The Dark Lady

yet,” he interrupted. “Think about it for a day or two, and you'll see that what I want can't possibly harm Claiborne or the artists.”
    “Even if that were so, it would be disloyal to Malcolm Abercrombie for me to turn such information over to you, when he is employing me to find such information exclusively for him.”
    “It's not disloyal,” he said irritably. “I told you: I don't want the damned paintings!” He paused and forced a tight smile to his lips. “We'll discuss it again in a few days. In the meantime, let me give you something as a gesture of my good faith.”
    “I cannot accept your money,” I said. “Since I will not leave Claiborne to work for you, accepting payment would be unethical.”
    “Who's talking about payment? I have some information that will make your current job a little easier.”
    “My job?”
    He nodded his head. “Have you got a pocket computer with you?”
    “Yes,” I said, withdrawing it from my pouch.
    “Activate it.”
    I did as he asked.
    “Contact the Deluros VIII Cultural Heritage Museum,” he said, speaking very slowly and enunciating each word clearly so that the machine could not misinterpret him, “and use Access Code 2141098 to call up material on Melaina, a goddess who was also known as the Black Mare of Death; Eresh-Kigal, the Goddess of the Underworld; and Macha, the Irish Queen of Phantoms.” He then placed his thumb over the sensor. “From Kenya's MacMillan Library on Earth, use this thumbprint for access to call up material on K'tani Ngai, Empress of the Dark Domain. And from the library computer on Peloran VII, call up material on Shareen d'Amato, who supposedly haunts the spacemen's cemetery there. No access code is required.”
    He stopped speaking and handed the computer back to me.
    “And portraits exist of all these myth-figures?” I asked.
    He nodded affirmatively. “The myths may differ, but the woman is the same.”
    “You are quite sure?”
    “I could hardly expect you to consider my offer if I lied to you, could I?”
    “No, you could not,” I admitted. “I thank you for your help.”
    “My pleasure.” He withdrew a small card and inserted it briefly into the computer. “That's my address on Far London and my vidphone access number. Contact me whenever you're ready to talk a little business.” He got to his feet. “Since our conversation is finished, I trust you'll forgive me for leaving you here, but the truth of the matter is that the smell is making me sick.”
    “One last question!” I said so emphatically that I drew additional stares from the nearby tables and a surly look from the waiter.
    “Just one, Leonardo,” he replied. “There's a difference between good faith and philanthropy.”
    “Why has her portrait always been rendered by unknowns?”
    “I wouldn't call them unknowns,” answered Venzia. “Some of them were quite famous. I gather this Kilcullen was quite a military hero, and our boy on Patagonia IV was supposedly the greatest trapeze artist of his time.”
    “But they were unknown as artists,” I persisted.
    “True enough,” he conceded. Once again he looked amused. “Good question, Leonardo.”
    “What is the answer?”
    “I don't think I'm going to tell you.”
    “But you agreed to.”
    “I agreed to let you ask one more question,” replied Venzia. “I never agreed to answer it.”
    “May I ask why not?”
    He smiled and shook his head. “That's another question.”
    Then he was gone, and I was left alone at my table to wonder why a man who professed no interest whatsoever in possessing any of the various renderings of this mysterious woman should be so vitally interested in the artists, or why he had more facts at his fingertips than Malcolm Abercrombie had been able to amass in a quarter of a century.

6.
    The next two weeks were uneventful. I was unable to find any other paintings of Abercrombie's model, and I spent most of my time investigating the list of names that Venzia had read into my pocket computer.
    The results were puzzling. The renderings of Melaina, Eresh-Kigal, Macha, and K'tani Ngai to which he had referred me were all of our mystery woman— but when I delved further into the lore surrounding Melaina, the Black Mare of Death, I found five other renderings, all different. Curious, I next researched K'tani Ngai, and discovered that in every other portrait and carving, except the one in the MacMillan Library, she was a black woman, usually portrayed with the