1954-02-16 — Page 4

THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1954.

Britain's New Look

At The Mid-East

By Patrick Maitland, MP

R Britain planned no there is good reason to keep

» million nor

ony

London. self must be patrolled. Thero sanitation. For half Is DO work IGHT up to Christmas, is the indefinable requirement thera

of prestige to be satisfied. And

prospect of it.

Sustaining these people in wretchedness costs the United Nations £8,000,000. year. Another £3,000,000 could ralso the diet to 2,000 calories. A further £3,000,000 would greatly improve accommodation and clothing.

reduction in its Suez some sigbilising force in the base. Now Whitehall ap- Middle East. pears to be changing its mind.

The vast base its perime- ter is 200 miles-grew in the inst war to support 25 divisions. Now dilapidated, it contains piled stores from India and Pakistan, mostly burled in the drifting sand. This was blamed on lack of Egyptian labour, due to tense relations with Egypt.

So to keep the base going, fresh treaty talks seemed urgent.

Egypt night well be tempted to strike at Israel if British restraint vanished and the Suez stores luy ready to hand

This fresh view demands 2 new line of military reasoning, say the experts, And, Suez bas to be reconsidered once more. Prestige, they say, is better a small force maintained by sited

in close-knit defences, rather than spread over a vast

By comparison, sustaining 80,000 British troops In an indefensible base costa the British taxpayer £80,000,000 year.

Now that expert British opinion is concentrating on the

plain, in which there have been realities of Suez, the next step

275 outrages and 14 murders in 13 months,

KEEPING

THEN

PEACE

comes the speelfe question of how Middle East This

Negotiations, though, nl can be safeguarded,

by only emphaslæes the need to wore bogged down diehards on both sides, keep peace between Jews und Whitehall's hopes faded.

But the problem of run- ning the base was unsolved and compelled re-appraisal.

Arabs.

And the experts say Sucz is

to ensure this peace. Better not the best place from which for this than a Sucz garrison

They argue, is LE17 purpose,

The first question was: what if the base should moured brigade in 1bya, an airborne brigade striking force in Cyprus, and a small mobile coluna in Jordan,

Suez

never be needed again for forces of 26 divisions or so? NEW VIEW

arose from the now ae IT

cepted view of European that Europe is defence:

danger spot, number one with the Middle East sub- ordinate.

This meant that strategic reserves, including the 80,- 000 Suez troops, were best sited in Britain.

This argument went far then. Experts press the view that in atomic war it whether is questionable Suez has any value at all.

if Suez, is valueless strategi- cally, the need for a garrison is reduced,

However, there is still need for some troops. The Canal -

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The

would gurrison therefore have only local duties to perform.

This appreciation assumes that Middle East oli is not the first objective in Russian plans. Since Russia is exporting oil. it seems that she has enough of

It. So there is no reason to would fight for suppose she

more.

And in atomic war, achieving

quick decisions, oil fields might be irrelevant.

in a coherent polley for the Middle East is a solution of the refugee problem.

For half Britain's Suez ex- pense, the Jordan Valley Irriga- tion Scheme could thrive and Hive work to 300,000 hopeless people.

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The Adventure of the Sealed Room concludes today

WHAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR.

Major Earnshaw and Captain Lasher burst into the locked Curio Room of Colonel Warburton's house in Cambridge Terrace and found the colonel shot dead. His wife, Eleanor, lay wounded at his side. Asked by Eleanor's friend, Cora Murray, to investigate, Sherlock Holmes keeps vigil in the Curio Room at night, accompanied by Dr

and Inspector Mac- Donald. Watson hears a door-hinge creak.....

T

PART THREE

HERE followed

Watson

period of complete stillness and then a stooping figure, its footsteps muffled by the across the carpet, whisked faint ray of light from the french window and vanished into the shadows immediate- The ly in front of me.

But, in peace, oll's importance is enormous, So the danger in the Middle East is of local quarrels, inflamed and perhaps supported by Russia, openly denying oil supplies to Europe. In other words, Middle East defence as a cold war problem, not a factor in hot war.

Issue in which cold war lactica might pay la Arab-Jew tension.

I had a fleeting impression

It is also the one most difficult of a high-collared cape and

for the Great Powers to solve.

AL

the root of it

dangerous

are the

the dull glitter of some long, Arab refugees. They are more thin object grasped in a the half-raised hand. An instant to peace than influx of millions of East Ger- later, there came a gleam of mans into the Western Zone. light in the fireplace as For unlike West Germany there is no civilised society to though the shutter of a dark lantern had been slid back and then a gentle tapping and tinkling.

receive them.

FLOTSAM

Tlarge number

I was rising to my feet HE Aroba will not take any

when a smothered yell rang of refugees lest they forgo a useful lover of through the room followed complaint against Israel. So a instantly by the sounds of n stupendous humun folsam re-furious struggle. mains.

are

rations

Daily camp are 1,800 calories.

or 870,000 refugees, 87,000 "Watson! Watson"""

destitute.

