Текст книги "The Power Cube Affair"

Автор книги: John T. Phillifent

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"It would have to be a very special affair, for that," Kuryakin said. "Do you know where?"

"Let me guess," Solo interrupted. "The Danby place."

"How did you know that?" Her voice was shrill.

"Tricks in all trades, Louise. This chief of Green's, do you know him? Who he is, I mean?"

She shook her head. "No. Green just told me where to go. It's tomorrow evening, and I'm to go and meet the chief at his house. It's all arranged. At least, it was!" Her face fell.

"Wait!" Solo thought hard. "Green said he would be out of touch, that he wouldn't be able to inform his chief."

"Steady on, Napoleon. Remember what happened to Mary Chantry."

"I haven't forgotten. You're right, Illya. Once of that is enough. Forget all about it, Louise."

She turned and went back into the bedroom while they carried out their final checkup. Solo managed to find one unbroken bottle amid the wreckage and rescued it. "We can use this for atmosphere in the car," he decided. "I think that's just about everything." He turned to see her return, as naked as a baby and with a determined look on her face.

"It's not everything," she declared. "Please, you two, look at me. You were going to ask me to do something and then you stopped because it might be dangerous. And it's not fair. I told you I would do anything. I want to. Look at me!" She spread her arms wide and appealingly. "What would I be now, if you two hadn't saved me? Let me help!"

"You don't need to be told what kind of people we are dealing with."

"Of course I don't. I know. What do you want me to do?"

"There's nothing much to it," Solo said swiftly. "Just go through with the party arrangements as they were made, go to meet the chief man—where's that, incidentally?"

"It's a private estate, a house called Piedmont, about twenty miles the other side of Norwood. I'm to take a taxi from the station."

"All right. If you do that, carry on as planned, go to the Danby affair—we will be there too. Don't acknowledge us. Just give some kind of sign, a touch of the hand to your hair will do, so we can identify the chief. That's all! We just want to know who he is."

"Nothing more than that," Kuryakin stressed. "And you can still back out, if you want to. Just say."

"I certainly won't back out. The one bit I don't like is that you'll be there and I won't be able to speak to you. I suppose you'll be with some other girls? Beautiful ones?"

"Only one," Solo grinned. "And—yes, she's beautiful, but not in your class, Louise."

"I'm glad you think I'm beautiful. I never really cared before, but I'm glad now. I suppose"—she was suddenly wistful—"once you're done with this job I'll never see you again, either of you."

"Hard to tell," Kuryakin said.

"You'll always be welcome."

"Yes. Well now..." Solo cleared his throat. "You know what to do? As soon as you hear the car drive off, wait five minutes and then ring the law. You know what to tell them? Right. Until we meet again." He had half-turned to the door, but she came quickly to catch him, to pull his head down and kiss him. Then Kuryakin. Then she stood back.

"Until the next time," she said.

Solo settled himself behind the wheel. Ponti's body lay stretched on the floor by his feet. The other two were in the back. Kuryakin was keeping his feet on them.

Solo let the car purr out of the alleyway and into the road, then up the gradient. Villas slumbered on the left, secure behind their hedges. On the right the slope fell away steeply, with young saplings here and there to provide a semblance of a wood. They came to a sharp left hand curve.

"This will do, Illya. Get down there, see if the road is clear. I don't want to smash up some innocent bystander." He kept the engine purring while Kuryakin went slithering and skidding down the grassy slope to the road below. Out of the gloom, within a few seconds, came a shrill whistle, twice. Solo sighed, tilted the whiskey bottle liberally over the bodies, let in the clutch, steered the car at the slope, then threw the door open and fell out briskly, rolling over and over three times before he could seize a sapling to halt himself. In the gloom he saw the pale bulk of the car go rolling onward and down. In a moment he saw Kuryakin come back up the slope, using hands and feet and staring back over his shoulder. Then there came a most satisfying crash and jangle.

They regained the road and began to walk back, nodding a silent goodnight as they passed The Nest. Five minutes more brought them to the stone steps and down in an official manner to the main road below. An elderly couple waited dismally at a bus stop. The man eyed them.

"Been here ten minutes," he complained, "and not a sign. I reckon it's gone. The last one."

"Last bus?" Solo queried. "Shouldn't worry, sir, I think it will be along. We're in a lucky mood tonight. Ah, there it comes now!"

