The Hand Of Oberon

A half hour, and I was into town, riding down a quiet street in a residential area, houses all about me. The lights were on at Bill's place. I turned up his driveway. I left Drum in his back yard.

Alice answered my knock, stared a moment, then said. «My God! Carl!»

Minutes later, I was seated in the living room with Bill, a drink on the table to my right. Alice was out in the kitchen, having made the mistake of asking me whether I wanted something to eat.

Bill studied me as he lit his pipe.

«Your ways of coming and going still tend to be colorful.» he said. I smiled.

«Expediency is all,» I said.

«That nurse at the clinic…scarcely anyone believed her story.»

«Scarcely anyone?»

«The minority I refer to is, of course, myself.»

«What was her story?»

«She claimed that you walked to the center of the room, became two-dimensional, and just faded away, like the old soldier that you are, with a rainbowlike accomnaniment.»

«Glaucoma can cause the rainbow symptom. She ought to have her eyes checked.»

«She did,» he said. «Nothing wrong.»

«Oh. Too bad. The next thing that comes to mind is neurological.»

«Come on, Carl. She's all right. You know that.»

I smiled and took a sip of my drink.

«And you,» he said, «you look like a certain playing card I once commented on. Complete with sword. What's going on, Carl?»

«It's still complicated,» I said. «Even more than the last time we talked.»

«Which means you can't give me that explanation yet?»

I shook my head.

«You have won an all-expense tour of my homeland, when this is over,» I said, «if I still have a homeland then. Right now, time is doing terrible things.»

«What can I do to help you?»

«Information, please. My old house. Who is the guy you have fixing the place up?»

«Ed Wellen. Local contractor. You know him, I think. Didn't he put in a shower for you, or something?»

«Yes, yes he did… I remember.»

«He's expanded quite a bit. Bought some heavy equipment. Has a number of fellows working for him now. I handled his incorporation.»

«Do you know who he's got working at my place - now?»

«Offhand, no. But I can find out in just a minute.» He moved his hand to rest on the telephone on the side table. «Shall I give him a ring?»

«Yes,» I said, «but there is a little more to it than that. There is only one thing in which I am really interested. There was a compost heap in the back yard. It was there the last time I passed this way. It is gone now. I have to find out what became of it.»

He cocked his head to the right and grinned around his pipe.

«You serious?» he finally said.

«Sure as death,» I said. «I hid something in that heap when I crawled by, decorating the snow with my precious bodily fluids. I've got to have it back now.»

«Just what is it?»

«A ruby pendant.»

«Priceless, I suppose.»

«You're right.»

He nodded, slowly.

«If it were anyone else, I would suspect a practical joke,» he said. «A treasure in a compost heap… Family heirloom?»

«Yes. Forty or fifty carats. Simple setting. Heavy chain.»

He removed his pipe and whistled softly.

«Mind if I ask why you put it there?»

«I'd be dead now if I hadn't.»

«Pretty good reason.»

He reached for the phone again.

«We've had some action on the house already,» he remarked. «Pretty good, since I haven't advertised yet. Fellow'd heard from someone who'd heard from someone else. I took him over this morning. He's thinking about it. We may move it pretty quick.»

He began to dial.

«Wait,» I said. «Tell me about him.»

He cradled the phone, looked up.

«Thin guy,» he said. «Redhead. Had a beard. Said he was an artist. Wants a place in the country.»

«Son of a bitch!» I said, just as Alice came into the room with a tray.

She made a tsking sound and smiled as she delivered it to me.

«Just a couple hamburgers and some leftover salad,» she said. «Nothing to get excited about.»

«Thank you. I was getting ready to eat my horse. I'd have felt bad afterward.»

«I don't imagine he'd have been too happy about it himself. Enjoy,» she said, and returned to the kitchen.

«Was the compost heap still there when you took him over?» I asked.

He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow.

«No,» he said after a moment. «The yard was already clear.»

«That's something, anyway,» I said, and I began eating.

He made the call, and he talked for several minutes. I got the drift of things from his end of the conversation, but I listened to the entire thing after he had hung up, while I finished the food and washed it down with what was left in my glass.

«He hated to see good compost go to waste,» Bill said. «So he pitched the heap into his pickup just the other day and took it out to his farm. He dumped it next to a plot he intends to cultivate, and he has not had a chance to spread it yet. Says he did not notice any jewelry, but then he could easily have missed it.»

I nodded.

«If I can borrow a flashlight, I had better get moving.»

«Sure. I will drive you out,» he said.

«I do not want to be parted from my horse at this point.»