"You let her, of course?"
"Not exactly. I put it up to her, and she left it behind at the hotel."
"Marjorie is a good sport," Shane commented warmly. "Just look at her stepping out with old Ali Baba, or whatever his name is. By the way, just why is she coming with us, if the radio publicity is a myth?"
"Because Brassey gave her whatever definite instructions we are to get."
"She could have passed them on. We're not imbeciles."
"Perhaps not. But Brassey doesn't seem to trust anyone but Miss Driscott."
"Well, I hope she doesn't cave in and have to be carried on a litter."
"She won't," Vartan assured him. "That girl has grit, and lots of it. Besides, women explorers are no great novelty nowadays. Didn't the Countess Alberti tramp all over these mountains with two white men and twenty coolies? We've got forty," not counting old Ali Baba. Miss Driscott will get there."
"You bet she will!"
Vartan strode on in silence, feeling as if he had just won a duel. What Marjorie felt, she kept to herself, or confided to the grizzled Ali Baba, whose English was eloquent but of limited range.
CHAPTER 6
RED LEAVES
Twelve weeks of arduous but safe climbing lay behind the party of forty-three men and one woman. Everything had moved with the perfect regularity of well-oiled machinery, thanks to Messrs. Brathwaites' experience and efficiency. Thus far there had not been a single case of sickness, and not a murmur from the sturdy porters under old Ali Baba's direction. Except for an occasional cairn sheltering a benchmark on some distant peak – the seal of the all but ubiquitous British Survey – they had seen no signs of human beings.
After the start, Vartan took complete charge and full responsibility. Shane set Marjorie an excellent example by obeying his leader's orders instantly and without comment of any kind. From their explorations in the Andes, Shane knew that Vartan was a cool commander who could be bold and daring to the limit on necessity.
At first Marjorie was inclined to be rebellious and, it must be admitted, treated herself to a prolonged spell of sulks. Beyond answering when spoken to, she addressed no remarks to the rather taciturn leader of the expedition. Vartan either did not notice her huff, or deliberately let it work itself out in grueling physical exercise. As he had anticipated, Marjorie's curiosity eventually got the better of her. It was on the evening of their seventy-third day out that Marjorie capitulated. They had just descended an easy five-thousand-foot slope through thickets of glorious crimson and gold rhododendrons in full bloom, and were now about to make camp for the night under the tented branches of a deodar forest. Vartan at the moment stood idly watching the efficient Ali Baba bossing the weary porters into one last spurt of energy. Marjorie emerged from behind a pile of pack boxes and walked resolutely up to her chief.
"I suppose you know where you are, and where you are going?" she demanded. It was the first time she had spoken to Vartan beyond briefly answering an occasional necessary question.
"I do," he replied. "Would you care to see the map?"
She nodded, and he carefully selected a large, folded map, mounted on stout canvas and faced with transparent waterproof paper, from a thick bundle of similar maps which he carried habitually in a back pocket. As he unfolded the map for her inspection, she watched him curiously. When finally the map lay before her, she studied it critically in silence for a few seconds. Then, with a sharp exclamation, she pointed to the lower left corner.
"Where did you get this map?" she demanded.
Without a word, Vartan turned the map over and indicated the legend stamped on its reverse. "Property of the American Geological Exploration Society. Not for circulation or publication.
Central Asiatic Expedition of 1914–"
"You are following this?"
He nodded. "So far we have come by well travelled trails. Tomorrow we branch off toward here," he pointed to the lower left corner of the map, "where only two men, Marsden and Enright of our 1914 expedition, have ever penetrated."
"Nineteen fourteen," she mused. "James Brassey sailed from Liverpool for Bombay on the eighteenth of April, 1917 – three years after this expedition. When did Marsden and Enright return to America?"
"The fourth of January, 1915."
"Then James could have heard of this map. He might even have seen a photograph of it," she suggested.
"It is possible, of course. But I regard it as so improbable a chance as to be entirely negligible. This map was prepared by Marsden and Enright under Mr. Grimsby's direction. There was no duplicate made."