With a thrill of horror I Thirty-thousand children are recognised Holmes's voice in on half-rations, Another 45,000 that half-choked cry, and have none at all. The death- rate is 20 per 1,000-more than plunging forward through

India. the darkness I hurled my

self upon a struggling mass that loomed suddenly before

10.0

In

famine-ridden

And the birth-rate, as always among the semi-starved, is high

39.8 per thousand.

Most of them live in tents. Ten persons have twelve feet by twelve in which to live. There are no drains, no proper

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me.

Валсе of Captain Jack Lasher.

of The first streeks

dawn the were glimmering through window when my friend and I found ourselves back in Baker Street,

I poured out two stiff brandy- and-sodas and handed

onc 10

THE NEW EXPLOITS OF

SHERLOCK HOLMES

by ADRIAN

CONAN

DOYLE

and JOHN DICKSON CARR

"Quite so."

"The reason that I started when I saw the Indian WIE because the man was retreating through the wreckage of the far

window,

that whito french

re- front door unbroken, As Wo hurried forward to the house, I

nearer

mained

to the

observed the gap in the rockery immediately under the Arst window where Lasher had picked

up the

Why stone. then, should he run on to the second window and smash it, unless It was that the glass boro its own story. Hence my broad hint to Macdonald of the oyster and the nearest fork.

The groundwork of my case was complete when I sniffed the contents of Colonel Wor- burton's cigar box. They were Dutch, among the weakest fn aroma of all cigars."

of horror

"With a thrill

I recognised

voice... Holmes's

Holmes. As he leaned back in recall that I interrupted his chair, the gaslight beside the mantelpiece, threw his keen acquiline features into bold re- lief and I was glad to observe that a little colour was stealing

Mias Murray's Murray to inquire as to Colonel smell Warburton's conventional habits,

into his face.

he savaged you?"

сиг

remark about

the

of the colonel's cigar.

"In

a room

in which

two

по

plans

"All this 18 now quite clear, to me," I said. "But in telling the whole house hold of your the

were

to plece together glass of the broken window It to me that you risking the very evidence on which your case was based,"

seema

HOLMES

reached for the

Persian slipper

and began to All his plpa

with

black shag.

"My dear Wat-

son, it would

those

"I had a fleeting impression of a high-collated cape and the dull glitter of some long, thin object grasped in a half-raised hand"

to remove

with his uncle, what then?" I asked.

"Ah, Watson, there we can But the fact that "The circumstances suggested

have been virtually Impossible only guess.

he came armed presupposes the It for mo to reconstruct recked of black shattered panes to the degree worst. I have no doubt that to my mind the possibility that shots had just been fired! Colonel Warburton might have would have

that would prove the existence when he comes to trial it will and powder. I knew then that

that Lasher Was been expecting a visitor

of two small bullet holes. No, be found "Really, Watson, I owe you that the nature of that visit was shots had been fired within the

curio room,"

It was a question of bluff, my pressed for money and, as we "Cap- an apology," said he

such that either he or the call-

is a young man who would not ཐམས tain Jack Was A

dangerous er preferred that it should oc

the french

"But the reports were heard dear fellow, a gambler's throw. have ample reason to know, he

make an shrink from taking

his own "Should somebody man. How is your arm

cur privately by where

windows rather than the front by the household."

measures attempt to destroy still further

any ob- door. This elderly soldier was "The shots were fired from those shords from the window, stacles that stood in the way outside through the closed win- then that person was the mur of his needs, Well, my dear "A little painful," I admitted, recently married to a young and "But nothing that iodine and a beautiful wife and I therefent

fellow, it is high time that you dows, The murderer was an ex- derer of Colonel Warburton bandage cannot repair. I am far discarded the idea of a vulgar cellent marksman and therefore showed my hand deliberately, were on your way home. Pray

The rest is known to you. Our convey conceivably a military man.

my apologies to your your assignation, more

came, urined with a poker, wife for any, small interruption shoulder, my dear fellow, for he

"Here, at last, was some having let himself in with the may have cnused in the gave you an ugly blow with that poker. You must allow me to

thing to work upon and, later duplicate latchicey, which tranquillity of your menage." on, I received confirmation from discovered in his cape pocket. I look at it."

your own lips, Watson, when think there is nothing to add." having it one of the colonel's cigars I waited until I heard two you below and then fired shots from the same calibre re- volver

which killed as that Warburton?

concerned About

I

"I was right in my theory, then the visitor must be a man man whose private Interview Colonel Warburton would be resented by some other

mem her of the household and hence the obvious step of joining the colonel via the french windows." "But they were locked," I

later, "Later,

Watson. assure you that it is nothing worse than a bruise," he re- plied, with a touch of im- patience. "Well, I can confess now that there were moments objected... tonight when I had the gravest doubts that Our man would walk into the trap."

"TYRD?"

