Night of Error

Chapter Three

It was nearly three months before we got away. You can't begin a scientific expedition as though you were going on a picnic. There were a million things to do and we were kept busy on a sixteen hour day, seven days a week. The first thing I did was to hand in my resignation from the Institute. Old Jarvis didn't take it too well, but there wasn't anything he could do about it so he accepted the situation with reluctance. I wished I could have told him what I was doing but that was impossible.

Geordie assiduously recruited his crew and soon they began to turn up. He had kept on four of his own lads and had of course taken on Kane in place of one of the men he let go. Of the other six that he added, all were faces that I hadn't seen since I had been a boy during the war, tagging around after my dad's gang.

Ian Lewis detached himself from his croft with alacrity and Geordie made him first mate; he'd had years under sail and was almost as good as a professional. Ex-corporal Taffy Morgan came along; one night during the war he had killed six Germans with a commando knife in utter silence, earning himself the M.M. Danny Williams had also won the M.M., although I never found out what for since he was reticent about it. There was the burly bulk of Nick Dugan, an Irishman from the Free State. Bill Hunter turned up – he had made a name for himself as an underwater demolitions expert and was the only other regular sailing man among the team. And there was Jim Taylor, another explosives wizard – he had been very near my father when he was killed.

They were now all into their forties, like Geordie, but seemed as tough as ever. Not one had lost his fitness and there wasn't a paunch among the lot of them. Geordie said he could have recruited twenty-five but he'd picked the best of them, and I almost believed him. I was confident that if we ran into trouble we could handle it.

Geordie was confident too, of welding them into a good sailing crew. What any of them lacked in knowledge they'd soon pick up and the enthusiasm was certainly there -although for the time being they knew nothing of the complications in which we were entangled. It was a straight research and survey trip to them all, including Kane, and any hints Geordie may have given his special team they kept strictly to themselves. As Campbell had predicted, Kane was sticking as close to us as a leech; Geordie had simply told him that there was a berth for him if he cared to cross the Atlantic with us, and Kane had jumped at the opportunity.

Campbell had gone back to Canada. Before he left he had a long talk with me. 'I told you I had a good intelligence service,' he said. 'Well, so have Suarez-Navarro. You'll be watched and they'll know everything you do as soon as you do it, even apart from Kane's spying. It can't be helped. We're deadlocked and we know it. So do they. It's a case of we know that they know that we know, and so on. It's a bastard of a position to be in.'

'It's like a game with perfect information – chess, for example. It's the man who can manoeuvre best who wins.'

'Not quite. Both sides have imperfect information,' he corrected me patiently. 'We don't know how much they really know. They might have the exact location of the nodules we're after, and only have to drop a dredge to prove their case, but perhaps they're behind us in planning and need to stop us somehow first. On the other hand, they don't know how much we know. Which is precious little. Maybe as much as, or no more than them. Tricky, isn't it?'

'It would take a logician to sort it out. Talking of knowing, have you made any progress with the diary?'

Campbell snorted. 'I gave it to a top-flight cipher expert and he's having his troubles. He says it isn't so much the peculiar shorthand as the sloppy way in which it's written. But he says he can crack it, given time. What I wish I knew was how Suarez-Navarro got on to this in the first place?'

My own thoughts were that Mark, cheated out of Campbell's involvement – I guessed that's how he would see Campbell's loss, only in terms of his own disappointment -had approached them himself. But I still didn't know enough about how Campbell viewed Mark to say so. It hung between us, a touchy subject that we both carefully avoided.

So he went off to Canada to further his own progress, we speeded up ours as much as possible, and it was with great relief that I heard Geordie announce one day that we were at last ready for sea. All he needed to know was where to head for.

I said, 'Do you know the Blake Plateau?'

'Never heard of it.'

'It's just off the coast of Carolina. We'll test the winch and the rest of our gear there, and it's a long enough voyage for you to pull your crew together. I don't want to go into the Pacific to find that anything doesn't work for some reason or other. If there's anything wrong we can get it fixed in Panama – they've got good engineering shops there.'

'Okay. But why the Blake Plateau?'

'There are nodules there. I've always wanted a closer look at Atlantic nodules.'

'Is there any place where there aren't any?' he asked.

I nodded. They won't form where there's heavy sedimentation, so that cuts out most of the Atlantic – but the Blake Plateau is scoured by the Gulf Stream and nodules do form. But they're poor quality, not like the ones in the Pacific.'

'How deep?'

'Not more than three thousand feet – deep enough to test the winch.'

'Right, boy. Let's go and scoop up some poor quality wealth from the bottom of the sea. We should be away in a few days now.'

'I can't wait,' I said. I was in fact boiling with impatience to be gone.* 2*

We made a fair and untroubled crossing of the Atlantic. Geordie and Ian, together with the regular crew members, soon got the others into a good working pattern and spirits ran high. Kane, we were pleased to notice, fitted in well and seemed as willing and above-board as the others. Knowing that they were all curious as to our purpose I gave occasional rather deliberately boring lectures on oceanography, touching on a number of possible research subjects so that the matter of manganese nodules got lost in the general subject. Only two people retained an interest in what I had to say, and to them, in semi-private, I spoke at greater length about our quarry. One was Geordie, of course, and the other, not too surprisingly and in fact to my satisfaction, was Bill Hunter. Already our diving expert, his interest and involvement might well be crucial.

One afternoon they both joined me in the laboratory, at my request, to learn a little more. A quiet word from Geordie to Ian made sure that we weren't going to be interrupted.

Geordie picked up a nodule which I'd cut in half – I had brought a few on board to help my explanation along.

He pointed to the white central core.

'I suppose you'll tell me again that it's a shark's tooth in the middle of this rock. You never did get around to explaining that, did you?'

I smiled and held up the stone. That's right, it is.'

'You're kidding.'

'No I'm not – it happens often. You see, a shark dies and its body drifts down; the flesh rots or is eaten, the bones dissolve – what bones a shark has, it's cartilage really – and by the time anything reaches the very bottom there's nothing left but the teeth. They are made of sodium triphosphate and insoluble in water. There are probably millions of them on any ocean bottom.'

I opened a small box. 'Look here,' I said and gave him a larger white bone. It was as big as the palm of his hand and curiously convoluted.

'What's this?'

'It's a whale's earbone,' said Bill, looking over his shoulder. 'I've seem 'em before.'

'Right, Bill. Also made of sodium triphosphate. We sometimes find them at the core of larger nodules – but more often it's a shark's tooth and most frequently a bit of clay.'

'So the manganese sticks to the tooth. How long does it take to make a nodule?' Geordie asked.

'Estimates vary from one millimetre each thousand years to one millimetre each million years. One chap estimated that it worked out to one layer of atoms a day – which makes it one of the slowest chemical reactions known. But I have my own ideas about that.'

They both stared at me. 'Do you mean that if you find a nodule with a half-diameter often millimetres formed round a tooth that the shark lived ten million years ago? Were there sharks then?' Geordie asked in fascination.

'Oh yes, the shark is one of our oldest inhabitants.'

We talked a little more and then I dropped it. They had a lot to learn yet and it came best in small doses. And there was plenty of time for talk on this voyage. We headed south-south-west to cut through the Bahamas and the approach to the Windward Passage. Once in the Passage we kept as clear as possible of Cuba – once we came across an American destroyer on patrol, which did us the courtesy of dipping her flag, to which we reciprocated. Then there was the long leg across the Caribbean to Colon and the entrance to the Panama Canal.