"Why?" she asked in a curiously alert tone. "Because Mr. Grimsby thought the geological-paleontological, to be exact – information indicated on it is so sensational that it should not be published until verified."
"And that is what you hope to do?"
"Not exactly. I accept the results of Marsden and Enright as facts. My hope is to discover an explanation of those facts by examining certain fossils in situ."
"Is it possible," she persisted, "that James Brassey could have seen this map or a copy of it?"
"Absolutely no. It has been kept under lock in Mr. Grimsby's safe from the day it left the cartographer's hands till the day it passed into mine. Only Mr. Grimsby and I have ever seen it. Shane, of course, now knows it thoroughly. The cartographer doesn't count; he merely made this map as part of his routine along with the others of the Marsden-Enright expedition. The rest of those maps were all published over twenty-five years ago."
"I wonder," she said.
"What about?" he encouraged.
"It seems like a wild coincidence." She unfastened the cylindrical tin box, such as plant collectors sling over their shoulders, from its strap, and opened the lid. "I carry all my important papers here," she explained.
"I have noticed," he smiled, "that you never let that tin can out of your sight. As you never seem to put any plants or seeds into it, I inferred that it was your vanity case."
She ignored his pleasantry, and drew forth a small, crudely drawn map.
"This was made," she elucidated, "from the vague hints in James Brassey's last letter to Charles Brassey, pieced out by such information as our previous expeditions have gathered."
Vartan took the rough map and compared it with his own.
"There is a similarity," he admitted, "but this map is all white – unknown territory – just at the crucial part where mine is most detailed." He again pointed to the lower left hand corner of his own map. "Marsden and Enright made their most interesting discoveries down here. Evidently the men who drew your map never even dreamed of this region."
"They were unsuccessful," she said slowly.
"Your explorers found no plant even faintly resembling Delphinium Brassei?"
"They all failed completely," she repeated. "Still, it is a coincidence that your own 'sealed orders' should lead you into the same region as our men explored in vain."
"My 'sealed orders' again," he laughed. "Now that we are well started, I shan't mind telling you what they are."
"When?" she asked sharply.
"Any time you like. What about tonight? Shane and I have not yet heard the end of Charles Brassey's confession – if you care to call it that. This is a dismal place. I hate these colorless, drooping, dripping deodars. Suppose we build a roaring fire tonight, and finish the reading we began twelve weeks ago in Srinagar?"
"It would be delightful," she sighed. "I'm chilled to the bone, and I'm so tired of these puttees and riding breeches. Shall I dress for the occasion? Like a civilized woman, I mean?"
"Shane will go out of his head if you do," Vartan laughed. "But do it, anyway. Hullo! Speaking of Shane, here he is."
Before Shane, toiling up the long slope, could join them, Vartan rapidly concluded his observations on his own map and Brassey's.
"You talk of coincidence," he said. "Not at all. If you understood the scientific clues in Brassey's delphinium and my – or rather Marsden and Enright's – fossils, you wo
uld see that I have done the obvious thing in taking the route I have chosen. You thought me headstrong and contemptuous of Mr. Brassey's wishes when we left Srinagar, didn't you?"
She nodded. "You were. For all I know as yet, you still are."
"I'm not!" he retorted, his red hair bristling ominously.
"You are!" she smiled. "Now."
"Wait and see. I repeat, anyone putting two and two together, my fossils and Mr. Brassey's peerless delphinium, would do exactly as I have done. That is," he qualified, "if he had an iota of scientific sense."
Shane, joining them, had caught the last.
"He would not, Vartan," he asserted, "unless he were the sort of fakir who jumps at the first sensational theory he imagines."
"What do you mean?" Vartan demanded, suddenly taken aback. Marjorie regarded her companions closely, a cold scrutiny hardening her blue eyes.
