THE IRON GEM

Geoffrey Avalon stirred his drink and smiled wolfishly. His hairy, still dark eyebrows slanted upward and his neat graying beard seemed to twitch. He looked like Satan in an amiable mood.

He said to the Black Widowers, assembled at their monthly dinner, "Let me present my guest to you-Latimer Reed, jeweler. And let me say at once that he brings us no crime to solve, no mystery to unravel. Nothing has been stolen from him; he has witnessed no

murder; involved himself in no spy ring. He is here, purely and simply, to tell us about jewelry, answer our questions, and help us have a good, sociable time."

And, indeed, under Avalon's firm eye, the atmosphere at dinner was quiet and relaxed and even Emmanuel Rubin, the ever quarrelsome polymatb of the club, managed to avoid raising his voice. Quite satisfied, Avalon said, over the brandy, "Gentlemen, the postprandial grilling is upon us, and with no problem over which to rack our brains. -Henry, you may relax."

Henry, who was clearing the table with the usual quiet efficiency that would have made him the nonpareil of waiters even if he had not proved himself, over and over again, to be peerlessly aware of the obvious, said, "Thank you, Mr. Avalon. I trust I will not be excluded from the proceedings, however."

Rubin fixed Henry with an owlish stare through his thick glasses and said loudly, "Henry, this blatantly false modesty does not become you. You know you're a member of our little band, with all the privileges thereto appertaining." "If that is so," said Roger Halsted, the soft-voiced math teacher, sipping at his brandy and openly inviting a quarrel, "why is he waiting on table?" "Personal choice, sir," said Henry quickly, and Rubin's opening mouth shut again.

Avalon said, "Let's get on with it. Tom Trumbull isn't with us this time so, as host, I appoint you, Mario, as griller in chief."

Mario Gonzalo, a not inconsiderable artist, was placing the final touches on the caricature he was making of Reed, one that was intended to be added to the already long line that decorated the private room of the Fifth Avenue restaurant at which the dinners of the Black Widowers were held.

Gonzalo had, perhaps, overdrawn the bald dome of Reed's head and the solemn length of his bare upper lip, and made over-apparent the slight tendency

to jowl. There was indeed something more than a trace of the bloodhound about the caricature, but Reed smiled when he saw the result and did not seem offended.

Gonzalo smoothed the perfect Windsor knot of his pink and white tic and let his blue jacket fall open with careful negligenW as he leaned back and said, "How do you justify your existence, Mr. Reed?" "Sir?" said Reed in a slightly metallic voice.

Gonzalo said, without varying pitch or stress, "How do you justify your existence, Mr. Reed?" -

Reed looked about the table at the five grave faces and smiled-a smile that did not, somehow, seriously diminish the essential sadness of his own expression. "Jeff warned me," he said, "that I would be questioned after the dinner, but he did not tell me I would be challenged to justify my self." "Always bes" said Avalon sententiously, "to catch a man by surprise."

Reed said, "What can serve to justify any of us? But if I must say something, I would say that I help bring beauty into lives." "What kind of beauty?" asked Gonzalo. "Artistic beauty?" And be held up the caricature.

Reed laughed. "Less controversial forms of beauty, I should hope." He pulled a handkerchief out of his inner jacket pocket and, carefully unfolding it on the table, exposed a dozen or so gleaming, deeply colored bits of mineral. "All men agree on the beauty of gems," be said. "Tbatja independent of subjective taste." He held up a small deep reAo-ne and the lights glanced off it.

James Drake cleared his throat and said with his usual mild hoarseness just the same, "Do you always carry those things around with you?" "No, of course not," said Reed. "Only when I wish to entertain or demonstrate." "In a handkerchief?" said Drake.

