“Not afraid I might find something phony, are you?” The big man stepped very close. “And haven’t I seen your picture somewhere before?”
Professor Simeon Tattersall lowered his eyes for a single fleeting instant, then raised their candid blue gaze to the stranger’s.
“You may have read about my work in mineral detection—”
“That’s what it said in the paper,” assented the large man jovially. “I must have been thinking about someone else. The name’s on the tip of my tongue — but you wouldn’t know about that.” He beamed. “Anyway, Prof, I’ve been in the mining game a long time. Know all the dodges. I’ll be watching your demonstration with great interest.”
He chuckled tranquilly and rejoined the motley gallery.
There followed what radio commentators call an “expectant hush.”
Simon picked up his instrument, with barely visible nervousness, and started up the slope from the mill to the small mountain of “muck” fanning out below the old mine-entrance. He skirted around its base, his audience following, and approached the steep hillside itself.
Suddenly he grasped the handles on the box again and to the obbligato of the resultant humming, began moving along the base of the hill, shifting the device to and fro as he went. The humming continued in the same even key. The trailing onlookers listened breathlessly.
Ahead of the exploration lay a large slide of loose dirt brought down by recent rains. He neared it, and all at once the box’s tone slid up an octave. The Saint stopped; he moved the box to the right, away from the hill, and the tone dropped; he swung it toward the slide, and it climbed infinitesimally; he moved toward the slide, and the tone mounted until at the base of the fresh clods it was a banshee wail.
Simon Templar put down the box. In the ensuing silence he jointed a small collapsible spade and poked tentatively in the dirt.
Suddenly he dived down with one hand and came up with it held high; and between his thumb and forefinger glittered a tiny pea-sized grain of yellow.
“The Tattersall Prospector never makes a mistake,” he began in his best class-room manner. “I hold in my hand a small nugget of gold. Obviously, somewhere on the hillside above us, we will find the source of this nugget. I predict—”
His words were lost in a yell as the small crowd, like one man, started up the steep bank toward the source of the slide. As Simon turned to stare at them, he found the big city observer at his elbow.
“Not good.” The large man shook his head. “If I were you, Professor, I’d get the hell out of here before those boys up there find out that you salted this slide.” He shook his head again. “I just remembered where I saw your face — and I expected something better from The Saint,” he said. “Listen — you may have been a hot shot in your own league, but you didn’t really expect to take Melville Rochborne into camp, did you?”
“It was always worth trying,” said The Saint sheepishly.
He poked his spade into the slide and turned over the loose earth.
“All right, Mel,” he said. “You win this time. Have yourself a shoeshine on the house.”
And with a rather childish gesture he spilled a shovelful of dirt deliberately over Mr. Rochborne’s shining pointed toes before he threw down the spade and turned away.
Mr. Rochborne’s geniality blacked out for a moment; and then he bent to dust off his shoes.
Suddenly he seemed to stiffen. He bent down and picked up a fragment of powdery pale yellow stuff and crumbled it in his fingers.
A strange look came into his face.
A mere few hours later he was clutching his hat to his bosom and trying to hold his tempera lure down to an engaging glow while Mrs. Phelan gushed: “Why, Mr. Rochborne! What a pleasant surprise!”
“As a matter of fact, Mrs. Phelan,” he admitted, with the air of a schoolboy caught in the jam closet, “I’m here on business. I hate to impose on you, but...”
“Go on, Mr. Rochborne,” she fluted. “Do go on. Business is business, isn’t it?”
“I might as well come right out with it,” Rochborne said wearily. “It’s about that Lucky Nugget stock you bought, Mrs. Phelan. I — well, it turns out it was misrepresented to me. I’m not at all sure it’s a good investment.”
“Oh, dear!” Mrs. Phelan sat down suddenly. “Oh, dear! But— my— my forty-five thou—”
“Now, Mrs. Phelan, don’t excite yourself. If I weren’t prepared to—”
“Telephone, Mrs. Phelan.” A maid stood in the doorway.
“Excuse me,” said Mrs. Phelan. “Oh, dear!”
“Mrs. Phelan,” said a deep melliffiuous voice on the wire, “this is Swami Yogadevi.”
“Oh— oh, Swami!” The old lady sighed with relief. “Oh, I am so glad to hear from you!”
“Dear Mrs. Phelan, you are in trouble. I know. I could feel the disturbance in your aura.”
“Oh, Swami! If you only knew... I — it’s my mining stock, Swami. The stock you said I should buy, remember? And now—”
“He wants to buy it back from you. Yes.”
“He... does...? Oh, then it’s all right...”
“Sell, Mrs. Phelan. But for a profit, of course.”
“But how much should I—”
“Not a penny less than seventy thousand, Mrs. Phelan. No, not a penny less — and only in cash, Mrs. Phelan. Peace be with you. Your star is in the ascendant. You will not say that I have talked to you, naturally. Goodbye.”
When Mr. Melville Rochborne heard the price, he barely escaped being the first recorded case of human spontaneous combustion.
“But Mrs. Phelan... I’ve just told you. The stock is no — well, it’s been misrepresented. It’s not really worth the price you paid me. I thought if I gave you your money back...”
“The stars,” said Mrs. Phelan raptly, “control my business dealings. I am asking seventy thousand for the stock.”
“Oh, sure, the stars.” Mr. Rochborne thought rapidly. “May I use your telephone?”
He dialed a certain unlisted number for nearly five minutes, with the same negative results that had rewarded him even before he called at Mrs. Phelan’s house. At the end of that time he returned, slightly frantic and flushed of face.
“Mrs. Phelan,” he said. “We can discuss this, I know. Suppose we say fifty-five thousand.”
“Seventy, Mr. Rochborne,” said Mrs. Phelan.
“Sixty-two fifty,” cozened Rochborne, in pleading tones.
“Seventy,” repeated the implacable old lady.
Mr. Rochborne thought fleetingly of the mayhem he was going to perform upon the luckless frame of Reuben Haggitt when he caught him.
“Very well,” he groaned. “I’ll write you a check.”
“My Swami told me all deals should be in cash,” said Mrs. Phelan brightly. “I’ll get the stock and go with you to the bank.”
An hour later, minus practically his entire bank roll but grimly triumphant, with the stock of the Lucky Nugget mine in his pocket, Mr. Melville Rochborne met Mr. Reuben Haggitt on the doorstep of the apartment house on Russian Hill, and finally could speak his mind.
“You stupid worthless jerk!” he exploded. “What’s the idea of being out all day — and on a day like this? You just cost us twenty-five grand!”
“Listen,” shrilled the prophet, “who’s calling who a jerk! What did you do about that mine?”
“I got it back, of course,” Rochborne told him shortwindedly. “Even though the old bag took me for twenty-five G’s more than she put into it — just because you weren’t around to cool her down. But I didn’t dare take a chance on waiting. There were some oldtime prospectors around, and if any of them recognized the carnotite—”