Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930

"In the morning," said Bell coldly, "I'm going to settle with The Master." They found a small and filthy hotel, in a still filthier street where the houses were alternately black and silent and empty, and filled with the squalid hilarity most seaport towns can somehow manage to support. The street lamps were white and cold. The dirt and squalor showed the more plainly by their light. There were sailors from the few ships in harbor, and women so haggard and bedraggled that shrill laughter and lavish endearments remained their only allure. And Bell and Jamison plodded to the reeking place in which a half-drunk sheepman pointed, and there Bell sat grimly in the vermin infested room while Jamison, swearing wryly, went out. He came back later, much later. His breath was strong of bad whiskey and he looked like a man who feels that a bath would be very desirable. He looked like a man who feels unclean. "Give me a cigarette," he said shortly. "I found out most of what we want to know." Bell gave him a cigarette and waited. "Good thing you stayed behind," said Jamison. "I want to vomit. Why people go in hell holes for fun.... But I was very drunk and very amorous. Picked up a woman and fed her liquor. Young, too. Damnation! She got crying drunk and told me everything she knew. I gave her money and left. Punta Arenas is The Master's, body and soul." "One could have guessed it," said Bell grimly.