Tom Tiddler's Island, стр. 12
“Damn it, I believe it’s really the gold-brick swindle in some shape. Can’t be anything else, on the face of things. Well, I’ll spoil the beggar’s market for him, anyhow.”
Pulling out his pocket-knife, he crossed the room to get under the brightest lamp. Then with the blade he made a broad score on the block, intending to scrape off the film of gold and disclose the underlying lead. His first attempt was unsatisfactory, and he tried a second time.
“Well, I’m damned!”
There was no surface film, such as he had expected. His two abraded streaks were as yellow as the rest. A third and much deeper incision yielded the same result. Whatever the material was, the block was homogeneous.
Colin rubbed his hand on his forehead in bewilderment. He had almost convinced himself that the thing was a sham. Certainly the idea that it was a real gold ingot had never occurred to him. And yet, if it wasn’t gold, what was the stuff? Brass or bronze wouldn’t have anything like that density, and he could think of no other alloy which would fit the case.
Still incredulous, Colin approached the affair from a fresh angle. Assuming that the stuff was gold, what would the brick be worth? Gold, he supposed, was worth roughly five pounds per ounce troy. He held the ingot out, trying to gauge its weight, but he found it difficult to estimate.
“Say a couple of pounds. No use bothering about the fourteen ounce troy business. Two pounds is thirty-two ounces, and at five pounds the ounce, that’s a hundred and sixty pounds. Phew! And it’s more than two pounds, if anything. By Jove! I can hardly believe it. It can’t be gold. The thing’s absurd. It must be some new alloy or other.”
Colin belonged to a generation to whom a coined sovereign is a mere curiosity. Gold ornaments he knew; but he had never associated them with purchasing power. Now, as he stared at the ingot in his hand—a thing hardly bigger than his box of vestas—he came suddenly to realise the concentration of financial power in raw gold. A hundred and sixty pounds and more, all condensed in this heavy little thing on his palm! Made you think, that did! For to Colin a hundred and sixty pounds was a good round sum.
He thrust the ingot back into his pocket and fell into a brown study. This new notion of gold led him on to speculation after speculation. Gradually they grew vaguer. His head began to nod, then slipped down against the chair-back. After a brief effort to wake up, he let himself go and fell asleep.
When he awoke again he found that the sun was up; and a glance at his wrist-watch showed him that it was half-past four. He got out of his chair, feeling cramped through having fallen asleep in an awkward position, and he took a few steps up and down the room to ease his muscles. Then he listened to see if anyone else was afoot. Nobody was astir in the house. Evidently nothing had happened to arouse the others.
In this fresh dawn the events of the night took on a faintly incredible aspect; but the weight of the gold brick in his pocket showed him that the affair had not been a mere dream. He pulled out the ingot and examined it once more in daylight, lest he had been deceived by that quality of electric lamps which makes them treacherous when tints have to be matched. No, there was no mistake. The deep scores of his knife-blade showed the same golden hue as the rest of the block. This was no gilded lump of lead that he had in his hand.
That would keep till later, he thought. More urgent affairs claimed his attention at the moment. He went out of the house and down the path towards the pier. In the clear morning light the traces of his nocturnal doings were plain enough among the lupins. Even from the path he could see the swaths where he had trampled down the stems in his blind wanderings to and fro.
He made his way among the flowers, and soon came upon the spot where he had discovered the stranger. It was easy enough to identify, for all around it was a maze of channels in the high stems, Colin’s own trails made while he was searching for the missing man. But in addition to these, broad and plain, there was another track.
“I never made that one,” Colin assured himself.
A few steps brought him into it, and he hurried along the little corridor which opened up among the plants. This was certainly none of his making, for it led in an almost straight line, whereas his own movements had been irregular, like those of a dog trying to pick up a lost scent. With the feeling that he was hot on the trail, he hastened on through the lupin field. The track trended downward, and then abruptly Colin emerged from it at the head of the little flight of steps leading down to the pier. There was no second opening in the lupins. Whoever came this way must have gone down the steps into the bay.
Colin stood at the head of the stairway and gazed down over the pier and the stretch of sand below him. The motor-boat was still moored in the lee of the jetty. Across the bay the Heather Lodge pleasure-boat had been hauled up above high-tide mark. Except for these two things the bay was empty, and the pier was