Lord Bannister believes that now he sees all. He does nothing of the sort. Lack of drains holds up a wedding. Arthur Rancing refunds even the fees of the assistant engineer. The national colours are hung out over the restaurant, but the community singers are very nearly not required. Eddy realises that his gamble has not come off, and waives his claim in his uncle's favour. Holler remains irrepressible. He takes the formidable fortress of Guéliz by storm; he goes shopping for Evelyn, and survives some hard bargaining; he knows of a link between an American symphony orchestra and the Sahara.

1.

Lord Bannister looked up. Now he understood all. But Holler was no longer beside him; he was suffering from air sickness and had no wish to be seen in this condition by a lady. There were very few other passengers on board. An old couple were sitting in front; Holler's place was immediately behind them; then came several rows of unoccupied seats separating him from Lord Bannister and Evelyn. Thus nobody could possibly hear what they were saying.

"Can you forgive me?" Evelyn whispered.

"I cannot," said Lord Bannister.

"The facts given in the newspaper are correct but the interpretation is quite wrong. I am not a spy."

"Please don't bother to explain. You are very clever. And I have been very stupid. You have not behaved at all well towards me, and yet it pains me to be the one who will have to give you up to the police."

Her lips trembled.

"Do you mean to give me up to the police?"

"Did you think I would become your accomplice?"

"I haven't committed any crime. What is more, I am fighting to vindicate the honour of someone I have never seen. I don't care if you do give me up to the police. I should only be sorry to think that I would be the cause of your being arrested."

"Me arrested? What do you mean?"

"Of course, you would be able to clear yourself eventually. But you did bring me across the Channel, didn't you? You did make people believe I was your wife; and you did help me to escape from the scene of the crime. It will be very hard to convince the police that you didn't know what you were doing. Don't you agree, Lord Bannister?"

For a long while, he remained silent. Indeed, he had been with the girl from the start, and no one was likely to believe that they were chance companions. Even if he could get them to accept his own story, there would certainly be an awful scandal.

"Yes," he said at last. "You are right. I would be in a horribly tight corner. But I think it is more important to act honourably than to pander to public opinion. I have acted in good faith, even if my actions get me into trouble. It would be most dishonourable of me not to give you up to the police even if I didn't have to suffer for it myself."

There was a silence during which they watched the rain rushing past the windows.

"Well," she said, "I have got you into trouble, so let me make amends. There's no need to involve you at all. When we get to Marseilles, I will give myself up to the airport police under your very eyes. I'll give them the envelope and tell them that I am Evelyn Weston. Then I shall be arrested without your being involved at all."

"I agree to that. Let me warn you, however, that I'll be watching your every movement. You'd better not try any tricks with me. My honour will be in your hands."

"No one could be more concerned for your honour than me," she said in a muffled, quivering voice; and he gave her a surprised look. They were silent during the rest of the flight.

At Marseilles, all the passengers descended to stretch their legs and so no one found it peculiar to see Evelyn and Lord Bannister also taking a stroll. Suddenly she left his side and walked with resolute steps straight towards a door marked "Police." Lord Bannister followed her at a distance of some eight yards; then he was astounded to see her take from her handbag that large envelope with the five seals before quickening her pace.

What happened next Lord Bannister was ever afterwards at a loss to explain, even to himself: it was as if he had been pushed from behind: he hurried after her and caught her by the arm just as she reached the door.

"Wait," he said breathlessly. "I don't want you to... I don't care what you did... I couldn't bear you to be hurt... Put that envelope away!"

She obeyed him in alarm.

"Listen," he continued. "You are to fly on to Morocco and when you get there you may run away and do whatever you like. I don't want to know that you've been arrested. Do you understand? I'm sure I don't."

"B-but - Why?"

"It may be stupid of me but I just don't want this to happen. That's all."

When the plane took off once again, they were sitting side by side in sorrowful silence.

Lord Bannister was deathly pale.

2.

"You are both so kind that if you both wanted to marry me I wouldn't know which of you to choose," said Grete, with a seven-inch smile. It was then that Mr. Arthur Rancing conceived a deep respect for his nephew, who was planning to marry this female for the paltry sum of one million pounds. It was simply nothing for such a heroic deed.

Next, Arthur Rancing went to see old Wollishoff. He had brought from Zurich a present of a hearing aid for his host so they were able to talk in comfort. He would have gone mad otherwise.

"A Wollishoff girl must bring to her marriage a sum large enough to enable the couple to settle down in a respectable fashion," said the bride's father.

"That's just what I expected to hear from you," replied A.B.C.D. (Arthur Bede Cecil David) Rancing. "That's the way to talk! Just what one would expect of a true Helvetian gentleman! You can't deny that you are an industrial consultant. In England, industrial consultants are held in great respect."

"I ask nothing in return, except that Mr. Rancing should love my daughter."

"Herr Wollishoff, I know my family. My nephew Edward adores your daughter. He is half-mad with love for her. Can't sleep at night."

"I know. The doctor's told me about that. He'll get over it though. He ought to take digestion tablets..."

"What, in your opinion, would be a suitable date for the wedding?"

Wollishoff reflected.

"Well, I think... Would Whitsun be all right?"

It was now three and a half weeks before Whitsun.

"Perfectly. Whitsun," Arthur Bede Rancing continued, waxing lyrical, "is the day of flowers and loving hearts. Whitsun will be a most suitable date."

"That's what I think too. Well, then, the wedding can take place two years from Whitsun."

Seconds later Arthur Rancing had still forgotten to replace his jaw.

"It cannot take place sooner than that on any account," Wollishoff continued. "And even another six months after that wouldn't make much difference, I think."

"Do you really mean that? But it's impossible."

"Why should it be impossible? I have told you that my daughter cannot enter her marriage just anyhow. Unfortunately, some of the entries about certain technical aspects of the sewerage system were found to be incorrect last year. I had been put in charge of the drainage system for the town..."

"But there are no drains in this place at all!"

"That's the trouble, my dear Mr. Rancing. I had been given the task of providing them, and I have not succeeded. You see, drains cost money. See what I mean? We haven't got the drains yet, but we have had the expenses. I couldn't tell you myself how it all happened. As my uncle happens to be an influential man, they have been content to confiscate my property pending reimbursement of the expenditure incurred in local development. And such developments cost a lot of money. You can take that from me. I happen to have had some experience. It'll take me at least two years to refund the sum, even if I hand over my total income for the purpose. I am not the first nor the last of those who sacrifice everything they possess to promote the development of their native country."

"You don't mean to say you want your daughter to wait all that time?"

"Why not? When she's already been waiting so long? She waited for her first fiancé for five years; but he volunteered and was taken prisoner."

"Yes, I know. A number of Swiss fought with the French..."

"This was with the Japanese. In the Russo-Japanese war. She had another fiancé who fought for the French."

"That's a fine tradition, to be sure. Still, two years is such a long time..."

"It's no use arguing, sir. A Wollishoff girl shall not marry while her father is threatened with criminal proceedings."

Neither argument nor petition was of any avail; Herr Wollishoff remained obstinate in his decision.

The two Rancings paced up and down the guest-room in despair.

"A pretty kettle of fish, this!" A.B.C.D. Rancing raged. "Here we are, with a diamond worth one million pounds sterling housed under the same roof, and we can't do anything about it."

"How much did the deaf old bounder pinch, anyway?" said E.F.G.H. (Edward Frederic George Henry) Rancing.

"I took a cursory look at the books and from what I could see I gather there was a deficit of about two thousand pounds."

"Then don't be ridiculous, uncle! You have only to hold out your hand and there's one million quid for the taking; yet you're allowing a paltry sum like that to stand in your way! Come on, fork it out!"

A.B.C.D. stood still in perplexity.

"What are you thinking about?" E.F.G.H. continued vehemently. "We'll get five hundred thousand quid each, and so far it's been I who have done all the work. You've done nothing but wait for the plum to fall into your lap. The least you could do would be to put your hand in your pocket now and then. You won't? Very well. Good-bye."

Impetuously, he snatched up his hat. He was seriously resolved to quit. Recent events had told upon his nerves. He was emaciated, his pale face showed signs of latent neurosis; and ever since that balcony scene, he had been tormented by rheumatism. For him Mügli am See had been the scene of much suffering.

"Wait!" A.B.C.D. cried. "That's not such a bad idea of yours."

Three days later, to the utter astonishment of the authorities, Herr Wollishoff refunded the entire deficit which included the fees for a quite imaginary assistant-engineer.

3.

For the inhabitants of Mügli am See Whitsuntide dawned cool, fine and sunny. It was the wedding day of old Wollishoff's daughter and crowds of folk in their best clothes paraded the streets, anxious to see the sights. On three previous Sundays the banns had been read by the priest. The lattice garden gate was, for some unknown reason, pasted all over with coloured paper, and the valet and the porter were wearing new liveries given to them by Mr. Arthur B.C.D. Rancing. Victoria, Head Gardener Kruttikofer's wife, had even combed her hair. The square in front of the Town Hall had been swept clean. The national colours had been hung out above the local restaurant.

That was how matters stood at 10 a.m.

At that hour precisely, Eddy Rancing picked up the morning paper, which had been placed beside his plate. He then swallowed a large piece of a crusty roll and for a few seconds was unable to breathe at all for there on the front page, in the boldest type ever used, was the headline:

100,000 FRANCS REWARD FOR INFORMATION
LEADING TO THE ARREST OF EVELYN WESTON

His eyes flew over the print. What was this? Evelyn a spy? And what was she doing in France? For Eddy loved Evelyn and had been planning all along to marry her as soon as he had money to support her, and had even decided that if she refused his hand in marriage he would nevertheless give her a suitable share of the price of the diamond.

He turned over the pages of the newspaper and for the second time was afflicted with the same difficulty in breathing.

Lord and Lady Bannister, said the caption; but the picture showed Evelyn, wearing a kimono, standing at the door of a state-room on board ship in the company of an exceedingly startled looking gentleman. There was no doubt about it - it was Evelyn Weston! He used to see her in that kimono in the King's Road for a couple of seconds every morning when she took the milk from the doorstep.

But what was the explanation of the photographs? On the front page she was wanted by the police; and on the back page she was the wife of the celebrated scientist! Eddy's head swam with confused thoughts.

Below the picture, there was a brief account of the tremendous interest aroused by the lecture Lord Bannister gave in Paris. Lady Bannister had accompanied her husband to Paris but she had been indisposed and unable to attend the lecture. Naturally she had not been present at the lecture; what she had been doing, it seemed, was to break into a house, steal some important document and get away, leaving a couple of corpses in her wake.

Eddy was worried. For the first time, his instinct told him that something had gone badly wrong. What was the clue that had brought her to France? For that she was there to look for the Buddha Eddy had no doubt whatever.

Uneasily, he took the sales ledger from his trunk. But there was no mistaking the entry. One single "Dreaming Buddha" had been sold in May, along with the "Harvesters," and both pieces had been sent here, to this Herr Wollishoff.

Then why had she gone to Paris? And, according to the newspaper, she had been enquiring after some ceramic statuette...

He sat still, brooding, and as he did so his glance fell on the cover of the ledger.

And now he noticed something very odd, something which for some moments kept him motionless, paralysed with horror.

Under the label on the cover of the ledger he could see the edge of a second label protruding.

He took out his pocket-knife and started scraping the label.

The church-bells were ringing. People were flocking to the church. They had brought out the fire-engine garlanded with flowers. Standing up on the driver's box was Unteroffizier Zobelmann, in top-hat and tails, waving to the populace in a friendly manner.

The village choir was assembling on the main square.

But the bridegroom was sitting crouched in front of the sales ledger, his hair dishevelled, his eyes starting out of his head.

Now he understood all. It was Evelyn who was on the right trail. That was how she had become involved in the espionage affair. He, on the other hand, had been sold the wrong ledger, with the right label pasted on it. It was clear that Grete's Buddha could contain nothing more than a pair of scissors, some embroidery silks, and a few thimbles.

4.

There was a knock on the door.

Quickly, he hid the book.

"Come in."

It was Uncle Arthur, wearing a frock-coat and a solemn expression.

"Here's your best man, Eddy."

"I couldn't care less. Uncle, I have changed my mind. I don't want the fortune. I am not going to marry this girl. I can't. What can I do?"

"Are you crazy? Just think, my boy, tonight the clay god will be ours!"

"And she'll be mine. No."

"What do you propose to do?"

"Oil out of here."

A.B.C.D. almost foamed at the mouth.

"All right. I will stay! I'll carry on on my own."

"Will you marry her?"

"I will," Arthur Bede said resolutely.

Eddy was deeply moved.

