Morgan

"Well, what do you think?" Asked Geoffrey.
Morgan unscrewed the loupe. Years of scrutinising gems had over-developed the muscles necessary to hold the eyeglass in place, so his right eye was a mere slit, decorated by a tufty white eyebrow. The other eye was round and bright as an emerald, all seeing. He rode the jolt of the train, asking,
"Where did you get this, my friend?" He held a round black marble in his palm.
"What does it matter?"
"Because if someone stole this, and you acquired it, I want nothing to do with it. Someone will be looking for it."
"Why?" The conductor slid open the door to their compartment, leaning against the door jam, as the train rhythmically swayed over the sleepers. He snapped a hole in each of their card tickets, and bade them a good journey.
"Where." Morgan insisted, when he was gone. 
"In a box."
"This," Morgan held up the black sphere, "was just rolling around in a box?" He was incredulous.
"Not rolling around, it was wrapped up and stuffed in a music box. Hidden, look." Geoffrey lifted his heavy case off the luggage rack. Inside were miniature wooden chairs and beds, dressers, all manner of furniture for dolls houses. He made them from off cuts and sold them to department stores. He passed Morgan a polished mahogany box
"It was in here, jamming the drum. The girl didn't want it, she swapped for something I got for peanuts at a flea sale." The repair was so good the damage now looked just like grain. Morgan turned the key and the serenade rolled its way clearly, tunefully for the first time in decades. Although the view out the window was that of the suburbs, rows of houses, roads, telegraph poles, wires stretching this way and that; the music reminded them of pasture and trees, places and memories from their youth. When it finished, Morgan sighed and held up the black sphere, he spoke softly, still bewitched.
"This is a Black Tahitian Pearl. It obtains this colour from the black tipped lips of the oyster shell it grows within. This is a very dark pearl, its nacre is thick, very thick, its lustre, well it glows does it not, like a peacock's feather burnished in gold. It is large, it has few blemishes. It is an Imperial quality pearl." He considered Geoffrey, and sighed again. "It is going to make us both rather rich."
  

(For Part One see 'Madigan')

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