by John Rickham
I
ACCORDING TO A well-worn fable, an empire can fall because of a loose horseshoe nail, meaning, I take it, that great events can spring from trivial beginnings. In my case it was the idle whim to take a short cut of a dark evening, on my way to my club from my once-a-week workout at Barry’s Gym. It was dark enough to destroy color and sharp outline, but the alleyway was short, and there was nothing in my mind except that it would save me ten minutes or so against the long way around. I like walking, and the evening air was cool after my exertions, but I was out of sorts with life. To tell the truth I was finding idleness a bore, and life tedious.
Then I saw two men in the gloom ahead of me. The streetlights here were discreetly dim, it being a residential backwater, and I hesitated. Where there’s a choice I prefer to mind my own business, what little of it I have, and one never knows just what may be going on in London of an evening. At the turn of the century the metropolis is still a Mecca for tourists, and many other kinds of visitors, not quite so innocuous, so I hung on my step a moment, peering. They appeared to be struggling, but it was difficult to be sure. And then I caught the flicker of a knife, no doubt about that, and I went forward at a run, without thinking. I was too late to stop the assault, but in time to catch the knife-wielder by the collar. It was very nearly my last mistake, because he whipped around far faster than I expected, and it was sheer instinct that made me lash out at his swinging arm. The knife went away and jangled on the pavement, but he wasn’t done by any means. My impression was of a thin and wiry man of about five-eight—and I am six foot three and heavy made—but he gave me a rough time until my surprise had worn off.
It’s a simple matter for a story-teller to say “life-and-death struggle” but it takes time for the idea to penetrate, time enough for him to have kicked me in the wind, rapped his knuckles against my face two or three times, and then to discover from somewhere a short club that hurt like the devil when he used it on my shoulder. I lost my temper, which is something the gym instructors say one should never do. Right or wrong, it put an end to the fight. I was shaking badly as I bent over the limpness I had thrown against a wall, and it was a relief to discover him still breathing. There was enough light to see his lean face, enough that I would know him again if need be.
Then I turned to the man who had been knifed, an older man, with a heavy jaw and a look of hard experience in his lined face. He, too, was still breathing, but by the bubble and catch in his breath I doubted if it would be for very much longer. His eyes opened as I turned him over.
“Keep still.” I said. “I’ll get a doctor.”
“Too late for that. Swilly—good with—a knife. I’m a fool—turned my back on him. What—?”
“I bounced him off the wall. He’ll he no more trouble. You’ll be safe for a minute—”
“No!” He managed to move, and the movement made him cough. I was more than ever sure he was a dying man, but he grabbed my sleeve and held on. “Too late for me.” He choked, and then showed his teeth in a grin that was pure hate. “Don’t want Swilly to get it. Paid him off, but he wanted a cut in the big deal. A rat, always was. You have it.”
“Have what?” I demanded, thinking he was raving.
“Wig. My wig. It’s all there. Worth millions. Take it.”
I shook my head, and he grew agitated, coughed again, and there was blood on his lip. “Take it!” he choked. “Millions. Tonight! Tonight!” and then he coughed again, gave a shudder in the middle of it, and sagged. I felt him dwindle as I held him, and I knew he was dead. As I said before, it takes time to sink in. I don’t know how long I crouched there, completely stunned, but it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds or so. A scuffle disturbed me, and I scrambled around in time to see my recent opponent getting to his feet and vanishing into the gloom. It was pointless to give chase. As I turned back, a glint of light from the knife-blade caught my eye, and I realized just how badly I was placed. Astonishingly enough, no one had shown up to investigate, but that couldn’t last much longer, and here I was, bearing all the marks of a fight, along with a dead man, and the knife that had killed him. Something about a wig. I crouched again, drove my unwilling hand to investigate, and a shock of black hair with a pale lock running through it came away in my grip. A wig!
I went away from there quickly. I wanted to run, but I bad just enough sense left to realize that if I once started running, panic would take charge. I made myself walk. Fifteen minutes later I was breasting up to the bar and asking the club steward for a brandy, a large one. He must have seen signs of damage and distress but was too well trained to comment. I could see, in the mirror behind him, that I was a mess, so I drank up hurriedly, perhaps unwisely, and made my way to the washroom. I was still shaking as I made an inspection of myself, beat as much as I could of the dust from my knees and arms, and then leaned at a mirror to look for bruises that would show. There were one or two, but cold water would reduce them a little. I peeled off my cloak and was hoisting my sleeves when the washroom door opened to admit someone else, a tall, easy-moving, competent-looking man of about thirty-five. He looked straight at me and smiled, and I was to learn, later, that the smile was almost a part of him.
“Need any help?” he asked, very gently, and I was on the point of fending him off with some story when a finger of memory stirred.
“We’ve met,” I said, “haven’t we?”
“That’s right. Once, just briefly, in your father’s office, about a year ago. Britannia. I'm Neil Carson.”
“Yes.” He had placed the memory for me. Re had also stirred something else, my father’s words in reference to this man. “A very useful chap to know. If ever you want anything taken care of efficiently and discreetly, you can’t do better.” It was almost enough to open my defenses, but not quite.
