The Cealess Stone

Avram Davidson

The Ceaseless Stone

The Clock—the Clock, in the old Clock Tower, the clock which was meant when anyone said, without other word of qualification, "So let us meet by the Clock"—this was the one. Annually the gold leaf of its numerals was renewed and refreshed, and the numerals were Roman, not as any deliberate archaicism, but because no other numerals were known thereabouts when it was made; the "Arabic" numbers, in their slow progression out of India through Persia into Turkey, had nowhere reached that part of Europe when the Clock was made; and furthermore, as a sign to us how our fathers' fathers lived without a need for graduations of haste, the great dial had but one hand to turn the hours.

The pulsebeat of the heart of Imperial Bella, capital of the Triune Monarchy of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania is no longer as perceptible round about the Old Town Hall as it once was: to be sure, on Saints Cosmo's and Damian's Day, the City Council still in full regalia comes for the formal ceremony of electing the Chief Burgomaster, but the rest of the year not much happens. Toiurists come to see the tower as part of the regular tour offered by Messrs. T. Cook, beggars and peddlers follow the tour as birds follow a boat, and country-folk—to whom the new Municipal Building, with its mansard roof, marble lobby, and typewriting machines, mean nearer to nothing than nothing at all—country-folk make the Clock Tower the center of their perambulations, as they have done for centuries. It is too old a joke to raise even a smile any more that some of them expect to see the Emperor emerge when the automata come out to strike the hours. It makes no difference if they have come up in those huge and huge-wheeled wagons stuffed with feathers, down, hams, cabbages, sour-crout, hides, nuts, eggs, fruit, and all whatever, from barrel-staves to beeswax; or if they have

come on foot behind a drove of beeves for the Ox Market; or if they have come up on the railroad. As soon as they can manage, they go to the old Clock Tower, as though to reassure themselves that it is still there, for all their directions start from there: Take the first lane facing the old Clock Tower and count two turnings but take the third, and so on. Unless they have paced the way thence to the spectacle-makers or the watchmakers or the thread-and-button shop or the gunsmith's or wherever it may be, nothing can persuade them that they may confidently trade with a spectacle-maker, a watchmaker, a thread-and-button shop, or a gunsmith. Who knows who they are? May not their merchandise turn to dust like so much fairy gold? Who could trust even to find them again? Whereas, should one have either dissatisfaction or satisfaction with the tradesmen whose way is known via the old Clock Tower, well, what could be easier—or, rather, as easy—but once again to make one's way to the old Clock Tower, and thence, as safe as by Great God His Compass, return to the same tradesman once again?

It is on a clear, dry day in later February, as near as any subsequent report affirmed, that a young man from the country—let us call him Hansli—finds his way to the very foot of the Old Clock and commences to look about him a bit nervously. A man sitting on a piece of faded rug on the step calls Hansli over, and, very kindly and soberly, inquires if he can assist him. Hansli is relieved.

"Honored Sir," he says, "it's the lane that leads to the lane as is where the goldsmiths are. What it is I'm looking for."

The man nods. "Was it for a wedding ring, perhaps?" he asks.

Hansli is astonished to the point where he does not even at first turn red. Then he reflects how clever the city people are. As for the man himself, the city man, he looks both clever and respectable. "Like a philosopher," he explains, afterwards. This description is clear to Hansli, and to Hansli's father and mother and his promised bride and her father and mother. Otherwise, it lacks precision, might mean anyone from the lay instructor of algebra at a seminary school to a civil engineer getting ready to plot out a canal. Equally, it might mean a perfect rogue selling a mixture of salt water and methylene blue as a cure for infertility in cattle or dropped stomach in children.

"Because," the man explains, "if it was for a wedding ring, I have a few for sale."

The man looks at him without a trace of a smile, and this is very

reassuring, for Hansli had feared—who knows what—they might laugh at him, at the goldsmiths, make rude jokes. This quiet gentleman is certainly doing nothing of the sort. "It's for Belinda," Hansli explains. The gentleman nods, takes out from a pocket a piece of cloth and unwraps it. Sure enough, a ring. Sure enough, it is gold. But wait. It looks like gold . . . sure enough. But—

He buys time. "What might the price be?" The price is half-a-ducat. This is also a relief, a great relief. Hansli can bargain an ox, a horse, a harness, with the best of them. As for rings, he has no idea. Still, still, "That seems very cheap," he declares. 7* it gold, real gold, pure gold? is what the wee voice is asking in his ear.

The gentleman nods, soberly. "It is cheap," he concedes. "A goldsmith must charge more, because he has to pay rent. And a very high rent, indeed. But I, here, I need pay no rent, for my place of business"—he gestures—"has for the landlord the Emperor himself, whom God bless and preserve for many years—"

"Amen, amen." Hansli takes off his hat and crosses himself.

