They marched, into the cool and hygienic kitchen, where white tiles and chrome made a background like an operating theater. They sat, still under orders, in two kitchen chairs, back to back. Donovan and Flanagan worked now while Ponti watched with grinning appreciation. They had found a plastic clothesline in a drawer. When they were done with it the two agents were roped and tied as securely as they had ever known in a lifetime of similar experiences. Green stood in the doorway, supervising.
"Now," he said, "pay attention. We are going to set the scene for the police to find, one they will be able to under stand. The story is this: that she telephoned them—which can be checked; that they were closeted together for some time; that they drank heavily and unwisely; they then quarreled violently, here, in that room, and in the bedroom— presumably over her. One or the other of them—it doesn't matter which—strangled her and left her on the bed…"
Miss Thompson gave a choked cry of utter unbelief and terror at this shocking statement. The two heard the sound of a blow, then a whimper.
"Keep her quiet. The rest is reasonably simple. Both men become enraged, struggle with each other, then collapse, utterly drunk. The police will find them there. Questions?"
"How we get them drunk?" Ponti demanded.
"Very simply. Whiskey. Please observe, there is a gas supply here. With the gas turned on and the door shut they will become unconscious. Later you will bring them out, untie them, pour drink over and into them, conceal the cord and flush the gas from the room. There is very little detectable difference between the stupefaction induced by gas, and intoxication. Anything else?"
"Green!" Solo kept his voice as level as possible. "You've got us, and we're in the habit of sticking out our necks, but do you have to drag her into this? Your dupe?"
"Dupe? Yes, I used her. But now she knows too much. Give me that bottle, Flanagan." Seconds later Solo felt the chill of fluid on his scalp and smelled the stink of whiskey as Green tipped the bottle over his head.
"That's a terrible waste of the hard stuff," Donovan objected.
"Don't be a fool, man, there's plenty more. Help yourself, after the job's done. See you do a good job of it, you've plenty of time. Break the place up. Play some loud music, just in case the neighbors get nosy. And just before you leave, dial 999 and then leave the receiver off the hook. Keep your gloves on at all times. Anything else?"
"About her," Ponti demanded. "Some fun first, eh?"
"Help yourself." Green said it in the same tone he had used about the drink. "It will make very little difference to the police." He emptied the rest of the bottle over Kuryakin's head, then handed it to Flanagan. "Not get it clear. Gas on and shut this door. Wreck the place thoroughly. It is now nine-forty-five. You have until eleven."
"We meet you at the usual place?"
"No. Take the car and ditch it. It's stolen in any case. Then disappear for a week. I'll be out of touch until then anyway. At the end of that time you will be able to reach me as usual. Ponti, turn on all those gas taps."
Solo strained his shoulders against the ropes as chill spirits ran down over his face and neck. He heard Green's steps tap away and then:
"Goodbye, Louise. You will not be going to the ball, after all. The chief will be disappointed when you do not arrive. If it were possible, I would warn him, but it doesn't matter all that much. He will be able to get someone else, I'm sure." The tapping steps came back to the door. "Goodbye, gentlemen. As I told you, when I arrange things, they do not fail." Then he shut the door after him, and the two men were in silence, broken only by the sibilant hiss of gas.
"This is a fine mess you've got me into," Kuryakin sighed. "You and your law abiding British!"
"Two Irishmen and an Italian?" Solo retorted, straining at the rope again. "Anyway, Illya, I know one thing. We don't have to worry how hard we hit those thugs."
"I don't suppose they are all that worried, either. If we don't do something fast, the only thing we're going to hit is the floor. The gas is thickening. Napoleon, do you ever think about Waterloo?"
"Not if I can help it. A pity we didn't ask Miss Perrell how to conjure up knives out of thin air; we could use one right now."
"Those sailors certainly know how to tie knots. And this plastic stuff doesn't give anyone a chance. Hear that?" The sounds of furniture being wrecked came from the next room. Solo got the pungency of coal gas up his nostrils on top of the whiskey, and a high-pitched whistle started in his ears. Sanity told him there was very little time to go and nothing to do. He launched into another desperate lunge against the ropes around his chest and heard a faint creak from the chair. The chair!