By then we had done our testing. There were minor problems, no more than teething troubles, and generally I was happy with the way things were going. Stopping to dredge a little, trying out the winch and working out on-station routines, was an interesting change from what we had been doing and everyone enjoyed it, and we remained lucky with the weather. I got some nodules up but there was a lot of other material, enough to cloud the issue for everyone but Geordie. Among the debris of ooze, red clay and deposits we found enough shark's teeth and whale's earbone to give everyone on board a handful of souvenirs.

Both Geordie and Bill were becoming more and more interested in the nodules and wanted to know more about them, so I arranged for another lab. session with them one day. I'd been assaying, partly to keep my hand in and partly to check on the readiness of my equipment for the real thing.

'How did the Atlantic nodules turn out?' Geordie asked. On the whole he did the talking – Bill watched, listened and absorbed.

'Same old low quality stuff that's always pulled out in the Atlantic,' I said. 'Low manganese, low iron and hardly anything else except contaminants, clay and suchlike. That's the trouble in the Atlantic; there's too much sediment even on the Blake Plateau.'

'Why does manganese behave this way – why does it lump together?'

I laughed. 'You want me to give you a course of physical chemistry right now? All right, I'll explain it as simply as I can. Do you know what a colloid is?'

Two headshakes.

'Look. If you put a teaspoon of sugar into water you get a sugar solution – that is, the sugar breaks down right to the molecular level and mixes intimately with the water. In other words, it dissolves. Right?'

'Right.'

'Now what if you have a substance that won't dissolve in water but is divided into very fine particles, much smaller than can be seen in a regular microscope, and each particle is floating in the water? That's a colloid. I could whip you up a colloid which looks like a clear liquid, but it would be full of very small particles.'

'I see the difference,' Geordie said.

'All right. Now, for reasons that I won't go into now, all colloidal particles must carry an electric charge. These charges make the colloidal particles of manganese dioxide clump together in larger and larger units. They also tend to be attracted to any electrically conductive surfaces such as a shark's tooth or a bit of clay. Hence the nodules.'

'You mean,' said Bill slowly, 'that having broken down a long time before, the manganese is trying to get together again?'

'Pretty well just that, yes.'

'Where does the manganese come from in the first place -when it starts clumping, that is?'

'From the rivers, from underground volcanic fissures, from the rocks of the sea bottom. Fellows, the sea out there is a big chemical broth. In certain localized conditions the sea becomes alkaline and the manganese in the rocks leaches out and dissolves in the water… .'

'You said it doesn't dissolve.'

'Pure metallic manganese will dissolve as long as the conditions are right, and that's what chemists call a "reducing atmosphere". Just believe me, Geordie. Currents carry the dissolved manganese into "oxidising atmospheres" where the water is more acid. The manganese combines with oxygen to form manganese dioxide which is insoluble and so forms a colloid – and then the process goes on as I've described.'

He thought about that. 'What about the copper and nickel and cobalt and stuff that's in the nodules?'

'How does the milk get into the coconut?'

We all laughed, taking some of the schoolroom air out of the lab. 'Well, all these metals have certain affinities for each other. If you look at the table of elements you'll find they're grouped closely together by weight – from manganese, number twenty-five, to copper, number twenty-nine. What happens is that as the colloidal particles grow bigger they scavenge the other metals – entrap them. Of course, this is happening over a pretty long period of time.'

'Say a hundred million years or so,' said Geordie ironically.

'Ah well, that's the orthodox view.'

'You think it can happen faster than that?'

'I think it could happen fast,' 1 said slowly. 'Given the right conditions, though just what these conditions would be I'm not sure. Someone else doing research thought so too, though I haven't been able to follow his reasoning. And I have seen peculiarities that indicate rapid growth. Anyway that's one of the objects of this trip – to find out.'

What I didn't say in Bill's hearing was that the 'somebody' was Mark, nor that the peculiarities I had seen were contained in the prize nodule left from his collection. And there was something else I didn't talk about; the peculiarities that led to high-cobalt assay. I was beginning to grope towards a theory of nodule formation which, though still vague, might ease the way ahead. I was becoming anxious to know how Campbell's cipher expert had made out in translating Mark's diary.* 3*

Ten days after leaving the Blake Plateau we warped into the dockside at Panama. At last we were in the Pacific, all my goals a step nearer. Campbell was waiting for us, jumped spryly aboard and shook hands with me and Geordie, waving genially at the rest of the crew.

'You made a good fast trip,' he said.

'Not so bad,' said Geordie complacently.

Campbell looked about the Esmerelda and at the crew who were busy stowing sail and clearing the decks. 'So this is your crew of cut-throats and desperadoes,' he said. He was in a jocular mood- a mercurial man. 'I hope we won't need them.' He took my arm and walked me along the dock, amused at my wobbling land-legs.

'I've booked you into my hotel for a night or so; there's no reason why you shouldn't have a last taste of luxury before the big job. Geordie too, if he wants it. I'll expect you both to dinner – you can't miss the hotel, it's the Colombo, right on the main street. You can tell me all about the trip then. Meantime I want to talk to you in private, now.' He steered me into one of the waterfront bars that always seem to be handy, and I sat down thankfully in front of a large glass of cold beer.

Campbell wasted no time. He produced a biggish envelope from his jacket. 'I had photostats made of the diary pages,' he said. The original's in a bank vault in Montreal. You don't mind? You'll get it back one day.'

'Not at all,' I said.

He shook out the contents of the envelope. 'I got the translation done. My guy said it was a bastard of a job – he only hopes he's got the scientific bits right.'

'We'll soon find out.' I was stiff with eagerness.

Campbell handed me a neatly bound booklet which I flicked through. 'That's the stat of the original diary. This one's the translation. There are reproductions of all the drawings at the back. The whole thing looks screwy to me – it had better make sense to you or this whole thing is a bust already.' His good humour had already evaporated, but I was getting used to his changes of mood.

I glanced through it all. 'This is going to be a long job,' I said. 'I'm not going to be able to make any snap judgements here and now; I'll look at this lot this afternoon, in the hotel room. Right now I want to go back to Esmerelda and sort out procedures with Geordie, pack my gear and go and take a shower and a clean-up.'

If he was disappointed he didn't show it – clearly what I said made sense. And so it was not until I was lying, damp and half-naked in the blessedly cool hotel room a couple of hours later that I finally opened the envelope. The translation of the cipher was pretty well complete except for a few gaps here and there, but it didn't improve matters as much as I'd hoped. The thing was disappointingly written in a kind of telegraphese which didn't make for easy reading. It was a true diary and evidently covered the last few months of Mark's life, from about the time he left the IGY, although there were few dates and no place names written in clear at all.

I wondered if he'd always kept such a diary, and decided that he must have done so – diary-keeping is a habit as hard to break as to develop. As to where the earlier volumes had got to, there was no guessing, nor did I think they would have helped me much anyway. This was the vital period.

It was, on the whole, an ordinary enough diary; there were references to shore leave, films seen, people mentioned by initials only in the irritating way that people have when confiding to themselves, and all the other trivia of a man's life, all in brusque lack of detail. Mark had kept a brief record of his amours which wasn't pleasant to read, but otherwise it was fairly uninteresting on the surface.

Then there were the entries made at sea. Here the diary turned professional with notes of observations, odd equations roughly jotted, analyses of bottom material, mostly sea ooze. Occasionally there were analyses of nodules – nothing very startling, just run of the sea stuff.

I waded on feeling that I might be wasting my time, but towards the end I was pulled up with a start. I had run my eye down the typewritten sheet and was aware that I was at last looking at something remarkable. It was an analysis of a nodule, though it didn't specifically say so, and the figures were startling.

Translated from symbols, they read: 'Manganese – 28%; iron – 32%; cobalt – 8%; copper – 4%; nickel – 6%; other 22%. Wow.!' 'Wow,' indeed.

There followed analyses of four more nodules, all equally rich.