"—charges me no rent. Do you see," he says. And he takes out of another pocket what some would call a jeweler's loupe, but which Hansli calls "a look-see," a term covering everything from a magnifying glass to a telescope, and he tenders it. Hansli peers through the glass at the ring, all round the ring. How bright it looks! How it shines in the clear winter air And then Hansli sees something. A triple-headed eagle, and the numerals LXI. This is good enough for Hansli. He takes out his purse and selects a half-a-ducat. The philosophical gentleman blesses him and he blesses the philosophical gentleman.

Back home, Hansli's father peers inside the ring. "Never seed no gold like this," he says. Then his clear eyes, which (they say locally) can spot a goat-kid three miles off in the dark woods, observe something. "Ah, th' Imper'al Eagle! So. 'Tis good gold, then, and, lets me see." He calculates slowly. "Ah, the sixty-first year o' the Reign, hm, twas made a year ago ... or so ..." He lifts the ring. It has passed the test. Hansli kneels. His father raises the ring and blesses him with it. Now all plans for the wedding may proceed. As soon as the sunny days are sure, Belinda will begin to bleach the linen.

Who knows how often this was all repeated? Not Lobats, the Commissioner of the Detective Police. Not De Hooft, the President of the Jewelers Association.

"It is always the same story," says De Hooft, a dapper Fleming with dyed hair and a waxed mustache. "Very soon the ring begins to bend, or sometimes it breaks, even if it is not too big or too small. They come to town, they look for this chap, this, ah, 'phil-os-o-pher," he parts the word sarcastically (and incorrectly); "they don't find him, they go to a respectable jeweler or goldsmith. The gold is tested, it proves pure, it is explained to them that it is in fact too pure, that it is too soft to take pressure. The idea that the good-wife will have to be bought another ring in order to testify that she is in fact married, this does not please them. Not at all. But what can one do, eh?" He shrugs.

Lobats is there, listening. He has heard it all before. Also there, and not having heard it all—or any of it—before, is Engelbert Esz-terhazy, Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Jurisprudence, Doctor of Science, and Doctor of Literature. Who now asks, "Any reports of stolen gold?"

"None that fit. Spahn, the tooth-surgeon, had a robbery. But this is not dental gold. And Perrero's had reported a robbery, but this is not coin gold. We have never settled that matter of the theft from the Assay OBBCE in Ritchli-Georgiou, but that was the regular Ritchli gold, very pale yellow. Not this—" Lobats gestures. Several rings he on a soft piece of paper before them, rings which the Jewelers Association has succeeded in buying back, so to speak. Usually they could not be bought back.

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.

"Nowadays," Eszterhazy said, "the younger bargees do not pierce their ears any more, do they?"

At this, rather to his surprise, the captain and the mate burst into rough, loud laughter, and the Boy turned absolutely crimson, with a tinge toward purple.

'Why, what is this joke?" the guest inquired. "Can I not see for myself that his ears are not pierced?"

"Har har har!" gufflawed Captain Francos Spits.

"Hot hor hor!" chuckled Mate Konkos Spits.

Between them they secured the Boy's head—for some reason he had turned shy and declined cooperation—and twisted it about, giving Eszterhazy some fear that he was about to witness a nonjudicial garroting. But evidently the Boy had a suflBciently limber neck. It was certainly true that the Boy's left ear had not been pierced. It now proved to be equally true that his right ear had. This was red and swollen about the lobe, and a thread, of an off-white tint, hung through and from it.

"I was like drunk when I done it," the Boy muttered.

Both of the brothers Spits sporting a golden ring in their right ears, they did not receive this in good spirit; Captain Francos, in fact, aimed a cuff. "What do you mean? You mean you got like sense and you done itl Ain't it good for the eyesight, ain't it. Doctor, ain't it?"

"So it is often said," Eszterhazy answered, adding, "The custom is exceedingly ancient, and I for one am glad to see it kept up."

The Boy seemed more disposed to take this for good than the growls of his superiors. Eszterhazy seized the moment to ask, "And what about the ring?"

The Boy fumbled in his pocket. Would it be some wretched brass trinket?—or even one which, though it might be fully lawful, would still be of infinitely less interest than— Out came a screw of filthy paper which showed signs of much wrapping and unwrapping. And inside that was the ring. It did, indeed, shine somewhat with the luster of a very fine mandarin orange. Eszterhazy took out the small leather case in which he carried an excellent magnifying glass.

"See th' eagle?" the Boy inquired. "Don't that mean it's good? Cost me half-a-duke."

"It is certainly as good as gold—that is," he hastened to explain, "it is certainly of very good gold."

"But it didn't have no pissin' gold wire loop, like. I hadda go to a reg-lar jooler for that. Wasn't he pissed off, 'cause I didn't git the

whole pissin' works from himl 'Don't git your piss hot, lardy,' I say t' him."

