Night of Error

Chapter Two

I had no more dreams that night, but slept heavily and late. It was Geordie who woke me by shaking my shoulder – and incidentally hurting my arm once again. I groaned and turned away, but he persisted until I opened my eyes. 'You're wanted on the phone,' he said. 'It's the Institute.'

I put on my dressing gown and was still thick-headed with sleep when I lifted the receiver. It was young Simms. 'Dr Trevelyan, I've taken over your old office while you're away and you've left something behind. I don't know if it's valuable or if you want it at all.

I mumbled, 'What is it?'

'A manganese nodule.'

I was jolted wide awake. 'Where did you find it?'

'I didn't. One of the cleaners found it under your desk and gave it to me. What should I do with it?'

'Stick tight to it. I'll pick it up this morning. It's got some -relation to work I'm engaged on. Thanks for calling.'

I turned to Geordie. 'All is not lost,' I said, 'we've got a nodule. You dropped some on the floor of my office, remember, and you left one under the desk.'

'I don't see what all the fuss is about. All along you've been insisting that the damn things-are worthless. What's so exciting about this one?'

I said, 'There are too many mysteries connected with this particular lot to suit me. I'm going to take a closer look at this one.'

As I breakfasted on a cigarette and a cup of strong coffee I rang Helen and asked her to read out Mark's death certificate. It was in French, of course, and she had some difficulties over the hand-written parts but we got it sorted out. I put down the phone and said to Geordie, 'Now I want to talk to that doctor as well as Kane.' I felt full of anger and frustration.

'What was the cause of death?'

'Peritonitus following an appendectomy. And that's impossible. The doctor's name is Hans Schouten. It was signed in Tanakabu, in the Tuamotus.'

'He's a hell of a long way from here.'

'But Kane isn't. Do your damndest to find him, Geordie.'

Geordie sighed. 'I'll do my best, but this is a bloody big city, and no one but you and Helen can identify him for sure.'

I dressed and drove down to the Institute, retrieved the nodule from Simms and then went down to the laboratories -I was going to analyse this lump of rock down to the last trace elements. First I photographed it in colour from several angles and took a casting of it in latex – that took care of the external record. Then I cut it in half with a diamond saw. Not entirely unexpectedly, in the centre was the white bone of a shark's tooth, also neatly cut in two.

One of the pieces I put in the rock mill and, while it was being ground to the consistency of fine flour, I polished and etched the flat surface of the other piece. Then the real work began. By early afternoon everything was well under way and luckily I had had the place almost to myself the whole time, but then Jarvis walked in. He was surprised to see me.

'You're supposed to be on leave, Mike. What's all this?'

He looked at the set-up on the bench. I had no worries about that – I could have been analysing anything, and the identifiable half-rock was out of sight. I said lightly, 'Oh, just some homework I promised I'd do when I had the chance.'

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. 'What have you been up to, young feller? Saw something about you in yesterday's press, didn't I? And I had a chap in from Scotland Yard asking questions about you – and about manganese nodules. And he said you'd killed someone?'

'I had a burglary two nights ago and knocked a chap off the fire escape,' I said. I hadn't seen the papers myself and it hadn't occurred to me that the story would be public. From Simms' lack of reaction, however, it seemed not to be exactly front-page news.

'Um', said Jarvis. 'Very unfortunate. Place is getting like Chicago. Nasty for you. But what's it got to do with nodules?'

'A couple were nicked from my place, with other stuff. I told him they weren't of much value.'

'I made that plain to the Inspector,' growled Jarvis. 'And I take it he's now convinced that your burglars were surprised and took the first things that came to hand. I gave you a reasonable character, by the way.'

I had my doubts about the Yard's acceptance of the front story. The Inspector had struck me as being full of deep suspicions.

'Well, my boy, I'll leave you to it. Anything interesting?' He cast an inquisitive glance at the bench.

I smiled. 'I don't know yet.'

He nodded. 'That's the way it is,' he said rather vaguely and wandered out. I looked at the bench and wondered if I was wasting my time. My own knowledge, backed by that of an expert like Jarvis, told me that this was just an ordinary Pacific nodule and nothing out of the ordinary. Still, I had gone so far, I might as well carry on. I left the glassware to bubble on its own for a while and went to take photomicrographs of the etched surface of the half-nodule.

I was busy for another couple of hours and having to use my bad arm didn't help. Normally I would have used the services of a laboratory technician but this was one job I wanted to do myself. And it was fortunate that I had taken that precaution because what I finally found astounded me. I looked incredulously at the table of figures that was emerging, breathing heavily with excitement and with my mind full of conflicting conjectures.

Then I became even busier, carefully dismantling the glassware and meticulously washing every piece. I wanted no evidence left of what I'd been up to. That done, I phoned the flat.

Geordie answered. 'Where the devil have you been?' he demanded. 'We've had the cops, the press, the insurance people – the lot.'

'Those are the last people I want to be bothered with right now. Is everything clear now?'

'Aye.'

'Good. I don't suppose you found Kane.'

'You suppose rightly. If you're so suspicious of him why don't you take what you've got to the police? They can do a better job of finding him than I can.'

'I don't want to do that right now. I'm coming home, Geordie. I've got something to tell you.'

'Have you eaten, boy?'

I suddenly realized that I hadn't eaten a mouthful all day. I felt very hungry. 'I've been too busy,' I said hopefully.

'I thought so. I'll tell you what; I'll cook up something in this kitchen of yours – one of my slumgullions. Then we won't have to go out and maybe get tagged by one of the newspaper blokes.'

'Thanks. That'll be fine.'

On the way home I bought some newspapers and found that the story had already sunk with no trace. A local shop produced me a copy of the previous day's press and the story was a short one, buried in the body of the paper, lacking in detail and with no mention of what had been stolen, which suited me very well. I didn't want to be questioned on anything concerning manganese nodules. I'm not naturally a good liar.

When I entered the flat I found Geordie busy in the kitchen surrounded by a mouth-watering aroma, and a remarkably well cleaned up living room. I made a mental note never to have glass-fronted bookshelves again – I didn't much like them anyway. Geordie called out, 'It'll be ready in about an hour, so you can get your news off your chest before we eat. I'll be out in two ticks.'