I did some calculating and found the average cobalt in the five nodules to be a fraction under nine per cent. The copper and nickel weren't to be laughed away either. I didn't yet know much about the economics of recovery but it was evident that this might be a paying proposition even with relatively primitive methods of dredging, depending on the depth of water. And I had reason to believe that this was not too great to be worked in. With more sophisticated equipment it would be better than owning a gold mine.

But there was always the snag – nowhere in the diary did Mark say where these riches were to be found. In the whole notebook there was not one place name mentioned. So we weren't really any better off than we were before, except that scattered through the typewritten pages was the phrase, 'Picture Here', with a number attached, and at the end was a sheaf of reproductions and a brief account by the cipher expert of these doodled drawings.

It is possible and indeed probable that these drawings are of the nature of pictograms or rebuses. A study of the pictograms leads me to believe that they must indicate place names, and of the 32 drawings, I believe I have successfully identified 24.

To illustrate: the rough sketch of the gas mantle with the word GRATIS beneath may well refer to the Australian town of Fremantle; the bearded man with the sword and the baby is probably Solomon, referring to the biblical story, and may indicate the Solomon Islands; the bearded man looking at a monkey may be a reference to Darwin in the Australian territory; the straight line neatly bisected may refer to either the Equator or Midway Island.

The fact that all these names occur in the same quarter of the globe is a further indication that one may be on the right track in such surmising. Other names tentatively identified are also to be found in the same geographical area.

Tracings of the drawings, together with possible identifications are attached. Of the eight drawings unidentified all I can say is that to solve these one would need to have a more precise knowledge of these geographical areas, together with the need to know a great deal more about the 'artist', since it is obvious that an idiosyncratic mode of thought is here employed, involving a person's training, experience and interior feelings; in fact, a total life.

I looked up the analyses of the two non-standard nodules again. Coming immediately after them were two of the drawings, numbers 28 and 29. I checked them against the tracings. One was of a busty wench wearing a Phyrgian cap with underneath it the words, 'The Fair Goddess'. The other was a rather bedraggled-looking American eagle with the inscription, 'The Disappearing Trick'. Neither was identified.

I leaned back and thought about it all. I knew that Mark's ship had been based on Australia during the IGY – hence, possibly, the Australian references. Mark had probably been in the Solomons and might well have gone as far as Midway -he would certainly have crossed the Equator anyway. Did he go as far as Easter Island? I checked the tracings and found it -a rabbit apparently trying to hatch an egg, the traditional fertility symbols of Easter. That was one the expert had spotted too.

It was a hell of a big area in which to find The Fair Goddess or The Disappearing Trick. I thought about Mark and his 'idiosyncratic mode of thought'. The expert had been dead right there; Mark's mode of thought had been so damned idiosyncratic that there had been times when I thought it wasn't human. He had a strangely twisted, involute mind which delighted in complexity and deception, never taking a straight course but always heading ultimately for one goal – the eventual well-being of Mark Trevelyan.

All my life I had watched him cheat and scheme his way towards the things he wanted, never realizing that if he'd gone about his business in a straightforward way it would have been more efficient. He had a first-class brain, but he was lazy and always looking for short cuts – but you don't find many short cuts in science and thus he tended to lag behind in his work.

I think he was envious of me for some odd reason of his own. I was two years older than he and when we were children he nearly beat himself to death trying to keep up, physically and mentally. The psycho boys have a term for it in their tasteless jargon – 'sibling rivalry' – but with Mark it took an unhealthy turn. He seemed to see his whole life in terms of competition with me, even inventing apparent parental favouritism towards me where I could see none. The only reason that I know for his having elected to study oceanogra phy was because I had done so and not, like me, out of any burning interest in the subject. He once said that he would be famous when I had been forgotten.

It was ironic in a way that he should have said that, because he had the makings of a first rate scientist with a theoretical bent and if he'd lived I'm sure he could have surprised us all -provided he wasn't looking for a short cut at the time.

For years I'd avoided him, physically and professionally, but now I had to match my mind against his. I had to ferret out the meanings of his cryptic scrawls and it wasn't going to be easy. Mark had almost certainly been up to something fishy -no high-cobalt results had come out of the IGY investigations, and Mark had such results. I thought about what Jarvis had said about Mark faking figures during that period, and about Mark trying to persuade Campbell into an expedition to look for nodules. It was beginning to add up.

I was interrupted by Geordie, banging at my bedroom door.

'Aren't you ready yet?' he demanded. 'We've got a dinner date with the boss.'

'My God, the time's slipped away.'

'Found anything?'

I looked up wryly. 'Yes, I've found something but I'm damned if I know what it is. It looks as though we still have to play children's games against Mark's tortuous mind. I'll tell you about it when we're all together. Give me ten minutes to get dressed.'

There's just one thing first,' Geordie said, hovering in the doorway. 'Kane went ashore and sent a cable.'

'Where to?'

'We were lucky. I detailed Danny Williams to trail him -don't worry, he'll keep it dark – and he managed to hear Kane asking about cable rates to Rabaul.'

'Rabaul! But that's in New Britain – in the Bismarck Archipelago. Why in hell would he send a cable clear across the Pacific? Do you know who he sent it to?'

'Danny couldn't find that out. He should have bribed the counter clerk, but he didn't. The boss says come to the lounge first – it's early for a meal. He wants to talk to us there – about that, I guess.' He pointed to the diary pages lying on my bed.* 4*

The Colombo was a modern American style hotel. We went to the reception desk where I had signed in earlier and asked for Campbell, and were told that he was in one of the lounges. It was discreetly lighted and in one corner a trio was playing soft music. It was all very civilized and pleasant and a definite change from life on board Esmerelda. Over drinks I asked Campbell to bear with me in setting aside for the moment the matter of the diary, and instead listen while I brought him up to date concerning manganese nodules, to which he reluctantly agreed. He was at his most churlish but I knew that mood would wear off as his interest sharpened. He had already done some homework so I was able to cover the matter of nodule formation and distribution fairly quickly, feeling pleased that I had already brought Geordie up to that point as well. I came at last to the matter of nodule dating.

'I've come to the conclusion that our nodule isn't very old,' I said, producing it from my pocket.

'How old?' Campbell demanded.

'He always talks in millions,' said Geordie wisely, but he was wrong.

'Not more than fifty thousand years,' I said flatly. 'It could be between thirty thousand and fifty thousand but not more than that, I'll stake my reputation on it. Somewhere in the Pacific these things are growing at an explosive rate.'

'Explosive,' said Geordie incredulously. 'Do you call fifty thousand years explosive?'

'From a geological standpoint it's very fast. It's damned unusual, though, and it's very important.'

'Why so?' Campbell asked.

'Look, the whole damn Pacific is covered with these things which have been growing slowly over millions of years. Now we have one which has grown in a fraction of that time. There must be a specific reason for it. My guess is that it's the result of a purely local condition, and if it is the chances are that this condition still exists – in other words, these nodules are growing at the same rate even now.'

'I can't see that that helps us much.'

'It helps us this much. It means we can cut out vast areas -millions of square miles – where I know that no peculiar conditions exist in the sea. I'll go along with orthodoxy on that one; the seabed is pretty regular, there are few changes of climate for one thing. What we've got to watch for is the oddity.'

'Got any idea what kind of oddity?'

I nodded. 'I have vague ideas that I'm not prepared to put into words just yet,' I said. 'Maybe I'll get something from the diary translation. It may only need one word to make the whole picture clear – like the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle.'

'We'll come back to that later,' Campbell said. 'Meanwhile I've been keeping tabs on Suarez-Navarro. Ramirez left London and joined that ship of theirs.'

