"Gentlemen," he replied, "you have me at an obvious disadvantage. Circumstances force me to accept your terms. You, Mr. Shane, seem to be a man of some acuteness. I have not known Mr. Vartan long enough to form a correct opinion of him. But," he continued, turning to Vartan, "your friend has had an advantage. He has been with us long enough to guess the humiliating truth. Not one competent seed collector whom we could trust would have anything to do with this expedition when its ultimate object was explained to him. Now, gentlemen, you must admit that I could not be much franker. Could I?"
"You could," Vartan retorted bluntly.
"How, Mr. Vartan?"
"By enlightening us as to the real object of our expedition."
"But I have done so. You are to bring back to me approximately four pounds of the native soil in which that delphinium flourishes. The probable region in which you may begin to search for growing specimens will be confided to you when you reach Bombay."
"If this is all, why did the others turn down your offer?"
Because, Mr. Vartan," Brassey replied with bland candor, " they either thought I was insane or, like you, they imagined I was concealing some preposterous danger behind my straightforward business proposal."
Vartan smiled appreciatively. "What you call turning the tables, I suppose. Would it be impertinent to ask why a shovelful of this dirt is so precious?"
"Not impertinent, merely irrelevant. I have agreed to Mr. Shane's demand. The purpose for which I wish to use that soil is of interest only to the firm."
"That's fair enough," Shane cut in. "The firm has given us what we asked. It's up to us to do our damdest to give it what it wants, and ask no questions."
"Exactly, Mr. Shane," Brassey commented with a touch of severity. "As a matter of fact," he continued with an enigmatic smile, "I was on the point of offering you gentlemen a more attractive opportunity than that of merely earning your salaries. I was about to draw up an agreement to hand over to you the entire residue of what Northfields are paying us on your return to London. But, as you yourselves have suggested the alternative, I am only too happy to oblige you. Shall we go into my office?"
And forthwith he proceeded to write out in triplicate a concise statement of Shane's terms, in the form of a contract stripped of all verbiage. While he was writing, Shane winked at the somewhat crestfallen Vartan. The wink seemed to credit Brassey with more diplomacy than veracity. Having blotted the last copy, Brassey rang for two clerks to witness the signatures.
"Now, gentlemen," he said, when the witnesses had left, my afternoon is at your disposal. Perhaps Mr. Vartan would like to see some of our scientific work?"
Vartan expressed his half-hearted eagerness to inspect the laboratories. He would greatly have preferred to discuss the expedition, or even the delphinium. Nor did Brassey's silence on the hurried departure of Miss West and the factotum altogether please him. He, like Shane, was suffering acutely from curiosity. Brassey simply ignored the whole incident.
"Shall we have a look at what you have been doing, Mr. Shane?" Brassey suggested. "I imagine Mr. Vartan would find that more interesting than our experiments on germination."
Shane nodded. "I was going to show him anyway."
They were about to follow Brassey from the office, when he paused, as if struck by an afterthought.
"By the way, Mr. Vartan," he remarked casually, "these may interest you."
Something in his manner instantly roused their suspicions. Taking a slim key from his watchchain – Brassey was solid and conservative in his dress and personal adornment – he proceeded to unlock a small wall safe behind his desk.
"It is said in the Scriptures, I believe," he remarked as he rummaged through the contents of the safe, "that no man can serve two masters. And I seem to recall that the passage referred specifically to God and Mammon. Now, which may be the one, and which the other in your philosophy, Mr. Vartan, I do not venture to guess.
Somewhat taken aback, Vartan sensed what was coming. In some as yet unexplained way, Brassey had heard of his secret intention of making a side trip, on the firm's time, to verify his so-called 'preposterous hypothesis' regarding the origin of certain Central Asiatic fossil beds. He decided to forestall the awkward showdown.
"Mr. Brassey," he declared, "if I have a private purpose in this undertaking, I give you my word that it will not cost your firm a cent. I shall pay for it out of my own pocket. Nor will it interfere in any way with your business."
