Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 295 - The Taiwan Joss

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THE TAIWAN JOSS
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I
? CHAPTER II
? CHAPTER III
? CHAPTER IV
? CHAPTER V
? CHAPTER VI
? CHAPTER VII
? CHAPTER VIII
? CHAPTER IX
? CHAPTER X
? CHAPTER XI
? CHAPTER XII
? CHAPTER XIII
? CHAPTER XIV
? CHAPTER XV
? CHAPTER XVI
? CHAPTER XVII
? CHAPTER XVIII
? CHAPTER XIX
? CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER I
JERRY GIFFORD had a way of clicking his pipe between his teeth that few people could have imitated
even if they wanted. What Jerry was doing was spelling words in the international code, a sort of reflex
from his career as a wireless operator.
It was a welcome relief, too, since the only clicks that Jerry heard nowadays were those of his typewriter
when he beat out stories along with his brains, spinning tales that sounded like fiction for magazines that
insisted they only published fact.
To Jerry there wasn't much difference between the two, fact and fiction, but Kip Ranstead didn't agree.
In fact right now Kip was laughing at what Jerry considered his own most serious piece of work.
Staring from the window of his little office, Jerry glared through the Manhattan drizzle and managed to
keep his temper. As a help toward Jerry's self-control came the deep throb of a steamship whistle,
working up from the Lower Bay.
Jerry knew those whistle signals and liked to hear them. They reminded him of a more carefree period of
existence when he hadn't thought of literary achievement as a future. Maybe from the way Kip was
reacting to Jerry's latest story, Jerry should think of literary work as a past.
Then Kip gave his opinion in a tone that was far too frank.
"Nobody would believe this stuff, Jerry," said Kip. "It's more fantastic than anything written about the
Spanish Main."
Swinging from the window, Jerry gave Kip a deep-set stare from under a frowning brow.
"Only I wasn't writing about the Spanish Main," Jerry argued. "That story covers piracy along the
Chinese coast as it is today - or was until the war interrupted it."
A smile formed on Kip's sallow, doubting face, a prelude to the head-shake that followed.
"The Taiwan Joss," declared Kip, staring at Jerry's manuscript. "Even the idea is ridiculous. Imagine a lot
of pirates, of varied nationalities, making their victims swear to pay high ransom in front of a
jewel-studded idol made of basalt!"
"But they did!" insisted Jerry. "I've talked to some of the victims. They told me about others who tried to
brazen it out and the things that happened to them."
"Good fiction," acknowledged Kip, "but it goes haywire when you bring in the renegade sea captain who
stole the precious idol. Why didn't the pirates stop him?"
"Because they couldn't," explained Jerry. "The Japs wanted to fortify the islands off Formosa so they told
the pirates to scram -"
"But the Japs were friendly to the pirates -"
"As long as the pirates preyed on Chinese shipping, yes. But when there wasn't any Chinese shipping left,
that ended it."
With a slower head-shake, Kip tossed the manuscript on the desk.
"You talk as if you believed all this, Jerry."
"Because it's a fact, Kip. There is such a skipper and I know his name. An antique dealer commissioned
him to steal the Taiwan Joss, just as I've stated in the story. The antique dealer has a special customer
who will buy the Joss. And from there on -"
"Why don't you give names?" interrupted Kip. "That's the only way to prove a fact story."
"Because if the skipper ever admitted it," Jerry declared, "those pirates of the Pescadores would swoop
down on him. Everybody connected with the thing would find their lives at stake."
Kip's hands spread despairingly.
"But if the Japs wiped out the pirates -"
"Nobody could ever wipe them out completely," interposed Jerry. "Where the Joss goes, they follow. I
told you that story would be dynamite, Kip, and it is. I'm afraid even to try to sell it."
"So would I be," returned Kip, drily. "But I'm thinking more in terms of an editor's opinion. So why not
hang on to it? Place it as a fact story after it stands proved."
The suggestion forced a nod from Jerry, much though he regretted it. From afar he heard the banshee
tone of a plying steamship, a wail reminiscent of the China coast. To Jerry those sounds represented
living creatures with their moods and emotions, but after all he couldn't expect his readers to understand.
Kip was right; the Joss story should wait. Nevertheless, Jerry gave a final opinion.
"If it ever broke!" he muttered. "If Captain Adalbart came from cover with that Joss, it would be murder!
But that's his problem."
This time Kip Ranstead nodded approvingly. Carelessly, Kip tossed the manuscript in a wire basket on
the desk. Then:
"Here's something to soothe your disappointment, Jerry. I've fixed the Troxell article for you."
