Afar in the Forest | Page 9

curious enough. The time was nine p.m. We had talked the Anzac

hurricane-drive through Palestine all over again from the beginning,
taking world-known names in vain and doing honour to others that will
stay unsung for lack of recognition, when one of those unaccountable
pauses came, and for the sake of breaking silence, Mabel Ticknor asked
a question. She was a little, plucky, pale-faced thing whom you called
instinctively by her first name at the end of half an hour--a sort of little
mother of loose-ended men, who can make silk purses out of sows' ears,
and wouldn't know how to brag if she were tempted.
"Say, Jim," she asked, turning her head quickly like a bird toward Grim
on my left, "what's your verdict about that man from Syria that Roger
took in a cab to the Sikh hospital? I'm out a new pair of riding breeches
if Roger has to pay the bill for him. I want my money's worth. Tell me
his story."
"Go ahead and buy the breeches, Mabel. I'll settle that bill," he
answered.
"No, you won't, Jim! You're always squandering money. Half your pay
goes to the scallywags you've landed in jail. This one's up to Roger and
me; we found him."
Grim laughed.
"I can charge his keep under the head of 'information paid for.' I shall
sign the voucher without a qualm."
"You'd get blood out of a stone, Jim! Go on, tell us!"
"I'm hired to keep secrets as well as discover them," Grim answered,
smiling broadly.
"Of course you are," she retorted. "But I know all Roger's secrets, and
he's a doctor, mind you! Am I right, Roger? Come along! There are no
servants--no eavesdroppers. Wait. I'll put tea on the table, and then
we'll all listen."
She made tea Australian fashion in a billy, which is quick and simple,

but causes alleged dyspepsia cures to sell well all the way from
Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentraia.
"You'll have to tell her, Jim," said Jeremy.
"Mabel's safe as an iron roof," put in her husband. "Noisy in the rain,
but doesn't leak."
But neither man nor woman could have extracted a story from James
Schuyler Grim unless it suited him to tell it. Mabel Ticknor is one of
those honest little women who carry men's secrets with them up and
down the world. Being confided in by nearly every man who met her
was a habit. But Grim tells only when the telling may accomplish
something, and I wondered, as he laid his elbow on the table to begin,
just what use he meant to make of Mabel Ticknor. He uses what he
knows as other level-headed men use coin, spending thriftily for fair
advantage.
"That is secret," he began, as soon as Mabel had dumped the contents
of the billy into a huge brown teapot. "I expect Narayan Singh here
presently. He'll have a letter with him, taken from the Syrian who
stabbed that man in the hospital."
"Whoa, hoss!" Jeremy interrupted. "You mean you've sent that Sikh to
get the shirt of Yussuf Dakmar?"
Grim nodded.
"That was my job," Jeremy objected.
"Whoa, hoss, yourself, Jeremy!" Grim answered. "You'd have gone
down into the bazaar like a bull into a china-shop. Narayan Singh
knows where to find him. If he shows fight, he'll be simply handed over
to the Sikh patrol for attacking a man in uniform, and by the time he
reaches the lock-up that letter will be here on the table between us."
"All the same, that's a lark you've done me out of," Jeremy insisted.
"That Yussuf Dakmar's a stinker. I know all about him. Two whole

squadrons had to eat lousy biscuit for a week because that swab sold
the same meat five times over. But I'll get him yet!"
"Well, as I was saying," Grim resumed, "there's a letter in Jerusalem
that's supposed to be from Feisul. But when Feisul writes anything he
signs his name to it, whereas a number is the signature on this. Now
that fellow Sidi bin Tagim in the hospital is an honest old kite in his
way. He's a great rooter for Feisul. And the only easy way to ditch a
man like Feisul, who's as honest as the day is long, and no man's fool,
is to convince his fanatical admirers that for his own sake he ought to
be forced along a certain course. The game's as old as Adam. You fill
up a man like Sidi bin Tagim with tales about Jews--convince him that
Jews stand between Feisul and a kingdom--and he'll lend a hand in any
scheme ostensibly directed against Jews. Get me?"
"So would I!" swore Jeremy. "I'm against 'em too! I camped alongside
the Jordan Highlanders one time when--"
But we had had