'Where are they now?' Geordie asked.

'Still lying in Darwin – doing nothing. I don't quite get it.'

He glanced up as he spoke and then got to his feet. Coming through the lounge towards us was a young woman whom I recognized as his daughter, and Geordie and I both stood up as she joined us. Campbell introduced us. 'Clare, this is Michael Trevelyan and this is our Captain, George Wilkins.'

Geordie shook hands gravely and corrected his name. As I took her hand she looked at me very carefully but did not react to my name at all. I was on the point of reminding her that I had met her once long before, with Mark, but took my cue from her and made my greeting noncommittal. We all sat down once again, and during the few minutes while drinks were being ordered I assessed her, as a man assesses any woman.

When I had seen her in Vancouver I hadn't been particu larly interested. I couldn't be bothered with Mark or any of his affairs. But now I saw that she was really beautiful and wondered why I hadn't noticed it before. She was tall, with black hair and straight brows over grey eyes. Her mouth was generous with mobile corners, a mouth made for laughter but presently in tight control, as though she had learned not to laugh. She was dressed with that deceptive simplicity which means money, not surprising considering that she was Campbell's daughter. She wore, I noticed, no jewellery apart from a small ruby brooch.

We all chatted for a short time about this and that, and I saw that there was something wary and watchful about her, and felt that it concerned me. I wondered how Mark had got on with her. When I saw her with him she had seemed to have a lot more sparkle, and this present introversion wasn't Mark's style at all – he always liked his women to have some animation.

Presently Campbell brought us to the matter in the forefront of all our minds. I was not altogether surprised when he said, 'Gentlemen, you had better know that I've told the whole story – so far as I can – to Clare. She's my right hand, you know, doubles as secretary sometimes, and she's always been involved in my affairs. This one is no different.'

I thought that burglary, forgery, espionage and murder would certainly make it different in my eyes, but perhaps she'd seen all that already, on other missions with her father.

'What's more, when I join ship she's coming along as well,' he continued. He was the boss after all, but he seemed just a little truculent as he said it, as if daring our opposition. Geordie looked faintly dismayed and glanced at me for his cue.

'Why not?' I said evenly. 'Lots of room – and we could do with an extra hand in the lab from time to time. And if you can cook, Miss Campbell'

'Clare, please. Are you Michael or Mike?'

'Mike, always.'

She smiled. 'I can cook, but I wouldn't want to be chief cookie. I'll spell whoever it is, though.'

Geordie was on the edge of his chair, and finally had his say. 'Have you been to sea before, Miss – er, Clare?' he asked sternly. Clare bore it equably.

'Yes, Geordie, I have – for quite long trips too. I've got all my gear and you'll believe me when you see how worn out it all is. In fact I'm much more familiar with what we're going to do than Pop is.'

Geordie was routed.

Campbell broke in impatiently at this point. 'What about the diary, Mike? You've read through it, I suppose.'

'There are interesting possibilities opening up.'

'How come?'

'The diary was written partly while Mark was with the IGY survey. Now, he made a record of those high-cobalt nodules, but the fact never came out in the open scientific record. In other words, he suppressed the evidence.'

Campbell seemed perturbed. 'I shouldn't think your brother would do a thing like that,' he said stiffly. And that told me that any reservations he may have about Mark stemmed from Mark's personal affiliation with Clare, and that he had never plumbed the depths of Mark's personality. I would have to be careful, but it was time to bring things out into the open.

I said, 'Can you think of any other explanation?'

He shook his head. 'I'm at a loss what to make of it – I have been giving it some thought already. Are you serious when you said your brother would do a thing like that? He struck me as a very fine scientist.'

'Mark was never too scrupulous,' I said. 'He wanted something from you and he was showing his cleanest face.'

Campbell didn't like that. My open distrust of Mark offended his sense of fitness. Brothers should be brotherly and blood is thicker than water. I suspected he had a strong puritan streak in him, inherited from his no doubt calvinistic ancestors. He said, almost hostilely, 'There's nothing to be gained by running down your brother – especially as he can't answerback.'

I said softly, 'You should study the Bible, Mr Campbell.

There are a few stories in the Book that are very illuminating. Read about Cain and Abel, or Esau and Jacob. There's no hard and fast rule that brothers should like one another – and lots of villains have innocent kinfolk.'

He was acid. 'Well, I suppose you knew him best. I never had any reason to doubt him while he was in my employ.' He caught Clare's eye and faltered just a little. 'Must admit that personally…'

Clare's face was calm, showing only a polite interest, but her jawline caught my notice.

I said, 'We must discuss this. We're faced with a problem put to us by Mark and we can only solve it by understanding him and the way he worked. Geordie can support some of what I may have to tell you.' I had them all riveted now. 'Let me tell you something that I'll bet you don't know – Mark was kicked out of the IGY for falsifying figures. That was just before he joined your company.'

'I didn't know that and I don't think I believe it.'

'It's true,' I said. 'Professor Jarvis, my old boss at the Institute, told me about it – and Geordie heard him too. I think he got hold of those nodules at the time, found out their value, and decided to keep the knowledge to himself. Then he moved in on you – and he was using you.'

Campbell was affronted. 'Using me!' 'You had the money he wanted for an expedition. He couldn't show you the nodules because you'd want to know where he got them. And that was by stealing them from the people who paid his salary.'

Campbell began to look baffled. 'He never showed me anything. He talked a good story though.'

That's right. He had a lot of theory and you nearly fell for it. If you had, he'd have wasted his time and your money fossicking round the Pacific for six months and then his "theory" would have led him to a spectacular find. You see, he knew where those nodules came from. Anyway you'd be in the chips and he'd be both rich and vindicated – the great scientist.'

Campbell nodded unwillingly.

I said, 'But something went wrong. You had your run-in with Suarez-Navarro and found yourself strapped for ready funds. You couldn't finance his expedition, and so he left you flat because you were of no further use to him. Isn't that so?'

There was silence while Campbell digested all that.

'All right, you've made your point – don't drive it into the ground. Assuming something like that is possible – what do you suggest we do now?'

'First, another point. You wondered how Suarez-Navarro came into the nodule hunt. I think Mark may have tried the same ploy on them. In fact I think he and Norgaard were waiting in Tahiti for the ship that's being fitted out right now, and that ties everything in squarely together.'

'All right, let's assume that too. We're safer the more we can see into the forest, I suppose.' Campbell was still shaken by what I'd said about Mark. 'What do we do next?'

'Well, we could find out where Mark's IGY ship dredged and drop ours in the same places. But I don't think it will be any of the sites they actually surveyed or this would have come out already – Mark wasn't the only one doing assays. No, I think it was a trial site, one they weren't serious about, and probably didn't even make a record of, though we could check it out.'

We all sat in gloom for a while. The faint drift of music changed tempo and a woman began to sing with the trio, and I turned to watch her. Her voice was nice but she was no world-beater. Her body was better than her voice and set off admirably by a revealing gown. For a moment, lost in something not at all of our troubled world, I relaxed and only caught the end of a sentence directed at me by Clare Campbell.

'… to ask you a question – if I'm not distracting you, Mike?' Her voice was calm but when I turned back I saw an ironic sparkle in her eyes.

'Sorry, yes?' I said.

'You say that Mark was kicked off the ship for falsifying figures – but which figures? Not the high-cobalt nodule assay because, as you said, that news hasn't broken yet. So he must have falsified other figures which caught him out. What were they and why did he cook them – could they matter?'

That was something I hadn't thought of, and it was a stopper. I said, 'Mark was always a fast boy with a red herring. He cheated once in his school exams, and this is how he did it. He was called into the headmaster's office just before an exam and the master happened to be out of the room. On the desk was a pile of question papers. Mark played it cleverly – he didn't take one, he took six. Then he made a copy for himself and passed the six papers to other boys -anonymously.'

