by Peter Leslie
"And when he says he hasn't anything, but there's a concession you could operate — well, you can say you have a little money saved, or offer to pay later, or give him a percentage of the take... anything, so long as you don't appear too eager. Then, if only you could get installed in Sheila's place, we could take it from there: the booth's as good a place as any to start, so long as we restrict any double appearances, as it were, to after dark! Maybe we could even solve the mystery of the burglars who take nothing!"
"Yes. I think that's a good idea," the girl said. "At least, I'll give it a try. Where did Sheila live, by the way?"
"She rented a small two-berther from the old man. I guess you could have the same caravan if the deal comes off. And talking of coming off, here's where you'd better think of getting off. This is Helston."
The streets of the market town were bordered by wide channels carrying the brick-red waters of a stream, and after the granite and slate of Penzance the whole place seemed warm and pinkly bustling in the afternoon light. April extricated herself from the Matra-Bonnet's passenger seat, reached in for her suitcase and the black crocodile handbag, and leaped nimbly across the surging gutter to the sidewalk.
"You can pick up the bus down the first side street to the left," Mark called as he leaned over to shut the door. "It'll be labelled 'Falmouth via Porthallow' — and the fare'll cost you half a crown — if you know what that is!"
"Thanks. I'll keep in touch by radio — but you watch out for ladies in jodhpurs in bars!" the girl called.
There was a momentary squeal as the wide Michelins bit into the asphalt, two small puffs of smoke — and the blue car was rocketing towards an intersection and the main road to Falmouth and the east.
CHAPTER SIX: THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS WRONG
THERE was nothing to show the casual passer-by that Mark Slate was in the middle of a two-way radio transmission. He sat slumped in the driving seat of his car, apparently gazing idly at the folds of moorland sweeping down to Porthallow and the twin curves of breakwater enclosing its harbour. To the more inquisitive, venturing closer to the lay-by on the slope of Trewinnock Tor where he was parked, he would have presented the picture of a young man intent upon some task for which he had specially stopped. For there was a notebook, open at a page half covered with handwriting, propped against the steering wheel — and he was toying with what looked like a rather fat pen.
What would have been invisible to such a watcher was the thin, telescopic antenna projecting beyond the barrel of the device. For Mark was in fact engaged with April Dancer on a remote-control check of Sheila Duncan's booth at the circus.
After some argument and haggling, the girl had succeeded in persuading the older Bosustow to let her take over the souvenir kiosk temporarily, and now, just after the afternoon opening of the sideshows, she was busy checking the stock. Since she was not supposed to know Mark, and since the booth was too small to conceal anybody, they had decided to maintain radio contact while she was actually there rather than compare notes in secret some time later in the day. "It's really more practical that way," April had argued. "Always better to discuss things as they come up than to try and recall every detail afterwards. And since I can't hide you inside, and you won't have any excuse for lounging about outside because you don't know me, I think our U.N.C.L.E. Communicators are the answer, don't you?" Slate had agreed, stipulating only that his end of the operation should be out in the country rather than in the town, where his actions might be noticed visually, or in his hotel room, where he might be overheard. He listened now to April's description of what she had found on the shelves and in the cupboards of the tiny booth.
"She had stuff in Serpentine, Onyx, Porphyry, Agate and Chrysopase, as far as I can see," she said; "the great majority of it being Serpentine. And it's fairly obvious, both from the books, such as they are, and from the stock, that lighthouses in Serpentine are the best sellers — in all sizes, from a couple of inches high to almost a foot. Next on the list are ashtrays — in the green Serpentine, the red, and in Moss Agate. And after that come various kinds of creatures, Cornish pixies mostly."
"What are they made of?" Mark asked curiously, raising the Communicator to his lips after a cautious glance around.
"Chrysoprase and Onyx, chiefly the former. They're pretty stylised, mind you, with very little detail: none of those minerals lend themselves to the kind of sentimental work that pixies normally demand. And in any case they are not suitable for mass production techniques — even the kind where each item is made separately!"
"Tell me one thing," Mark queried. "What the devil is Chrysopase?"
The voice percolating through the tiny Communicator in his hand sounded amused. "It's a green variety of Chalcedony — which, as I'm sure you must know, is a kind of semi-precious quartz... Apart from these, there are eggcups and small vases in Serpentine, trinket boxes in Serpentine and Agate, and paperweights — very classical in style — made in everything. May I keep you something, sir?"
"What are the pixies like?"
"They look as though they had leprosy."
"Oh. Perhaps I'd better —"
"Hold it Mark," April's voice interrupted. "I have customers. This is the third today. Business is booming! I shall leave the Communicator on so you can hear — but don't for goodness' sake say anything."
