SNOW UPON THE DESERT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21347, 23 November 1932, Page 19

SNOW UPON THE DESERT

By J. RUSSELL WARREN

CHAPTER IX.— (Continued)

" When can we start ? " Tresilian asked. " I've got a spot of leave duo to me. I can' take it any tipie."

' ' I can get leave, of course," Corcoran said, thoughtfully. " But wg can't just pack a few things and start off. The thing's got to bo organised." Elisabeth suggested that there was no liu/ry, but Corcoran shook his head. " I'm not sure," he said. " I gather this hakim is an old man. He live for ever. I don't want to seem impulsive, but I've an uneasy feeling that if we don't get under way quickly, we shall arrive just too late —to find that the old chap has gone west a few days before and taken his secret with him." Elisabeth could not help smiling at his impatient enthusiasm. There was a positive boyishness about it that was oddly unexpected and captivating. Few women can resist boyishness in a man—within limits. The nurse came in then, and sent the two men away. They went rather like a pair of scolded schoolboys. Elisabeth lay thrfre thinking, a deep thankfulness at her heart. She was pleased, too, at having found a human side to Roger Corcoran. She felt that she was beginning to know him at last.

The next morning they carje.again, and almost at once began to ta.lk about the project. Elisabeth gathered that they had been discussing it a good dfal between themselves, and hatf encountered a serious difficulty—money. " You see," Corcoran explained, " we nepd a properly equipped expedition. "We've very little information to guide us. Stevenage's little map may not be enough to guide us to Kerhat—l've never heard of, the place, and can't find it in any atlas. We'll have to take rations with us; and equipment; that means hiring mules and drabis and peons; a whole outfit. I've a little money, but not enough." " I haven't a bean," said Tresilian ruefully. " I don't know where my pay goes, out here, but it goes, all right."

Elisabeth hastened to explain that Susan Dangerfield had left everything she bad possessed—however much that might he—for the explicit purpose of financing this expedition. " I know," Corcoran said, reflectively rubbing his jaw with his finger and thumb, " but, don't you see, that will take time. First we'll have to get into toach with Lady Susan's lawyers, and the will must be proved at Somerset House—it may take weeks, possibly months. By then we'll be in winter, and the passes will be flooded, as they were when Stevenage tried to get through. If we don't start within the next week or two we'll have to wait till next hot weather—till April, at any rate. And I don't feel we can afford to wait so long; honestly I don't." Elisabeth was disconcerted; she had rot realised how badly the law of probate would dcla'v things. She looked at the two men with tears in her wide blue eyes—she was still weak from her illness—and asked what could be done.

//l'resilian had no practical suggestion to offer; Corcoran proposed to borrow the money; to induce someone to finance the project; Elisabeth protested that the man, whoever he was, would have to be repaid. Corcoran explained that repayment could tome when Lady Susan's affairs were duly settled; the right sort of man, he added, would not ask for repayment; he would be willing to give the money for so magnificent an object—but one would have to find the right sort of man. Elisabeth agreed, emphatically. In any case, their backer must be the right sort of man; someone they could trust; someone who would not trick them in any way, or try to turn the cure, when they found it, to his own profit. Corcoran seemed a little doubtful of finding anyone of that type with enough money to .be of use to them, but he said he would see/what he could do.

