This story was born of a dark night of terror—when escape from this world seemed a priceless thing. Many of us might even want to flee all the way back to the days of the Snake, the eternally young Eve and the—
Golden Apple
By C. H. LIDDELL
■ "Looks as if there might be a feature article in this," McDaniels said, shoving a folder across the desk at me. "You could play up the timely angle. Precious relic brought over from London—"
"Nuts," I said. "They're a dime a dozen."
"Suit yourself." His moon-face turned down again to the flimsies before him.
"Well—" I reached idly to flip the folder open. Extra cash always comes in handy, and I had nothing to do that night anyway. The blue dusk of New York autumn was darkening into windy night outside the Chronicle's windows; no news in particular was coming in on the wires, and I didn't feel much like going home yet. So I glanced through the folder from the morgue.
It didn't tell me much—mostly museum stuff. It seems that some time in the middle ages an unknown craftsman had made a pomander—a golden ball crusted with semi-precious stones, meant to hold perfumes. It was said to be a masterpiece of its type; the workman must have been very nearly as good as Cellini. The thing was hollow, and there was an ingenious secret spring concealed in the filigree. It had been so well concealed that the trick of opening the ball up was a lost art, apparently, up to 1890 or thereabouts when some museum curator—the fellow who'd written all this dope—borrowed the pomander for exhibition and decided to have a try. It took him weeks, expert as he was. But he found the hidden spring, and he drew a chart to show how it was done. I noticed by the scribble on the folder that we'd bought the curator's article and his chart, but never got around to printing them.
And there was a good deal of ancient history, how references to the pomander had appeared from time to time in old manuscripts. It was called the Golden Apple—pomander seems to mean apple—and was undoubtedly valuable, as much for its craftsmanship as for the value of its settings. And that was about all.
"So what?" I asked McDaniels.
He didn't bother to look up. "Some guy named Argyle got in yesterday on the Clipper. Seems he was bombed in London. Came over to recuperate, and brought the relic with him. Here's the address." A grimy hand pushed a scrap of paper toward me. "Want to see what you can dig up?"
I said I would, and reached [or the telephone. The switchboard girl got Argyle for me, and when I'd told him who
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