The Lost Valley Part 24

I had been typing all the time with my eyes on the keyboard, and I hadn't once glanced at the finished work. Now I looked at it I saw that she was right. I had been typing letters all along when I should have been printing figures. And then something queer about the letters struck me. My heart gave a jump.

"Go on," I said huskily to c.u.mshaw. "Give me a few more."

He read out two or three more combinations and then I leaned back in the chair. "Look," I said triumphantly, "look what I've done!"

Two heads bobbed down over my work, stared at it for a moment, and then two pairs of eyes smiled at me.

"You've solved it by accident," said c.u.mshaw.

"I'm sorry for what I said," Moira said simply.

"It's just the simplest cypher in existence," I said. "You've got a keyboard with letters and figures on it. When you want letters you type straight out, and when you want figures you just depress the lever. Now look at this. That 5 is on the same key as T, @ is on H's key, 3 means E, and so on. When Bryce worked it out he simply pressed down the figure lever and left it down, and now to reverse the process all we've got to do is to hit the keys these signs are on and leave the lever alone.

Simple, isn't it?"

"Very," said c.u.mshaw.

"Get it all out, Jim, quick!" said Moira with feminine impatience.

I did. I pressed 2 and I got W, and so on all along the keyboard, and when I had finished I pulled the sheet out and handed it to them. "Read it out, Moira," I said. "It's your turn."

"'When the Lone Tree, the hut door and the rising sun are in line measure seven feet east. Then face direct north, draw another line at right angles to previous one, extending for twelve feet. Dig then.'"

"If it hadn't been for you," said c.u.mshaw, "we wouldn't have found it. I congratulate you," and he held out his hand to me.

"Rubbis.h.!.+" I said. "It was all a lucky accident." But all the same I took the proffered hand.

"We can go right on with it now," Moira cried joyously. "There's nothing to stop us."

"Only that we've got to find the valley yet," said c.u.mshaw gloomily. "My father made several attempts but couldn't locate it."

"You've got to bear in mind," I told them, "that we've got some information your father hadn't, strange though it seems."

"And that?" c.u.mshaw queried quickly.

"We're looking for a valley that's got a lone tree overlooking it. Your father didn't seem to be aware of that."

c.u.mshaw seized the paper and read it through quickly. "By the Lord Harry, you're right, Carstairs! That's one piece of information he didn't have. If he had known that when he went after the gold himself he'd have got it."

"Maybe he would," I said doubtfully.

"You don't seem too sure of it, Carstairs," c.u.mshaw remarked, with a sidelong glance at Moira.

"No more I am," I told him. "I don't like our chances either."

"But," he protested with a puzzled indrawing of his eyebrows, "as far as we're concerned it's as easy as falling off a log."

"Just as easy," I agreed, "providing our friends the enemy don't interfere. They don't seem to be the kind of men who rest on their oars, that is if we can judge anything from their past exploits."

"You're right there, Carstairs," c.u.mshaw said. "I never gave them a thought, but I see now that they're likely to prove a pretty active menace to our safety."

"That," I said, turning to Moira, "cuts out all possibility of your coming with us. You can't be running into danger."

"Can't I just," she said with an a.s.sertive toss of her head, "and, whether I can or not, I'm going," she finished.

I looked at c.u.mshaw. I could not tell from his expression whether he was pleased or sorry. His face was as devoid of emotion as that of a china doll.

"What do you think about it?" I asked him straight out.

He glanced at me in his turn with a curious baffling light in his dark eyes, and I felt as if he had stripped my soul bare of all pretences and was reading my thoughts in all their nakedness.

"I should think," he said at length with an air of absolute impartiality, "that Miss Drummond is the mistress of her own actions and neither you nor I have any right to dictate what she is to do."

"Have it your own way then," I said, with difficulty suppressing my rising anger. "But if anything goes wrong remember that I warned you beforehand."

"I'll remember that," Moira said, and she favored c.u.mshaw with a little smile of grat.i.tude. She never smiled at me like that, not even in those far-away days when we were all the world to each other or thought we were. Which in the end amounts to much the same thing.

"Well, if you don't mind," said c.u.mshaw, breaking an awkward silence, "I'll go home now and think matters over. And then to-morrow we'll decide what to do."

"Home?" I echoed. "I thought----" And then I stopped.

"I'm staying in town," he said with a smile. "That's what I meant when I said home."

"In that case," I said, "you'll be handy whenever we want you. You'd better leave your address in case we want you in a hurry."

He scribbled his address--a leading city hotel--on a blank card and handed it to me. I glanced at it and then thrust it into my pocket. When I looked up again he was holding Moira's hand in his, just a trifle longer than convention demanded I thought, and saying something to her that I did not catch. She smiled in return, a dazzling smile, and said quite distinctly, "Please call whenever you feel inclined. There is no need for us to stand on ceremony with each other now we're partners."

I saw him to the door. At the threshold he turned and spoke with one foot on the step and the other on the ground, taking up that att.i.tude of unaffected ease that gives an air of friendliness to even the most formal conversation.

"I'm rather pleased I met you, Carstairs," he said. "In one way and another I've heard a lot about you, and I think you've got the kind of level head we'll need before we've seen this business through."

"Thank you," I replied. I was nearly going to say 'Soft words b.u.t.ter no parsnips,' but my common-sense came to my aid just in time to prevent me making a fool of myself. He held out his hand, and I took it in the spirit in which he had offered it to me. Nevertheless I was absurdly jealous of the man, though Heaven knows I hadn't the least reason to be.

I could see with half an eye that he had made a good impression on Moira, and the way she had spoken to him, especially that last remark of hers, showed me that she was egging him on. It didn't matter one single solitary d.a.m.n to me. I had told her clearly and definitely that we were business partners and that love was altogether out of the question. Yet here was I, the moment a potential rival appeared on the scene, behaving for all the world like a spoilt child. And, like a spoilt child, for my own good I needed someone to bring me sharply and suddenly to my bearings.

c.u.mshaw bade me a cheerful good-night. I saw his lithe figure swing along through the sub-tropical darkness of a moonless summer night. Then the latch on the gate clicked with the ringing sound of metal striking against metal. I closed the door and went inside.

Moira was standing in the study just as I had left her, standing as motionless and devoid of life as a statue of carven stone. I don't think she heard me at first.

"Well," I said conversationally, "how is it now?"

She turned at the sound of my voice and faced me squarely. I could see that her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and something inside of me moved me with a sudden impulse to go up to her. I placed my hands on her shoulders and was amazed to find how unsteady they were. They trembled, my hands trembled! And yet they used to tell me in the old Island days that I hadn't a nerve in my body.

I was quite prepared for anything except what really happened. I could feel a sort of tension in the atmosphere, and I expected her to do something theatrical. But she didn't. She backed away from me, but she didn't go far. The table was behind her.

I don't know how long we stood looking at each other. It seemed a lifetime to me, and the silence was the sort that a man feels it sacrilege to break.

"You make it very hard for me, Jim," Moira said calmly. The tears were still in her eyes, but her voice was under excellent control. It didn't vibrate a note. She looked at me as she spoke, looked me straight in the eyes, and I think it was then that I began to realise what an a.s.s I had been making of myself.

"How do I make it hard?" I asked. My voice was curiously low, almost husky in fact. I rather think she noticed it and took heart therefrom. A man is very easy to handle when he is not quite sure of himself.