"You mean I can go to the Troxell Theater?" demanded Jerry. "That I can live there, weeding and sifting
all the records compiled by old Oscar Troxell himself?"
"Absolutely," assured Kip, "beginning with this afternoon. That is, if you'll agree to the terms."
"Agree to them," laughed Jerry. "They're the sort I would propose myself. I'm to stay in the place, under
strict surveillance, to make sure I don't steal any of the valuable playbills, programs or other documents
pertaining thereto."
"And you are not to leave," reminded Kip, "until you have completed your research; the material is almost
priceless!"
"Why should I want to leave?" demanded Jerry. "Why, this is like taking a trip back into the past. How
long can I stay there, Kip?"
"A week," Kip replied. "All your meals will be served by an old caretaker who answers to the name of
Chichester. He was one of Troxell's staunch retainers, back in the good old days. You're to have no
visitors -"
"Who wants them?"
With that, Jerry reached for his hat and coat, only to be interrupted by Kip.
"That column of yours," reminded Kip. "The thing you do for the Daily Shipper. Are you ahead on it?"
Frowning, Jerry shook his head.
"I thought not," smiled Kip, "so I mentioned it to old Chichester. He says he'll mail it for you. But you'd
better tell the office that you're going out of town. If anybody starts looking you up at the Troxell Theater,
the deal is off."
Nodding, Jerry picked up the telephone and called the Daily Shipper to announce that he was going up
state and wouldn't be back for a week. Kip listened intently to the assurances that Jerry gave the office
regarding the delivery of the daily column, but before the phone call ended, Kip had tilted his ear to catch
something else.
The other sound was the clatter of a horse's hooves halting just outside the building. As Jerry finished the
phone call, Kip beckoned him to the window and gestured down into the drizzly dusk. There stood a
hansom cab, piloted by a driver with a conventional plug-hat.
"There's your coach and one, Mr. Cinderella," announced Kip. "Right from the Troxell Theater, to take
you back fifty years. Chichester arranged it."
Jerry grinned at the Cinderella simile.
"I'd better get started," he decided, "before somebody turns into a rat. Thanks, Kip."
Watching from the office window, Kip saw Jerry emerge from the front door and clamber into the
hansom. With a clatter of hooves the thing was off, bearing Jerry Gifford into the past. On Jerry's desk
lay the manuscript he had forgotten in his enthusiasm, that story of a future menace surrounding a certain
Captain Adalbart.
From the fog-laden dusk came further whistle blasts of the sort that put Jerry in a reminiscent mood. Kip
Ranstead grinned as he heard the sounds, as if thinking what an odd chap Jerry was, to dwell always in
the past or the future, never in the present except when he was pressed by the urgencies of his shipping
column.
But Kip's grin wasn't pleasant. Had Jerry still been around, he would have been startled by the way his
supposed friend dropped his mask.
Whether or not this was a Cinderella story, somebody was turning into a rat, at least in looks.
That somebody was Kip Ranstead.
CHAPTER II
INTENTLY Kip Ranstead listened until he heard the last hoof-beat fade into the far gloom from which
the melancholy whistles emerged. Then Kip got busy.
First Kip took the manuscript which Jerry had tossed aside, mostly on Kip's say-so. Checking rapidly
through the pages, Kip tabbed certain details which he had only casually noted during what had seemed a
disinterested reading.
Finding all he wanted, Kip was more than pleased, but the capstone of his triumph was the object that
fluttered from the loosened paper clip that bound the manuscript. It was an envelope of the sort that Kip
recognized.
Picking up the envelope from the spot where it landed on the floor, Kip chuckled nastily.
This was a return envelope, bearing stamps to the proper capacity, which Jerry had intended for
enclosure when sending the manuscript to the first magazine that he expected to reject it. The envelope
was addressed to Jerry Gifford, care of the Daily Shipper. Still wearing his ratty smile, Kip reached for
the telephone on Jerry's desk.
At that moment, the telephone bell jangled.
Briefly, Kip's face switched its expression to a hunted one. Then, with the manner of a man who had
played his cards too well, Kip lifted the receiver and gave a suave "Hello."
A girl's voice responded and Kip immediately became oily, which was not unnatural, since that was his
way with women. He knew the girl, both by name and voice. She was Janice Courtland, a rather earnest
sort, who seemed to have more than a passing interest in Jerry Gifford, judging from the few times that
Kip had met her.