A GRIP like steel closed around my throat, and as I raised my arm to force back the head of my dimly seen assallant he burled his teeth in my forearm like some savage hound. The man possessed the strength of a madman and it was not until MacDonald, having lit a gaa jet, sprang to our assistance that we succeeded in mastering his struggles.

Holmes, his face strained and bloodless, leaned back against the wall, his hand clasping his shoulder where ho had been hit with a heavy back in his chair brass poker that now lay in and put the fireplace amid the splin tered shards of window glass gether. which he had placed there'

"A buited trap, Watson, and had he not swallowed my dain

y morsel it would have gone her to book. Furled on Lasher

I gambled the fact that a murderer's fears will sometimes everride his in- lelligence. And 60 it turned

on our previous visit.

out."

"In any case,

there should have been powder burns," I said thoughtfully.

"But the reason, Holnes," I cried.

"But your shoulder, Holmes," I expostulated. "I must apply some linament before you retire for a few hours' rest.

"We have not far to look, Watson. We were told that, until Colonel Warburton's mar "Tut Watson," my friend re- riage, Lasher was hia only replied. “You should have learnt lative and therefore, we may by now that the mind is the 28ume, his heir. Mrs. War- burton, according to Miss Mur- master of the body. I have n Demall problem on. hand--con- "Not necessarily. The powder roy's statement, disapproved of

a tricky the younger man on the grounds and so if you would have the

cerning a 'solution of potash from a cartridge is element and the absence of of his extravagant living. It burns proved nothing. The is obvious from this that the goodness to curio room immediately after smell of the cigar was of far wife's influence must represent pipetto dinner and apparently a quarrel greater importance. must a very real danger to the in- arose between them. It occurred odd, however, that useful terests of Captain Jack,.

"Naturally. Miss Murray that Mrs Warburton stated accompanied her husband to the

a

to me that if the colonel was though your confirmation was, expecting a visitor, then what my visit to the house had al "ON the night more natural that he would ready elucidated the whole in question," our' leave the curtains undrawn so case in my mind."

-man camo open- ly to the house that his caller should observa "Frankly, I do not understand that die was not alone. At first, even now how you unravelled

"You were startled at

the andy

having this case.”

of the Indian ser- spoken with Miss of course,

these were all mere appearance

I rejoined, somewhat Murray and conjectures that could possibly vant,"

nettled at the trace of self- Major Earnshaw fit the facts,** HOLMES -jeaned

satisfaction which I discerned. retired ostensibly to drink a "And the Identity of this in his manner, mysterious visitor?"

hia

finger-tips-to-

"My dear. fel- low, there was no great din

Facts culty in the problem. "There's your man, Mac were obvious enough, Donald," he gasped. "You delicacy of the mutter can arrest him for the the need that the murder of Colonel Warbur- by some overt act

himself should conarm cou and for the attempted antial evidence to the bane of murder of his wife.”

"

port in the dining-room. In fact, however, ho merely pass- ext through the dining-room on the window, which opens front garden,

walked to the french windows, of the curio room and there shot Colonel Warburton and his wife through the glass.

、uL

"No, Watson, I was startled "Again, a conjecture, Watson, at the broken window through We knew that Mrs Warburton which he retreated." disapproved of Captain Lasher, her husband's nephew, MI"give but the occurred to me during the ear

you these vagaries as they first layinler part of Mies. Murray's nar

It would requiro ́no 'more murderer cative. I, could not have moved ut, Miss Murray had told

the us that Captain Lasher broke than a few seconds to rush back in the matter, had not ed the one singular fact that unfortunate, fact, and use, for you will re- Circum latter

to enter by the way he had come, solze part of her story contain the window In order

the.room."!

a decanter from the sideboard changed the

hurry out into the hall. But fons into the absolute certain Watson, that a woman will the call that he appeared amo

"It is ty: that we were in the pre-

once of a cold-blooded and cal variably omit from her narra- ment or two after the others.

tive that exact culated murder."!

prociaton of To complete the Dilution of detail which là as essential to Colonel Warburton'animadinées, I esot the trained observer!

and mortar to a builder) 17 It merely remained for him If you eliminate the bullet holes will recall the stated that Cap smashing the window and, underiinadtain. Lather ran out of the, entering, drop the re over

the house, 120 coking through je titel, the hand, di Air vietiny

meach windows and then; ples

the trained reusoner,"

MacDonald flung back our

"I have observed nothing." assailant cape and for you

verything, observed. moment I stared in silence bus filled to redson.*. In the before an exclamation of course of Miss Murray's narra-

tive, she amazement broke from my door Of the curio

mentioned "that "the" lips. For, in that first glance, looked and yet the window. I had failed to recognise in curtains were not: those lowering features and, DEMASIADENÍRENIE VERSES Harian, vicious "baleful"-syés the WALE WAY FOR THIS. Termenengoper vimens bronted handsome,E

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23

alone from the rocket "And if Mr**W Eth" gian-aró) not been there-and

to

handt that

THE END

POCKET CARTOON

by OSBERT, LANCASTER