The Great Game

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The Great Game Page 6

by Michael Kurland


  Number One smiled, not an attractive sight. "With this renewal of our vows we once again pledge to fight to liberate the slaves from their masters, the working men from their bosses, the governed from the evil hand of government," he said. "I trust you will prove to be brave and resourceful." He turned and pointed to Paul. "Number Thirty-seven, there is a message that must be delivered." He pulled a large envelope from an inner pocket of his jacket and appeared to consider for a moment before saying, "In the name of the League I entrust you with this letter."

  Paul took the envelope. Number One handed him a slip of paper. "Here's the address. Memorize it and destroy the paper. Deliver it as soon as possible, and only to the person named."

  "Now?"

  "Yes, now. Tonight. You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

  Paul grinned. Was that sarcasm or solicitude? No matter. He stared at the paper for a moment and then handed it back to Number One. "You destroy the paper. I'll go."

  Paul left the cellar, climbed up the half flight of stairs to the alley entrance, and paused to think. The address was across town, and there was a cab rank at the corner of Bosestrasse, a few blocks away, but a good long walk would be just the thing to clear his head. He paused to button his coat up to the neck and then strode off down the street.

  Inside the cellar room Number One nodded at the man in the gentleman's disguise, and he and one of the sneak-thief trio left and fell in behind Paul. They kept at least a block away and alternated which was closest, changing hats and manner of walking every few blocks so that Paul would not notice he was being followed.

  -

  Number One gathered the remaining league members around him and said, "you will all leave here shortly, but one will stay behind. One of you will undertake an important action for us, one that has been planned for some time. One simple act which will prove our seriousness, and strike a blow for our cause. Since I'm sure you would all be eager to volunteer, just gather around the table and we'll draw straws."

  They gathered and each of them pulled a straw from the bunch in Number One's fist. Member Number Five drew the short straw. The Ferret had arranged that Member Number Five would draw the short straw, but he was clever with his hands and nobody had noticed. The others congratulated Number Five and filed out of the damp cellar until only he and Number One were left.

  Number Five was Carl Webel, a twenty-two-year-old art student, who felt that there was something drastically wrong with society; a feeling not uncommon to twenty-two-year-old art students. He had been led to believe that the poor needed to be shaken out of their complacency in order to rise up and establish a classless society, and that only random acts of violence on their behalf could do the shaking. He wanted desperately to be one of the shakers.

  Number One went to a cupboard in a corner of the cellar and removed the heavy padlock. Inside were two packages, a bulky one wrapped in layers of oilcloth, and a small, rectangular one wrapped in brown paper. He removed them both and returned to the table. With the air of a man disclosing a religious artifact, he unwrapped the oilcloth, revealing an aging Shugard Seuss revolver. "Here it is, Number Five," he said, passing the heavy weapon across the table. "You think, perhaps, you can handle it?"

  Webel took a deep breath and hefted the revolver, willing his hand not to shake. "I just point and pull the trigger, right?" he asked, assuming the sort of bravado he thought was required of him. "I can do that, Number One."

  "You open the weapon like this," the Ferret said, demonstrating, "and you put the bullets in thusly. And then you snap it closed like this. You see?"

  "Simple," Webel assured him.

  "Even so, practice it."

  "Of course."

  "Very good. You keep it concealed until the last second. You pull back the hammer thusly as you draw the weapon from your pocket. The Shugard Seuss is double action, but it has a very heavy trigger pull, which is liable to throw off your aim, unless it is cocked first. When it has been cocked, a feather touch is sufficient to fire it. You'd better practice shooting it with no bullets in it."

  "I shall."

  "Take the time to aim carefully. At a distance of no more than five meters you cannot miss. Any further than that, and it becomes problematical. Then you casually walk away, escaping in the confusion. Everything will be arranged for your escape. Make sure your pockets are empty, and destroy anything you have at home that might connect you with us in case anything goes wrong."

  "I intend to be much closer than five meters!" the art student said fiercely. "For the Cause! For Freedom and Social Justice! For the Dignity of Man!"

  The Ferret smiled, displaying two rows of crooked, yellowed teeth and repeated the litany. "For the Cause! For Freedom and Social Justice! For the Dignity of Man!" He slapped Webel on the back. "There remains some more preparation to be done. I will meet you at noon tomorrow at your rooms with final instructions." Webel nodded, and the Ferret handed him six well-greased cartridges from the paper-wrapped box and watched him leave. Three minutes later the Ferret extinguished the oil lamp and left himself, carefully locking the small door behind him.

  -

  As the Ferret's footsteps faded away outside, there was a stirring from inside one of the small packing crates. The end popped off, and a man's feet appeared. Slowly the rest of the man emerged from the crate, a tall, lean man with a large, hawklike nose and piercing eyes. He stood and dusted himself off, then stretched and twisted his body in an effort to relieve the cramped tension that four hours crouching in a small box had given to his muscles.