Rubin burst in at once. "Sure, what's the difference? If he's held

up, keeping them in a locked casket won't do him any good. He'd just be out the price of a casket as well." "Have you ever been held up?" asked Gonzalo. "No," said Reed. "My best defense is that I am known never to carry much of value with me. I strive to make that as widely known as possible, and to live up to it, too." "That doesn't look it," said Drake. "I am demonstrating beauty, not value," said Reed. "Would you care to pass these around among yourselves, gentlemen?"

ere was no immediate move and then Drake said, "Henry, would you be in a position to lock the door?" "Certainly, sir," said Henry, and did so.

Reed looked surprised. "Why lock the door?" Drake cleared his throat again and stubbed out the pitiful remnant of his cigarette with a stained thumb and forefinger. "I'm afraid that, with the kind of record we now have at our monthly dinners, those things will be passed around and one will disappear." "That's a tasteless remark, Jim," said Avalon, frowning.

Reed said, "Gentlemen, there is no need to worry. These stones may all disappear with little loss to me or gain to anyone else. I said I was demonstrating beauty and not value. This one I am holding is a ruby-quite so-but synthetic. There are a few other synthetics and here we have an irreparably cracked opal. Others are riddled with flaws. These will do no one any good and I'm sure Henry can open the door."

Halsted said, stuttering very slightly in controlled excitement, "No, I'm with Jim. Something is just fated to come up. I'll bet that Mr. Reed has included one very valuable item-quite by accident, perhaps-and that one will turn up missing. I just don't believe we can go through an evening without some puzzle facing us."

Reed said, "Not that one. I know every one of these stones and, if you like, I'll look at each again." He did so and then pushed them out into the center of the table. "Merely trinkets that serve to satisfy the innate craving of human beings for beauty."

Rubin grumbled, "Which, however, only the rich can afford."

44 Quite wrong, Mr. Rubin. Quite wrong. These stones are not terribly expensive. And even jewelry that is costly is often on display for all eyes-and even the owner can do no more than look at what be owns, though more frequently than others. Primitive tribes might make ornaments as satisfying to themselves as jewelry is to us out of shark's teeth, walrus tusks, sea shells, or birch

bark. Beauty is independent of material, or of fixed rules of aesthetics, and in my way I am its servant."

Gonzalo said, "But you would rather sell the most expensive forms of beauty, wouldn't you?" "Quite true," said Reed. I am subject to economic law, but that ben3s my appreciation of beauty as little as I can manage."

Rubin shook his head. His sparse beard bristled and his voice, surprisingly full-bodied for one with so small a frame, rose in passion. "No, Mr. Reed, if you consider yourself a purveyor of beauty only, you are being hypocritical. It's rarity you're selling. A synthetic ruby is as beautiful as a natural one and indistinguishable chemically. But the natural ruby is rarer, more difficult to get, and therefore more expensive and more eagerly bought by those who can afford it. Beauty it may be, but it is beauty meant to serve personal vanity. "A copy of the 'Mona Lisa,' correct to every crack in the paint, is just a copy, worth no more than any daub, and if there were a thousand copies, the real one would still remain priceless because it alone would be the unique original. and would reflect uniqueness on its possessor. But that, you see, has nothing to do with beauty."

Reed said, "It is easy to rail against humanity. Rareness does enhance value in the eyes of the vain, and I suppose that something that is sufficiently rare and, at the same time, notable would fetch a huge price even if there were no beauty about it-" "A rare autograph," muttered Halsted. "Yet," said Reed firmly, "beauty is always an enhancing factor, and I sell only beauty. Some of my wares are rare as well, but nothing I sell, or would care to sell, is rare without being beautiful."

Drake said, "What else do you sell besides beauty and rarity?" "Utility, sir," said Reed at once. "Jewels are a way of storing wealth compactly and permanently in a way independent of the fluctuations of the market place." "But they can be stolen," said Gonzalo accusingly. "Certainly," said Reed. "Their very values-beauty, compactness, permanence-make them more useful to a thief than anything else can be. The equivalent in gold would be much heavier; the equivalent in anything else far more bulky."

