"Would you believe that Mr. Brassey could ever become like that fakir?"
They regarded her in amazed silence. A reply seemed unnecessary; the question was too ridiculous. She greeted their consternation with a short, bitter laugh.
"I repeat what I said," she went on. "Fanaticism is the one great curse of the human race." Her manner suddenly lightened. "Please don't think I'm trying to preach at you," she laughed gaily. "I'm only carrying out my instructions by giving you Lesson One in the ways of India. Mr. Brassey asked me to. Now," she coaxed, "you must admit I carried it off rather well, didn't I?"
"Perhaps a shade too well," Vartan retorted, not wholly in jest. Shane roared with laughter. Marjorie had played a capital joke on them. And better still, by an adroitly mysterious question, she had paid back her employer for imposing a disagreeable task.
"Did you like your job?" he gurgled.
"Not before breakfast," she admitted charmingly. "Well, here's where we get out. Rather a stuffy place – footmen at every post and all that sort of tosh, but they feed you well. At Mr. Brassey's direction I have engaged rooms for you for the day. Breakfast will be served in the blue room at eight fifteen. I'll see you there."
After a washup, Shane joined Vartan in the latter's room.
"Well, what do you think of our press agent?"
"And schoolteacher," Vartan added drily. "Frankly, I don't care for her type of instruction."
"Nor do I. But don't blame it on Marjorie. The poor girl has to do what Brassey orders. Like us, she's earning her wages."
"From what I've seen so far," Vartan countered grimly, "I'll earn every cent of that hundred thousand before we see New York again. There's something shady about this whole affair. Your friend Miss Driscott seems to know what it is, too. Is she Brassey's confidential secretary, as well as his publicity agent?"
"More or less. He was always 'conferring' with her, and she seemed to have the run of the London offices. As I told you, Marjorie is efficiency plus brains."
"So it seems."
"You don't like her?"
"I didn't say that."
"First impressions–" Shane began.
"Are usually wrong," Vartan finished for him. "I suspend judgment in Miss Driscott's case. In Brassey's also. The deeper we get into this thing, the 'curiouser and curiouser' it becomes, as Alice would say. I'm beginning to suspect we have been hired by a genial lunatic. By the way, there is no doubt about us getting our money, is there?"
"Not the slightest," Shane reassured him. "Brassey has given us not only his word, but a contract. Either is worth its full face value in the City."
"Then I'm more or less up a tree for the moment," Vartan confessed. "I can't make head or tail of what Brassey thinks he is doing. Well, it is ten past eight. Shall we go down and join your charming friend in the blue room?"
"You bet. Come on; I feel it in my joints that she has something more than another of those interminable breakfasts."
Out of consideration for their American feelings, Marjorie had ordered a light repast which would leave them with clear consciences and clearer heads. She herself disposed of a substantial meal, explaining that as she but seldom ate lunch, she needed fuel for the day's work.
The talk at first was light and bantering. Gradually, under Vartan's direction, it took a more serious turn toward their own affairs. He was not slow to observe that Marjorie seemed to welcome the change with an eagerness which she just failed to repress. Shane had jokingly referred to the last meal he and Vartan had enjoyed on Brassey's hospitality. Old 'White Horse' stalked through Shane's highly colored narrative, bearing an infinite series of jam tarts. The crisp and ultra-respectable Miss West also came in for her share of the humor. A strange glow in Marjorie's sympathetic eyes was interpreted by Shane as amused interest in his story. Vartan, trying to keep his own eyes on his plate, could not quite make out the light in Marjorie's. Her comment, when Shane finished, puzzled him still more.
"Yes," she said, "there were always spies in the London office. And poor Mr. Brassey is so straightforward himself that he never suspects anyone until it is too late. He cabled me all about William Arbold and Annetta West. Arbold was with the firm for ten years; Miss West, five. And in all that time, Mr. Brassey saw nothing suspicious in the actions of either."
"Did you, Miss Driscott?" Vartan asked pointedly.
She lit a cigarette before answering. Studying the tip as she exhaled her first puff, she replied with careful deliberation.