I went to the cabinet for the whisky bottle and two glasses, then picked my old school atlas off the bookshelf. Ink-blotted and politically out-of-date as it was, it would still suit my purpose. I put it on the table and turned to the pages which showed the Pacific.

Geordie came out of the kitchen and I said, 'Sit here. I want to tell you something important.'

He saw the glint of excitement in my eye, smiled and sat down obediently. I poured out two whiskies and said, 'I'm going to give you a little lecture on basic oceanography. I hope you won't be bored.'

'Go ahead, Mike.'

'At the bottom of the oceans – particularly the Pacific -there is a fortune in metallic ores in the form of small lumps lying on the seabed.' I took the half-nodule from my pocket and put it on the table. 'Like this lump here. There's no secret about this. Every oceanographer knows about them.'

Geordie picked it up and examined it. 'What's this white bit in the middle?'

'A shark's tooth.'

'How the hell did that get in the middle of a piece of rock?'

'That comes later,' I said impatiently, 'in the second lesson. Now, these lumps are composed mainly of manganese dioxide, iron oxide and traces of nickel, cobalt and copper, but to save time they're usually referred to as manganese nodules. I won't tell you how they got onto the seabed – that comes later too – but the sheer quantity is incredible.'

I turned to the atlas and moved my forefinger from south to north off the shoreline of the Americas, starting at Chile and moving towards Alaska. 'Proved deposits here, at the average of one pound a square foot, cover an area of two million square miles and involve twenty-six billion tons of nodules.'

I swept my finger out to Hawaii. 'This is the mid-Pacific Rise. Four million square miles – fifty-seven billion tons of nodules.'

'Hell's teeth,' said Geordie. 'You were right about incredible figures.'

I ignored this and moved my finger south again, to Tahiti. 'Fourteen million square miles in central and south-eastern Pacific. Two hundred billion tons of nodules. Like grains of dust in the desert.'

'Why haven't I heard about this before? It sounds like front page news.'

There's no reason why you shouldn't have, but you won't find it in the newspapers. It's not very interesting. You'd have to read the right technical journals. There's been no secret made of it; they were first discovered as far back as 1870 during the Challenger expedition.'

There must be a snag. Otherwise somebody would have done something about it before this.'

I smiled. 'Oh yes, there are snags – as always. One of them is the depth of the water – the average depth at which these things lie is over fourteen thousand feet. That's a good deal of water to go through to scoop up nodules, and the pressure on the bottom is terrific. But it could be done. An American engineer called John Mero did a post-graduate thesis on it. He proposed dropping a thing like a giant vacuum-cleaner and sucking the nodules to the surface. The capitalization on a scheme like that would run into millions and the profit would be marginal at one pound a square foot of ocean bed. It's what we'd call a pretty lean ore if we found it on land.'

Geordie said, 'But you have a card up your sleeve.'

'Let me put it this way. The information I've given you is based on the IGY surveys, and the one pound a square foot is a crude approximation.'

I stabbed my finger at the eastern Pacific. 'Zenkevitch, of the Soviet Institute of Oceanology – the Russians are very interested, by the way – found 3.7 pounds a square foot right there. You see, the stuff lies in varying concentrations. Here they found five pounds a square foot, here they found eight, and here, seven.'

Geordie had been listening with keen interest. 'That sounds as though it brings it back in line as an economic proposition.'

I shook my head tiredly. 'No, it doesn't. Manganese isn't in short supply, and neither is iron. If you started picking up large quantities of nodules all that would happen is that you'd saturate the market, the price would slip accordingly, and you'd be back where you started – with a marginal profit. In fact, it would be worse than that. The big metals firms and mining houses – the only people with the massed capital to do anything about it – aren't interested. They already run manganese mines on land, and if they started anything like this they'd end up by wrecking their own land-based investments.'

'It seems that you're running in circles,' said Geordie acidly. 'Where is all this getting us?'

'Have patience. I'm making a point. Now, I said there are traces of other metals in these nodules – copper, nickel and cobalt. You can forget the copper. But here, in the south-east Pacific, the nodules run to about 1.6 per cent nickel and about. 3 per cent cobalt. The Mid-Pacific Rise gives as much as 2 per cent cobalt. Keep that in mind, because I'm going to switch to something else.'

'For God's sake, Mike, don't spin it out too long.'

I was and I knew it, and enjoyed teasing him. 'I'm coming to it,' I said. 'All the figures I've given you are based on the IGY surveys.' I leaned forward. 'Guess how many sites they surveyed.'

'I couldn't begin to make a guess.'

I took a sip of whisky. They dredged and photographed sixty sites. A lousy sixty sites in sixty-four million square miles of Pacific.'

Geordie stared at me. 'Is that all? I wouldn't hang a dog on evidence like that.'

'The orthodox oceanographer says, "The ocean bed is pretty much of a piece – it doesn't vary greatly from place to place – so what you find at site X, which you've checked, you're pretty certain to find at site Y, which you haven't checked." '

I tapped the atlas. 'I've always been suspicious of that kind of reasoning. Admittedly, the ocean bed is pretty much of a piece, but I don't think we should rely on it sight unseen. And neither did Mark.'

'Did Mark work together with you on this?'

'We never worked together,' I said shortly. To continue. In 1955 the Scripps expedition fished up a nodule from about-here.' I pointed to the spot. 'It was two feet long, twenty inches thick and weighed a hundred and twenty-five pounds. In the same year a British cable ship was grappling for a broken cable here, in the Philippines Trench. They got the cable up, all right, from 17,000 feet, and in a loop of cable they found a nodule 4 feet long and 3 feet in diameter. That one weighed 1700 pounds.'

'I begin to see what you're getting at.'

'I'm trying to put it plainly. The orthodox boys have sampled sixty spots in sixty-four million square miles and have the nerve to think they know all about it. I'm banking that there are places where nodules lie fifty pounds to the square foot – and Mark knew of such places, if I read enough of his notes correctly.'