Avalon said, with a clear sense of reflected glory in his guest's profession, "Latimer deals in eternal value." "Not always," said Rubin rather wrathfully. "Some of the jewelees wares are of only temporary value, for rarity may vanish. There was a time when gold goblets might be used on moderately important

occasions but, for the real top of vanity, the Venetian cut glass was trotted out-until glass-manufacturing processes were improved to the point where such things were brought down to the five-and-ten level.

"In the i88os, the Washington Monument was capped with nothing less good than aluminum and, in a few years, the Hall process made aluminum cheap and the monument cap completely ordinary. Then, too, value can change with changing legend. As long as the alicom-the hom of a unicorn-was thought to have aphrodisiac properties, the horns of narwhals and rhinoceroses were valuable. A handkerchief of a stiffish weave which could be cleaned by being thrown into the fire would be priceless for its magical refusal to bum -till the properties of asbestos became well known. "Anything that becomes rare through accident-the first edition of a completely worthless book, rare because it was wortbless-becomes priceless to collectors. And synthetic jewelry of all sorts may yet make your wares valueless, Mr. Reed."

Reed said, "Perhaps individual items of beauty might lose some of their value, but jewelry is only the raw material of what I sell. There is still the beauty of combination, of setting, the individual and creative work of the craftsman. As for those things which are valuable for rarity alone, I do not deal with them; I will not deal with them; I have no sympathy with them, no interest in them. I myself own some things that are both rare and beautiful-own them, I mean, with no intention of ever selling them-and nothing, I hope, that is ugly and is valued by me only because it is rare. Or almost nothing, anyway."

He seemed to notice for the first time that the gems he had earlier distributed were lying before him. "Ah, you're all through with them, gentlemen?" He scooped them toward himself with his left hand. "All here," he said, "each one. No omissions. No substitutions. All accounted for." He looked at each individually. "I have showed you these, gentlemen, because there is an interesting point to be made about each of them-"

Halsted said, "Wait. What did you mean by saying 'almost nothing'?" "Almost nothing?" said Reed, puzzled. "You said you owned nothing ugly just because it was rare. Then you said 'almost nothing."'

Reed's face cleared. "Ah, my lucky piece. I have it here somewhere." He rummaged in his pocket. "Here it is. -You are welcome to look at it, gentlemen. It is ugly enough, but actually I would be more distressed at losing it than any of the gems I brought with me." He passed his lucky piece to Drake, who sat on his left.

Drake turned it over in his hands. It was about an inch wide, ovoid in shape, black and finely pitted. He said, "It's metal. Looks like meteoric iron."

"That's exactly what it is as far as I know," said Reed. The object passed from hand to hand and came back to him. "It's my iron gem," said Reed. "I've turned down five hundred dollars for it." "Who the devil would offer five hundred dollars for it?" asked Gonzalo, visibly astonished.

Avalon cleared his throat. "A collector of meteorites might, I suppose, if for any reason this one had special scientific value. The question really is, Latimer, why on Earth you turned it down." "Oh," and Reed looked thoughtful for a while. "I don't really know. To be nasty, perhaps. I didn't like the fellow." "The guy who offered the money?" asked Gonzalo. "Yes.

Drake reached out for the bit of black metal and, when Reed gave it to him a second time, studied it more closely, turning it over and over. "Does this have scientific value as far as you know?" "Only by virtue of its being meteoric," said Reed. "I've brought it to the Museum of Natural History and they were interested in having it for their collection if I were interested in donating it without charge. I wasn't. -And I don't know the profession of the man who wanted to buy it. I don't recall the incident very well-it was ten years ago-but I'm certain be didn't impress me as a scientist of any type.22 "You've never seen him since?" asked Drake. "No, though at the time I was sure I would. In fact, for a time I had the most dramatic imaginings. But I never saw him again. It was after that, though, that I began to carry it about as a luck charm." He put it in his pocket again. "After all, there aren't many objects this unprepossessing I would refuse five hundred for."

Rubin, frowning, said, "I scent a mystery here-" Avalon exploded. "Good God, let's have no mystery! This is a social evening. Latimer, you assured me that there was no puzzle you were planning to bring up."