Kip told Janice that Jerry had gone away on a trip, which suited the story which Jerry himself had
certified. When Janice wanted to know where, Kip said "up-state" as though that settled it. There was an
odd hesitancy, almost a disappointment in the girl's tone as she ended the call, but Kip decided it was
unimportant.
What was important was the call that Kip himself put through as soon as the line was clear. From the
moment that a man's voice answered, Kip became confidential.
"He fell for it," informed Kip. "I knew I could swing it... Yes, the manuscript is here and it has everything
we thought was in it... Of course I talked him out of mailing it. What am I being paid for?"
Evidently Kip's flippancy wasn't appreciated at the other end of the line, because Kip immediately
became serious. He nodded, a sign that he was taking instructions across the wire.
"Of course I'm mailing it," promised Kip. "That's what I'm here for." This time there was nothing smart in
Kip's emphasis. "Jerry already addressed a return envelope... Yes, that will make it all the better..."
Plainly, Kip was becoming cagey, his eyes shrewd, like his half smile. But if he expected to learn what his
instructor had in mind, the full purpose behind the mailing of the manuscript, Kip was due for
disappointment. From the tone of the voice across the wire, Kip sensed that the call was about to end.
He became anxious.
"But what about the dough?" Kip put the query quickly. "That's right, the thousand bucks... Call you
back? But how soon?" Now the anxiety was registering itself on every line of the sallow face that thrust
close to the light of the desk lamp. "In five minutes? Good... Of course I'll mail the letter first... That's
right. Then the job will be complete... Signed, sealed, delivered -"
Kip was talking to a dead line as he added those unnecessary comments. After mopping sweat from his
forehead, he found that his mouth was too dry to lick an envelope. After wetting his lips a few times, Kip
finally maneuvered it; then he sneaked from the office, taking care to leave the door ajar behind him.
There wasn't any mail chute in this small office building, so Kip was forced to go down one flight to post
the letter. Why he should have become so apprehensive during that short trip was something of a
mystery, unless Kip happened to know too much that wasn't good for him.
Nevertheless, the sallow man was worried, as his manner showed. Maybe it was the thickening of the
dusk and the incessant drizzle, for when Kip stared out through the downstairs doorway, his
apprehension increased. Even Kip's hand trembled as he thrust the letter in the mail-chute; then, his smile
twitching one side of his face, Kip started up the stairs again, throwing a quick look over his shoulder.
Somebody might be lurking in that encroaching darkness - almost anybody. All right, if they'd seen Kip
mail a letter, so what?
Everybody who belonged in this building came down to mail letters, particularly late in the day. Going
upstairs was smart, because it meant that Kip belonged here. In a sense he did belong, because be
dropped in to see Jerry Gifford quite often. All the more reason why Kip should go back to Jerry's office
to make his final phone call, and settle a little question of a thousand dollars due him.
Certainly no one would be able to trail Kip and listen in on that all-important call, if some outdoor lurker
happened to have that in mind. You couldn't be too sure of anything when big money was at stake. When
Kip reached the top of the stairs, he looked down to assure himself that his qualms were unjustified.
No longer able to see the outer door, Kip gained nerve from the lighted stairway, dim though it was. He
had no fears now of shrouded figures stalking vaguely in the dusk. He was ready to be smart again and
suggest more money than a mere one thousand for the job he had just performed. It might seem trivial,
Kip's part in the peculiar business involving Jerry Gifford, but Kip regarded himself as a key man.
More than that - and this was the reason for Kip's sharp-toothed smile - he was in a position to end what
he had begun, and quickly, if his further terms were not met.
Entering Jerry's office, Kip closed the door and heard the latch click home. Turning to the desk, he was
reaching for the telephone when his eyes narrowed sharply on the spread sheet of a newspaper on which
the telephone rested.
Kip didn't remember that newspaper being there before. Even greater was his surprise when he
recognized it as a late edition of an afternoon journal that Jerry couldn't possibly have brought here, since
he was in the office when it went on sale. Kip himself had seen such a newspaper but had purposely
avoided bringing a copy here.
Yet here it was, and open at the very page which accounted for Kip arranging that special excursion
which Jerry had taken into the past, as represented by the Troxell Theater. Even more startling was the
fact that the page was marked, blue-pencilled with a heavy ring around an advertisement which Jerry of
all people was not supposed to see.
The ad was in a column that bore the heading "Personals" and it stated:
Curio Seeker: Rare item you want now available.
Inform P X when to deliver... Adalbart.