'I think you had a point to make about cobalt, Mike. Come across with it.'

I let my excitement show. This is the clincher. The highest assay for cobalt in any nodule has been just over 2 per cent.' I pushed the half-nodule on the table with my finger. 'I assayed this one today. It checked out at ten per cent cobalt – and cobalt, Geordie, is worth more than all the rest put together and the rocket metallurgists can't get enough of it!'

We ate Geordie's stew and very good it was, and by midnight we had just about talked the subject to death. At one stage I said, returning to a sore point, 'I wish I still had those notebooks. They were only rough working notes and Mark seemed to have gone up a lot of false trails – some of the assumptions seemed completely cockeyed – but I wish they hadn't been pinched.' '

Geordie sucked on his pipe, which gurgled. 'I could do with knowing why they were pinched – and who pinched them.'

'Then you agree that it has something to do with Mark's death?'

'It must do, boy. He got hold of something valuable…'

'And was murdered for it,' I finished. 'But who killed him? Kane? That's unlikely – it's an odd murderer who travels halfway round the world to inform the family.'

That was a good conversation-stopper. We were quiet for some time, then I said tentatively, 'If only we could get hold of Schouten.'

'He's on the other side of the world.'

I said softly, 'I think Mark came across a hell of a big deposit of high-cobalt nodules. He wasn't a bad scientist but, being Mark, he was probably more interested in the worth of his discovery – to himself. His theories were a bit startling though, and they intrigue me.'

'So?'

'So I'd like to do something about it.'

'You mean – organize an expedition?'

'That's right.' Saying it aloud began to jell all the ideas that had been bubbling up in me since the assay.

Geordie knocked the dottle out of his pipe. Tell me, Mike, what's your interest in this – scientific or personal? You weren't particularly friendly towards Mark. Is it that you feel that Trevelyans should be free to go about their business without being murdered, or is it something else?'

'It's that and a lot more. For one thing, someone is pushing me around and I don't like it. I don't like having my home burgled, being knifed, or having my friends shot at. And I don't appreciate having my brother murdered, if that's really what happened, no matter what I thought of him as a person. Then, of course, there's the scientific interest – I'm fascinated. A find like this would hit oceanography like evolution hit biology. And then there's the money.'

'Yes,' said Geordie. 'I suppose there would be money in it.'

'You suppose damn right. And if you're thinking in millions, stop it, because you're thinking small – it could be billions.'

He wasn't ready to be enthusiastic. 'So you think it's as good as that?'

'As good as that,' I said firmly. 'There's enough at stake for quite a few murders.'

'How much would such an expedition cost?'

I had already been thinking about that. 'A ship- plus about fifty thousand for special equipment – plus stores and running expenses.'

'Running expenses for how long?'

I smiled wryly. 'That's one of the jokers – who knows in a thing like this?'

'It's a lot of money. And there's over sixty million square miles of Pacific, you said.'

'I know my job,' I said. 'I wouldn't be going entirely blindfold. I know a hell of a lot of places where there aren't any high-cobalt nodules. And there's what I can recall of Mark's theories – perhaps they're not so fantastic after all. Plus there's this – I'm sure we can make something of it.' I held up Mark's little diary, which I was keeping on my person.

Geordie slapped his hands together suddenly. 'All right, boy. If you can find the capital and the running expenses – and God knows where you'll find money like that – I can provide the ship. Would old Esmerelda do?'

'My God, she'd be perfect for running on a small budget.' I looked at him closely, trying not to show my excitement too much. 'But why should you come into this? It's a chancy business, you know.'

He laughed. 'Well, you did mention a few billions of money. Besides, some little bastard shot off the top of my little finger. I'm not particularly interested in him, but I would like to get my hands round the neck of the man who paid him. And chartering tourists isn't very much fun after a bit. I suppose you have some ideas about finance? I mean, without a tame banker it's a non-starter.'

I had been thinking about it, for the last hour or two in between our bouts of conversation. The pieces seemed to be dropping into place nicely, so far.

I said musingly, 'I saw Clare Campbell the other day – she's in town with her father, attending some conference or other. He's my goal.'

'Who is Campbell?'

'Jonathan Campbell – never known as J.C. A Scottish Canadian mining man. Mark worked for him for a while after the IGY – something to do with a mining venture in South America…' I trailed off and Geordie cocked his head enquiringly. Something about that statement teased at me but I couldn't identify it and let it go with a shake of my head.

'So he's got money.'

'He's loaded with it,' I said, back on the track. 'He's got the reputation of being a bit of a plunger, and this thing might appeal to him. He lost a packet in the South American business not long ago – something to do with mines being nationalized – but I think he's got enough left to take a gamble on something new.'

'How do you know all this about Campbell, Mike? I didn't know you studied the financial pages.'

'I was thinking of getting out of pure research after the IGY. The pay's small compared with industry, so I thought I'd look about for a job compatible with my expensive tastes.' I waved a hand around my modest flat. 'Lots of other chaps did it – Mark was one – so I did a bit of investigating and Campbell cropped up.'

'But you didn't take the job.'

I shook my head. 'He'd already signed Mark on, you see, and I didn't fancy having Mark as a colleague. Anyway, I was asked to go to the Institute about that time – less pay, but a more interesting job. Mark left the IGY programme early and got out of pure research. I never actually met Campbell but I did once meet his daughter – in Vancouver. Mark had her in tow. They seemed to be pretty close – they would, she being the boss's daughter.'

Geordie's voice had become as cold as mine. 'Poor stupid cow.'

I thought that she didn't look like his description at all, and wondered how long it had taken for her to read Mark's character. She hadn't struck me then as the sort of girl to be taken in for long. But I hoped that nothing much had happened between them, lest it colour Campbell's attitude towards me when I came to approach him.

'How long did Mark work for Campbell?'

'Not very long- about a year and a half. Then he pushed off into the South Pacific and teamed up with Norgaard, last I heard of it. I don't know exactly what they were doing – they had neither a decent boat nor the right equipment for proper research, as far as I could tell.'

'But if Campbell's a mining man, what makes you think he'll finance a deep sea adventure?'