The Boy's address was vigorous, though, in the matter of adjectives, somewhat limited.

"Did you buy it from that philosopher chap?" asked Eszterhazy. The Boy nodded and commenced to rewrap it. "What did he say?" The Boy thought for a moment as he engaged in this difficult task.

"Said, 'The free lynx of the south . . .' Is what he said . . ." The Boy finished his task, put the wad back in his pocket, and, taking up from the table a toothpick which already showed signs of wear, proceeded to attend to his teeth. Clearly, the matter of the philosopher's discourse was over, as far as the Boy was concerned.

Captain Francos Spits wrinkled up one side of his face in a half-scowl of concentration. "'The south'" he repeated. "There ain't no lynxes in the south, brother—"

"Nor I never said there was! In the north, now—" He turned to Doctor Eszterha2y. "Our old gaflFer, he killed a lynx up north, for it was catching all his turkey-birds, and—"

"Waiterl" Eszterhazy caught all eyes. "Cognac all around," he ordered. Every lynx in the Monarchy was at once forgotten. It took a second order of the same before he was allowed to depart.

Back at Number 33 Turkling Street, he asked his librarian, Herra Hugo Von Sltski, "Do we have—we do have a copy of Basil Valentine's Twelve Keys, do we not?"

"We do. And we don't." Having uttered this statement, almost delphic in its tone. Von Sltski proceeded to explain. "Our copy has gone to the binders. As I had indicated it must, on last quarter's list. It is now in the press. I daresay we might get it out of the press. But I would instead propose that you consult the copy in . . . the copy in . . ." He rolled his eyes and thought a moment. "Not the Imperial Library, they haven't got one. And the one in the University is defective." The eyes rolled down again. "There is a good copy in the collection at the Library of the Grand Lodge. I will give you a note to the Keeper of the Rare Volumes." He took out his card, neatly wrote a few words and a symbol upon it, and handed it over.

Eszterhazy thanked him and departed, thinking—with some irony, with some amusement—that there was at least one place in this great city, of which he had thought himself free, where he . . . even he . . . with his seven degrees and his sixteen quarterings, might not go with firm hopes of success without an introduction from one of his own employees.

The card sufficed to get him into the silent chambers high up in the blank-faced building marked only with the same symbol. No one prevented him from access to the catalogue, which consisted of shelf after shelf of huge bound volumes chained in their places. He found his entry, carefully copied down what he saw into one of the forms provided, took it to the desk and there handed it over, along with the puissant pasteboard. The man at the desk held the form in one hand and his spectacles with the other and read aloud, as though he were a rector conferring a degree.

" 'Volume V, of the Last Will and Testament of Basil Valentine, VIDELICET, a Practical Treatise together tvith the XII Keys and Appendix of the Great Stone of the Ancient Philosophers'"

There was the sound of a chair being scraped, a throat was cleared, and a voice asked, "Is that Master Mumau?" and a very tall, very thin, very pleasant-looking man came strolling forward from an adjacent office.

"No, it is not," the man at the desk said.

"Have I the opportunity of addressing the Honorable Keeper of the Rare Volumes?" asked Eszterhazy, handing over his own card— the assistant having already handed over the other.

"Ye-es," the Keeper said, as though struck by the remarkable coincidence of someone recognizing him whilst in his official capacity. "How do you do. I did think that you might be someone else. We do not often have many calls for such books. Ah-hah. Oh-ho. Yes. Yes. I know him very well. He was the Tiler at the Lodge of the Three Crowns. My lodge, you know." These last remarks referred, however, to Eszterhazy's librarian, not to Master Mumau, about whom Eszterhazy would have wished to inquire, would have wished to very much indeed, had he but been given opportunity. The Keeper was very kind, very thoughtful; he provided Eszterhazy with a desk by himself, brought him a better chair (he said) than the one already there, ordered a floor lamp, provided notepaper and sharpened pencils, regretted that ink could not be allowed, regretted that smoking could not be allowed, offered a snuffbox, had brought a printed list of the recent aquisitions, and, somehow, before Eszterhazy quite knew it, the Keeper, the desk assistant, and the floor assistant had all withdrawn. Leaving him, if not entirely alone, at least alone with Volume V of The Last Will

and Testament of Basil Valentine, etc., an absolutely vast volume, perforated here and there on its still-clear pages with neat little wormholes. It opened with the cheerful and reassuring notice that anything against the Holy Christian Faith which the work might ever have contained, if it contained any, had been purged and removed, according to the Rule laid down by the Council of Trent; the date of publication was 1647. It was not the first edition.

Nothing would have pleased Eszterhazy more than to have reread the entire volume through then and there. However, he was in search of a particular reference, and, as it happened, he found it in the Preamble. The Phoenix of the South hath snatched away the heart out of the breast of the huge beast of the East, for the beast of the East must be bereaved of his Dragons skin, and his wings must vanish, and then they must both enter the Salt Ocean, and return again with beauty . . .