Kip's fists clenched, one on the telephone, the other on the newspaper. Had Jerry returned to mock him
with this by-play? No, he had seen Jerry ride off in the hansom, chartered for this special occasion, so
any hoax was the other way around. Nobody could have entered this building, at least not by the
stairway, during Kip's brief trip down to the mail box. Frozen in the lamplight, Kip's face registered the
fear that lurkers, already in the building, might still be about. Then, as if timed, Kip's stare fixed itself upon
the window; not the window from which he had seen Jerry start his hansom ride, but the side window,
which opened on a little narrow court, across to an equally dilapidated building next door. To learn if that
window was latched, Kip strained his shoulders forward and craned his neck upward.
The slighter creak of a floor board was drowned by the greater groan from the ramshackle desk as its
dried wood received Kip's weight. Kip, noting that the window clamp was tight, remained unconscious
of the stir from the gloom behind him. The figure that moved from the darkened corner beside a bulky file
cabinet did not have to come into the light.
Only its arm did, with the hand so heavily gloved that it looked like a robot's fist as it drove a long, thin
blade straight downward. The steel disappeared deep in Kip's back, so smoothly, so sharply, that the
stopping fist seemed to have delivered a blow.
Kip Ranstead didn't sprawl; he spread. His head, thudding the desk, skewed crazily about, showing eyes
that goggled with surprise as sudden and complete as the grimace that remained upon Kip's sallow face.
The gloved hand unwrapped itself from a silver dagger-hilt, revealing a blood-red gem that glittered as a
symbol of death.
The gloved hand reached for the lamp cord and tugged it, bringing darkness to the room where death
had been so swift. From afar came the throb of a great steamship whistle, somewhere in the fog.
Those tones had always reminded Jerry Gifford of sinister doings off the China Coast. Maybe he'd felt
forebodings of a doom such at this, but if so it had been in terms of a certain Captain Adalbart.
Instead that doom had struck in Jerry's own office, the victim his false friend, Kip Ranstead!
CHAPTER III
JANICE COURTLAND brushed the drizzle from her eyes, pressed back her blonde hair and stared
from the doorway where she had found a temporary refuge from the weather. What she saw, or rather
what she didn't see, made her stare all the more.
Coming along the street, Janice could have sworn that she saw a light from a window that she thought
was Jerry's office, but now it was blacked out. If she'd seen right in the first place, Jerry must have been
there just a few moments ago, unless Kip Ranstead was the only person in the office.
Janice wasn't at all sure that only Kip had been there when she phoned. For reasons that she didn't fully
understand, Jerry had been avoiding her of late. Maybe he'd grown tired of listening to a story that he
probably didn't believe.
Whoever had left the office would probably come downstairs, so Janice decided to anticipate the
situation. Crossing the street, she reached the lighted doorway, only to halt there very suddenly. It wasn't
best to think of doorways and forget the street. That afterthought wasn't quite soon enough. As Janice
peered along the sidewalk, it seemed that others must have expected her to catch the same idea. That
was, unless they were figments of a very vivid imagination that Janice was ready to believe she had
acquired lately.
Down and up the street, toward both ends of the block, figures that were grotesquely human faded from
the blur of the drizzle-swept street lamps into doorways as convenient as the one that Janice had chosen
earlier.
Whether to believe it was now the question.
Comparing her memory of the dissolving figures with other flickers from along the street, Janice was
almost convinced that they were identical. There was a breeze that stirred the half-mist into a full-fledged
drizzle and the results were strange. Anything from a frayed awning to a flapping shutter could cast
grotesque shadows vivid enough to take on living shape.
Shuddering, Janice moved into the building hoping to forget those fanciful outside fears. As she turned
toward the stairs, she saw a monstrous blackness on the wall, a downward creeping blotch of growing
size, more terrifying than the evanescent shapes from which she had just fled. With an unrestrained shriek,
the girl stumbled out from the doorway and across the sidewalk; tripping at the curb, she came into the
gleam of headlights that had swung around the corner.
Brakes shrieked now, and a taxi cab veered to a halt. Its driver, thinking that Janice had merely slipped
on the curb while signalling him, was quick with an apology.
"Sorry, lady," he said. "Hope you didn't hurt yourself. Need any help?"
Managing to gasp that she didn't, Janice sprang into the cab and since it was a one-way street, the driver
started ahead before waiting for her to give the address. He slackened at the corner for further directions
and looked around to see his passenger staring through the rear window.
