James looked up, his grimy face the picture of misery. Vartan's quiet assurance had convinced him.
"You will find a way. I can't stop you. Tell Charles he was right. I'm the one who should have left England. I bear him no grudge."
"Why not come with us?" Marjorie urged. "Charles will take care of you till you are well and happy again."
"Never," he muttered, and sank into a doze, his right hand still tightly clutching the refuse of dead flowers and withered leaves.
"What on earth are we to do?" Vartan asked, staring at his companions.
"He will never leave this place," Jamieson answered curtly. "Don't you see that it is impossible? His mind is completely gone. We shall have the very devil of a time getting up one of those cataracts ourselves. With a madman along, we should all break our necks in the first half hour."
"Very well," Marjorie replied, sitting down, "we shall have to wait until we do find a safer way."
"What do you mean?" Jamieson demanded, going pale.
"Isn't it obvious?"
"I don't see it."
"Perhaps you wouldn't," she retorted coolly. "Do you see it, Mr. Vartan?"
"Good Lord," Vartan burst out, reddening, "a blind man could see it."
"Thank you, Mr. Vartan. Now, Mr. Jamieson, do you see the point?"
Jamieson sat down sulkily.
"Oh, I suppose so. You two are as crazy as be is. Wait till you've seen as much of the true side of life as I have. The dirty, seamy side. Then you'll value your own life at its real worth."
"Which isn't much, sometimes," Marjorie reminded him. "You are part native, are you not?"
"Pah!" Jamieson spat with a gesture of contempt. "The British 'sporting instinct' again. It always made me sick. Why take a chance when you know you have none? If what that lunatic told us is true, and he seemed pretty sure of his crazy story, there is no other way out of this hole. Why don't we do our job and get out? He's happier here than he ever could be in England. They would lock him up the minute we landed. Look at things in a practical, common sense way. What did we come here for?"
"I came to get a shovelful of dirt," Vartan replied drily. "And until I get it, I shall stay here."
"Then let us get it and go."
"Where do you find this precious dirt?" Vartan drawled.
"In the marshes."
"How do you know?"
"Charles Brassey told you to bring him four pounds of the soil in which Delphinium Brasseii flourishes in the native state. Well, those delphiniums are growing as rankly as reeds all around the margins of the swamps in the cave that opens into this one on the left."
"When did you see them?" Marjorie interposed with biting sarcasm. Jamieson flushed.
"When the guards brought me in here and turned me over to James. He wandered off in a dream after he had talked for an hour or more about what to get for dinner."
"Then you explored?" Vartan suggested in a colorless tone.
"I looked around a bit. What he says of the plants and animals in some of those swamps is not half the truth. This place is hell on earth."
"The forbidden garden," Marjorie murmured. "Well, Mr. Vartan, are you going to get your four pounds of black earth? You just said you would stay till you did."
"Surely," he smiled. "But does that imply that I'll go when I've got my four pounds?"
"You might be prepared to start when we do find a way out," she hinted.
"I might," Vartan agreed. "But I probably shan't, if packing four pounds of marsh muck is part of my preparations."
"You will procrastinate till the last moment? I thought you were an American."
"I am," Vartan admitted. "But not to the extent of selling my soul for fifty thousand dollars. The trouble with you two is that neither of you knows any first hand science. Jamieson is a great detective, and you, Miss Driscott, have specialized as a confidential agent. Neither of you, I could see, believed poor James Brassey when he told you about these animal-plants. Do you remember, Miss Driscott, how he said the seeds that man with the swab was scraping off those beasts' hides were the 'seeds of madness'? He meant that the flowers – or perhaps the pollen – that spring from those seeds do exactly what he implied: drive people crazy. You yourself reminded me of cocaine. That's a vegetable product.
"Now I believe the meat of what James said. Neither of you do, or you wouldn't be willing to take a chance on that black dirt. It must be practically a solid mass of spores of the most dangerous plants – if you can call them that – on earth. I'll spend my old age here with James before I take back a single spore of that infernal stuff. But I'll get out somehow empty-handed. I'm no self-immuring martyr."
