Chapter 12

“Now, Professor,' I said, 'this dope's got to be straight stuff, I'm risking money on it; every word you write has got to be the truth, and every line and figure that you put on your map has got to be correct with a capital K.'”

“'Surely,' he said, 'I shall follow Huxley for the text and I shall check the chart calculations for error.'

“'And there's another thing, professor. You've got to go dumb on this job, for which I double the twenty.' He looked puzzled, but when he finally understood me, he said 'Surely' again, and I went back to my apartment.

“'Charlie,' I said, 'how much money would it take for this English country life business?'

“His eyes lighted up a little.

“'Well, Barclay, old man,' he replied, 'I've estimated it pretty carefully a number of times. I could take Eldon's place for six months with the right to purchase for two thousand dollars paid down; and I could manage the servants and the living expenses for another four thousand. I fear I should not be able to get on with a less sum than six thousand dollars.'

“Then,” he added--he was a child to the last--“perhaps Mr. Hardman will now be able to advance it; he promised me 'a further per cent',” those were his words, when the matter was finally concluded.

“Then ten thousand would do?”

“My word,' he said, 'I should go it like a lord on ten thousand. Do you think Mr. Hardman would consider that sum?'

“'I'm going to try him,' I said, 'I've got some influence in a quarter that he depends on.'

“And I went out. I went down to my bank and got twenty U. S. bonds of a thousand each. At five o'clock, the professor had his dope ready--the text and the chart, neatly folded in a big manilla envelope with a rubber band around it. And that evening I went up to see old Nute.”

Barclay got another cigarette. There was a queer cynicism in his big pitted face.

“The church bunch,” he said, “have got a strange conception of the devil; they think he's always ready to lie down on his friends. That's a fool notion. The devil couldn't do business if he didn't come across when you needed him.

“And there's another thing; the old-timers, when they went after their god for a favor, always began by reciting what they'd done for him.... That was sound dope! I tried it myself on the way up to old Nute's apartment on Fifth Avenue.

“I went over a lot of things. And whenever I made a point, I rapped it on the pavement with the ferule of my walking stick; as one would say, 'you owe me for that!'

“You see I was worked up about Tavor. When a man's carried a dream over all the hell he'd pushed through he ought to have it in the end.”

Barclay paused and flicked the ashes from his cigarette.

“You know the swell apartments on Fifth Avenue; no name, only a number; every floor a residence, only the elevators connecting them. I found old Nute in the seventh; and I was bucked the moment I got in.

“The door from the drawing room to the library was open. The Harvard don was going out, the one Nute had employed to get up his thesis for the Royal Society of London--I mentioned him a while ago. And I heard his final remark, flung back at the door. 'What you require, Sir, is the example case of some new exploration--one that you have yourself conducted.'

“That bucked me; the devil was on the job!”

Barclay stopped again. He sat for a moment watching the smoke from the cigarette climb in a blue mist slowly into the beautiful fresco of the ceiling.

“I told old Nute precisely what I've told you. How I'd backed Tavor for his last adventure, and where he'd been; all over Central Mongolia and finally across the Great Sandy Desert of El-Khali. And I told him what Charlie was after; the theory he started with and his final conclusion when he made his last push along the old caravan route west from Muscat.

“I went into the details, and the big notion that Tavor had slowly pieced together; how the gold was mined in the ranges south of Siberia, carried in green skins to lower Mongolia, melted there and taken for trade Southwest across the El-Khali to an immense Babylon of Commerce of which the present Mecca is perhaps a decadent residuum.

“I put it all in; the accessibility of this desert from the coast on three sides, how the old caravan route parallels the thirty-third meridian and how Charlie struck it four hundred miles out into the desert in a hundred miles travel due south in longitude between 50 and 55 degrees; all the details of Tavor's hunt for the wreck of one of these treasure caravans.

“Old Nute looked at me with his little hard eyes slipping about.

“'And he didn't find it?' he said.

“I didn't answer that. I went ahead and told him how I found Tavor and the shape he was in, and then I added, 'I'm not an explorer, and Charlie can't go back.'