"You know," Shane retorted. "Told you in London. Could have shown you in my slides, if old White Horse and his female accomplice had not made off with them at the critical moment. You're not wrong. Neither is Brassey. But neither of you is right. Both of you are just beside the point. Get my meaning?"
"We're on the wrong track?"
"On the right track. Wrong direction. Go back. Not forward."
"To Srinagar?"
"Hell, no! To the beginning of geologic time, when this soggy spot we're sinking into was white hot gas."
"Honestly, Shane, I think the altitude has affected your mind."
"You do? And you think your own hypothesis is crazy 'too preposterous', you call it. Well, you're no fit judge of mine. I don't care how insane yours may be, I back my own to go it half a dozen better. And I'm going to check up on it in the next thirty-six hours. Provided you give me permission."
"Consider yourself free," Vartan responded jokingly.
"All right. I shall. See that snow dome over there?"
They followed his arm to the stupendous snow peak, possibly the eighth or ninth mountain in the world, towering colossally up into the darkening blue of the evening sky.
"Well," Shane snapped, "I'm going to climb it. Start tomorrow morning at three. Be past the shoulder and onto that glacier at the left before the sun rises. Then one final lungbursting drag to the top."
"But," Vartan objected, "that is a major peak."
"I'm no amateur. Remember Chimborazo? We did it in our sleep, almost."
"The glaciers on Chimborazo were nothing like that brute," Vartan observed. "You can see from here that it is nothing but a Chinese puzzle of rotten crevasses."
"I've studied it through my glasses for three days. There's a bridle walk under the northern buttress clear to the bald snowfields on the top."
Vartan shook his head. Shane shrugged his shoulders, and turned away.
"You're in command," he said.
Vartan watched him receding down the slope to the camp in silence.
"Call him back," Marjorie whispered.
"Why?"
"He does so want to go."
"But what if he loses his life? I'm responsible, you know."
"He won't. Mr. Shane is impetuous in little things, but cautious in big. Can't you see he's broken hearted? Let him take two of our best mountaineers with him, and there will be no danger."
Vartan considered. It was obvious that Shane was bitterly disappointed; why, Vartan could not see.
"All right," he gave in. "I'll send our two best men with him. As a matter of fact, it isn't such a great risk after all. He is one of the best glacier men in the world. Oh, Shane!" he called.
Shane bounded up the slope like a young buck.
"Can I go?"
"Yes, if you take our two best mountaineers. I'll speak to Ali."
Shane all but embraced his leader. "You think I'm crazy, I know. But wait till you see what I bring down from there."
"What?" Marjorie exclaimed.
"Perhaps a pocketful of dirt?"
"You're out of your head," Vartan laughed. "Go ahead anyway, and have your bust. I wouldn't mind tackling it myself."
"Why not? Then you will go straight home after we come down. Your mad fossil chase ends, I tell you, on top of that mountain. Or rather, it both begins and ends there. My crazy theory against your preposterous hypothesis."
"I've half a mind to take you up," Vartan replied slowly.
"You begin to see I'm not as crazy as I seem?"
"No. You're worse. I'll come along to take care of you."
"Oh–," he began, and pulled up short. "Beg pardon, Marjorie. Our friend here takes his captaincy, or whatever it is, rather seriously. There's old Ali shouting to the cooks. Supper must be about ready. Let's go."
"May I change first?" Marjorie begged.
"Go ahead," Vartan agreed. "We'll hold the cooks twenty minutes.
She vanished, and the two men strolled down through the gloomy deodars to the cheerful glow of the campfire.
"These ghoulish trees make good fuel anyway," Shane remarked. "Is this to be a dress-up occasion of some sort?"
"Miss Driscott is tired of puttees, et cetera. I also would appreciate a real wash, a shave and a change into civilian clothes."
Shane dragged him off to put the wish into action. Twenty-five minutes later they emerged from their tent, to find Marjorie already revelling in the crackle and blaze of the huge log fire. She was immaculate in a white dinner dress as fresh as the afternoon it came from the modiste's.
"How did you do it?" they chorused.