  "So," the man said, softly, "the game is afoot!" He let himself out the door with a key that was a duplicate of the one the Ferret had used, and then carefully locked the door behind him.

  CHAPTER FIVE — LAKE COMO

  There is a time, we know not when,

  A point we know not where.

  That marks the destiny of men,

  For glory or despair.

  —Joseph Addison Alexander

  The Villa Endorra stretched precariously along a steep hillside outside of Bellagio, overlooking Lake Como. Above and behind it a thick stand of pine forest cut off the view of all but the surrounding mountains, providing, as the joyously random English of the Italian guidebook put it, "a splendiferous emotion of isolation among the beatitudes of Italian harmonies without the necessitude of discommoding the tourist with the inconvenience of veritably being isolate."

  Before and below the villa, a hundred feet down a vine-cluttered, rocky hillside, the blue waters of the lake reflected dappled April sunlight off its choppy surface; the azure near the shore quickly deepening to a somber dark blue as the bottom fell away to uncharted depths.

  Benjamin Barnett ended his morning run at the lakeside of the villa and, panting heavily, leaned over the rail that separated the path from the hill to watch a trim white sloop beating across the lake. As he watched, it made a final tack that would bring it alongside the pier below. The blue-jacketed man at the boat's helm handled the wheel and sails with an agility and grace that spoke of years of practice.

  "What are you watching, my love?" Cecily came across the garden and joined him at the rail. "Has a monster of the deeps suddenly surfaced?"

  "It's that white sailboat," Barnett explained, putting his arm around her waist. The week they had been at the villa had been good for her, he thought. The pain was disappearing from her face. The spring air, the beautiful countryside, and even the continuing mystery of who was interested in them, and why, seemed to take her mind off the recent past, and the dreadful miscarriage that had so debilitated her.

  "Oh." Cecily sounded disappointed. "I was so hoping for a monster of the deeps." She leaned over the rail and, shading her hazel eyes from the morning sun, peered down at the lake. "It certainly is a trim-looking craft. Is craft the right word? Boat people get so annoyed when you use the wrong word."

  "Notice how she's being handled," Barnett said. "Yon gentleman in the blue jacket is doing the job of three men and making it l
ook simple. I find it hard not to instantly dislike such a man."

  Cecily slipped her arm through his. "You cannot do everything well," she said. "And those things you do well, you do very well indeed. I never knew you had a secret desire to be a master mariner."

  "Nor did I until I watched the performance of our friend below."

  A woman in a white dress emerged from the sloop's cabin, unfurled a red-trimmed parasol, and stood watching unconcernedly as the small yacht neared the dock.

  "A very pretty picture," Cecily said. "I believe I shall ask that German fellow, Herr Lindner to capture it in oil for us. At least we could find out whether the man really can paint or not. Come have breakfast."

  Barnett put his arm around Cecily's waist. "I see that you're convinced that Lindner is not really an artist," he said. "I shall have Tolliver check him out today."

  Cecily shook her head. "I never said he wasn't an artist. He may very well be an artist, although I doubt it judging by his checkered jacket. I merely said he didn't come here to paint. I think he's spying on us."

  "Why do you suppose he's watching us?" Barnett asked.

  "I don't know," Cecily said. "Why did those men on the train search our baggage?"

  "You've got me there," Barnett said. It was still as big a mystery as when it had happened. The fat man and his friends had disappeared by the time Barnett got the conductor to search the train, probably by jumping off as it chugged up a hill or slowed for a curve. The Italian police were informed at the next station, but they were no help; the descriptions of the villains fit no known criminals. "Banditti," suggested the captain of police who had taken their statement, shrugging.

  "But then why was nothing stolen?" Cecily had asked sensibly.

  The captain of police had merely shrugged again. Who can tell what the banditti will do?

  And now a German painter had arrived at the villa-turned-pensione, and Cecily was convinced that he was a fraud. Barnett was resolved to pay serious attention to his wife's convictions. But if she was right, the questions multiplied. Why would anybody have any reason to watch them? Who could be responsible for this seemingly endless supply of watchers? What was their objective? Did they intend to do anything beyond simply watch? Were they aware that they had been detected? Barnett rather doubted that, since he was barely aware of it himself. And, finally, what should he and Cecily—and the mummer—do about it? Time, Barnett decided, would tell.

  The blue-blazered gentleman at the wheel of the sloop dropped the sail at the last second and spun the wheel, nosing the craft gently up to the dock. Two men who had been waiting on the dock stepped out of the shadow and helped him tie off the boat fore and aft before he leapt onto the dock and helped the lady step ashore. It was hard to make out details from this distance, but it looked to Barnett as though one of the men was remonstrating with the boatsman. He took it patiently for a moment, and then spoke sharply to the man, who appeared to step back respectfully. The boatsman held his arm out for the lady, and the two of them strolled ashore.

