THEFORBIDDENGARDEN

by The Forbidden Garden(Lit)

"Why?" she whispered.

  They were now half a mile from the knot of porters. Before answering Marjorie's whispered question, Vartan unslung his pack and laid it on the snow.

  "Sit down," he said. She obeyed in silence. "I am going on alone," he resumed. "Possibly I shall never return. This, most probably, is the last time we shall ever talk together. I distrust you, Miss Driscott, because you are a liar."

  "Oh!" She leaped to her feet, her eyes blazing and her cheeks flaming. She clenched her fist as if about to strike him. Something in his eyes checked her, and she slumped down on the pack.

  "Is it my deceit about the publicity for Northchifs'?"

  "No. That is merely a matter of business. Hardly the sort of thing that would justify a man in calling a girl a liar. Men have been shot for calling other men less than that. What the just penalty is for a man calling a girl a liar when she doesn't deserve it, I don't profess to know. The publicity has nothing to do with it."

  "Then what has? I have a right to know."

  "You have," he snapped, "Shane's slides."

  Her face was the picture of bewilderment.

  "What on earth have Mr. Shane's slides to do with me being the liar you say I am?"

  "Just this. Shane's slides were stolen from Brassey's London office the afternoon before he and I sailed for Bombay. Remember? Of course you do. And do you recall what you told me in Bombay."

  "That the slides had been returned, with a note."

  "Rather a mysterious note, too, wasn't it?"

  "Not if you know, as I do, how closely the spies have followed the experiments in the Brassey laboratories for the past fifteen years.

  "So it is all clear to you, is it?"

  "Not all clear. But it is quite reasonable."

  "Indeed? Then what would you say if I were to tell you that Shane's slides were not returned to Brassey House?"

  "I should not believe it."

  "Well," said Vartan with quiet finality, "you will have to believe it. After you told us Shane's slides had been returned to Brassey House, I cabled to Brassey, asking him whether they had. His answer was one word, 'No."'

  "You made me swear to the truth," she said. "Now I ask you to tell me, on your word of honor as a man, whether what you have just told me is true. Did Mr. Brassey cable you that Mr. Shane's slides had not been returned?"

  "He did."

  Her eyes never left his face. "I believe you are telling the truth," she said at last. "And for this you call me a liar."

  "You said Shane's slides had been returned. Brassey said they hadn't. Draw your own conclusions."

  "How stupid men are!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot in a genuine rage. "Haven't I dinned it into you by this time that Mr. Brassey is dangerously close to a mania of suspicion? And who can blame him if he is? Scotland Yard hasn't caught one of those spies, and yet he still relies implicitly on their incompetent detectives. Can't you see what happened?"

  "I confess that I cannot," he replied coldly.

  "Why," she said with a short laugh, "the cable I received reporting the return of Mr. Shane's slides was not sent by Mr. Brassey. It was a forgery in his name."

  "What reason would there be for such a forgery?" he demanded, watching her face closely.

  "None whatever that I can see. It is of a piece with all the operations of those spies. They may know how they hope to attain their object – whatever it is – I don't."

  "Swear to that?" he suggested.

  "I swear."

  "Very well. I shall take your word for it. And you really are in mortal terror of Ali Baba?"

  "Not physical terror," she qualified. "But I fear and distrust him intensely."

  "You don't want to go back with him?"

  "If you order me back to Srinagar I shall take four of the porters and go by myself. I will not chance the journey back with Ali Baba."

  "What you propose is out of the question."

  "Will you consider an alternative?" Vartan nodded. "Let me come with you. I can pack my own supplies."

  "Alone?" he queried.

  "If you think it advisable. But I believe it would be better to take Ali with us. The porters can find their way back alone; several of them are experienced guides and leaders. I do not know where you think you are going," she continued. "But I do know that you will probably have urgent need for a good interpreter. And Ali, you must admit, is competent. Why not do as I advise?" she urged earnestly. "You must have Ali. And with you to watch him, I would not have the slightest fear of anything he might attempt."

  Vartan's decision was made instantly.

  "I shall take your advice." He shouldered his pack and started back toward the porters. "Not," he continued, "for any reason you have suggested. If we ever get back to civilization, I will tell you why I gave in. Ali should have the option of going on with us or returning with the porters."

