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Title of Story
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The Mendax Gold Saver
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Story Summary
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Mendax creates a portable device that quickly extracts gold from sea-water. This is probably inspired by the Argyle 1905-1906 gold-from-seawater plant at Broken Head considering the story is set in the past. However as the the Argyle plant closed and no company has come up with a more efficient method Mendaxs invention is still science fiction.
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Attributed Author
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Cox, Erle
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Nationality
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Australian
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Year For Sorting
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1920
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Date Range
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1920-08-14-1920-08-14
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Links in To Be Continued
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NA
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Newspaper Name Location Years
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The Australasian
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OCR from TBC and Trove
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THE STORYTELLER.————————————THE MENDAX GOLD SAVER. By ERLE COX.The trouble commenced with Merton.He invented a new process for treating low-grade gold-bearing soil. It was more simple than the cyanide process, and, according to Merton, would give payable results if applied to crushed bricks. His enthusiasm and Rashleigh's carefully reasoned argu-ments induced me to invest rather more then I should have in purchasing an inter-est in a syndicate to exploit Merton's invent-tion. It was this business that brought Merton and Rashleigh to my house oneafternoon to settle some final details; and I think it must have been some devil of unreason with a warped sense of humour that urged Mendax to choose the sametime for one of his rare visits. The inven-tor and the promoter were deep in their discussion, to which I was listening with all the intelligence I could muster, whenMajor Mendax arrived. He came through the open French window, unheralded, and so left no opportunity for evading the inflic-tion. That he was intruding on a private con-ference must have been apparent even toMendax, and an ordinary ma&n would haveapologised and retired, but Mendax had acode of social decency that was, praise be, peculiarly his own. He included the three of us in a general bob of his head, and strolling to the table at which we sat, heleisurely lowered his long, thin body into the only vacant chair.I had no course but to introduce him to my friends, who, in spite of their politeness, could hardly disguise their surprise at his inopportune appearance. If he noticed his rather frigid reception, Mendax chose toignore it completely. "Having a confab? Don't mind me. I'll just sit here and have a smoke until you have finished." The position was awkward, but I turned to the others. "Major Mendax is not interested in business matters," I said. "He will not mind in the least if you go on talking." "Not in the least" echoed Mendax, pulling his pipe from his pocket,and settling him-self back in his chair. The others looked rather upset, but, in response to a covert glance from me, commenced rather haltingly to take up their debate at the point where it had stopped so abruptly.I had more than one reason for discom-fort at the moment. First there was Men-dax's intention of smoking. It was purely characteristic of him that he affected a to-bacco that belonged to the dark ages, known as "Navy Twist," of appalling strength and odour. Rashleigh and Mer-ton were both drawing at "Perfectos" that probably cost a florin apiece. My second cause for uneasiness was that while he hacked up his abomination with a blunt penknife Mendax's eyes were riveted on the blue prints of the gold-saving plant that were spread on the table. I knew he could no more resist the lure of the blue prints than a cat could resist cream. Pre-sently he struck a match (on the leg of my table), and sent a cloud of poisonous gas into the atmosphere that blotted out the aroma of the "Perfectos" in one horrible spasm, and at the same moment his long, bony arm reached out and gathered in the blue prints. Merton and Rashleigh paused in their talk, and the latter flung his half-smoked cigar into the fireplace in disgust. I think it was only the imploring look in my eyes, and their recognition of my embar-rassing position as host, that prevented an outbreak from both, but they resumed their talk with evident difficulty.Meanwhile the culprit himself was ob-viously unconscious of having in any way offended. In justice I will say this much for him, that I do not think that one word of the business talk reached his understand-ing. We might have been a thousand miles away for all the interest he took. He just humped his ungainly body into a heap and pored over the prints, bearing a re-markable likeness to the well-known sketch by Furniss, entiled, "Since when I haveused no other."For quite half an hour he sat sending out clouds of abomination. We took no fur-ther notice of him beyond opening another window and holding our handkerchiefs to our noses. Politeness had to make that much concession to Navy Twist.Suddenly Mendax looked up, and his voice jarred into our talk. Circular saws might have been sharpened on his voice. "Who is Gordon Essex Merton?" he