Jamieson's face slowly broke into its broad, genial grin. Rising, he extended his hand – an un-English thing to do.
"Shake," he said. "At last I have proved to the bottom that you are on our side, and not with the spies who have been doing their damnedest for thirteen years to make off with what was left of James' sample to Charles of this same black earth. Pardon me for having suspected you to the last moment, but some of the ablest crooks in the world are on the other side. And at last I understand why. James is right, fundamentally. This stuff, let loose to propagate in the full sunlight would wreck the population of a country within four or five years. The scientific details don't matter. I agree with you that James is essentially right.
"We can argue the science later, when we have taken poor old James back to his brother, and this place is forgotten. If there is any danger of it being rediscovered, which I doubt, the United Nations can fence it off till all the inhabitants are rescued, and then administer it – somehow. And I beg your pardon too, Miss Driscott," he concluded, bowing to her, "for having made slighting remarks about your 'British sporting instinct'. You will understand that I did it purely for professional purposes, to draw out our friend Vartan. There is just one little kink, however, that has not been straightened out.
"You, Miss Driscott, seemed by your insinuations against my own sporting sense, to slur my mother, and you reminded me that I am part native." He drew himself up stiffly. " I am proud that my mother's mother was a full blooded Indian woman, prouder far than of the fact that my mother's father was an English officer, although I am proud of that too. I know this is not the sort of thing an Englishman would say. I'm part Indian, and I'm glad of it. I can speak of my feelings without being ashamed. And finally I am proud that my father's people, appreciating my mixed blood, made me one of its most trusted servants in the one sphere where I could be most useful. No apology for what you said is necessary, Miss Driscott."
"I shall not apologize," she replied somewhat distantly. "Instead, let me congratulate you. So you will stay with Mr. Vartan and me till we get poor James out of this awful place?"
"That is what I have been trying to tell you, Miss Driscott."
"Thank you," she murmured. "I knew all along you were acting. You didn't do it very well. Shall we look for places to sleep?"
"Hadn't we better make James comfortable first?" Vartan proposed. "Here, Jamieson, you take his legs and I'll take his arms. We can cover him up on one of these couches of leaves."
Having made James as easy as they could, they went in search of sleeping quarters for themselves. Frequently in their wanderings they were warned away from inviting entrances by Jamieson, who declared that the living things in them were not decent for human eyes to see.
"I explored pretty thoroughly all about here, this afternoon," he explained. "Our best prospect is clear at the end of the cave you first entered. There are several small holes in the wall there that looked like servants' quarters."
They were nearly a third of a mile away from the exit leading to the spiral river, when they heard a despairing yell. Turning instantly, they saw James waving his arms and hailing them frantically. As they started to run toward him, they distinguished the words he was shouting at the top of his lungs.
"You will escape," he yelled, "and I shall die. Others will learn of this pla
ce. Then the whole world will be hell."
He had fled through the exit to the river. In his right hand he brandished the sheaf of withered flowers which he had clutched when he seemed to fall asleep. He was still clad in the pathetic rags of his evening clothes.
Racing after him, they saw him dash dizzily down the spiral rim of the river. Thinking he planned to drown himself, they shouted to him to stop; to follow at his speed was impossible. His bare feet and his mad luck saved him from slipping into the black oil of the shooting torrent.
"Come back!" they shouted.
He hesitated, and finally halted, balancing himself precariously on the sharp rim. Reaching into his trouser pocket, he drew forth some small object whose precise nature they could not see.
"None of us shall escape!" he yelled, "and there shall be no more hell on earth."
They realized now what James had taken from his pocket. He had told them that the inhabitants knew how to make fire, but not the details. They saw a fan of sparks shoot out and bury themselves in the dried flowers. Instantly the bundle was ablaze.
