The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 02 Read online

  He added, "You think--Hanley thinks--the smuggling is on too large a scale to be any illicit producer?"

  I nodded.

  "Then," he said, "it must be one of our recognized mines."

  "Hanley thinks it is a recognized mine, falsifying its production record," I explained.

  "If that is so, I will discover it," he said. He spoke with enthusiasm and vigor. "For you I shall treat as what you are--the representative of our most friendly government. The figures of our quicksilver production I shall lay before you in just a few days. Let me fill up your glass, Grant."

  * * * * *

  The lazy tropics. I really did not doubt his sincerity. But I did doubt his ability to cope with any clever criminal. His enthusiasm for action would wilt like his neckpiece, in Nareda's heat. Unless, perhaps, the knowledge that the smuggler was cheating him as well as the United States--that might spur him.

  He added--and now I got a shock wholly unexpected: "If we think that some recognized producer of quicksilver here is cheating us, it should not be difficult to check up on it. Nareda has only one large cinnabar lode being worked. A private individual: that fellow Jacob Spawn--"

  "Spawn?" I exclaimed involuntarily.

  "Why, yes. Did not he mention it? His mine is no more than ten kilometers from here--back on the southern slope."

  "He didn't mention it," I said.

  "So? That is strange; but he is a secretive Dutchman by nature. He specializes in prying into the other fellow's affairs. Hm-m."

  He fell into a reverie while I stared at him. Spawn, the big--the only big--quicksilver producer here!

  * * * * *

  The President interrupted my startled thoughts. "I hope you did not intimate your real purpose?"

  "No."

  We both turned at the sound of an opening door. Markes called, "Ah, come in Perona! Are you alone? Good! Close that slide. Here is Chief Hanley's representative." He introduced us all in a breath. "This is interesting, Perona. Damnably interesting. We're being cheated, what? It looks that way. Sit down, Perona."

  This was Greko Perona. Nareda's Minister of Internal Affairs. Spawn had mentioned him to me. A South American. A man in his fifties. Thin and darkly saturnine, with iron-gray hair, carefully plastered to cover his half-bald head. He sat listening to the President's harangue, twirling the upturned waxen ends of his artificially black mustache. A wave of perfume enveloped him. A ladies' courtier, this Perona by the look of him. His white uniform was immaculate, carefully tailored and carefully worn to set off at its best his still trim and erect figure.

  "Well," he said, when at last the President paused, "of a surety something must be done."

  Perona seemed not excited, rather more carefully watchful, of his own words, and of me. His small dark eyes roved me.

  "What is it you would plan to do about it, Señorito?"

  An irony was in that Latin diminutive! He spread his pale hands. "Your United States officials perhaps exaggerate. I am very doubtful if we have smugglers here in Nareda."

  "Unless it is Spawn," the President interjected.

  * * * * *

  Perona frowned slightly. But his suave manner remained. "Spawn? Why Spawn?"

  "You need not take offense, Perona," Markes retorted. "We are discussing this before an envoy of the United States, sent here to consult with us. We have nothing to hide."

  Markes turned to me. And his next words were like a bomb exploding at my feet.

  "Perona is offended, Grant. But I promise you, his natural personal prejudice will not affect my investigation. Of course he is prejudiced, since he is to marry Spawn's daughter, the little Jetta."

  I started involuntarily. This pomaded old dotard! This perfumed, ancient dandy!

  For all the importance of my mission in Nareda my thoughts had been subconsciously more upon Jetta--far more--than upon smugglers of quicksilver. This palsied popinjay! This, the reality of the specter which had been between Jetta and me during all that magic time in the moonlit garden!

  This suave old rake! Betrothed to that woodland pixie whose hand I had held and to whom I had sung love songs in the magic flower-scented moonlight only a few hours ago! And whom I had promised to meet there again to-night!

  This, then, was my rival!

  * * * * *

  Nothing of importance transpired during the remainder of that interview. Markes reiterated his intention of making a complete governmental investigation at once. To which Perona suavely assented.