"That's it!" he said, his own voice sounding thin and far away. "The only weak spot, Illya. The chairs. We have to break them somehow."
Faintly through the whistling in his ears he heard martial music. It sounded familiar.
"Zampa!" Kuryakin muttered. "I never thought to hear it again. We can use it for rhythm, Napoleon. Rock forward and back—now!"
Solo hurled his body forward against the rope, then back, and the two linked chairs rocked with him as the two men see-sawed back and forth, back and forth, until the legs were lifting and crashing back to the floor with each rock. Within breathless seconds they heard encouraging creaks and groanings and vent at it harder than ever. By now Solo could barely see the brightness of the kitchen for the gray fumes that twisted his vision. Breath tore burningly at his throat. All at once he was sitting on the hard floor amid angular wreckage, then keeling over as his companion wriggled frantically to get some slack. Then, blearily, he was fumbling his arms and legs free, holding on to the gas burner, groping for the taps with fingers that felt like limp sausages. Kuryakin tottered to a window, got it open, and stood there sucking in great breaths of air. Solo scrambled over to stand by him and gasp.
"Close!" he panted. "Not a nice man, our Mr. Green."
"I can't say I care for his assistants, either. Mustn't let them get at Miss Thompson. You ready?"
Solo dragged in two more enormous breaths, shook his head testingly, and nodded. "Fit enough. Come on!"
Over at the door he put his forehead against it while he eased the catch free. There were vigorous noises coming through. He pulled the door just a fraction to make sure, nodded to Kuryakin, and hurled it all the way open, to go through with a rush. Just in time he saw the couch, up turned, right in his path. He leaped over it, landed catlike and whirled. Donovan stood over in one corner by the record player, a glass in one hand. At sight of Solo he froze, mouth open. Solo wasted no time but leaped on to the upside-down couch, sprang from it straight at Donovan, and the pair of them crashed into the record player.
With no time for finesse, Solo caught at the first thing at hand, a bottle, and slammed it down on Donovan's head. He scrambled to his feet, pressed a palm to the wall a moment as the room spun around him.
Over in the other corner he saw Kuryakin dance away from a swung chair and grab it, pull and drag Flanagan off-balance, then wallop him with a savage chop as the man went staggering by. Poised deliberately, he chopped again and Flanagan plunged face down to the floor. Feeling a certain amount of righteous satisfaction, Solo shoved away from the wall, then froze for a moment as a scream came through the half-open door of the bedroom and then cut off suddenly. Solo's momentary satisfaction was swallowed in a blind fury. He hit the bedroom door with his shoulder and went straight on through into dim light, onto a white sheepskin carpet, to see Ponti holding Miss Thompson down on the bed.
The crashing entry made the Italian let go instantly, heave up and spin, but Solo was already on him, throwing a piledriver punch with his right and grabbing with his left hand at the man's loosened coat. Unbalanced, Ponti tottered, sideways. Solo heaved to help him, dug in his heels and swung the Italian around like a weight on a chain, then let go and watched him arch away and slam in a heap in a corner. But Ponti was no novice in rough and tumble. He bounced up like a ball, square on his feet, and in his right hand a knife glitte
ring. The snarl of his white teeth split his dark face. Solo, who could hear the shocked sobbing of the girl at his back, waved him on.
"Come on!" he invited. Ponti wanted nothing more. Tensing, he sprang like a cat, right arm forward. Solo turned a shoulder to meet him, slid around the blade, laid both hands savagely on that wrist and arm, lifted up and down viciously bringing up his knee. There was an audible crunch as Ponti's wrist broke and a strangled scream as the Italian tried to let go. But Solo was not in a letting go mood. Ducking, using his shoulder, he heaved and hoisted, and Ponti flew. His short flight terminated at the bedroom door, with him upside-down and his flailing heels driving clean through the panel. He hung there, limp. Breathing hard, Solo spun back to the bed again. Miss Thompson crouched there, cringing, the shreds of her filmy housecoat clinging to one shoulder and trailing over the white counterpane behind her. Her violet eyes were wide and senseless in the half light as he stared at her.