Reed looked honestly confused. "I'm not bringing up aA"uzzle. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to the story. I was offered five hundred dollars; I refused; and there's an end to it."

Rubin's voice rose in indignation. "The mystery consists in the reason for the offer of the five hundred. It is a legitimate outgrowth of the grilling and I demand the right to prove the matter."

Reed said, "But what's the use of probing? I don't know why be offered five hundred dollars unless he believed the ridiculous story my great-grandfather told." "There's the value of probing. We now know there is a ridiculous

story attached to the object. Go on, then. What was the ridiculous story your great-grandfather told?" "It's the story of how the meteorite-assuming that's what it iscame into the possession of my family-" "You mean it's an heirloom?" asked Halsted. "If something totally without value can be an heirloom, this is one. In any case, my great-grandfather sent it home from the Far East in 1856 with a letter explaining the circumstances. I've seen the letter myself. I can't quote it to you, word for word, but I can give you the sense of it." "Go ahead," said Rubin. "Well-to begin with, the 1850s were the age of the clipper ship, the Yankee Clipper, you know, and the American seamen roamed the world till first the Civil War and then the continuing development of the steamship put an end to sailing vessels. However, I'm not planning to spin a sea yarn. I couldn't. I know nothing about ships and couldn't tell a bowsprit from a binnacle, if either exists at all. However, I mention it all by way of explaining that my greatgrandfather-who bore my name; or rather, I bear his-managed to see the world. To that extent his story is conceivable. Between that and the fact that his name, too, was Latimer Reed, I had a tendency, when young, to want to believe him. "In those days, you see, the Moslem world was still largely closed to the men of the Christian West. The Ottoman Empire still had large territories in the Balkans and the dim memory of the days when it threatened all Europe still lent it an echo of far-off might. And the Arabian Peninsula itself was, to the West, a mystic mixture of desert sheiks and camels. "Of course, the old city of Mecca was closed to non-Moslems and one of the daring feats a European or American might perform would be to learn Arabic, dress like an Arab, develop a knowledge of Moslem culture and religion, and somehow participate in the ritual of the pilgrimage to Mecca and return to tell the story. -My greatgrandfather claimed to have accomplished this."

Drake interrupted. "Claimed? Was he lying?" "I don't know," said Reed. "I have no evidence beyond this letter be sent from Hong Kong. There was no apparent reason to lie since be had nothing to gain from it. Of course, he may merely have wanted to amuse my great-grandmother and sbine in her eyes. He had been away from home for three years and bad only been married three years prior to his sailing, and family legend has it that it was a great love match."

Gonzalo began, "But after be returned-"

"He never returned," said Reed. "About a month after he wrote the letter be died under unknown circumstances and was buried somewhere overseas. The family didn't learn of that till considerably later of course. My grandfather was only about four at the time of his father's death and was brought up by my great-grandmother. My grandfather had five sons and three daughters and I'm the second son of his fourth son and there's my family history in brief." "Died under unknown circumstances," said Halsted. "There are all sorts of possibilities there." "As a matter of fact," said Reed, "family legend has it that his impersonation of an Arab was detected, that be had been tracked to Hong Kong and beyond, and had been murdered. But you know there is no evidence for that whatever. 'Me onIv information we have about his death was from seamen who broght a letter from someone who announced the death." "Does that letter exist?" asked Avalon, interested despite himself. "No. But where and bow be 'died doesn't matter-or even if he died, for that matter. The fact is he never returned home. Of course," Reed went on, "the family has always tended to believe the story, because it is dramatic and glamorous and it has been distorted out of all recognition. I have an aunt who once told me that he was torn to pieces by a bowling mob of dervishes who detected his imposture in a mosque. She said it was because he had blue eyes. All made up, of course; probably out of a novel."

Rubin said, "Did be have blue eyes?" "I doubt it," said Reed. "We all have brown eyes in my family. But I don't really know."