asked,tapping the blue prints with his knotty forefinger. "I am," answered the owner of the name, coldly."Urr—Are you the same man who wrote an article on "Static Electricity" in the March number of 'The Engineer?'" wenton Mendax, with evident interest."Yes," replied Merton, so briefly that itevident that his politeness was fast reaching its limit of perfect elasticity. Mendax ignored the very patent snub."Urr—You are doubtless then an in-terested amateur," he said smoothly (for him).Merton stiffened in his chair, and Ragh-leigh, ever a man of action, watched him carefully through half-closed eyes. "I am," spoke up the outraged inventor with crush-ing dignity, "the managing director and su-perintendent of the Vulcan Power Com-pany, the latest concern of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. I hold three scien-tific degrees, and I am a Fellow of the Royal Society."Mendax's lopsided smile showed one yel-low canine tooth: "Urr. That may oc-count for it. However, I merely asked be-cause it so happens that I wrote a criticism on your article in the following month's issue of the same journal."Merton grabbed the edge of the table in front of him, and with chin out-thrust he glared at Mendax with murder in his eye. "Did you sign it, "M.X.?" he spat out.Mendax nodded. "That was my nomde plume."Meiion breathed hard for a moment, then: "Let me tell you, sir, you're a damned insulting ill-bred scribbler of egotistical hogwash."I knew Mendax too well not to know that he was enjoying himself tho-roughly. He looked at me mali-ciously. "Really, I can't help observing that your good friend's manners are almost as elementary as his knowledge of static electricity.""And your methods and manners, sir, stink almost as vilely as your pipe," thun-dered Merton.Rashleigh flung himself on Merton and pinned his arms, while I pushed Mendaxback into his chair before he had time to uncoil himself properly. Merton's blind reference to his pipe was about the only tender spot on which he could have flicked Mendax.It took ten minutes wrangle before the meeting regained some semblance of order, but the two men eventually subsided into a sort of armed peace that it would have taken very little to terminate. Mendax had gone as near to an apology as I had ever heard from him, which made me suspect that he had something to gain thereby. When the atmosphere became a little less electrical (the storm, had not, unfortunately, affected the thick-ness of it) Mendax said, "Sorry I hurt your feelings, but it was your signature on these blue prints that attracted my notice. If you hadn't been so thin-skinned—""Thin-skinned be hanged! A man would have wanted a chilled steel hide to put up with your—"Here Rashleigh cut in. "What were you going to say, Major Mendax?""Merely" replied Mendax, "that these drawings strike me as being very remark-able. A gold-saving device, I take it?""My invention, sir," said Merton trucu-lently, "and my plans, sir. The patents be-long to a syndicate of which we three are members. Thev are remarkable," he went on with a bellicose air. "It's the most effective system that was ever invented," and his tone carried a challenge to Mendax to deny it."Urr—My dear sir, I find them very re-markable because the inventor has circled round and round and trampled over and over a very startling theory with-out having sufficient intelligence to discern it." He spoke as a much-tried head master would to a rather thick-headed boy. It took five minutes to induce Merton to take off his hat and resume his seat, and another five for their gross personalities to cease. Thank good-ness, during the interlude Mendax pocketed his pipe.It was Rashleigh who poured oil on the troubled waters. Mendax's statement had roused his, business instincts. "Do you mean to infer" he said, "that the system is capable of improvement." Merton had subsided into sulky silence, but he eyed his tormentor malevolently."Nothing of the kind" grated Mendax. "I do say, however, that the drawings con-tain the germ of an idea that is worthmillions.""Fiddlesticks and flapdoodle!" This from Merton.He might have said move, but Rashleigh quietened him with a gesture. He was a bloodhound on the trail now. I had heard Rashleigh say that he would sell churches to the Devil had there been any financial benefit accruing. "Here," he said, "could you prove what you say?""Never say anything I can't prove," snapped Mendax."Well," went on Rashleigh, "here's a pro-posal. We want some more money in the syndicate." (That was true.) "Come in with us, and we will make you an offer for your work as well."Mendax scowled at the blue prints, and then said "I've made it a rule never tomake commercial profit from my work.I like to keep my hands clean." Rashleighflushed. "But in this case I will make anexception. My sole reason for doing so is to bring home to your interesting friend," here he looked at Merton, "what an abso-lutely futile mind he has."Now Rashleigh knew as much of science as Mendax did of high finance, but he was a faultless judge of character, and had summed Mendax up to a nicety. "Would you be game to back your opinion to the extent of £500," he asked with a nicely-toned faint of doubt in his voice.For answer Mendax drew a cheque-book from his pocket, and spread it before him. "To whom shall I make it payable?" he asked, grabbing a pen; and when Rash-leigh had told him he filled in the form with his awful scrawl, and then ripped it out and tossed it across the table."Hold on," said Rashleigh, "how long will you want to experiment?""A week or ten days," grunted Mendax. "I want these plans too," he said, gather-ing up the blue prints. Rashleigh nodded. Merton had reached a stage at which cold rage had left him speechless. When Rash-leigh passed over a stamped