The bus growled to a halt to let them aboard. They ran upstairs and were hardly seated before they felt the bus take a violent swerve to avoid a flaring obstruction. There, just off the left hand lane, a car stood on its nose in the ditch, ablaze. Five more minutes and the bus driver had to swerve again as a fire engine roared past, closely followed by an ambulance. Solo sat back and smiled.

"That's that," he murmured. "Up to Louise, now. I hope she tells the story properly."

"She will," Kuryakin said. "She's quite intelligent, despite her shape," and he whistled softly, paying no attention to Solo's stare.

NINE

NEXT MORNING, the room phone rang again. Solo answered it, to hear the switchboard girl tell him there was a lady on the line. With a fast gesture to Kuryakin he said:

"Thank you. Put her on," and he held his breath. But it wasn't Miss Thompson this time, although the voice was equally familiar.

"Mr. Solo?"

"Good morning, Miss Perrell. Nan. Nice to hear you. I was about to ring you, as it happens."

"Oh! Why?"

"Well, you remember that business about us being invited to the orgy at Danby Hall? We'd like to take it up."

"Are you deliberately trying to provoke me?"

"Not at all, but it seems a pity to miss such an occasion, especially since there doesn't seem to be anything else urgent. Or is there? I'm sorry, you rang me, didn't you?"

After a pause she sighed. "It wasn't urgent. I wanted to give you the name and address of a dealer who will fix you up with a small car and ask no awkward questions."

"That's very kind. One moment." He fished out a note book and pen. "Just off Tottenham Court Road," he noted.

Then, "About the Danby riot," said Miss Perrell. "You really want to go? Seriously?"

"Seriously," he confirmed, and heard her sigh again.

"It's a charity, you know. Can you afford it? There is no maximum, but the taken-for-granted minimum is one hundred pounds. In dollars—"

"Around three hundred, yes, I know. And yes, we can stand it."

"Very well, there's nothing more to say, I suppose. You can pick me up at my place in your new car, and I'll take you from there. Please be in properly formal clothes."

"All right. Not fancy dress?"

"No. Only the ladies are spectacular in this affair!"

Solo replaced the instrument and smiled thoughtfully; then he caught the glint in Kuryakin's eye and shrugged. "You heard. Charity."

"Some vacation! Thanks for helping me spend my own money!"

"Never mind. Think about the excitement, the thrills that set the blood coursing vigorously though the veins!"

"That part is fine. It's when it starts gushing out of the holes that I don't care for it. Napoleon, you go ahead on your own on this car business, I'm going to eat in. I'll pick you up later."

"Oh! Something in mind?"

"Nothing special. Only, the way the opposition is working at putting us away, they must be after something very important, and we have a very good information service right here. I thought maybe if I kept my ears open I might get a lead or two."

"Watch it now," Solo warned, "and see they don't wish some kind of job on you. Or us. Where'll I meet you?"

"Hmm!" Kuryakin mused. "For lunch, around twelve– thirty, at the Old Cock Inn. That's at the lower end of Fleet Street."

"Sounds something special. Is it?"

"Historical interest. As used by Charles Dickens, among others."

The "little car dealer" turned out to be a large and busy double fronted garage and service station, but by mentioning the name he had been given, Solo was rapidly passed from one to another until he wound up in an open area backing the gas pumps.

"Stone's the name," said a small, sharp eyed man in stained overalls. He put out a wiped hand in greeting. "You'll be Napoleon Solo, I reckon. I had a call about you."

"Good staff work. You'll know what I'm after, then?"

"I have just the job for you. This way." They halted by a car that made Solo lift his brows in wonder.

"She said small and inconspicuous, but this is a joke, isn't it?"

"Not on your life." Charlie Stone patted the red Mini affectionately. "This job may not be much to look at from the outside, but it's been worked over by an expert, let me tell you. Hop in!"

By the time Solo hopped out again he was convinced, and impressed. He was still a trifle breathless at the way a mere touch on the gas pedal brought instant and surging acceleration. Stone gestured him into a lean-to office and closed the door after them carefully.

"You'll have no trouble with her," he said, raking in a drawer for the necessary documents. "All I ask is, when you're done you bring her back here. On paper it will be a sale, and a trade in afterwards, but we don't need to bother about that, between us."

"That's very understanding of you."