They fled for their fives before the oil on the river burst into whirling pillars of flame, kindling the explosive mixture of air and gas in the funnel. The deafening detonation hurled them back, stunned and bleeding, into the cave from which they had emerged.
James had paid his score and settled all his debts.
CHAPTER 21
LISTENING
Inspector Ransome was not the man to let chagrin get the better of his professional judgement. After the sting of Miss Tappan West's 'Fathead' cablegram had ceased to smart as painfully as it had when inserted, Ransome began to analyze the situation in a cool, impersonal manner. He had relied implicitly on her honesty. That she should be an employee of the spying enemy was undeniably a slur on the Inspector's good sense.
The incident drove home to him once more the sinister truth that he was fighting a highly skilled band of conspirators, to whom time and money were details of no importance.
Miss West, he shrewdly suspected, did not know who her principals were, and probably had no inkling of their purpose. They, most likely, had simply given her certain elementary jobs of spying to do, probably through agents three or four times removed from their great headquarters, hinting to her that the game in which innocent trade rivalry. Ransome had learned enough about the case in the many years he had been engaged on it, to know that no mere commercial jobbery was responsible for the expertly concealed net of intrigue. On the matter of Miss West he could not justly accept all the blame. She had entered the employ of Scotland Yard with unimpeachable references, having been strongly recommended by no less an authority than the great Jamieson, one of the best all – around detectives in the world, and without peer in the difficult field of oriental crime and intrigue. If the enemy had succeeded in deceiving the infallible and impeccable Jamieson, Inspector Ransome felt that he himself was not as dull as Miss Tappan-West seemed to hint.
Ransome, letting his trained mind play over the crisis, did not rest content with a salve to his stung pride. To set all doubts at rest, he determined to proceed as soon as possible to India and take up the threads from there. A really competent agent, he not unfairly concluded, should be able to trace Miss West without undue difficulty. Before embarking however, he must spend a week or two in setting his affairs in London in order, to run by themselves for a year if necessary.
At last all of his preparations were concluded. He called up his old friend Charles, whom he had not seen since the embarrassing interview over Shane's cable, and asked him to drop in on his way home. Charles Brassey did not wait for five o'clock, but went at once to Scotland Yard.
"I'll wager John has blundered again," he thought as he hailed a cab. "John is growing old, like the rest of us. Oh, well–"
Ransome made a full confession of all the humiliating history of the Tappan-West incident, not omitting the undeserved 'fathead' which she had hurled at him. Brassey listened in silence.
"You say Jamieson vouched for Miss West?" he asked ominously when Ransome had finished his penance.
The Inspector flushed. Keeping his temper, he reiterated the points he had tried to make. It was obvious, he insisted, that agents who could deceive Jamieson must be among the most expert criminals in the world. Brassey agreed. And it was also evident, Ransome argued, that the capture of Miss West would go a long way toward clearing up the mystery of the spies. With her as a starting point, Ransome declared that he would undertake to find her real employers in a month. Charles was less enthusiastic.
"Catch her first," he advised.
"What do you mean?" Ransome demanded, reddening.
"Have we ever caught one of the spies who have infested Brassey House for the past thirteen years?"
"You know, Charles," Ransome protested, "our best men have given all that is in them to this case. And, as I told you once before this time I've got my man."
"Who is he?" Brassey demanded.
"Vartan."
"Vartan?" Brassey echoed, with a trace of alarm. "My dear John, you must be mistaken."
"No," Ransome affirmed decisively, "I know what I am talking about. I wouldn't have told you unless you had asked. You brought it on yourself. You think me unreasonably off the track. All I ask is that you wait till the conclusion of the whole matter."
Brassey turned to leave with a shrug of resigned despair.
"Hold on," Ransome admonished. "Don't run off with a wrong idea. I told you Vartan is my man. But did I say in what sense he is my man?"
"You didn't," Brassey admitted. "Because," he added after a doubtful pause, "it sounds like sheer nonsense."
