There was a battered old dispatch box on the table beside Sir Godfrey's arm—one that had seen rough service.
“Of course,” he went on, “we don't know when Tony picked up this drawing. It was in this box here with his diary, an automatic pistol and some quinine. The date of the diary entry is the only clue. That would indicate that he was near the Karamajo range at the time, not far from the spot.”
He snapped his fingers.
“What damned luck!”
He clinched his hands and brought them down on the table.
“I'm nearly seventy, Bramwell, but you're ten years under that. You could go in. No one need know the object of your expedition. Hector Bartlett didn't tell the whole of England when he went out to Syria for the gold plates. A scientist can go anywhere. No one wonders what he is about. It wouldn't take three months. And the climate isn't poisonous. I think it's mostly high ground. Tony didn't complain about it.”
The biologist answered without looking up.
“I haven't got the money, Sir Godfrey.”
The dapper little man jerked his head as over a triviality.
“I'll stake you. It wouldn't cost above five hundred pounds.”