by itself, the chance encounter on the island had seemed only moderately interesting. barney was sitting behind the wheel of an ancient automobile, near a private home in which a business negotiation of some consequence was being conducted. the business under discussion happened to be barney's, but it would have been inexpedient for him to attend the meeting in person. waiting for his associates to wind up the matter, he was passing time by studying an old man who was fishing from a small boat offshore, a hundred yards or so below the road. after a while the old fellow brought the boat in, appeared a few minutes later along the empty lane carrying his tackle and an apparently empty gunny sack, and trudged unheedingly past the automobile and its occupant. as he went by, barney had a sudden sense of recognition. then, in a flash, his mind jumped back twelve years.
dr. oliver b. mcallen. twelve years ago the name had been an important one in mcallen's field; then it was not so much forgotten as deliberately buried. working under government contract at one of the big universities, mcallen had been suddenly and quietly retired. barney, who had a financial interest in one of the contracts, had made inquiries; he was likely to be out of money if mcallen had been taken from the job. eventually he was informed, in strict confidence, that dr. mcallen had flipped. under the delusion of having made a discovery of tremendous importance, he had persuaded the authorities to arrange a demonstration. when the demonstration ended in complete failure, mcallen angrily accused some of his most eminent colleagues of having sabotaged his invention, and withdrew from the university. to protect a once great scientist's name, the matter was being hushed up.
so mallorca was where the addled old physicist had elected to end his days—not a bad choice either, barney had thought, gazing after the retreating figure. pleasant island in a beautiful sea—he remembered having heard about mcallen's passion for angling.
a day later, the mallorca business profitably concluded, barney flew back to los angeles. that evening he entertained a pair of tanned and shapely ladies whose idea of high fun was to drink all night and go deep-sea fishing at dawn. barney shuddered inwardly at the latter notion, but promised to see the sporting characters to the sweetwater beach municipal pier in time to catch a party boat, and did so. one of the girls, he noticed not without satisfaction—he had become a little tired of the two before morning—appeared to turn a delicate green as she settled herself into the gently swaying half-day boat beside the wharf. barney waved them an amiable farewell and was about to go when he noticed a plump old man sitting in the stern of the boat among other anglers, rigging up his tackle. barney checked sharply, and blinked. he was looking at oliver b. mcallen again.
it was almost a minute before he felt sure of it this time. not that it was impossible for mcallen to be sitting in that boat, but it did seem extremely unlikely. mcallen didn't look in the least like a man who could afford nowadays to commute by air between the mediterranean and california. and barney felt something else trouble him obscurely as he stared down at the old scientist; a notion of some kind was stirring about in the back corridors of his mind, but refused to be drawn to view just then.