Ransome balanced himself on his toes and regarded his friend with amused good humor.
"The trouble with you, Charles, is your suspicion of everyone's good sense but your own. I shan't offer to bet with you. It would be taking an unfriendly advantage. But just let me say this: even you will acknowledge, when I finally lay the complete solution before you, that Vartan, in the only sense that matters, is my man."
Charles mumbled something that Ransome did not quite catch.
"And when will you do all this?" he demanded, speaking up.
"As soon as I see Jamieson or Miss West. I'm off tonight for Bombay."
"What!" Charles ejaculated. "Alone?"
"Alone. I have decided it is time for me to devote all my energies to this case."
"That's something like it," Brassey exclaimed, "and I'm coming with you."
"It may be dangerous," Charles, Ransome warned him.
"Precisely. I need some excitement, and I'm going to find it in Srinagar."
"You have inside information?" Ransome suggested, lapsing into his professional manner.
"No, but I suspect that Shane has."
"Not a bad guess," Ransome consented approvingly. "That is, for an amateur."
"Amateur?" Brassey echoed. "Wait and see. Well, I must run home and pack my bag. Ask one of your clerks to get me a reservation, will you? Anything will do. I'll see you at the airport."
Before Ransome could agree, Brassey was gone.
Their journey together was almost a holiday, in spite of the sombre worries which neither could quite forget for five seconds. They were old and tried friends, and this was their chance to talk out the whole baffling mystery.
At Bombay, they took a plane at once for Srinagar, Ransome to pick up Miss West's trail there, Brassey to talk over scientific matters with Shane. Arriving at Srinagar, they went immediately to the inn where Shane was still convalescing. Although he was now able to get about with a pair of walking sticks, he preferred his fascinating slides over all exercise except that strictly necessary to limber up his muscles.
At the moment of Brassey's arrival, Shane was in his room, busy with his slides and the obliging diatomaniac's microscope. Dr. Wemyss was with him, chatting of things in general and of the vanished Miss West in particular. Ransome, of course, dropped his own name and took that of the ubiquitous Mr. S
mith. Before registering at the inn, he agreed with Charles that henceforth he must exist incognito. Brassey was enjoying his sleuthing tremendously.
They registered in silence, as strangers, and Ransome unobtrusively set about his business of worming out the history of Miss Tappan while she still was a guest at the inn. His bag disposed of, Brassey asked the clerk to send up his card to Mr. Shane. In a few minutes, Brassey was listening to an excited invitation, over the office telephone, to "come right up."
At the door of Shane's room, Brassey met Dr. Wemyss, who had insisted on leaving when he heard that Shane was to receive a guest. Wemyss glanced sharply at the elderly man in an effort to diagnose him. The doctor's hobby was sizing up the physical conditions of all strangers he met, and later, when fortune favored him and delivered an occasional subject into his hands as a patient, checking up his first lightening estimate against the verdict of a careful examination.
"There goes John Bull's solidest prime minister in a century," he thought. "Dignified, conservative' sane almost to a fault, rational as a hopeless maniac, and solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. Digestion perfect; blood pressure normal; no organic disease; mind strong and vigorous. Will last to the late eighties. Fine specimen of British late middle age." Wemyss' verdict confirmed that of poor James.
While Ransome quietly absorbed more information about Miss Tappan's sojourn at the inn than perhaps she herself would have recalled, without once giving the impression that he was pumping anyone, Shane and Brassey spent fourteen hours a day arguing over the curious evidence afforded by Shane's slides. To Brassey, the strange things which Shane believed he was observing were at first almost conclusive evidence that his own theory, formulated years previously, of the origin of James' incomprehensible seeds was substantially correct. Only after a week of Shane's persistent criticism would he admit that the all-essential element was absent.
"I give in," he said generously, when Shane had compelled him for about the hundredth time to study with his own eyes the minute specks of dust carefully mounted on about thirty slides. "Still, you must admit that mine was not an utterly unreasonable hypothesis."
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