Lord Darcy Investigates Page 6

  “If they had it,” Sir James said, “they’d have cut and run. And they haven’t; they’re still swarming all over the place. There must be a dozen agents there.”

  “I presume that your own men are all over the place, too?”

  “We’re trying to keep them covered,” Sir James said.

  “Then they know you don’t have the Phial, either.”

  “Probably.”

  Lord Darcy sighed and began filling his silver-chased porcelain pipe. “You say the dead man is Noel Standish.” He tapped a sheaf of papers with his pipestem. “These say he was identified as a man named Bourke. You say it was murder. These say that the court of His Majesty’s Coroner was ready to call it suicide until you put pressure on to keep the decision open. I have the vague feeling, James, that I am being used. I should like to point out that I am Chief Criminal Investigator for the Duke of Normandy, not—repeat: not—an agent of His Majesty’s Secret Service.”

  “A crime has been committed,” Sir James pointed out. “It is your duty to investigate it.”

  Lord Darcy calmly puffed his pipe alight. “James, James.” His lean, handsome face was utterly impassive as he blew out a long plume of smoke. “You know perfectly well I am not obliged to investigate every homicide in the Duchy. Neither Standish nor Bourke was a member of the aristocracy. I don’t have to investigate this mess unless and until I get a direct order from either His Highness the Duke or His Majesty the King. Come on, James—convince me.”

  Master Sean did not smile, although it was somewhat of a strain to keep his face straight. The stout little Irish sorcerer knew perfectly well that his lordship was bluffing. Lord Darcy could no more resist a case like this than a bee can resist clover blossoms. But Sir James did not know that. He did know that by bringing the case before his superiors, he could eventually get an order from the King, but by then the whole thing would likely be over.

  “What do you want, Darcy?” the King’s Agent asked.

  “Information,” his lordship said flatly. “You want me to go down to St.-Matthew’s-Church and create a diversion while you and your men do your work. Fine. But I will not play the part of a dupe. I damn well want to know what’s going on. I want the whole story.”

  Sir James thought it over for ten or fifteen seconds, then said: “All right, my lord. I’ll give it to you straight.”

  * * *

  For centuries, the Kings of Poland had been expanding, in an ebb-and-flow fashion, the borders of their territories, primarily toward the east and south. In the south, they had been stopped by the Osmanlis. In the east, the last bite had been taken in the early 1930’s, when the Ukraine was swallowed. King Casimir IX came to the throne in 1937 at the age of twenty, and two years later had plunged his country into a highly unsuccessful war with the Empire and her Scandinavian allies, and any further thought of expansion to the east was stopped by the threat of the unification of the Russian States.

  Poland was now, quite literally, surrounded by enemies who hated her and neighbors who feared her. Casimir should have taken a few years to consolidate and conciliate, but it was apparent that the memory of his father and his own self-image as a conqueror were too strong for him. Knowing that any attempt to march his armies into the German buffer states that lay between his own western border and the eastern border of the Empire would be suicidal as things stood, Casimir decided to use his strongest non-military weapon: the Serka.

  The nickname comes from a phrase meaning roughly: “The King’s Right Arm.” For financial purposes, it is listed in the books as the Ministry of Security Control, making it sound as if it were a division of the King’s Government. It is not; none of His Slavonic Majesty’s ministers or advisors know anything about, or have any control over, its operation. It is composed of fanatically loyal men and women who have taken a solemn vow of obedience to the King himself, not to the Government. The Serka is responsible to no one but the King’s Person.

  It is composed of two main branches: The Secret Police (domestic), and the Secret Service (foreign). This separation, however, is far from rigid. An agent of one branch may at any time be assigned to the other.

  The Serka is probably the most powerful, most ruthless instrument of government on the face of the Earth today. Its agents, many of them Talented sorcerers, infest every country in Europe, most especially the Anglo-French Empire.

  Now, it is an historical fact that Plantagenet Kings do not take kindly to invasion of their domain by foreign sovereigns; for eight centuries they have successfully resisted such intrusive impudence.

  There is a saying in Europe: “He who borrows from a Plantagenet may repay without interest; he who steals from a Plantagenet will repay at ruinous rates.”