"Never mind. There's something else you might be interested in. I don't know anything official, mind," Stone grinned wolfishly, "but I have a hobby. Might be in your line. This kind of thing." He slid something on to his desk, and Solo picked it up curiously. At first glance it looked like a rather thick strip of adhesive tape, flesh colored, eight inches long and an inch wide. Stone said:

"You peel off the backing, when you're ready, and stick it. Anywhere handy, like up the inside of your wrist. Or between your shoulder blades, if you like that better. For a woman, what with the way modern dresses are, on the inside of the upper arm is a good place. Anyway, once it's on, it won't come off easily, and it can't be seen. On this side, now..." He took it from Solo, and tugged at one end, where the surface was serrated, and all at once he had a knife in his hand. Three inches of it were pink padding, the remaining five were flexible steel. "This side's a razor edge, that's a diamond hard file along the other. Very handy."

"I agree. I've seen something just like this recently."

"I thought maybe you had. That's yours, if you want it."

Solo decided he did, and reached for his pocket, but Stone put up a hand.

"Compliments of the house, Mr. Solo. Just a hobby. I like to do what I can. There's all sorts of ways of helping out."

Solo reached the Old Cock about five minutes ahead of his appointment time, to find Kuryakin seated in the saloon nursing a pint mug of beer. The Russian agent looked up and grinned.

"Ask for Flowers," he advised, "and you'll get a pleasant Surprise."

"Got the car," Solo said, returning from the bar. "Show you it later. What did you get?"

"A lead or two. I dug up a newspaperman who used to work pretty closely with John Guard, swapping information. His name's Ray Carpenter; he should show up any minute now." Right on cue a long limbed, gangling man shoved through the door, stopped to look around, then came over to them with long strides.

"Kuryakin? Solo? I'm Carpenter. Shall we go straight in? I'm hungry, and I hate to rush a meal."

They followed him through into the rear regions, where there were small four seat tables in booths, red checkered tablecloths, old oak beams and an atmosphere of age. Carpenter ordered for all three, at their request.

"You can come back another time and soak up the atmosphere," he told them, "but right now the grub's the thing. You ask away, I'll do what I can to answer. All I know is that you're in the same game Johnny used to play, and he's caught it. At last. Can't say I'm surprised, the way he used to go at things, but anything I can do to hit the opposition, I will."

"He's not dead, you know," Solo offered. "In fact, unless we get on the ball, he's liable to break out of the hospital and go chasing them on his own. And these boys play it rough!"

"Can we get something straight first," Kuryakin murmured. "You're a newsman. We wouldn't want to strain your discretion."

Carpenter laughed. "I'll have to educate you the same way I did John. Look, forget the movie and TV version of a reporter, please. By them, all that comes in the ears pours out in print, regardless. Not true. I hear a thousand things I would like to see in print, but I never will, because they aren't the kind of things the public is prepared to buy. And I assure you, I would never dream of reporting any thing from or about you, or U.N.C.L.E., without your express O.K. first. All right now?"

Carpenter went silent as he ingested a large mouthful, then broke out again. "To give you a sample, look at the current ruction going on about population control. Every newspaper in the land ought to propagandize in favor, but they don't. You know why? Freedom of the individual. Every man likes to think he is free to choose for himself whether or not he's going to have a family, and he won't like any newspaper that tries to tell him he has no right to that freedom. You know why, again? Subconscious. He can't help thinking that if that kind of idea was accepted in society, he might never have been born!"

"About playing rough." Solo brought the talk back to business. "We might be able to drop something for you, at that. The girl who was found in the sea at Hastings, for instance. Her name's Mary Chantry, and she didn't die at Hastings, but on the beach outside John Guard's bungalow. That's how it all started. Then, you may have heard about a teenage riot on the Embankment, night before last. That was us. Somebody tried to have us removed. Again, last night, over Watford way, somebody broke into a villa, smashed the place up, scared the occupier into hysterics, then crashed their car as they drove off. Three drunken seamen. That, also, was us. Same idea."

"You move around, don't you?"

"We try. But we don't know who we're striking at, and that's where you could come in. What do you know about one Absalom Green, for instance?"

"Nothing for you." Carpenter frowned over a couple of swallows. "He is a connoisseur-dealer objet d'art man, specializes in gem stones and small carvings, trinkets, jewelry that kind of thing. Wealthy, owns a yacht, is reputed to skate close to the fringes now and then, but nothing to prove it."

