The Blue Ice Read Free Page A

arm. ‘We need somebody over there we can trust,’ he said. ‘Somebody who knew Farnell and who’s an expert in this sort of metal. Above all, we need somebody who understands the urgency of the matter. Farnell is dead. I want to know what he discovered before he died. I’m offering you a purpose for your trip – and the necessary foreign exchange.’ He nodded and turned again towards the door. ‘Think it over,’ he said.
    I hesitated. He was climbing the companion. ‘You’ve left your paper,’ I said.
    â€˜You might like to read it,’ he answered.
    I followed him up on to the deck. ‘Good luck!’ he said. Then he climbed the iron ladder to the wharf. I stood and watched his tall, stooping figure till it disappeared between the warehouses. Damn the man! Why did he have to interfere with my plans? To hell with him – I was going down into the sunshine where there was warmth and colour. And then I thought of Farnell and how he’d discovered that seam of copper when everyone else had thought the mine worked out. Why in the world should he go and get himself killed on a glacier?
    â€˜What did the old boy want?’ Dick’s voice brought me back to the present.
    Briefly I told him what had happened. ‘Well?’ he asked when I had finished. ‘What is it to be – the Med or Norway?’ There was a bitter note in his voice as though he were resigned to disappointment. Norway was to him a cold, dark country. He wanted the sun and opportunity.
    â€˜The Mediterranean,’ I said with sudden decision. ‘I’m through with the scramble for metals.’ The wind howled joyfully in the rigging. Then we’d lie out on the deck and swim and laze and drink wine. ‘Go and check that that water tender’s coming alongside before the tide leaves us on the mud,’ I said, and turned and went back to the saloon. I crossed over to the porthole and stood there idly watching a barge drift down with the outgoing tide. But why had Farnell died on the Jostedal? That’s what I couldn’t get out of my mind. During the war he’d probably lived up in the mountains. He knew all the glaciers. I glanced down at the table. The paper that Sir Clinton had left was still there. I read the headlines without recording them. I was thinking of Farnell’s note: If I should die … Why quote that?
    A story ringed in blue pencil caught my eye. It was headed – METAL EXPERT TO VISIT CONVICT’S GRAVE. I picked up the paper. The story was quite short. It read:
    Recent reports of mineral discoveries in Central Norway have aroused fresh interest in the death of convict hero, George Farnell, whose body was discovered a month ago on the Jostedal Glacier in Norway. Farnell was an expert on Norwegian minerals. Castlet Steel and Base Metals & Industries are the firms chiefly interested. Sir Clinton Mann, chairman of B.M. & I., said yesterday, ‘It is possible that Farnell may have discovered something. We intend to investigate.’
    â€˜Big’ Bill Gansert, until recently production chief at B.M. & I.’s metal alloy plant at Birmingham, is the man chosen for the job. He leaves for Norway tomorrow, sailing his own yacht, Diviner , and postponing a planned Mediterranean cruise. If anyone has any information that may assist Gansert in his investigations, they are asked to get in touch with him on board his yacht which is moored at the wharf of Messrs. Crouch and Crouch, Herring-Pickle Street, London, close by Tower Bridge.
    I threw the paper down angrily. What right had he to put out a story like that? – trying to force my hand? I thought of all I’d read about the ruins of Greece and Italy, the pyramids, the primitive islands of the Aegean, the hill towns of Sicily. I suppose I’ve been almost everywhere in the world. But I’ve seen nothing of it. I’ve always been chasing some damned metal, rushing from