Eszterhazy takes up the loupe and has a look. He puts it down and De Hooft says, "I've seen all sorts of gold, you know. This is new to me. I've seen yellow gold, I've seen white gold, red gold, even green gold, yes! But this, this, shining with the sheen of a . . . of a Chinese orange! This I have never seen before."
Lobats paused in the act of brushing his high-crovraed gray bowler hat with the sleeve of his gray overcoat. "Naturally, our very first thought was that the rings themselves must have been stolen," he explained. "But that didn't stand up for long."
Eszterhazy nodded. "Exactly what laws are being broken here?" he asked.
Lobats raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. "Well . . . hnrni . . . well, of course, the man is in violation of the municipal street-trading ordinances. But that is a small matter. And his method of marking the rings is technically illegal, for they haven't been proven either at the Goldsmiths Guild, the Jewelers Association Testing
Room, or any Imperial Assay Oflace. However, as we all know, they are of a purer gold than any rings which are."
De Hooft frowned. "Obviously the man is dishonest," he said. "Probably the gold was stolen abroad and he is trying to dispose of it bit by bit, without attracting attention."
Lobats put his head at an angle and shook it. "But we've had no reports from abroad of any thefts which would fit. We've even checked back to reports a few years ago, for example, from California, and from Australia. But this just isn't their kind of gold."
Doctor Eszterhazy once again examined the rings. "And yet," he said, "if he came honestly by it, why is he selling them so far below normal price? Evidently, by the way he impresses the people he sells to, he speaks as a man of anyway moderate education. And as such, he ought to know that even if the gold was dug up in a hoard, somewhere, by the law of treasure trove, the Throne will concede him a half-portion . . . provided, that is, that he made an immediate and honest disclosure . . ."
Lobats lifted his brows and pursed his lips. "Well, Doctor, it may be that you have hit upon it. Maybe it is a buried treasure that he found, maybe his greed got the better of him and he started to dispose of it in what he thought was a clever way. And, now he knows that we are onto him, well, maybe he thinks it's too late for him to come forward. Just think, gentlemen!" – he poked the rings with a thick and hairy forefinger—"this might be pirate gold ... or maybe even dragon gold ... I" He laughed hastily and twisted his face.
Eszterha2y caught at something before the telltale slip; it was perfectly all right with him if a plainclothes police commissioner believed in the hoards which folk-belief still held that dragons from the ancient days of the Goths and Scythians had planted here and there in many a hidden valley and many a haunted hill; no one was ever the worse off for such a belief, and the thought of them added a touch of color which the modern age could well use.
"What do you mean, Karrol-Francos, that now he knows you are onto him? How does he know?"
Commissioner Lobats told him that a plainclothesman had been assigned to the area around the old Clock Tower, but that no further signs of the stranger had been seen since.
Doctor Eszterhazy, having left the other two to fiurther talk and consideration, engaged in a bit of reflection as he walked away.
Selling cheap rings to the visiting peasantry was almost a natural notion – that is, if one had cheap rings to dispose of. And suppose that one still had? Where else, and to whom else, might it be equally natural to attempt a sale?
The pufBng railroad trains had stolen away much of the old river trade, but much still remained; it was not as quick, but it was cheaper. Coal and timber and pitch, salt and gravel and grain and sand were still moved in great quantities by sailing-barge up and down the Ister, even if the boats no longer caught the winds in scarlet sails and even if the bargees no longer wore their hair in pigtails. A good place to find the bargees, when their minds and eyes were not preoccupied with snubbing lines or disputing precedence at the wharfs, was the Birch Walk.
Conjecture vision of a stone embankment crowned with a paved walk planted on both sides with birch trees, a walk which winds perhaps a third of a kilometer along the River Ister. It had at one time been contemplated to continue the Walk, and to plant an equivalent number of birches more, for a much greater distance; this had not been done. But the experiment could not be said to have failed. People of the class who can a£Eord simply to amuse themselves at hours when the sun still shines, and on a weekday, too, found that the prospect was pleasant from the Birch Walk; some, indeed, compared it to portions of the Seine, although not always to the same portions. Those establishments which oflFered refreshment, and which were willing to make more than merely minimal gestures in the way of cleanhness and good order, found that ladies and gentlemen (and those who wished to be taken for ladies and gentlemen) were now willing to patronize them. These new customers found an interest in watching the barge-people at their food and drink, and the barge-people, it is possible, perhaps found an almost equal interest in watching these same people at theirs. Though perhaps not.
Those captains, mates, and deckhands (most sailing-barges carried a deckhand, in addition to a captain and a mate) who wished, their duties done for the day, to get drunk as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible, or to enjoy the company of some barefoot trull, also cheaply and quickly, did not come up to the Birch Walk to do so. One found there, instead, barge-folk well-bathed and well-combed and cleanly clad, either strolling decorously, or, with equal decorum, sitting at an outside table, enjoying a dark beer or a plate of zackuskoes. Often they merely hung over the railings, enjoying a sight of the river from a different angle than the deck of a barge affords.
Eszterhazy paced slowly along, waiting for a familiar face . . . not any one particular familiar face, nor even just any familiar face; he waited for one of a general category. And, as so often happens, as long as one is not in great need of borrowing money, he found one.
Or one found him.
As it turned out, there were three of them, and at least two of them hailed him to "Sit down and take!" The verb to take has perhaps fewer meanings than many another which one might name, but among those who traffic in and labor around the wide waters called the Pool of Ister, the definitive definition is liqueous . . . and hospitable.
The older two were the brothers Francos and Konkos Spits, the captain and mate, respectively, of the sailing-barge Queen of Tan-nonia, and the other was their deckhand—presumably he had a Christian and a family name, but Eszterhazy had never heard him referred to as anything but "the Boy." The brothers were dark, the boy was fair, and Eszterhazy had met all three in connection with a singularly mysterious affair involving an enormous rodent of Indonesian origin.
Conversation was at first general. The ciurrent state of the river trade was discussed, which of course entailed discussion of the river trade for many years past. Some attention was given to the perennial rumor that the Ruritanians, or perhaps the Rumanians, were going to place a boom across the Danube, or perhaps, as some said, a bomb. The merits and demerits of the current methods of marking channels, shoals, and wrecks came in for much commentary, little of it favorable. By the next drink, conversation became more personal. Eszterhazy asked if many young men showed a disposition to take up the Ijargee trade. The brothers Spits simultaneously insisted that recruitment was flourishing and that none of the recruits were worth recruiting: they twirled their huge mus-tachioes and banged their vast fists upon the table to emphasize this point. The Boy blushed. Eszterhazy glanced at him, in a friendly fashion, and the Boy blushed even more.