"That is odd. Who was it? Did they ask in the same words?"
"A spotty young man of about twenty-two, I should judge. He didn't ask right out. Just wanted to see things in black Porphyry. And when it turned out that there were no pixies, he lost interest and went away."
"So what's so special about pixies in black Porphyry, one wonders? You have checked? There really are none?"
"Yes and no. Respectively."
"April — you don't think this is... a sign?... do you?"
"Like From Above, you mean? Or like an omen, a pointer?"
"Something like a word to the wise."
"Well, of course it did strike me, after the second request, that it might be some kind of coded intro. But what for, I can't think."
"If there were black Porphyry pixies available only to those who asked for them, but not on display, then it might make some kind of sense. But since you say there definitely are none —"
"Wait a minute, Mark," April interrupted. "Perhaps the fact that there are none is itself significant. Suppose, for example, that asking for a black Porphyry pixie was a coded request for something quite different... then surely the last thing they'd have in stock would be such a repellent object, if only to avoid the risk of someone, someone not in the know, asking for one by coincidence and getting told automatically whatever there was to be told."
"I say! I think you may have got something there," Slate exclaimed. "How can we check and find out if it's true? — And, if so, what the coded request leads to?"
"First of all by giving this place a far more systematic going over than I can manage while it's supposed to be open to the public. I suggest we come here secretly tonight, with flashlights and with plenty of time, to see if we can find out what they were up to. That way, too, we can work together without giving the game away — that we know each other, I mean."
"Fine, There is one thing, though, Apriclass="underline" you keep mentioning them and they...the last thing they would have in stock; what they were up to; and so on. Whom do you have in mind? The girl in whose kiosk all this is supposed to take place was an U.N.C.L.E. agent — one of us! Was she in on it, do you think? And if so, what on earth was she up to?"
"That's not the least of the mysteries we have to solve... Hold it again! There's someone coming — and it's the old man himself. No less!"
For a moment, Mark heard only the indeterminate background noise of the funfair — voices, laughter, the thwack of coconuts, a glare of jukebox music — as an obbligato to the mewing of gulls. The wind was rising, snatching at the body work of the car and flattening the grey-green leaves of sea pinks on the cliff. Then came the old man's voice, surly as ever: "Good day, Miss Dancer. Gettin' into the swing of it, I hope? Not that there's much around in the way of clientele in this God-forsaken hole in winter. You want to latch on to any foreigners — strangers, that is — that you see and talk them into a sale. Pretty girl like you shouldn't find that too difficult, I guess. But don't waste any time on the locals: they come to stare, not to buy... Sold anything today?"
"Only one or two, I'm afraid" –– April's voice was a nicely judged blend of deference and coquetry — "but I managed to shift an Agate stud box and a couple of light houses."
"Which ones?"
"The little ones .. . these."
"You should never sell those if you can help it. If they'll buy those, they'll buy a size larger. Look through the stock until you find one or two of the little ones that are slightly flawed — then put them in the front against the best examples you can find of the more expensive ones. That way, the mugs'll see that the dearer one is worth the difference."
"Suppose they won't stretch to it, Mr. Bosustow?"
"You do your stuff and they will. But if they don't, then sell 'em one of the flawed little 'uns. Of course, if they insist, show 'em the better examples. Any sale's better'n none... but in any case I don't think you're going to get much practice just now! As I say, the locals just won't bite."
"They don't like any of this beautifully turned stuff?"
"Not a thing."
"Not even the pixies in black Porphyry?"
"Pixies in black Porphyry? What are you talking about, girl? That's a damfool thing to say; you can't work pixies out of that kind of material! It'd never take the detaiclass="underline" the crystals are too big and the whole thing's far too brittle. Even my son couldn't do that, and he's the expert. You ask him."
"I'm sorry. It was just that one or two people asked…"
"For Cornish pixies in Porphyry? Black Porphyry? They must have been out of their minds. A lighthouse with a gallery — or perhaps a box with a decorated lid — that's about as far as you can go with that!... Anyway, you keep trying. I'm — er — I'm in my trailer if you should want me for any reason."
"Does my womanly intuition deceive me, or was that the germ of a proposition?" April demanded when she came back on the line again.
"Hardly knowing the man, I couldn't say. But knowing you, love... well, you draw your own seamy conclusions," Mark chuckled. "At least one thing is clear, though: there are no pixies in that stone. So we need waste no time looking for them tonight."
"That's right. What we do have to do, though, is find something else — something to which a request for a Porphyry pixie might provide a lead... Look, Mark: I must go for a moment. The wind seems to be getting up and there's a side flap here that'll be out of control unless I fasten it down now. I'll be with you in a minute
While he waited, Mark Slate got out of the car and took the Communicator with him to the cliff top.
The breeze had indeed freshened appreciably, even in the short time since he had parked. His trousers plucked at his calves as he stood on the lip of a sheer face of granite plunging two hundred and fifty feet to the sea. The water was grey now, the division between sky and ocean even less precise, and around the rocks which pierced the swell sucking at the base of the headland angry crests were already creaming into explosions of spray. To one side, geological aeons ago, a fault had sliced away half the bill, which now leaned precariously into the waves with its stepped sides a foam with sea birds.
The buffeting of the wind in his ears, and the thin shrilling of air through the vegetation at first masked the call-sign on the Communicator, and the instrument had bleeped three times before his mind registered the sound.
"Sorry!" he called, the device close up against his lips as he glanced around once more to make sure that nobody was near. "I was just verifying that there seems to be a storm blowing up, and the atmospherics drowned you out at first! Have you fixed your canvas?"
"Yes, I have. I don't know if it's the thought of warmth and light at the end of what looks like becoming a bad afternoon, but there seems to be quite a crowd drifting in now, in twos and threes. We'd better make plans for our rendezvous later, in case we don't have the chance to talk again."
"Okay," Mark said. "You're the lady. You choose."
"Right. I'll be here in the caravan he's let me have. Most of them — judging by last night — put out their lights quite early. The place closes at ten. There's an hour's television while they eat. And then that's it... Give them an hour to settle, and we can start."
"It looks like the witching hour, then?"