“Old Nute's thick neck shot out at that.

“'Then he did find it?' he said.

“'Now look here, Nute,' I said, 'you're not trading with Tavor on this deal. You're trading with me and I'm just as slick as you are. You'll get no chance to slip under on this. You forget all I've told you just as though it had nothing to do with what I'm going to tell you, and I'll come to the point.'

“'Forget it?' he said.

“'Yes,' I said, 'forget it. I'm not going to put you on to what Charlie knows, with any strings to it, or with any pointers that you can run down without us. I've told you all about Tavor's big hunt through the Shamo and the El-Khali for a purpose of my own and not for the purpose of enabling you to locate the thing that Charlie Tavor knows about.'

“Hardman's voice went down into a low note. 'What does he know?' he said.

“I looked him squarely in the little reptilian eyes. 'He knows where there is a treasure in gold equal in our money to three hundred thousand dollars!'

“Old Nute's little eyes focused into his nose an instant. Then he took a chance at me.

“'What's the country like?'

“I went on as though I didn't see the drift.

“'Tavor says this area of the earth's surface is a great plain practically level, sloping gradually on one side and rising gradually on the other.'

“'Sand?' said Nute.

“'No,' I replied, 'Tavor says that contrary to the common notion, this plain is not covered with sand, it's a kind of chalk deposit.'

“'Hard to get to?'

“Old Nute shot the query in with a little quick duck of his head.

“I went straight on with the answer.

“'Tavor says it's about a five or six days' journey from a sea coast town.'

“'Hard traveling?'

“'No, Tavor says you can get within two miles of the place without any difficulty whatever--he says anybody can do it. The only difficulties are on the last two miles. But up to the last two miles, it's a holiday journey for a middle-aged woman.'

“Old Nute grunted. He put his fat hands together over his waistcoat and twiddled his thumbs.

“'Well,'; he said, 'what's in your mind about it?'

“We were now up to the trade and I stated the terms.

“'It's like this,' I said, 'Tavor's down and out. He's got only six months to live. Fifth Avenue piled full of gold won't do him any good if he's got to wait for it. What he wants is a little money quick!'

“Old Nute's eyes squinted.

“'How much money?' he said.

“'Well,' I said, 'Tavor will turn his map over to you for ten thousand dollars... Death's crowding him.'

“Old Nute's fat fingers began to drum on his waistcoat.

“'How do I know the gold's there and the map's straight?'

“'Did you ever know Tavor to lie?' I said.

“'No,' he said, 'Tavor's not a liar; but I am a business man, Mr. Barclay, and in business we do not go on verbal assurances, no matter how unquestioned.'

“'That's right,' I replied, 'I'm a business man, too; that's why I came instead of sending Tavor.... you found out he wasn't a business man in the first deal.'

“Then I took my 'shooting irons' out of my pocket and laid them on the table.

“There,' I said, 'are twenty, one-thousand United States bonds, not registered,' and I put my hand on one of the big manilla envelopes; 'and here,' I said, 'is an accurate description of the place where this treasure lies and a map of the route to it,' and I put my hand on the other.

“'Now,' I went on, 'I believe every word of this thing. Charles Tavor is the best all-round explorer in the world. I've known him a lifetime and what he says goes with me. We'll put up this bunch of stuff with a stakeholder for the term of a year, and if the gold isn't there and if the map showing the route to it isn't correct and if every word I've said about it isn't precisely the truth, you take down my bonds and keep them.'

“Old Nute got up and walked about the room. I knew what he was thinking. 'Here's another one of them--there's all kinds.'

“But it hooked him. We wrote out the terms and put the stuff up with old Commodore Harris--the straightest sport in America. Nute had the right to copy the map, and the text and a year to verify it. And I took the ten thousand back to Charlie Tavor.”

Barclay got up and went over to the window. He drew back the heavy tapestry curtains. It was morning; the blue dawn was beginning to illumine Monaco and the polished arc of the sea. He stood looking down into it, holding the curtain in his hand.