In a last glance into the building, Janice had seen no further sign of the grotesque figure she'd imagined on
the stairs. But the figures on the street seemed more real than before. Huddly in form, they had
converged across the way, coming at an angle toward this very corner. Two, three - perhaps more of
them - then Janice had lost count as well as any sight of those shapes in the darkness.
Like visual echoes of an over-wrought imagination, such disappearing creatures, Janice felt that she could
laugh at the very thought of them, once she was far enough away. Hearing the driver's query "Which way,
lady?" Janice managed the firm reply "Uptown" as she settled back in the rear seat.
Then, as the cab found a better lighted avenue, Janice gave more specific instructions.
"I want the Malaysian Museum," she announced. "I forget just which street it's on -"
"I know the place," interposed the cabby. "Looks like some old mansion, in fact that's what it was once.
Lots of funny old places around New York, like the Troxell Theater for instance. Kind of like ghosts
those places, particularly when you see hansom cabs hauling up in front of them, like I did tonight, up by
the theater. They're ghosts too, them hansoms. Funny the way they hang on."
The subject of ghosts didn't appeal to Janice, nor did this talk of something hanging on. Along the avenue,
passing objects didn't seem to have the flickery effect that made them seem alive, but now Janice had
another worry. Two tiny pin-points of light, starting from a long way back, had grown larger until they
proved to be the headlights of something bigger than another cab.
As Janice's cab swung a corner, she saw that the trailing vehicle was a closed truck, probably a delivery
wagon, but too much like a hearse to be anything but foreboding. It was hanging on, all right, because it
not only followed around the corner, but took the next turn too.
Why it didn't pass the cab, Janice couldn't understand, unless its driver's purpose was to drive her crazy,
which seemed feasible enough. For all Janice knew, the truck was carrying a hidden crew in the persons
of those imaginary figures that had cluttered the doorways along Jerry's street. Somehow, the more that
Janice tried to laugh them off, the more real they became.
Another turn, and this time to Janice's relief, the truck kept on. She caught a good look at it now, and
saw that it bore no name, either on its side or back. Anyway, its passing marked an end to Janice's
qualms, but only briefly.
The taxi driver had taken the wrong street.
"Sorry, lady," he apologized again. "Guess I'll have to stop the clock and do a little looking. It's
somewhere around here, that museum is."
It proved to be somewhere around, but on a street where Janice didn't want it when they found it. For as
they swung into the block. that the driver identified as the right one, Janice saw the truck swinging the far
corner, up ahead. Instantly, she began to plant huddly creatures in every available doorway.
"Don't stop here," Janice pleaded, quickly. "Go around the corner to the back street." She could say this
safely, because the truck had turned in the other direction. "There's an entrance in back, the one I always
use."
The driver didn't argue. He took Janice around to the back street where a row of old houses belied her
statement. However the driver didn't want to be sorry again in case he proved wrong, so be accepted
Janice's fare and pulled away, leaving her on the sidewalk. There, staring at a darkened house front,
Janice found herself in another dilemma.
One thing she wouldn't do: that was walk around the block. Hoping she'd find a way through the
museum, Janice looked for one, only to tangle herself in a blind alley that ended in a brick wall connecting
two of the row houses. Here, all was so dark that Janice couldn't even picture the lurkers that she began
to imagine. Coming out of the passage in a hurry, she could hear the clatter of her high heels followed by
their echoes.
Apparently someone else heard those sounds too. As Janice turned along the sidewalk, she fancied that a
figure stepped suddenly behind the high steps of an old house. This time Janice rallied boldly and
approached the fancied menace. As she paused, it seemed that the echoes of her footfalls came from
beyond the steps, but without their usual clatter.
Janice tried it again; a quick halt brought the same result. Then she had reached the steps, finding vacancy
beyond them; yet when she looked up, she was sure she saw the same figure dodge beyond the steps of
the next house. Tired of this hide-and-seek, Janice cut across the street and looked back.
Again, a bobbing shape seemed to lose itself beside the very steps where Janice had first imagined it.
And that for Janice, was just about enough. She made for the corner full tilt, intending to stop the first cab
that came along. Spying headlights she flagged them, but they weren't a cab's. They belonged to a big
limousine that came to a smooth stop.
The gentleman who opened the car door was in evening clothes. His face was calm, impassive, so
unperturbed that its very expression quieted Janice's alarm. In one glance, the man decided that Janice
wasn't in a trustful mood and he handled the matter with a casual courtesy. Instead of inviting her to join
him in the limousine, he stepped out and offered her the car, though indirectly, for his remark was
directed to the chauffeur.
