_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, young 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!
Soon after supper Spawn yawned. "I think I shall go to bed." His glance
was inquiring. "What are you going to do?"
I stood up. "I'll go to bed, too. Markes wants to see me early in the
morning. You'll be there, Spawn?"
"Yes. We will go together."
It was still no more than eight o'clock in the evening. Spawn followed
me to my bedroom, and left me at its door.
"Sleep well. I will call you in time."
"Thanks, Spawn."
I wondered if there were irony in his voice as he said good night. No
one could have told.
* * * * *
I did not go to bed. I sat listening to the silence of my room and the
garden, and Spawn's retreating footsteps. He had said he was sleepy, but
nevertheless I presently heard him across the patio. He was apparently
in the kitchen, cleaning away our meal, to judge by the rattling of his
pans. It was as yet not much after hour eight of the evening. The hours
before my tryst with Jetta seemed an interminable time to wait. She
might not come, though, I was afraid, until midnight.
At all events I felt that I had some hours yet. And it occurred to me
that the evening was not yet too far advanced for me to call upon
Perona. He lived not far from here, I had learned. I wanted to see this
beribboned old Minister of Nareda's Internal Affairs.
I would use as my excuse a desire to discuss further the possibility of
smuggler being here in Nareda.
I put on my hat and a light jacket, verified that my dirk was readily
accessible and sealed up my room. Spawn apparently was still in the
kitchen. I got out of the house, I felt sure, without him being aware of
it.
* * * * *
The Nareda streets were quiet. There was a few pedestrians, and none of
them paid much attention to me. It was no more than ten minutes walk to
Perona's home.
His house was set back from the road, surrounded by luxurious
vegetation. There was a gate in front of the garden, and another, a
hundred feet or to along a small alleyway which bordered the ground to
my left. I was about to enter the front gate when sight of a figure
passing under the garden foliage checked me. It was a man, evidently
coming from the house and headed toward the side gate. He went through a
shaft of light that slanted from one of the lower windows of the house.
Perona! I was sure it was he. His slight figure, with a gay,
tri-cornered hat. A short tasseled cloak hanging from his shoulders. He
was alone; walking fast. He evidently had not seen me. I crouched
outside the high front wall, and through its lattice bars I saw him
reach the side gate, open it swiftly, pass through, and close it after
him. There was something furtive about his manner, for all he was
undisguised. I decided to follow him.
The front street fortunately was deserted at the moment. I waited long
enough for him to appear. But he did not; and when I ran to the alley
corner--chancing bumping squarely into him--I saw him far down its dim,
narrow length where it opened into the back street which bordered his
grounds to the rear. He turned to the left and shot a swift glance up
the alley, which I anticipated, provided for by drawing back. When I
looked again, he was gone.
* * * * *
I have had some experience at playing the shadow. But it was not easy
here along the almost deserted and fairly bright Nareda streets. Perona
was walking swiftly down the slope toward the outskirts of the village
where it bordered upon the Nares Sea. For a time I thought he was headed
for the landing field, but at a cross-path he turned sharply to the
right, away from the field, whose sheen of lights I could now see down
the rocky defile ahead of me. There was nothing but broken, precipitous
rocky country ahead of him, into which this path he had taken was
winding. What could Perona, a Minister, be engaged in, wandering off
alone into this black, deserted region?
It was black indeed, by now. The village was soon far behind us. A storm
was in the night air; a wind off the sea; solid black clouds overhead
blotted out the moon and stars. The crags and buttes and gullies of this
tumbled area loomed barely visible about me. There were times when only
my feel of the path under my feet kept me from straying, to fall into a
ravine or crevice.
I prowled perhaps two hundred yards behind Perona. He was using a tiny
hand-flash now; it bobbed and winked in the darkness ahead, vanishing
sometimes when a curve in the path hid him, or when he plunged down into
a gully and up again. I had no search-beam. Nor would I have dared use
one: Perona could too obviously have seen that someone was following
him.
There was half a mile of this, I think, though it seemed interminable. I
could hear the sea, rising with the wind, pounding against the rocks to
my left. Then, a distance ahead, I saw lights moving. Perona's--and
others. Three or four of them. Their combined glow made a radiance which
illumined the path and rocks. I could see the figures of several men
whom Perona had joined. They stood a moment and then moved off. To the
right a ragged cliff wall towered the path. The spots of light bobbed
toward it. I caught the vague outline of a huge broken opening, like a
cave mouth in the cliff. The lights were swallowed by it.
I crept cautiously forward.