Brassey had found what he was looking for, a fat bundle of cablegrams.
"I quite agree," Brassey replied; "your private project will not cost us a penny. Nor will it interfere in any way with the fulfillment of your contract with us. In fact," he continued, smiling faintly, "I am overjoyed in finding at last a man as mad as myself who is willing to spend his own money on a preposterous hypothesis"
What! Who told you that?"
"Your former Chief, Mr. Grimsby. If you care to glance through those cablegrams, you will see the facts. While you were crossing the Atlantic, I corresponded by cable, through my agents and directly, quite extensively with your Chief." His half bantering tone suddenly hardened. "Mr. Vartan, I make it my personal concern to know my men before I entrust them with important business. This expedition on which you and Mr. Shane are going is of the supremest importance, not only to this firm, but to many others. How many, I shall not venture to say. Nearly fifty times have I been on the point of engaging men for this enterprise, only to reject them at the last moment on receipt of an unfavorable report. In many instances the final cause of rejection would seem trivial to an outsider. I take no chance that can be foreseen and avoided. During Mr. Shane's stay with us, I had his past minutely investigated by the best detective agencies in the United States and South America. I did not take for granted that your F.B.I. was to be trusted without an independent check. Perhaps better than either of you could know, I knew why your expedition was given top priority at a critical period of the war."
"Oh, Lord!" Shane groaned.
"There were irregularities, of course, Mr. Shane," Brassey continued, "such as any intelligent employer would expect to find in the life of a normal young man, but nothing of any consequence for the present purpose. So," he continued, turning to Vartan, "when Mr. Shane mentioned you as being a likely man for our undertaking, we at once cabled to you."
"But how–" Vartan began.
"Easily. A good detective agency, not a mere police bureau, has opportunities for making contacts with even the most exclusive people. Mr. Grimsby is almost in that class. It seemed rather strange to us, Mr. Vartan, that you should be abandoning a high-grade position as paleontologist to the Geological Exploration Society of America, to accept one with us whose value is at best doubtful. Therefore we investigated. The right contacts were easily made. The grave importance of our undertaking was explained to Mr. Grimsby, and we begged him, in the name of science, to tell us your true motive for accepting our proposal. As you must know, Mr. Grimsby's ethics are such that he was powerless before an appeal of this kind."
"Pardon me," Vartan interrupted, "but did he tell your representative the nature of my hypothesis?"
"Surely you know Mr. Grimsby better than we do. Is he the man to betray a confidence? He told us all that it was necessary for us to know, without in any way hinting at what you hope to discover. He stated merely that you wished either to prove or disprove a certain 'preposterous hypothesis' of your own. Is that a satisfactory answer?"
Vartan nodded. "There's nothing disgraceful about my hypothesis," he laughed, "only it is so crazy."
Brassey's eyes gleamed.
"Would it apply to plants?"
"You have guessed, then?"
"I have been on the same track for twenty years! If I hadn't been obliged to take over this business when I was twenty-five, I would have shown the whole world years ago that I'm not a madman."
"You are both wrong," Shane cut in, quietly and decisively. "I know what Vartan hopes to explain – the r
ichness of certain fossil beds somewhere in Asia. And I can guess, Mr. Brassey, what you are after. That delphinium. You both have theories. And, as I said, you're both wrong; at best only half right. I have evidence that neither of you has ever imagined."
"Where?" Brassey demanded.
"On my slides. That is, if you are like me, imaginative enough to believe the incredible. Oh, I know," he hurried on, "what Grimsby reported to you about me. He said I was discharged from his Society – it is really his – because I was long on imagination and short on facts."
"Precisely," Brassey confirmed. "And that is why I first became seriously interested in you. But go on. This evidence you speak of. What is its nature?"
"Come and see. Vartan doesn't give a whoop about those cablegrams. His reputation can't be in it with mine. That Aztec girl in Quito – oh Lord!"
