The pair-drawn brougham moved briskly along the Old Shore Road, moving westward a few miles from the little village of St.-Matthew's-Church, in the direction of Cherbourg.
The driver, a stocky man with a sleepy smile on his broad face, was well bundled up in a gray driving cloak, and the hood of his cowl was pulled up over his head and covered with a wide-brimmed slouch hat. Even in early June, on a sunshiny day, the Normandy coast can be chilly in the early morning, especially with a stiff wind blowing.
"Stop here, Danglars," said a voice behind him. "This looks like a good place for a walk along the beach."
"Yus, mistress." He reined in the horses, bringing the brougham to an easy stop. "You sure it's safe down there, Mistress Jizelle?" he asked, looking to his right, where the Channel stretched across to the north, toward England.
"The tide is out, is it not?" she asked briskly.
Danglars looked at his wristwatch. "Yus. Just at the ebb now."
"Very well. Wait for me here. I may return here, or I may walk on. If I go far, I will signal you from down the road."
"Yus, mistress."
She nodded once, sharply, then strode off toward the beach.
She was a tall, not unhandsome woman, who appeared to be in late middle age. Her gray-silver hair was cut rather shorter than the usual, but was beautifully arranged. Her costume was that of an upper-middle-class Anglo-French woman on a walking tour, but it was more in the British style than the Norman: well-burnished knee-high boots; a Scottish woolen skirt, the hem of which just brushed the boot-tops; a matching jacket; and a soft sweater of white wool that covered her from waist to chin. She wore no hat. She carried herself with the brisk, no-nonsense air of a woman who knows what she is and who she is, and will brook no argument from anyone about it.
Mistress Jizelle de Ville found a pathway down to the beach. There was a low cliff, varying from fifteen to twenty feet high, which separated the upper downs from the beach itself, but there were slopes and washes here and there which could be maneuvered. The cliff itself was the ultimate high-tide mark, but only during great storms did the sea ever come up that high; the normal high tide never came within fifteen yards of the base of the cliff, and the intervening space was covered with soft, dry sand which was difficult to walk in. Mistress Jizelle crossed the dry sand to the damper, more solidly packed area, and began walking westward.
It was a beautiful morning, in spite of the slight chill; just the sort of morning one would choose for a brisk, healthful walk along a pleasant beach. Mistress Jizelle was a woman who liked exercise and long walks, and she was a great admirer of scenic beauty. To her right, the rushing wind made scudding whitecaps of the ebbing tide and brought the "smell of the sea"an odor never found on the open expanse of the sea itself, for it is composed of the aroma of the sea things which dwell in the tidal basins and the shallow coastal waters and the faint smell of the decomposition of dead and dying things beached by the rhythmic ebb and flow of tide and wave.
Overhead, the floating gulls gave their plaintive, almost catlike cries as they soared in search of the rich sustenance that the sea and shore gave them.
Not until she had walked nearly a hundred yards along the beach did Mistress Jizelle see anything out of the ordinary. When she did, she stopped and looked at it carefully. Ahead and to her left, some eight or nine yards from the base of the cliff, a man lay sprawled in the dry sand, twenty feet or so above the high-tide line.
After a moment, she walked toward the man, carefully and cautiously. He was certainly not dressed for bathing; he was wearing the evening dress of a gentleman. She walked up to the edge of the damp sand and stopped again, looking at the man carefully.
Then she saw something that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
Danglars was sitting placidly in the driver's seat of the brougham, smoking his clay pipe, when he saw the approaching trio. He eyed them carefully as they came toward the carriage. Two young men and an older one, all dressed in the work clothes typical of a Norman farmer. The eldest waved a hand and said something Danglars couldn't hear over the sound of the waves and the wind. Then they came close enough to be audible, and the eldest said: "Allo! Got dee any trouble here?"
Danglars shook his head. "Nup."
The farmer ignored that. "Me an' m'boys saw dee stop up here, an' thought mayap we could help. Name's Champtier. Samel Champtier. Dese two a my tads, Evrit an' Lorin. If dou hass need a aid, we do what we can."
Danglars nodded slowly, then took his pipe from his mouth. "Good o' ya, Goodman Samel. Grace to ya. But I got no problem. Mistress wanted to walk along the beach. Likes that sort of thing. We head on pretty soon."