  His present Majesty, John IV—by the Grace of God, King of England, Ireland, Scotland, and France; Emperor of the Romans and Germans; Premier Chief of the Moqtessumid Clan; Son of the Sun; Count of Anjou and Maine; Prince Donator of the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem; Sovereign of the Most Ancient Order of the Round Table, of the Order of the Leopard, of the Order of the Lily, of the Order of the Three Crowns, and of the Order of St. Andrew; Lord and Protector of the Western Continents of New England and New France; Defender of the Faith—was no exception to that rule.

  Unlike his medieval predecessors, however, King John had no desire to increase Imperial holdings in Europe. The last Plantagenet to add to the Imperial domain in Europe was Harold I, who signed the original Treaty of Kobnhavn in 1420. The Empire was essentially frozen within its boundaries for more than a century until, during the reign of John III, the discovery of the continents of the Western Hemisphere opened a whole new world for Anglo-French explorers.

  John IV no longer thought of European expansion, but he deeply resented the invasion of his realm by Polish Serka agents. Therefore, the theft of a small golden phial from the Ipswich Laboratories had provoked instant reaction from the King and from His Majesty’s Secret Service.

  * * *

  “The man who actually stole it,” Sir James explained, “is irrelevant. He was merely a shrewd biscuit who accidentally had a chance to get his hands on the Phial. Just how is immaterial, but rest assured that that hole has been plugged. The man saw an opportunity and grabbed it. He wasn’t a Polish agent, but he knew how to get hold of one, and a deal was made.”

  “How much time did it take him to deal, after the Phial was stolen?” Lord Darcy asked.

  “Three days, my lord. Sir Greer found it was missing within two hours of its being stolen, and notified us straight away. It was patently obvious who had taken it, but it took us three days to trace him down. As I said, he was a shrewd biscuit.

  “By the time we’d found him, he’d made his deal and had the money. We were less than half an hour too late. A Serka agent already had the Phial and was gone.

  “Fortunately, the thief was just that—a thief, not a real Serka agent. When he’d been caught, he freely told us everything he knew. That, plus other information received, convinced us our quarry was on a train for Portsmouth. We got hold of Noel Standish at the Portsmouth office by teleson, but…”

  * * *

  The plans of men do not necessarily coincide with those of the Universe. A three-minute delay in a traffic jam had ended with Noel Standish at the slip, watching the Cherbourg boat sliding out toward the Channel, with forty feet between himself and the vessel.

  Two hours later, he was standing at the bow of H.I.M.S. Dart, staring southward into the darkness, listening to the rushing of the Channel waters against the hull of the fast cutter. Standish was not in a good mood.

  In the first place, the teleson message had caught him just as he was about to go out to dine with friends at the Bellefontaine, and he had had no chance to change; he felt silly as hell standing on the deck of a Navy cutter in full evening dress. Further, it had taken better than an hour to convince the Commanding Admiral at the Portsmouth Naval Docks that the use of a cutter was imperative—and then only at the cost of a teleso
n connection to London.

  There was but one gem in these otherwise bleak surroundings: Standish had a firm psychic lock on his quarry.

  He had already had a verbal description from London. Young man, early to middle twenties. Five feet nine. Slender, but well-muscled. Thick, dark brown hair. Smooth shaven. Brown eyes. Well formed brows. Face handsome, almost pretty. Well-dressed. Conservative dark green coat, puce waistcoat, gold-brown trousers. Carrying a dark olive attache case.

  And he had clearly seen the quarry standing on the deck of the cross-Channel boat as it had pulled out of Portsmouth, heading for Cherbourg.

  Standish had a touch of the Talent. His own name for a rather specialized ability was “the Game of Hide and Seek,” wherein Standish did both the hiding and the seeking. Once he got a lock on someone he could follow him anywhere. Further Standish became psychically invisible to his quarry; even a Master Sorcerer would never notice him as long as Standish took care not to be located visually. Detection range, however, was only a matter of miles, and the man in the puce waistcoat, Standish knew, was at the limit of that range.