'I think he might,' I said. 'Metals are his business. Never gold or silver, nor the other end of the scale, the base metals. He's dabbled in tin and copper and had a go at platinum once. Now it seems he's concentrating on alloy metals – titanium, cobalt, vanadium and stuff like that. Now that rocketry is big business there's a boom in these metals.'

Geordie asked curiously, 'How does he go about it – his investing, I mean?'

'He takes advantage of us scientific types. He employs a few good men – people like Mark, for instance – and the number varies from time to time. Most of them are geologists, of course. He organizes field expeditions into remote parts, spots a body of ore, puts a million or so into proving and development, then pulls out and sells to the real big boys at a profit. I heard that in one of his recent ventures he put in two million dollars and a year of his time, then sold out at a net profit of a million and a quarter. Not bad for a year's work, eh, Geordie?'

'Not bad at all. But I'd say it needs experience and a hell of a lot of cold nerve.'

'Oh, he's a canny Scot, all right. I hope he's still in town -I'll find out tomorrow.'

'What about Kane – why not put the coppers on to him?'

I shook my head vigorously. 'Not now. All they'd do would be to pass on a query to Tahiti and I've no positive faith in the activities of the French Colonial Police, especially when there's a convenient legal death certificate handy. The delays would be awful, for one thing. No, I'll see for myself – if I can get Campbell interested. I would dearly like to talk to Dr Schouten.'

Geordie rubbed his chin meditatively. 'I'm thinking of making one or two changes in the crew if we go on this caper. I'd like a couple of blokes I know from the old days. I wonder what Ian Lewis is doing now? When I met him a few months ago he said he found life a little tedious.'

I vaguely remembered a tall, gangling Highlander. 'What was he doing?'

'Oh, he had a place in the Scottish wilderness that he said he'd be glad to leave. You know, I reckon I could get you half a dozen good chaps, all trained fighters and some of them seamen. I've got a couple anyway that I'd keep on for this trip.'

I had a dawning suspicion of what was in Geordie's mind. 'Hold on – what's the idea?'

He said, 'I'd like to see the bunch of thugs who'd stand up against some of your dad's old mob. They may be getting older, but they're not that old and they're all trained commandoes. They're not all settled down and married, you know.'

'What do you think you're doing – setting up a private army?'

'Might not be a bad idea,' he said. 'If the other night is a sample of what to expect we might need a bloody army.'

I sighed. 'All right, Sergeant Wilkins. But no one who's married or has other responsibilities, and you'd better hold your hand until we get Campbell tied up. We can't do anything without money.'

'Ah yes, the money,' said Geordie, and looked very sad.

The following morning, quite early, I had a visit from the Inspector and one of his men. Geordie was already out and I was impatient to begin my search for Kane, but tried not to show it. The Inspector was cagey and suspicious, but very casual. I think his trouble was that he didn't really know what to be suspicious of.

He asked, 'Know anyone in South America?'

'Not off hand. No, I don't,' I said.

'Um. The man you killed may have been a South American. His clothes were labelled from Lima, Rio and Montevideo. He could be from almost anywhere except Brazil.'

'I think that answers one question. I couldn't place the accent. What was his name?'

The Inspector shook his head. 'That we don't know, Mr Trevelyan. Or anything else about him, yet. Are you quite sure you don't know any South Americans?'

'Positive.'

He changed tack. 'Wonderful thing, this science; I've found out everything there is to know about manganese nodules.'

I said dryly, 'then you know more than I do – they're not really my line. Did you find it interesting?'

He smiled sourly. 'Not very – they're about as valuable as road gravel. Are you sure there wasn't anything else in that suitcase that might have been of value?'

'Inspector, it was just junk. The kind of stuff that anyone might carry in a case, apart from the nodules, that is.'

'Looks as though Mr Wilkins might have been right, after all. You surprised the burglars before they could pinch anything else.'

I didn't fall for that one – the Inspector didn't for one moment believe it was an ordinary break-in. I said non-committally, 'I think you're right.'

'The inquest will be next Wednesday,' he said. 'You'll get an official notification, both of you.'

'I'll be there.'

Then they were gone and I thought about South America. That was nearer the Pacific than Spain, but apart from that it made no particular sense to me. And then, belatedly, I thought of Mark's connection with Jonathan Campbell, and Campbell's reputed connection with some South American mining venture, and I had something else to chew on. But it still made no sense, and for the time being I gave up.

Finding a rich Canadian in London's millions was a damn sight easier than finding a poor Australian. The rich are circumscribed in their travelling. The Institute gave me the address of the conference centre, and they gave me the address of the hotel Campbell was staying at, and I had him at the third phone call. Campbell was blunt and curt to the point of rudeness. Yes, he could give me half an hour of his time at eleven that morning – it was already nine-thirty. His tone indicated that if he thought I was wasting his time I'd be kicked out in the first two minutes. The telephone conversation lasted only that long.

At eleven I was at the Dorchester and was shown up to Campbell's suite. He opened the door himself. Trevelyan?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Come in.'

He led the way into a room once a luxury living-room but now fitted out as a temporary office, complete with desk, files and secretary; he sent her out and seated himself behind the desk, gesturing me to sit opposite. He was a broad, stocky man of about sixty with a square, tanned face lined with experience. Somebody once said that after forty a man is responsible for his own face; if that's so then Campbell had had a lot of responsibility in his time. His eyes were a frosty blue and his hair iron grey and grizzled. His clothes were expensive and only the slightest accent indicated his transatlantic origin.

I decided that attack was the best policy. I produced the half-nodule and put it on his blotting pad. 'That assays at ten per cent cobalt,' I said without preamble.

He picked it up and looked at it carefully, masking any curiosity. 'Where did it come from?'

'The bottom of the Pacific.'

He looked up and stared at me, then said, 'Are you any relation of the Mark Trevelyan who worked for me a while back?'

'He was my brother.'

'Was?'

'He's dead.'

Campbell frowned. 'When and where did he die?'

'About four months ago – in the Pacific.'

'Sorry to hear it,' he said but perfunctorily. 'A good scientist.'