"Suppose I told you the yacht is not his, but belongs to the man he works for?"

"You told me, now I know what I didn't know before. Sorry."

"All right." Solo sighed, made passes at his plate. "What about the Countess of Danby, then?"

"You can have her, Hippies make news. So do love-ins and pot, and any kind of improper sex and/or sadism. Flower people, even. But when a lot of very important and rich society folk get together for a party and have fun, that's no good to us. Lady Herriott's affairs are on the level. No crime. And for charity."

Solo scowled at this insider's view of press ethics. "What about a certain Miss Nanette Perrell, then?"

Carpenter straightened up a fraction, disposed of his current mouthful carefully, then asked, "Just how involved are you with her?"

"What difference does that make?"

"Plenty. I prefer to tell the truth as I know it, but not if it means you are likely to take me outside and beat my brains out. You know?"

"That's all right," Solo grinned. "We are not that kind of involved."

"Both of you? Well, that could be one way—I'll tell you, to us unfortunate sensation sellers Nan Perrell is known as the Deadly Peril, or the Kiss of Death, to taste. She is very rich, completely single, and extremely easy to get, at first glance. The pattern runs like this. She catches lions. The society kind. Men who are good at something and fool enough to brag about it. Swimming, shooting, wrestling, swords or arrows, high diving—you name it, brag about it where she can hear, and she'll flutter those baby blue eyes, kid you on to show off—and then smear you at your own game. She is good. Very, very good. What are you two good at?"

"Listening," Kuryakin murmured. "How long has she been fighting this private war of the sexes?"

"About seven or eight years. My guess is her father wanted a boy and never got over it. Jim Perrell was a mining engineer. Tough, like leather and piano wire. You know"–Carpenter pushed his plate away—"I have a theory about her. Someday she is going to run into the man who can beat her. And that will break her all to pieces. Then, if he cared to pick up the pieces, he would be able to do what he liked with her. End of sermon. Anything else I can do?"

"Yes." Kuryakin inserted himself into the discussion now in a tone that made Solo prick up his ears. "I hear rumors about what could be a silly season story. Something about it crazy Hungarian inventor who discovered a new electronic crystal formula that is supposed to amplify mental powers?"

"Hah!" Carpenter threw back his head in a laugh. "We've all heard it. That's the kind of thing that always creeps out of the woodwork about this time of year. Various versions. Some say it's yttrium iron garnet, others claim it's gallium arsenate."

"Arsenide," Kuryakin corrected. "I've checked on it. Peculiar stuff. In certain circumstances it displays negative resistance—"

"Hey!" Carpenter brought his head down again, and his eyes narrowed intently. "It's not a silly season rumor?"

"It may not be. What have you heard?"

"Basically the inventor is supposed to be one Devos Gorchak—"

"Right," Kuryakin nodded. "I know about him. Thrush has used him a time or two, but they won't hold him down, because he's unreliable. Crazy. Besides being a chemical electronics wizard, he is also a mathematics puzzle fanatic. The story I heard is that he's dead, but you can never believe that, with Thrush in the background."

"What'd he do?" Solo demanded, and Carpenter scowled.

"The story is that he perfected this crystal stuff and discovered that merely by touching a bit of it with a finger it amplified certain mental powers. According to the shape, it tunes in to different powers, like command, suggestion, sex attraction, inspiration, that kind of thing. According to one version, Gorchak took a bit of this stuff in his hand down the village street and he had every woman in the place following him like sheep."

"Just holding it in his hand?" asked Solo.

"That's not so unlikely," said Illya. "Remember, every square inch of the skin has millions of nerve endings, which eventually communicate back to the brain. For amplification, that's enough. What really matters is the pattern, the injected signal."

"You mean this is for real, Illya?"

"Real enough to have headquarters seething like a pot on a fire. The version they have is that Gorchak managed to calculate the precise shapes for various potentials and carved the crystals—they are not gallium arsenide, incidentally, but something very similar, we don't know what—he carved a number of crystals in such a way that they can be fitted together to make a cube. And the man who holds that cube in his hand is master. His power will be fantastic and invincible."

"Hold it a minute!" Solo clung to sanity grimly. "Why didn't Gorchak just keep it for himself?"

"Two reasons, so far as I can find out. One, he knew that he himself was unstable. And this is like drugs, like LSD. It expands, so it will make a sane man brilliant, but an unbalanced man would be destroyed by it. And he seems to have had one of his regular differences with the technological hierarchy in policy. So he scattered his carvings all over the place."

