Roal sent a work sheet down to Tim Atkins, but he started on the case
independently. He would show Calvin something yet.
Harry Brooks was the nearest and most accessible lead, so Roal made a
call at Brooks' office. Harry shifted his cigar as Roal entered. He
lurched heavily to his feet. "Hi, there, Hawkshaw. It's been a long
time since you've searched for crooks in my bailiwick. Who's done what,
and when?"
"Hello, Harry." Roal sat down, refusing one of the black stogies. "I'm
not sure what has been done or who has done it, but I want to know
about a girl named Mariana Sebours."
"Mariana--" Brooks' eyes suddenly became starry. He blew a kiss to
the winds, and stared far away. "Mariana. I'd give you ten thousand
dollars if you could tell me where she is today. What a wonderful girl
was Mariana. It was only that tiny fault in her voice that kept her
from reaching the peaks that should have been hers, but it could be
cured now. The doctors have told me--I think that must have been what
discouraged her and caused her to abandon her career at its height.
That and the ape she called her father."
"What was the matter with her throat?"
"Just some defect in her voice box. She had it worked on, but it didn't
improve. It could be fixed now. Only an expert could detect the fault.
She was a girl of exquisite beauty and talent. But, more than that, she
was a great woman, was Mariana Sebours."
"Was she ever married?"
"No."
"Boy friends?"
"That's the one peculiar thing about her. After she became about
eighteen and men really began to take an amorous interest in her she
gave them all a cold shoulder. I asked her about it once, and she got
in a terrible rage. She blurted out something about not being fit to
think of men and marriage. I never found out what she meant by it. We
never spoke of it again."
"Hereditary stain of some kind?"
"I don't know what it could have been. Her mother was a charming
woman like herself. Her father was a healthy ape-like cuss. An
anthropologist, but perfectly straightforward and normal. Mariana,
however, developed a strange attachment for him that in itself was
perhaps abnormal. She would never appear towards the last of her career
unless he was present and many times she cancelled engagements because
Sebours would not be in the same city. Finally, she gave up appearances
altogether--in order to stay with him, perhaps. I don't know."
"Did it seem like a psychological abnormality?"
"I'm not qualified to say, but it seemed to me that she was afraid of
something happening to him. Perhaps that was abnormal. I don't know."
"What was her father like?"
"I think I have an old snapshot of Mariana and him somewhere here."
Harry Brooks got up heavily and began rummaging through a file drawer.
"Yeah, here it is."
Roal took the snapshot. It was small and not very good, but the
identity of the man beside Mariana was unmistakable.
It was the giant who had appeared in the doorway of the room at
Starhouse.
Roal took the picture back to the office with him and called in Ralph
Bowen, a slender young artist who was head of the art department of
Heliopolis SBI.
"Think you can do some front views and profiles of this gent from this
snapshot," said Roal. "It's not much to go on, but I've seen him and
can go along with you and give you descriptions of his features."
Bowen nodded, "I think so. If it doesn't come out the way you think it
should look, I can touch it up to your specifications. The big boy done
something?"
"I wish I knew," said Roal.
Roal found it necessary to spend the rest of the day with Bowen,
coaching him from his memory of that fleeting glimpse of Sebours in the
Starhouse. In the late afternoon the drawings were finished to Roal's
satisfaction, however.
"I'll want them reproduced," he said. "Distribution is to be made to
every operator in the system, but first to those on Mars. I'll issue
the necessary orders tomorrow if you can have the reproductions by
then."
"First thing in the morning," promised Bowen.
* * * * *
In the dimming Martian sunset Roal Hartford watched the city below.
Somewhere in its depths was the phantom tavern Starhouse, and tonight
there would be new spacemen lured to the drug _harmeena_ by the
golden-haired Alayna, Queen of the Silver Stars. A queen whose heart
revolted at the role she was forced to play--Roal was sure.
But who or what was forcing her into it? Her father? Roal felt that he
must be, but it appeared as if Sebours was the master mind behind the
whole dope gang. And, as yet, no explanation of the mysterious, elusive
location of the Starhouse appeared.
Roal had presented all his findings to Commander Calvin but the head
of the department was still not certain that Roal had not been drugged
and had dreamed up the story of Starhouse and Alayna. It was easy, he
had said, to think that Roal's drugged mind would quickly associate
the mythical Alayna with the first picture of a beautiful girl that he
encountered. The fingerprints he dismissed as having come from a visit
to one of the dives. Probably Mariana Sebours was a waitress or dancer
in one of them and had accidentally picked up the investigator's cape.
Lacking support of the Chief, then, Roal was forced entirely upon his
own initiative. And that had about run out. He had the forces of the
SBI working to bring in Mariana and her father, but he had little faith
that they would be found.
Somehow he had to get back to Starhouse, the phantom tavern. He knew it
was real, that it existed somewhere, but why he could not find it after
having walked once directly to its doors was something he could not
fathom. He knew he had not been drunk or drugged when he entered the
place.
And through all the mystery there floated the husky, plaintive voice of
Alayna with the golden hair. Should he never see her again, Roal knew
that her song and her loveliness would haunt him for the rest of his
life. But, somewhere, somehow, he would find her.
As the darkness grew and it became increasingly difficult to make out
objects in the room the televise flashed its light and rang shrilly in
the silence.