He heard a Cornishwoman's voice saying something indistinct. And then April, very clearly: "Yes, they are pretty, aren't they, dear?... No, the big ones are rather expensive, I'm afraid... Three pounds ten... Yes, of course, I understand... These small ashtrays are nice for a casual present; come in handy at any time. And they're only twelve and six. Just as you like... Yes, you do that…"
"No sale, I gather," he said when the girl came on the line again.
"No. I didn't really — Oh. Hold on again. There's this youth has been hanging about for some time: Now he's coming over. Can't say I like the look of him much. Keep quiet... Good afternoon, sir. Can I help?"
This time, the voice was clear and well-defined. A Londoner, or at any rate from the Home Counties, Slate thought. Not too well educated, but self-confident, almost cocky.
"Hullo, love. I'd like a Cornish pixie, please. In black Porphyry."
"In black...? A pixie? Just a moment, I don't think... Will you hold on a minute, sir. I'll just have a look."
Over the diminutive transmitter, Slate heard the sound of whistling overlaid by the opening and shutting of drawers and cupboard doors. And then the girl's voice, puzzled: "I'm so sorry, sir. I'm afraid we don't have any pixies in Porphyry, black or otherwise. Can I interest you in—"
"No, it's a pixie, in black Porphyry," the boy cut in.
"Well, I'm terribly sorry... We do have Porphyry ashtrays. Black and red, as you see. And stud boxes."
"Are you sure you don't have black Porphyry pixies?"
"Well, yes. I've just told you, haven't I?"
There was a short silence, and then the youth's voice mumbling: "Okay, okay. Have it your way. You don't have any. But they definitely said..." The voice died away as he walked out of range of the set.
"That was odd," April's voice said a few minutes later. "Look — there's a big cupboard full of odds and ends at the back of the booth. I think I'll sort through that in the next few minutes. There may be notebooks, papers, or at any rate something of interest to us there.. though if Miss Duncan had been as thoroughly trained as we have to be, I doubt it very much!"
"Okay," Mark replied. "You do that. While you're making a start, I shall take off and move the car somewhere else. I don't want to stay too long in any one place, in case people start noticing. As it is, half the wretched population down here seem to have field glasses!"
He drove back into the town and out along the track skirting the harbour and the bathing beach. On top of the headland separating Porthallow from the adjoining cove, he pulled off the road and stopped the car in a grassy depression. Beyond the clifftop, the white shapes of gulls floated in an up-current of air again
st the haze merging sea and sky in the winter sun. After he had switched off the engine, he listened to the booming of surf somewhere out of sight below and then drew the Communicator from his pocket and touched the button which would actuate the call-sign bleep on the twin that April had.
"Channel open," the girl's voice came crisply from the tiny speaker.
"Slate. I'm up on the cliffs on the other side of the town."
"Good. I've been busy too. I've sold a small round stud box in Agate since you called, and two lighthouses. Only the smallest, mind, but it's a start, don't you think?"
"Most commendable," Mark said dryly.
"And there's another funny thing too. Remember you heard the boy who asked for a black Porphyry pixie? Well, someone else came up and asked had I one."
"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, April: 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 detail: 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, the
n?"
"Check. To make doubly sure, you leave your pub at twelve. You'll have the car in the garage there, I suppose, and come on foot?... Right. The walk should take you about ten or twelve minutes, so allowing for getting in, I guess we'd be safe to make a date at the booth for twelve-twenty. Okay?"
"Okay," Mark said. "What do you —" But he was abruptly shushed into silence as a surge of voices drew near the transmitter. After a moment, they passed on — all but one: a distinctive woman's voice, a voice curt with the certainty of command, arrogant and clipped, speaking with the nasal yet strangulated accents of Kensington. A voice, moreover, which Mark Slate instantly recognised, for it was the voice of the woman who had contrived the meeting with him in the bar, the wife of Sir Gerald Wright.
"Oh, good afternoon," it said patronisingly. "I wonder, do you — would you possibly have such a thing as one of those little Cornish pixies in black Porphyry?"
CHAPTER SEVEN: SOMETHING THE TIDE BROUGHT IN…
A LOOSE shutter on one of the sideshow booths was banging in the wind as April Dancer slipped noiselessly from the small caravan and began to make her way across the field towards the souvenir kiosk which had been rented by Sheila Duncan.
Doors yammered, canvas flapped, ropes heaved and the hedge was tossing in the squalls which moaned in the wires stringing together the thrumming telegraph poles, and whining through every slit and gap in the circus. The girl zipped her windcheater closer to her neck and tucked her trouser legs deep into her boots. Just before she emerged from the dense shadow the twin lines of trailers cast, she paused and looked around her.
A three-quarter moon sailed occasionally into sight across rifts in the scurrying clouds, but most of the light flooding the Big Top and the carved faces of the booths came from the single street lamp positioned at the entrance to the field. The caravans themselves were all in darkness though there was no telling how many of the blank windows might hide a flattened nose or eagerly peering eye.