  "Por Dios Señorito," he said to me, "we would not have your great government annoyed at Nareda. If there are smugglers, we will capture them of a certainty."

  From the Government House, it now being almost time for the midday meal, I returned to Spawn's.

  The rambling mud walls of the Inn stood baking in the noonday heat when I arrived. The outer garden drowsed; there seemed no one about. I went through the main door oval into the front public room, where first I had met Spawn. He was not here now, nor was Jetta.

  A sudden furtiveness fell upon me. With noiseless steps I went the length of the dim, padded interior corridor to my own room. My belongings seemed undisturbed; a vague idea that Spawn might have seized this opportunity to ransack them had come to me. But it seemed not; though if he had he would have found nothing.

  I stood for a moment listening at my patio window. I could see the kitchen from here; there was no one in it. I started back for the living room. That furtive instinct was still on me. I made no noise. And abruptly I heard Spawn's voice, floating out softly in the hushed silence of the house.

  "So, Perona?"

  * * * * *

  A brief silence, in which it seemed that I could hear a tiny aerial answer. Then Spawn again. A startled oath.

  "De duvel! You say--"

  I stood frozen, listening.

  "She is here.... Yes, I will keep her close. I am no fool, Perona."

  Spawn's laugh was like a growl. "Later to-day, yes. Fear not! I am no fool. I will be careful of it."

  Spawn, talking by private audiphone, to Perona. The colloquy came to an abrupt end.

  "... Might eavesdrop? By hell, you are right!"

  I heard the click as Spawn and Perona broke connection. Spawn came from his room. But he was not quick enough. I slipped away before he saw me. In the living room I had time to be calmly seated with a lighted cigarette. His approaching heavy footsteps sounded. He came in.

  "Oh--Grant."

  "Good noon, friend Spawn. I'm hungry." I grinned at him. "I understand my bargain with you included a noonday meal. Does it?"

  He eyed me suspiciously. "Have you been waiting here long?"

  "No. I just came in."

  He led me to the kitchen. He apologized for the informality of his hotel service: visitors were so infrequent. But the good quality of his food would make up for it.

  "Right," I agreed. "Your food is marvelous, friend Spawn."

  * * * * *

  There was a difference in Spawn's manner toward me now. He seemed far more wary. Outwardly he was in a high good humor. He asked nothing concerning my morning at the Government House. He puttered over his electron-stove, making me help him; he cursed the heat; he said one could not eat in such heat as this; but the meal he cooked, and the way he sat down opposite me and attacked it, belied him.

  He was acting; but so was I. And perhaps I deceived him as little as he deceived me. We avoided the things which were uppermost in the thoughts of us both. But, when we had very nearly finished the meal, I decided to try him out. I said suddenly, out of a silence:

  "Spawn, why didn't you tell me you were a producer of quicksilver?" I shot him a sharp glance. "You are, aren't you?"

  It took him by surprise, but he recovered himself instantly. "Yes. Are you interested?"

  I tried another shot. "What surprised me was that a wealthy mine owner--you are, aren't you?--should bother to keep an unprofitable hotel. Why bother with it, Spawn?"

  I thought I knew the answer: he wanted Nareda'
s visitors under his eyes.

  "That is a pleasure." There was irony in his tone. "I am a lonesome man. I like--interesting companionship, such as yours, young Grant."

  It was on my tongue to hint at his daughter. But I thought better of it.

  "I am going to the mine now," he said abruptly. "Would you like to come?"

  "Yes," I smiled. "Thanks."

  * * * * *

  I wanted to see his mine. But that he should be eager to show it, surprised me. I wondered what purpose he could have in that. I had a hint of it later; for when we took his little autocar and slid up the winding road into the bloated crags towering on the slope behind Nareda, he told me calmly:

  "I shall have to put you in charge of my mine commander. I am busy elsewhere this afternoon. You will see the mine just as well without me."

  He added. "I must go to the Government House: President Markes wants a report on my recent production."

  So that was what Perona had told him over the audiphone just before our noonday meal?