  Ali did not hesitate when the choice was offered him. In ten minutes he was ready, pack and all, and he had also equipped Marjorie. Before leaving the porters to meditate on the follies of mutiny, he gave detailed orders for their march back, and appointed a headman whose word was to be final in all disputes. Then, having helped Marjorie to adjust her pack, he shouldered his own, and the three marched off in the afternoon sunshine, down the narrow valley, their faces to the unknown.

  "Does your pack hurt any of your bums?" he asked Marjorie.

  She shook her head.

  "Henceforth treat me exactly as you would a man on the march," she requested. "Don't hang back or make allowances because I am a woman."

  "I'll take you at your word," he promised. "Step out! We shall not halt for longer than ten minutes at a time till we reach the end of this infernal valley, if we have to march all night. Ali! Go first and set the pace. You look like a hillman, whether you are one or not."

  Glancing back, Marjorie saw a pathetic little procession straggling back over the snow. A sound of wailing followed the three down the desolate valley, as the heartbroken porters vented their grief. For a moment the three paused, and Vartan spoke, his eyes suspiciously bright.

  "They will be safe," he said. "It would be quite impossible to take ponies where we must go tomorrow, and I would not ask simple men like those poor fellows to gamble their lives against a stake that means nothing to them. You two have come of your own free will. While you yet have the opportunity, you may return to Srinagar if you wish, and I will think none the less of either of you. Ali?"

  The grizzled old chap briefly shook his head.

  "Miss Driscott?"

  "Forward," she said.

  CHAPTER 12

  SPORES

  The search on which Vartan was engaged was one of the most remarkable in the secret history of international intrigue. So carefully had the master players covered their hands that but few of the participants in the stupendously intricate game, which was now nearing its decisive throw, suspected one another's existence, and certainly more than one of the major players was totally in the dark concerning the rules of the game and the sinister stakes involved.

  Vartan for one, although he had doubted the professed object of the expedition from its beginning in Brassey's office, would have been completely surprised and not a little chagrined if, when he started forward with Marjorie and Ali, he had been informed of the hidden mainspring beneath all his bold decisions. Brassey, for another, conferring at the moment with his friend Inspector Ransome, would have been shocked into bland incredulity, could he have realized that his own professed object in sending out the expedition, namely the ultimate perpetuation of his brother James' memory, was not the major objective of all his efforts.

  Ransome, for his part, admitted that he still might have something to learn on this, the most puzzling case of all his brilliant career. Shane of course was in much the same situation as Vartan, although he believed, not without cause, that he had at least a clue to the nature of that shovelful of soil which Brassey asserted to be the one immediate object of the expedition.

  U
nknown to all the actors, the black drama in which they were playing their respective parts was being staged simultaneously in two hemispheres. Great Britain, represented by Brassey and Ransome; Central Asia, with Vartan's expedition as the key move; Holland, with a group of reserved, quiet men of scientific training and pacific tastes, and finally the Italian Riviera, represented chiefly by a venerable player who suffered from heart disease and who was pretty much of a recluse, were the foci from which the intricate web of plot and counterplot diverged to the corners of the earth. The underground war between opposing factions had been going on for thirteen indecisive years. Vartan's expedition, it began to appear to those who knew at least two angles of the manysided struggle, might well prove the turning point to victory or defeat.

  On the same night that Vartan and his two companions were trudging over the frozen snow in their first march together, determined to reach the end of the valley by daybreak, a worn old man in the airy, comfortable study of his villa on the shores of the Mediterranean, pushed back his chair, and rose from his work, satisfied. The warm morning breeze fluttered the fronds of the windmill palm by the open window into rapid, rhythmic motion; a heavy scent of yellow jasmine drifted into the room, and the old man almost remembered for a moment that he had once had senses keen for beauty and a body that responded like an aeolian harp to the infinitely varied music of nature. But that was fifty or sixty years ago, before his ambitions dried up his life, and he became nothing but a cold thinking-machine in an unfeeling husk.