I detected the careful note in his voice, and thought that here was someone else who had seen through Mark, or had had some example of how my brother went about his affairs. I wondered if it was a business problem, or if it had had anything to do with his daughter's relationship with Mark. I couldn't assess whether it was going to make things harder or easier for me.

He carried on looking at me rather than at the specimen. Trevelyan – I've heard the name more recently. Oh yes!' He turned and produced a tabloid newspaper from a shelf and shook it out. 'Are you the Trevelyan mentioned here? The one who killed a man defending his home? An Englishman's castle and all that stuff?'

I caught a glimpse of the headline: SCIENTIST KILLS BURGLAR. Quite mild, considering the paper. I nodded. 'That's right.'

He pursed his lips and put aside the paper, and then came back to business. This is a manganese nodule. There are billions of them lying on the bottom of the Pacific. There are quite a few in the Atlantic too.'

'Not many there,' I said. 'And the quality's poor. Too much sedimentation.'

True.' He tossed the stone and caught it. The highest cobalt assay so far is a fraction over 2 per cent. That one came from the central Pacific. Where did this one come from?'

I looked at him blankly and shook my head. He smiled suddenly and it transformed his face – he had a very charming smile. 'All right, I tried,' he said. 'You'd be surprised how often it works. Do you know why I am able to reel off facts about manganese nodules?'

'I was wondering.'

'Your brother told me,' he said. 'He wanted me to fit an expedition a couple of years back. I must say I was tempted.'

'Why didn't you?'

He hesitated, then said, 'I lost a packet in South America. It caught me off balance and until I reorganized I didn't have any fluid capital. About that time your brother left my company, and he hadn't left me enough to go on by myself.'

'I hope you're better placed now,' I said dryly. 'Because that's why I've come to you – now it's my turn to ask you to fund an expedition.'

'So I gathered,' he said, equally dryly. He touched the nodule. 'I must say you brought more than your brother did. He talked a good story but he never showed any concrete evidence. You say this assayed at ten per cent cobalt?'

'I assayed it myself yesterday afternoon – the other half, that is.'

'Mind if I have this assayed – independently?'

'Not at all,' I said equably.

He laughed, showing his charm again. 'All right, Trevelyan, I won't need to. I'm convinced of this anyway.'

'I'd prefer it if you did,' I said. 'I could do with corroboration. But I must tell you that what you've got in your hand is all the evidence I have to show.'

His hand clenched around the nodule. 'Now you do begin to interest me. I think you have a story, Mr Trevelyan. Why don't you tell it and quit beating around the bush?'

I had already decided that if we were to work together at all I must hold nothing back. It was only moderately risky. So I told him everything, and when I'd finished we were well past my original half hour. He listened in absolute silence until I was done and then said, 'Now let's see if I've got all this straight. One, your brother died out in the Pacific; two, a man called Nelson whom you have never heard of sent you a case which contained notebooks and nodule samples; three, Kane shows up and pitches what you think is a cock-and-bull yarn; four, the suitcase is stolen by presumed South Americans with additional violence including one killing; five, you retain one nodule, analyse it and find a fantastic percentage of cobalt; and six, you also retain a diary of your brother's which you can't even read.'

He looked at me for a long time and then said gently, 'And on the basis of this you want me to invest maybe a million dollars.'

I got out of my chair.

'Sorry to have wasted your time, Mr Campbell.'

'Sit down, you damned fool. Don't give up without a fight. I haven't said I won't invest, have I?' He saw the look on my face and added, 'And I haven't yet said I will, either. Have you got that diary here?'

Wordlessly I took it from my breast pocket and handed it over the desk. He flicked it open and turned rapidly from page to page. 'Who taught your brother to write shorthand?' he asked disgustedly. 'St Vitus?'

'Basically it's Pitman's,' I said. 'But Mark adapted it.' I could have gone on to say that Mark had always been secretive, never liking anyone to know what he was doing. But I kept my mouth shut.

Campbell tossed the diary aside. 'Maybe we can get something out of it somehow – maybe a cipher expert can sort it out.' He turned in his swivel chair and looked out of the window towards Hyde Park, and there was a long silence until he spoke again.

'You know what really interested me in this improbable story of yours?'

'No, I don't.'

'Those South Americans,' he said unexpectedly. 'South America has been unlucky for me, you know. I lost nearly ten million down there. That's when Mark's expedition went down the drain, along with a lot of other things. And now Mark has come back – in a sense – and more South Americans are involved. What do you make of that?'

'Not a thing,' I said.

'I don't believe in coincidence. Not when it happens like this. What I do have to consider lies outside your domain, perhaps – the complications of international law regarding mining, especially offshore, undersea stuff. International relations – so I have to know more about the areas you want to research. Financing. Distribution. Markets.'

I was a little taken aback. Perhaps I was too much of the research scientist – the hard facts of commercial dealing had hardly occurred to me. But on reflection I could hear no note of doubt or dismay in Campbell's voice, only the sound of a man mulling over the forthcoming ramifications of the deal he was being offered – and liking it. There was undoubtedly the faint note of challenge in his attitude, and this encouraged me. I guessed that he, like Geordie's old pal Ian Lewis, may be finding life a little boring at present and was attracted by the novelty of my proposition.

He poked the nodule with his finger. There are two things necessary for industrial civilization – cheap power and cheap steel. What's the iron oxide content of this?'

'Thirty-two per cent by weight.'

That does it. The cobalt will make it economically feasible and the result is a cheap high-grade iron ore, a hell of a lot of manganese, plus some copper, vanadium and anything else we can pick up. Cheap metals, billions of dollars' worth and cheaper than anyone else can produce. It can be tied into one neat, strong package – but it needs careful handling. And above all it needs secrecy.'

'I know. I've already been stalling off a police inspector who thinks there's more to the burglary than meets the eye.'

Campbell appeared satisfied. 'Good. You've got the point.'

Then you're willing to finance an expedition?' I asked. It was almost too easy, I thought, and I was right.

