the great scientist.'
Campbell nodded unwillingly.
I said, 'But something went wrong. You had your run-in with Suarez-Navarro and found yourself strapped for ready funds. You couldn't finance his expedition, and so he left you flat because you were of no further use to him. Isn't that so?'
There was silence while Campbell digested all that.
'All right, you've made your point – don't drive it into the ground. Assuming something like that is possible – what do you suggest we do now?'
'First, another point. You wondered how Suarez-Navarro came into the nodule hunt. I think Mark may have tried the same ploy on them. In fact I think he and Norgaard were waiting in Tahiti for the ship that's being fitted out right now, and that ties everything in squarely together.'
'All right, let's assume that too. We're safer the more we can see into the forest, I suppose.' Campbell was still shaken by what I'd said about Mark. 'What do we do next?'
'Well, we could find out where Mark's IGY ship dredged and drop ours in the same places. But I don't think it will be any of the sites they actually surveyed or this would have come out already – Mark wasn't the only one doing assays. No, I think it was a trial site, one they weren't serious about, and probably didn't even make a record of, though we could check it out.'
We all sat in gloom for a while. The faint drift of music changed tempo and a woman began to sing with the trio, and I turned to watch her. Her voice was nice but she was no world-beater. Her body was better than her voice and set off admirably by a revealing gown. For a moment, lost in something not at all of our troubled world, I relaxed and only caught the end of a sentence directed at me by Clare Campbell.
'… to ask you a question – if I'm not distracting you, Mike?' Her voice was calm but when I turned back I saw an ironic sparkle in her eyes.
'Sorry, yes?' I said.
'You say that Mark was kicked off the ship for falsifying figures – but which figures? Not the high-cobalt nodule assay because, as you said, that news hasn't broken yet. So he must have falsified other figures which caught him out. What were they and why did he cook them – could they matter?'
That was something I hadn't thought of, and it was a stopper. I said, 'Mark was always a fast boy with a red herring. He cheated once in his school exams, and this is how he did it. He was called into the headmaster's office just before an exam and the master happened to be out of the room. On the desk was a pile of question papers. Mark played it cleverly – he didn't take one, he took six. Then he made a copy for himself and passed the six papers to other boys -anonymously.'
Campbell said, 'I don't get it.'
'It's simple. He told me about it afterwards – he always knew I wouldn't tell tales. He reckoned that if the thing blew up in his face he'd see to it that the six papers were all found -in the possession of other boys. He'd be in the clear. It wasn't found out and he got away with it. Now what if he's done something like that here?'
Campbell looked frustrated. He was supposed to be a man with acumen, after all. 'I may be dumb, but I still don't get it.'
'Look,' I said patiently. 'Mark has located a deposit of high-cobalt nodules and he's busy suppressing the information. He knows that if he's found out he's not only in disgrace but he's lost a potential fortune. So – knowing Mark – I'd guess that he'd toss out a few red herrings. He'd falsify some more figures to confuse the issue, and he'd probably revise all estimates upwards. It would add slightly to the risk of discovery, but if it was found out, as it evidently was, he'd be only another glory-hunting scientist, rather too optimistic and looking for professional praise. No one would suspect that one set of figures was wrong for another reason. They may not ever have caught it.' I laughed humourlessly. 'I'll bet that all Mark's findings were junked, anyway. None of his colleagues would trust his figures after that.'
'Why didn't they tell the world about it – to protect people like Pop?' asked Clare a little bitterly.
'I think they would feel that commercial folk like your dad can take care of themselves,' I said. 'They're mostly too gentlemanly.'
Campbell was looking at me in wonder, Geordie in silent assent of my assessment. 'Did Mark really have a mind like that?' Campbell said.
I saw that he was hurt; his pride in his judgement of men had been badly undermined. But then, he'd been taken in by an expert. 'He had a mind that would make a corkscrew look like a straight edge. You don't have to take my word for it, either. Geordie can tell you some tales.'
Geordie nodded. 'Aye, the boy was a twister. He caused the family a lot of grief.'
'All right. Supposing that Mark was as machiavellian as you make him out to be, it seems we're back where we started – all we have to go on is the diary.'
'And that's going to be a devil of a job, sorting out his scribbles. I can make a fair stab at the science, but the rest is a teaser.'
'We'll discuss it over dinner,' Campbell decided, to my secret relief.
We chewed over the diary and the dinner together. The dinner was digestible which was more than any of us could say for the diary. Clare asked if she could have it for bedside reading. 'I like that sort of thing,' she said. 'Puzzles, jigsaws.' And I also thought that she might have felt that her own knowledge of Mark's odd mind might be useful.
'You're welcome,' I told her. 'I want a break from it.' I was pleased that as the evening wore on she seemed to lose some of her reserve and her mouth began to lose its tight-locked caution. We were at the coffee stage when a waiter came up to the table. 'Are one of you gentlemen Mr Trevelyan?'
'I am.'
There's a lady in the foyer asking to see you.'
I looked around blankly. 'I don't know anyone in Panama.'
Campbell looked up at the waiter. 'An old lady or a young lady?'
'Oh, a young lady, sir.'
Campbell's eyes twinkled. 'If I were you I'd be in the foyer now. What's stopping you?'
I got up. 'It's probably a mistake,' I said, thinking that it almost certainly wasn't. 'Excuse me.'
There were several people in the foyer including more than one young lady, but no one approached me. I crossed to the desk and said, 'My name's Trevelyan. I understand someone wants me.'
The clerk pointed with his pen, indicating that I should come into the office behind the desk. The young lady was waiting all right, and I did know her, in a way; she was the singer who had been entertaining us in the lounge.
'I'm Trevelyan. You wanted to speak to me?'
She was nervous, I could see that. She was rather slight and looked, at close quarters, a trifle undernourished, with hollows under her dark eyes and a skin more weathered than tanned. There was an appealing quality about her – I think the best word would be winsome. I was intrigued.
'I'm sorry to trouble you – I saw your name in the register-but I wondered if you were any relation of Mark Trevelyan? From Tahiti?'
'He was my brother,' I said. 'I'm Michael. Obviously you -know Mark.' I didn't know if she knew of his death and I felt it would be unkind to throw it at her without warning.
She nodded, gripping her hands together. 'Yes, I knew him, very well. Have you just come from England?'
'Yes.'
'Do you know his – wife?'
'Yes.'
'Did she get the suitcase I sent?'
I stared at her now. 'Well, I'm damned! I thought you were a man. So you are P. Nelson.'
She smiled and some of the tension left her. 'Yes – Paula Nelson. Then the case did arrive all right?'
'It arrived, thank you,' I said. I didn't say that it had been stolen immediately afterwards because I didn't know just where this girl stood in the complexity of Mark's affairs. But I could try to find out.
'Miss Nelson, what about coming into the lounge and having a drink with me and my friends? We're all of us interested in Mark and in what he was doing out here.'
She shook her head. 'Oh, I couldn't do that, Mr Trevelyan. I'm one of the hired help around here – we're not