Halsted said, "But what about your iron gem, your lucky piece?" "Oh, that came with the letter," said Reed. "It was a small package actually. And my lucky piece was the whole point of the letter. He was sending it as a memento of his feat. Perhaps you know that the central ceremony involved in the pilgrimage to Mecca is the rites at the Kaaba, the most holy object in the Moslem world."

Rubin said, "It's actually a relic of the pre-Moslem Wrld. Mohammed was a shrewd and practical politician, though,"and he took it over. If you can't lick them, join them." "I dare say," said Reed coolly. "'ne Kaaba is a large, irregular cube-The word 'cube' comes from 'Kaaba' in fact-and in its southeast corner about five feet from the ground is what is called the Black Stone, which is broken and held together in metal hands. Most people seem to think the Black Stone is a meteorite." "Probably," said Rubin. "A stone from heaven, sent by the gods. Naturally it would be worshiped. The same can be said of

the origi-

nal statue of Artemis at Ephesus-the so-called Diana of the Ephesians-2'

Avalon said, "Since Torn Trumbull is absent, I suppose it's my job to shut you up, Manny. Shut up, Manny. Let our guest speak-7p

Reed said, "Anyway, that's about it. My iron gem arrived in the package with the letter, and my great-grandfather said in his letter that it was a piece of the Black Stone which he had managed to chip off." "Good Lord," muttered Avalon. "If he did that, I wouldn't blame the Arabs for killing him."

Drake said, "If it's a piece of the Black Stone, I dare say it would be worth quite a bit to a collector." "Priceless to a pious Moslem, I should imagine," said Halsted. "Yes, yes," said Reed impatiently, "if it is a piece of the Black Stone. But how are you going to demonstrate such a thing? Can we take it back to Mecca and see if it will fit into some chipped place, or make a very sophisticated chemical comparison of my lucky piece and the rest of the Black Stone?" "Neither of which, I'm sure," said Avalon, "the government of Saudi Arabia would allow." "Nor am I interested in asking," said Reed. "Of course, it's an article of faith in my family that the object is a chip of the Black Stone and the story was occasionally told to visitors and the package was produced complete with letter and stone. It always made a sensation. "Then sometime before World War I there was some sort of scare. My father was a boy then and he told me the story when I was a boy, so it's all pretty garbled. I was impressed with it when I was young, but when I considered it after reaching man's estate, I realized that it lacked substance." "What was the story?" asked Gonzalo. "A matter of turbaned strangers slinking about the house, mysterious shadows by day and strange sounds by night," said Reed. "It was the sort of thing people would imagine after reading sensational fiction."

Rubin, who, as a writer, would ordinarily have resented the last adjective, was too hot on the spoor on this occasion to do so. He said, "ne implication is that they were Arabs who were after the chip of the Black Stone. Did anything happen?"

Avalon broke in. "If you tell us about mysterious deaths, Latimer, I'll know you're making up the whole thing."

Reed said, "I'm speaking nothing but the truth. There were no mysterious deaths. Everyone in my family since Great-grandfather died of old age, disease, or unimpeachable accident. No breath Of

foul play has ever risen. And in connection with the tale of the turbaned stranger, nothing at all happened. Nothingi Which is one reason I dismiss the whole thing."

Gonzalo said, "Did anyone ever attempt to steal the chip?" "Never. The original package with the chip and the letter stayed in an unlocked drawer for half a century. No one paid any particular heed to it and it remained perfectly safe. I still have the chip as you saw," and he slapped his pocket. "Actually," he went on, "the thing would have been forgotten altogether but for me. About 1950, 1 felt a stirring of interest. I don't have a clear memory why. The nation of Israel had just been established and the Middle East was much in the news. Perhaps that was the reason. In any case, I got to thinking of the old family story and I dredged the thing out of its drawer."