It seems that Corcoran was quite unnecessarily hasty and impulsive in this affair. He had, though, under bis cool manner, a distinctly impulsive nature. His action in following Elisabeth into Persia alone and almost unarmed, was the result of a characteristic impulse. One does not associate that timperment with a captain of police; one visualises him as being ..almost superhumanlv calm, levelheaded, and shrewd in biding his time. But, of course, a post such as his is very different from its equivalent—if one can say that an equivalent exists —at Scotland Yard; it is less policeman's work than soldier's. And even a policeman. after all. is human and in his work he - needs enthusiasm and, at times, a certain elan. Certainly Roger Corcoran was very human —impulsive, enthusiastic, passionate, sensitive, and tender-hearted; that reserve and reticence that so impressed and at first awed Elisabeth was no more than defensive armour to hide from the world the traits that he seems to consider—and perhaps that his world would consider—weaknesses; it was the conventional self-repression of his caste and his calling. Susan Dnngerfield, too, had lived inside such armour; sensitive souls must; the man who is as hard ■within as without is not a human being but a fossil. , Undoubtedly Corcoran made a mistake in rushing forward the preparations for this expedition, though one can appreciate his reasons, and understand the impatient character that, inspired to action in a cause that had fired the finest part of his nature, could not bear to wait, but must act at once, however rashly and unwisely. After leaving the hospital he went, straight down to the club and tactfully and discreetly, to " sound one or two likely men. There again he made a mistake; he was too tactful discreet ; a greater frankness might have saved the misunderstandings that a ™ s ° later with such tragic consequences, let he, knew, as Susan knew, and far better than Elisabeth realised, that the danger of somebody racing them to their goal, obtaining the secret and using it for their own ends, was a very real one. It Was, the factor that dictated both his unwise haste and his excessuve prudence. -"0 would not show them Stevenage's letter, with the sketch map on tho back. Either he told them too little to arouso their interest, or they had no leaning toward philanthropy, even on bo small a scale as Corcoran asked of them, lha morning, and evening, nor the next day brought no help. But at dinner on the third evening he met a man who seemed interested, and later he found another. He brought them to hospital the following morning to meet Elisabeth. Elisabeth did not Jike the look of them fit/all. She had an idea that Corcoran did not really like them, either; but she realised that lie was beginning to feel 11 Httle desperate about raising the money. Sho quite understood that since Lady Susan's estate, its value, and the actual terms of the will were unknown—fihe bad to write to the Dangerfields lawyer in London for tho informationit was no security at all, and everybody in, Basra seemed shy of parting with even a few pounds. At any rate, these two men were tho best Corcoran could find in the short time he felt he had at his disposal. One of them was an Armenian, called Mardignan, a date exporter. He looked ft better type than most of his race; he JV'as young, and not fat, and quite goodlooking. His eves were beautiful —deep

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and dark and long-lashed—but they were evasive; Elisabeth could not look right into them; she felt there was something hidden in their depths, as things are hidden below the surface of a dark pool. The other man was quite different—an Englishman named Skinner, who seemed to have no particular occupation. What he was doing in Basra Elisabeth never discovered. lie was big and bluff, and hearty, with a red-bald head, and a red face, and a bull .neck, and loud voice, a heavy jaw and small, ferrety eyes. Elisabeth, by this time, was allowed to sit up for a few hours a day. She received her visitors at tea time on the deep, shaded verandah, and a queer tea party it must have been—Elisabeth, in a white frock borrowed from one of the nurses, reclining in a Madeira chair and pouring out tea; Corcoran, with his aquiline, brown face, hiding a fervid enthusiasm under an artificial impassivity; Tresilian, with his snub nose and his freckles, boyishly and unashamedly excited; Mardignan, wjth his olive skin, his oily black hair and unfathomable eyes, his soft, suave, musical voice and lfis silky gestures ; Skinner, with his bald, red scalp and his bull's voice, informing them all that what ho thought he said, and what he said he meant, and making certain that everybody understood that he had knocked about the world all his life and was a pretty hard nut to crack. All four men treated Elisabeth with deference, as a woman and the instigator of the project; as, so to speak, the late Lady Susan's deputy. If this deference went slightly to Elisabeth's little head, it is not surprising.

" Let us understand this quite clearly," Mardignan said, in his silky voice, and with the Armenian's trick of stressing every syllable equally and lengthening the vowels. " I like to have everything plain to understand. You have reason to believe that in this Persian village of Kerhat there is a hakim who possesses the secret of a wonderful cure for loss of the sight. You are anxious to make an expedition to find this hakim and learn the secret, but you have not enough money to finance it. Is that right?" " Exactly," Elisabeth agreed. " I want you to understand that Lady Susan left all her money to me, for this one purpose —but it will take time to realise it; and Captain Corcoran thinks—and I agree with him—that we cannot afford to wait. It means waiting until the next hot weather, for I understand the passes are liable to heavy flooding in the rains and there will be heavy snow higher up." " Quite right," said Skinner. " Miserable travelling, too, in the rains." " And the amount of this legacy?" the Armenian asked softly. Elisabeth badly wanted to tell him that it was no business of his, but she could not afford to quarrel with the man, and after all, if he were looking at the legacy as some kind of security for the money he was being asked to advance, she supposed he was entitled to assure himself that the amount would leave a sufficient margin.