  "What do you suppose that was about?" Barnett wondered aloud.

  "Pirates," Cecily suggested promptly. "Arguing over the booty."

  "Ah!" Barnett said. "And the lady?"

  "Take your choice," Cecily told him. "She's either the pirate queen, or the booty in question."

  "Obviously," Barnett agreed. "How silly of me not to have guessed immediately."

  "Shall we breakfast?"

  "Good idea. Let me get out of these flannels and into something decent, and I'll join you in the breakfast room. I shall drown my jealousy in an egg, or possibly an entire omelette."

  Half an hour later Barnett and Cecily made their way to a corner table in the large parlor that Frau Schimmer, the Swiss concierge of this Italian villa, used as a breakfast room. For her English guests, Frau Schimmer believed in what she called "the English Breakfast," which consisted of slices of every meat or cheese about the kitchen that could be sliced, with platters of fried eggs. It had taken work for Barnett to convince Frau Schimmer that he would, really, prefer one of her delicious omelettes.

  The only other guests in the breakfast room when they entered were a honeymooning couple in their early twenties from Rome who called themselves Pronzini, and spent most of their time in their room, and Herr Lindner, the German painter. Lindner, a skinny, balding man with heavy, dark eyebrows and a black toothbrush mustache, rose and bowed mechanically to Benjamin and Cecily as they crossed the room, and then went back to reading the Zurich newspaper and eating his pfannkuchen. The honeymooners merely looked up, nodded, and giggled, and returned to eating rolls, drinking coffee, and gazing into each other's eyes.

  Benjamin and Cecily sat and told the serving girl what they wanted, and began going through the mail that "Mummer" Tolliver had passed on to them as they came downstairs. Barnett went through his letters quickly, and then settled down to his omelette and the latest issue of The Illustrated World News. Fifteen minutes later he tossed it aside with more than necessary violence. "Really," he said, "this is insufferable!"

  Cecily put aside a long letter from her employer, and looked up from her buttered egg at her husband. "I particularly love you when you're angry," she told him. "You sound so English when you're angry. One can hardly believe that you grew up in Brooklyn, U.S.A."

  Barnett looked across the breakfast table at his wife, and felt the anger and the pain dissolve, to be replaced by a feeling of quiet joy. "Married all these years," he observed, "And I still find myself rather fond of you. How do you explain that?"

  "It passeth understanding," Cecily told him. "Now, what has raised your bile so much that you've lost that trace of American accent that women find so irresistible?"

  Barnett passed the newspaper to her and tapped one of the columns. "Here," he said. "Read this!"

  -

  Consulting Detective

  Aids Crown

  DETAILS REVEALED IN ARTICLE.

  In an article shortly to be published in the Strand Magazine under the title of "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet," Dr. John H. Watson has revealed the details of another extraordinary case of his friend and companion, the consulting detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street, London.

  The case involved a matter of great importance to Her Majesty's government concerning a most difficult problem requiring the most delicate handling due to the high social standing of the persons involved. Mr. Holmes succeeded where the police failed in retrieving and preserving a state treasure— the aforementioned beryl coronet—and apprehending those involved in its disappearance.

  Although the identities of several of the persons involved in the case have been altered to preserve their anonymity, it is clear that the case involved royal personages and persons in high government positions. The beryl coronet is part of the state regalia of a royal duke, and has been a state treasure for more than three centuries.

  Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes are at present abroad enjoying a no-doubt well-deserved vacation, and could not be reached for comment.

  -

  "Of all the unmitigated—," Barnett began.

  "Quiet, dear, and let me read it." Cecily perused the item silently, and then pushed the magazine aside and returned to her egg.

  "Well?" Barnett demanded.

  "I don't quite see the reason for your irate response," Cecily told him calmly.

  "Mr. Holmes began his 'investigations' by accusing Professor Moriarty of arranging the theft of the coronet," Barnett told her, punctuating his words by tapping his ring finger on the table. "He hung around outside the professor's house in a puerile disguise, dressed as some sort of common loafer, and accosted everyone who approached the door. The professor was finally forced to find the coronet himself to get Holmes to go away—a fact which I'm sure Dr. Watson's version of the events will not include."

  Cecily reached over and cupped her husband's hand in hers to stop the table-tapping. "Could it not be that your fondness for Professor Moriarty and your, let us say,
cool feelings toward Mr. Holmes have caused you to overstate the case just a bit?" she asked.

  Barnett's frown slowly dissolved into a smile at the touch of her hand. "Well," he said, "perhaps just a bit."

 

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