"I'll stop off here, Stanley," he said. "Suppose you help this young lady find a cab. If you are not
successful, you might take her where she wants to go."
"But I can't take your car," protested Janice. "After all -"
"After all, I'm just going around the corner," the man interposed, his calm tone unchanged. "It happens to
be a one way street, bound in the other direction, so why should I waste time by having Stanley drive me
all around the block?"
An inspiration struck Janice.
"But that's where I'm going too," she began. "I mean where I was going, when I changed my mind. You
see - well, maybe I'm foolish" - Janice paused to cook a quick excuse - "but I suppose I should have
phoned first. I wouldn't want Mr. Kremble to put himself out on my account. He might be busy, you
know." Janice drew a breath. "This all must seem very silly, but if you ever met Mr. Kremble, you'd
understand -"
"You mean Mortimer Kremble, of course."
"Why, yes!" In her astonishment, Janice hardly realized that the calm-faced man had waved away the car
and was walking her around the corner. "He's the curator of the Malaysian Museum."
"Has he ever mentioned Lamont Cranston?"
"No." Janice pursed her forehead as they turned toward a pair of ornate brownstone steps. "You see,
I've only met Mr. Kremble a few times."
"He mentioned you to me," came the reply. "He said that this evening I would meet Miss Janice
Courtland."
"Then you're Mr. Cranston?"
Cranston's smile was a slight one, merely one of acknowledgment, Janice thought, not realizing that she'd
admitted the fact that Kremble was expecting her. Along with his introduction, Cranston had rung the
doorbell and now a solemn servant who looked like a cross between a butler and a museum attendant
was ushering them into a foyer that had once been the reception hall of a pretentious mansion.
Other guests were present, people who knew Cranston, and in turn he obligingly introduced them to
Janice. As the girl looked around for Kremble, one of the guests laughed and gestured to some broad
steps that led down into a deep cellar.
"Kremble is in his dungeon as usual," the guest said. "Now that he's passed his time limit we're organizing
a search party to hunt him up. We'll probably find him repairing some Solomon Island canoe paddles or
buried neck-deep in chunks of Fiji lava. Anyway, he's all present and accounted for, when he's down
below, since this is the only way to reach him."
Those stairs were vaulted like the entrance to a tomb, but Janice felt no shivers as she descended with
the party. Anywhere indoors was better than the outside world, where shadowy creatures lurked. Then it
struck Janice all at once that she hadn't even thought of looking for those weird figures that she was sure
had trailed her, to station themselves out front of this museum.
Very oddly, Janice had forgotten all about them, once she had met the self-possessed Mr. Cranston.
Perhaps Janice would have understood why shadows hadn't worried her, had she known that when
accompanied by Cranston, she was being convoyed by the past master of all shadowy art, The Shadow
himself!
CHAPTER IV
MORTIMER KREMBLE wasn't neck deep in lava, but he had just about reached the equivalent.
Calling for him as they reached the cellar, his guests finally received a response from beyond a low wall
composed of slabs of stone set against a wooden backing that looked something like a coal bin.
Over the top poked a shaggy head with a thin, gaunt face and rather bewildered eyes that had to blink a
few times before they could recall their present surroundings. For all the world, Mortimer Kremble
looked like a man who had started to build a house, forgetfully working from the inside, so that if he
finished he would find himself imprisoned.
Only this wasn't a house that Kremble was building. He was just sorting more of the odd slabs with
which he planned to face the bin which at present formed the store room for the slabs themselves.
Stone plaques over his arm, Kremble climbed a ladder from inside the bin, placed his free hand on the
edge, and vaulted himself down beside his friends. Though he stumbled so that hands had to catch him,
the fault lay in the weight of the slabs he carried.
Kremble seemed quite spry for a man of his age, but he wasn't as old as he looked. He proved that when
he shook his head, ridding his shaggy hair of the gray dust that powdered it. Working in the bin was a
grimy task indeed, as Kremble further proved when he set the loose slabs against the wall and stared at
his dust-streaked hands. Then:
"What time is it?" asked Kremble. Tilting his head he added with a whimsical smile: "I might ask what day
it is, the way I lose track of everything, down here."
Somebody told Kremble that it was still the same day and that he'd only been playing with the slabs for
an hour. The gaunt man smiled again as he took another look at his hands.
"You wouldn't think I could get so grimy in so short a time," he declared. "Well, while I wash up, you can
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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：67 页 大小：171.42KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-22

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