Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 Part 9

"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 Sp.a.w.n'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 a.s.sented.

"_Por Dios Senorito_," 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 Sp.a.w.n'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 Sp.a.w.n. 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 Sp.a.w.n 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 Sp.a.w.n'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 Sp.a.w.n 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."

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

Sp.a.w.n, talking by private audiphone, to Perona. The colloquy came to an abrupt end.

"... Might eavesdrop? By h.e.l.l, you are right!"

I heard the click as Sp.a.w.n and Perona broke connection. Sp.a.w.n 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 Sp.a.w.n. 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 Sp.a.w.n."

There was a difference in Sp.a.w.n'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:

"Sp.a.w.n, 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, Sp.a.w.n?"

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 Sp.a.w.n, not me." He waved his arms, airing his grievance with which for an hour past he had regaled me. "Only Sp.a.w.n. For me, a dole each week."