“What makes you think I need help?”
“Eyesight and experience. You carry all the marks of a scrap, but you’re big and strong enough to take care of that, so why are you shaking like a leaf?” I saw his eyes flick to my arm, and come back to mine. “Someone used a blackjack on you. I’ve seen marks like that before. A holdup?”
“Not quite. I’ve just seen a murder done.”
“I’ve seen one or two myself. Not pleasant. Here, let me help you off with that shirt. How are you involved?”
It was his calmness that got me. No more than ten minutes later we had a secluded table in an alcove and I was telling him everything just as it had happened. He was a good listener, and waited until I was done before asking me to try and describe the two men involved.
“Swilly, I’ve heard of,” he said, and frowned thoughtfully. “Small time crook, runs errands for the big men. A nose. One who gets information and sells it to the best bidder. I think I know the man with the wig, too, but I won’t put a name to him yet. Tell me again what he said, the exact words if you can.
I told him as far as I was able, and he frowned again in thought.
“If it’s the man I think it is, he wouldn’t babble. He plays for big stakes. ‘Millions’ wouldn’t be just words, but fact. And he gave it to you.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You have a choice. You can report this affair, and get yourself involved with the law, and investigations and publicity. Or you can keep quiet. You left no traces, you didn’t handle the knife, you’re clear.”
“But Swilly saw me.
“Right. He won’t go to the law, that’s obvious. But he sells information, and he will sell this. The dead man was on to something big, and Swilly knew it. You’ve got it now, and Swilly will guess that much, and sell that, too. So you’re in trouble either way. Wouldn’t you like to know what it is that you have?”
“The wig, you mean? You h
aven’t even looked at it!”
“Don’t intend to, not here. Too public. Maybe I don’t want to get involved either.” Carson still had his grin, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness in his voice, and it pulled me up sharp.
“That’s true, of course. I’ve no right to drag you in.”
“You didn’t. I offered, remember? And I’d like to help, so long as we get one point clear. I’m betting this is something big, and outside the law. By that I don’t mean necessarily criminal, but we will be mixing with criminals. The kind of people who carry knives, or worse, and are ready to use them, as you know. Also, as you obviously don’t feel like handing this over to the lawful authorities, better get clear what you’re letting yourself in for. Danger. Threats. Hazard. Possible rewards, no doubt, but it’s something you have to commit yourself to, and no backing out once you’ve started. You think about it.”
I did think, while I finished off what was on my plate, and another cup of coffee. Carson had a point. Events had moved so suddenly and swiftly that I needed time to take stock. From one point of view I had everything to lose. My life could be summed up in a few brief phrases. Alan Noble:
Twenty-three; single and unencumbered; only son and heir of Robert Noble, director-owner of Noble International Interplanetary Finance; amiable; inoffensive; totally unfit for a business life, much to my father’s disgust; but well-acquainted with the pleasant occupation of caring for a country estate and thoroughly bored with my life. That last emphasis had to be made, because I now had to set it against what Carson was spreading before me. Risk and danger and possible disgrace, plus a mystery, but a possible rich reward. It added up to adventure. I looked at him again, searchingly.
“You’ll come in with me?”
“Only if you’ll listen to my point and accept it. If we go any further with this thing we will be in it right up to here.” He chopped at his chin with one hand. “We’ll be on our own. No crying for help. And the competition doesn’t wear gloves. So, if you let me in, it will be to take charge. You see. I’ve done things like this before.”
I can’t hope to describe the way he said that. All I can say is that he convinced me entirely. “You have a deal,” I said, and offered him my hand. He took it firmly. “What now?” I asked. “What’s the first thing?”
“I make a phone call. It’s a pure guess, but it will save time. I know someone who might just be able to help, and is reliable in any case.”
“A third party?”
I said reliable. Never be slow to use experts, where you can. I’ll be back in a minute. Finish your meal.”
I tried, while he was gone, to get from my memory a little more on him, but there wasn’t much to be had. That he was American, I could deduce anyway from his slight accent. That the job he had done for my father was something irregular and important was obvious from the respect with which be had treated him. My father is slow to show respect to anyone unless there’s a good reason. I had completed my meal by the time he returned.
“I’ve asked our expert to meet us at my apartment. It’s just along the Embankment. You fit?”
Some clock struck ten as we set off, and I could hardly believe that so much had happened in such a short time. Even the Embankment itself looked different, almost unreal, with its great glazed-floor span over the stinking Thames, and the steady roar of traffic to and fro. I have tried to imagine how it must have been when the river was still open and ships hauled where that traffic was now skimming, but it’s difficult. Where on earth did all the cars and runabouts travel, if not along the River Road?
“I know you don’t want to commit yourself as yet,” I said, “but when you say ‘something big,’ just how big do you mean?”
“Do you know anything about the underworld, Noble? About people who move on the other side of the law?”
“Nothing concrete. I’ve heard stories, of course.