Samel cleared his throat. "Hass dou broke dy fast, dou an' d' miss-lady? Wife fixin' breakfast now. Mayap we bring du somewhat?"
Danglars took another puff and sighed. Norman farmers were good, kindly folk, but sometimes they overdid it. "Broke fast, Goodman Samel. Grace to ya. Mistress comes back, we got to be gettin' on. Again, grace to ya."
"Caffe, then," Samel said decisively. He turned to the elder son. "Evrit! Go tell dy mama for a pot a caffe an' two mugs! Run it, now!"
Evrit took off like a turpentined ostrich.
Danglars cast his eyes toward heaven.
Mistress Jizelle swallowed and again looked closely at the dead man. There was a pistol in his right hand and an ugly hole in his right temple. There was blood all over the sand around his head. And there was no question about his being dead.
She looked up and down the beach while she rather dazedly brushed at her skirt with the palms of her hands. Then, bracing her shoulders, Mistress Jizelle turned herself about and walked back the way she had come, paralleling her own footprints. There were no others on the beach.
Three men were talking to Danglars, and Danglars did not seem to be agitated about it. Determinedly, she strode onward.
Not until she was within fifteen feet of the brougham did Danglars deign to notice her. Then he tugged his forelock and smiled his sleepy smile. "Greeting, mistress. Have a nice walk?" He had a mug of caffe in one hand. He gestured with the other. "Goodman Samel and his boys, mistress, from the near farm. Brought a pot o' caffe."
The three farmers were tugging at their forelocks, too.
"I appreciate that," she said. "Very much. But I fear we have an emergency to attend to. Come with me, all of you."
Danglars widened his eyes. "Emergency, mistress?"
"That's what I said, wasn't it? Now, all of you follow me, and I shall show you what I mean."
"But, mistress" Danglars began.
"Follow me," she said imperatively.
Danglars got down from the brougham. He had no choice but to follow with the others.
Mistress Jizelle led them across the sparse grass to the edge of the cliff that overlooked the place where the dead man lay.
"Now look down there. There is a dead man down there. He has, I think, been shot to death. I am not much acquainted with such things, but that is what it looks like to me."
The four knelt and looked at the body below. There was silence for a moment, then Samel said, rather formally: "Dou be right, mistress. Dead he be."
"Who is he, goodman?" she asked.
Samel stood up slowly and brushed his trousers with calloused hands. "Don't rightly know, mistress." He looked at his two sons, who were still staring down with fascination. "Who be he, tads?"
They stood up, brushing their trousers as their father had. Evrit, the elder, spoke. "Don't know, Papa. Ee not from hereabout." He nudged his younger brother with an elbow. "Lorin?"
Lorin shook his head, looking at his father.
"Well, that does not matter for the moment," Mistress Jizelle said firmly. "There is Imperial Law to follow in such cases as this, and we must do so. Danglars, get in the brougham and return to"
"But, Mistress Jizelle," Danglars cut in, "I can't"
"You must do exactly as I tell you, Danglars," she said forcefully. "It is most important. Go back to St.-Matthew's-Church and notify the Rector. Then go on to Caen and notify the Armsmen. Goodman Samel and his boys will wait here with me and make sure nobody disturbs anything. Do you understand?"
"Yus, mistress. Perfec'ly." And off he went.
She turned to Samel. "Goodman, can you spare some time? I am sure you have work to do, but I shouldn't like to be left here alone."
Samel smiled. "Mornin' chores all done, mistress. Eldest tad, Orval, can take care of all for a couple hours. Don't fret." He looked at the younger boy. "Lorin, go dou an' tell dy mama an' dy brother what happen, but nobody else. An' say dey tell nobody. Hear?"
Lorin nodded and ran.
"And bring dou back somewat to eat!" Evrit yelled after him.
Samel looked worried. "Mistress?"
"Yes, Goodman Samel?"
"Hass dou noticed somewat funny about d' man dere?"
"Funny?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Yea, mistress." He pointed down. "All round him, sand. Smooth. No footprints but dine own, an' dey come nowhere near him. Fresh dead, buthow he get dere?"
Five days later, Sir James le Lein, Special Agent of His Majesty's Secret Service, was seated in a comfortable chair in the study-like office of Lord Darcy, Chief Investigator for His Royal Highness, Richard, Duke of Normandy.
"And I still don't know where the Ipswich Phial is, Darcy," he was saying with some exasperation. "And neither do they."