Reed took out his iron gem absently and held it in the palm of his hand. "It did look meteoritic to me but, of course, in my greatgrandfather's time meteorites weren't as well known to the general public as they are now. So, as I said earlier, I took it to the Museum of Natural History. Someone said it was meteoritic and would I care to donate it. I said it was a family heirloom and I couldn't do that, but-and this was the key point for me-I asked him if there were any signs that it had been chipped off a larger meteorite. "He looked at it carefully, first by eye, then with a magnifying glass, and finally said he could see no sign of it. He said it must have been found in exactly the condition I had it. He said meteoritic iron is particularly hard and tough because it has nickel in it. It's more like alloy steel than iron and it couldn't be chipped off, he said, without clear signs of manhandling. "Well, that settled it, didn't it? I went back and got the letter and read it through. I even studied the original package. There was some blurred Chinese scrawl on it and my grandmother's name and address in a fadcd angular English. There was nothing to be made of it. I couldn't make out the postmark but there was no reason to suppose it wasn't from Hong Kong. Anyway, I decided the whole thing was an amiable fraud. Great-grandfather Latimer had pickedup the meteorite somewhere, and probably had been spending tGe in the Arab world, and couldn't resist spinning a yam."

Halsted said, "And then a month later he was dead under mysterious circumstances." "Just dead," said Reed. "No reason to think the death was mysterious. In the i850s, life was relatively brief. Any of a number of infectious diseases

could kill. -Anyway, that's the end of the story. No glamor. No mystery."

Gonzalo objected vociferously at once. "That's not the end of the story. It's not even the beginning. What's the bit about the offer of five hundred dollars?" "Oh, that!" said Reed. "That happened in 1967 or 1963. It was a dinner party and there were some hot arguments on the Middle East and I was taking up a pro-Arab stance as a kind of devil's advocateit was well before the Six-Day War, of course-and that put me in mind of the meteorite. It was still moldering away in the drawer and I brought it out. "I remember we were all sitting about the table and I passed the package around and they all looked at it. Some tried to read the letter, but that wasn't so easy because the handwriting is rather oldfashioned and crabbed. Some asked me what the Chinese writing was on the package and of course I didn't know. just to be dramatic, I told them about the mysterious turbaned strangers in my father's time and stressed Great-granddad's mysterious death, and didn't mention my reasons for being certain it was all a hoax. It was just entertainment. "Only one person seemed to take it seriously. He was a stranger, a friend of a friend. We had invited a friend, you see, and when he said he bad an engagement, we said, well, bring your friend along. That sort of thing, you know. I don't remember his name any more. All I do remember about him personally is that he bad thinning red hair and didn't contribute much to the conversation. "When everybody was getting ready to go, be came to me besitantly and asked if be could see the thing once more. There was no reason not to allow it, of course. He took the meteorite out of the package-it was the only thing that seemed to interest him-and walked to the light with it. He studied it for a long time; I remember growing a little impatient; and then be said, 'See here, I collect odd objects. I wonder if you'd let me have this thing. I'd pay you, of course. What would you say it was worth?' "I laughed and said I didn't think I'd sell it and be stammered out an offer of five dollars. I found that rather offensive. I mean, if I were going to sell a family heirloom it surely wouldn't be for five dollars. I gave him a decidedly brusque negative and held out my hand for the object. I took such a dislike to him that I remember feeling he might steal it. "He handed it back reluctantly enough and I remember looking at the object again to see what might make it attractive to him, but it still seemed what it was, an ugly lump of iron. You see, even though I knew its point of interest lay in its possible history and not in its appearance, I was simply unable to attach value to anything but beauty.

"vVhen I looked up, he was reading the letter again. I held out my hand and he gave me that too. He said, 'Ten dollars?' and I just said, 'No!'

