Coghlan waited for the hors d’oeuvres, his face unconsciously growing gloomy. Appolonius the Great was lifting his wine-glass. The deeply-indented wristwatch annoyed Coghlan. Its sweep second-hand irritated him unreasonably. Appolonius was saying blandly:
“I think it is time for me to reveal my great good fortune! I offer a toast to the Neoplatonist Autonomous Republic-to-be! Some think it a lie, and some a swindle and me the would-be swindler. But drink to its reality!”
He drank. Then he beamed more widely still.
“I have secured financing for the bribes I need to pay,” he explained. All his chins radiated cheer. “I may not reveal who has decided to enrich some scoundrelly politicians in order to aid my people, but I am very happy. For myself and my people!”
“That’s fine!” said Mannard.
“I shall no longer annoy you for a contribution,” Appolonius assured him. “Is it not a relief?”
Mannard chuckled. Appolonius the Great was almost openly a fake; certainly he told about his “people” with the air of one who does not expect anybody to take him seriously. The story was that somewhere in Arabia there was a group of small, obscure villages in which the doctrines of Neoplatonism survived as a religion. They were maintained by a caste of philosopher-priests who kept the population bemused by magic, and Appolonius claimed to have been one of the hierarchy and to be astonishing all Europe with the trickery which was the mainstay of the cult. It sounded like the sort of publicity an over-imaginative press-agent might have contrived. A tradition of centuries of the development and worship of the art of hocus-pocus was not too credible. And now, it seemed, Appolonius was claiming that somebody had put up money to bribe some Arab government and secure safety for the villagers in revealing their existence and at-least-eccentric religion.
“I’d some visitors today,” said Coghlan, “who may have been using some of your Neoplatonistic magic.” He turned to Mannard. “By the way, sir, they told me that I am probably going to murder you.”
Mannard looked up amusedly. He was a big man, deeply tanned, and looked capable of looking after himself. He said:
“Knife, bullet, or poison, Tommy? Or will you use a cyclotron? How was that?”
Coghlan explained. The story of his interview with the harassed Duval and the skeptical Ghalil sounded even more absurd than before, as he told it.
Mannard listened. The hors d’oeuvres came. The soup. Coghlan told the story very carefully, and was the more annoyed as he found himself trying to explain how impossible it was that it could be a fake. Yet he didn’t mention that one line which had most disturbed him.
Mannard chuckled once or twice as Coghlan’s story unfolded. “Clever!” he said when Coghlan finished. “How do you suppose they did it, and what do they want?”
Appolonius the Great wiped his mouth and topmost chin.
“I do not like it,” he said seriously. “I do not like it at all. Oh, the book and the fingerprints and the writing . . . one can do such things. I remember that once, in Madrid, I—but no matter! They are amateurs, and therefore they may be dangerous folk.”
Laurie said, “I think Tommy’d have seen through anything crude. And I don’t think he told quite all the story. I’ve known him a long time. There’s something that still bothers him.”
Coghlan flushed. Laurie could read his mind uncannily.
“There was,” he admitted, “a line that I didn’t tell. It mentioned something that would mean nothing to anyone but myself—and I’ve never mentioned it to anyone.”
Appolonius sighed. “Ah, how often have I not read someone’s inmost thoughts! Everyone believes his own thoughts quite unique! But still, I do not like this!”
Laurie leaned close to Coghlan. She said, under her breath, “Was the thing you didn’t tell—about me?”
Coghlan looked at her uncomfortably, and nodded. “Nice!” said Laurie, and smiled mischievously at him. Appolonius suddenly made a gesture. He lifted a goblet with water in it. He held it up at the level of their eyes.
“I show you the principle of magic,” he said firmly. “Here is a glass, containing water only. You see it contains nothing else!”
Mannard looked at it warily. The water was perfectly clear. Appolonius swept it around the table at eye-level.
“You see! Now, Mr. Coghlan, enclose the goblet with your hands. Surround the bowl. You, at least, are not a confederate! Now . . .
The fat little man looked tensely at the glass held in Coghlan’s cupped hands. Coghlan felt like a fool.
“Abracadabra 750 Fatima Miss Mannard is very beautiful!” he said in a theatrical voice. Then he added placidly, “Any other words would have done as well. Put down the glass, Mr. Coghlan, and look at it.”
Coghlan put down the goblet and took his hands away. There was a gold-piece in the goblet. It was an antique—a ten-dirhem piece of the Turkish Empire.
“I could not build up the illusion,” said Appolonius, “but it was deceptive, was it not?”
“How’d you do it?” asked Mannard interestedly.
“At eye-level,” said Appolonius, “you cannot see the bottom of a goblet filled with water. Refraction prevents it. I dropped in the coin and held it at the level of your eyes. So long as it was held high, it seemed empty. That is all.”
Mannard grunted.
“It is the principle which counts!” said Appolonius. “I did something of which you knew nothing. You deceived yourselves, because you thought I was getting ready to do a trick. I had already done it. That is the secret of magic.”
He fished out the gold-piece and put it in his vest pocket, and Coghlan thought sourly that this trick was not quite as convincing as his own handwriting, his own fingerprints and most private thoughts, written down over seven centuries ago.
“Hm . . . I think I’ll mention your visitors to the police,” said Mannard. “I’m mentioned. I may be involved. It’s too elaborate to be a practical joke, and there’s that mention of somebody getting killed. I know some fairly high Turkish officials ... you’ll talk to anyone they send you?”
“Naturally.” Coghlan felt that he should be relieved, but he was not. Then something else occurred to him.
“By the way,” he said to Appolonius, “you’re in on this, too. There’s a memorandum that says the ‘adepts’ were inquiring for you!”
He quoted, as well as he was able, the memo on the back of the page containing his fingerprints. The fat man listened, frowning.
“This,” he said firmly, “I very much do not like! It is not good for my professional reputation to be linked with tricksters. It is very much not good!”
Astonishingly, he looked pale. It could be anger, but he was definitely paler than he had been. Laurie said briskly:
“You said something about a gadget, Tommy. At—80 Hosain, you said?”
Coghlan nodded. “Yes. Duval and Lieutenant Ghalil said they were going to make inquiries theme.”
“After dinner,” suggested Laurie, “we could take the car and go look at the outside, anyhow? I don’t think Father has anything planned. It would be interesting—”
“Not a bad thought,” said Mannard. “It’s a pleasant night. We’ll all go.”
Laurie smiled ruefully at Coghlan. And Coghlan resolutely assured himself he was pleased—it was much better for him not to be anywhere with Laurie, alone. But he was not cheered in the least.
Mannard pushed back his chair.
“It’s irritating!” he grunted. “I can’t figure out what they’re driving at! By all means, let’s go look at that infernal house!”