  Someone tapped Standish on the shoulder. “Excuse me, sir—”

  Standish jerked round nervously. “What? What?”

  The young officer lifted his eyebrows, taken aback by the sudden reaction. This Standish fellow seemed to have every nerve on edge. “Begging your pardon, sir, but the Captain would have a word with you. Follow me, please.”

  Senior Lieutenant Malloix, commanding H.I.M.S. Dart, wearing his royal blue uniform, was waiting in his cabin with a glass of brandy in each hand. He gave one to Standish while the junior officer quietly disappeared. “Come in, Standish. Sit and relax. You’ve been staring off the starboard bow ever since we cast off, and that’s no good. Won’t get us there any faster, you know.”

  Standish took the glass and forced a smile. “I know, Captain. Thanks.” He sipped. “Still, do you think we’ll make it?”

  The captain frowned, sat down, and waved Standish to a chair while he said: “Hard to say, frankly. We’re using all the power we have, but the sea and the wind don’t always do what we’d like ‘em to. There’s not a damn thing we can do about it, so breathe deep and see what comes, eh?”

  “Right you are, Captain.” He took another swallow of brandy. “How good a bearing do we have on her?”

  S/Lt Malloix patted the air with a hand. “Not to worry. Lieutenant Seamus Mac Lean, our navigator, has a Journeyman’s rating in the Sorcerer’s Guild, and this sort of thing is his specialty. The packet boat is two degrees off to starboard and, at our present speed, forty-one minutes ahead of us. That’s the good news.”

  “And the bad news?”

  Malloix shrugged. “Wind variation. We haven’t gained on her in fifteen minutes. Cheer up. Pour yourself another brandy.”

  Standish cheered up and drank more brandy, but it availed him nothing. The Dart pulled into the dock at Cherbourg one minute late, in spite of all she could do.

  Nevertheless, Goodman Puce-Weskit was less than a hundred yards away as Standish ran down the gangplank of the Dart, and the distance rapidly closed as he walked briskly toward his quarry, following his psychic compass that pointed unerringly toward Puce-Weskit.

  He was hoping that Puce-Weskit was still carrying the Phial; if he wasn’t, if he had passed it on to some unknown person aboard the packet, the whole thing was blown. The thing would be in Krakowa before the month was out.

  He tried not to think about that.

  The only thing to do was follow his quarry until there came a chance to waylay and search him.

  He had already given a letter to the captain of the Dart, to be delivered as soon as possible to a certain address on the Rue Queen Brigid, explaining to the agent in charge of the Cherbourg office what was going on. The trouble was, Standish was not carrying a tracer attuned to the Cherbourg office; there was no way to get in touch with them, and he didn’t dare leave Puce-Weskit. He couldn’t even set up a rendezvous, since he had no idea where Puce-Weskit would lead him.

  And, naturally, when one needed an Armsman, there wasn’t one in sight.

  Twenty minutes later, Puce-Weskit turned on to the Rue Queen Brigid.

  Don’t tell me he’s headed for the Service office, Standish thought. My dear Puce-Weskit, surely you jest.

  No fear. A dozen squares from the Secret Service office, Goodman Puce-Weskit turned and went into a caffe-house called the Aden. There, he stopped.

  Standish had been following on the opposite side of the street, so there was less chance of his being spotted. Dodging the early morning traffic; narrowly avoiding the lead horse of a beer lorry, he crossed the Rue Queen Brigid to the Aden.

  Puce-Weskit was some forty feet away, toward the rear of the caffe-house. Could he be passing the Phial on to some confederate?

  Standish was considering what to do next when the decision was made for him. He straightened up with a snap as his quarry suddenly began to move southward at a relatively high rate of speed.

  He ran into the Aden. And saw his mistake.

  The rear wall was only thirty feet away. Puce-Weskit had gone through the rear door, and had been standing behind the Aden!

  He went right on through the large room, out the back door. There was a small alleyway there, but the man standing a few feet away was most certainly not his quarry.

  “Quick!” Standish said breathlessly. “The man in the puce waistcoat! Where did he go?”

  The man looked a little flustered. “Why—uh—I don’t know, sir. As soon as his horse was brought—”

  “Horse? Where did he get a horse?”