"That's right!" Carpenter nodded excitedly. "It's a kind of chase. All sorts of people are after the pieces."

"But there's one really big snag," Kuryakin pointed out. "Gorchak was crazy. He cut those pieces in such a way that just to hold any one in your hand is enough to knock you for a loop in short order. Like a belt of vodka on an empty stomach. So even if one man could assemble them all, he still has to figure out how to put them together."

"Now I get it," Solo groaned. "Twenty-five pieces I have, and two to go. An insoluble problem, he called it. Three by three by three, to make a cube, and he has them all."

"That's right, Napoleon. And he reckons he knows a way to solve the thing. We don't have much time."

"Look!" Carpenter cleared his throat carefully. "If this really is a story, and you get anything, remember where I live, won't you? What I mean, this is a story!"

"If we live to tell it," Kuryakin promised gravely, "you shall have the exclusive."

After he had hurried away, pleading pressure of business, the two men were silent awhile in thought.

"We ought to report this, Illya. Mr. Waverly would skin us if he knew we were holding out."

"Holding out what? The only real clue we have is the Danby affair tonight, and that may not come off. Besides, those crystal parts are not much bigger than a pea. The whole thing—the cube—is only an inch each way. It's not going to be easy to find, even if we are looking in the right place."

"You know," Solo sighed, "this whole business is full of stones; on the beach for target practice, on John Guard's window ledge, now these wild carvings. Even the man who sold me the car was called Stone. But I still can't fit in that hit about 'the seventh stone' at all."

TEN

THE MINI rolled to a stop outside the Perrell residence that evening. Miss Perrell, tall and regal in white and cream, came out to walk around the little red car and turn up her nose at it.

"Charlie Stone's idea of a joke, I suppose," she said, and her voice and manner indicated near freezing conditions as the two men climbed into the Princess alongside her. She got into gear and plunged swiftly into the traffic, keep silent for a long while. Then:

"Been busy, have you?"

"A little," Solo murmured. "Studying maps, learning the district. For instance, Danby Hall is about an hour away isn't it?"

"That's quite right. Of course, I might just have managed without that bit of information, but I'm obliged to you just the same!"

Solo shrugged, exchanged silent glances with Kuryakin and let the silence reign. He had spoken the truth, and now both men were intently on the look-out for sign posts, and one in particular. They saw it together, just a few mile beyond Norwood. A finger post indicating a road that would take them to Piedmont. They exchanged glances again. After a long while Miss Perrell stirred, sighed, and said:

"Since you are my guests, we might as well pretend to be on speaking terms, just for the look of it. Somebody say something."

"A question," Kuryakin murmured. "You've never been to one of these affairs before. Why not?"

"That's my business!" she snapped, and Solo leaned back and smiled.

"End of conversation," he said, and began to whistle silently. The car purred on, swooping through villages and along lesser roads until they came to the crest of a rise and she slowed down.

"There it is," she told them.

They studied it. The massive square frontage, gray and white with white marble pillars, was patched and shaded with ivy. In the growing gloom the light pouring from windows and the open porch doorway helped to conjure up an illusion of an old demon face with a beard, glowing eyes and a fanged mouth wide open in invitation. Miss Perrell flicked on her lights and sent the car sailing down the slope and in between wide open iron scroll gates, up to the forecourt. Out of the car, she led them up a gracious flight of stone steps into the faint babble of many voices and the sound of music. A massive servant garbed like a Roman slave came to take her cream satin cloak and to escort all three of them across an immense tiled hall to the double doors where their hostess stood. Her nod and smile were enough to send the servant stalking away again. Lady Herriott was once again in green, in a tint that no woman in her right mind would have tried to wear, but this time the material was some kind of linen, draped casually about her after the fashion of a Greek chlamys. The whole thing depended on one gold pin, and had that failed, she would have been nude, but for her huge rubies.

"I'm so glad you could come," she said, and made it sound genuine. "You two must have some secret or other. I been trying to lure Nan here for ages, but this is the first time."

"Should we pay now?" Kuryakin asked, and she frowned delicately.

"Not payment, dears. That's illegal. Call it contributions, or donations. You can do that now, if you like. I usually make a little speech when we're all here, and then collect, but you can do it now."