“Stories have to be dramatized, made acceptable. And ethical. I mean, the good guys have to win, in stories. Not in reality. I imagine you’d say your father is an honest man. I suppose he is, by most standards. But he is up against people who can, and do, buy and sell information—trade secrets, manufacturing tricks, industrial know-how, that kind of thing. So he has to do it too. And there are organizations who specialize in just that. There are also individuals, very clever people, who will stop at nothing to get something they can sell to someone who needs it. That’s the field I work in, and it can be big stuff. In this case, unless my guesser is completely out of order, I’d say it is something off-planet.”
It was the last thing I expected to hear, and I said so. Apart from the fact that I had never been off-planet myself, and had never felt the urge toward it, I had the impression that everything off Earth was crude and half-civilized. Frontier stuff. He laughed; a quiet gentle chuckle.
“Insularity of the British,” he murmured. “No offense, but you people have difficulty crediting other parts of Earth with culture, much less the far reaches of space. Like it or not, there are fortunes to be made out there, and you should know, since a good third of your father’s business deals with trade out into space. We’ll see, anyway.”
We’d hardly been in his apartment five minutes before the doorbell announced our expert. In that brief time, we had both examined the enigmatic wig with some curiosity. I couldn’t see anything particularly odd about it, apart from the lightness of the thing. I had always imagined a wig to be thick and heavy, but this was soft and insubstantial. The pale lock running down the middle of it made it look like the pelt of some strange animal. I put it on a table as he went to let his visitor in. He came hack to say, “Noble, this is Fiona Knight. Fiona, meet Alan Noble, with a problem that should be right up your street.”
She looked as surprised as I was, but took my hand in a very good grip and grinned with more than a hint of mischief.
“Nice to know that you’re real. I half suspected Neil had made you up just to drag me away from my boredom. He thinks I’m bored, that is.”
She settled into a seat, and Carson handed her the wig.
“That’s the problem,” he said, and then, “I’ll make coffee.” And he went away into the kitchen. She obviously knew him well, because she said nothing at all, just took the furry thing in her hands and examined it closely. It gave me the opportunity to examine her. I like to think that I know how to use my eyes, and it didn’t take long to see that there were two people here, one on the surface and another, quite different, underneath. Her midnight-black hair and astonishingly blue eyes against a fair skin dusted with freckles and, as far as I could see, innocent of makeup apart from her mouth, gave her an open-air country look. She wore a heavily embroidered thing like a tabard, a brief garment that ended at her hips, with matching ankle-boots, and the rest of her was as good as nude in an electro-static body stocking. That much was the ultramodern demure look that so many try but few can justify as well as she did. But there was also the stillness, the purposeful movements of her hands and fingers, the total involvement with what she was doing, not even looking up as Carson set a coffee cup by her side. That didn’t match her social butterfly exterior at all. Carson grinned at me as he sat.
“Fiona has the notion that I invent distractions for her.”
“So you do,” she murmured, without looking up. “You treat me as if I were still a small girl. What’s your attitude toward women, Noble?”
“I haven’t bothered to form one, frankly.”
“That’s honest, anyway. Not worth bothering about, eh?” Her eyes came up like twin needles, and then she smiled and looked away to Carson. “Of course, I had a hint from you, but how did you spot it?”
“Habit of looking, and good guessing,” he murmured. Her eyes came back to me, devastatingly.
“Where do you come into this?”
“The wig is mine. Bequeathed to me. What about it?”
“By the door,” she said, “you’ll find a box. Bring it, and I’ll show you. Carefully, please, the e
quipment in there is mine on loan.”
When it was on the table by her side she snapped it open to show some kind of recording apparatus. From a small compartment she produced a loupe and tweezers, and began picking at a thread in the blonde lock of hair. I got the idea after a while. There was a fine wire in that hair.
“A recording wire! I would never have thought of it!”
“You didn’t have the background,” Carson soothed. “I did. It had to be a message of some kind. And Fiona has the technique, the equipment, and the sense to keep her mouth shut afterward.”
“Thank you very much.” She didn’t look up. “He’s like that all the time, Noble. While we ordinary mortals are wondering whether there’s a problem or not, he’s not only seen it and solved it, he’s three steps on the way to some action. Want to bet he already knows what’s on this wire?”
“No. He has already guessed it’s something off-planet. How soon can you test that?”
“Five or six minutes. It will take some time to get the speed set right. Off-planet, eh? You’re a good guesser, Neil, but that’s a bit far out, even for you. Any reasons?”
“You shouldn’t ask me that.” He was very gentle. “You’ve seen far more field-research wires than I ever have. Wire-recorders are comparatively rare on Earth, where tape is handier, except for espionage. And they don’t use that particular kind of ferrite.”
“As you said to Noble, I don’t have the background. Lord, I don’t know what kind of wire industrial spies use in their gadgets! Hush, this is it!”
We heard a crackle and then a sharp voice against interference.
“This is Leon Clan. This wire is the original and only wire, taken from the records of the third Tau Ceti Research Expedition, carrying this data. No other record exists.”
“Hold it!” Carson spoke, and she lifted her finger. “Just for the record, that’s the man I had in mind, Noble. Leon Clan. Go on, Fiona.”
“Go on nothing!” she blazed at him. “You knew this, too, didn’t you? The Tau Ceti Research? My father?”