Well, obscure, and typically obscure, as all this was, there was anyway no obscurity in the guess which he had formed about the free lynx of the South. Considering that the Boy had certainly never in his life heard of Basil Valentine. Or of any of his works.

Or of his Work.

On a sudden impulse, Eszterhazy carefully took the volume and shook it, gently, gently, for it was, though sturdy in appearance, still, quite old. A slip of paper dropped out of the back pages, and, although hastily he set down the volume, almost it escaped him. Almost. It was half of a form of appHcation for books, neatly torn in two; and on the back of it, which side was facing him as he took it up, Eszterhazy saw, in a neat school-masterish hand, the words Ora Lege Lege Lege Relege Labora et Invienes.

Pray, Read, Read, Read, Read Again; Toil and Thou Shalt Find.

Thoughtfully, he turned the slip over. What was left of the original apphcation were the words:

au, K.-Heyndrik

The Annual Directory of Loyal Subjects Resident in the Imperial Capital and Registered According to Law, etc., had certainly been up-to-date . . . once. However, Master Karrol-Heyndrik Mumau had not moved since its last publication. That is, his name was known to the porteress in the shabby-genteel block of flats.

"Yes, the Master do live here, but he have a workshop at th' old Spanish Bakery, where he be now, I expect. Thanks 'ee, sir."

Once there had been an Emperor who had wedded an Infanta of

Castille. That was long, long ago. And it had been long, long, since any farduelos or other Hispanic pastries had been produced from the oven at the Spanish Bakery. Had he not known what the letters were supposed to intend, it is doubtful that Eszterhazy could have made them out. The windows were curtained and dusty, and dust lay so heavily in the comers of the front door that it was doubtful anyone had used it for decades, perhaps. However, there is always a "round the back." Thither he went, and there, upon the door in the faded russet brick wall, he knocked.

The door opened fairly soon.

"My dear Master Mumau," Eszterhazy said, gently, "you mustn't make gold any more, you know. You really, really mustn't. It is forbidden according to law."

"Will they put me in the galleys?" the man whispered.

Til see to it that they won't," Eszterhazy said. He had never made a promise he felt safer of keeping.

"I was about to stop, anyway," the man said. His manner was that of a schoolboy who has been caught roasting apples at the Bimsen burner. For a moment he stood there, irresolute. Then he said, "Would you like to come in ... ? You would? Really? Please door.

Everything that one might have expected to find there was there: the furnace, the crucible, the athanor, alembic, pelican. It was all there. One thing more was there, which Eszterhazy did not recognize. He turned away, urging himself to forget its very outlines. "That . . . piece of equipment," he said, gesturing. "That one. Break it at once."

The man made a huffling sound, clicked his tongue, sighed. At length there was a smash. "Oh well. I said I wouldn't make any more, didn't I? Well, I meant it. So I don't need it."

"And you are not to make another one like it."

He turned back and looked around once again. Yes, a bakery was a very good place to have chosen. God only knew what they would do, there at the Mint, and at the Treasury, if they knew what had been baked here recently.

"I used to be chemistry master at the Old Senior School, you know," Mumau said. "And I was a very good one, too. Till I got sick. Father Rector was very kind to me, 'Master Henk,' he said, 'we've agreed to give you a nice pension, so just take it easy, and don't you read any more of them big thick books, do you hear?'

And I said, 1 won't, Father Rector.' But of course I did. And so of course I have to confess it. 'Father, I've been reading those big thick books again, that I'm not supposed to,' I tell the priest. It's not Father Rector, just the parish priest, and he says, he always says, 'Say three Our Fathers and a Hail Mary and don't play with yourself.'"

Eszterhazy had taken off his hat and was fanning his face with it. "But why did you sell the rings?" he asked. "Why?'

Master Mumau looked at him. "Because I needed the money for my real project," he said.

"I don't care about the gold, puff-puff with the bellows, oh what a nuisance! I just needed more money because the pension couldn't stretch that far, and I needed fifty ducats and so I had to make enough to sell a hundred rings. Well, now I've got the fifty ducats." His face lit up with an expression of glee such as Eszterhazy had almost never seen in his Iffe before.

"—and now I can work on my real project!"

Eszterhazy nodded. "The elixir of Life," he said, wearily.

"Of course, the elixir of Life!"

For once, Doctor Eszterhazy could think of nothing to say. He racked his brains. Finally he murmured, "Keep me posted."

Later, he said to Lobats, "You may consider the case as closed."

"You mean that? You do. Well. Very well. But ... at least tell me. Where did he get it”

And Eszterhazy said, in a way perfectly truthfully, 'It was dragon gold."

He was never sure, afterwards, that Lobats ever forgave him for that.