"Then you agree with Miss Driscott? You do suspect Vartan?"
"I do nothing of the kind. Until we get definite evidence, I suspend judgment. If he is straight, the truth is no more than is due him. If he is crooked, the truth may make him give himself away.
"Very well," Brassey assented halfheartedly. "I'll cable 'No'."
"Better do it at once," Ransome advised. "Miss Driscott may not be able to hold him much longer for observation unless he receives your answer."
The implied suspicion in Ransome's advice sent Brassey running for a cab. The moment he was out of the office, Ransome pressed a button. The call was answered by a prim young woman who might have been a private secretary.
"Miss Tappan," he exclaimed with an exultation which he rarely exhibited even to his most trusted aides, "We've got our man! Thirteen years! I knew we'd trap him sooner or later."
"Yes, Mr. Ransome?"
Her respectful answer, which just veiled an amused criticism of his enthusiasm, brought him back instantly to his reserved, colorless, professional manner.
"You will sail at once for Bombay to cooperate with Jamieson.
"I did not know that he is in India," Miss Tappan remarked.
"He left for Brindisi the afternoon Vartan and Shane signed up with Mr. Brassey, and caught the boat there."
"Then he must have reached Bombay two days ahead of Vartan and Shane."
"Three," Ransome corrected.
"Did he see Miss Driscott in Bombay?" Miss Tappan was not chattering; she was acquiring necessary professional information.
"Yes. I have his report. There is nothing of importance."
"And Miss Driscott is accompanying the expedition?"
"Jamison reported from Srinagar that she had started."
"No word of her since?"
"No. Presumably she is still with the party."
"The publicity from Darjiling will not be questioned?"
"It is working perfectly already, and the expedition hasn't started. They're swallowing it whole.
"To whom shall I report?"
"Mr. Brathwaite."
"At which office? Bombay or Srinagar?"
"Srinagar. I expect you will have a tedious wait. You had better take along something to keep you busy. Await my instructions there. I'll arrange for your passage. The boat train leaves at two. Here; I'll give you an order on Brathwaites' for expenses."
Miss Tappan pocketed her draft and slipped noiselessly from the room. She almost gave a hop, skip and jump as she hurried down the corridor to the women's dressing room to get her coat and hat. For at least a year, she joyfully anticipated, she could luxuriate as a lady of leisure in the garden of the world. Oh, the joy of it: not to be a despised and spying housemaid in households whose average intelligence was so far below her own as to be invisible, or to sit like a machine at the elbow of some embezzling magnate of the business world and take his stupid, betraying letters a halting sentence at a time.
For once in his carefully schooled life of self-repression as an investigator of crime, Inspector Ransome let himself go the moment Miss Tappan was out of his office.
"I've got my man," he exclaimed, pacing rapidly back and forth the full length of the room. "Got him. After nearly thirteen years. Vartan! But I must be more careful than ever of poor old Charles, or he'll spoil it all yet. I've got to protect him from himself. There's no escape this time. Trapped like a rat in those infernal mountains. Only one way in and one way out – unless the expedition crosses China, or comes out somewhere in Siberia. But it can't. My instructions to Brathwaites' have made that impossible. Vartan either comes back the way he went in, or he starves to death. I've got my man, after all these years."
He stopped suddenly, somewhat dashed in his enthusiasm.
"Miss Tappan didn't seem to think much of my performance. And she's been on the case nearly six years. She ought to know. After all, am I thickheaded?"
He paced the room, trying to evaluate himself objectively. "No," be decided, "I'm not. If Jamieson, the top man in the India Secret Service, couldn't crack this nut in all the years he's been on it, I don't see that I'm slow. Now we shall see what Jamieson does with his chance to prove himself the best man of the Indian service. I've made good. Will he? Or is it to be another last minute escape?"