"Oh, uncle. Many's the time you have accused me of being frivolous and cynical. Now you will realise that you were wrong. Have it your own way. I'll let you have the diamond all for yourself and renounce my claim to Grete's hand." He heaved a deep sigh and gazed wistfully out of the window, towards the distant summits. "May you be happy with her."

"You renounce your share?" Rancing the Elder asked.

"I do," replied Rancing the Younger. "All I want you to do is to pay me for my trouble in finding the treasure for you. Give me two thousand quid, and I'll be off."

"Not a penny more!"

"I've no intention of bargaining with you. Wollishoff would give me as much in return for the secret. Maybe more."

He grabbed his hat, flung his overcoat over his arm, and moved to the door.

"Wait! You scoundrel! You blood-sucker!"

"You are really rather ungrateful. For a paltry two thousand quid, I have made you a millionaire. I don't want your sordid money. I'm going to see old Wollishoff!"

"Wait!... Come, Eddy, why be so touchy? Am I right in thinking that for two thousand pounds sterling you will waive all your rights? Are you ready to sign a statement to that effect?"

"That's right. I don't want to have anything to do with either the diamond or the girl any more."

An hour later, Eddy was on his way to Zurich, whence he proceeded to Marseilles by the very next plane. He was now in possession of a clue of which the police were ignorant. He had only to discover where Lord Bannister lived and there he would find Evelyn. It would, of course, have been possible to pick up a hundred thousand francs right away by handing over his information to the police, but he had no desire to betray her. Besides, he still wanted to get hold of the diamond.

Meantime, Arthur B.C.D. Rancing had explained to old Herr Wollishoff that he, too, had fallen in love with Grete, and that he had spent the previous evening persuading his nephew that it would be a great tragedy to deprive a man in the prime of life of his last great love. They had drawn lots and he, Arthur Rancing, had won. His nephew Edward had left for Hiittliberg, broken-hearted. Now he had come on the morning of this festival day to ask for the bride's hand in marriage.

After only a moment's hesitation, Grete happily threw herself into Mr. Arthur Rancing's arms. The girl had already been through two bridal campaigns and was not to be daunted by any unexpected move when a wedding was in view.

"But the banns have not been read," protested the coroner, who was well versed in ecclesiastical law.

"That's all right," said Arthur Bede airily. "They have read out the banns for Mr. Rancing, and that's my name too."

There was a slight commotion among the crowd when it was learned that the chief actor in the drama had been replaced by his uncle but everyone soon accepted the situation. The manager of the local repertory company gave a sizable crowd an account of the bloody duel that had been fought by the two relatives at midnight.

Doctor Loebli, representing the local branch of the First Aid Society, presented to the newly-weds the gift of a silk pillow embroidered with the warning:

Accidents Can Happen To Anyone

5.

The plane was nearing Morocco. Evelyn and Lord Bannister exchanged only a few words. She said nothing about the "criminal case." She laughed at herself for being so happy. For what cause had she to be happy? When they arrived, they would go their separate ways. She wondered if he would ever discover how complete was her innocence. What was it Uncle Marius would say? "A woman's honour is like a good tailoring: it must not strike the eye, not even to earn praise."

"I say, Lord Bannister," said Holler who, now that he was no longer air sick, was pestering them with his company once again. "I wonder when I could have the pleasure of inspecting your laboratory? You did promise that you would show it to me and my editors are waiting eagerly for an article on the subject."

"Ah... er... it's quite up to you. The pleasure will be mine."

"Well, the sooner the better. People in England are tremendously interested in your work. Excuse me."

He made a hurried retreat, for they had begun to come down in a wide spiral, a manoeuvre which always affected him unpleasantly. A few seconds later there was a gentle bump on the ground, the humming noise subsided, the plane taxied up to the hangars, and the long trip was over.

They were in Morocco.

"We must leave in the same taxi," Lord Bannister told Evelyn. "Let me know where I can drop you on the way. We need only keep up this farce till we've got rid of this horrible Holler. I believe he's leaving us now."

A well-known psychologist tells us that unjustified optimism is a characteristic of most research scientists; and Lord Bannister's present hope that Holler was about to take his leave of them was quite unwarranted. After hailing a taxi, he turned round to say good-bye to the journalist, who, however, did not take his proffered hand, but instead handed his suitcase to the driver.

"With your permission, I will avail myself of your generous invitation and come along with you. One can never afford to miss a good story for the paper, and since Lord Bannister has left it to me to name the time of my visit, my respect for him forbids me to keep him waiting. I hope I am not intruding upon you?"

Well, the Press, as Lord Bannister was well aware, was a formidable taskmaster. The only satisfactory way of dealing with a fellow like this, he thought, would be to mince him up for sausages. He cursed the habit of casual politeness which had driven him to invite Holler to choose the time of his visit; there was nothing for it now but to grin and bear it.

He wondered if this Nosey Parker could possibly have any suspicion about the real nature of their situation.

Now he would be compelled to take the girl with him to his villa, to keep up appearances. She came to his assistance.

"I shall go straight into town. I have a number of things to attend to rather urgently."

"In that case I shall not stay long, for I would be only too happy to serve as your guide, Lady Bannister."

'Why ever don't people like this bounder get run over by trams while they are still children?' reflected Lord Bannister moodily before saying aloud:

"I will have luncheon served immediately."

"That will be nice," Evelyn replied sadly. "I feel hungry."

Lord Bannister was aware that she was both hungry and tired, and that he had no wish to drop her somewhere in the street. But what was the explanation of his reluctance? It was high time to part company with Evelyn Weston, the girl with a price on her head-alive or dead!

And here he was taking her home with him - alive! And hungry!

Lord Bannister's villa was in the wealthiest residential district of Guéliz and was set in a flowery garden screened from view by the dense foliage of palm-trees.

Luncheon was not a very cheerful meal although P. J. Holler tucked in and laughed heartily at his own jokes. Evelyn found it hard to realise that she was in Africa. The dining-room might have been in London: there was even a fireplace. She looked round rather wistfully, touching the prayer rug, and picking up a porcelain shepherdess from the mantelpiece. She quietly came to the conclusion that it was going to be painful to leave this place - something she would have to do pretty soon.

She did not notice when Lord Bannister and his visitor left the dining-room to go to the laboratory. A beckoning armchair brought home to her the fact that she had had practically no sleep for the last twenty-four hours. Sadly, she put on her hat, slipped quietly out of the house and hurried down the garden path. She closed the lattice gate behind her.

6.

She hesitated for a few moments, wondering where to start looking first, then she hailed a taxi and told the driver to take her to the top of the hill where the fortress of Guéliz was situated. The soldiers at the reception office received her politely. A sick legionary? Münster?... Well, what was the nature of the business she wished to discuss with him?... A family affair?... Hm... The men here seldom had family affairs, though this... er... Münster might well be an exception. Perhaps she would make inquiries at the garrison hospital.

But no, Legionnaire Münster was not at the hospital at the moment. He had received treatment here recently. Where was he now? Well, madame would understand that they must supply no information without permission from the Commanding Officer. She had come from there? Well, would she kindly go back there and go straight to the Paymaster's office, Number Two Company, Reserve Battalion H.Q. So she returned to Guéliz.

"Sorry, madame" said the sentry. "The office is closed now. Anyway, the Reserve Battalion H.Q. Paymaster's office can give no information on postings of anyone serving in the ranks unless specially instructed to do so by the central Regimental Command of G.H.Q., Oran, and for this they must have written permission from the Commanding Officer. That's all you need. With a bit of luck - and influence - the rest goes like clockwork." That was all she had accomplished by 1 p.m. She had been so intent on her mission that she had not noticed that she was being shadowed by a man with a full beard.

Once again she found herself standing in the centre of the town, dispirited, and wondering where she could go to next. There was no one to whom she could turn for help for she herself was wanted by the police - alive or dead. Suddenly, a familiar voice spoke behind her.

"Oh, hello!" said the voice. "Could I escort you anywhere, Lady Bannister?"

It was Holler! He was the man she needed!

"Hello. Have you finished your interview with... er... my husband?" She blushed. My husband, forsooth! A pretty humbug she had become.

"Oh, yes. We finished pretty soon. Lord Bannister pressed me to stay longer, but I can't stand being cooped up for very long. You look rather tired. Would you care to have tea with me? I should be delighted."

"Thank you." She felt so weak and tired that she accepted the invitation with relief. She decided to ask his advice. After all, there was no one else she could possibly consult.

"Lord Bannister has done an admirable job." Holler enthused over tea. "He showed me one of the cultures. Amazing! Under the microscope it looked like a herd of fine Merino sheep on an alpine pasture. What a germ pen! I don't understand anything about it though. I should have thought he would want to destroy these animals, not cultivate them. But, of course, a newspaperman isn't supposed to know about medicine. The important thing is that Lord Bannister is a popular man, and that every time I run a feature on his sleeping-sickness theory in the Sunday supplement, we get heaps of letters of congratulation."

"I usually cut out those articles," she said cunningly. Her words had an amazing effect.

"Really?" said Holler, his cheeks aglow. "You make me happy, Lady Bannister. Lord Bannister is sometimes dissatisfied with my articles. Finds fault with trifles. Recently, he quite seriously scolded me because, he said, sleeping-sickness and malaria are two different things. Well, I am no physician and how could I be expected to know all the details? The important thing was that the readers talked about the Sunday article for days and that a League of Artisans for Combating Sleeping-Sickness was founded and I was elected Vice-President. Lord Bannister has been elected Honorary President of the League and a resolution passed calling for a major consignment of alarm-clocks to be sent to India, for the benefit of people suffering from sleeping-sickness. Thanks to the campaign conducted in my papers, we have managed to rouse people's consciences, and society is at last prepared to combat sleeping-sickness."

"Henry is rather a severe critic in scientific matters."

"It must be a family trait."

"Yes. The Bannisters on the whole are conservative."

"The Bannisters! But I think there is only one Lord Bannister?"

"I mean to say... that is... even though Henry has no brothers..."

Holler looked astounded.

"I understood that he had several brothers!"

She realised how careful she would have to be if she was not to drop a brick and therefore replied boldly, "I see that you are not too well informed about our family."

"Who? Me? I should think I am a walking Debrett. Take Bannister. Your husband's late uncle's father did some renowned work in the classification of warm-blooded mammals of the tertiary period, and in recognition of these services a gracious sovereign was pleased to bestow on him a peerage. He was the first Lord Bannister. The second Lord Bannister was your husband's late uncle. This Lord Bannister, Austin Clifford, the universally esteemed vermicelli-and-noodles manufacturer, died eight years ago, and as he had no children, his title was inherited by your respected husband. As you see, Lady Bannister, a British newspaperman is not wholly ignorant of the noble families of Great Britain. Now, if your marriage should be blessed with a son... Hullo!... Today, something always seems to be going down the wrong way either with Lord Bannister or with you. Oh, just let it dry. It leaves no stain."

With difficulty, she recovered from her coughing fit.

"You do seem to know the history of our family pretty well."

"You see, that's what's so nice about the English practice of granting titles. You come into this world as a plain Mr. mith, then if you're lucky some distant relation may die leaving no son, and a plain scientist can inherit both a title and a new name."

"I think perhaps we might ask for the bill, Mr. Holler. I still have some business to settle. I hope this time I shall be successful."

"Can I be of any help to you? I know Morocco inside out. I come over here several times a year, and publish long reports about the horrors of Africa."

"I would like to trace a sick member of the Legion. He used to be a good friend of a cousin of mine and I promised his family in London that I would make inquiries about him here."

"In that case, it's really lucky for you that I am here. The authorities are somewhat unaccommodating when it comes to matters concerning those fellows. You can never tell what people may want to see them about. But I know how to tackle the Commanding Officer... Garçon! The bill!"

7.

Once again, she was in a taxi on the way to Guéliz. This time, however, Holler was sitting by her side.

At the fortress, Holler showed himself in his most boisterous mood. First he quarrelled with the sentry, who again refused admittance on the grounds that the office was closed. Holler spoke so violently that eventually an officer came out and after listening to the journalist, led them into the fort.

By the time they reached the office on the second floor, Holler had made friends with four high-ranking officers and everyone in the office was talking freely. Bestowing ten francs here, a benign smile there, stern with one fellow and all affability with another, he struck the right note everywhere. He took the formidable fortress of Guéliz by storm.

By four o'clock, they had found out that Münster was recovering from a serious wound at no great distance from the fortress, in Number Two Company's convalescent camp in the oasis of Marbouk: a mere two days' ride by camel.

"It's so very good of you," said Evelyn.

Holler beamed happily, and replied:

"Oh, it's nothing. Last year, it took me only two days to trace a leather merchant who hadn't been seen since the Boer War. What do you propose to do now, Lady Bannister?"

Evelyn wished he would be less of a stickler for address. Every other sentence of this title-maniac made the blush rise to her cheeks.

