The So Blue Marble (13 page)

    “Rest?” She laughed noisily. “I’m looking for Danny.” She started towards the bath.

    Griselda said, “You can use the door.”

    Missy spoke sullenly. “I’ll go as I came.” She went in darkness.

    Griselda waited long enough before she struck a match and looked at her watch. It was just four o’clock. She didn’t think she’d get much sleep before pounding on the door would wake her again. She was correct. Nine o’clock. The inevitable Tobin. With him Moore and three other men in plain clothes with hand boxes.

    Tobin said, “Always sorry to disturb your rest, Griselda, but orders is orders. The Commissioner doesn’t hold to sleeping in the mornings. We want to make some tests. We have a warrant if you’re interested.”

    “I’m not.” She smiled. “You go ahead.” There seemed to be spring in the air through the opened bedroom window. The breathing spell had begun. A good day to look into Gig. But she wouldn’t use this phone. Dressed, she opened the door between.

    The men were working swiftly, silently, with electrical gadgets. One would measure, speak code-like figures, another write. “It looks fascinating.”

    Tobin said, “This takes time. But we’ll leave you ship-shape.”

    In the elevator she was startled by an idea. Bette must know Gig was not Gig. She had said nothing. Was she in on this too?The air did have spring in it. It was good to taste. She went to Fifth, walked down to Saks and used a phone booth. She dialed Columbia University, asked to be connected with Dr. Gigland. A connection was made and another girl’s voice spoke. “Dr. Gigland’s office.”

    “May I speak to him, please?”

    “He’s just gone over to his class. He teaches the next two hours. Could he call you?”

    She said no and added, “I will call him again.”

    Nothing to do until noon. Easy, to while away time in the shops. But she was curious. Or rather she wanted to know, to be certain. She called the St. Regis. “Miss Cameron or Mr. Montefierrow.”

    The clerk was cordial. “They left this morning for the country. They will return in about a week. Is there any message?”

    She said no, hung up, breathed easily. She could enjoy a week of her vacation. She shopped until noon.

    This time she was connected with Gig.

    “Griselda?” It was his voice.

    She told him, “Those beastly twins are out of town. I feel celebraty. May I come up to the campus and lunch with you?”

    He laughed. “There isn’t a place with anything fit to eat up here. I’ll come downtown. I have no more classes until tonight.”

    There seemed no reason to press the campus. He was there. He was Professor Gigland. At least you phoned and asked for Dr. Gigland and were given this Gig. The greatest university couldn’t be in on a misrepresentation.

    He said, “Let’s make it the Plaza. If you’re really celebrating. About half an hour.”

    She demurred. “I asked myself. It’s too expensive.”

    “I can afford to take a girl to a nice lunch once in a while.” He was firm, gay. “Professors’ salaries aren’t that poor.”

    

    

    She met him in the front lobby. There were hyacinths in the window boxes outside the great comfortable dining room. And the park trees were hinting at greenery.

    He asked her, “Why did they go?”

    She had to take time to answer, studying the menu. “For a rest, David said. They’ve gone up to the Berkshire country, Canaan, he said, fishing. But it seems early for that.” She selected eggs, creamed with crab, melba toast, coffee, and an ice. “At any rate they’re gone for a little and I feel reprieved. I’m so tired of having them turn up at the apartment at any hour. Even when they aren’t there I’m afraid to go to bed at nights lest I find them under my pillow.”

    He laughed.

    She said, “Let’s talk about you. Do you realize I don’t know anything about you except that you’re a friend of Con’s?”

    He smiled now. “I know more about you. Con talks plenty of you.”

    She flushed, was warmly happy inside, then realized it wasn’t true. Con didn’t know this man. She raised her lashes. “Nice things, I hope.”

    He nodded. “Naturally. Although in Con’s offhand way.”

    He sounded as if he knew Con intimately.

    She put her lips straight. “We aren’t talking of you but of me. No fair evading. Tell me about yourself. Have you taught at Columbia long?”

    “I’ve taught ever since I finished college.”

    “Persian art?”