"Are you all right?" he demanded, and she shivered.
"No, don't!" she choked. "No, don't! No, don't! No, don't!" Solo extended a protective hand, and then came a resounding crash from the room he had just left. He turned, sprang for the door, and it was jammed. He heaved frantically at the handle, wrenched at it, and the entire door creaked away from its hinges and sagged under Ponti's inert weight. With no time to be delicate, Solo heaved madly, shoved it through and ran over it as it fell. He was in time to see Kuryakin fling himself backward over the fallen couch as Flanagan flailed wildly with a chair leg.
"Hould still, ye murtherin' devil!" he roared, as Kuryakin rolled into a corner and came up. The timing couldn't have been better. As Flanagan hoisted himself up and over the hurdle, Solo took him from behind and added a powerful boost. The Irishman shot forward, Kuryakin leaned to one side, took hold and heaved, and the double impetus sent Flanagan arrowing forward, to meet the solid wall over the fireplace head on.
"Thick head, that one!" Kuryakin panted. "Was just going back into the kitchen to get the rope, when he came alive all at once."
"He won't do that again!" Solo stated, looking down.
"What—?" Kuryakin started a question and forgot it as a bottle burst on the wall between them. They fell and parted by reflex, then peered cautiously, to see Donovan entrenched in the corner between the sideboard and the ruined record player. There was blood all over his face, and he had a bottle in either hand. As Solo raised his head above the protective barrier of the couch, one of the bottles flew for him and he ducked again, fast.
Hold it!" he whispered urgently to Kuryakin. "I'll try to winkle him out of there. You grab him. Here goes!" Seizing Ponti's limp form, he got a good hold, then hoisted the inert Italian and ran forward, using the limp figure as a shield. Donovan snarled and lashed out with one bottle, but Solo fended it off with his burden, felt the crushing impact, dropped his shield and grabbed as fast as he could, before his opponent could regain balance. Clinging ruthlessly, he hurled himself backward, fell, got his feet up and under, kicked, and Donovan sailed over and out of the corner. There came a fiendish crash and clatter and then silence. Picking himself up, Solo turned, to see Kuryakin standing and looking down at the body, its head rammed into the bars of the fireplace.
"How is the Italian?" he asked, kneeling to investigate Donovan. Solo crouched, made quick exploratory touches with his fingers, then stood again.
"He's taken his last voyage, Illya. How about those two?"
"Same ship. Frankly, Napoleon, bearing in mind what they were going to do to us, I can't say I feel any remorse. How's Miss Thompson?"
"She was in shock a moment ago. Let's go see."
She had moved. She was now sitting on the edge of the bed. As they went in her eyes, huge in the gloom, followed them fearfully. The rag that remained of her garment was now wrapped around her wrist. She put it to her mouth and mumbled, again, "No, don't! No, don't!"
"It's all right," Solo told her. "Nothing more to worry about. All over. We're friends." Her mumble grew fainter but was still there. Solo scowled, shook his head. "I'm not getting through. Miss Thompson!"
"Louise!" Kuryakin reached out to touch her hand gently, took hold of it. "No one is going to hurt you now. You're safe." It may have been his touch or the casual way in which he sat himself beside her on the bed, but all at once something seemed to snap in her and she turned to him blindly, reaching out to cling to him like a small child. As his arm went around her shoulders she thrust her face against his chest and began to shake. Solo sat and stared, then caught the chill gleam in his partner's blue eyes and nodded silently.
"That's all very well," Kuryakin muttered, "but what do we do now?"
EIGHT
IT WAS a good question, Solo considered it.
"We can't blow headquarters for help," he stated. "We've no transmitters—no clothes, come to that, although they will be about somewhere—and I hope they aren't awash with alcohol. But in any case we are not officially on a job, and they wouldn't be at all pleased with this mess."
"Putting it very mildly. Nor can we call up friend Charles, either, seeing that we never bothered to let Miss Perrell know what we were up to."
"True. And I am quite certain the police would take a very poor view indeed of a couple of—well, there are three dead bodies to account for!"