  It was an inferno of shadows and glaring lights, this underground cavern. As modern mining activities go, it was small and primitive. No more than a dozen men were here, beside the sweating pudgy mine commander who was my guide. A voluble fellow; of what original nationality I could not determine.

  We stood watching the line of carts dumping the ore onto the endless lifting-belt. It went a hundred feet or so up and out of the cavern's ascending shaft, to fall with a clatter into the bins above the smelter.

  "Rich ore," I said. "Isn't it?"

  The cinnabar ran like thick blood-red veins in the rock.

  "Rich," said the mine commander. "That it is. Rich. But who does it make rich? Only Spawn, not me." He waved his arms, airing his grievance with which for an hour past he had regaled me. "Only Spawn. For me, a dole each week."

  The smelter was in a stone building--one of a small group of mine houses which stood in a cauldron depression above excavations. Rounded domes of rock towered above them. The sun, even at this tri-noon hour, was gone behind the heights above us. The murky shadows of night were gathering, the mists of the Lowlands settling. The tube-lights of the mine, strung between small metal poles, winked on like bleary eyes.

  "Of a day soon I will fling this job to hell--"

  * * * * *

  I was paying scant attention to the fellow's tirade. Could there be smuggling going on from this mine? It all seemed to be conducted openly enough. If the production record were being falsified I felt that this dissatisfied mine commander was not aware of it. He showed me the smelter, where the quicksilver condensed in the coils and ran with its small luminous silver streams into the vats.

  He was called away momentarily by one of his men, leaving me standing there. I was alone; no one seemed in sight, or within hearing. In the shadow of the condensers I drew out my transmitter and called Hanley.

  I got him within a minute.

  "Chief!"

  "Yes, Phil. I hoped you'd call me. Didn't want to chance it, raising you when you might not be alone."

  I told him swiftly what I had done; where I was now.

  And Hanley said, with equal briskness: "I've an important fact. Just had Markes on secret wave-length. He tells me that Spawn has been saving up his quicksilver for six months past. He's got several hundred thousand dollar-standards' worth of it in ingots there right now."

  "Here at the mine?"

  "Yes. Got them all radiuminized, ready for the highest priced markets. Markes says he is scheduled to turn them over to the government checkers to-morrow. The Nareda government takes its share to-morrow; then Spawn exports the rest."

  I heard a footstep. "Off, Chief! I'll call you later!"

  I clicked off summarily. The little grid was under my shirt when the mine commander rejoined me.

  * * * * *

  For another half hour or to I hovered about the smelter house. A treasure of quicksilver ingots here? I mentioned it casually to my companion. He shot me a sharp glance.

  "Spawn has told you that?"

  "I heard it."

  "His business. We do not talk of that. Never can I tell what Spawn will choose to take offense at."

  We rambled upon other subjects. Later, he said, "We work not at night. But Spawn, he is here often at night, with his friend, the Señor Perona."

  That caught my attention. "I met Perona this morning," I said quickly. "Is he a partner of Spawn's?"

  "If he is so, I never was told it. But much he is here--at night."

  "Why at night?"

  The fellow really knew nothing. Or if he did, he was diplomatic enough not to jeopardize his post by babbling of it to me. He said:

  "Perona is Spawn's friend. Why not? His daughter to marry: that will make him a son-in-law." He laughed. "An old fool, but not such a fool either. Spawn is rich."

  "His daughter. Has he a daughter?"

  "The little Jetta. You haven't seen her? Well, that is not strange. Spawn keeps her very hidden. A mystery about it: all Nareda talks, but no one knows; and Spawn does not like questions."

  Spawn abruptly joined us! He came from the black shadows of the lurid smelter room. Had he heard us discussing Jetta? I wondered.

  CHAPTER V

  Mysterious Meeting

  "Ah, Grant--have you enjoyed yourself?" He dismissed his subordinate. "I was detained. Sorry."

  He was smoothly imperturbable. "Have you seen everything? Quite a little plant I have here? We shut down early to-day. I will make ready to close."