and signed re-ceipt. Mendax promptly tore it in pieces and dropped it on the floor. Then he relit his pipe and put on his hat; and, wonder of wonders, he shook hands with me, a courtesy I had never before known him offer anyone. "Thanks, old man," he said, "for a very pleasant afternoon," and with scarcely a glance at the other two, he de-parted, leaving behind an evil odour of Navy Twist."A very pleasant afternoon," repeated Merton, softly. "May the good Lord spare me from being round when he's having an unpleasant one," he added, piously.Rashleigh turned to me. "By Jove, that is the Grand Master of the Order of Hor-rible Hogs. Is his cheque O.K.?""Good for another two noughts after it," I answered.Merton glared at the ceiling, "Is that the Mendax who wrote the treatise on the ultra violet rays?" And when I answered in the affirmative, he said, "To think that such a beast could have written such a book."Exactly one week afterwards Mendax rang me up and asked me—no, I had better be precise, ordered me—to be at the PortMelbourne town pier at half-past 2, andbring those two friends of mine as well. In answer to a question, I admitted that I was capable of managing a boat. He said he had secured a suit-able one, which would be in readiness for us. He also mentioned that he did not care much whether the commercial animal turned up, but at all costs I was to have Merton at our meeting.We arrived slightly before the appointed time, though I had had some difficulty in persuading Merton to make one of the party. I was obliged to admit that our outing included a boating expedition ofsome sort, the reason for which I could offer no explanation. Merton, whom I could hardly blame, contended that he didn't relish the prospect of the society of Mendax in a rowing boat even for a short period; indeed he claimed that he would feel cramped if he were on the Aquitania with him. Rashleigh shied at first until I pointed out that it wouldnot be safe to allow Merton and Mendax to come into such close proximity without some controlling influence. I explained to Rashleigh that he would soon get used to Mendax's peculiar manner, and would not notice it. Rashleigh said that, while I might be right, he had never heard of any-one getting used to the toothache.Exactly on time Mendax's big touring car stopped at the foot of the pier. As usual he drove himself, because he could never get a man who would stay in his service longer than 24 hours. In the back of his car were a suitcase and a wooden box about the size of a kerosene case. He lifted out the suitcase himself and consigned the other to my care. It nearly broke both my back and Rashleigh's by the time we had carried it to the wait-ing boat. Mendax remarked that it con-tained storage batteries; had he said a battery of artillery I would have credited it.I will pass over our embarkation. Men-dax did nothing but stand on the jetty and criticise. Merton, with wrath in his heartand vitriol on his lips, answered him nobly, so nobly indeed that Rashleigh confided to me that he left nothing for anyone else to say. When we pushed off Mendax and Mer-ton were in the stern, I was rowing with my legs straddling the heavy case, and Rashleigh was in the bows. The boat was down by the stern a good deal, which did not add to my comfort.We rowed to a spot about midway be-tween the railway and the town piers, at the former of which lay the long black hull of R.M.S. Malabar, and there at the order of Mendax I ceased rowing and let herdrift.Then Mendax commenced his explanation to his audience of three, who heard his amazing address with very mixed feelings. To begin with, he stated that sea water contained on an average .06 of a grain of gold to the ton in solution, and that Mer-ton's gold-saving scheme had given the idea by which it would be practicable to de-posit this gold in a pure state on copper, in fact, roughly speaking, he had evolved anapparatus that would attract gold as a magnet attracts steel. "If," he went on, "by using the apparatus I have brought with me I can procure, say, six or eightounces of gold in the afternoon, then per-haps you will agree that I am not the fool of the party.""If—," said Merton with undisguised con-tempt. "We'll give it a flyer, anyway," said Rashieigh, "we owe it to the syndicate not to turn down a possible chance," but hiswords did not sound enthusiastic. Mendax got to work. From the suitcase he pro-duced what appeared to be a copper frame, from the edges of which, and from some bars which crossed it, depended some dozen pieces of copper tubing, about the length and thickness of candles, to all of which were run wires that were connected with two thick insulated wires, that were in their turn hitched up to a black box in the suit-case, and afterwards to the box containing the storage batteries. After much adjust-ment the copper frame was securely lashed to a strong hemp-line, and under Mendax's directions Rashleigh and I lowered it over-side to a depth of about 30ft. After that we drifted, while Mendax and Merton wrangled over the storage battery, and per-formed rites from which we two ignorantones were excluded by common consent. One point I gathered from the riot in the stern was that the current Mendax was using would be effective over a radius of about two thousand feet.Presently I noticed that we were drifting rather quickly, and were making straight for the Malabar, and just about the same time Rashieigh drew my attention to the behaviour of the line. Instead of dead-weight of copper at the end of it, it might as well have had a lively and sizable fish on it, from the way it ran taut from the cleat to which it was fastened to an angle of 45 degrees with the surface. I was directing Mendax's attention to the pheno-menon, when the pull on