"Right!" Kuryakin murmured, gently stroking the soft shoulder that lay in his palm. "So there's only one thing left."
"That is?" Solo raised a brow. "Excuse me, I must have missed it. What?"
"We use Green's story. Plus a few twists of our own. That is, if we can persuade Louise here into a bit of cooperation."
Solo frowned, sniffed strongly, and rose to his feet. "Before anything else," he declared, "I'm going to stick my head under the tap and get rid of the perfume of hooch."
On the way back from the kitchen he located a bundled pile of clothing and grabbed it under his arm. Kuryakin was still sitting just as he had been before, but Miss Thompson had lifted her head and was staring at him.
"You say they are all dead?" she demanded, in a little girl voice quite different from her affected flute like tones. "Those three horrible men? Dead?"
"Right. We had no choice, Louise. It was them or us. You understand that, don't you?"
"That's absolutely true." Solo came to stand by the bed. "That was the whole plan, start to finish." Her eyes were enormous as she peered up at him. He sat gently. Kuryakin released her, patted her shoulder.
"Napoleon will look after you while I go and get this stuff washed off. And then we must work out what to do."
She watched him go out, then swept the room with a stare as if she had never seen it before. The missing door puzzled her.
"It got broken in the struggle," Solo explained. "I'm afraid your nice home is pretty well wrecked, Louise. Green succeeded in that much, at any rate."
"He meant you to be killed," she whispered. "He used me to get you here, so that he could kill you. He used me!"
"Shouldn't let it bother you. He's a very smart man. You wouldn't be the first one he's used. And you're luckier than most. You're still alive. There was another girl—" He saw the glistening tears start into her eyes and put out a helpless band to pat her. Once more she gave way to her feelings, but this time she was sobbing, harsh and wrenching sobs. There was nothing for him to do but wait for the storm to subside. And try to figure out what Illya had in mind. After a while coherent words began to come through her sobbing.
"I'm glad they are dead," she said. "If it's wicked of me, I don't care, I'm glad!" Kuryakin came back, shaking his wet hair. Solo looked at him resignedly, then asked:
"About this plan, Illya?"
"Yes. Louise, do you think you could help us now?"
"You want me to help you?" The enormity of the idea shocked her into forgetting her tears. "Me? But you must hate and despise me, after what I've done!"
"Don't be silly," Kuryakin told her kindly. "Green is a killer, and so is his chief. They are the ones we're after, not yo
u. You believed you were doing something right and good. You didn't mean any harm!"
"Oh!" she wailed. "I've been such a fool! I thought we were going to have such a nice time together. I was so looking forward to it, and now—"
"Steady!" Solo checked an incipient outburst of further tears. "It's all right now, all over and done with. The thing now is to figure out some way to square everything up. You want to help, don't you?"
"I'll do anything!" she said fiercely. "Anything!"
"You won't have to do very much," Kuryakin assured her. "Green isn't the only one who can contrive things. Look, I'll draw the picture for you. Let's assume that you were here all alone. A quiet evening watching TV or listening to records, or just reading, whatever you prefer. Then, all at once, you hear a clatter as if someone is breaking in by the back door. So what do you do?"
"Eh?" She seemed baffled for a moment, then, "Oh! You mean—? I would be scared stiff. But then—I might just go as far as the kitchen door to look."
"Good! You do that. You open the door. You see two maybe three, big, rough men, breaking in. What do you do?"
"Scream like mad and run!"
"Good again. You run into here, this bedroom. You bolt the door. You're scared stiff. You hear somebody try the door, and you scream some more, but no one hears. Right? So the men abandon the door for the moment and start upsetting the place. They find the drink and start on it. They get rowdy and bust the place up. Then they remember you again and come for the door in earnest this time. They break it down, halfway. You scream as hard as you can. Then something puts them off. A noise, something. You don't know what. But they go away. All of them pile out by the back door, get into their car and drive off. You wait long enough to be sure they've gone; then you telephone the police. Now, do you understand all that?"
"Why, yes!" she said. "Of course. That's exactly what I would do."
19 - The Power Cube Affair Page 8