54[Idriess, Ion L., 1937, Forty Fathoms Deep, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, Chapter 23]

CHAPTER XXIII

PROSPECTING THE OCEAN FLOOR

Fortune smiled at last on Bernard Bardwell for, in October 1930, brother Beresford found a beautiful pearl during a lucky cruise in the Raymond. A full double button, ninety grains weight uncleaned, this big fellow gave them a wonderful thrill. Almost encircling it, however, was

a dint in the skin as if some sea-imp had drawn heavily around it with a blunt lead-pencil. And equally placed around this indentation were seven distinct, apparent pinpricks. Bardwell, with Robinson the bank manager, took it to Elles. Carefully the pearl magician examined it, turning it between his finger-tips as if it were a living thing. He put it down with a mingled sigh and smile.

"You may have thousands. You may have nothing. Impossible to tell whether that dint goes right into the gem. If not, it is worth thousands. If so, it is worth nothing. You can sell it as a gamble to a buyer, now, for hundreds. Put if I clean it and the dint comes out, you make thousands. If the mark stays in, you lose everything:"

Bardwell and his brother were experiencing a long-continued run of misfortune. They needed a few hundred pounds.

"Clean it," said Bardwell. Elles--almost sighed.

"They almost always take the gamble," be murmured. "I have seen high hopes and disappointments in this little room." He picked up the pearl and reached for a tiny tool. As he bent over the pearl he almost whispered: "I work on the hearts of men, as well as the hearts of pearls."

He held it in his left hand by forefinger and thumb, occasionally using the second finger. His right hand wielded that tiny three-cornered file, the tips of its three edges most carefully sharpened. He had a glass screwed over his eye; his face expressed intense concentration. Delicately he proceeded to shred its outer skin from the pearl. Quietness possessed the office. Somewhere, from far in the house, there came the busy ticking of a clock. After half an hour he laid down the pearl, sat back, took the glass from his eye, and smiled. That smile smoothed the tense face to normal.

"So far, it is well," he murmured. "Just one petal from the rose. But too early yet to see into its heart." For half an hour he talked softly of happenings in that little office; experiences when fortune hung on a hair; when the edges of his tool seemed cutting into the very breaths of men. As he talked, he gently massaged the muscles of his hands. Then he reached for the eyeglass, the pearl, and the tool. The clock could again be heard ticking within the house. In another half-hour he laid aside his work, massaging his hands. "Come again to-morrow morning," he said. "I must not overstrain. One little nick too much, and you lose a thousand pounds. One tiny nick too little and you lose a thousand."

Towards the end of the following morning's sitting they saw the shadow of a flicker on the tense face, they watched his face as he was watching the pearl. At last he smiled:

"I think you will have luck!" Bardwell sighed his relief. "Congratulations!" said the bank manager heartily.

On a platter of mother of pearl were the tiny peelings from the pearl, little gleaming shreds of pearl-skin, four grains' weight of them. But the pearl itself glowed there now, a gem of moonlit loveliness tinged with the faintest pink.

"A beauty," exclaimed the bank manager. "Rosae too!" Its loveliness was now only marred by a trace of one pinprick.

"Come along the morning after to-morrow," said the Cingalee wearily. "I finish it then. I work for no one tomorrow."

"Why not work to-morrow, Mr Elles?" inquired the bank manager curiously.

"I massage my hands, bathe them in water. I think big commission in this:"

They returned on the appointed day. Elles took up his tool. Bardwell shivered inwardly.

"Here goes another grain!" he thought. No, not quite half a grain. After long examination, with touches such as a fairy surgeon might have envied, tiny powdery flakes slid from the pearl down the point of the tool. The last pinprick had vanished. Elles laid down the gem with a sigh. "Five thousand pounds," he murmured.

The pearl, cleaned, weighed eighty-six and a half grains. The bank sold it for Bardwell for four thousand pounds. He tried for another two hundred to cover Elles's commission. The envelope came back marked:

"Four thousand pounds. Not a penny more."

Bardwell accepted.

...