Campbell said, 'I don't get it.'

'It's simple. He told me about it afterwards – he always knew I wouldn't tell tales. He reckoned that if the thing blew up in his face he'd see to it that the six papers were all found -in the possession of other boys. He'd be in the clear. It wasn't found out and he got away with it. Now what if he's done something like that here?'

Campbell looked frustrated. He was supposed to be a man with acumen, after all. 'I may be dumb, but I still don't get it.'

'Look,' I said patiently. 'Mark has located a deposit of high-cobalt nodules and he's busy suppressing the information. He knows that if he's found out he's not only in disgrace but he's lost a potential fortune. So – knowing Mark – I'd guess that he'd toss out a few red herrings. He'd falsify some more figures to confuse the issue, and he'd probably revise all estimates upwards. It would add slightly to the risk of discovery, but if it was found out, as it evidently was, he'd be only another glory-hunting scientist, rather too optimistic and looking for professional praise. No one would suspect that one set of figures was wrong for another reason. They may not ever have caught it.' I laughed humourlessly. 'I'll bet that all Mark's findings were junked, anyway. None of his colleagues would trust his figures after that.'

'Why didn't they tell the world about it – to protect people like Pop?' asked Clare a little bitterly.

'I think they would feel that commercial folk like your dad can take care of themselves,' I said. 'They're mostly too gentlemanly.'

Campbell was looking at me in wonder, Geordie in silent assent of my assessment. 'Did Mark really have a mind like that?' Campbell said.

I saw that he was hurt; his pride in his judgement of men had been badly undermined. But then, he'd been taken in by an expert. 'He had a mind that would make a corkscrew look like a straight edge. You don't have to take my word for it, either. Geordie can tell you some tales.'

Geordie nodded. 'Aye, the boy was a twister. He caused the family a lot of grief.'

'All right. Supposing that Mark was as machiavellian as you make him out to be, it seems we're back where we started – all we have to go on is the diary.'

'And that's going to be a devil of a job, sorting out his scribbles. I can make a fair stab at the science, but the rest is a teaser.'

'We'll discuss it over dinner,' Campbell decided, to my secret relief.

We chewed over the diary and the dinner together. The dinner was digestible which was more than any of us could say for the diary. Clare asked if she could have it for bedside reading. 'I like that sort of thing,' she said. 'Puzzles, jigsaws.' And I also thought that she might have felt that her own knowledge of Mark's odd mind might be useful.

'You're welcome,' I told her. 'I want a break from it.' I was pleased that as the evening wore on she seemed to lose some of her reserve and her mouth began to lose its tight-locked caution. We were at the coffee stage when a waiter came up to the table. 'Are one of you gentlemen Mr Trevelyan?'

'I am.'

There's a lady in the foyer asking to see you.'

I looked around blankly. 'I don't know anyone in Panama.'

Campbell looked up at the waiter. 'An old lady or a young lady?'

'Oh, a young lady, sir.'

Campbell's eyes twinkled. 'If I were you I'd be in the foyer now. What's stopping you?'

I got up. 'It's probably a mistake,' I said, thinking that it almost certainly wasn't. 'Excuse me.'

There were several people in the foyer including more than one young lady, but no one approached me. I crossed to the desk and said, 'My name's Trevelyan. I understand someone wants me.'

The clerk pointed with his pen, indicating that I should come into the office behind the desk. The young lady was waiting all right, and I did know her, in a way; she was the singer who had been entertaining us in the lounge.

'I'm Trevelyan. You wanted to speak to me?'

She was nervous, I could see that. She was rather slight and looked, at close quarters, a trifle undernourished, with hollows under her dark eyes and a skin more weathered than tanned. There was an appealing quality about her – I think the best word would be winsome. I was intrigued.

'I'm sorry to trouble you – I saw your name in the register-but I wondered if you were any relation of Mark Trevelyan? From Tahiti?'

'He was my brother,' I said. 'I'm Michael. Obviously you -know Mark.' I didn't know if she knew of his death and I felt it would be unkind to throw it at her without warning.

She nodded, gripping her hands together. 'Yes, I knew him, very well. Have you just come from England?'

'Yes.'

'Do you know his – wife?'

'Yes.'

'Did she get the suitcase I sent?'

I stared at her now. 'Well, I'm damned! I thought you were a man. So you are P. Nelson.'

She smiled and some of the tension left her. 'Yes – Paula Nelson. Then the case did arrive all right?'

'It arrived, thank you,' I said. I didn't say that it had been stolen immediately afterwards because I didn't know just where this girl stood in the complexity of Mark's affairs. But I could try to find out.

'Miss Nelson, what about coming into the lounge and having a drink with me and my friends? We're all of us interested in Mark and in what he was doing out here.'

She shook her head. 'Oh, I couldn't do that, Mr Trevelyan. I'm one of the hired help around here – we're not supposed to drink with the customers. The manager says this isn't a clip joint.' Her nervousness now seemed to include a fear of the manager's imminent wrath.

I said gently, 'Perhaps we could go somewhere else, if you've the time. I would like to talk to you.'

She looked at her watch. 'I could spare half an hour. Then I've got another stint in the lounge. If you'll wait while I get my wrap?'

'It'll be a pleasure.'

I thought of sending a message back to the others but decided against it. I didn't have to account to them for all my actions. We went to a small bar a little way down the street, I bought a couple of drinks and we settled down in an alcove. The bar was deserted except for a solitary drinker. I said, 'You're an American, aren't you?'

'Yes. And you're from – Cornwall. You talk the same way Mark did. I used to tease him about that sometimes.'

Which of course put their relationship on a firmer footing.

'Where did you meet him?'

'In Tahiti. I was working a little joint in Papeete. Mark used to come in with his sidekick, and we got pretty – friendly.'

'Who was his sidekick?'

'A Swedish guy, Sven someone. But this was, oh, maybe two years ago when we first met.'

About the time he left Campbell, I calculated. I said, 'I'm interested in how Mark came to die. Can you tell me anything about it – if it doesn't distress you too much.'

'Oh, that's all right,' she said, but it was a tremulous voice. 'I can't tell you a lot. He died of appendicitis out in the Paumotus – didn't you know that?'

'Yes – but how did you know?'

'I didn't believe it at first, but they let me see the death certificate.'

'Who are "they"? Who told you in the first place?'

'A schooner came in with the news. And I went down to the Government bureau to see the proof. You see, I thought he might have – just – gone away.'

'Did the doctor come to Papeete himself, the one who operated on Mark?'

She shook her head. 'Not much point, was there? I mean, it's over two hundred miles and he's the only doctor out there. He wouldn't leave just to bring the news back.'

This clashed with Kane's story; according to him the doctor had dealt with the certificate and the authorities. Or had he? I thought back to what Kane had said – that he and his partner, Hadley, had left it all to the doctor. Perhaps it only meant sending the papers back on the next convenient transport.

I said, 'Did you know the men on the schooner?'

She was silent for a bit and then said, 'Why are you asking me all these questions, Mr Trevelyan?'

'I could say out of natural interest in the death of my only brother, but I won't,' I said deliberately. 'I think there's something very odd about the whole affair.' As I said it I suddenly wondered if she was a plant – one of the spies of Ramirez of whom Campbell so often warned me. If so I'd already dealt a hand I should rather have hidden, and I felt cold at the thought. But it was very hard to imagine this girl as a crook's agent.

'You think he was murdered, don't you?' she asked flatly.

I tightened my lips. Time for a quick decision, and I thought that I may as well continue. It was already too late to do otherwise. 'You think so too, Miss Nelson?'