They followed him down a dingy corridor to his cubby hole of a laboratory, a tiny room arranged to take advantage of whatever clean daylight the London smudge might afford. On a bare bench by the north window a microscope and its accessories stood out in severe isolation. Shane halted abruptly with a sharp exclamation.
"They're gone!"
"What?"
"The slides."
"Are you sure?" Brassey asked in a level voice. "You may have put the boxes away before going to lunch. Look in the drawers."
"Very well. But it's no use. The boxes were at the right of the window when I left."
A thorough search confirmed the complete disappearance of the slides. Brassey wasted no time in further futile searching.
"How much could experts discover from your slides?" he demanded of Shane.
"Depends upon the experts. The right men could guess a lot."
Would they know where the dust was obtained?"
"Not likely, except in a general way. They would have to search the whole earth. Without something more to go on, they might suppose you collected the stuff on the roof of this building."
"You will be followed," Brassey prophesied, "as soon as the experts decipher your slides."
"They mustn't get that far. Stop the slides before they fall into competent hands."
"How?"
"What's your famous Scotland Yard good for?"
"Nothing, in a case like this. They have not caught a single one of the spies that have pilfered from these laboratories for the past thirteen years. William Arbold and Annetta West will get clean away like the others. And they are more dangerous than any of them. They must know that you two have finally been engaged. Still, I shall try to start the wheels at once. Excuse me if I do not see you off tomorrow morning. Get your tickets and money from the cashier."
"Is Miss Driscott coming with us?" Shane called after the vanishing Brassey.
"Miss Driscott will meet you in Bombay. She left last week to make the necessary press arrangements."
That was the last of Brassey they saw for many a day. They spent the afternoon and most of the night talking endlessly. In the morning they were off.
CHAPTER 3
MARJORIE
"Now if I were superstitious," Shane remarked, sweeping an arm toward the buttressed barrier of the tableland behind Bombay, "I should take that rock wall as an omen of what we shall have to break through before we get Brassey his dirt."
"Probably worse," Vartan encouraged drily. "Those basalt walls can't be over two thousand feet high at the most. Brassey seemed to hint that we may have to climb Mt. Everest before we really start."
The engines of the steamer had all but stopped, as she drifted cautiously through the swarming craft of Bombay harbor, in an effort to dock without upsetting a score or so of the smaller fry and drowning their half naked crews. At last the delicate feat was accomplished; customs men and quarantine officers trooped aboard, and one by one the passengers were released in alphabetical order. Vartan was the last but one, a Wilson. Shane considerately waited for him, although his feet itched to sense once more the stability of the solid earth.
"If Miss Driscott isn't here to meet us," Shane remarked, "we may as well go at once to her hotel."
"Brassey's last radiogram said she would be here," Vartan reminded him.
"I know. But it's only seven o'clock. You really can't expect a beautiful girl to go without her sleep. Hullo! There she is. Good old Marjorie!"
Shane excitedly indicated a slim figure standing alone at the left of the exit from the pier. Evidently she was looking for Shane, for she anxiously scanned the trickling stream of passengers for his familiar face. She and Shane had grown to be great pals in the London office. Her preoccupation gave Vartan a unique opportunity for studying her closely.
His first impression was merely that of a strikingly pretty girl in a snug-fitting white sport costume and chic panama hat. A single scarlet blossom, probably a hibiscus, and a neat white parasol completed her outfit. Her hair, Vartan noted, harmonized with her costume, being a rich, warm yellow. The face was not exactly in repose, because her mind evidently was fully alert. Nevertheless its expression was unstudied and natural. Observing her narrowly, Vartan felt that here was an opportunity to size her up such as he might never have again.
Vartan was a born critic of human character. His first impressions were right ninety times out of a hundred, and his second estimates were invariably just. This trait had served him well in many a tight place, and indeed it had probably saved his life more than once on his South American rambles. He now took a sharp second look at Marjorie Driscott. Luck favored him. She had just sighted Shane. For perhaps half a second, in the relaxation from strained attention to conventional friendliness, he saw her as she was. That revealing flash was worth ten years of close acquaintanceship. Vartan felt that he knew her. From the warmth of Shane's salutation as he grasped her hand, Vartan knew that his fellow adventurer would never understand Marjorie Driscott.