  “Why, he left it in the proprietor’s charge three or four days ago. Four days ago. Paid in advance for the keeping of it. He asked it to be fetched, then he went. I don’t know where.”

  “Where can I rent a horse?” Standish snapped.

  “The proprietor—”

  “Take me to him immediately!”

  * * *

  “And that,” said Sir James le Lein, “is the last trace we were able to uncover until he reported in at Caen two days later. We wouldn’t even know that much if one of our men hadn’t been having breakfast at the Aden. He recognized Standish, of course, but didn’t say anything to him, for obvious reasons.”

  Lord Darcy nodded. “And he turns up dead the following morning near St.-Matthew’s-Church. Any conjecture on what he may have been doing during those two days?”

  “It seems fairly clear. The proprietor of the Aden told us that our quarry—call him Bourke—had his saddlebags packed with food packets in protective-spell wrappers, enough for a three, maybe four-day trip. You know the Old Shore Road that runs southeast from Cherbourg to the Vire, crosses the river, then goes westward, over the Orne, and loops around to Harfleur?”

  “Of course,” Lord Darcy said.

  “Well, then, you know it’s mostly farming country, with only a few scattered villages, and no teleson connections. We think Bourke took that road, and that Standish followed him. We think Bourke was headed for Caen.”

  Master Sean lifted an eyebrow. “Then why not take the train? ‘Twould be a great deal easier and faster, Sir James.”

  Sir James smiled. “It would be. But not safer. The trouble with public transportation is that you’re essentially trapped on it. When you’re fleeing, you want as much freedom of choice as possible. Once you’re aboard a public conveyance, you’re pretty much constrained to stay on it until it stops, and that isn’t under your control.”

  “Aye, that’s clear,” said Master Sean. He looked thoughtful. “This psychic lock-on you mentioned—you’re sure Standish used it on Bourke?”

  “Not absolutely certain, of course,” Sir James admitted. “But he certainly had that Talent; he was tested by a board of Masters from your own Guild. Whether he used it or not at that particular time, I can only conjecture, but I think it’s a pretty solid assumption.”

  Lord Darcy carefully watched a column of pipesmoke rise toward
the ceiling and said nothing.

  “I’ll agree with you,” Master Sean said. “There’s no doubt in me mind he did just that, and I’ll not say he was wrong to do so. De mortuis non disputandum est. I just wonder if he knew how to handle it.”

  “How do you mean?” Sir James asked.

  “Well, let’s suppose a man could make himself perfectly transparent—’invisible,’ in other words. The poor lad would have to be very careful, eh? In soft ground or in snow, he’ll leave footprints; in a crowd, he may brush up against someone. Can you imagine what it would be like if you grabbed such a man? There you’ve got an armful of air that feels fleshy, smells sweaty, sounds excited, and would taste salty if you cared to try the experiment. You’ll admit that such an object would be suspect?”

  “Well, yes,” Sir James admitted, “but—”

  “Sir James,” Master Sean continued, “you have no idea how conspicuous a psychically invisible person can be in the wrong circumstances. There he stands, visible to the eye, sensible to the touch, audible to the ear, and all the rest—but there’s nobody home!

  “The point I’m making, Sir James, is this: How competent was Noel Standish at handling his ability?”

  Sir James opened his mouth, shut it, and frowned. After a second, he said: “When you put it that way, Master Sean, I must admit I don’t know. But he handled it successfully for twelve years.”

  “And failed once,” said Master Sean. “Fatally.”

  “Now hold, my dear Sean,” Lord Darcy said suddenly. “We have no evidence that he failed in that way. That he allowed himself to be killed is a matter of cold fact; that he did so in that way is pure conjecture. Let’s not leap to totally unwarranted conclusions.”

  “Aye, me lord. Sorry.”

  Lord Darcy focused his gray eyes on Sir James. “Then I have not been called in merely to create a diversion, eh?”

  Sir James blinked. “I beg your pardon, my lord?”

  “I mean,” said his lordship patiently, “that you actually want me to solve the problem of ‘who killed Noel Standish?’ ”