  The old man's face, as he glanced down at the microscope and litter of scattered slides on the glass-topped table, was without expression. He had suffered so many defeats, and achieved so many victories in his lifelong devotion to impersonal science and a fanatical slavery to what he considered his duty, that one success or failure the more left him cold. Master in his own sciences, he had served his human masters long and faithfully. Now, perhaps, he was about to put into their hands the great thing that all of the priceless gifts of his devoted genius had promised them and him.

  His expressionless, cleanshaven mask of a face gave no certain clue to his nationality. The features were neither European nor Asiatic, although the whole cast of the face recalled characteristics that might be either. In Italy he might pass for a native of one of the Baltic countries, his slightly oriental appearance being interpreted as a throwback to some forgotten ancestor in the Mongol hordes that submerged Europe in the thirteenth century. His Italian speech was pure and without trace of an accent, but he was not by birth an Italian. Like most educated Europeans he spoke French fluently, and his German was practically faultless. English he had no occasion to speak, although he read it perfectly as part of his scientific equipment. Whatever his father's name may have been, his own was Zanetti-Annibale Zanetti, in full, at least while he resided in Italy.

  Surveying the litter of slides on the glass table, he stood as still as the dead, chin in hand, reflecting on what he had seen under the microscope. There were in all perhaps a hundred and fifty of the expertly prepared glass slides, each with its individual speck of dust permanently mounted for study.

  "It is solved," he muttered in Italian. Picking up one of the slides, he ironically read aloud the neatly printed label. "'Brassey House, London. Not to be taken from the laboratory.'" Blanks on the label provided for a brief, technical description of the specimen:

  "Series 118; No. 225. W. Shane."

  Zanetti swept the slides into a large porcelain dish, arranged them neatly so that the printed labels of all were exposed, and slowly poured the contents of a bottle of acid over them. When the last trace of print had vanished, he emptied the slides into the waste jar, reached for an iron rod, and smashed them to bits. He had learned the one fact of value to him on those slides, and had no further use for them. He next jerked the old-fashioned bell-pull, and waited till his personal servant appeared. Speaking in Italian, he gave his curt orders.

  "Pack my bag for travelling. Close up the house when I go, and admit no one."

  Half an hour later he was on his way to report to his masters.

  * * *

  Zanetti was not the only scientist who at that time was intensely interested in all but ultramicroscopic spores. Shane, rapidly convalescing in Srinagar, was also following the same trail, but with less success. Miss Tappan reported almost daily by cabled code to her employer what Shane was finding. The nurse, Dr. Wemyss, the chambermaid, and numerous loquacious tourists who had cheered Shane's sick room, were the alert Miss Tappan's eager but unconscious aides. She had not one pair of eyes, but dozens, for Shane had become a universal favorite with both the management and the visitors at the inn. She herself of course kept discreetly in the background.

  From all of the information furnished by her unwitting spies she gradually eliminated the unessential details, and isolated the one fact of importance. Shane, she learned, was bitterly disappointed with the results of his search. The slightest sediments of snow and ice which his porters had collected on the march back to Srinagar, revealed nothing of significance, and Shane sighed for the priceless lump of bladice which had cost him a. pair of broken ankles.

  Shane was not the man to waste time regretting. The very day he was promoted to a wheel chair, and allowed the freedom of the long verandah, he confided a long cablegram to the clerk to be transmitted to Charles Brassey. The message was discursive, because Shane realized the necessity of disguising his request.

  On receiving the cable, Brassey hurried over to Scotland Yard and laid it before Ransome. The latter, as usual, failed to betray what he really thought about the matter, if anything.

  "Why not let him do it, Charles? It won't cost much."

  "It isn't the money," Brassey expostulated, rather hurt. "You know that, John. But is it wise?"

  "I don't see why it isn't."

  "Suppose some spy is watching him. If he finds anything of importance, it is sure to be discovered. Any competent agent could worm everything out of the hotel employees, with Shane himself unable to get about properly and keep his own eyes on his material."

  "Nonsense," Ransome retorted.

  "You seem pretty sure of yourself," Brassey remarked.

  "Of course I am," Ransome rejoined. "And I have good reason to be. Now that things have come to a head, I don't mind telling you that Shane can't make a fool of us now, no matter how hard he tries."

  "You mean he is being watched?"

