n affairs. I should have thought you had too much humour for
that."

"Only, you see, I have been there before. I am merely going back upon
my tracks to make sure. I go purely as an adventurer, hoping to pick up
some valuable knowledge, but prepared to fail."

Gribton helped himself to champagne. "That's better. Now I know your
attitude, we can talk like friends. Better come to the small
smoking-room. They've got a '51 brandy here which is beyond words.
Have some for a liqueur."

In the smoking-room Gribton fussed about coffee and cigars for many
minutes ere he settled down. Then, when he could gaze around and see
his two guests in deep armchairs, each smoking and comfortable, he
returned to his business.

"I don't mind telling you a secret," he said, "or rather it's only a
secret here, for once you get out there you will find 'Gribton's view,'
as they call it, well enough known and very much laughed at. I've
always been held up to ridicule as an alarmist about that Kashmir
frontier, and especially about that Bardur country. Take the whole
province. It's well garrisoned on the north, but below that it is all
empty and open. The way into the Punjab is as clear as daylight for a
swift force, and the way to the Punjab is the way to India."

Lewis rose and went to a rack on the wall. "Do you mind if I get down
maps? These French ones are very good." He spread a sheet of canvas on
the table, thereby confounding all Gribton's hospitable manoeuvring.

"There," said Gribton, his eyes now free from drowsiness, and clear and
bright, "that's the road I fear."

"But these three inches are unknown," said Lewis. "I have been myself
as far as these hills."

Gribton looked sharply up. "You don't know the place as I know it.
I've never been so far, but I know the sheep-skinned devils who come
across from Turkestan. I tell you that place isn't the impenetrable
craggy desert that the Government of India thinks it. There's a road
there of some sort, and if you're worth your salt you'll find it out."

"I know," said Lewis. "I am going to try."

"There's another thing. For the last three years all that north part of
Kashmir, and right away south-west to the Punjab borders, has been
honoured with visits from plausible Russian gentlemen who may come down
by the ordinary caravan routes, or, on the other hand, may not. They
turn up quite suddenly with tooth-brushes and dressing-cases, and they
can't have come from the south. They fool