It was a distracting search. Valentinez’s library was a great temptation, and his own canvases were an absolute barrier to serious detective work. In no gallery had Garrett ever seen a Valentinez exhibit like this, and everything from the hastiest sketches to a magnificent and carefully finished sandscape bore the complete authority of the master.
Two things especially Garrett could gladly have spent long hours contemplating. One was a very rough crayon sketch for a self-portrait; there was no mistaking the gentle melancholy of that smiling face. The other was a half-finished composition of sun and sea and rock and algae, which even in its imperfect state seemed to sum up all the beauty of a world without man’s refinements—and yet a beauty that existed only because a great man could understand and perfect it.
But Garrett resolutely tore his eyes from these two fragmentary masterpieces and went on with his search. He had covered the whole studio when he realized what was wrong—terribly wrong. There was not the slightest hint of anything concerned with lovestonite.
His own swizard was the only bit of lovestonite in the room. The random notes and scribbled jottings filed haphazardly among canvases and furniture dealt with formulas for paint, possible new developments in epic sets, an essay on the problems of peace, the possibilities of revival of old-style cookery, the latest discoveries in radioactivity, revisions in the orbit calculations of the doomed Martian spaceships— everything under and around the sun—for Valentinez had the da Vinci type of creative mind—save lovestonite. Even the all-embracing library seemed to contain no books on the newer plastics, the clays of Australia, or the varying transmission speeds of light.
Yet Valentinez was said to have been working on lovestonite. And working where? There were no laboratory facilities here.
Then Garrett looked out of the rear window and noticed the blackening of the sand there. It had all been carefully raked over, but some large structure had been burned to the ground. A laboratory? A laboratory where Emigdio Valentinez had discovered—what?
His mind whirling with a half-resolved hypothesis, Garrett returned to contemplation of his two favorites among the pictures. That self-portrait was extraordinary. Partly in that it did not portray the artist as artist, no brush and palette to label it, partly in that it seemed so much freer, more unconstrained than a self-portrait generally managed to be.
He picked it up. On the reverse was marked in red crayon capitals LVSTITE.
Garrett clicked his tongue against his teeth. He went over to a pile of other sketches and found what he thought hed remembered seeing—another self-portrait. Good—could a Valentinez help being good?—but far inferior—conventional in pose and somewhat stilted in treatment. He turned it over. On its reverse was crayoned MIRROR.
He sat down. With one flash, the whole business clicked into place. Everything fitted—for a start at least. Valentinez had come here to work on a problem and had thought to solve it with lovestonite. The speed of light in lovestonite is variable; Dr. Wojcek hoped eventually to reduce it almost to zero at will.
Suppose the problem was that of self-portraiture. Artist have previously worked with mirror arrangements. That has disadvantages. One, you have to paint yourself working; you model and paint the model at once. Two, either you see a mirror-image of yourself, which is not as others see you; or you use a complex arrangement of mirrors which gives you a direct as-seen-by-others image, but confuses your movements terribly. When you move your right hand, say, and your mirror image moves, not its left, but its own right, you grow so confused that it affects your muscular co-ordination.
But suppose you can at will vary the speed of light through lovestonite. You reduce the speed almost to zero. You stand in front of the lovestonite. Your image enters it, but is not visible yet on the other side; will not be visible for some indefinite length of time. Then reverse the slab of lovestonite. Control it with an electromagnet. Let that light, which is your image, come through to you under your control—
A brilliant solution of a technical problem of painting. Fully worthy of the great Valentinez. But it did not explain the sudden increase in lovestonite manufacture. It did not explain why Valentinez’s laboratory had been burned down and all traces of his researches destroyed. It did not explain why someone wished to wipe out Gan Garrett, nor why Uranov was so long finding the painter. Garrett began to feel a terrible conviction that no one would ever find Emigdio Valentinez alive. He began to fear the report that Uranov would bring back.
The door creaked open on its metal hinges. Garrett looked up reluctantly. “You didn’t find him,” he started to say, but the words stopped short. For the man in the doorway was not Uranov, but that notable jackal Stag Hartle.
A faint rising hum told of the departure of Uranov’s copter.
“Nice of you to bring yourself down here,” said Stag Hartle. In his hand was what looked like a prop pistol. “It’s been kind of difficult getting at you in Sollywood. It’s quiet and uninterrupted here since your friend cleared out.”
“Friend,” Garrett repeated bitterly. It hurt. In the past twenty-four hours he had come to like the multiracial epic writer.
“He has good sense,” said Hartle. “I gave him a hint of what we’d planned for you and wondered did he want to be included in. He was a bright boy; he decided no.” Garrett let his hand rest in his pocket. The popgun which the girl had so derided was reassuringly capable of putting this jackal instantly out of action. But there were things to find out first. “So you’re going to kill me, just as you killed Emigdio Valentinez?”
“Not just the same. No. We’ve got our own plans for you.”
“Then you admit killing the greatest painter of our day?”
“Why not?” Hartle asked casually. “You’re