There was a long pause before she nodded. 'Yes,' she whispered, and started to cry. I felt better, for some reason -she was ruining her makeup, and surely no spy would do that, not just before making a public appearance?

I let her run on for a little while, then took her hand in mine.

'You were living with Mark, weren't you?'

'Yes, I was. Oh God, I loved him,' she said. She was so intense, her grip tightening, that I felt I must believe her.

'Were you happy with him?' I asked. 'Was he good to you, Miss Nelson?'

Amazingly, a smile appeared. 'Oh, I was. Please – don't call me Miss Nelson. My name is Paula.'

'And I'm Mike.'

We were silent for a few moments, then I said, 'What really happened, Paula?'

She said, 'I suppose it all started when Sven was killed'

'Norgaard? Killed!'

'Yes. He was found out on the reef, outside Papeete, with his head bashed in. At first everyone thought it was the sea – it comes in with tremendous force against the reef. They thought he'd been washed off his feet and had his head smashed on the rocks. Then – I don't know exactly how – they decided he'd been murdered. It was something to do with what the police surgeon found.'

I nodded grimly. 'Then what happened?'

'The police were asking questions and they came to Mark. He said he knew nothing about it, but it didn't seem to worry him.'

I took a deep breath. 'Paula, do you think that Mark killed Sven?'

She hesitated, then shook her head violently. 'No, it couldn't have been Mark. I know he could get very angry -even violent – but he couldn't have killed Sven. They were partners.'

I had experienced some of Mark's violence, in my younger days.

'Paula, did he ever hit you?'

She looked down at the table, nodding. 'Sometimes – but I'm hell to live with. I'm untidy and sloppy about housework. I'm' She laughed, but the laugh broke off on a sob and tears rolled down her cheeks. I was appalled.

'What happened then?'

'Mark ran away. He ran from the police. I don't mean literally, not the day they spoke to him, but that night he disappeared from Tahiti. And then we heard that he was dead – I've already told you exactly how that was.'

'Who brought the news of his death – in that schooner?'

'It was a man called Hadley – he brought the news. He said that he and his partner had found Mark dying out in the islands.' She had the look of nervousness back, and I thought that it may have been caused by her mention of Hadley.

But I had more important things to think about. This was the break – this was the evidence that showed Kane to be a downright liar. There could have been an honest mistake about the death certificate, but not about this. Kane had told me that he and Hadley had left things to the doctor. This was the crack in his story.

I said, 'Hadley's partner – was it a man called Kane?'

'I don't know, I never met him. I knew Hadley, though; he came to visit Mark often.'

The devil he did!' I ejaculated. This was a new development.

'Oh sure. Mark and Sven used to hire Hadley's boat and go off for weeks at a time with him.'

'You've no idea where they went, I suppose?' I said casually.

'Mark never talked to me about what he did,' she said.

'There's just one more thing, but it's very important. You said you thought Mark had been murdered. What led you to think that?'

'It was Hadley,' she said. 'He came to my place and said he wanted Mark's things. The way he talked about Mark – he was so triumphant. I didn't see any reason why he should have Mark's stuff so I gave him the air. He was mad about it but he couldn't do anything then because I had friends with me. But he scared me – he's a bad bastard. I looked at Mark's case and there wasn't anything there that would do me any good, so I sent it home to his wife. Mark talked about her to me.' There was pain in her voice. 'He talked about you too – he wasn't very nice about you.'

'I can imagine. Did Hadley try again?'

'Yes. He came and beat the living daylights out of me and searched my place but of course there wasn't anything there.'

'You mean – he beat you up?'

'Oh brother, you ought to have seen the shiner I had.' She looked at me gravely. 'You don't know much about men like Hadley, do you?'

'Not yet,' I said grimly. 'But I soon will. I'm going to catch up with that bastard.'

She laughed scornfully. 'He'd tear you in half, Mike. Be careful of him – don't come at him from the front, club him down from behind. He'd do the same to you. He's an uncivilized savage.'

I looked at this girl who talked of brawls and beatings so matter-of-factly. No wonder she had that permanently shrinking air – or perhaps it was her manner which attracted violence in the first place. 'I'll remember that.'

She sighed. 'Well, then I got real scared because I said too much. You know what I said? I said I had proof that he was lying – that Mark hadn't died the way he said. He looked at me in a real funny way and said he'd be back – with friends. So I packed a few things and got out. I stayed with someone else the rest of the night and next morning there was a trading schooner leaving for Panama at five o'clock and I was aboard by four. I kept below deck until Papeete was out of sight.'

'What was your proof, Paula?'

She said what I guessed she was going to say. 'Mark already had his appendix out. I saw the scar. He couldn't have died that way.'

'I knew about that too. Mark had his appendix out years ago.'

Paula looked at her watch and jumped to her feet. She still looked ravaged but she seemed a little calmer now. 'I have to get back.'

Thanks, Paula. You've helped me a lot. Do you think that Hadley killed Mark and Sven Norgaard?'

'I do,' she said intensely.

'Have you any idea why he should?'

She shrugged. 'No idea-but I'm sure he did it.'

'Paula, before I leave here – will you write down what you know for me?'

'I – I guess so, Mike. I – have to be careful.'

She wouldn't come into the hotel lounge with me so I went in alone ahead of her and found Geordie sitting talking to Clare. 'Pop's gone to bed,' she said. 'It's late and he gets tired.'

'I hope Geordie's been entertaining you all right.'

'Oh yes, he's been telling me more about Mark – and you.'

I said lightly, 'I thought I felt my ears burning.'

I saw Paula join the trio. In the dim lounge lighting one could not see any trace of disarray and she began to sing in the same pleasant, husky voice. 'Nice voice she's got,' said Clare casually. v I saw they were both looking at her.

'How was your assignation?' asked Geordie.

'Interesting.'

A mischievous smile played briefly on Clare's mouth. 'We saw you escorting her out of the foyer.'

'Her name is P. Nelson,' I said. Geordie choked over his coffee.

I put Clare in the picture regarding the name, then said, 'She's had a lot to tell me, all fascinating. She thinks that Mark was murdered, and his partner Norgaard too – oh yes, he's dead. And she thinks they were both killed by Hadley, this mystery partner of Kane's. But the concensus of opinion in Tahiti seems to be that Mark killed Norgaard – that's the official police view – and that Mark died by accident while on the run. It's a hell of a mess.'

'Good God,' said Geordie. 'What's she doing here?'

'Ran away from Hadley. I'll fill you all in in the morning. I'm tired.'

It seemed an age since we had come sailing into Panama, only that morning.

Clare looked over towards Paula, who was still singing.

'How well did she know Mark?'

'Pretty well,' I said unthinkingly. 'She was another of Mark's popsies.'

And could have bitten my tongue out the moment I spoke.

Next morning at breakfast Campbell came down with a cable. He frowned as he read it. 'Suarez-Navarro have started to move,' he said. 'Their ship has left Darwin, bound for New Guinea.'

Geordie said, 'The Bismarck Archipelago is up that way too.'

'What's that got to do with it?'

'We forgot to tell you,' I said. 'Kane sent a cable yesterday, to Rabaul, which is in the Archipelago.'

'Kane – maybe to Ramirez, telling him where you are. Would your nodule deposit be anywhere up near Rabaul?' asked Campbell.

'There's nothing against it and a few things for it,' I said. 'Though personally I think Mark wouldn't have been so far away from where it is. But from what I could gather from the notebooks Mark was linking nodule formation with vulcan-ism, and there's a hell of a lot of volcanoes in that part of the world.'

'Not here?'

'Oh yes, all over the Pacific. I'm going to explain that to you when my own ideas are clearer.'