“I give the devil his due for that, Sir Henry,” he said. “Charlie Tavor got his dream at the end; he died like a gentleman in his English country house with the formal garden and the lackeys.”

“And the other man got the treasure?” I said. Barclay replied without moving.

“No, he didn't get it.”

“Then you lost your bonds?”

“No, I didn't lose them; Commodore Harris handed them back to me on the last day of the year.”

I sat up in my big lounge chair.

“Didn't Hardman make a fight for them; if he didn't find the treasure--didn't he squeal?”

Barclay turned about, drawing the curtain close behind him.

“And be laughed out of the high-brow bunch that he was trying to get into?... I said old Nute was a crook, but I didn't say he was a fool.”

I turned around in the chair.

“I don't understand this thing, Barclay. If the treasure was there, and you gave Hardman a correct map of the route to it, and it lay on a practically level plain, and he could get within two miles of it without difficulty in four or five days' travel from a sea coast town, why couldn't he get it? Was it all the truth?”

“It was every word precisely the truth,” he said.

“Then why couldn't he get it?”

Barclay looked down at me; his big pitted face was illumined with a cynical smile.

“Well, Sir Henry,” he said, “'the trouble is with those last two miles. They're water... straight down. The level plain is the bed of the Atlantic ocean and that gold is in the hold of the Titanic.”

XI.-American Horses

The thing began in the colony room of the Empire Club in London. The colony room is on the second floor and looks out over Piccadilly Circus. It was at an hour when nobody is in an English club. There was a drift of dirty fog outside. Such nights come along in October.

Douglas Hargrave did not see the Baronet until he closed the door behind him. Sir Henry was seated at a table, leaning over, his face between his hand, and his elbows resting on the polished mahogany board. There was a sheet of paper on the table between the Baronet's elbows. There were a few lines written on the paper and the man's faculties were concentrated on them. He did not see the jewel dealer until that person was half across the room, then he called to him.

“Hello, Hargrave,” he said. “Do you know anything about ciphers?”

“Only the trade one that our firm uses,” replied the jewel dealer. “And that's a modification of the A B C code.”

“Well,” he said, “take a look at this.”

The jewel dealer sat down at the other side of the table and the Baronet handed him the sheet of paper. The man expected to see a lot of queer signs and figures; but instead he found a simple trade's message, as it seemed to him.

P.L.A. shipped nine hundred horses on freight steamer Don Carlow from N. Y.

Have the bill of lading handed over to our agent to check up.

“Well,” said the jewel dealer, “somebody's going to ship nine hundred horses. Where's the mystery?”

The Baronet shrugged his big shoulders.

“The mystery,” he said, “is everywhere. It's before and after and in the body of this message. There's hardly anything to it but mystery.”

“Who sent it?” said Hargrave.

“That's one of the mysteries,” replied the Baronet.

“Ah!” said the jewel dealer. “Who received it?”

“That's another,” he answered.

“At any rate,” continued Hargrave, “you know where you got it.”

“Right,” replied the Baronet. “I know where I got it.” He took three newspapers out of the pocket of his big tweed coat. “There it is,” he said, “in the personal column of three newspapers--today's Times printed in London; the Matin printed in Paris; and a Dutch daily printed in Amsterdam.”

And there was the message set up in English, in two sentences precisely word for word, in three newspapers printed on the same day in London, Paris and Amsterdam.

“It seems to be a message all right,” said Hargrave: “But why do you imagine it's a cipher?”

The Baronet looked closely at the American jewel dealer for a moment.

“Why should it be printed in English in these foreign papers,” he said, “if it were not a cipher?”

“Perhaps,” said Hargrave, “the person for whom it's intended does not know any other language.”

The Baronet shrugged his shoulders.

“The persons for whom this message is intended,” he said, “do not confine themselves to a single language. It's a pretty well-organized international concern.”

“Well,” said Hargrave, “it doesn't look like a mystery that ought to puzzle the ingenuity of the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department of the metropolitan police.” He nodded to Sir Henry. “You have only to look out for the arrival of nine hundred horses and when they get in to see who takes them off the boat. The thing looks easy.”

