Martin Thorpe was waiting in his chief’s outer office when Sir James arrived at five past nine, and followed him straight in.

“What have you got?” demanded Sir James Manson, even while he was taking off his vicuña topcoat and hanging it in the closet. Thorpe flicked open a notebook he had pulled from his pocket and recited the result of his investigations of the night before.

"One year ago we had a survey team in the republic lying to the north and east of Zangaro. It was accompanied by an aerial reconnaissance unit hired from a French firm. The area to be surveyed was close to, and partly on the border with, Zangaro. Unfortunately there are few topographical maps of that area, and no aerial maps at all. Without Decca or any other form of beacon to give him cross-bearings, the pilot used speed and time of flight to assess the ground he had covered.

“One day when there was a following wind stronger than forecast, he flew several times up and down the entire strip to be covered by aerial survey, to his own satisfaction, and returned to base. What he did not know was that on each downwind leg he had flown over the border and forty miles into Zangaro. When the aerial film was developed, it showed that he had overshot the survey area by a large margin.”

“Who first realized it? The French company?” asked Manson.

"No, sir. They developed the film and passed it to us without comment, as per our contract with them. It was up to the men in our own aerial-survey department to identify the areas on the ground represented by the pictures they had. Then they realized that at the end of each run was a stretch of territory not in the survey area. So they discarded the pictures, or at any rate put them on one side. They had realized that in one section of pictures a range of hills was featured that could not be in our survey area because there were no hills in that part of the area.

“Then one bright spark had a second look at the surplus photographs and noticed a part of the hilly area, slightly to the east of the main range, had a variation in the density and type of the plant life. The sort of thing you can’t see down on the ground, but an aerial picture from three miles up will show it up like a beermat on a billiard table.”

“I know how it’s done,” growled Sir James. “Go on.”

“Sorry, sir, I didn’t know this. It was new to me. So, anyway, half a dozen photos were passed to someone in the Photo-Geology section, and he confirmed from a blow-up that the plant life was different over quite a small area involving a small hill about eighteen hundred feet high and roughly conical in shape. Both sections prepared a report, and that went to the head of Topographic section. He identified the range as the Crystal Mountains and the hill as probably the original Crystal Mountain. He sent the file to Overseas Contracts, and Willoughby, the head of O.C., sent Bryant down there to get permission to survey.”

“He didn’t tell me,” said Manson, now seated behind his desk.

“He sent a memo, Sir James. I have it here. You were in Canada at the time and were not due back for a month. He makes plain he felt the survey of that area was only an off-chance, but since a free aerial survey had been presented to us, and since Photo-Geology felt there had to be some reason for the different vegetation, the expense could be justified. Willoughby also suggested it might serve to give his man Bryant a bit of experience to go it alone for the first time. Up till then he had always accompanied Willoughby.”

“Is that it?”

“Almost. Bryant got visaed up and went in six months ago. He got permission and arrived back after three weeks. Four months ago Ground Survey agreed to detach an unqualified prospector-cum-surveyor called Jack Mulrooney from the diggings in Ghana and send him to look over the Crystal Mountains, provided that the cost would be kept low. It was. He got back three weeks ago with a ton and a half of samples, which have been at the Watford laboratory ever since.”

“Fair enough,” said Sir James Manson after a pause. “Now, did the board ever hear about all this?”

“No, sir.” Thorpe was adamant. “It would have been considered much too small. I’ve been through every board meeting for twelve months, and every document presented, including every memo and letter sent to the board members over the same period. Not a mention of it. The budget for the whole thing would simply have been lost in the petty cash anyway. And it didn’t originate with Projects, because the aerial photos were a gift from the French firm and their ropy old navigator. It was just an ad hoc affair throughout and never reached board level.”

James Manson nodded in evident satisfaction. “Right Now, Mulrooney. How bright is he?”

For answer, Thorpe tended Jack Mulrooney’s file from Personnel. “No qualifications, but a lot of practical experience, sir. An old sweat. A good African hand.”

Manson flicked through the file on Jack Mulrooney, scanned the biography notes and the career sheet since the man had joined the company. “He’s experienced all right,” he grunted. "Don’t underestimate the old

Africa hands. I started out in the Rand, on a mining camp. Mulrooney just stayed at that level. But never condescend; such people are very useful. And they can be perceptive."

He dismissed Martin Thorpe and muttered to himself, “Now let’s see how perceptive Mr. Mulrooney can be.”

He depressed the intercom switch and spoke to Miss Cooke. “Is Mr. Mulrooney there yet, Miss Cooke?”

“Yes, Sir James, he’s here waiting.”

“Show him in, please.”

Manson was halfway to the door when his employee was ushered in. He greeted him warmly and led him to the chairs where he had sat with Bryant the previous evening. Before she left, Miss Cooke was asked to produce coffee for them both. Mulrooney’s coffee habit was in his file.

Jack Mulrooney in the penthouse suite of a London office building looked as out of place as Thorpe would have in the dense bush. His hands hung way out of his coat sleeves, and he did not seem to know where to put them. His gray hair was plastered down with water, and he had cut himself shaving. It was the first time he had ever met the man he called the gaffer. Sir James used all his efforts to put him at ease.

Just before he left, Mulrooney had reiterated his view. “There’s tin down there, Sir James. Stake my life on it. The only thing is, whether it can be got out at an economical figure.”

Sir James had slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry about that. We’ll know as soon as the report comes through from Watford. And don’t worry, if there’s an ounce of it that I can get to the coast below market value, we’ll have the stuff. Now how about you? What’s your next adventure?”

“I don’t know, sir. I have three more days’ leave yet; then I report back to the office.”

“Like to go abroad again?” said Sir James expansively.

“Yes, sir. Frankly, I can’t take this city and the weather and all.”

“Back to the sun, eh? You like the wild places, I hear.”

“Yes, I do. You can be your own man out there.”

“You can indeed.” Manson smiled. “You can indeed. I almost envy you. No, dammit, I do envy you. Anyway, we’ll see what we can do.”

Two minutes later Jack Mulrooney was gone. Man-son ordered Miss Cooke to send his file back to Personnel, rang Accounts and instructed them to send Mulrooney a £ 1000 merit bonus and make sure he got it before the following Monday, and rang the head of Ground Survey.

“What surveys have you got pending in the next few days or just started?” he asked without preamble.

There were three, one of them in a remote stretch of the extreme north of Kenya, close to the Somaliland border, where the midday sun fries the brain like an egg in a pan, the nights freeze the bone marrow like