"I shall make the trip to Oasis Marbouk. I've never been to a place like that anyway."

"Will Lord Bannister go with you?"

"N-no... For once, I'd like to go on my own. I don't want to disturb him in his work. Can you hire guides here, do you know?"

"Certainly. Have you not yet made a trip into the desert?"

"No, I haven't. That's just the idea..."

"But then you won't have the necessary equipment, either. Now isn't this sheer luck that I am here! I have been to the Sahara lots of times. And without spending much money either. And yet these merchant robbers will skin you if you don't look out. Will you permit me to arrange your trip for you?"

"I don't know how to thank you..."

"It'll be a pleasure. In the first place, the equipment. For, you see, skirts and that sort of thing are useless a few hundred yards south of the town. However, I'm not going to take you to any of the bazaars in the centre of the town. What you want is an Arab merchant. None but Arabs. In the centre, they will sell you inferior goods at high prices, though they behave so politely. Let the tourists go to those shops... Taxi!"

He took Evelyn to Mellah. In the tumult of the marche arabe, they could only move forward inch by inch. Having reached what appeared to be the narrowest alley in the most squalid part of the Arab quarter, Holler dismissed the taxi and they proceeded on foot down the evil-smelling lane.

They did not notice the man with the full beard who from time to time spat out bits of tobacco and who had followed them all the way from the camp.

Holler took Evelyn into a small, dimly lit shop, which was buzzing with flies. The shopkeeper, a hawk-nosed Arab with a goatee, emerged from the semi-darkness to greet them. Then they selected everything that was needed - topee, topboots, breeches, thermos flask, foodbox sealed hermetically with a rubber tape, and the rest of the paraphernalia.

Next came the bargaining, such as Evelyn had never seen before.

At first the merchant laughed; later on, he beat his chest, rushed into the street and shook his fists at the passers-by. After that, he came rushing back, foaming at the mouth, and tugging and tearing at his burnous; then, throwing up his hands, he gazed despairingly at the ceiling before throwing himself on the breeches, sobbing as if he was mourning over the body of his son. Holler, on the other hand, beat the table with one fist, then laughed sardonically, and seemed to be trying to prove something by rolling up one leg of his trousers to show the merchant the quality of his sock. The merchant was visibly impressed and pushed the sun-helmet over to Holler; but when the latter reached for the breeches, he once again went berserk, like a bitch when someone tries to get near her pup, and clasped the garment to his bosom, breathing heavily.

An hour later, all the things lay before them on the counter, neatly wrapped. They paid, and left.

"You have made an excellent bargain," Holler said, wiping the perspiration from his forehead contentedly.

"Aren't you afraid that this Arab will kill you one day?"

"What! This man? Why, I'm one of his regular customers. He is a good friend of mine. We write to each other when I am in London."

8.

With the guide, it was smoother sailing. These were desert people, well-organised.

The guide was a short, scraggy Berber, with dark-brown skin and curly hair round his shaven crown. He said that if they set out at dawn next day they might arrive at Marbouk during the morning of the fourth day.

"Could I go with him across the desert at night?" Evelyn asked Holler.

"You will be absolutely safe with me, madam," replied the Berber in impeccable English. "Desert guides are true-blue gentlemen."

She felt ashamed.

"These fellows are just great children," Holler said, laughing.

"I knew a Berber guide who worked for years with the Philadelphia Concert Orchestra and eventually returned to the desert because of a disappointment in love."

A chocolate-coloured little girl came out of the house to admire the lovely European lady at close quarters.

"What a sweet darling," Evelyn said. She lifted the child from the dust, and wiped the smudged little face. Then she gave the little one her brooch which in fact was of no value and served only to fasten her shawl.

"An amulet," the little one stammered, amazed. "A charm!" The child hardly dared touch the shining object.

"They will go through fire and water for you now," Holler explained to her as they walked away. "Well, good-bye to you. I hope you will succeed. Be sure to arrive punctually at the appointed place. These guides are apt to turn round and go home if the fare isn't there on time."

Lord Bannister suffers from hallucinations. He is then mistaken for Catherine de Medici. He prepares for his impending years in prison, then discovers that dinner jackets aren't the most comfortable wear in the Sahara. Robbers make their appearance. Eddy Rancing rides his camel full tilt, and learns to appreciate the theory of relativity.

1.

Evelyn was punctual. Dressed in her new travelling outfit, she arrived at the appointed place at the appointed time. Before setting out, she scribbled a hasty note which she handed to a messenger, instructing him to take it to Lord Bannister; then she climbed into the saddle of the kneeling camel.

Azrim, the Berber guide, uttered a strange strident guttural sound, whereupon the camels rose in two separate swinging movements. Evelyn thought first, that she was being ejected from her saddle and would fall on her face; then, that she was being catapulted backwards. When at last she reached an erect position, she found herself at an alarming height.

"Reg-lak! Reg-lak!"

The camels broke into a trot.

2.

Only twelve hours previously, a much bigger caravan had departed along the same route: it consisted of thirty Arabs, handpicked gems of Mellah, headed by the two leaders, Adams and Gordon, who had become great friends.

The gang had arrived from Lyons by chartered plane and had immediately dispersed in search of the girl, having divided the town into sectors among themselves. Rainer was left to act as liaison in the lobby of the Hotel Mammunia, where the hoary killer picked up the manager of a European engineering firm, and before long the two of them were playing chess.

It was Yoko, the man with the full beard, whose efforts were crowned with success. He had started from the assumption that, as the girl was looking for a soldier, she was certain to call on the Commanding Officer of the fortress. He therefore concealed himself in the neighbourhood of Fort Guéliz, where he soon spotted Evelyn. From there, he tailed her for the rest of the afternoon until she checked in at the Hotel de Paris to have a rest.

Yoko then returned to the Berber guide whom he had seen talking with the girl, for he knew that he must discover what place Evelyn Weston was bound for.

"Salaam" Yoko greeted the Berber.

"Bon jour" said the man.

"I want to make a longish trip in the Sahara, but I must start without delay, and I am looking for a reliable guide."

"I am sorry, Sir", replied the Berber, "I have been hired for five days."

As he spoke these words he remembered the British lady, and, with a smile about his lips, watched the flushed and happy child playing with the amulet.

"Perhaps you could merge the two caravans," Yoko suggested. "I want to go to Ain Sefra; and if your people are going that way..."

All unsuspecting, the guide told Yoko just what he wanted to know.

"We are going in another direction - to the oasis Marbouk."

"Too bad. Salaam aleikum."

"Au revoir."

Yoko had learned what he wanted. Since Evelyn was preparing to go to the oasis Marbouk, it was probable that the wounded soldier "Münster" was to be found there. Quickly, he returned to the hotel to give Rainer this information; the other members of the gang were then recalled, and within an hour, they were holding a conference.

"It's quite simple," said Adams. "We'll ride out ahead today." He touched the map with one finger. "When Evelyn Weston sets out early tomorrow morning, we'll have reached this well. There we'll lie in wait, take the map from her and then go and see this fellow Münster in the oasis."

"What's public safety in Oasis Marbouk like?" Dr. Courtlier butted in in his low-pitched, drowsy, aristocratic voice, beating a slow devil's tattoo with his large freckled white fingers. "I mean in case we find we can't win the man over by persuasion only."

"We should in any case recruit some thirty or forty Arabs here," the man with the beard said. "I know a landlord in the Quartier Reserve - an old pal of mine. He'll help us. In these desert enterprises you're liable to meet with surprises. I'm all for playing it safe."

Shortly afterwards, Beefy made the acquaintance of an army officer who told him that public safety in Oasis Marbouk was, from the doctor's point of view, pretty encouraging: no police, no soldiers; peace and order, never disturbed in Oasis Marbouk from time immemorial, was maintained by the very small garrison of the little army convalescent camp.

"I think," Adams said in the afternoon, "we can leave within the hour. Everything's been arranged."

"Not everything," Rainer dissented. "We must take a few thermos flasks filled with tea. Tea is a good drink in tropical heat."

No one deigned to answer.

3.

"In this moment of departure, my grateful thoughts go out to you. God bless you for your kindness. As you will never see me again, I trust you will forget the trouble and inconvenience that were caused to you by the unhappy

Evelyn Weston"

He looked up from the letter and gazed out across the garden. He felt a heaviness pressing on his heart. It seemed that in spite of all the trouble she had brought him he had become dangerously accustomed to the company of this harum-scarum but infinitely sweet girl who was always in such a state of alarm, rushing about and getting excited about her chief enemy - his toilet case. The Blonde Hurricane. She swept through his life, leaving only confusion in her wake, and she herself rushed on into mortal danger. Not that she had so much courage; she was simply reckless.

Her departure had certainly brought him one great blessing - the possibility of a quiet night's sleep; and his peace would be no longer disturbed by her abrupt and untimely appearances.

4.

"Good afternoon. I am looking for Miss Evelyn Weston."

Lord Bannister was taken aback; in fact, he very nearly fainted with surprise.

Standing at the door was a good-looking young man wearing shining top-boots and white breeches and holding in his hand a sun-helmet the size of a car-wheel - in a word, he was wearing the tropical kit seen only on film stars and members of escorted tours commonly seen in Venice and along the Adriatic coast; but here in the tropics tourists who sport the latest Sahara fashion are more conspicuous; they are also figures of fun, for their fashionable garb is an open invitation to sunstroke.

"Wh-who are you?" Lord Bannister stammered with misgiving.

"My name is Edward Rancing. Am I speaking to Lord Bannister?"

"Certainly... yes... Er... Why do you ask?"

"I am looking for Miss Evelyn Weston. I should like to speak to her."

His lordship's eyes wandered vaguely about the room as if to say that he had just put her down somewhere recently, but didn't remember where. Then he came to his senses and drew himself up.

"I don't quite see what I can do for you, Mr. Rancing."

"I should have thought I'd made it sufficiently clear. I am looking for Miss Evelyn Weston. She was last photographed in your company, Lord Bannister."

Lord Bannister cowered once more, shrinking visibly. Eddy produced a photograph from his pocket.

"I think this is an authentic photograph. I am informed that you arrived here with this lady, ostensibly your wife; it seems reasonable, therefore, to come to you to discover the whereabouts of Miss Evelyn Weston."

"Are you a detective?" asked Lord Bannister, as devious as any pickpocket playing hide-and-seek with the police.

"Oh, no. I am an old acquaintance of Miss Weston's. I have been her next-door neighbour in the King's Road for some years."

"I suppose it's not merely a neighbourly action of yours to have followed Miss Weston to Africa?" Lord Bannister observed moodily.

"No. I would like to see her on business."

"Now which country are you spying for?"

"Me? For Lappland."

"By gad, sir, do you mean to say you have come all the way to Africa disguised as an opera chorus-singer just to tell me bad jokes?"

"It's no more of a joke than your question, Lord Bannister."

"After all that's been written in the papers..."

"I have been Miss Weston's next-door neighbour for several years. She lives in great penury with her widowed mother. She is an honest, hard-working person and I am quite sure that she has been innocently involved in this horrible affair."

All this was news to Lord Bannister. So she was no spy, after all.

"That's all very well," he said at last. "Nevertheless, I haven't the faintest idea where Miss Weston may be now. All I can tell you is that she won't come back here anymore."

Eddy smiled sarcastically.

"I am sure Miss Weston will come back. I'm not going to stir from here till she does."

"As I have no desire to spend my remaining years in your company I shall be compelled to..."

"Go to the police? All right. That'll mean a hundred thousand francs for me. For you, it will most likely mean jail."

That was a possibility Lord Bannister had not anticipated and he fell back limply into his chair. Fate was against him. He might have guessed that that girl would land him in jail.

"I don't want to pester you, Lord Bannister. All I ask is that you will allow me to remain."

"What else can I do? I must behave like a gentleman. Please take a seat."

Eddy sat down and proceeded to mix himself a drink from some bottles that stood on the table. When he spoke again it was a more light-hearted and friendly tone.

"Have you really married Miss Weston?"

"I haven't. As I found out in the end, I had only been protecting her. There was always someone following the poor girl, and whenever she found out she would come and wake me up and then fall asleep herself. So far her plan has worked very well. And you say you are no accomplice of hers?"

"Miss Weston, I repeat, is a decent middle-class girl."

"She lives rather a rough-and-tumble life to be that."

"She is searching for her lawful inheritance."

"I know. Also a certain gentleman's honour. I can assure you, if you are interested, that she and I have been quite active in both matters. Well, do you seriously plan to stay with me from now on?"

"I do. But I won't be here for long. I firmly believe that Miss Weston will soon be back."

"You are, it seems, an English Nostradamus. Though it is a historical fact that even that illustrious gentleman made some mistakes now and then."

"I am not mistaken. You will soon realise that I am right."

