The Lost Valley

ropped into the dust behind us, I began to think rather seriously. It was perfectly obvious, even to a more clouded intelligence than mine, that th

rankness and joviality had awakened my suspicions. There was something fishy going on, and that something, whatever it was, centred round the piece of wood that I had so casually kicked out of the sand. It struck me all of a heap that nothing had really begun to happen until I had unearthed it. As soon as Bryce had seen where I was sitting

yet seen. We ate up distance in fine style. Bryce seemed to have no nerves at all, for more than once he tore round corners on two whee

d I knew from experience that I had very brittle bones. Once in the Solomons, when a wild boar charged me, I lay for weeks in a trader's hut waiting for an obdurate fracture to knit up again. Some idea of the furious pace at which Bryce pushed the car along can be guessed from the fact that we did the fourteen miles in something over twenty minutes. It had been quit

ce here. That's the trouble of it. When a man has a nice track he's interfered with, and when there i

erior New Guinea goldfields does not need to be told what 'corduroy' is. It is an ever-present memory, an astonishment and a nightmare. Bryce

er me. "Doesn't that sound

n I stopped dead. Bryce? Bryce? What was familiar about that na

Walter Carstair

heard of Walter Carstairs? Why, he was the best friend I ev

looking him straight in the fa

ry if that's so. But whatever happened to him?

fore he had reached finality. I carried it on after that, came all the way from the Klondyke to take it up. I got through

aid kindly, "that'

best friend the Dad ever had, but that doesn't say you're going to k

e earlier in the day. He was a sunny-natured old chap always, even in the hard, toilsome New Guinea days, and I suppose his heart went out to me as the son of an old comrade in arms, doubly

reference to his offer of service, in fact he seemed to have completely forgotten it, and I thought it just as well to say nothing. The way he forebore from seizing a per

aid, "and then we'll go o

ttered raiment ruefully. "I don'

ic dinner. I don't fancy you'll be able to make much of one if you come

n it up right. Give me the run of the kitchen and put me next to the meat-safe, and you'll see wo

'd better take you home and see wha

t the time-I hadn't the faintest idea of the street the man lived in-and in the face of what happened later

e a car?" he

"I tried once in the Chilian foot-hills, but after th

" he smiled, "that you consider yourself an expert as re

on principle, and I've yet to meet t

t, something that was alien to the nature of the man, a sort of cold, calculating shrewdness that mad

ou're going," I hinted, "you'll end up in a funeral. T

ed. "Life is full of thrills," he remarked when at last we reached the comparative secu

agreed. "To

I couldn't have proved it if I'd been asked, I felt sure that he was trying my nerve. After all there's no better test of that than the crowded traffic of a big city. I've met men who'

outside a substantial red-tiled house, built in the bungalow fashion. There was a well-kept lawn i

said. "Just slip down and

the side of the building and almost certainly led to the garage. Accordingly I slipped out on the road, walked up to the gate and found that, by

ot put a name to in his attitude convinced me that he was watching us. His hands were so cupped that they hid his face, but I received an impression, that was almost a certainty, that he was watching Bryce and myself through his fingers. Pe

o us, is keeping your house under surveillance," I said

t. But he needn't worry over that; I wouldn't know him from a bar of soap. We'll leave him alone for the time bei

do I. Let

her cheap affair as well as I could judge at that distance, and a black felt hat. Somehow I got the impression, though I was too far away to say anything with certainty, that he was not so much sallow as sunburnt. It was more than likely that he had not got a good look at me-in that case he would not know me again, as I flattered myself that there was nothing very distinctive about me. Still, as that marksman behind the rocks must have been taking stock of me for some considerable while, I realise

ust that nothing happens. I wouldn't like any of that bunch to be cut o

d to myself. "I'm the first line of defence, but I'll be han

t it, for as will shortly be related