“It's not so easy as it looks,” replied the Baronet. “Evidently these horses might go to France, Holland or England. That's the secret in this message. That's where the cipher comes in. The name of the port is in that cipher somewhere.”

“But you can, watch the steamer,” said Hargrave, “the Don Carlos.”

The Baronet laughed.

“There's no such steamer!” He got up and began to walk round the table. “Nine hundred horses,” he said. “This thing has got to stop. They're on the sea now, on the way over from America: We have got to find out where they will go ashore.”

He stopped, stooped over and studied the message which he had written out and which also lay before him in the three newspapers.

“It's there,” he said, “the name of the port of arrival, somewhere in those two sentences. But I can't get at it. It's no cipher that I have ever heard of. It's no one of the hundred figure or number ciphers that the experts in the department know anything about. If we knew the port of arrival we could pick up the clever gentleman who comes to take away the horses. But what's the port--English, French or Dutch? There are a score of ports.” He struck the paper with his hand. “It's there, my word for it, if we could only decode the thing.”

Then he stood up, his face lifted, his fingers linked behind his back. He crossed the room and stood looking out at the thin yellow fog drifting over Piccadilly Circus. Finally he came back, gathered up his papers and put them in the pocket of his big tweed coat.

“There's one man in Europe,” he said, “who can read this thing. That's the Swiss expert criminologist, old Arnold, of Zurich. He's lecturing at the Sorbonne in Paris. I'm going to see him.”

Then he went out.

Now that, as has been said, is how the thing began. It was the first episode in the series of events that began to go forward on this extraordinary night. One will say that the purchasing agent for a great New York jewel house ought to be accustomed to adventures. The writers of romance have stimulated that fancy. But the fact is that such persons are practical people. They never do any of the things that the story writers tell us. They never carry jewels about with them. Of course they know the police departments of foreign cities. All jewel dealers make a point of that. Hargrave's father was an old friend of Sir Henry Marquis, chief of the C. I. D., and the young man always went to see him when he happened in London. That explains the freedom of his talk to Hargrave on this night in the Empire Club in Piccadilly.

The young man went over and sat down by the fire. The big room was empty. The sounds outside seemed muffled and distant. The incident that had just passed impressed him. He wondered why people should imagine that a purchasing agent of a jewel house must be a sort of expert in the devices of mystery. As has been said, the thing's a notion. Everything is shipped through reliable transportation companies and insured. There was much more mystery in a shipload of horses--the nine hundred horses that were galloping through the head of Sir Henry Marquis--than in all the five prosaic years during which young Hargrave had succeeded his father as a jewel buyer. The American was impressed by this mystery of the nine hundred horses. Sir Henry had said it was a mystery in every direction.

Now, as he sat alone before the fire in the colony room of the Empire Club and thought about it, the thing did seem inexplicable. Why should the metropolitan police care who imported horses, or in what port a shipload of them was landed? The war was over. Nobody was concerned about the importation of horses. Why should Sir Henry be so disturbed about it? But he was disturbed; and he had rushed off to Paris to see an expert on ciphers. That seemed a tremendous lot of trouble to take. The Baronet knew the horses were on the sea coming from America, he said. If he knew that much, how could he fail to discover the boat on which they were carried and the port at which they would arrive? Nobody could conceal nine hundred horses!

Hargrave was thinking about that, idly, before the glow of the coal fire, when the second episode in this extraordinary affair arrived.

A steward entered.

“Visitor, please,” he said, “to see Mr. Hargrave.”

Then he presented his tray with a card. The jewel dealer took the card with some surprise. Everybody knew that he was at the Empire Club. It is a colony thing with chambers for foreign guests. A list of arrivals is always printed. He saw at a glance that it was not a man's card; the size was too large. Then he turned it over before the light of the fire. The name was engraved in script, an American fashion at this time.