"But I shall have to pay rather a high price for the realisation," replied Lord Bannister ruefully.

"Never mind. If I am Nostradamus, you should look upon yourself as Catherine de Medici and sacrifice something so that my prediction will come true."

"Mr. Rancing, I give you my word that I have been speaking the truth. You may call me a scoundrel and a cad if Miss Evelyn Weston ever comes back to this house."

"Well," replied Eddy, with a sigh, "with all respect, I have the honour to inform your lordship that your lordship is a scoundrel and a cad."

Evelyn Weston was standing at the door.

5.

For several hours Evelyn and her guides made their way through the desert. Eastwards they could see crumbling stone pillars and torsos-ruins of an ancient city dating from the time of the Roman conquest. Then Evelyn accidentally tore her coat and in order to prevent it from tearing further, she decided to mend it immediately. For this purpose she opened her small black case.

"Good gracious! Where's the envelope?" was her horrified exclamation.

Inside the case lay a folded towel, flanked, on either side, by a clothes-brush and a cake of soap. It was her old enemy, Lord Bannister's toilet case! Once again they had each picked up the other's case. Now it was Lord Bannister who had the orange-coloured envelope with him! What was she to do?

There was nothing for it but to turn back! Lord Bannister was in mortal peril. What would happen if he opened the case in the presence of other people, and found the envelope? He might even hand it over to the police.

Oh, how she longed to dash the case to the ground, along with that hateful shaving kit which it no doubt contained. Yet now she would have to take it back to him if she wanted to exchange it for her own.

"Azrim! We must turn back! Quick! We must return immediately."

6.

She was standing on the doorstep. But the fresh surprise which greeted her there robbed her of speech. How on earth had Edward Rancing come to be here? Dimly she began to make out the outlines of a confused and fantastic story. Her head was swimming as if she had drunk too much wine.

"Mr. Rancing!"

"Hullo, Miss Weston," said Eddy, smiling. "How nice to see you again."

Lord Bannister dared not speak. Gradually, his surprise gave way to alarm. Her reappearance must herald an approaching storm. In the midst of the dead calm, she had arrived mysteriously, a hurricane; and she would disappear again in the same silent mysterious fashion, leaving wreckage everywhere in her wake.

Alarm sirens began to wail in Lord Bannister's mind. It was quite certain, he decided, that she was being followed, that robbers were lying in wait of her, and that before long she would insist on his joining her on some long and inconvenient trip. And so he hurriedly filled his pockets with cigarettes, and took from his wardrobe a warm comforter. He had better be somewhat prepared.

"What... How on earth did you get here?" she asked Rancing.

"Why should he know that, of all people?" Lord Bannister mused sadly. "Nothing strange about that. The only thing that's to be wondered at is the fact that I am still here. Where are we going to?" he asked Evelyn rather anxiously.

"For once I am not going to drag you along with me on my uncomfortable errand."

"May those words prove to be a prophecy. I have lost my faith in miracles like that."

"With your permission, I would like to accompany you," Eddy butted in.

Lord Bannister cast a nervous sideways glance in his direction.

"I am glad to see," he said turning to Evelyn, "that neighbourly solidarity is so strong in the King's Road."

For a second she scrutinised Lord Bannister's face searchingly. Oh, dear, was it possible that he was being jealous?

"I wish you would express yourself more clearly, Mr. Rancing. What do you expect me to do for you?"

"I offer you my services. I have an idea that in the present situation you need the assistance of a man. With my help, you may be able to recover the heirloom more quickly."

"How do you come to know anything about my inheritance?"

"Miss Weston! You will despise me. I was eavesdropping."

"And what is your next move? You know everything; you know that I am being followed, and that I am looking for something that's worth a fortune. So you propose to blackmail me? Is that it?"

"Shall I be frank with you? I was thinking of doing that. But somehow, I can't. Miss Weston, I feel like a naughty boy caught by a kind and aged teacher. I suppose I respect you, and this sentiment has been known to kill many a resolution at the very moment when action was necessary. I would like the chance to play out this gamble to the end. But I am not going to blackmail you. If you won't take me with you, I will go away."

"And go to the police, of course," she said sarcastically, "to denounce me."

"Miss Weston," protested Eddy, deeply hurt, and his blushes revealed Edward F.G.H. Rancing, the genius, for what he really was - a great child.

"Miss Weston, you are doing me an injustice. I could have done that before. I am a frivolous sort of fellow; I love money; but this time I really wanted to get hold of your inheritance so that I would be able to bring it to you and ask you to marry me."

Evelyn burst out laughing.

"Oh, all right, Eddy. I suppose you'll just never sober down. You are a madcap. All right, then. I have nothing against your joining me. I have been very much left to my own devices so far. I've had nobody by my side."

"Mainly," said Lord Bannister, trying to justify himself before Eddy, "because the night-shirt I was wearing was so conspicuous that I was compelled to sit in the back of my car on the floor."

"That's all over now. You will not be asked to make any more inconvenient trips on my behalf."

"Miss Weston, you have said that so many times. I believe we are in God's hands, all of us."

"Well, I am about to explain to you that it is my intention to leave you here in peace and never ask you for anything again."

She was a lovely girl, Lord Bannister thought. The trouble was that you simply couldn't tell when she was going to change into a hurricane.

"I have come back because we have taken the wrong cases again. I've brought back this hateful toilet case of yours. I just took a glance at the contents, and slammed the lid on them all. Here you are!" She threw the case down on the table with so much disgust that inside the Buddha's belly, the blades and the shaving block positively danced together. "Now I will thank you to give me back my own case. Then Eddy and I will go away and you will have seen the last of us."

"It's nice to know that in the King's Road the neighbours use Christian names to each other - a custom prevalent in the rest of England only among relatives or very good friends."

With this acid remark, Lord Bannister crossed over to the fireplace and took the small case from the mantelpiece.

"But this is my case," he said. "Are you sure you're not mistaken, Miss Weston?" With a practised gesture he opened the lid of the case.

Three heads turned to look, three mouths opened in amazement, and three hearts missed a beat.

Just inside the case they could see the orange-coloured envelope with the five seals.

7.

Evelyn walked resolutely towards the case.

However, Lord Bannister closed it, and slowly placed his hand over it with the lazy, possessive movement of a lion when she curls her paw over a piece of meat, staking a claim to possession.

"Give me my case, please," she said nervously.

"You may have your case, of course; but I am afraid I can't let you take the envelope. Until now, I have ignored the information which has come to my ears. Unfortunately however, as things are at present, the envelope would have to pass through my hands to reach you, and later, your employers. In which case I should become just as much of an intelligence agent as, say, Mata Hari."

Evelyn reflected. It was true Lord Bannister had until now played only a passive role in the affair. And it was equally true that by handing the envelope to her he would become her accomplice. Lord Bannister an intelligence agent! A prospective candidate for the Nobel Prize, a celebrated scientist and - what made it even more impossible to contemplate - a gentleman with very high moral standards.

"You realise, don't you, Miss Weston, that you are asking the impossible of an old-fashioned scientist when you expect him to hand over this letter to you? However, I promise to let you get a good start and escape before I hand in this document."

Eddy Rancing was toying with the neck of the whisky bottle as if only waiting for a sign from the girl to hit Lord Bannister over the head with it and thus close this whole painful argument. But Evelyn gave him not the slightest encouragement.

She made some silent calculations while Lord Bannister watched her anxiously. At last she came out with her tentative suggestion.

"Do you think," she asked, "that it would be too much trouble for you to make a longish trip by camel?"

"That's just what I've been expecting," Lord Bannister replied dejectedly.

8.

The first minor blast of the hurricane caught at his nerves. Her eyes were shining bright as she turned over various plans in her mind and there was no doubt about it: she was intending to make full use of the famous but defenceless student of sleeping-sickness.

"You plan to hand in this envelope to the authorities, don't you?"

"I do. But I don't propose to deliver it by camel. I shall go on foot. For some time past, I have had a morbid aversion to all forms of transport, if you know what I mean."

"If you want to hand it in here in Morocco, we will go to the police together. But I wonder if the humane spirit of a trueborn English gentleman permits him to deny his assistance to a defenceless woman and an innocent man whose name has been dragged through the mud."

"You have already used that excuse for dragging me halfway across Europe - first in tails and later in my nightshirt."

"This time it's only to a nearby oasis."

"That's what you say at this moment. But once we are on our way, we may find it impossible to stop, however much we would like to do so, till we get to Cape Town. To say nothing of the fact that a camel is no motor-car; it has no replaceable spare parts and if any part gets detached, we shall be stuck in the desert."

"I wish you would stop being sarcastic. We can travel with a heavy escort. It's only two days' ride by camel. You may keep the document and you need not part with it unless you are satisfied that it will get into the hands of the right person. If you refuse to do this you will be sacrificing for the sake of your own convenience the rightful inheritance of a poor family and the honour of a man who has been wronged."

He felt the blast of the hurricane lifting him up and sucking him in - he had no more strength to resist.

"Can you give me any reasonable explanation? Can you prove what you have been telling me?"

"I can bear out the greater part of her story," said Eddy.

"And I can explain everything else. In the first place, this...

"Wait!" Lord Bannister interrupted. "Don't tell me anything. I want to preserve my ignorance of the facts. After all that I've read about it, I am afraid I should hardly be in a position to place myself at your disposal if you acquainted me with the facts. My position at the moment is like this. I consider that you have entrusted me with this envelope and have asked me to hand it over to the authorities not here but at Oasis Marbouk. I intend to comply with your request. We'd better stick to that, I think. In this way, my conscience is, in a way, quite clear. You have, to my great regret, invested me with so much power that I dare not refuse. Let me warn you, however, that beyond the Sahara there is the Belgian Congo, and that nothing - neither your inheritance nor the honour of my fellow-men nor the knowledge that you are being followed - will induce me to follow you there. I won't go farther than the Sahara!"

Evelyn looked at him sorrowfully.

"Are you sure, Lord Bannister?"

Lord Bannister hesitated - and was lost.

"Well, you... er... would have to supply some very powerful reasons," he said in an uncertain voice. "But even if I did go as far as, say, the Congo... I would on no account go farther than Cape Town... I mean to say... er... Ah, all right. Let's go."

Perched on the hump of a camel, Lord Bannister had the sullen air of an officer in command of a punitive expedition. Nor was his temper improved by the presence of a great variety of biting and stinging insects which the camel harboured on its body and which made forays to collect his own blood like so many research workers studying sleeping-sickness. He nodded jerkily along to the rhythm of the animal's gait, reflecting bitterly that once again his kind-heartedness had involved him in an uncomfortable journey to defend other people's honour and good name. The truth was very much simpler.

He was following a pretty woman - a little priggishly perhaps, but nevertheless obeying man's eternal law of gravity. He was following her meaninglessly and hopelessly, into the Sahara. But because he was an English peer and a scientist, he liked to justify what he was doing and make his actions seem less humiliating. He was, in fact, doing nothing more and nothing less than one might expect in such circumstances from, say, an enamoured haberdasher.

"Reg-lak! Reg-lak!"

The camel broke into a canter, tossed back its head, and gave Lord Bannister such a shaking that he began to cough and splutter helplessly.

"Reg-lak! Reg-lak!"

After a few more blows in the chest from the camel, he managed to sit upright in the saddle, and this position made him feel strong and authoritative once more.

9.

On this particular journey we have to record that Eddy Rancing's powers of endurance did not equal those of Lord Bannister, in spite of the fact that he was much younger. He soon realised that it is not for nothing that camels have been called 'ships of the desert': the undulating movement of the animal he was riding induced in him symptoms that most decidedly resembled sea-sickness. Then too, the dust made his eyes sting so painfully that he could scarcely bear it and there were moments when Eddy felt that he was at the end of his tether.

Evelyn, on the other hand, had had some practice in steeling herself against sea-sickness. Besides, women usually manage to endure the hardships of the tropics more equably than men and she was therefore riding along by the side of the guide in relatively good cheer.

The sun's rays began to lengthen and between the softly contoured sand-dunes stretching away on every side, there appeared tiny shadows, turning the desert into a vast chessboard with alternating squares of light and dark.

Lord Bannister stroked his chin moodily.

"I forgot to shave," he muttered, but broke off as he caught the girl's eye.

She glimpsed the toilet case he had tied between the two goatskins on the water-bearing camel! When they arrived at the oasis he would doubtless retire to a room and shave! Angrily, she hoped he would have to walk about with half an inch of stubble on his chin for the next few days.

As for her own case, she never stopped clutching it.

The desert, where the sand was mingled with the dusty bones of so many people who had been assassinated according to the rules of vendetta, infected Evelyn with the idea of merciless revenge.

She made up her mind to pay off old scores by getting rid of that toilet case for good. She would let the shirting sands of the Sahara swallow up that nuisance of a toilet kit, soap, brush, blades and all.

