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Updated: May 24, 2025
I wanted to see this beribboned old Minister of Nareda's Internal Affairs. I would use as my excuse a desire to discuss further the possibility of smuggler being here in Nareda. I put on my hat and a light jacket, verified that my dirk was readily accessible and sealed up my room. Spawn apparently was still in the kitchen. I got out of the house, I felt sure, without him being aware of it.
Mercury the quicksilver of commerce so recently come to tremendous value through its universal use in the new antiseptics which bid fair to check all human disease was being produced in Nareda. The import duty into the United States was being paid openly enough. But nevertheless Hanley's agents believed that smuggling was taking place.
For all the importance of my mission in Nareda my thoughts had been subconsciously more upon Jetta far more than upon smugglers of quicksilver. This palsied popinjay! This, the reality of the specter which had been between Jetta and me during all that magic time in the moonlit garden! This suave old rake!
I am very doubtful if we have smugglers here in Nareda." "Unless it is Spawn," the President interjected. Perona frowned slightly. But his suave manner remained. "Spawn? Why Spawn?" "You need not take offense, Perona," Markes retorted. "We are discussing this before an envoy of the United States, sent here to consult with us. We have nothing to hide." Markes turned to me.
He's got several hundred thousand dollar-standards' worth of it in ingots there right now." "Here at the mine?" "Yes. Got them all radiuminized, ready for the highest priced markets. Markes says he is scheduled to turn them over to the government checkers to-morrow. The Nareda government takes its share to-morrow; then Spawn exports the rest." I heard a footstep. "Off, Chief! I'll call you later!"
Nareda has a mixed population of typical Lowland adventures, among which the hardy Dutch predominate; and Holland and the United States have combined their influence in the World Court to give it national identity. And out of this had arisen my mission now.
"Well, you'd better see President Markes this morning." "That was my intention." "Tell him frankly what you're after. This smuggling of quicksilver from Nareda has got to stop. But take it easy, Phil; don't be reckless. Remember: one little knife thrust and I've lost a good man!" I laughed at his anxious tone. That was always Hanley's way.
Spawn was a fat-bellied Dutchman, as the field attendant had said. A fellow of perhaps fifty-five, with sparse gray hair and a heavy-jowled, smooth-shaved face from which his small eyes peered stolidly at me. He laid aside a huge, old-fashioned calabash pipe and offered a pudgy hand. "Welcome, young man, to Nareda. Seldom do we see strangers."
I was awakened by the tinkling, buzzing call of the radio-diaphragm beneath my shirt. I had left the call open. It was Hanley. I lay down, eyeing my window which now was illumined by the flat light of dawn. Hanley's microscopic voice: "Phil? I've just raised President Markes, there in Nareda. I've been a bit worried about you." "I'm all right, Chief."
To which Perona suavely assented. "Por Dios Señorito," he said to me, "we would not have your great government annoyed at Nareda. If there are smugglers, we will capture them of a certainty." From the Government House, it now being almost time for the midday meal, I returned to Spawn's. The rambling mud walls of the Inn stood baking in the noonday heat when I arrived.
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