'I don't know yet. I want to make some investigations of my own, enquiries which I can make and you can't. And maybe I can find Kane for you. Besides, you may not be in a position to undertake anything for some time – you killed a man, remember.' His smile this time was more grim than charming. 'Not that I blame you for it – I've killed men myself- but let's wait for your inquest before deciding anything.'

It was six days to the inquest, the longest six days I've spent in my life. To fill in the time I got down to writing the paper that I was supposed to turn out. It wasn't a very good paper as it happened; I had too much else on my mind to concentrate really well.

By the end of the week Geordie still hadn't found Kane, though he'd got a lot of other things moving. 'It's hopeless,' he said to me. 'A needle in a haystack would be easier- this is like trying to find one particular wisp of hay.'

'He may not be in London at all.'

A truism which didn't help. But on the morning of the inquest Kane was found – or rather, he found me.

He called at the flat just as I was leaving for the court -Geordie as usual was out ahead of me and would meet me there. Kane was looking a little the worse for wear with bloodshot eyes and a greying stubble on his cheeks. He coughed raspingly and said, 'Sorry to trouble you, Mr Trevelyan, but you did say I was to keep in touch.'

I looked at him in astonishment and choked back the questions that were on the tip of my tongue. I invited him inside and did a bit of fast thinking as I poured him a cup of coffee. Geordie and Campbell had as much at stake in this as I had, and besides I wanted witnesses when I questioned Kane. I decided to play it softly, though I could hardly bear to speak to him without losing my control.

I made myself smile pleasantly at him. 'Had enough of England, Mr Kane?'

'It 'ud be a nice country if it wasn't for your bleeding weather. We could do with some of this rain back in Queensland, my word.'

'But you've enjoyed your stay?'

'I've had a bonzer time,' he said. 'But my stay's over, Mr Trevelyan. I got to gambling again. I'll never learn.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' I said.

He looked at me hopefully. 'Mr Trevelyan, you said you might be able to arrange a passage for me. I wondered…'

'Do you have to get back to the Pacific immediately?'

For some reason that didn't please him. 'Not specially, no. But I've got no boodle. If I had some cash or a job I'd like to stay around a bit. I thought maybe you could…'

I said, 'I have a friend who has a yacht which he's fitting out. He and I hope to get in some sailing together, and I think he needs crew. How would that suit you?'

He took the bait eagerly. 'That 'ud be just fine, Mr Trevelyan!'

I put an opened writing pad in front of him, trying to hold back my own eagerness. 'Write down the name of wherever you're staying so that I can get the owner to contact you,' I said. 'He'll want to interview you but I'll make it all right with him. And I'll let you have something ahead of your pay, to cover your rooming costs. How's that?'

He wrote an address down. 'I'll do that. Thanks a whole lot, Mr Trevelyan.'

'That's all right,' I said generously. 'You've earned it.'

I gave him a head start and then left for the court hearing. The encounter had been good for me, giving me something else to think about and making a vital connection in my story for Campbell. I had no time to tell Geordie about it, however, but savoured telling him afterwards.

The inquest was simple and straightforward. A doctor gave evidence of death, then I went on the stand, followed immediately by Geordie. We stuck to straight facts and didn't elaborate but I noticed that Geordie kept his bandaged finger prominently in view of the coroner. My neighbour spoke and then the police had their turn.

As Geordie was giving evidence I glanced round the courtroom and saw Campbell sitting at the back. He nodded to me, then turned his attention to the proceedings.

The Inspector made an appearance and confirmed that he had found a gun, a Beretta automatic pistol, hanging from the right-hand coat pocket of the deceased. The foresight was caught in the torn lining. I felt a lot better after this because it had been one of the points I had made myself. I looked the coroner straight in the eye and he didn't avoid my glance – a good sign. The lack of identity of the dead man was briefly discussed.

There was a surprise witness, at least to me – old Jarvis appeared to give expert testimony. He told the coroner what manganese nodules were and even produced one to show what the things looked like. The coroner prodded him a bit about their value and Jarvis responded in his downright, damn-your-eyes way. But that was just for the record.

Then suddenly it was over. The coroner took little time to decide that death was due to justifiable manslaughter. He wound everything up with a pontifical speech to the effect that while an Englishman's home may be his castle, no man had the right to take the law into his own hands and that if a little more care had been taken, in his opinion, a death could have been averted. However what was done was done, and Mr Michael Trevelyan was free to leave the court without a stain on his character.

We all stood up when he swept out and there was a general drift to the doors. An official elbowed his way up to me and gave me a note. It was brief and to the point. 'See you at the Dorchester. Campbell.' I passed it to Geordie as he reached me to slap me heavily on the back. 'I hope this means what I think it means,' I said. 'I've got a lot to tell you.'

We drifted out with the crowd and were eventually deposited on the pavement. A lot of people I didn't know congratulated me on killing a man and getting away with it, some reporters had a lot of questions to ask, and at last I caught sight of the man I was looking for. I ran to catch up with him, Geordie behind me. It was Professor Jarvis.

He saw me coming, waved his stick and waited for me to join him.

'Well, that went off all right, my boy,' he said.

'You did your bit – thank you.'

'Damned fools,' he grumbled. 'Everyone knows that those nodules are basically worthless – not an economic proposition at all.'

'I wondered if you had a moment to talk to me – here, rather than at the Institute,' I asked him. There seemed to be no difficulty and we sat down on the low stone wall outside the courthouse, enjoying the thin watery sunshine.

'I have nothing to tell you, young man,' the Professor said. 'I made a few enquiries about that chap, Norgaard, but there's nothing doing. The feller seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.'

'When was the last you heard of him?'

'About six, seven months ago – when he was with your brother. They were fossicking about in the islands round Tahiti.'

'When did Norgaard start working with Mark?' I asked.

'Now let me see. It must have been nearly two years ago, after Mark left that Canadian firm he was working for. Yes, that was it – after he had to leave the IGY project he went to Canada and was with that chap Campbell for over two years, then he left to join up with Norgaard. What they were doing I don't know; they didn't publish anything.'

His grasp of events was remarkable, I thought, and then seized on something he had said. 'What do you mean – had to leave the IGY?'