Much as Othello must have edged his way towards Desdemona's bed so now Evelyn stealthily approached the waterbearing camel, allowing Lord Bannister and the guide to ride ahead. Presently, the treacherous knife flashed, and the leather strap groaned as it was slashed by the blade. There was only a slight thud as the impudent little case dropped into the dust muffling the painful clatter of the clashing toiletware within. Then it was left far behind.

Lord Bannister was preoccupied with his own thoughts and did not notice the incident. Evelyn glanced back. She alone could see that tiny, immobile speck in the distance...

Thus the toilet case was left in the desert-and inside the case was the "Dreaming Buddha" within which there was a diamond worth one million pounds sterling.

10.

"Reg-lak! Reg-lak!"

"We aren't following the normal route, Mademoiselle," said Azrim, the Berber guide.

"Why?"

"It was Allah's will that you gave my daughter an amulet. He has therefore preserved you from grave peril by mixing up your cases and thus causing you to turn back. In this way I learned at home that a lot of bad people were hired in Mellah last night. They have now pitched camp by the desert well, along the caravan route to Marbouk. There is among them a man who yesterday spoke with me and deceived me: he learned from me that you were preparing to go to Marbouk."

Evelyn nearly tumbled down from her saddle.

"I have an idea that those people intend to intercept you by the well, and rob you. But we will make a detour and by-pass them by going through the shott. That's what they call the great salt swamp. It is no longer that way, but the route is a bad one and somewhat dangerous. Still, I should think it's better than death."

The end of the conversation was overheard by Lord Bannister and Eddy.

"Well, they've found me," Evelyn said, almost in tears.

"Who are these people?" asked Lord Bannister.

"A group of intelligence agents and gangsters. They are the men whom the police tried to catch when they made the big raid in Paris."

Lord Bannister reflected.

"Do you seriously intend to hand over the envelope to the proper authorities in Marbouk?"

"Yes, I do."

"And can you face the police with a clear conscience when the matter of the envelope has been cleared up?"

"Certainly."

"Right," Lord Bannister nodded. "In that case we must act like honourable citizens. We must give the police this information so that they can run this gang of dangerous criminals to earth by the desert well on the road to Marbouk."

They looked at him in surprise.

"Once you have handed in the envelope," Lord Bannister explained, "and have nothing more to fear, there is no reason why these enemies of society should not be incarcerated in the place where they belong. Mr. Rancing cannot in any case support all this hardship; on the other hand, I have become hardened in Miss Weston's company; therefore I believe the best idea would be for you, Mr. Rancing, to turn back and inform the police of what has come to our knowledge."

Eddy had no objection to his plan, especially as Evelyn declared that she would appreciate that service just as much as if he were to come with her all the way to Marbouk.

"You can't miss the route," said Azrim. "Ride straight ahead with your back to the setting sun. By evening, you will be in sight of the Great Atlas and from there on you'll have something to guide you."

Eddy took leave of the party, and, cooked tender in his picturesque costume, turned his camel for the return journey, his back to the setting sun...

The rest of the party trotted on, forcing the pace as much as their strength permitted. In the blood-red and violet lights of the westering sun the shadows between the sand dunes looked quite black. The hear of the dust-filled air was stifling, and as they advanced, the sulphurous stench of the putrid salt swamp was wafted more and more heavily towards them.

11.

Eddy urged his camel into a steady canter. The heat was intense, his eyes had become inflamed, he was aching in every limb, and he felt both sick and giddy. But he remembered the appalling day spent in Mügli am See, and the thought that he was away from it all kept him in the saddle.

Conditions here in the Sahara were a good deal better than there, he reflected. By now, Uncle Arthur must either have gone out of his mind or committed suicide. He wondered which. He would have enjoyed seeing what happened after the wedding. There must eventually have arrived the moment when Her Excellency Yakihashi (this was the name Eddy had bestowed on old Wollishoff's so-often-betrothed daughter), presumably with eyes cast down, and wearing one of those amazingly broad smiles, retired to the nuptial bedroom.

And then - ah then, Uncle Arthur would have seized the statuette!

Eddy imagined him stealing quietly away with it to the remotest corner of the park, cautiously avoiding the basement windows behind which Frau Victoria, Head Gardener Krüttikofer's spouse, might be whiling away her time, possibly with Herr Maxl, author of Wilhelm Tell, who would doubtlessly be instructing her on some aspect of the drama. At last, at last, would come the long-awaited moment when, by the light of a torch, he would knock the "Dreaming Buddha" sharply against, the rim of the fountain.

Eddy saw the Buddha break into fragments; he imagined the contents one by one as each item fell from the little enamelled box, the scissors, thimbles, and thread... and he saw Uncle Arthur rummaging among the debris... looking, and looking, but in vain...

Eddy shuddered, and the Sahara seemed to him at that moment a most desirable place to be in!

That was relativity for you! Inflammation of the eyes and 140 deg. Fahrenheit was bliss when compared with marriage to Grete.

The sun sank and now the desert could be seen in all the beauty of a starry African night.

The beard of Achilles. The robbers have no defence against a foul trick. Eddy Rancing discovers that the desert isn't all beer and skittles. He is laughed at by a quite diminutive pilgrim. Lessons from Harrington's daughter stand him in good stead. We learn the lamentable fact that there is scarcely any difference between a razor blade and a self-loading pistol. The toilet case has the last laugh. The fight is over, all are friends and they plan to return a dressing-gown to its rightful owner. Evelyn forgives all. Mr. Bradford, weighing his words carefully, tells us what life is really like.

1.

For twenty-four hours the Adams-Gordon Consolidated Co., as the big bloated doctor had nicknamed their gang, had been encamped together with thirty Arab desperadoes beneath the stunted palm-trees of the desert well.

All the gangsters except Rainer had been to the tropics before; and he had taken every precaution to ensure that he would survive all discomforts. His camel positively rustled with paper parcels. Before their departure from the Sahara, he had made numbers of purchases - all kinds of drugs and preventives, from Aspirins to insect-powders and emollients for saddles. He wore green sunglasses and as he rode, held a parasol above his head.

As soon as they had pitched camp, he rubbed himself with some ointment against mosquitoes, and the resulting aroma was so offensive that the other members of the caravan were compelled to pitch their tents at a safe distance from him, and the tethered camels tugged wildly at the ropes.

After one hour, several of the party took down their tents and pitched them at an even greater distance from Rainer who, however, was not offended; he knew that they were too ignorant to be aware of the dangers against which he was protecting himself, malaria, yellow fever and the sleeping-sickness carried by mosquitoes. Doctor Cournier, however, was curious to know the composition of an anti-mosquito ointment with such a horrible smell, and he took a look at the bottle lying by Rainer's side. He read on the label:

CAMEL GREASE

Rub injured hoof generously. Isolate animal so as to keep air inside
stable from becoming tainted with penetrating smell of ointment.

HOOVES NEED TO BE TAKEN CARE OF!

"I think," Adams said to Gordon, "we'd better drop the idea of trying to sound out this fellow Brandon-Münster. Much better to raid the oasis with our thirty men, capture the bloke and grill him about the Buddha."

"Unless something crops up to prevent us," the doctor remarked.

"There he goes again, the old pessimist," snarled Beefy, who even in the desert wore a dinner-jacket and had also swathed a green ribbon round his sun-helmet.

"You are mistaken. It is not pessimistic to be circumspect," replied the fully qualified poison-retailer reproachfully in his soft, mellifluous voice. He enjoyed little popularity with his collaborators because of his haughty, aristocratic manner. "In my opinion, there's been a little flaw in our scheme. It's an insignificant flaw, but let a single screw work loose and the most complex machine will often break down." He fanned himself with his silk handkerchief: the wind was blowing from Rainer's direction bringing with it a new blast of the overpowering stench. "In my view, the little flaw in our scheme has been the beard of our esteemed friend Yoko."

"I'll thank you not to try to drag me in by my beard," Yoko snorted.

"Come, come," the doctor said, soothingly. "Let's not be touchy now. We have to consider the common interest."

"Very well," said the man with the beard threateningly. "But you'd better consider my beard an Achilles elbow."

"You mean heel, my friend," said the doctor in magisterial tones.

"If I happened to be a doctor," retorted Yoko acrimoniously, "I too would be able to put a name to the various parts of the human body."

"Now, now, my friends, will you kindly shut up," said Adams, calling the litigants to heel. "Or rather let the doctor talk and tell us where he thinks we have gone wrong."

"Eh bien," Dr. Cournier said, "I am afraid we have done the very opposite of what we hoped to do. Yesterday, Mr. Yoko got information from the guide about the Weston girl by pretending that he wanted to go to Ain Sefra. Later on, he accompanied you, Monsieur Gordon, when you hired Arabs for our raid on Marbouk. Yoko has such an... er... conspicuous exterior that he must have been noticed and people would realise that he intended to go to Marbouk, not Ain Sefra."

"That is possible," Gordon agreed. "Still, it's not likely that anyone found it particularly suspicious or extraordinary."

"That's why I compared this little flaw to a small screw."

Towards the evening of the following day, they began to grow impatient; the victims ought to have arrived by now.

A few Arabs were sent out to reconnoitre. They were told that it was essential for them to discover whether the girl was on the way already. If her party could not be seen anywhere near by, then something had gone wrong.

It was very hot. Everyone gave Rainer a wide berth as if he was a leper, but the unbearable smell of his ointment made their stomachs heave even at a distance of twenty yards. Only the mosquitoes could endure the ointment: they swarmed round the bespectacled fellow and bit him till the blood spurted.

The patrol returned.

"We have seen their traces," they reported. "We could see the marks left by their camels. They have veered off to the east along a very bad track through the shott. Nobody ever uses it."

"Get going, everybody!" Adams cried excitedly.

They broke camp in a matter of minutes. Rainer slipped his crossword puzzle into his pocket, put on his dark sunglasses, and opened his sunshade. He looked like one of the magi.

The camels trotted on as fast as they could and in the first light of dawn a moving speck could be seen in the distance.

"It's a traveller!"

"We'll wait for him," said Gordon; and the gang concealed themselves behind a huge sand dune.

"He is following the tracks made by the party we're after," one of the Arabs said. "He must either have seen them or be one of them."

The traveller approached, prodding his tired camel unsuspectingly towards the great dune.

2.

Thus it was that in a matter of seconds Eddy Rancing found himself surrounded by a gang of men led by a short, stocky fellow who asked:

"Where are you from?"

Eddy guessed immediately that he was face to face with the gangsters!

"I was heading for Marbouk, but I have had to turn back. My eyes are hurting."

"Did you by any chance meet a woman travelling with one or more companions?"

"No, I didn't."

Gordon laughed.

"So you're one of them. The question was a trap. You are following their track in the reverse direction. Therefore you must have met them. If you deny it you must have a good reason for doing so."

"Let's go!" cried Beefy. "We may overtake them yet!"

"Get rid of this bloke!"

Eddy was aware of an arrow of pain in his head; he saw clusters of gold stars, then fell senseless to the dust.

Beefy had knocked him out with one blow. Then he and Yoko frisked Eddy with lightning speed while Rainer called from the saddle:

"See if he's got some petrol. My lighter's run dry." He put on his pince-nez the better to supervise the search.

"It's just as I have said," purred the creamy voice of Dr. Cournier. "They've found out that we've been hiring men. Yoko's full beard is too conspicuous."

"Listen!" Yoko retorted threateningly. "For the last time I'm warning you to leave my beard out of it. You're just as conspicuous with your impossible dimensions and that crooning voice of yours."

"You ought to take bromide," the doctor suggested.

"Masters!" one of the Arabs butted in. "Now it's quite sure they've taken the road through the shott. It's a bad road, and dangerous, but Azrim knows it well. If they turned in that direction yesterday afternoon, we shan't be able to overtake them, for they'll have reached Marbouk tomorrow afternoon, whereas we'll only get there by tomorrow night."

"Now is there any other way of playing foul with gangsters?" Rainer complained indignantly.

"What is the population of Marbouk?" Adams asked.

"A few Arabs - some thirty of them, and their women and children. Then there is a garrison of five soldiers at the sanatorium, and also a few invalid members of the legion."

"It won't take us long to settle them! Let's go!" Gordon exclaimed.

One of the Arabs wanted to shoot Rancing, but the doctor would not allow him.

"Don't do it, my boy," he said in his kindliest tones. "He'll die anyway. Take away his camel and that'll do. If we should get nabbed, a trifle like that can make several years' difference."

Then they all trotted away, leaving Eddy Rancing spread-eagled on the sand as if trying to embrace the entire Sahara.

3.