The woman's card had surprised him; but the name on it brought him up in his chair--“Mrs. A. B. Farmingham.” It was not a name that he knew precisely; but he knew its genera, the family or group to which it belonged. Mr. Jefferson removed titles of nobility in the American republic, but his efforts did not eliminate caste zones. It only made the lines of cleavage more pronounced. One knew these zones by the name formation. Everybody knew “Alfa Baba” Farmingham, as the Sunday Press was accustomed to translate his enigmatical initials. Some wonderful Western bonanza was behind the man. Mrs. “Alfa Baba” Farmingham would be, then, one of the persons that Hargrave's house was concerned to reach. He looked again at the card. In the corner the engraved address, “Point View, Newport,” was marked out with a pencil and “The Ritz” written over it.

He got his coat and hat and followed the steward out of the club. There was a carriage at the curb. A footman was holding the door open, and a woman, leaning over in the seat, was looking out. She was precisely what Hargrave expected to see, one of those dominant, impatient, aggressive women who force their way to the head of social affairs in America. She shot a volley of questions at him the moment he was before the door.

“Are you Douglas Hargrave, the purchasing agent for Bartholdi & Banks?”

The man said that he was, and at her service, and so forth. But she did not stop to listen to any reply.

“You look mighty young, but perhaps you know your business. At any rate, it's the best I can do. Get in.”

Hargrave got in, the footman closed the door, and the carriage turned into Piccadilly Circus. The woman did not pay very much attention to him. She made a laconic explanation, the sort of explanation one would make to a shopkeeper.

“I want your opinion on some jewels,” she said. “I have a lot to do--no time to fool away. When I found that I could see the jewels to-night I concluded to pick you up on my way down. I didn't find out about it in time to let you know.”

Hargrave told her that he would be very glad to give her the benefit of his experience.

“Glad, nonsense!” she said. “I'll pay your fee. Do you know a jewel when you see it?”

“I think I do, madam,” he replied.

She moved with energy.

“It won't do to think,” she said. “I have got to know. I don't buy junk.”

He tried to carry himself up to her level with a laugh.

“I assure you, madam,” he said, “our house is not accustomed to buy junk. It's a perfectly simple matter to tell a spurious jewel.”

And he began to explain the simple, decisive tests. But she did not listen to him.

“I don't care how a vet knows that a hunter's sound. All that I want to be certain about is that he does know it. I don't want to buy hunters on my own hook. Neither do I want to buy jewels on what I know about them. If you know, that's all I care about it. And you must know or old Bartholdi wouldn't trust you. That's what I'm going on.”

She was a big aggressive woman, full of energy. Hargrave could not see her very well, but that much was abundantly clear. The carriage turned out of Piccadilly Circus, crossed Trafalgar Square and stopped before Blackwell's Hotel. Blackwell's has had a distinct clientele since the war; a sort of headquarters for Southeastern European visitors to London.

When the carriage stopped Mrs. Farmingham opened the door herself, before the footman could get down, and got out. It was the restless American impatience always cropping out in this woman.

“Come along, young man,” she said, “and tell me whether this stuff is O. K. or junk.”

They got in a lift and went up to the top floor of the hotel. Mrs. Farmingham got out and Hargrave followed her along the hall to a door at the end of a corridor. He could see her now clearly in the light. She had gray eyes, a big determined mouth, and a mass of hair dyed as only a Parisian expert, in the Rue de la Paix, can do it. She went directly to a door at the end of the corridor, rapped on it with her gloved hand, and turned the latch before anybody could possibly have responded.

Hargrave followed her into the room. It was a tiny sitting room, one of the inexpensive rooms in the hotel. There was a bit of fire in the grate, and standing by the mantelpiece was, a big old man with close-cropped hair and a pale, unhealthy face. It was the type of face that one associates with tribal races in Southeastern Europe. He was dressed in a uniform that fitted closely to his figure. It was a uniform of some elevated rank, from the apparent richness of it. There were one or two decorations on the coat, a star and a heavy bronze medal. The man looked to be of some importance; but this importance did not impress Mrs. Farmingham.

“Major,” she said in her direct fashion, “I have brought an expert to look at the jewels.”

She indicated Hargrave, and the foreign officer bowed courteously. Then he took two candles from the mantelpiece and placed them on a little table that stood in the center of the room.