    “Sounds dry as dust, doesn’t it?” he smiled. “But it actually isn’t. Art and archaeology.” They were served. He buttered a piece of Vienna bread. “I’ve been doing a little research and learned something about”-he put the bread in his mouth-”the blue marble.”

    Her eyes widened. “It is Persian?”

    He shook his head. “The earliest written account of it is Renaissance although it is believed that there is somewhere a manuscript dating back to the Comneni that tells of it. Alexius certainly knew of it for both Hugh of Vermandois and men with Walter the Penniless sent back word of it. It may have come to Alexius’ attention with the Petchenegs or Seljuks. It is certainly Eastern. There are some who believe that Marco Polo was the first of the Western world to view it.” He broke off to ask, “Have you ever seen it?”

    She laughed. “I? I never heard of it until all this started.” She gestured briefly.

    He said, “The Italian manuscript describes it. But the marble itself only turned up recently, about the mid-eighteenth century in Egypt.”

    He took a forkful. “I’ve taught all morning. I’m starved.” He drank from his coffee cup. “According to this paper, the marble is small, smaller even than a typical marble, and of a perfect sky blue. It was the author of the manuscript who called it the ‘so blue marble.’ It is unblemished, yet there is a way in which it can be opened. How, he didn’t say.”

    She ate to cover thought. It couldn’t be opened. There was no opening.

    “Within it is lined with gold. Engraved on either side is a map.” He ate rapidly, continued: “Of course there’s a bloody trail wound about it, years of violence, theft, torture, murder-”

    She asked, “But what is the map of? Why is it so valuable?”

    He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “The map, according to the manuscript, tells where to find a secret cache wherein are stored the riches of the world. The author describes rubies big as the moon, cut diamonds and emeralds, moonstones, pearls-like pebbles on the ground. Gold, of course, mercury, platinum…” He sighed. “The usual Arabian Nights tale. But also,” he leaned across the table, “there is supposed to be something of real value there. Hieroglyphs telling the secrets of the greatest lost civilization, of the day when the sun was harnessed, as we would like to harness it, when gravitation was controlled as we haven’t dreamed of controlling it. When there was Utopia on earth.” He smiled. “Of course no one but the twins with their strange minds would believe that part of the fairy tale.”

    She was serious. “If it were true, I should think it would benefit man to have the cache discovered.”

    “Unless the wrong person discovered it. You wouldn’t care to have the twins dictators of the world.”

    Her eyes were frightened. “No!”

    “Naturally enough wrong ‘uns have always been after it, men wanting gold more than benefit to civilization. No decent person has ever had a chance. But then, no one has ever been able to keep his life and the marble.”

    She shivered in her marrow.

    “Not even for long enough to use the marble.”

    She said, “I should think anyone who got hold of it could make a copy of the map.”

    He smiled. “That’s been tried. But it’s no good. Death steps in.”

    She wondered why these secrets were hidden away.

    He said, “There’s a legend of barbaric hordes threatening, corruption eating away the people, good turning into evil, the great ruler deciding to lock away these things of good and of beauty until there should again arise those who could use them wisely. The secret he encased in the very blue marble. It, too, he hid away. And it disappeared. The obvious is that there hasn’t arisen anyone worthy of employing the secret of the blue marble. If there had, bloodshed wouldn’t still be staining it.”

    “Yes.”

    He lighted her cigarette. “The legend of the blue marble has come down the centuries by word of mouth in every country.”

    She interrupted, “The strangest part of all is that it should turn up in New York. Or at least be traced here. The twins insist they traced it here.”

    “To you?”

    Was he after it? Was that what this was leading to? But he was mild as ever behind his glasses, curiosity alone there.

    She told him, “Not exactly. They say Con had it.”

    He laughed.

    She joined in. “Silly, isn’t it, but they insist that he had it. And the fact that Con’s allowing me to stay in his apartment seems to make them believe I took the marble.” She spoke with fervor. “It may have been a legend of the years but I never heard of it in my life until I met those two.” She tossed her head. ‘To tell you the truth, research or no research, I still don’t believe in it.”