'Do you think he was right in that theory?' said Campbell.

'I don't know,' I admitted. 'It's all very theoretical. There's nothing against it in principle.'

Campbell muttered, 'When I get an unqualified answer from a scientist I suppose the world will be coming to an end. Now, what's all this about the girl last night? Clare's told me a little.'

So I filled them all in and we sat back, aghast and disturbed by the implications in Paula's story. We were running into something which got steadily nastier. Campbell approved of my wanting her evidence written down, preferably legally attested, though I wasn't sure if she would commit herself so far.

Clare said, changing the subject, 'Mike, I've been giving the diary some thought and especially the drawings, and I think I've come up with something. Can we all go up to Pop's suite after breakfast?'

Geordie assented reluctantly. He was anxious to get back to his ship, but we persuaded him that all would be well for a couple of hours more. They're good lads, plenty to do and they know where you are if they want you,' I said firmly. So after breakfast we found ourselves seated round a coffee table in the suite, already sweating gently in spite of the air conditioning, and with the sunshine of Panama calling to us through the open windows. Clare laid out the diary and tracings in front of us.

'I've been working backwards, from where we know Mark was, to see if we can identify any more of the drawings. The very last one is what looks like a monocle, and I think I know what it is – but only because we do know where Mark was. I think it means Tahiti.'

'How the hell can it mean Tahiti?' said Campbell.

'They're also known as the Society Islands. And a monocle is the epitome of the uppercrust, the "society" bloke. It's lean, but could it do?' She looked anxiously for my opinion.

I laughed. 'As well as anything. Crude but effective. Go on.'

'Numbers 31 and 30 I can't see at all – perhaps Geordie might, if he knows the area well. One's a cow and one's a -well, it's this.' She pointed to an object like an irregular, flattened semicircle standing on a flat base. It was connected to the cow with the word 'OR', and made no sense at all to any of us.

'Then we come to these. The Fair Goddess and The Disappearing Trick, a woman and an eagle.'

I interrupted her. They are the two that come immediately before his high cobalt assay figures. I think they may be crucial.'

'Good,' she said briskly. 'Because there are lots more possibilities. I've been thinking about the woman. I think she could be La France – you know, Uncle Sam for America, John Bull for Britain and this female – Marianne – for France. You see her in newspaper cartoons.'

Campbell looked at the drawing intently. 'You may have something there. This thing on her head is the Cap of Liberty, isn't it? What's the extent of French territory in the Pacific?'

'French Oceania – about a million square miles of it, including Tahiti, Bora-Bora, the Tuamotus, the Marquesas, the Austral Islands. You'd have to get it down much closer than that.'

The Marianas Islands,' said Geordie and he sounded very glum. 'The Marianas Trench.'

Clare looked thrilled. 'Where are they?'

'A long way off, too far for comfort. Almost alongside the Philippines,' I said. 'It just can't be there, or else why was Mark so far away from it? I don't believe it.'

But Geordie had thought of something else. 'Suarez-Navarro's ship is heading that way.'

We looked at one another in dismay. 'Just doesn't feel right,' I said, only because I didn't want it to be. 'We want something down this way.'

Campbell said, 'What's this about a goddess? Marianne isn't one.'

'Let's go through a list of goddesses,' I suggested. There's Venus for a start. Is there a Venus Island?'

Geordie grinned. 'I've heard of the Good Ship Venus, but not an island. Wait a minute, though – there's a Venus Point in Tahiti.'

That sounds promising,' said Campbell.

'It's too close ashore – and all round there has been dredged.'

'Not so promising,' said Campbell glumly, 'but we'll keep it in mind.'

'Let's carry on with the goddess list,' said Clare. 'What about Aphrodite?'

We all thought about that. 'Nothing doing,' said Geordie finally.

'It could be a French name,' said Campbell.

I was brutal about it. 'Or a Polynesian name. Or a Polynesian goddess.'

'Good grief,' said Campbell, 'we're getting nowhere fast.'

We ran through the pantheon and couldn't even make a start on the Polynesian tribal deities without a single degree in anthropology amongst us. We switched our combined brains to the problem of the eagle, got nowhere, and came back to La France. Clare gazed fiercely at the drawings. 'All right, one last try. Let's go through it all once more.'

We all groaned.

'Venus.'

'Tahiti,' muttered Campbell, whose attention was waning.

'Demeter.'

Still nothing doing.

'Athena.'

Campbell said, 'I think this whole whacky idea is wrong. Let's pack it up.'

Clare gave a shout of laughter. 'I've got it – she's not La France at all, she's Athena, the goddess of justice. Mark used "fair" in the sense of "fair play".'

'Not that he knew much about that,' Geordie said.

'What about the Cap of Liberty?' I asked.

'It's not – it's a Roman helmet. She ought to have a spear too.'

'But Athena wasn't a Roman,' objected Campbell. 'She was a Greek goddess.'

I said, 'The Roman equivalent was Minerva – what about that?'

Geordie thumped the table and burst out laughing. 'My God! I think that's it – I should have seen it before. Recife de Minerve, of course!'

Campbell said, 'You mean there is such a place?'

I was struggling with a memory. I'd read about the place and there was something very out of whack about it, but I couldn't recall what it was. Geordie couldn't stop laughing. 'There's been a shipwreck on it. Oh, this is too damn funny.'

Campbell rubbed his hands, his interest rekindled. 'Now we're getting somewhere – where is it? Obviously down this way?'

'Down south of the Tuamotus,' said Geordie.

'Is it worth a trip?' Campbell asked me. 'You're the expert here.'

I thought that it was only a remote possibility that we'd hit on the right spot on our very first guess, and that there'd probably be a lot of false alarms on the way, unless some much more concrete evidence came up; but on the other hand I didn't want the expedition to founder through lack of either activity or enthusiasm – and we had to start somewhere. 'It could have possibilities,' I said, voicing a little of my reservation. 'It partly depends on where it is, which is what Geordie's going to tell us.'

'Are you kidding?' said Geordie, still spluttering over his private joke. 'Nobody – not even the Royal Navy – knows where Minerva is.'

There was a dead silence. Campbell broke it. 'What the hell do you mean by that?'

'I mean this,' said Geordie, suddenly sober. 'The Navy looked for it but couldn't find it. I suppose it's all in the Pacific Islands Pilot – I'd have to look – but there's an account of it in a book I've got on board.'

'But what is it?' Clare asked.

'Just what it says. Recife de Minerve. Minerva Reef. It's a hidden shoal.'

Geordie left us to go down to Esmerelda. Apart from fetching the book he was anxious to know if all was well, and to supervise the beginning of the restocking for sea. He also had to arrange for a cabin for Clare, which I knew would mean a little crowding up for someone else. We agreed that we might as well get on with things, and that all being well we should be able to sail within a day or so; impatience was in the air. I decided to try and have another word with Paula, who had left a note for me, containing her address. I had another idea that I wanted to try out on her.

I used the phone in the foyer and got her at once. 'Paula, it's Mike. I'd like to talk to you again.'

'Sure,' she said sleepily, and I guessed that late nights singing meant late mornings lying in. 'When – now?'

'If I can.'

'Okay. I'll see you in that little bar up the street.'

She was waiting for me, sitting at the same table, 'Hi,' she said. 'What's on your mind?'

I ordered coffee for both of us. She looked fresh and decidedly less tense this morning, and had obviously decided that I was an ally – as I had concluded about her.

'Hadley and people like him are on my mind. You're sure you don't remember a man called Kane?'

She shook her head firmly.

'Or Ramirez – ever hear of him?'

That drew a blank too. I said, 'Look, how well do you know Tahiti – especially Papeete?'

'Pretty well. I was there a long time, Mike.'