"We'd prefer that," Solo smiled. "You see, we don't really expect to stay very long. Would a thousand dollars be all right? I have the check all ready, if you'll tell me who I make it out to."

He scribbled at her dictation, Miss Perrell standing by in bleak silence. Kuryakin eyed her curiously but made no comment.

"Oh dear," complained Lady Herriott, "I do hope you won't want to dash off, once you see what we have to offer. That would be a pity."

Then they were through the door and stepping down over thick carpet to floor level of an enormous room, almost circular, with a lofty ceiling ablaze with lights, where the great stretch of the center floor was like glass, and tapestry screens had been set up all around the perimeter to give the impression of many secluded little booths, each with a table. There were only a few people present as yet, and an empty place was easy to find. Solo took this first chance to study Miss Perrell in the clear light, and he was quietly impressed.

She had put on a close fitting dress of creamy white satin which came almost to her fingertips, hugged her shape as far as her hips and then descended almost to floor level in luxurious folds. The effect was that of a cloistered nun. Even her makeup was muted. But there was a glitter in her blue eyes that spoke of fires below. Solo noted it and took time to think of something harmless to say. Before he could find it there came a hail from his right and he saw Evadne Herriott approaching across the floor, determination in her every line.

"You," she said, aiming a finger at Kuryakin. "Dance with me!"

It was an order. Solo grinned at his friend and gestured to the floor. Miss Herriott spared him a gleam and said, "I'll be back for you later. If you don't mind, Nan?"

"Why should I mind? I don't own him!"

Which was true but hardly gracious, Solo reflected, watching Illya proceed away with the predatory Evadne. She was worth watching. Her costume—if you could call two small patches of clustered pearls, a bracelet, and the skimpiest kilt ever seen in or out of Scotland, a costume—hampered her movements not at all. Solo stared, recovered breath, turned to his partner.

"Shall we dance? That much, at least, we have in common."

He was wrong. She came into his arms stiffly, and it took only three or four steps to know that the magic she had shown at Ferrier's was no longer working. He guided her to the edge of the floor tactfully, then said:

"Look, lady, if you want to bite or scratch or screech—or even take me outside and shoot me—let's do it and get it over with, but let's not ruin a perfectly good waltz, huh?"

"You talk of ruin, after that charming character reference you just gave Maggie Herriott?"

"I'm sorry, you have to play that bit again, I didn't get it."

"You said," she muttered through her teeth, "that you didn't expect to stay very long. Your tone included me. That will be taken to mean that you are not very interested in the attractions being offered here. From which it follows, as the night the day, that you have your own source of superior supply."

"Oh!" Solo thought it through. "Meaning you?"

"Who else? We came together!"

"But you know I didn't mean anything like that."

"Do I? I don't remember you explaining that part." She smiled pointedly. "Even if it's true, do you think that makes it any better? That you look and then turn up your nose?"

"Hmm!" Solo thought that bit over and sighed. "I can't win. And I thought this was going to be fun!"

All at once her mood changed dramatically. "Does it look like fun?" She gestured to the rapidly filling floor. Solo looked with sharpened eye and curiosity. The men were all of a kind, almost anonymous in formal evening dress. They managed to look furtive, uncomfortable and unwilling, but determined not to show it. The women, though, were another matter. There was every color imaginable, and textures all the way from toweling to the most gossamer sheer, and there was more bared flesh, taken wholesale, than would have been possible anywhere outside a Turkish bath. But they too had that unhappy and determined not to show it look.

"Trying too hard," he guessed. "They've heard the message, that nudity and sex and love are all the rage now, so they are determined to be 'with it.' But it's not really them." He pondered a bit more. "These are all rich people, important people in some way, right? So they have a value on themselves. And they can't let go. They are just going through the motions because it's the thing to do, but they would far rather be smothered in sables and diamonds and make a show that way."

"That's rather profound." Miss Perrell looked impressed despite herself. "Are you quoting somebody?"

"No. Just thinking. After all, this fuss about the flower people, the hippies, is largely because they are rejecting most of the things ordinary people value. And when you think about it, those things are largely outward show. Ostentatious expenditure. Remember what Evadne said about nudists on Levant? You couldn't tell one from the other, they all look the same. People do, underneath. So"—warmed to his theme as the ideas came to him—"if you tend to be a somebody without artificial trappings, you have really got to be good. It isn't something you can buy."