The Sleuth of St. James's Square by Melville Davisson Post (black authors fiction txt) 📕

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