" Miss Tarleton doesn't know," Tresilian interrupted from his chair. " As I explained to you last night, Mardignan, she has no idea what Lady Susan's resources were—but she always seemed to have plenty of money, and you may be quite sure that the amount 6he left would be enough to cover the cost of the trip; unless I'm much mistaken in her character, she would not have saddled Miss Tarleton with this trust otherwise. And Lady Susan knew what an expedition of this sort would cost; nobody better." " Ohj perfectly," Mardignan murmured. " As I've told you," Corcoran went on, " Miss Tarleton hasn't even seen the will;, we've had to write to Lady Susan's lawyers about it. There may even be a flaw in it, for all we know. The only security Miss Tarleton has to offer you is scarcely a 'tangible security at all, from the point of view of a business man contemplating ' a business proposition. We're asking you to help us to lay our hands on a thing that will be a perfect godsend to hundreds of thousands of poor devils who've lost their sight—and we say that we hope to be able to repay you whatever you lend us, in time."

" Oh, yais," said lha Armenian. " It is not tliat. I do not ask for security; it does not matter to me if I do not see my money back; a few hundred pounds —what is it to me ? I only wished to have everything clear; I thought I understood you to say that Miss Tarleton is an heiress; I only wished to be sure I had not been mistaken."

lie made a wide, smooth gesture, showed his white teeth under the soft black moustache in an oily smile, and gazed at Elisabeth with an expression which suddenly made her feel uncomfortable. But she felt that, as he had said, everything must be quite clearly Understood. She emphasised the fact that none of them expected any profit or reward from the venture. He smiled again, gesticulated again, and assured her indulgently that all this was well understood.

" But I wish to know," he persisted,

" what method will be taken to induce the hakim to reveal his secret." Again Corcoran answered for Elisabeth, explaining that they could rely upon his powers of persuasion, which he hoped would be adequate. This was, of course, somewhat vague; Mardignan, as a business man, might consider it unsatisfactory, but they positively could say nothing m.ore definite; they could only do their best.

Skinner, who had been fidgeting restlessly, broke in here, declaring that he had no doubt whatever that they would induce the hakim to give up his secret. Elisabeth did not quite like the remark, nor the sound of his voice: it sounded faintly menacing; and yet she could not take exception to it. In any case, it seemed to satisfy Mardignan, who after long consideration, smoking a highly perfumed Turkish cigarette, expressed his satisfaction with the. entire proposition, bis willingness to put up one-third of the necessary money—Skinner was to contribute another third, and the others raise the remainder between them —and announced bis intention of forming one of the party. This las' news d'd not seem to please the other three particularly—the Armenian scarcely looked the kind of man for' such work—but they could not refuse; and, after all he might be very useful.

It being plain that Elisabeth bad had sufficient conversation for the time, the four men rose to go. Saluting gravely, they left her. inexpressibly thrilled. Here she was, little Elisabeth Tarleton, two months ago a typist in a London office, reclining in alounge chair in almost queenly state, and informing four more or less deferential men of the world of her. wishes. She was not exactly giving them orders—she must of necessity leave all details and all plans of movement and action to them—but they were ready, without any hope of reward, to translate her desires into action for her. Of course, slie did not flatter herself that any of : them, except Tresilian, were doing this for her sake; it was for the sake of Lady Susan's memory, and of humanity in general, but she naturally felt that it was a kind of tribute to herself that she had managed to persuade them to help her in carrying out Lady Susan's last wishes. Any girl would have been satisfactorily thrilled at the thought. Obviously, there was no question of Elisabeth travelling into Persia with the safari. She had at first a feeling that it was her duty to go, and had it been possible she would have gone, though she r/irank from the prospect; the ordeal through which she had passed had been as much as, more than, anyone could expect her to endure. But it was quite impossible; apart from the fact that Elisabeth could not have gone out into the wilds with four men and no other woman, she was in no physical condition to undertake such a journey for some considerable time. (To be continued daily)