Outside the open window, sounds of street trafficthe susurration of rubber-tired wheels on pavement, the clopping of horses' hooves, the footsteps and voices of a thousand people, and the myriad of other small noises that make up the song of a citywere wafted up from six floors below.
Lord Darcy leaned back in the chair behind his broad desk and held up a hand.
"Hold it, Sir James. You're leaping far ahead of yourself. I presume that by 'they' you mean the Serkathe Polish Secret Service. But what is this Phial, anyway?"
"I can't tell you for two reasons. First, you have no need to know. Second, neither do I, so I couldn't tell you if I wanted. Physically, it's a golden cylinder the size of your thumb, stoppered at one end with a golden stopper, which is sealed over with soft gold. Other than that, I know nothing but the code name: The Ipswich Phial."
Sean O Lochlainn, Master Sorcerer, who had been sitting quietly in another chair with his hands folded over his stomach, his eyes half closed, and his ears wide open, said: "I'd give a pretty penny to know who assigned that code name; sure and I'd have him sacked for incompetence."
"Oh?" said Sir James. "Why?"
Master Sean opened his eyes fully. "If the Poles don't know that the Ipswich Laboratories in Suffolk, under Master Sir Greer Davidson, is devoted to secret research in magic, then they are so incredibly stupid that we need not worry about them at all. With a name like 'Ipswich Phial' on it, the Serka would have to investigate, if they heard about it."
"Maybe it's just a red herring designed to attract their attention while something else is going on," said Lord Darcy.
"Maybe," Master Sean admitted, "but if so, me lord, it's rather dear. What Sir James has just described is an auric-stabilized psychic shield. What would you put in such a container? Some Khemic concoction, like an explosive or a poison? Or a secret message? That'd be incompetence compounded, like writing your grocery list on vellum in gold. Conspicuous consumption."
"I see," said Lord Darcy. He looked at Sir James. "What makes you think the Serka hasn't got it already?"
"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, notrepeat: notan 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, Jamesconvince 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 1930s, 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 IVby 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 Faithwas 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 thata 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 imperativeand then only at the cost of a teleson 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 attaché 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 the 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 waist coat! Where did he go?"
The man looked a little flustered. "WhyuhI 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 quarrycall him Bourkehad 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 mentionedyou'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 restbut 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?' "
"Of course! Didn't I make that clear?"
"Not very." Lord Darcy picked up the papers again. "Now let's get a few things straight. How did the body come to be identified as Bourke, and where is the real Bourke? Or whoever he was."
"The man Standish was following checked into the Green Seagull Inn under that name," Sir James said. "He'd used the same name in England. He was a great deal like Standish in height, weight, and coloring. He disappeared that night, and we've found no trace of him since."
Lord Darcy nodded thoughtfully. "It figures. Young gentleman arrives at village inn. Body of young gentleman found next morning. Since there is only one young gentleman in plain sight, they are the same young gentleman. Identifying a total stranger is a chancy thing at best."
"Exactly. That's why I held up my own identification."
"I understand. Now, exactly how did you happen to be in St.-Matthew's-Church that night?" Lord Darcy asked.
"Well, as soon as Standish was fairly certain that his quarry had settled down at the Green Seagull, he rode for Caen and sent a message to my office, here in Rouen. I took the first train, but by the time I got there, they were both missing."
"Yes." Lord Darcy sighed. "Well, I suppose we'd best be getting down there. I'll have to ask His Royal Highness to order me to, so you may as well come along with me and explain the whole thing all over again to Duke Richard."
Sir James looked pained. "I suppose so. We want to get there as soon as possible, or the whole situation will become impossible. Their silly Midsummer Fair starts the day after tomorrow, and there are strangers showing up already."
Lord Darcy closed his eyes. "That's all we need. Complications."
Master Sean went to the door of the office. "I'll have Ciardi pack our bags, me lord. Looks like a long stay."
The little village of St.-Matthew's-Church was transforming itself. The Fair proper was to be held in a huge field outside of town, and the tents were already collecting on the meadow. There was, of course, no room in the village itself for people to stay; certainly the little Green Seagull couldn't hold a hundredth of them. But a respectable tent-city had been erected in another big field, and there was plenty of parking space for horse-wagons and the like.