Azrim led the caravan; he was followed by Evelyn, while Lord Bannister brought up the rear following close after the water-bearing camel which was hitched to his own mount by a short halter, for the path across the dangerous salt swamp was exactly two feet wide. Their progress was noisy for the path crunched beneath the camels' hooves and a cold, white mud would rise now and then from under its caked crust; this ancient slime is said to have been the bed of an ocean long ages ago.

It was a fine moonlit night. The shott gleamed faintly in the white light like the surface of a river covered with huge blocks of ice; it was even more bleak and desolate than the desert.

The camels would split and paw the ground, not wanting to go any farther. The cracked crust of salt hurt their hooves, and instinct told them that death was lying in wait for them here. Azrim had to use his stick frequently; the animals brayed and kicked. Fear clutched Evelyn by the throat.

The wind stirred up the thin layer of salt that covered the swamp like powdered dust, and swept it along in rustling clouds beside them.

Lord Bannister did not speak. He saw that the itinerary had been changed. But that was nothing unusual, of course. They had already abandoned the original plan. Now they were being followed again. There would be no stopping till they came to the Equator. And what sort of a state would they all be in then?

His face and hands were fumed over with a cold, sticky deposit of salt.

At one point the water-bearing camel stumbled from the path and began to struggle through the soft mud, braying hideously all the time. It was a miracle that Lord Bannister's own mount was not dragged after it by the halter tethering the two animals. Luckily, Lord Bannister had sufficient presence of mind to lean heavily backwards, pulling at the bridle with both hands until Azrim came to his assistance. The guide slashed the taut halter, then tried to pull the writhing animal out of the swamp.

It had already sunk into the mud as far as its belly, but their united strength was enough to drag it back somehow on to the firm path. In the meantime, Lord Bannister had stumbled and sunk up to his knees in the rotting weeds that bordered the track.

Evelyn looked imploringly towards Lord Bannister, in a silent appeal for forgiveness as he struggled back on to the path, his legs coated with the loathsome mud.

Lord Bannister sighed and made a deprecating gesture with one hand.

"It's a difficult thing to be a humanitarian, Miss Weston," he said. "Maybe I'll stop trying if I have to take many more of these journeys."

In the morning, worn out and covered with mud they arrived at Marbouk.

There were only two buildings in the oasis: a forbidding-looking adobe hut which served as an inn, and at a little distance, the painted block-house of the military convalescence camp. An Arab douar consisting of a few tents formed the main square of the place.

They asked for tea to be served immediately and while this was being prepared they quickly changed into clean clothes. The need to have a shave never entered Lord Bannister's head, so keen was he on having a hot cup of tea.

As soon as breakfast was over, Evelyn rose from the table.

"I'm going straight to the hospital to hand the document over to the military authorities. I would like you to come with me."

Lord Bannister sighed.

"Forward, forward, all the time; it seems we must always be on the move. And once you've got going, there's no knowing when you can sit down again."

"I wish you'd stop brooding, Lord Bannister. Are you coming or are you not?"

"I am not. Now that you are here, you can't possibly go anywhere except to the only other building in the oasis, and that building is a military establishment. You couldn't possibly sally forth into the desert on foot, so I can safely let you go. Besides, I am beginning to believe you when you say that your mission is an honourable one. Don't know why. Perhaps this fellow Rancing had convinced me with his story about the house in the King's Road. I have confidence in you, Miss Weston. And so I am putting my honour, too, into your hand together with this envelope. Here you are."

He handed the case to her.

She looked at him earnestly.

"Thank you. You may rest assured that I'll guard your honour as jealously as I guard my own."

"Besides... I hope you don't mind... Er... I'd like to have a shave." He spoke anxiously, suspecting that she would resent his intention. God alone knew why she was so keen for him to grow a beard. And sure enough, her eyes flashed angrily.

"Ah! So that's what lies behind your newborn confidence in me! If your chin were smooth you would be certain to accompany me, wouldn't you? Under the circumstances, however, you are compelled to have confidence in me, since tidiness is, perhaps, even more important to you than honour."

Angrily, she walked out of the room and banged the door. Let the horrid man go and look for his razor! In the desert if he had a mind to. She felt like crying. Most irritating of all was the knowledge that she did in fact love this horrible prig.

Lord Bannister went up to his room. Already the heat of the sun was scorching, and the walls of the adobe hut gave out a fusty smell. The matting was alive with vermin and everywhere there was the buzzing of insects. From downstairs came the incessant throaty chanting of the innkeeper, an Arab half-demented from too much hashish.

Poor girl. A trip like that behind her and she didn't even bother to take a rest. He felt ashamed of his own weariness and decided to do something to please her.

He would not shave!

Then she would realise, when she came back, that it was not because he had wanted to have a shave that he had let her go by herself. That was what he would do. Uncomfortable though it might be, to prove the genuineness of his trust in her, he would for the first time in his life disregard the stubble on his chin. Though from what he knew of her, he might well grow a beard that reached down to his waist before earning one word of approval from her.

He decided to go to bed. It seemed a very sensible procedure, for there was no knowing if he would be wakened or not, and perhaps even told to go on some long and urgent journey. The girl averred that their travels had come to an end, but a scientist must always weigh the evidence before agreeing to any statement and he had observed that on more than one occasion when he had felt free to enjoy a respite from worry, his freedom had turned out to be quite illusory.

Lord Bannister therefore decided to forego his shave and instead lay down on the mat to sleep.

4.

There were eight patients in the neat and cheerful ward: eight convalescent soldiers with bronzed faces. They were chatting, playing cards and smoking. But one of their number was standing apart, his back turned to his comrades, looking out of the window.

There was a knock on the door and Evelyn entered the ward, saying clearly and firmly,

"I am looking for M. Münster."

The soldier who was standing by the window slowly turned round and looked at the visitor; there was an expression of lethargic indifference on his drawn and sickly face. The other convalescents turned in surprise and stared at the pretty girl with every indication of interest; Münster gave her the same blank stare which a moment before he had bestowed on the garden bench. It was not the unknowing regard of the mentally afflicted but the unfocused stare of someone whose thoughts were habitually turned towards the past and who now went through the motions of living, like an automaton. His reply, drawling and soft, was nevertheless distinct:

"I am Münster. What can I do for you?"

"I am Lady... I mean I'm Miss... I wonder if you could come into the garden with me?"

"As you please."

He followed her with steady, measured strides.

She was overcome with nervousness and quite forgot her own troubles in her pity for Brandon. She was face to face with the principal character of a drama long since played out. His reason had not become clouded, but he was living the numbed existence of one who no longer feels anything. What should she tell him?

When they were alone together in the garden she began,

"I know who you are. Your real name is Brandon and you used to be a Lieutenant-Commander."

"Really." He spoke with polite indifference.

"I know your tragedy. Indeed, better than you do."

"Yes?" This too sounded hollow as when one strikes the same note on the piano twice in succession.

"First of all, I have to inform you that your younger brother was innocent."

She was watching closely and saw him wince. So he could still feel and suffer. He frowned and looked at her severely.

"Who are you?"

"Someone who knows the truth about your case and who has come here to rehabilitate you. Your brother was just as innocent as you are. It was Wilmington, your brother-in-law, who did it."

Then she told him the whole story, from Miss Ardfern's betrayal of young Brandon to the farewell note which Wilmington had made use of after stealing the map. The soldier sat down and put a hand to his side as if his wound was troubling him.

"Yes," he said, musingly. "Probably that is what happened. I don't know where you got your facts, but I believe you. However no one would believe me. But it's no longer of any importance to me, I assure you."

"If you were able to give back the stolen map intact, with the seals unbroken... Would that rehabilitate you?"

"That envelope has long since been passed on to certain people to whom it is extremely valuable and who have long since broken the seals and read the contents."

"Would you please answer my question? What would happen if you could bring a witness who would swear to the truth of what I have told you and produce the envelope with the seals unbroken?"

"Well, in that case... Well, then..." A gleam of interest appeared in his eyes, and his face kindled. "In that case not only could my innocence be proved, but I should render a service..."

"Here you are."

She handed him the envelope. As he stared at it colour rose to his cheeks and brightness to his eyes. Then the brightness fell and splashed his tunic.

"Who are you?" he asked huskily; the envelope trembled in his hand.

"My name is Evelyn Weston. I am worth a hundred thousand francs - dead or alive."

She handed him the newspaper, which she had kept with the envelope in her small leather case.

After perusing the paper, Brandon sat in silent thought for some time.

"I wonder why you have gone to such trouble to bring me this means of proving my innocence. Why should you...?"

"Because there is something you can do for me. I am looking for a small box surmounted by a ceramic statuette representing Buddha. You bought it from Messrs. Longson and North fifteen years ago."

"Buddha... Why, yes! I remember... I bought it for my elder brother as a Christmas gift. Of course! It's an enamelled box with a statuette of Buddha on the lid. He has a fancy for that kind of thing, you know."

"Who is your elder brother?"

"Lord Bannister... Why, what? I say, corporal! Bring some water! She's faulted! Quick!"

5.

It was dusk when Evelyn and the soldier returned to the inn. The simple-minded, hashish-smoking innkeeper was squatting at the entrance, chanting the same three and a half notes as before. They learned from him that his lordship was not yet down.

They went upstairs, but at the door Evelyn stopped Brandon, saying,

"Perhaps I had better prepare him for the news."

She knocked. There was no reply so she opened the door a little and peeped inside. His lordship, still wearing his clothes, was lying on the mat among the seething insects, and was fast asleep. He certainly looked both battered and exhausted.

She touched his shoulder, but he did not wake up.

Then she shook him vigorously and he opened his eyes. Immediately he recognized that he was in a familiar situation and felt no surprise. Sadly, he heaved himself to his feet.

"We're leaving?" he asked, and started for the window. "Any ladder?"

"We aren't leaving for anywhere."

"Must we hide then?" he asked, a shade more sadly, but still without demur.

"Lord Bannister," she said with an unusual display of emotion which his lordship thought has been aroused by the sight of his stubby chin. "You will be pleased to see someone you haven't seen for a long time."

"I knew it! Holler has found his way here!"

"It's someone... a man... you lost touch with long ago." His face darkened a little, and he looked at her searchingly. "It is a man to whom you are very devoted. He is the same person for whose honour we have braved so many deadly perils."

She opened the door and Brandon entered the room.

It is only in old plays that on occasions like this people make elaborate tests to show that they are not dreaming. These two men did no such thing. Nor did they proclaim their relationship, firing at each other the one word "Brother!" for this was something that they had learnt in early youth. They embraced in silence, then clasped hands and spoke never a word.

It was some time before they felt calm enough to be able to say anything.

Evelyn, of course, had had no idea that the man with whom she had crossed the Channel was brother to the very Lieutenant-Commander Brandon she had set out to trace, and, thanks to Lord Bannister's aloofness and reserve, she had never had occasion to acquaint him with the facts.

"What do you propose to do now?" Lord Bannister asked his brother. "You must immediately set about clearing yourself of the charges of treason and dishonesty! Mustn't bear it a minute more."

"As a member of the Legion, I must report the case to Headquarters in Morocco. As the French are as interested in this map as the English, I hope they will not take the information through the usual official channels."

"Miss Weston..." Lord Bannister turned to Evelyn in embarrassment, and stroked his bristling chin. "I will now... I'll have to..."

She replied in a dignified and distant fashion.

"I hope you realise that it was really to restore someone's honour that I have troubled you now and then. I am sorry, after all, a gentleman's life is not a pub in which anyone can come in and go out as he pleases."

Brandon looked searchingly first at the girl then at his brother. He had never seen his brother looking as neglected and morose as at this moment when he lowered his eyes, muttering some indistinguishable words.

"Oh, by the way," Brandon said abruptly. "Miss Weston is looking for some old family jewel..."

"I seem to have heard about that," Lord Bannister muttered, shuddering slightly.

"To find it, she will need that small box with a little statuette of a Buddha on it," Brandon continued. "I bought it for you as a Christmas present. You may remember..."

"Why didn't you say so?" exclaimed Lord Bannister enthusiastically. "The statuette and the box are at your disposal at any time, Miss Weston."

"The best idea would be for me to send a cable to my mother," she said excitedly, "and for you to instruct the staff at your place in London that they are to hand the Dreaming Buddha over to Mrs. Weston."

"It's absolutely unnecessary," Lord Bannister smiled. "We have the little Buddha with us here."

Evelyn's blood drummed wildly in her temples and chest.

"Where?"

"In my toilet case. He is sitting at this moment on top of my shaving kit... Why! Miss Weston! Quick, bring some water! She's fainted."

For the second time that day Evelyn fell to the floor unconscious.

6.

The atmosphere was heavy with gloom. When the two men had listened to Evelyn's story of the perilous situation in which she had found herself, and of her wild flight, whose greatest thrills Lord Bannister had shared, the tragicomical aspect of the situation made them shudder.

