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"Item Four. The first warning of possible disaster didn't come until the next afternoon, when the foreman of the Satan Mine, one Bill Mahoney, found a note under his cabin door that said, 'Help! Little Angel Mine. Come Quick!' A most strange method to sound an alarm, don't you think? Naturally, the note was unsigned.
"Item Five. The sheriff in Central City stated that my uncle had given him a list of the crew's names with the request that he give it to the newspapers in case of a fatal accident. An odd premonition, to say the least. It was as if Uncle Joshua wanted to be certain there was no mistaking the victims' identities."
Donner pushed back his plate and drank a glass of water. "I find your theory intriguing, but not fully convincing."
"Ah, but finally, perhaps above all, Mr. Donner, I have saved the piece de resistance until last.
"Item Six. Several months after the tragedy, my mother and father, who were on a tour through Europe, saw my uncle standing on the boat-train platform in Southampton, England. My mother often related how she went up to him and said, 'God in heaven, Joshua, is it really you?' The face that stared back at her was bearded and deathly white, the eyes glassy. 'Forget me,' he whispered and then turned and ran. My father chased him down the platform but soon lost him in the crowd."
"The logical answer is a simple case of mistaken identity."
"A sister who doesn't know her own brother?" Young said sarcastically. "Come now, Mr. Donner, surely you could pick your brother out of a crowd?"
"'Fraid not. I was an only child."
"A shame. You missed one of life's great joys."
"At least I didn't have to share my toys." The check arrived and Donner threw a credit card on the tray. "So what you're saying is that the Little Angel disaster was a cover-up."
"That's my theory." Young patted his mouth with his napkin. "No way of proving it, of course, but I've always had a haunting feeling that the Societe des Mines de Lorraine was in back of it."
"Who were they?"
"They were and still are to France what Krupp is to Germany, what Mitsubichi is to Japan, what Anaconda is to the United States."
"Where does the Societe-whatever you call it-fit in?"
"They were the French financiers who hired Joshua Hays Brewster as their engineer-manager of exploration. They were the only ones with enough capital to pay nine men to vanish off the face of the earth."
"But why? Where is the motive?"
Young gestured helplessly. "I don't know." He leaned forward and his eyes seemed to burn. "But I do know that whatever the price, whatever the influence, it took my uncle and his eight-man crew to some unnamed hell outside the country."
"Until the bodies are recovered, who's to say you're wrong."
Young stared at him. "You are a courteous man, Mr. Donner. I thank you."
"For what? A free lunch at the government's expense?"
"For not laughing," Young said softly.
Donner nodded and said nothing. The man across the table had just spliced one tiny strand of the frayed puzzle to the red-bearded bones in the Bednaya Mountain mine. There was nothing to laugh about, nothing to laugh about in the least.
15
Seagram returned the farewell smile from the stewardess, stepped off the United jet, and prepared himself for the quarter-mile trip to the street entrance of the Los Angeles International Airport. He finally reached the front lobby, and unlike Donner, who had rented his car from No. 2, Seagram preferred dealing with No. 1 and signed out a Lincoln from Hertz. He turned onto Century Boulevard, and within a few blocks entered the on-ramp south to the San Diego Freeway. It was a cloudless day and the smog was surprisingly light, allowing a hazy view of the Sierra Madre mountains. He drove leisurely in the right-hand lane of the freeway at sixty miles an hour, while the mainstream of local traffic sped by the Lincoln doing seventy-five and eighty with routine indifference to the posted fifty-five miles an hour limit. He soon left the chemical refineries of Torrance and the oil derricks around Long Beach behind and entered the vastness of Orange County where the terrain suddenly flattened out and gave way to a great, unending sea of tract homes.
It took him a little over an hour to reach the turn-off for Leisure World. It was an idyllic setting golf courses, swimming pools, stables, neatly manicured lawns and park areas, golden-tanned senior citizens on bicycles.
He stopped at the main gate and an elderly guard in uniform checked him through and gave him directions to 261-B Calle Aragon. It was a picturesque little duplex tucked neatly on the slope of a hill overlooking an immaculate park. Seagram parked the Lincoln against the curb, walked through a small courtyard patio filled with rose bushes, and poked the doorbell. The door opened and his fears vanished; Adeline Hobart was definitely not the senile type.
"Mr. Seagram?" The voice was light and cheerful.
"Yes. Mrs. Hobart?"
"Please come in." She extended her hand. The grip was as firm as a man's. "Goodness, nobody's called me that in over seventy years. When I received your long-distance call regarding Jake, I was so surprised I almost forgot to take my Geritol."
Adeline was stout, but she carried her extra pounds easily. Her blue eyes seeme
