Page:Weird Tales Volume 02 Number 2 (1937-02).djvu/75

 night Guy Sellers booked a room at the Logue Club. His head was in a whirl. The words of Gloria had stunned him. Her declaration that did not exist and never had existed was amazing. He walked up and down the room as though he were in prison. He questioned his own sanity. All that had happened to him seemed wild now as he viewed each scene in retrospect. If the stories he had told were untrue, where had he been during all those months? Had he been a victim of amnesia? He decided against this theory because there had been no break in the continuity of his experiences; each had dovetailed perfectly into the others. His memory of everything that had happened on those voyages was utterly clear.

Hours passed. He took no thought of time. Piece by piece he tried to fit together that jigsaw puzzle. It was vital for him to prove that his story was not fictitious, to prove that he was not going mad. Unless he could find some trace of The Poppy Pearl, he believed that his mind, if not already deranged, might become so.

Finally he could bear the oppression of his room no longer. In desperation he went downstairs to the library. He wanted to escape from himself. Before the fireplace he found his greatest friend, John Steppling, who looked up lazily as Guy entered. In a few words Guy told him what had happened.

"And now," Guy finished, "I've lost Gloria. You can't appreciate how frightful are my feelings. I'm utterly wretched. Without her, life is useless."

Steppling said nothing. He let Guy talk, well knowing that the best way to suppress any emotion is to give in to it.

When Guy paused, he said calmly, "There never was a problem that couldn't be worked out. At the moment the main thing is for you to think clearly. Don't give way to nerves. Adopt a definite course of action. For example, you could trace your wanderings backward. Start at your arrival in New York."

"I came from Singapore on the steam-ship Caliph to San Francisco, thence by Santa Fe and Twentieth Century to New York. I worked my way from Singapore as one of the crew. When I arrived at San Francisco I wired my father and he sent me funds. His telegram is proof that I was in 'Frisco. The ship's records will prove that I came from Singapore. But past Singapore I cannot trace my wanderings, for it was there that I deserted The Poppy Pearl. I'm afraid that there is only one thing for me to do. I must find Jolly Cauldron."

the following days he passed his entire time loitering about the waterfronts, frequenting the resorts of longshoremen, eating at cheap coffeehouses, and always he made it his business to get into conversation with the seafaring men, who usually were quite willing to talk. But ever the answer was the same.

"The Poppy Pearl? Never heard of her. Perhaps you've got the wrong name."

On one occasion he sat at a table in a café beside a rugged old man of the sea who looked as though he might have been Father Neptune in disguise.

"Never heard o' The Poppy Pearl," he drawled, "but maybe I'd remember her cap'n. Know his name?

"Jolly Cauldron," replied Guy.

The old fellow chuckled softly to himself, and somehow Guy had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being held up to ridicule.

"Jolly Cauldron," explained the old man, "was a smuggler. He was lost at sea more than ten years ago. If you're lookin' for him you'd better sail for