sadly. “Lady Bromley-Montfort left the entire tea plantation in my hands—full ownership if she does not return, which I sincerely pray to our Savior that she does. And soon. Her only stipulation was that I pay one-third of the annual profits to Lady Bromley in Lincolnshire as long as the aunt lives. Suddenly—and I pray God, temporarily—I find myself awash in funds. At any rate, considering the importance Mr. Deacon and Lady Bromley-Montfort placed on what you’re expected to deliver directly to London, I agreed that a thousand pounds was reasonable for Khan’s protection and ponies on our voyage back. Khan’s men rarely travel as far into India as the outskirts of Darjeeling, so Mr. Khan is being generous. He will even leave two of his men to stay here near Base Camp for two weeks just in case our friends do come this way.”

I had nothing to say to that.

I looked up toward Mount Everest—mostly hidden by snow clouds, wind blowing wildly from the North Ridge and North Col—and then back at the two Germans’ staring heads on the boulder. The vultures were very busy now.

“If we’re not going to wait here days or weeks in person to see if Reggie and the Deacon end up coming down this way,” I said slowly, trying to think clearly, “then we might as well get headed toward Darjeeling sooner rather than later. Let’s go see what shaggy ponies they’ve chosen for us.”

28.

London in mid-August on rare occasions can be sweltering, but there was a chill in the air that reminded me of our visit to the Royal Geographical Society ten months earlier. Of course, the leaves on the trees weren’t changing in August, but there was some tinge in the air…smoke from coal and wood fires in the houses and buildings, I decided. I was wearing my second-best suit—three-piece, heavy wool, since my one bespoke suit had gone missing in my absence—and I hoped that the brief cold front would make the choice of apparel stand out a little less.

The building was brown with age and soot, its lobby quite imposing. Footsteps echoed on tile and marble. I told the first guard I encountered about my appointment with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he led me to a receptionist, who led me to a clerk, who led me to the important man’s aide, who parked me on a tattered leather couch in a wallpapered waiting room for only a two- or three-minute wait before I was shown into the Chancellor’s inner office.

Chancellor of the Exchequer. How very cute Reggie and the Deacon had been with their mildly coded talk about “our mutual friend who now likes to write cheques” and “our friend who really prefers gold.” The latter phrase, I’d learned just by reading and asking questions during my long solo boat trip from India to England, referred to this Chancellor of the Exchequer’s decision, under the Baldwin government, to return the British economy to the gold standard.

This had happened the previous May, while my friends and I were climbing Mount Everest, so I don’t know if Reggie and the Deacon had heard of the actual return to the gold standard, but they’d obviously known this man’s preference for an economy based on gold. I’d also read all about this return to the gold standard—and the continuing hubbub and disapproval of it and disapproval of the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself by many economists—during my boat trip to England.

The male secretary left us, and I was looking across a broad room with a rather worn carpet, a large desk and chair—currently empty of its occupant—and a very rotund man with his back to me. He stood silently looking out a sooty window as he smoked a cigar, his legs wide apart in almost a pugilist’s stance and his pudgy hands clasped behind his back.

He turned a minute or so after his secretary or adjutant or whatever the hell he was announced me and looked me up and down, frowning a bit—perhaps at my wool suit—and said, “Perry, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good of you to come, Mr. Perry.” He waved me to an uncomfortable-looking chair while he took the large padded chair behind his desk.

I’d heard the name Winston Churchill during the months I’d stayed in London prior to the beginning of our expedition, but I didn’t recall seeing photographs of him. I dimly remembered that there’d been a buzz about him in the press in 1924 when he rejoined the Conservative Party after having left the Conservatives to join the Liberal Party some years before. I remember the Deacon laughing at an edition of the Times as we were sorting gear in our London hotel room and quoting Churchill to Jean-Claude and me (on whom the humor was totally lost)—“Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat.”

Evidently the re-ratting had worked: Churchill now had an elected seat in Epping as a Tory and this high position in Baldwin’s Conservative government. The only other thing I’d learned about the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer was that it earned Churchill the honorific of “the right Honorable” and a rent-free home at No. 11 Downing Street, evidently right next to the Prime Minister’s digs.

“You’re an American, Mr. Perry?”

Had that been a question? “Yes, sir,” I said.

I confess that if this man was the intelligence chief for whom Lord Percival Bromley died—and most likely former captain Richard Davis Deacon and Lady Katherine Christina Regina Bromley-Montfort as well—he certainly didn’t fit the role of spymaster. He reminded me more of a big baby in a pinstripe suit and waistcoat, with a cigar