"A woman knows instinctively how to do some things that a man will never learn," she replied with a charming air of superiority. She looked them over critically. Their hurried change to their decent clothes, carefully preserved on the march for possible official receptions by rulers of importance, had evidently pleased her. They grew quite self-conscious under her cool, admiring gaze. Finally she deflated both of them at once.
"Your trousers need pressing," she remarked, turning her gaze to the tumbling flames. "Shall we go to dinner? Ali has just announced supper for the third time. I've been sitting here for ages.
It was the first carefree meal they had enjoyed together since leaving Srinagar. For an hour they relaxed, and any suspicions they may have had as to the sanity of their purpose, or of one another, for that matter, were blissfully forgotten. They had been thrown constantly together. The porters seemed to understand no English, and old Ali Baba was as reserved as a disgruntled tomcat. Twelve weeks of one another's undiluted company in the open is enough to drive almost any trio to homicide. But tonight all ragged nerves were soothed, and the three surrendered themselves to the luxuries of clean clothes, a friendly fire, and well cooked food.
Dinner over, they adjourned to Vartan's tent, opened up the flaps, and let the cheery warmth of the lively campfire stream in on them. Marjorie prepared to read the rest of Brassey's 'will' by the light of the fire.
"Hold on a minute," Vartan interrupted. "Hadn't you better turn in, Shane, and get some sleep if you are to start at three?"
Marjorie interceded. "It will take less than an hour to finish this. Can't he stay up till then?"
"Very well," Vartan agreed good-naturedly. "Go ahead. I left off last time with Mr. Brassey's request that we read no further unless we were willing to commit ourselves unreservedly to his project. The last twelve weeks are sufficient proof that we are in this thing to the end."
"Mr. Brassey had just told how his poor father accused him on his deathbed of having betrayed both James and himself, while Mr. Brassey – Charles – was in fact the only one of the three who had inherited the taint. The next goes on to say why the father's accusation was not only unjust but also unreasonable.
"'On my father's death,'" she continued, reading from Brassey's manuscript, "'I put aside all personal feelings, and surveyed the tragic history of the past five years, from James' departure for India to our father's death, in as dispassionate a spirit as I could command.
"'Let me remind you that I had profited by a prolonged and s
ound scientific training, and that the rigid honesty of scientific research was not unknown to me, for I myself had carried out exacting investigations in biology. This invaluable training, and the critical turn of mind which had been acquired with it, I now directed upon the history of those five last years.
"'Was my father right? Was I indeed the one tainted, and they the innocent victims? Self-examination, introspection on my motives during those five dark years, I discarded at once as possible means of vindication. No man can be a just judge of his own mind. What less fallacious methods remained?
"'You will at once suggest the most obvious one, and that which ninety out of a hundred normal persons would pronounce conclusive. I submitted myself, during a period of six months, for constant observation and analysis, to four of the acknowledged experts of England on mental diseases. They subjected me, they declared, to every test known to medical science, and pronounced me sane beyond the suspicion of a doubt.'"
Marjorie interrupted her reading to add a personal observation. Whether she intended so or not, her remark had a curious effect on the two men. They felt as credulous folk may when they imagine their lives are being watched by enemies no longer living.
"James," she observed, "was taken ill quite suddenly. Up to the actual onset of the disease, he was perfectly sane, so far as any of his relatives or friends could see. From what Mr. Brassey has told me of other members of the family, it seems that the victims crack suddenly, with practically no warning of what is coming."
Neither listener made any reply, and she continued reading.
"My second test, which doubtless will seem of only slight value to the uninitiated, I regard as much more severe. As I have related, our family records have been preserved for many centuries. In particular, they are complete from the year 1100, when the taint first crossed our blood. That amazingly intricate record, our fruitful family tree with its innumerable branches, would delight the eyes of any student of heredity. It fascinated mine for years, and continues to fascinate them. For, the names of all those who have inherited our curse and who have perished by it are marked on that prolific tree in red leaves, each the record of a blighted life.
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