"That is what I call a cruel question, Mr. Vartan. I have just said that Mr. Brassey has let one spy after another slip through his fingers because he himself is decent. How am I to answer? You must see my dilemma."
"I do," Vartan acknowledged gravely. She dropped her eyes, and he continued. "Putting aside the incomprehensible part of it all – why spies should infest a great wholesale seed house I can't see how Mr. Brassey can trust anyone after the experiences he has had."
"Nor do I," she retorted coolly, looking him squarely in the eyes.
"Do you mean," Shane blurted out, "that you suspect us?"
"Yes," she said, with a quick glance at Vartan. "Now you know. I always play a straight hand."
"But, my dear Miss Driscott," Shane protested, "if you only knew how utterly in the dark Vartan and I are about this whole expedition, you would laugh at the utter absurdity of your suspicions. Surely you know me well enough by now? Didn't you have all the opportunities you wanted to find out about me during the six months I worked in your London house?"
"Arbold worked there ten years, Miss West five, I six. Arbold and Miss West have escaped. From Mr. Brassey's cablegrams I doubt whether they will ever be heard of again. Scotland Yard has given up hope of tracing them. It is the old story."
"I see," said Shane. "The moral is so obvious that an idiot could see it. I'm not in that class, Marjorie. Thanks for the compliment."
"Nothing personal was intended," she answered in a low voice. "It was merely a matter of business. I must protect my employer's interests. And in all fairness to me, you and Mr. Vartan should admit that I am justified in making you prove yourselves."
"Certainly," Vartan cut in before Shane could protest. "State what you consider necessary, and we will do it. Whatever Shane may think, I have no personal feelings whatever about any suspicions that Brasseys' Limited – whom you represent – may entertain toward us. The firm is within its rights. As you say, and, as Mr. Brassey hinted, the firm has been deceived too often to make any false delicacy necessary. Speak out, Miss Driscott. What do you want us to do?"
In a voice that was scarcely audible, she made her first demand.
"I must search your luggage, thoroughly. Also I must examine all papers in your pockets."
"To be treated like a common thief!" Shane burst out; but Vartan stopped him.
"We asked Miss Driscott for terms. Now we've got them. Turn out your pockets. Show her the linings – inside out. Come on! Get it over."
The examination proceeded in sultry silence. Theirs was the only party in the breakfast room at the time; otherwise they would have adjourned to a more private place. Even the waiters had vanished after silently discharging their duties. Marjorie examined every scrap of paper. Her scrutiny was rapid. Evidently she knew by heart what she was looking for. Three personal letters were glanced at and tossed aside unread.
"Is that all?" Vartan demanded when she had put the last letter back in its envelope.
"Your watches, please.
They handed them over. Both were hunting watches.
"May I lift this picture?" she inquired of Vartan, exhibiting the photograph of a departed pet owl which Vartan had cherished for five years in outlandish wildernesses, only to lose it to a murderous cat in a Brooklyn rooming house.
"Certainly. Let me do it?"
"Thank you; I can manage."
Finding nothing under the picture, she put it back, closed the case, and returned the watch to Vartan. Shane's caused her less trouble, as it was
unornamented at the time. Vartan rang for a waiter.
"Ask one of the desk clerks to come here," he directed when the waiter appeared. "Hand over your key," he ordered Shane, setting the example himself. Shane complied in a cold rage. "No good losing your temper about it," Vartan counselled. "We're in this thing to earn our wages. All this is part of the day's work."
To the desk clerk who answered the waiter's summons, Vartan casually addressed a rather startling request, as if it were a commonplace of daily life in an exclusive hotel.
"Miss Driscott wishes to examine some papers in our rooms before a business conference which we are to have with her in half an hour. Kindly send a chambermaid with her to our rooms while we wait out in the lobby."
The clerk stared. He knew who Marjorie was, because a cablegram from Brassey had informed the manager of the hotel that all her expenses would be paid by the firm's Bombay representative, and he had checked up by consulting the representative. From Vartan's accent he knew that the redheaded young man was an American, and therefore capable of almost anything. Deciding that the proceeding was respectable but bizarre, he held his tongue and gave in.