Jarvis actually looked embarrassed. 'Oh, I shouldn't have said that,' he mumbled.

'I'd like to know. It can't hurt Mark now.'

'It's bad form. De mortuis – and all that, don't you know.'

'Out with it,' I said. 'After all, it's all in the family.'

Jarvis regarded the tip of his highly polished shoe. 'Well, I never did get to the bottom of it – it was hushed up, you know – but apparently Mark fudged some of his results.'

'Faked his figures?'

'That's right. It was found out by sheer chance. Of course he had to leave. But we – the IGY agreed not to make any more of it, so he was able to get the job in Canada, after he resigned.'

'So that's why he left before it was over. I wondered about that. What was he working on at the time?'

Jarvis shrugged. 'I don't recall, but it certainly had to do with the underwater surveys. Manganese nodules, perhaps?' Not too shrewd a guess, all things considered; but I didn't like it. He went on, 'I never did like your brother. I never trustee him and the fact that he cooked his books didn't surprise me a bit.'

I said, That's all right – lots of people didn't like Mark. I wasn't too keen on him myself. And it wasn't the first time he rigged his results. He did the same at school.' And at university. Not to mention his personal life.

Jarvis nodded. 'I'm not surprised at that either. Still, my boy, I don't mistrust the whole Trevelyan family. You're worth ten of your brother, Mike.'

Thanks, Prof.,' I said warmly.

'Forget all this and enjoy your leave now. The South Atlantic is waiting for you when you return.'

He turned and strode away, jauntily waving his stick. I looked after him with affection; I thought he would be genuinely sorry to lose me if the deal with Campbell came off and I went to the South Pacific instead of the South Atlantic. He would once more angrily bewail the economic facts of life which drew researchers into industry and he would write a few acid letters to the journals.

I turned to Geordie. 'What do you make of that?'

'Norgaard vanished just about the same time that Mark kicked the bucket. I wonder if…'

'I know what you're thinking, Geordie. Is Norgaard still alive? I do hope to God Campbell comes through – I want to do some field work in the islands.'

'You had something to tell me,' he reminded me. But I had decided to save it up.

'I'll tell you and Campbell together. Come with me to see him.'

Campbell was less crusty than at our first meeting. 'Well,' he said, as we entered his suite, 'I see you're not entirely a hardened criminal, Trevelyan.'

'Not a stain on my character. The coroner said so.' I introduced Geordie and the two big men sized one another up with interest. 'Mr Wilkins is willing to contribute a ship – and skipper her, too.'

Campbell said, 'I see someone has faith in your crazy story. I suppose that getting hurt added to your conviction.'

'What about you?' I asked.

He ignored this and asked what we would drink. 'We must celebrate a successful evasion of the penalty of the law,' he said, almost jovially. He ordered and we got down to business. I decided to keep the Kane episode to be revealed at the proper moment and first hear what Campbell had to say.

'I knew my hunch about your South Americans would work out,' he said. 'I've got a pretty good intelligence system – you have to in my line of work- and I find that Suarez-Navarro are fitting out a research ship in Darwin right at this moment. It's new business and new territory for them, so my guess is that they are heading your way.'

I looked at him blankly. That didn't mean a thing to me.

I think he enjoyed my lack of comprehension because he left me dangling for a while before elucidating. 'Suarez-Navarro is a South American mining house, active in several countries,' he said. 'I've tangled with them before – they're a crowd of unscrupulous bastards. Now, why would a mining house be fitting out an oceanographical research ship?'

'Nodules,' said Geordie succinctly.

'How unscrupulous are they?' I asked. 'Would they stoop to burglary?' I didn't mention murder.

Campbell folded his hands together. 'I'll tell you the story and let you judge for yourself. Once I had a pretty good set-up in South America, never mind just where. The mines were producing well and I ploughed a lot back in the interests of good labour relations. I had a couple of schools, a hospital and all the civilized trimmings. Those Indian miners never had it so good, and they responded well.

'Suarez-Navarro cast an eye on the operation and liked the look of it. They went about things in their own smelly way, though. They had a trouble-shooter, a guy called Ernesto Ramirez, whom they used for that type of operation. He pitched up, got at the government, greased a few palms, supported the Army, and then suddenly there was a new government – which promptly expropriated the mines in the interests of the national economy – or that's what they said. Anyway, I never got a cent out of it. They just took the lot and Ramirez vanished back into the hole they dug him out of.

The next thing that happened was that the government wanted somebody to run the mines, so Suarez-Navarro offered to take on the job out of the kindness of their hearts and a hefty percentage of the profits. I had been paying 38 per cent tax but Suarez-Navarro got away tax free since they claimed it was really government property anyway. They had a sweet set-up.

They closed the schools and the hospital – those things don't produce, you see. Pretty soon they had a strike on their hands. If you treat a man like a man he kind of resents going back to being treated like a pig – so there was a strike. That brought Ramirez out of his hole fast. He called in the Army, there was quite a bit of shooting, and then there was suddenly no strike – just fifty dead Indians and quite a few widows.'

He smiled grimly. 'Does that answer your question about the scruples of Suarez-Navarro?'

I nodded. It was a nasty story.

Campbell seemed to go off at a tangent. 'I'm attending a conference here in London, a conference on mineral resources.'

That's how I found you,' I murmured, but he took no notice.

'It's a Commonwealth deal really but various other interested parties have been invited to send observers. Suarez-Navarro have two – you can't keep them out of anything – but another one arrived last week. His name is Ernesto Ramirez.' Campbell's voice was hard. 'Ramirez isn't a conference man, he's not a negotiator. He's Suarez-Navarro's muscle man. Do I make my point?'

We both nodded, intently.

'Well, I'm going to hammer it home really hard. I've found Kane for you.'

'Well, I'll be damned!' I said.

'You were going about it the hard way. I put someone on to watch Ramirez and was told that a man called Kane had a two-hour talk with him yesterday. We had Kane followed to where he's in digs and I have the address.'

I reeled it off.

It was effective. Campbell said, 'What?' disbelievingly, and Geordie gaped at me. I enjoyed my moment.

