'So he has.”
“That was my father, and he was a rare bird! But sit yourself down, to be sure! Let me pour you some coffee. Can you eat?'
'Not just now, thank you.' Glawen seated himself at the kitchen table. Ma Chilke poured coffee and set out a platter of cookies, then pulled up a chair of her own. 'Daddy was a wonder what with his purple owls and stuffed animals and all the funny old bangles. We've never quite known what to make of him, nor Eustace either, if the truth be told. It seems, somehow, that all his nonsense skipped a generation and landed in poor Eustace. I don’t know whether I'm sorry or not; there was always so much windy talk of far places and distant worlds and great treasures in wonderful gems. Eustace loved it and couldn't get enough of it. Grandpa was a little cruel sometimes. He promised Eustace a fine space yacht for his twelfth birthday, and poor Eustace was so excited he could talk of nothing else. I warned him not to brag about his space yacht around the school yard, since no one would believe him; and they'd tell him he had a screw loose as well. I don’t, think Eustace cared much one way or the other. His grandpa had given him a big atlas of the Gaean Reach and Eustace studied it for hours on end, deciding where to fly his new space yacht, and how he was going to land on lonely desolate worlds where no one had ever set foot before and put up a sign reading “Eustace Chilke, been here and gone.”
'Grandpa Swaner never bought Eustace the space yacht but he did take him on a voyage somewhere, and that was enough in itself to put the wander-fever into the poor boy, and we've seen precious little of him all these many years.' Ma Chilke sighed and slapped her hand down on the table. “So now you've come to rummage through Grandpa Swaner’s things like all the rest. I should charge admission!'
Glawen asked: 'Have many others come here to look?”
“Yes indeed, and I ask them all: “What is it that you are looking for? If I knew I might give you a hint.” Although what I was saying to myself was, “if I knew, I'd go get it for myself.”
“No one ever told you?”
'No one. And I suppose that you won’t tell me either.'
'I'll tell you if you won’t tell anyone else.'
'I agree to that.'
“It's the Cadwal Charter, which was lost. Whoever finds it controls the world Cadwal. There are good people looking for the Charter and bad people. Eustace and I are with the good people. I'm making it very simple, of course.”
'So that’s why I’ve had so much trouble with the barn. It's been burgled at least three times. About ten years ago a big heavy-set woman showed up. She was dressed to kill and she wore a big important-looking hat, so I took her for a celebrity, or a grandee of some kind. She said her name was Madame Zigonie, and that she wanted to buy the stuffed moose. I said that it was not my moose, but that the owner would no doubt let it go for a thousand sols.”
“She gave a snort and said that she, too, had lots of things she'd let go for a thousand sols.”
'I asked her to make an offer, but she wanted to study the moose first. I told her it was an ordinary moose, with horns and a long ugly face and that I didn’t have time to take her out to the barn just then. She became huff and we had words, and she stalked away. A week later the barn was burgled and when we went to look the moose had been vandalized, with all its cotton guts strung out: I sewed the creature back up.”
“What did they take?”
'Nothing so far as I could see. They had turned over boxes of papers. Truth to tell, I found it hard to believe that a woman like Madame Zigonie would work so hard to burgle a barn. I put it down to sheer spite.'
“I don’t think spite was involved,' said Glawen. 'She was looking for the Charter. Floyd Swaner bought it at auction and disposed of it no one knows where or how. Which brings me to the question: who did he deal with?”
Ma Chilke gave her head a jerk of disdain. 'I marvel now when I think of them! Touts, agents, collectors, nature-fakers and a few ordinary mental cases. I could spot one a mile away. They all walk as if their feet hurt, and before they go near something they want, they give you a glance to see if you are watching. Toward the end Grandpa dealt mainly with a man called Melvish Keebles. His address? I have no idea. Another gentleman came asking just a few days ago and I told him the same thing.”
'Who was this other gentleman?”
Ma Chilke frowned toward the ceiling. “Bolst? Bolster? I took no great notice. He was a talker fast and free, with a voice like oil. Boster? Something like that.”
“Julian Bohost?”
“That is the name. Is he a friend of yours?”
'No. What did you tell him?'
'About Keebles? I told him what I know, which is nothing, except that Keebles seemed to be an agent for a dealer in Division City.”
“Did he look in the barn?”
“I made him pay two sols for the privilege, then went out with him, which put his nose out of joint. He poked around here and there, and looked into Grandpa Swaner's account books, from forty years ago, but he soon lost interest and only glanced at the moose. He asked if there were any other papers or documents, that he might pay a good price if he found something to interest him. For instance, were there any papers Grandpa Swaner had hidden away? And he said in a lordly way: 'Why not bring these papers out, my good woman, and perhaps there will be another two sols in it for you.' “
“I told him there were no such papers, that whenever Grandpa Swaner came into some books or documents, he traded them away at once to Melvish Keebles. He wanted Keebles' address, of course. I told him that I had not even thought of Keebles for years, and what kind of a woman did he take me for, that I should know the private address of all these shady characters? He looked foolish and said he had not meant it that way. I told him in the future I would appreciate it if he kept a civil tongue in his head, and this seemed to puzzle him even more, and he apologized. So I told him I knew nothing whatever of Melvish Keebles, save that he was something of a rascal. Mr. Bohost thanked me and went away, and I began thinking of the old days and I remembered 'Shoup’. '
'Who is 'Shoup'?”
'I can't say for sure, but I expect that he was another of Grandpa's cronies, or perhaps some kind of a dealer over in Division City, because when Grandpa and Keebles talked together it was always 'Shoup-this' and 'Shoup- that’. 'Ma Chilke sniffed and blinked. 'I don’t like to think back; it always makes me blue. When Grandpa was alive, there was always something going on. That purple vase is one of his things, and those green ornaments as well; in fact they came to him from Keebles, and Grandpa prized them highly, so that when the children got into the boxes and started playing games with them, I took them up and fixed them along the mantle, as you see. There are more in the barn, and more vases and such things, and of course the moose.'
Glawen returned to Division City, and lodged himself at one of the airport hotels. During the evening he studied the city directory. Almost at once he found the notice:
SHOUP AND COMPAY
Art supplies of All Kinds
Import and Export
We also deal in curios and exotic artifacts.
Off-world services a specialty
5000 Whipsnade Park, Bolton
In the morning Glawen rode by public transit to Bolton, a semi-industrial suburb at the northern verge of the city, where he found 5000 Whipsnade Park without difficulty. The premises, a square squat structure of concrete foam five stories high, was occupied exclusively by Shoup and Company.
Glawen entered the structure and found himself in a large showroom encompassing the entire first floor. Shelves, tables, bins and racks displayed art supplies of every description, to be sold both at retell and wholesale, for delivery anywhere in the Gaean Reach. To the left was a cashier's office and a shipping counter.
Glawen approached a sales clerk, who wore what seemed to be the Shoup uniform. A patch under the breast pocket of his gray tunic read:
D. Mulsh
At your service
D. Mulsh, a stocky young man with a cherubic pink face, fair hair and an air of complacent good humor, was