It was a full half hour before Marjorie descended. Shane fumed; Vartan stared at the ceiling and let Shane talk himself dry. Why fuss? It was all part of the game, and they had scarcely begun to play.
From Marjorie's face when she rejoined them, Shane judged that she was satisfied. Her heartfelt sigh of relief as she handed back the keys was like a health certificate to the two suspects.
"Thank goodness that's over," she breathed.
"All satisfactory?" Vartan asked.
"Quite. Let us say no more about it."
"Is there anything else?"
"I'm afraid there is," she confessed. "Please be as nice about this as you were about the other."
"Go ahead," Vartan encouraged.
"This is the worst of all," she hesitated. "It sounds as if – oh, I don't know how to put it."
"Perhaps I can help you, Miss Driscott. You wish to satisfy your employer that my personal mission – my sealed orders – do not conflict with the firm's interests?"
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Vartan."
"But," Shane objected, "Vartan and Mr. Brassey seemed to understand one another perfectly on that point the day before we sailed."
"I know," she said. "But things have taken a serious turn since you left."
"In what way?"
"Mr. Brassey cabled five days ago that the slides stolen from Mr. Shane's laboratory have been returned by mail."
"What postmark on the package?" Vartan demanded coolly.
"London."
"Well," Shane remarked, "what of it? How does this affect us? The thieves probably found my slides worthless for their purposes.
Apparently," Marjorie replied, watching Vartan's face steadily. "For they enclosed a typewritten note with the returned slides."
"To what effect?" Vartan asked with studied indifference.
"Do you really wish to know?" she asked, meeting his gaze. "Yes? Then I shall have to tell you the unpleasant truth. The spies wrote this. 'Mr. Vartan's sealed orders are, in our opinion, of greater moment to Brassey House than are Mr. Shane's slides, important though the latter undoubtedly are. It would be to the advantage of Brassey House to learn the nature of Mr. Vartan's "sealed orders" before entrusting him with the proposed expedition.'
"Now, Mr. Vartan, she concluded, "you see that we must know definitely what your 'sealed orders' are before you start."
The men exchanged glances. Shane spoke up.
"Mr. Brassey asked you to question Mr. Vartan?"
"Yes." The reply was barely audible. Marjorie did not seem to enjoy this part of her job.
"Very well," Vartan volunteered. "I'll tell you." Her eyes met his in a steady, slightly hostile stare. "On one condition. Otherwise I take the next boat back to London." Her gaze never flickered. "I shall tell you," he said, "when you have told me exactly where we are going, and why. Take your time to think it over. So far you have made the terms. Now I am talking. For both of us."
She barely hesitated. "That is agreeable to us – to Mr. Brassey, that means. To make sure, I will cable."
"We start tonight?"
"At eight. The first stage will be by train, except the last thirty miles or so, which will be by motor car over a metalled road." She smiled, "You need fear no hardships for at least a week."
"You won't want us for the rest of the day?"
"Unless you care to have lunch with me?"
Shane accepted eagerly. Vartan begged off, hinting that two made better company than three.
"I want to take a run out to those interesting looking palisades behind the city that we saw from the boat. Shane can escort you to the cable office, and later see that you are properly fed."
Over their protests, he bundled them into a cab, asked the driver for the nearest cable office, and directed him to it.
"See you later," he cried, as the cab started. He watched them out of sight. Then he returned to the hotel lobby and asked the clerk to call a cab. When it came, he stepped in and gave the street number of a cable office. It was not that for which Marjorie was bound.
Arrived at the cable office, he inquired whether he could cable to London and get an answer before seven o'clock that night.
"Certainly, sir, if the party in London replies promptly. You should receive an answer much sooner than that."
"Then I'll wait here." He wrote out a five-word message to Charles Brassey, London, giving his own address as that of the cable office in which he was.
During the tedious wait he smoked and thought of Marjorie Driscott. He understood Shane's obvious adoration of her.