Her greeting to Vartan was friendly. His strong face evidently attracted her, and his red hair was not wholly unpleasing to her eyes, if her half amused glance at his uncovered head were correctly interpreted. At close range her blue eyes, fresh color and firm chin were even more attractive than from a distance.
"Mr. Brassey cabled that I am to make you boys comfortable until we start."
"When?" Vartan demanded bluntly.
For a fraction of a second a slight stare, almost of suspicion, hardened the sunny light in her eyes. Shane also caught that instantaneous freezing of her goodfellowship. To him it was a signal that Brassey still distrusted Vartan and himself, and that he had, rather meanly, used Marjorie to spy on their loyalty. What Vartan thought he scarcely knew himself. Marjorie recovered her sunshine instantly.
"Tonight," she smiled. "But don't let's talk business until you two are rested. I'm to take you up to my hotel for breakfast. Now don't tell me," she begged, seeing the refusal in Vartan's eyes, "that you had tea and biscuits on that horrid boat? It will simply ruin what I've planned for you."
Over their protests that they had already tried to enjoy one English breakfast, she rushed them off to another. They were just about to follow her into the waiting cab, when a bundle of rags in the gutter caught her attention. She stepped from the cab, and rejoined them on the littered sidewalk.
"Look at that," she said in a low voice. "Isn't it terrible to think what human beings will do under the drive of fanaticism? Oh, it is worse than drink or drugs!" With a shudder she averted her eyes from the spectacle she had invited them to witness. "But look at it," she said, "well. You will understand better what Mr. Brassey asked me to tell you before we start."
Overcoming their natural revulsion, the men forced themselves to look at the squalid fakir cowering under his clouts. The man might have been only fifty; he looked seventy. Filthy beyond description, a mass of ugly scars from self-inflicted gashes, some of which still gaped hideously with the woodashes which kept the sores alive, this barely living example of faith gone mad droned incessantly the meaningless formula which was to win it everlasting, annihilation in the life to come
, and which kept what remained of a soul in the husk of a body in this life, by inducing zealots more superstitious than itself to fill the beggers' bowl at its crumpled feet.
"It would be an act of mercy," Vartan muttered savagely, "to zip a bullet through its brain, if it has any."
"And hang for it?" Shane asked grimly. "British law comes down pretty hard on that sort of charity. Still, I admit it might be the happiest thing the poor old fellow could know."
"I wasn't thinking of him," Vartan began with fierce contempt. He became aware that Marjorie was listening with critical attention. Not caring whether he shocked her or not, he finished what he had to say. "This thing isn't worth any human being's passing pity. It is a filthy travesty on the human race. No; it should be put out of the way for the sake of those who have to see it."
"That's rather rough on him," Shane objected. "Nevertheless, I agree in general." He tossed a silver coin onto the dirty rice in the fakir's bowl. A seething cloud of iridescent flies steamed up from the sour food, and almost instantly settled again to their banquet. "Are you contributing?" he demanded quizzically of Vartan.
"No."
"Miss Driscott?" Shane suggested.
"Not today," she replied, slightly emphasizing the last word. She turned away and preceded them into the cab.
Wondering uneasily what her purpose was in compelling them to look at a thing which they would willingly have ignored, they took their seats in silence. The cab made but slow progress through the colorful streets. At first interested in their exotic surroundings, both men gradually surrendered to a stifling oppression. An appalling sense of fecundity unchecked smothered any joy they might otherwise have experienced in their first half hour of Mother India. Not only vegetation seemed to boil from the brown earth wherever a square foot of it was exposed, but also uncountable swarms of human beings. Conversation in such surroundings seemed impertinent. Nature was speaking. At length Marjorie, just before they reached the hotel, broke the silence.
THEFORBIDDENGARDEN Page 3