* * *
Unaware that Scotland Yard had an intense interest in his conduct of the expedition from the day it left Srinagar, Vartan had followed his own lead. Had he been told that the renowned Inspector Ransome considered him as 'his man', his emotions would undoubtedly have interfered with the efficient command of the expedition on the first twelve weeks of its march from Srinagar. And if he had known, as he sat listening to Marjorie reading the second installment of Charles Brassey's confession, that another young woman, a Miss Tappan, was at that moment idling away the evening with a novel in front of the blazing log fire at the lounge of an inn at Srinagar, patiently waiting his return to the Vale of Cashmere, he would have braved the downpour which sent Marjorie to bed, and ordered the taciturn, cat-faced old Ali Baba to break camp and be on his way at once. Vartan hated to keep a lady waiting, even when he didn't like her.
The morning that Shane ventured forth, shivering, with the two most skilful mountaineers of the party into the icy starlight, proved to be the turning point in the history of the expedition. It put a vital decision squarely up to Marjorie, and she met it unflinchingly. Had she faltered when the crisis arose, the mysteries of James Brassey's voluntary martyrdom and of his younger brother's persecution by spies for nearly thirteen years, most probably would have remained unsolved.
Half frozen in his vigil, Vartan had no difficulty in keeping awake and getting Shane out of bed at one thirty. Everything proceeded according to schedule till three o'clock, when Shane and his two companions left the camp for their dangerous climb.
"Take no chances," was Vartan's parting injunction. "I've tested the ropes. Don't try any stunts. Rope yourselves the moment you begin the real climbing."
"Right-o, Captain. See you tonight some time. Don't stew if we're not back till this time tomorrow."
"I'll give you twenty four hours. Good luck!"
"Thanks. Especially for the leave."
Their crackling footsteps gradually became indistinct as the three strode rapidly away over the frozen ground, and Vartan turned back to the camp to go to bed. Old Ali Baba, who had insisted on superintending the breakfasting and provisioning of the three adventurers, loomed up in the dim starlight.
"What is it, Ali?"
"Fools," the old chap sputtered disgustedly, jerking his thumb toward the floating mass of the mountain, where it swam like a dream against the blazing blue-black background of stars and sheer space.
"I agree," Vartan laughed. "We're nearly frozen here. What will it be like on the glacier away up there? Hullo; what have you there?"
"Soup. Eat."
"I'll do that. Ali, you're worth your weight in pigeon-blood rubies."
He took the bowl of steaming soup and glanced up at the kind old face of the man offering it. In the dim starlight Ali's grizzled, bewhiskered countenance looked exactly like that of a battlescarred old tomcat intercepted on one of his prowls by night. Vartan almost laughed in the old man's face. The warm bowl in his half frozen hands restrained his mirth, and he bade Ali a grateful goodnight.
The three climbers were heard of sooner than Shane had promised. As the expedition could not proceed until the adventurers returned, Vartan, Marjorie, Ali and his remaining porters loafed about the camp all morning, revelling in the warm sunshine, and enjoying to its last lazy indulgence the first real rest they had taken in twelve weeks. Shortly after three o'clock Vartan was startled by stumbling footsteps hurrying down the rocky slope on which he lay dozing in the sun. Scrambling to his feet, he saw one of the mountaineers who had accompanied Shane, reeling toward him. The man was at the point of exhaustion. Before he could pantomime his message – he spoke only a word or two or English – Vartan was on hi
s way down to the camp, shouting orders as he ran.
Ali translated the messenger's incoherent account of what had happened. Ali's own English was barely adequate to the emergency, but Vartan understood. In ten minutes he and five of the porters were on their way up the first long slope leading to the glacier.
"Wait!" Ali shouted after him.
Vartan gestured to the porters, indicating the route to be followed, and hurried back.
"What is it?"
Ali pointed to the exhausted messenger who was doing his utmost to force someone to take charge of an untidy bundle in his hand. Vartan took the object. On unwrapping the rags in which the messenger had carried it – rags torn from his own clothing, Vartan came upon an inner wrapping which he recognized as flannel from Shane's outer shirt. A large lump of ice, black as jet, slipped out.
Marjorie, breathless, ran up just as the ice was revealed.