She had thrown her fortune away with her own hand!

Her vendetta against Lord Bannister's toilet case had ended; and it was she who had been laid low.

"We'll send out search parties to comb the desert," Lord Bannister mumbled when he noticed the melancholy expression with which she was watching the antics of the centipedes on the floor of beaten clay.

Lord Bannister himself was aware that his suggestion was perfectly hopeless. It was ludicrous to think of trying to find a toilet case in the middle of the desert where the sand was driven by the wind into a new position every day, sometimes burying entire caravans in an hour.

Evelyn looked at the men with a strange, melancholy smile on her lips.

"No use crying over spilt milk," she said. "It was God's will that I went in search of the diamond and found the envelope. A soldier's honour is worth at least as much as the finest diamond."

"Your efforts, of course..."

"I hope, Lord Bannister," she cut him off resolutely, "that you do not intend to offend me by offering me a 'fitting reward'?"

There was silence for some minutes before Lord Bannister burst out.

"The thing was within your reach all the time. Why, already on the channel boat, it was actually in the cabin with you. You would have left it in the road near Lyons, had I not insisted that we must drive back to get it! That's what women are. They will cheerfully throw something away a dozen times, but when it has really gone for good, then they realise that it was their most cherished treasure."

"That remark rivals your quotation from Aristotle," Evelyn remarked somewhat spitefully. She realised that there were times when he did not appreciate as he ought to have done, her attempt to restore his brother's honour. "I have an uncle who has a gift for coining better sayings than that. It's his opinion that many men are like a dress suit: absolutely useless when out of place."

Lord Bannister blushed.

"I, too, have incurred a grievous loss," he replied heatedly. "I was fond of that shaving Buddha. And as for the dress suit, though a main road may not have been the proper place to wear it, I think I didn't give a bad account of myself."

"You wouldn't have come along with me, had it not been to save your skin."

"Miss Weston... you... you are being unfair!"

"Ungrateful was the word you wanted to say. Go ahead. Say it."

They chased each other round the room, hurling insults like two children. Lord Bannister even banged the table.

"Hurting each other won't do any good at all," Brandon opined.

They relapsed into silence. Evelyn wept. Lord Bannister muttered.

"It's time," Brandon said, "to settle this business of the envelope. I will now get through to Headquarters and make my report. We can't let you go on being wanted by the police.

"My brother and I will testify that you have risked your life to recover this vital document for your country."

Suddenly, they heard the blast of a trumpet. The alarm was being sounded.

7.

Before the days of wireless, lights were used to flash messages between the oases. On this particular evening lights were once again seen signalling in the distance: it was an appeal for help, repeated some fifty times and those who sent the desperate message were clearly without a radio transmitter.

"Gangsters... raid... oasis... Marbouk... S.O.S... Gangsters... raid... oasis... Marbouk... S.O.S..."

The message was not only an appeal for help but also a warning of danger.

The garrison of five rounded up all the inhabitants into the fort-like military hospital: a few old Arabs, several children, some eight to ten invalid soldiers and the small garrison-not exactly a community which could be expected to put up a very strong resistance.

"Who can these raiders be?" wondered the Commanding Officer.

"Miss Weston and I can tell you that," Lord Bannister said calmly, accepting one of the rifles that were being distributed. "It's a gang of common thieves and murderers plus a number of Arab marauders led by a spy who is wanted all over Europe and who goes by the name of Adams. We can expect that they will number at least fifty men."

"In that case we're as good as dead."

"That's what I think, too," Lord Bannister agreed quietly.

8.

Eddy Rancing was awakened by a nauseatingly evil smell. He felt a piece of hot wet meat moving over his face. He was being licked by a hyena.

He sat up in alarm. The hyena growled and jumped back. The young man summoned all his strength, whipped out his gun and drove the beast away by firing a number of shots.

The heat was intense, the sun blazing mercilessly over the parched desert. His head was aching and there was a huge swelling on the place where he had been hit. He struggled to his feet, and started to stagger forward scarcely conscious of what he was doing.

Behind an unusually high sand-dune he found enough shadow to be able to sit out of the sun's rays. He bowed his aching head and cupped his chin in his palms.

It was the end.

It was going to be a rather hackneyed death. Desert, thirst and all that. He might have guessed. Everything had gone wrong from the very start. This was what came of running after diamonds...

He was breathing with difficulty, for the dust irritated his lungs; his tongue became swollen and his lips, also swollen, became chapped. His skin began to itch unbearably as all the moisture evaporated almost visibly from his body. "Water makes up two-thirds of the human body," he remembered from his lessons at school. This two-thirds would evaporate here pretty soon. Then he would be lying in the sand, a shrivelled corpse, like those of the medieval monks that were hung in their cassocks on the walls of the vaults of ancient monasteries.

He began to gasp for water; half-mad with thirst, he started off once more into the desert. The enormous disc of the sun was veiled now behind clouds of yellow dust and was beginning to sink towards the horizon where there was an area of peculiar radiance in which human figures mounted on camels were moving upside down.

Eddy, stumbling and faltering, walked on until the sun exploded in a blaze of violet and disappeared behind the farthest sand-dunes.

He stumbled and fell full length to the ground. He had not the strength to rise again. He crept on his stomach towards the dark object which had tripped him up and picked up a leather toilet case.

With trembling hands he snapped it open, thinking only that it might contain water. As he fumbled with the case the moon appeared and shed a faint glow across the sky. Then Eddy lifted out of the case a large smooth object which he set down in the dust so that he could examine it.

Eddy Rancing found himself eyeing the Dreaming Buddha! There he was, sitting on top of his enamelled box; his head bowed as if he was ashamed of the whole business. They had met at journey's end: in the Sahara.

You got what you deserved, Eddy Rancing, he thought. Not for nothing have you endured all these hardships. There! It's yours now! Drink it!

For he knew that this was the real thing. This one contained the diamond and no mistake. Why he felt so sure was not important; but he had no doubt whatever! He had only to give it a sharp knock against some rock, and the diamond would be revealed.

Eddy Rancing began to shriek with laughter. He rolled on his back in the dust of the desert, flung his arms wide, and laughed at the top of his voice; he laughed hideously, his face distorted by a thousand wrinkles.

The Buddha watched him silently.

9.

After midnight, when the sand of the Sahara, having made haste to give out the heat it had absorbed during the day, becomes almost as cold as ice, Eddy Rancing revived. Death does not come so easily in the desert; when the atmosphere is cooler, there is less evaporation of humidity from the body and remaining fluids start circulating once again. Thus nature forced Eddy into a renewed consciousness of his terrible position.

He could see the Buddha sitting motionless in front of him, head bowed as if watching over his death. But he felt indifferent to his fate. He reached his hand into the toilet case and pulled out a convex mirror, a comb, a torch, a book, a shaving stick... and a bottle!

Quickly he unscrewed the cap of the bottle and sniffed the mildly mentholated fragrance of its contents. He drained the bottle in one gulp. He had never had a more delicious drink than this half pint of lukewarm Harris & Crompton gargle. Little did Messrs. Harris & Crompton dream that Edward Rancing would one day rate their "mildly aromatic Dandy gargle" higher than every kind of cocktail, wine and champagne.

He revived sufficiently to be able to sit up. He seemed to feel the gargle coursing through his veins. And its mildly mentholated aroma was indeed refreshing.

He took hold of the Buddha, intending to smash the little statuette. However, he changed his mind. That diamond might as well stay where it was until he was once again in a safe place. The thought of the diamond reminded him of Oasis Marbouk, Evelyn and the gangsters. He remembered that the gangsters were about to raid the oasis where Evelyn and Lord Bannister would now be resting, all unaware that death was marching towards them.

He wondered idly what he could do to help them and immediately the answer flashed into his mind. It had not been for nothing that he had flirted with a lighthouse-keeper's daughter. He looked wryly at the Buddha and thought that here in the Sahara you had to be ready to acquire a new set of valves. It was the Morse Code, not the diamond, that would be most useful to him now.

He switched on the torch, and held the mirror in front of it. Then, just as he had learned from grim Pop Harrington's daughter, he alternately covered the magnifying mirror and held it against the light, thus producing the letters of the Morse alphabet: short, long, short; short, long, short...

The signals could be seen miles away in the darkness.

"Gangsters... raid... oasis... marbouk... S.O.S..."

He kept on signalling until the mirror dropped from his hand and he rolled over, exhausted. With the last ounce of his strength he turned the torch so that its beam was directed perpendicularly into the sky. That was what saved his life.

"That's where the signals came from! Look at that long shaft of light!" exclaimed P. J. Holler, who now had a leather bag slung round his neck, since camels, like aeroplanes, had a rather depressing effect on him.

10.

Outside the fortress-hospital, the gangsters were somewhat checked by the first volley from within. About half a dozen Arabs dismounted head first from their camels.

"Get back!" Adams yelled.

The raiders fell back among the palm-trees and opened fire from this cover.

A bullet hit the window-frame beside Lord Bannister's head, and sent splinters of wood flying in every direction. Lord Bannister did not bat an eyelid but went on firing. Only when Evelyn screamed softly, he glanced in her direction.

"Now you can see, Miss Weston, that a gentleman can wield other weapons besides his razor. I recall how during the war - they can certainly shoot," he muttered, somewhat surprised. He did not finish telling her what had happened in the war.

The gangsters were firing sporadically. There was no doubt but that they were working to a plan, and this was soon revealed. The ward filled with a peculiar, acrid smell.

"Something's burning!" cried the Commanding Officer.

An Arab came running in.

"Some cursed dog has got behind the building and thrown a lighted torch unto the roof!"

They could hear a crackling noise like the rattle of a machine-gun. The fire was spreading, and there was no possibility of them being able to put it out since anyone who ventured to expose himself on the roof would be a sitting target for the enemy.

"Miss Weston," Lord Bannister said, "you may need this."

He handed her an automatic.

"Thank you," she said.

Flames were shooting from the roof; the room filled with smoke which became so dense that they could scarcely breathe. Rats scurried between the feet of the defenders.

"The envelope!" cried Brandon; the others were coughing so much that they could not speak.

Lord Bannister understood what was in his brother's mind. The envelope would have to be destroyed to prevent it from falling into the gangsters' hands.

Bullets rained into the room as the gangsters prepared for a general assault. There was the crash of shattered glass as the window-panes fell in and the thud of overturned furniture. Lord Bannister, holding his lighter, edged his way towards the envelope with the five seals, which Brandon was holding up so that his brother could put a light to it.

Evelyn, deathly pale, was standing with her back to the wall, clutching her Browning. A bullet pierced the medicine-chest next to her head but she did not even notice. Her gaze was riveted on the envelope, and her heart was heavy. The envelope would be destroyed and they would all die. The whole undertaking had been in vain.

But in the second before Lord Bannister could flick on his lighter, all were startled by a sudden volley of firing close at hand and the simultaneous peal of a bugle.

A troop of fierce spahis had arrived on the scene, led by a tame editor wearing a leather bag suspended round his neck.

11.

When a photograph of Miss Evelyn Weston appeared in all the morning papers, P. J. Holler almost choked. He was eating fried fish when he noticed it and a mouthful went down the wrong way.

He recognised the face as that of Lady Bannister. He was at first dumbfounded to think that Lady Bannister could be an intelligence agent. And it was inconceivable to think of her as a burgler and a murderer. And yet, and yet... he remembered that it had been on the very evening of the envelope robbery that she had turned up with her dress torn and spattered with mud. He remembered that Lord Bannister had nearly choked when he had been shown the newspaper account in the plane from Lyons. And why had that pedantic peer dressed up as a Tyrolese folk singer? And there were other unanswered questions too.

What could he possibly do? He was absolutely certain that Evelyn Weston and Lady Bannister were one and the same person. But he could not afford to discount the remote chance that this was not so.

"Careful, Peter Jerry," he told himself. "Keep your wits about you."

He would have to go after her. Where was it that she had gone to? Oh, yes. Oasis Marbouk! But first he would have to go and see Lord Bannister.

At Lord Bannister's villa, he was told that the scientist had left in the company of a lady and a visitor. The valet, new in Lord Bannister's employ, could not tell him whether or not the lady was his lordship's wife.

"Look here, my man," P. J. Holler said nervously. "You're not a stranger in this town. I want you to go out and hire twenty reliable men who would be willing to come with me immediately to Oasis Marbouk. I want to go to your master's assistance, as I believe he is in danger. Here are five hundred francs in advance."

Within an hour, the valet had the caravan ready, complete with guide, water-carrier and provisions; and he had attached himself to the rescue party too.

Thus P. J. Holler set out to do his own detective work. The questions to which he wanted an answer were.

a) Who is Münster, the man Evelyn Weston has been looking for?

b) Are Lady Bannister and Evelyn Weston one and the same person?