    “If it isn’t real, how do you explain the twins’ determination, the murders-Grain…”

    She said, “For that matter I don’t explain Grain. Why should they have killed him unless they thought he had it?”

    Gig told her, “Grain evidently interrupted them while they were searching your apartment. Perhaps saw them go in and went to investigate. So they killed him. The bank guard…”

    She spoke quietly, “You know they did it.”

    “It was the same way. Those damn sword canes.”

    “I was there.” She watched the tablecloth, traced her forefinger. “I don’t dare give witness. They would kill me as carelessly.”

    “Yes.”

    “But it doesn’t mean to me there need be a marble. They are obviously not sane. Those persons without balance usually do fix on an hallucination, don’t they?”

    

    

    He paid the check and they went out again into the sunshine. They crossed Fifth, walking lazily down to the Fifties.

    “It’s coming closer to me. When I’m arrested I don’t know what I’ll tell the police.”

    “The truth.”

    ”Somehow I don’t dare. It’s queer. I’ve always thought that innocent persons who became involved with criminals were absolutely idiotic not to go to the police first thing instead of muddling along, getting in worse stews. But here I am. Afraid-of what I don’t know.” But she did know. Unless she stayed with them, fought her way through, Con would return. And the twins would kill Con. She had to keep him away. She looked at Gig.

    “It makes me furious when I think why. Why? Because two utter strangers want a mythical blue marble which I don’t have.” She laughed a little. “It’s crazy. You know it is.”

    He admitted it was, put that way. They reached the apartment.

    She said, “Come in with me.”

    Tobin and his men had gone. The living room was pin neat. She tossed off her hat, put on her pale horn-rims.

    “You can gather how brains run in our family. Missy, the henchman of murderers. Ann…” But she wouldn’t expose Ann. “Myself,’ about to be arrested.”

    He was soothing. “You’re all right You needn’t worry. Ann is sane, although she seems a bit social-minded. Missy…” He tried to comfort. “She’s young. Maybe you can get her away from them.” The telephone was ringing. “Shall I answer?”

    “I’ll get it.”

    It was Ann, inevitably, “Where have you been, Griselda? I’ve been trying for hours-”

    “I went out to lunch.”

    Ann said, “Won’t you come up? I need company. I’m terribly low. Stay for dinner. Arthur will probably be out-he’s head and shoulders in this bank business.”

    She agreed to come. “It’s three, in about an hour.” She hung up; the phone re-rang.

    “This is Jasper, Griselda. Have you had any news from Nesta?”

    She told him no.

    “I must find her. Oppy is furious. He wants publicity. He says he isn’t paying a small fortune for our Waldorf suites to have us enjoy ourselves. We’ve got to do something, Griselda. Oppy is threatening to fly East tonight if she doesn’t call him. You know how awful he’ll be if he flies-”

    She didn’t quite see how she herself figured in it. But Jasper was a querulous child. She said, “I have a hunch she’s gone to Canaan, Jasper.”

    “Where’s that? I never heard of that.”

    “It’s upstate, about one hundred and fifty miles, two hundred, something like that. Stall Oppy for tonight and we’ll call her there.”

    He wailed, “I’ve been stalling and stalling, Griselda. He won’t take any more.”

    ‘Tell him the truth. No, wait-wire him now that you’ll call him at midnight, Eastern time. I’ll come down to the hotel after dinner-I’m going to my sister’s-and we’ll call Canaan, talk to Nesta. Then I’ll do the talking to Oppy.”

    He was jubilant. “You will? That’s wonderful, Griselda. You’re wonderful.” He rang off.

    She sighed out loud. Jasper was a perfect infant where his producer was concerned. But then all the O.C.H. stars were that way about Oppy. When she returned to the living room, Gig said, “I’ll be running along. Looks as if you’ve a pretty heavy schedule.”

    She grimaced. “And I came East for a rest.”

    When he had gone, she hurried. Get out of here before anyone else called. The phone was ringing as she left the apartment. She took a cab; her ankle dress at this hour wasn’t for buses.