"From Shane," Vartan said. "I don't know what it means. Keep it in a can till we get back."
"Is he hurt?" she asked, going white.
"Yes."
She looked at the lump of black ice in her hands, and hesitated before asking her next question.
"Badly?"
"Apparently. We'll bring him down. Have his bed warm, and plenty of hot water. I'm taking stimulants with me."
Again she weighed the lump of ice in her hands.
"He is not dead?"
"Not if this man isn't too upset to know the facts."
"Let me go with you. Ali will see that the necessary things are done here."
"No. It will be a terrific climb, as we must get to him before sunset and bring him down in the dark."
"But I love him," she said.
For a second he hesitated.
"No. Do as I have told you. It will take all of my strength, and I'm an experienced mountaineer. I'll tell him what you said. It will give him heart for the journey down."
Without a word she walked away toward the camp, staring at the lump of black ice in her hands.
CHAPTER 8
BARREN FLOWERS
Marjorie's fiction had come doubly true. The entertaining story which she jokingly told Shane and Vartan as part of her publicity campaign, had suddenly materialized into sombre fact. Shane was carried into camp at three o'clock on the day following the accident. He was barely conscious. In addition to a slight concussion of the brain, both of his ankles were broken.
Vartan had learned but little from the one porter who stayed on the glacier, and the other was either too exhausted or too frightened to explain clearly to Ali Baba what had happened. Only when Vartan returned, did Ali succeed in piecing together the facts from the first porter's account.
Shane and his two companions had reached the glacier safely after a stiff but safe climb. They made their way cautiously up the ice until within half a mile of the summit. The surface of the glacier was fissured in all directions by deep crevasses. These however presented no difficulty to the three, as all were expert climbers, familiar with ice. The porters assumed that Shane would head directly up the glacier until in the shadow of the true crest of the mountains. They were surprised therefore when he ordered a halt at the edge of a particularly ugly crevasse, and signified that the party was to unrope itself.
The porters of course obeyed. Shane then tied all the ropes together and secured one free end under his armpits and around his body. Although they considered Shane's next order both foolhardy and silly, the porters obeyed and lowered him slowly down into the crevasse. It was about eighty feet deep. Shane seemed anxious to reach the oldest ice, packed under the tremendous pressure of the main glacial mass, at the very bottom of the crevasse. About seventy feet down from the lip, the ice bulged sharply out, forming a narrow ledge on which a man might stand with safety. The porters thought this ledge was Shane's objective, and stopped paying out the rope when he reached it. Signalling them to let him down over the ledge, he disappeared from view. Presently the rope slackened, and they knew that he had reached his stopping place.
Ten or fifteen minutes passed with no signal from Shane. Then the rope was jerked sharply, and they started to haul in. They at once noticed that Shane's weight seemed to have increased. As he cleared the ledge on his ascent, they saw the cause. Shane was clasping in his arms a huge chunk of what looked like black glass. They learned later that this was the tip of an old serac which had been weathered out on the sloping sides of the crevasse at a depth of about eighty five feet. It was but one of several hundred blunt cones of jet black ice, evidently of higher melting point than the rest, which had survived, like the papillae of a cat's tongue, on the slowly melting walls of the crevasse.
The increased weight had caused the rope to saw viciously into the sharp projecting edge. Shane noticed the danger when it was too late. He was already twenty feet above the ledge when he realized that the frayed stretch of rope above him must snap before he could reach the top. Dropping his black ice, he tugged frantically at the rope. One porter interpreted the signal as an order to haul in faster; the other as a command to be lowered to the ledge before the rope broke. The second porter slackened his hold to let Shane down; the first, not expecting the sudden tension, let the rope slip through his hands. Both now saw what was about to happen, and simultaneously hung back on the rope with all their weight, to prevent Shane being dashed down on the ledge. Under the sudden strain the frayed rope parted, and Shane's body, ricochetting against the sharp edge, plunged into the depths of the crevasse.