If so, what is Lord Bannister's connection with the affair? If she was a spy, then he, P. J. Holler, intended to run her to earth as well as all her cronies. What a headline! If she was not a spy, he would claim to be visiting Oasis Marbouk, which he had every right to do, and he would in no way lose face. He scarcely contemplated the idea of informing the police. He felt that his position as a British newspaper man entitled him to the right to make his own investigations. If he failed, then the detectives could take on the job.

And as there is a special guardian angel to protect journalists on their journeys, P. J. Holler ran into a detachment of spahis by the ruins of the ancient Latin city in the desert. Nor was this enough. The officer in charge of the spahis turned out to be Lieutenant Villers, an old acquaintance of his from the time of the Riff War, when he had worked at General Headquarters as a war correspondent!

"Hello, Holler!" the lieutenant greeted him. "Why, you look like a real Bedouin out of the latest revue of the Follies Bergeres."

"Hello, Villers! What on earth are you doing in a Latin city where the night-clubs have been closed for the last thousand years and there's no jazz?"

"Patrol, sir. Forty-eight hours on patrol duty. Where are you heading for?"

"I'm going to Oasis Marbouk. I'm on holiday, and I'm going everywhere where I've no business to be."

"Then allow me to provide a gala escort for the British press. I'll see you as far as the desert well."

But when darkness fell Lieutenant Villers did not return to his base. From that moment, the detachment of spahis rode hell for leather onwards, together with P. J. Holler, for the officer had seen and interpreted the light signals.

On the way, they found Eddy Rancing, whom Lord Bannister's valet and a few of the Arabs escorted back to the town. The spahis, led by a harassed P. J. Holler, pushed on towards Marbouk at breakneck speed.

They were just in time.

Gordon, Dr. Cournier and Beefy were killed by the first volley. The others, including Adams, were handcuffed. Rainer was still giving off an offensive smell, which made it impossible for him to be questioned at the moment. As they tied him up by the wrists, he said resignedly:

"I have never before had a wish come true so quickly. All day long, I have been wishing I could stay in some cool place for a good long time. It certainly looks as though my wish will come true this time."

And it did.

12.

For the first time in his life, Lord Bannister truly meant the phrase he had so often repeated on previous occasions merely out of politeness:

"I'm very glad to see you, my dear Holler."

The editor rolled his eyes and breathed heavily.

"Gimme some pickles... or a lemon. Damn that camel. He was rocking so vehemently there were times I thought I'd go down between his humps. Gimme some pickles."

In the meantime, Lieutenant Villers had got through to G.H.Q. and G.H.Q. called the British Embassy in Paris, and both Legionary Münster-Brandon and Lord Bannister spoke on the line, too.

Then the caravan set out on the return journey to Marrakesh. It was headed by Lord Bannister and his brother, Evelyn with her leather-bag and P.J.Holler (who had obtained an abundant supply of pickled gherkins). Holler knew that with his usual luck he had landed one of his big scoops. Lord Bannister had promised to tell him all that he thought could be safely divulged to the public, and had given his hand on it that Holler had an option on the story.

Once again they were assembled in the drawing-room of Lord Bannister's villa. All round the house and garden spahis were strolling as if by chance. The gangsters were now being questioned. Telephone messages were received and transmitted, and Evelyn was interviewed by military intelligence officers. Once her part in the affair had been elucidated, her exploits were invested with glory. However, Evelyn was sitting tired and dispirited in Lord Bannister's drawing-room in which a fireplace added national atmosphere to a room which was already furnished in a uniquely British style; it was a strange room to find in Africa.

Evelyn was saddened by the thought of all the hardships she had endured in vain.

"A rotten business," Lord Bannister remarked sadly.

"What business?" Holler inquired, sniffing like the news-hound that he was.

"Oh, nothing," said Lord Bannister. "I've lost my shaving kit. A small enamelled box. Very distressing. Used to be there on the mantelpiece, and..."

He flung an arm casually in the direction of the mantelpiece turned his head, and remained in this position as if frozen. His jaw dropped and everyone looked in the direction to which he was pointing.

Sitting with bowed head on the lid of an enamelled box on the mantelpiece, was the Dreaming Buddha.

Lord Bannister, Evelyn and Brandon rose as one man and started towards the object as if mesmerised. Lord Bannister was the first to lay his hand on it. Then they all stood as if transfixed.

"Why, that's your shaving kit all right, Lord Bannister," exclaimed P. J. Holler. "We found it lying beside the open toilet case where we picked up that young man. It looked as if he had known what to do with your gargle. Your toilet case saved his life, and he saved our lives with his torch. Your valet brought the young man here and, of course, he brought home everything that young gentleman had failed to make use of. I won't go bail for anything except the shaving block, though."

But no one was listening to P. J. Holler. Three pairs of gleaming eyes stared at the Buddha. That was what had saved them all!

But what could an oriental prophet expect in return for a miracle he had wrought? Not gratitude. As the parable tells us, he could not even expect that in his own country. They noted the fact that he had saved their lives by way of a miracle. Then - then they dashed it with all their might to the floor so that it broke into a thousand pieces.

Just as the aged convict had imagined in his dreams, the diamond sparkled out of the ruined statuette. They rubbed the clay from it and the diamond was revealed in all its fabulous beauty. Four pairs of eyes looked at it as if mesmerised, much as the late Jim Hogan had looked at it when Prince Radovsky handed it to him with a princely gesture.

13.

During the next twelve hours there were many urgent telephone calls to be made between Marrakesh, Paris and London. The military alliance between France and Britain rendered the matter as vital to the French authorities as it was to the British. As a result of these telephone calls, a certain member of the Legion by the name of Minister was declared by the medical officer to be unfit for military service because of his wound, and the legionary was demobilised forthwith. The very same day he flew to London, taking with him, in his attaché case, an orange-coloured envelope sealed with five seals.

Miss Evelyn Weston was front-page news in the French newspapers. She was their heroine. Miss Weston had risked her life to save a military document of such importance that if it had been lost it could not have been replaced. Pursued by the French police, she had evaded them that she might hand the document intact to the military authorities who could best deal with it. Miss Weston and Wilmington (who had since been killed) had provided evidence which had established the innocence of the unfortunate Lieutenant-Commander Brandon and cleared him of the charge of espionage.

It was Brandon who had been used by that same Wilmington who had been murdered in his Paris flat. All this had been endorsed by evidence taken from the dangerous spy Adams, who had been arrested in the Sahara. Miss Weston had produced witnesses and documentary evidence to prove that she had called at the deceased Wilmington's place in quest of her rightful legacy. A British Naval court-martial was meeting to examine the case of Lieutenant-Commander Brandon, who had voluntarily asked to have his case re-opened. It was confidently expected that as a result of the enquiry Brandon would be rehabilitated.

14.

Evelyn and Lord Bannister were hovering, somewhat irresolutely in a shady corner of the garden. For some time now they had been lingering there chatting idly and absent-mindedly.

Each was thinking of the other.

At last, Lord Bannister cleared his throat and spoke.

"Do you think you can forgive me?"

"I cannot."

She is paying me back in my own coin, he thought, and was at a loss what to say next.

"Can you remember by any chance," he went on at last, "the name of the village where I wanted to sleep that night? I would like to return the innkeeper's dressing-gown. He may be in need of it, poor fellow."

"You can give it to me. I can call in there on my way home. It's called La Roselle. I'm sure I'm not likely to forget the name."

"I say, why can't you forgive me? Such cold-heartedness is not becoming in a young lady, you know."

"I cannot possibly forgive you because you haven't offended me, Henry. Have I your permission to address you like that in Holler's absence?"

"I would much rather have you use my title... Ahem... What do you think? I think it's a bit cold out here. I mean to say..." His lordship was overcome with embarrassment. However, his embarrassment diminished when Evelyn placed both her hands on his shoulders. Then they looked wonderingly into each other's eyes.

15.

Eddy Rancing came off best among the participants of this adventure. Having sown his wild oats, he sobered down. First he was feted as the hero of Oasis Marbouk. Messrs. Harris & Crompton paid him five thousand pounds for an advertisement in which he told the world that he owed his life solely to the mildly aromatic Dandy gargle. ("Indispensable in deserts.") In another statement, Mr. Rancing eulogised the "high nutritive value of the Dandy Vitamin Cream."

He agreed to stay in Africa as Lord Bannister's private secretary, the most prudent decision of his life.

In the highways and byways of London, eyebrows were often raised at the approach of an impeccably dressed white-haired gentleman carrying a horsewhip and obviously searching for someone. This gentleman was looking for Edward Frederic George Henry Rancing, and his own name was Mr. Arthur (Bede Cecil David) Rancing. He had fled from Mügli am See, Switzerland one stormy night leaving his luggage behind; and Mrs. Grete Rancing (nee Wollishoff) was sitting, surrounded by her cats, hourly expecting his return.

16.

All were assembled at Lord Bannister's house in London. His lordship had returned with his young wife from their honeymoon barely twenty-four hours earlier. Among those present were the rehabilitated Lieutenant-Commander Brandon and Mrs. Weston. In the evening of her life, she had found perfect happiness. Also present was Mr. Marius Bradford, authoritative and sound of judgment as ever.

Everyone was agreed that Lady Evelyn was the loveliest wife in the world. Lord Bannister thought her even lovelier than that.

Again and again, they recounted every detail of the extraordinary adventure. They were at once cheerful and sad, but, as a matter of fact, very happy.

"Isn't it all strange?" said Mrs. Weston. "What a lot of links had to be forged before we could complete the chain of circumstance that has finally brought us here."

"And to what end?" the Lieutenant-Commander asked, meditatively. "Where is the philosopher who can answer that?"

"I am a medical man," Lord Bannister said, looking at Lady Evelyn. "But we have in our family an outstanding intellect and I'm sure you can have an answer to your question."

But Mr. Bradford took this as a reference to himself and answered slowly, weighing his words,

"Life is like the waistcoat of a summer suit - short and pointless."

1905-1943

He was an 'irregular' writer.

While he lived, and for many years after his death, it was even questioned that he was a writer at all. Appearances were against him. He poured forth a flow of adventure stories that were published in a kind of shilling-shocker series. Most of his readers were not aware that the man behind the attractive-sounding pseudonym P. Howard was Jenő Rejtő, journalist, author of cabaret skits, literary hack, a steadfast practitioner of all sorts of side-lines. And what if they had known? Nothing at all. After all, thrillers are pooh-poohed by educated people, and they are not supposed to read such things-except up to a certain age, or furtively.

On the face of it, this story, too, is a thriller. It does not lack that important effective element - the accidental. Nor is it short of events, romantic twists and that essential ingredient - love. Rejtő knew the rules of the thriller well, and was shrewd enough to make the most of them. None but his closest friends and a few connoisseurs open-minded enough to look for the work behind the genre recognized the above-the-average talent in Rejtő. Literary talent has a peculiar nature: it is always tied to certain specific forms of communication, and suited for the treatment of only a certain number of tasks - sometimes only a single task. Uninhibitedly, Rejtő poured forth his books - labelled as literary trash - delightfully unworried by the nagging fears of literary accountability.

He expressed his most important human message in these curiously grotesque adventure-stories. The author's way of looking at things and the methods he used in the caustic satires - were a safety valve for his communicative urge by which he let off the steam generated by the absurdities of the world around him. In these writings he felt at home, in a peculiar, irregular way, under irregular conditions at a time that was 'out of joint.' As a matter of fact, the stories Rejtő wrote are, whether he intended them as such or not, 'anti-thrillers', which he carried to the point of absurdity through the impeccably rigorous observation of the rules of the genre.

It would be irreverent, in looking for 'fellow-iconoclasts', to cite the example of Dürrenmatt, who has written what is a requiem for the detective story or Cervantes, who borrowed the jacket of the picaresque novel. After all, Rejtő, evidently endowed with lesser talent than those two, definitely got a kick out of this kind of writing. Nor did he appear to be concerned in the least about the fact that he owed his extraordinary popularity not to his quality as an author of parodies, not to his literary talent, but to his being an inventive, prolific manufacturer of amusing fiction. We must not look for any tragic conflict with himself, any mysterious ambivalence, behind this duality: there are some enduring values in his writings which we are left with when the trash has fallen through the sift; in these we should see the instinctive triumph of the talent and humaneness of the born story-teller rather than regard them as the product of some inner conflict.

As to the further course of his life and activity, we are left with suppositions. Like so many of his fellow-writers, Rejtő was brutally annihilated by the nazis. It is said that he walked quietly, with composure, into his death, like a man who owes no debt to anybody. Most people attributed his attitude to his modesty. Objective posterity may safely say that he has indeed left no debt behind. He has left to us a rich legacy. Is it possible that he guessed as much?

Béla Abody