  I followed him about while he arranged for the termination of the day's activities. The clatter of the smelter house was presently still; the men departing. Spawn and I were the last to leave, save for the eight men who were the mine's night guards. They were stalwart, silent fellows, armed with electronic needle projectors.

  The lights of the mine went low until they were mere pencil points of blue illumination in the gloom. The eery look of the place was intensified by the darkness and silence of the abnormally early nightfall. The fantastic crags stood dark with formless shadow.

  Spawn stopped to speak to one of the guards. The men wore a gold-trimmed, but now dirty, white linen uniform, wilted by the heat--the uniform of Nareda's police. I remarked it to him.

  "The government lent me the men," Spawn explained. "Of an ordinary time I have only one guard."

  "But this then, is not an ordinary time?" I hinted.

  He looked at me sharply. And upon sudden impulse, I added:

  "President Markes said something about you having a treasure here. Radiumized quicksilver."

  It was evidently Spawn's desire to appear thoroughly frank with me. He laughed. "Well, then, if Markes has told you, then might I not as well admit it? The treasure is here, indeed yes. Will you like to see it?"

  * * * * *

  He led me into a little strong room adjoining the smelter coil-rectifiers. He flashed his hand searchlight. On the floor, piled crosswise, were small moulded bars of refined quicksilver--dull, darkened silver ingots of this world's most precious metal.

  "Quite a treasure, Grant, here to-night. See, it is radiumized."

  He snapped off his torch. In the darkness the little bars glowed irridescent.

  "To-morrow I will divide with our Nareda government. One-third for them. And my own share I will export: to Great New York, this shipment. Already I have the order for it."

  He added calmly, "The duty is high, Grant. Too bad your big New York market is protected by so large a duty. With my cost of production--these accursed Lowland workmen who demand so much for their labor, and a third of all I produce taken by Nareda--there is not much in it for me."

  He had re-lighted the room. I could feel his eyes on me, but I said nothing. It was obvious to me now that he knew I was a government customs agent.

  I said, "This certainly interests me, friend Spawn. I'll tell you why some other time."

  We exchanged significant glances, both of us smiling.

  "Well can I guess it, yo
ung Grant. So here is my treasure. Without the duty I would soon be wealthy. Chut! Why should I roll in a pity for myself? There is a duty and I am an honest man, so I pay it."

  I said, "Aren't you afraid to leave this stored here?" I knew that this pile of ingots--the quicksilver in its radiumized form--was worth four or five hundred thousand dollars in American gold-coin at the very least.

  * * * * *

  Spawn shrugged. "Who would attack it? But of course I will be glad to be rid of it. It is a great responsibility--even though it carries international insurance, to protect my and the Nareda Government share."

  He was sealing up the heavy barred portals of the little strong-room. There was an alarm-detector, connected with the office of Nareda's police commander. Spawn set the alarm carefully.

  "I have every safeguard, Grant. There is really no danger." He added, as though with sudden thought. "Except possibly one--a depth bandit named De Boer. Ever you have heard of him?"

  "Yes. I have."

  We climbed into Spawn's small automatic vehicle. The lights of the mine faded behind us as we coasted the winding road down to the village.

  "De Boer," said Spawn. "A fellow who lives by his wits in the depths. Near here, perhaps: who knows? They say he has many followers--fifty--a hundred, perhaps--outlaws: a cut-belly band it must be."

  "Didn't he once take a hand in Nareda's politics?" I suggested.

  Spawn guffawed. "That is so. He was once what they called a patriot here. He thought he might be made President. But Markes ran him out. Now he is a bandit. I have believe that American mail-ship which sank last year in the cauldron north of the Nares Sea--you remember how it was attacked by bandits?--I have always believe that was De Boer's band."

  * * * * *

  We rolled back to Nareda. Spawn's manner had again changed. He seemed even more friendly than before. More at his ease with me. We had supper, and smoked together in his living room for half an hour afterward. But my thoughts were more on Jetta than on her father. There was still no evidence of her about the premises. Ah, if I only had known what had taken place there at Spawn's that afternoon while I was at the mine!