The porters made an immediate attempt at rescue. Uncoiling their reserve ropes, they spliced them onto the broken length, and one lowered the other over the lip. He found Shane conscious but incoherent. Shane seemed to feel that he was done, and by frantic pantomime urged his would-be rescuer to salvage a lump of the black ice and take it down to camp. To pacify Shane, the man stuffed a chunk of the shattered ice into his shirt. Then he gave the signal to haul up. Shane reached the surface in safety, and the porter, chancing the worn rope, was then pulled out.
Shane was now apparently out of his head. He did succeed however in making the men understand the importance of the black ice. Tearing a strip from his shirt, and signifying the porter who held the ice to do likewise, he signed for them to wrap the ice in the rags, return to camp, and leave him. This of course they would not do, and they compromised by one staying with the injured man and the other going for help. They alone could not have carried him down the mountain. The man who stayed with Shane was half frozen when Vartan found him, as he had stripped his outer clothes in order to wrap Shane. Vartan blessed Brathwaites' for good judgment in selecting porters.
The long climb down was accomplished slowly but in safety. Shane did not seem to comprehend what was going on, and Vartan concentrated on getting him as quickly as possible to camp, leaving explanations to the future.
Everything was ready at the camp when the rescue party appeared, thanks to Marjorie's silent, thoughtful efficiency and Ali Baba's foresight. Just before he went to sleep, Shane's mind cleared and he recognized Marjorie.
"Too bad you didn't bring the radio," he grinned. "I've done my stunt."
"Don't," she begged.
"Only joking. Silly fool to get caught like that. Hullo, Vartan. Am I out of it?"
"We'll see when you wake up. Go to sleep."
"Get my ice?"
"It's safe. Go to sleep."
Vartan went in search of Ali Baba, and Marjorie followed slowly, thinking desperately. Presently she quickened her steps and caught up with him.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"Get Ali to pick his eight best men and a first rate leader and send them back to Srinagar with Shane. Taking it in spells, two or at most four, can carry the litter. The other four will hump supplies and take care of the pack ponies. Two animals will be enough. They should make it in about thirty days, the general grade is all downhill, and they can do a march and a half a day."
"But will the porters know enough to attend to the splints a
nd bandages?"
"Probably not any too much. He must look out for that part himself. Unless," he added suggestively, "you go with him?"
"I have been thinking of it," she confessed.
"Well?"
"Give me till the last moment to decide."
"Certainly. It is your affair."
Early the next morning everything was ready for Shane's journey back to Srinagar. Ali Baba assured Vartan that the eight picked men were the cream of the forty, and that their leader could be trusted to the limit. He had indeed been in charge of pack trains on minor expeditions. The painful business of setting Shane's broken ankles as best they could was mercifully over.
Shane bore his misfortune without complaint, except at what he called his own stupidity in courting an avoidable accident. Over confidence, he ruefully admitted, had exacted its usual tax. Before the sad little party started, Shane expressed a desire to speak privately with Vartan. Marjorie withdrew.
"Mere business," Shane called after her. "Life insurance, and all that."
"You are not going to die," she exclaimed, going white. "If there were the slightest danger, I–"
"What?" Vartan encouraged, leading her away a short distance, out of earshot of Shane.
"I would disobey Mr. Brassey's order and go back with Mr. Shane."
"Can't you do that anyway? You saw the other day that my map is better than yours. Why not go along with him?"
"I can't," she asserted in a low tone, "unless it is a matter of life and death. But it isn't, is it?"
"No," he replied, lowering his voice. "Shane is badly hurt, of course, and he is out of the expedition for good. But there's not the slightest danger of him dying."
"Then I must go with you," she decided.
"Why?" he asked curiously.
"Because Mr. Brassey ordered me to accompany the expedition as observer. To disobey means disgrace, and the end of my professional career. He could never give me a recommendation to another position."
"You still suspect me?"
"Don't ask that," she begged. "Can't you see that there may be danger from these porters? How do you know that one of them isn't a clever spy? Or that we shall not meet spies later?"
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