  "By one of our best agents." Ransome vouchsafed the information in a tone which was meant to imply that Scotland Yard, the moment it heard of Shane's return to Srinagar, had taken measures to insure his fidelity to Brassey House. Miss Tappan, of course, had been living at the inn for weeks before Shane was invalided there. Ransome saw no reason, however, why he should tell Brassey this, or indeed anything of his conduct of the investigation.

  "So you suspect Shane?" Brassey hinted.

  "I didn't say that, Charles. I merely tried to indicate that Shane will be protected. Remember, he is a paleobotanist, not a trained detector of crooks. In his own line he is first rate – you told me so yourself; in my specialty I wouldn't give tuppence for either his skill or his experience. A mediocre spy could turn him inside out in five minutes. So let him go on with his work. I'll see that he isn't robbed." A sudden light dawned in the Inspector's eyes. "By Jove," he exclaimed, "I only hope and pray that some fool does try to rob him. Then we'll catch the idiot with all the evidence right on him. Cable Shane at once to go ahead as he wishes."

  Two hours later Shane was overjoyed on receiving Brassey's permission to employ mountaineers, whose job would be to ascend the nearest glaciers and bring back samples of "fossil" ice. Brathwaites' as usual were to act as Brassey's agents; Shane could study the specimens at leisure in his wheeled chair.

  Ransome was right about Shane. He meant well, but lacked caution. It was an easy matter for Miss Tappan to stimulate the chambermaid's vulgar curiosity to the point of reading the cable which Shane had received. Ransome had told Miss
Tappan to use her eyes, and she did. Shortly after Shane received his message, Miss Tappan got one, an innocent code, from her chief. It instructed her to keep a sharp watch on Shane, and have any meddler in his affairs apprehended immediately. Miss Tappan slipped out to the cable office and handed in a cheering message on the state of "Richard's health."

  Brathwaites' put six of their most skilful mountaineers on the commission. The results were highly gratifying. In ten days the hardy little party returned with about five gallons of melted icewater as black as India ink. According to Shane's instructions they had poured off all the fairly clear water from successive samples of the fossil ice as it melted, and had kept only the heavy sediments. Repeating the process with the sediments as they settled still further, they had finally collected the very cream of the ancient glacial dirt. Ice from only the deepest crevasses of the highest glaciers accessible had been considered at all.

  With this treasure trove at his disposal, Shane set to work with his microscope. He was independent of daylight in his research, as the splendid instrument loaned by the diatom fanatic was artificially illuminated in the most up-to-date fashion. The first positive results convinced him that his work was important, although he failed to find what he was looking for specifically. At last his caution was aroused, and he instructed his nurse to say nothing to anyone. To aid her discretion, he did not invite her to look through the microscope. This had the inevitable effect of putting Miss Tappan on her mettle. To report satisfactorily to her employer she must find out at all costs, short of discovery in her attempt, exactly what Shane was doing.

  In Miss Tappan's profession, such things as slightly altering the face so as to be unrecognizable even to an acquaintance in a dim light, and assuming the demeanour of a countess or of a kitchenmaid at a moment's notice, are mere matters of technique easily perfected by assiduous training. To obtain a master key from a chamber, maid, or at least the duplicate of one, is a trivial task.

  Miss Tappan's preparations were simple but complete. First, she provided for a victorious retreat, should she be defeated in her major engagement. For days she advertised her intention of taking an early excursion to the highest point that could be reached by motor road to see the sunrise. Therefore it was only natural that a swift, highpowered car with a native driver, should be waiting for her in front of the inn at four o'clock of the morning on which she planned her raid. Her wallet, hidden under her dress and secured by a gold chain which hung about her neck, was stuffed with sufficient currency to carry her to Harbin or Moscow if necessary. A long fur cloak and a complete change of clothes in a satchel in the women's room just off the hotel lobby were ready to be snatched up at a second's notice. Her retreat, should it be necessary, was perfectly provided for. She knew to its last turn the devious route her native driver must follow to permit her to see the sunrise as she desired, and she knew also that another, swifter car would be waiting less than five minutes' walk from the spot at which she would alight to take the trail – to the next curve in the winding mountain road. All this was just so much routine. The next was more delicate.