Reed took a sip of the coffee that Henry had just served him. He said, "Everyone else had left. This man's friend was waiting for him, the man who was my friend originally, Jansen. He and his wife were killed in an auto accident the next year, driving the very car at whose door he stood then, waiting for the man he had brought to my house. What a frightening thing the future is if you stop to think of it Luckily, we rarely do. "Anyway, the man who wanted the object stopped at the door and said to me hurriedly, 'Listen, I'd really like that little piece of metal. It's no good to you and I'll give you five hundred dollars for it. How's that? Five hundred dollars. Don't be hoggish about this, ' "I can make allowances for his apparent anxiety, but he was damned offensive. He did say 'hoggish'; I remember the word. After that, I wouldn't have let him ba've it for a million. Very coldly I told him it wasn't for sale at any price, and I put the meteorite, which was still in my hand, into my pocket with ostentatious finality. "His face darkened and he growled that I would regret that and there would be those who wouldn't be so kind as to offer money, and then off be went- The meteorite has stayed in my pocket ever since. It is my ugly luck piece that I have refused five hundred dollars for." He chuckled in a muted way and said, "And that's the whole story."

Drake said, "And you never found out why he offered you five hundred dollars for that thing?" "Unless he believed it was a piece of the Black Stone, I can't see any reason why be should," said Reed. "He never renewed his offer?" "Never. It was over ten years ago and I have never beard from him at all. And now that Jansen and his wife are dead, I don't even know where be is or how he could be located if I decided I wanted to sell."

Gonzalo said, "What did he mean by his threat about others who wouldn't be so kind as to offer money?"

I don't know," said Reed. "I suppose be meant mysterious turbaned strangers of the kind I had told him about. I think he was just trying to frighten me into selling."

Avalon said, "Since a mystery has developed despite everything, I suppose we ought to consider the possibilities here. The obvious motive for his offer is, as you say, that he believed the object to be a piece of the Black Stone."

"If so," said Reed, "be was the only one there who did. I don't think anyone else took the story seriously for a moment. Besides,

even if it were a chip of the Black Stone and the guy were a collector, what good would it be to him without definite proof? He could take any piece of scrap iron and label it 'piece of the Black Stone' and it would do him no less good than mine."

Avalon said, "Do you suppose he might have been an Arab who knew that a chip the size of your object bad been stolen from the Black Stone a century before and wanted it out of piety?" "He didn't seem Arab to me," said Reed. "And if be were, why was the offer not renewed? Or why wasn't there an attempt at taking it from me by violence?"

Drake said, "He studied the object carefully. Do you suppose he saw something there that convinced him of its value-whatever that value might be?"

Reed said, "How can I dispute that? Except that, whatever he might have seen, I certainly never have. Have you?" "No," admitted Drake.

Rubin said, "This doesn't sound like anything we can possibly work out. We just don't have enough information. -What do you say, Henry?"

Henry, who bad been listening with his usual quiet attention, said, "I was wondering about a few points." "Well then, go on, Henry," said Avalon. "Why not continue the grilling of the guest?"

Henry said, "Mr. Reed, when you showed the object to your guests on that occasion in 1962 or 1963, you say you passed the package around. You mean the original package in which the letter and the meteorite had come, with its contents as they had always been?" "Yes. Oh yes. It was a family treasure." "But since 1963, sir, you have carried the meteorite in your pocket?" "Yes, always," said Reed. "Does that mean, sir, that you no longer have the letter?" "Of course it doesn't mean that," said Reed indignantly. "We certainly do have the letter. I'll admit that after that fellow's threat I was a little concerned so I put it in a safer place. It's a glamorous document from the family standpoint, hoax or not." "Where do you keep it now?" asked Henry. "In a small wall safe I use for documents and occasional jewels." "Have you seen it recently, sir?"

Reed smiled broadly. "I use the wall safe frequently, and I see it every time. Take my word for it, Henry, the letter is safe; as safe as the luck piece in my pocket."

Henry said, "Then you don't keep the letter in the original package any more." "No," said Reed. "The package was more useful as a container for the meteorite.

Now that I carry that object in my pocket, there was no point in keeping the letter alone in the package."

Henry nodded. "And what did you do with the package, then, Sir?)