Marjorie was a girl he could have fallen hopelessly in love with himself, had he, and not Shane, had the flying start of six months' friendship. But, although the expedition had not yet actually started, he already felt himself in command, and he deliberately put all softer thoughts behind him. He would let Shane reap the profit of his early start with Marjorie, and wait the outcome. They were probably about to say goodbye for a long spell to civilization within the next seven days. When the expedition returned it would be time enough to think of anything but work.
Shane's estimate of Marjorie, he admitted critically, was accurate up to a certain point. The precise point where Shane's 'looks plus publicity plus brains' ceased to be exact was what interested Vartan for the moment, and this doubt had inspired his cablegram. Publicity plus beauty have never yet seen a party of explorers safely over an unmapped expanse of the roughest country in the world. Vartan doubted Brassey's wisdom in letting his beautiful publicity agent and confidential secretary arrange the preliminaries of their hazardous undertaking. For, that it would prove to be dangerous, he had not the slightest doubt. Brassey's manner had hinted as much. Had Marjorie the necessary qualifications, in addition to beauty and facility with a pencil, for her important task? Her conduct of the examination of Shane and himself showed that she did not lack moral courage, at least, and he had no reason to doubt that she would prove equally courageous in the face of physical dangers.
The answer to his cablegram came sooner than he had expected. It was a simple "No," signed "Charles Brassey." Vartan shredded the slip into small pieces as he strode from the cable office, and strewed them along the gutter.
The monosyllabic answer had confirmed one of his first impressions. Marjorie had beauty. She also was an expert publicity agent. Otherwise Brassey would not have retained her. As a confidential agent on a delicate and dangerous mission she had already proved herself competent. In one respect only did she fall short of perfection in Vartan's eyes.
The absence of a sense of wonder is, Vartan reflected, often a symptom of stupidity. To an imbecile all things are equal and monotonously alike. Proceeding from these general observations, Vartan thought it rather strange that Marjorie should have seen nothing astonishing in the return of Shane's stolen slides to Brassey.
"This is goi
ng to be more interesting than I thought," Vartan reflected as he hopped aboard a tram. "Now for a close look at those interesting basalt formations out yonder."
He spent the rest of the day in a mild orgy of geological sightseeing. Rejoining Shane and Marjorie in the hotel in time for dinner, he noted that they too had evidently enjoyed a pleasant day. With admirable efficiency, Marjorie had purchased their train tickets well in advance, so they lingered over their coffee and smokes till the last moment.
"Now, Miss Driscott," Vartan remarked as they rose to go, "I suppose it will be safe to tell us where our first stop is to be? If we're spies, or anything of that sort," he added with grim humor, "we couldn't betray any secrets now, with you right on our trail, could we?"
She gave him a searching look. "Remember," she replied, "you have not yet told us what your private orders are. Until you do, I cannot be blamed for carrying out my own instructions to the letter. Still," she continued with a disarming smile, "as you couldn't possibly communicate with any undesirables in time to do any harm now, I don't mind telling you where we are going."
From her handbag she produced the first of her articles on the 'Brassey Expedition' for the press. Vartan glanced through it, noting that it was dated from Darjihng.
"I see," he remarked with quiet satisfaction. "We are to make our way over – or into – the Himalayas by the well travelled routes. I thought when I first saw it that Brassey's marvellous delphinium must have come from somewhere near Sikkim. That's where the real flowers grow, isn't it?"
Her answer was a peal of delighted laughter.
"How simple you are!" she cried. "Darjihng? We're not going anywhere near it. Our first stop is Srinagar."
"In the Vale of Cashmere?"
"Where else? It will be paradise, they tell me," she laughed happily, "at this time of year."
"No doubt. But why on earth–?"
"Never mind now. I'll explain when we get there. Come on, Mr. Shane, or we'll miss that train."
CHAPTER 4
THEIR HERITAGE
Their brief stay in Srinagar was at its most tranquilly beautiful season, the late spring, when the apricots were just going out of blossom and beginning to put forth their tender fingers of chrysoprase. In this placid valley of the mountains, set like a cool northern garden but a short journey from the torrid plains of India, the party laid their plans and discussed their chances of success.
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