the line swung the bow of the boat round, and before we could get the oars out our craft rammed R.M.S. Malabar amidships, with a jolt that sent Rashleigh sprawling, and bumped Mendax and Merton together in a manner which gave me intense satisfaction.I expected to hear some remarks on our performance from the mail steamer, but, strange to say, the incident passed un-noticed, and in the few minutes that en-sued we became aware that something was causing unusual excitement on board; suffi-cient, indeed, to cause even Mendax to no-tice it, even during the trouble we had to pull clear of the steamer's towering flank. Eventually Rashleigh took one oar and I the other, and it was like pulling a barge to get the boat back to our first position between the two piers, for she had gone down by the head as much as she had beendown at the stern before. That the ex-periment was not going according to time-table I could judge from the scowl on the unlovely face of Mendax, and when Rashleigh suggested that the line had fouled something he agreed to an investigation.An investigation was not such a simple matter after all. I found that I could not haul in unaided, and it took all the united strength of me and Rashleigh, and a large amount of advice from Mendax, before we drew the "fixin's" to the surface, and then we almost dropped it in our excitementwhen we saw what we had hauled up. How-ever, with a final heave, we landed the whole concern in the suitcase in the bottom of the boat. Then we sat back, and for a while the four of us stared into the suit-case and then at each other without being able to find words to fit the situation. Itwas an unforgettable sight. The wholeframe with its pendant tubes was one mass of gold, not a mere coating, but an almost solid mass. It was gold that seemed to live, for it twisted and wreathed in festoons round the bars with that peculiar brist-ling appearance that iron filings have when magnetised.Mendax was the first to speak. "Switch off that current," he snapped to Merton, and in a moment the whole brilliant, glittering, mass subsided, leaving the cop-per bare and free from its glorious massof wealth.Then our tongues were loosened. Mer-ton so far forgot himself as to pat Men-dax on the back, and Mendax had so far forgotten himself as not to resent the familiarity. While we gabbled and shook hands joyfully, Mendax sat frowning at the mass of gold before him, occasionally run-ning his fingers through it thoughtfully. Then he stooped suddenly, and before we could interfere he took the suitcase in his octopus-like arms, and, with a heave of his shoulders, he cascaded the whole glorious mass overboard. That he didn't upset the boat was a miracle.To our howl of indignant protest he only grunted that we could easily get more when we wanted it, but that at present it behoved us to get back to the shore, and to lose no time in the going. No other explanation would he give, and there was nothing for it but to obey his orders and pull back to the pier.He piled us into his car with the suit-case and the box of storage batteries, and drove in grim silence, with a twisted grin on his face, while we three excitedly spent large fortunes and indulged in mutual con-gratulations. It was when we had pulled up at the Flinders street station, where we had asked him to drop us, that he spoke for the first time on the subject of his invention. "If you men will take my ad-vice, the less you have to say about to-day's work the less you will have to regret. You may get congratulations, but unless I'm mistaken you are more likely to get five years quod apiece, me included." The car slipped away and left us mystified and up-set.I knew morning what he meantwhen I opened my paper at breakfast. I read that a case containing 5,000 ounces of specie had been dropped between the pier and the boat while the Malabar was being loaded. Between the time it had been dropped and the time the divers had gone to retrieve it the case had been broken open, and its entire contents had been stolen. The police were trying to ob-tain a clue that would lead to the capture of four men in a rowing boat whose actions at the time were extremely suspicious.I went to the telephone. "Urr—" grated Mendax in answer, "so you know now do you? I knew at once that it was all alluvial gold, and that we had tapped the wrong line. I suppose that case was smashed in the fall and the magnet did the rest. Anyway I've proved what an ass Merton is." He rang off and that was the end. He point blank refused to let us into the secret of his invention, and said we'd value money more if we worked for it honestly. For his part he had enough for his requirements. Rashleigh stormed and raged and pleaded, and even threatened him with an action to force him to hand over his invention to the syndicate. Men-dax only laughed uproariously and deri-sively, and asked Rashleigh how he would explain the incident of the Malabar's gold when he was putting his case before the Court. Finally he relinquished all claim to the £500 he had paid into the syndicate, saying that it was worth that amount to settle with Merton. Rashleigh summed up the situation. "I said he was the Grand Master of the Order of Horrible Hogs, and I withdraw the statement and apologise; the hogs have done nothing that I know of to warrant such an insult."Merton is dead, and Rashleigh is, I be-lieve, a munition millionaire in the United States, and I am not very particular about the feelings of Mendax. Therefore I give the true story of the Malabar gold rob-bery, especially as the lapse of time would make it somewhat difficult for the police to work up a case, even by producing my narrative in court. I could always swear that it is founded strictly on fiction, and defy the law to prove otherwise.