Reed looked puzzled. "Why, nothing." "You didn't throw it out?" "No, of course not." "Do you know where it is?" Slowly, Reed frowned. He said at last, "No, I don't think so." "When did you last see it?" The pause was just as long this time. I don't know that either." Henry seemed lost in thought. Avalon said, "Well, Henry, what do you have in mind?" Henry said, "I'm just wondering"-quietly be circled the table removing the brandy glasses-"whether that man wanted the meteorite at all." "He certainly offered me money for it," said Reed. "Yes," said Henry, "but first such small sums as would offer you no temptation to release it, and which he could well afford to pay if you called his bluff. Then a larger sum couched in such offensive language as to make it certain you would refuse. And after that, a mysterious threat which was never implemented." "But why should he do all that," said Reed, "unless be wanted MY iron gem?"

Henry said, "To achieve, perhaps, precisely what be did, in fact, achieve-to convince you he wanted the meteorite and to keep your attention firmly fixed on that. He gave you back the meteorite when you held out your hand for it; be gave you back the letter-but did he give you back the original package?"

Reed said, "I don't remember him taking it." Henry said, "It was ten years ago. He kept your attention fixed on the meteorite. You even spent some time examining it yotl6ev and during that time you didn't look at him, I'm sure. -Can you say you've seen the package since that time, sir?"

Slowly, Reed shook his head. "I can't say I have. You mean be fastened my attention so tightly on the meteorite that he could walk off with the package and I wouldn't notice?" "I'm afraid you didn't. You put the meteorite in your pocket, the letter in your safe, and apparently never gave another thought to the package. This man, whose name you don't know and whom you can

no longer identify thanks to your friends' death, has bad the package for ten years with no interference. And by now you could not possibly identify what it was he took." "I certainly could," said Reed stoutly, "if I could see it. It has my great-grandmother's name and address on it." "He might not have saved the package itself," said Henry. "I've got it," cried out Gonzalo suddenly. "It was that Chinese writing. He could make it out somehow and he took it to get it deciphered with certainty. The message was important."

Henry's smile was the barest flicker. "That is a romantic notion !hat had not occurred to me, Mr. Gonzalo, and I don't know that it is very probable. I was thinking of something else. -Mr. Reed, you had a package from Hong Kong in 1856 and at that time Hong Kong was already a British possession." "Taken over in 1848," said Rubin briefly. "And I think the British had already instituted the modern system of distributing mail." "Rowland Hill," said Rubin at once, "in 1840." 'Well then," said Henry, "could there have been a stamp on the original package?"

Reed looked startled. "Now that you mention it, there was something that looked like a black stamp, I seem to recall. A woman's profile?" "The young Victoria," said Rubin.

Henry said, "And might it possibly have been a rare stamp?" Gonzalo threw up his arms. "Bingo!" Reed sat with his mouth distinctly open. Then he said, "Of course, you must be right. -I wonder how much I lost." "Nothing but money, sir," murmured Henry. "The early British stamps were not beautiful."

3 Afterword

"The Iron Gem" appeared in the July 1974 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine under the title "A Chip of the Black Stone." Ordinarily, all things being equal, I go for the shorter title, so I'm changing it back to my original title in this case. (I don't always refuse to accept changes. The first story in this collection was called "No Man Pursueth" when I wrote it. The magazine changed it to

"When No Man Pursueth" and I accept the extra word as an improvement.)

I wrote this story on board the Canberra, which took me over the ocean to the coast of Africa and back in the summer of 1973, to view a total solar eclipse-the first total solar eclipse I had ever seen. Heaven knows, they filled my time, for I was on board as a lecturer, and I gave eight lectures on the history of astronomy, to say nothing of the time it took to be charming

and suave to all twelve hundred women on board. (You should see me being charming and suave. Some of them have trouble getting away.)

just the same, I did find time to hide out in my cabin now and then to write "The Iron Gem" in longhand. What puzzles me now that I look back on it, however, is why the story didn't have anything to do with a solar eclipse when that (and the twelve hundred women) was all I was thinking of on the cruise.