I rubbed my chin. 'I don't know it well at all. And I certainly don't know Hadley. I could pass him on the street without a second glance. What I need is a pair of eyes.'

She said in a small voice, 'You want me to go back to Papeete?'

I nodded. 'But not without an escort or a backup. Scared of Hadley?'

'I'll say I am. I don't mind admitting it.'

I said, 'Paula, I'm here on a small ship crewed by the toughest mob outside of the Mafia – but straight. Most of them are ex-Commandoes and anyone of them could take Hadley with one arm tied behind his back. We're leaving tomorrow, most likely, to sail to Tahiti. If you come with us I'll assign two of them as your permanent bodyguard when we get there. If Hadley tried anything he'll learn something he never knew about dirty fighting, and probably end up with a broken back, or in gaol.'

I thought that having her on board would be tricky with Kane around, but she said they had never. met and it was worth the risk. If I left her behind I might never have another chance to use her.

'You'll have company, by the way – female company, if you're thinking about that. The girl we were with last night -she's coming too.'

She bit her lip. 'Oh Mike, I'd be scared. Besides, I'm on contract here, though it's up in a couple of weeks. I don't want to run out on a contract. Things like that get about in my business.'

I said, 'If it's money you're worried about, we'll pay all your expenses and you'll get a bonus too. Hell, we can buy out your contract.'

'I'm not thinking of money. You're really going to find out what happened to Mark, aren't you?'

'I am,' I said definitely.

She thought for a moment, then sat back and looked determined.

'Then I'll come. Mark was the only man I've ever loved -and I think he loved me, a little. If he was killed I'd like to see his killer caught.'

'Good girl! Look, why not come over on a cruise ship – do they go from here to Tahiti? Can you find out?'

'Wait a minute – I'll see if I can find out anything.'

It was five minutes.

'There's a smallish cruise ship, the Eastern Sun, coming through here but not for a few weeks. It'll stop at Papeete. I can get a cabin – and I might even get a job for the trip, which would save you cash. But it's a long time off yet.'

That would suit me. I thought we would be a few days before we could really be sure of leaving, and then might be dredging or searching for several weeks around Minerva Reef, wherever that was. I got the date of the Eastern Sun's arrival in Papeete and promised Paula that we would be there before her, so that she would not be alone. 'I don't want to see you out of pocket, 'I went on. 'I'll pay your fare and expenses. If you get a paid job you can let me have it back. Do you have a bank?'

She told me and I said, 'I'll transfer enough to your account. I'm grateful, Paula. I'm glad to have you on our team; and you don't have to break your contract.'

There's more to this than just Mark's death, isn't there?' she said shrewdly.

'A lot more. I'll tell you about it in Papeete, perhaps after we've found out more still.' A girl like Clare Campbell would have demanded a much greater share of knowledge before committing herself, but Paula seemed accustomed to playing subsidiary roles. As we said goodbye I wondered how in hell Mark could have attracted such widely disparate women, though they had one thing more than their sex in common. Both seemed determined and courageous, and they were both worthy of a better man than Mark in their lives.

I went back to the hotel slowly, looking at shops and enjoying the exotic street scenes around me. I lunched alone, not finding any of the others in, but presently I saw Clare and her father arriving, and soon after we were joined by Geordie carrying a book. Over cold drinks we got down to business once more.

The book Geordie had brought from the ship was a copy of Bill Robinson's To The Great Southern Sea. 'Here's the bit. I've looked up the Pilot too, but I left that on board for later. I've been rereading Robinson, knowing that we'd be sailing down this way. He sailed from the Galapagos to Mangareva in his schooner, and here is what he has to say about Minerva. This was published in 1957, not long ago, by the way.'

He passed the book to Clare, indicating a paragraph. She started to read silently but her father said, 'For God's sake read it aloud so we'll all know what's going on.'

So Clare read to us:

'Approaching Mangareva we passed close to Minerva, one of those shoals of doubtful position and uncertain existence known as "vigias". Vigias are the bane of navigators, for one is never sure where they are, or if they are there at all. According to the Sailing Directions, which neglect to state how she got her name, there seems to be no doubt about Minerva's authenticity. A ship named the Sir George Grey was assumed lost there in 1865, although the British Navy failed to locate a reef there a few years later. In 1 the German bark Erato saw the shoal. It was again seen breaking heavily in 1920 ten miles from the position reported by the Erato. To my great disappointment, the maraamu spoiled our chances of looking for Minerva. For although the wind had gone down to a fresh breeze and we arrived at the vicinity at midday, there was still a big sea running, which broke in an unruly fashion. It was impossible to distinguish breakers caused by a shoal from those left in the wake of the maraamu. We steered a course that took us ten miles to the north of the northernmost reported position of the errant shoal, kept a vigilant look-out, but saw nothing.'

Clare stopped reading and Campbell said, 'Well, I'm damned. Do you mean to tell me that while spacemen are whirling round in orbit and we're on the verge of going to other planets that there's a piddling little shoal like this that hasn't been located?'

'That's right,' said Geordie. 'There are lots of them.'

'It's disgusting,' said Campbell, more accustomed to precise locations on land. 'But if Mark found it we can find it.'

'If he did. I doubt it,' I said. 'If an IGY survey ship had found Minerva they'd have reported it, and they didn't. But it doesn't mean they didn't dredge around there,' I added hastily into three disappointed faces. 'You heard what Robinson said about it. You'd probably only be able to see it in a flat calm, with the tides right.'

'Robinson took damn good care to steer well clear of it,' snorted Campbell. 'Ten miles north of its reported position, indeed.'

'He was a wise man and a good seaman,' said Geordie. 'He didn't want to lose his ship. It might be a shifting shoal and if you can't see where it is it's a good idea to keep clear of it. I'll do the same, believe me.'

Once again they all looked at me – the reluctant expert.

'The conditions I'm thinking of are possible,' I said. 'We have to make a start somewhere, and it would be fun to find it, if we can. Why not?'

One more thing happened before we left Panama. Kane came to see me.

We had ostensibly treated him as just one of the crew, and he'd done his work well and was not a bad seaman. But Geordie had only agreed to take him as far as Panama and now we were waiting to see what his next step would be.

He came down to my cabin one morning and said, 'Mr Trevelyan, could I have a word?'

'Come in. Hie looked fit again. Without trying to show it, I had kept clear of him on the voyage, finding it intolerably creepy to have the possible murderer of Mark underfoot, but I couldn't avoid some contacts and this was one I had almost been hoping for.

'What is it?'

'You're carrying on this research stuff, aren't you?'

'That's right. As you know, we're leaving in a day's time.'

'There was a message waiting for me here in Panama from my partner, Jim Hadley. Jim's down in New Guinea and he says he can't come up this way for a while. Now, I know you only promised to bring me as far as here, and I'm grateful, my word I am. But I wondered if I could stick with her a bit longer – you'll need a man in my berth, anyway. Maybe you'll be putting in some place that's nearer for Jim – Tahiti, maybe? That 'ud suit us both.'

I said, 'I don't see a problem. You're welcome to stay on as far as I'm concerned, if it's all right with the skipper.'

'Gee, thanks, Mr Trevelyan. I know I keep asking favours and you help out every time.'

There's no favour. We will need a man – you work well and you earn your keep. But it's up to Mr Wilkins, mind.'

'Too right. I'll check with him. Thanks again.'

I passed the word to Geordie to accept the expected offer, and told Campbell about it. 'Right, we'll keep him under our thumb,' he said. 'Not much chance of him knowing where we're going if we don't know, and he can't pass the word on from out there.'

So friend Kane stayed on with us. And the next day we sailed on a voyage of uncertain duration to an unknown destination which might, or might not, exist.