'Kane came to visit me this morning,' I said, and told them both what had happened. 'I suggest you get him down to the docks and have a serious talk with him,' I said to Geordie.

Campbell frowned and then his great smile broke on his face. 'No, you don't,' he said. 'Don't ask him a damn thing. Don't you see what's happening?'

Geordie and I shrugged helplessly. We weren't quick enough for Campbell in matters like this.

'Ever heard of industrial espionage? Of course you have. Every big outfit runs a spy system. I do it myself- don't much like it, but I've got to keep up with the hard-nosed bastards in the business.' He actually looked as if he enjoyed it very much. 'Now let's reconstruct what's been happening. You got hold of something you shouldn't have – from the point of view of Suarez-Navarro. Ramirez hotfoots it to England – he arrived the day before Kane came to see you, so it's a cinch they came together. Kane comes to you to find out if Mark's stuff has arrived yet, and he knows it has because you tell him so yourself. He spins you a yarn as cover – it doesn't really matter what it is. Then Ramirez tells his boys to snatch the stuff but you surprise them in the middle.' He lifted his eyebrows. 'Does that make sense so far?'

Geordie said, 'It makes sense to me.'

I said nothing. I was a little more doubtful, but if this served to keep up Campbell's interest I was all for it.

He continued, 'But something goes wrong- they leave the diary and one nodule. Ramirez doesn't know this, but he does know you've contacted me and that all sorts of enquiries are out – including questions in court about nodules. Oh yes, I bet he was there – or someone for him. He must have had a shock when you came to see me. You see, he'd keep a tail on you as a matter of routine just to see if you did anything out of the ordinary – and you did. So what does Ramirez do now?'

'I'll buy it,' I said. 'What does he do?'

'He lays Kane alongside you again,' said Campbell. 'You gave him the perfect opportunity – you practically invited Kane to come back. It's Kane's job to find out what, if anything, is in the wind. But what Ramirez doesn't know is that you were suspicious of Kane right from the start, and this gives us a perfect opportunity. We string Kane along – employ him, feed him any information we want him to know and keep from him anything we don't want him to know. We also keep him underfoot and don't lose him again. That's why you mustn't ask him any awkward questions – not right now, anyway.'

I thought about it for a long time. 'Does this mean you're coming in with us? Putting up the finance?'

'You're damn right it does,' snapped Campbell. 'If Suarez-Navarro are going to all this trouble they must be on to something big, and I'd like to stab them in the back just for old times' sake. I'll put up half a million dollars – or whatever it takes – and I ask only one thing. That we get there, and do it, before they can.'

Geordie said gently, 'It was a good idea of mine, wasn't it?'

'What's that?' asked Campbell.

'Geordie's recruiting a private army,' I explained. 'As he gets older he gets more bloodthirsty.'

A look passed between them for the second time that made me feel like the outsider. Without saying a word they were in full accord on many levels, and for a moment I felt very inexperienced indeed.

Campbell said, 'There's another thing. My doctor is troubled about my health, the goddam quack. He's been pestering me to take a sea voyage, and I'm suddenly minded to accept his advice. I'm coming along for the ride.'

'You're the boss,' I said. I wasn't surprised.

He turned to Geordie. 'Now, what kind of a ship have you, Captain?'

'A brigantine,' said Geordie. 'About two hundred tons.'

Campbell's jaw dropped. 'But that's a little sailing ship! This is supposed to be a serious project.'

Take it easy,' I said, grinning at Geordie who was already bristling at any slight to Esmerelda. 'A lot of research vessels are sailing ships; there happen to be a number of sound reasons.'

'All right. Let's hear them.'

'Some of the reasons are purely technical,' I said. 'For instance, it's easier to make a sailing ship non-magnetic than a powered ship. Magnetism plays hell with all sorts of important readings. But the reasons you'll appreciate are purely economic.'

'If you're talking economics you're talking my language,' he growled.

'A research ship never knows exactly where it's going. We might find ourselves dredging a thousand miles away from the nearest land. Station keeping and dredging take power and fuel, and an engine powered ship would need a hell of a lot of fuel to make the round trip.

'But a sailing ship can make the journey and arrive on station with close on full tanks, given careful management. She can keep on station longer and no one need worry about whether there'll be enough fuel to get back. You could use a powered ship to do the job but it would cost you – oh, a million pounds plus. Geordie's boat will be fine.'

'The day's not been wasted,' Campbell said. 'I've learned something new. I reckon you know your job, Trevelyan. What will you need in the way of equipment?'

So we got down to it. The biggest item was the winch, which was to be installed amidships, and storage space for 30,000 feet of cable below it. There was also to be a laboratory for on-the-spot analysis and all the necessary equipment would take a lot of money, and a lot of refitting.

'We'll need a bloody big generator for this lot,' said Geordie. 'It looks as though it'll take a diesel bigger than the main engine. Lucky, isn't it, that charter tourists take up so much space with luxuries.'

Presently Campbell suggested lunch, so we went down to the dining room to do some more planning over grilled steaks. It was arranged that I should concentrate on collecting equipment while Geordie prepared Esmerelda and got his crew together. Very little was said concerning the location, or the availability, of the strange treasure we were after, and I knew that I alone could come up with anything of use there. I had some heavy studying ahead of me as well as all the rest.

'If you take on Kane it'll mean we've got him in our sights,' said Campbell, harping back to his favourite subject. 'Not that it makes any difference. Ramirez is sure to have other scouts out. I'll be watching him too.'

I'd been thinking about Kane.

'Your review of the situation was very well in its way, but it was wrong on one point.'

'What's that?' said Campbell.

'You said that Kane spun me a yarn as cover, and that it didn't matter what it was. That's not entirely so, you know -we have independent evidence. The death certificate states the cause of death as appendicitis. Kane and Schouten both told the same lie and I'd like to know why.'

'By God, you're right,' said Campbell. 'We'll get it out of Kane as soon as he's served his purpose.'

Geordie grunted. 'We're going into the Pacific,' he said. 'Maybe we'll get it out of Schouten. At all events, we'll be at the root of it.'