“Certainly.”
“Then how’s the moon?” (He told me.) “Ah! Then three days hence will be best. We’ll have a séance on the evening of the 10th September in the Hospital House. You must get me permission to sleep there for the night.”
It was directly contrary to the rules of the camp that a prisoner should be absent from his own house after dark. The readiness with which Moïse granted the privilege showed he had nothing to fear from the Commandant.
The interview had been most satisfactory. I had learned, first, that the Turks believed that there was a treasure; second, that two or more of our captors had already been looking for it (Moïse had said “WE tried the Schoolhouse garden”); and third, that one of the group was probably the Commandant, Kiazim Bey himself. No doubt I could have learned all these facts quite easily by direct questioning. But the whole art of mediumship is to gather information by indirect methods, in order that, at a later stage, it may be reproduced by the Spook as an original utterance from the unknown. The only memory of our conversation Moïse was likely to carry away with him was the “fact” that the success of a séance depends on the state of the moon.
My plans had been formed during our interview. This was obviously what I had waited for so long—an opportunity of attaining my object of properly intriguing the Turk. A treasure-hunt has a glamour of its own in the most material surroundings. A treasure-hunt under the guidance of a Spook ought to be a stunt beyond price. It only remained to prove that the Spook could find things and the Turk would be on the string. I determined, if necessary, to ground-bait with my own poor little store of gold and let the Pimple acquire a taste for the game of treasure-hunting by finding it. The advantage of this method would be that the rest of the camp would remain as much in the dark as to the origin of the gold as the Pimple, and I saw the prospect of much fun by organizing digging parties throughout the autumn. Had gold been at all plentiful this would undoubtedly have been the proper course to pursue. But it was a rare commodity, and I was reluctant to part with my small stock without first trying a cheaper method.
I therefore waylaid Cochrane.
“I hear,” said I, “that you dug up a revolver the other day. Was it a good one?”
“It was a Smith and Wesson 450,” said Cochrane, “and we got some ammunition with it. But the weapon’s quite unserviceable—the action has rusted to pieces.”
“Would you mind very much parting with it?” I asked.
“It’s of no value,” said Cochrane; “but it isn’t mine, it’s Lloyd’s. What do you want with it?”