In the village, the storefronts were draped with bright bunting, and the shopkeepers were busy marking up all the prices. Both pubs had been stocking up on extra potables for weeks. For nine days, the village would be full of strangers going about their hectic business, disrupting the peace of the local inhabitants, bringing with them a strange sort of excitement. Then they would go, leaving behind acres of ugly rubbish and bushels of beautiful cash.
In the meanwhile, a glorious time would be had by all.
Lord Darcy cantered his horse along the River Road up from Caen and entered St.-Matthew's-Church at noon on that bright sunshiny day, dressed in the sort of riding clothes a well-to-do merchant might wear. He wasn't exactly incognito, but he didn't want to attract attention, either. Casually, he made his way through the already gathering throngs toward the huge old church dedicated to St. Matthew, which had given the village its name. He guided his mount over to the local muffin square, where the array of hitching posts stood, tethered his horse, and walked over to the church.
The Reverend Father Arthur Lyon, Rector of the Church of St. Matthew, and, ipso facto, Rector of St.-Matthew's-Church, was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties who stood a good two inches taller than six feet. His bald head was fringed with silvery hair, and his authoritative, pleasant face was usually smiling. He was sitting behind his desk in his office.
There came a rap at his office door. A middle-aged woman came in quickly and said: "Sorry to bodder dee, Fahder, but dere's a Lord Darcy to see dee."
"Show him in, Goodwife Anna."
Lord Darcy entered Father Art's office to find the priest waiting with outstretched hand. "It's been some time, my lord," he said with a broad smile. "Good to see you again."
"I may say the same. How have you been, old friend?"
"Not bad. Pray, sit down. May I offer you a drink?"
"Not just now, Father." He took the proffered seat. "I understand you have a bit of a problem here."
Father Art leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. "Ahh, yes. The so-called suicide. Bourke." He chuckled. "I thought higher authority would be in on that, sooner or later."
"Why do you say 'so-called suicide,' Father?"
"Because I know people, my lord. If a man's going to shoot himself, he doesn't go out to a lonely beach for it. If he goes to a beach, it's to drown himself. A walk into the sea. I don't say a man has never shot himself by the seaside, but it's so rare that when it happens I get suspicious."
"I agree," Lord Darcy said. He had known Arthur Lyon for some years, and knew that the man was an absolutely dedicated servant of his God and his King. His career had been unusual. During the '39 war, he had risen to the rank of Sergeant-Major in the Eighteenth Infantry. Afterwards, he had become an Officer of the King's Peace, and had retired as a Chief Master-at-Arms before taking up his vocation as a priest. He had shown himself to be not only a top-grade priest, but also a man with the Talent as a brilliant Healer, and had been admitted, with honors, to the Order of St. Luke.
"Old friend," Lord Darcy said, "I need your help. What I am about to tell you is most confidential; I will have to ask you to disclose none of it without official permission."
Father Art took his hands from behind his head and leaned forward with a gleam in his eyes. "As if it were under the Seal of the Confessional, my lord. Go ahead."
It took better than half an hour for Lord Darcy to give the good father the whole story as he knew it. Father Art had leaned back in his chair again with his hands locked behind his head, smiling seraphically at the ceiling. "Ah, yes, my lord. Utterly fascinating. I remember Friday, sixth June, very well. Yes, very well indeed." He continued to smile at the ceiling.
Lord Darcy closed his right eye and cocked his left eyebrow. "I trust you intend to tell me what incident stamped that day so indelibly on your mind."
"Certainly, my lord. I was just reveling in having made a deduction. When I tell my story, I dare say you'll make the same deduction." He brought his gaze down from the ceiling and his hands from behind his head. "You might say it began late Thursday night. Because of a sick call which had kept me up most of the previous night, I went to bed quite early Thursday evening. And, naturally, I woke up a little before midnight and couldn't get back to sleep. I decided I might as well make use of the time, so I did some paper work for a while and then went into the church to say the morning office before the altar. Then I decided to take a walk in the churchyard. I often do that; it's a pleasant place to meditate.
"There was no moon that night," the priest continued, "but the sky was cloudless and clear. It was about two hours before dawn. It was quite dark, naturally, but I know my way about those tombstones pretty well by now. I'd been out there perhaps a quarter of an hour when the stars went out."
Lord Darcy seemed to freeze for a full second. "When the what?"
"When the stars went out," Father Art repeated. "One moment, there they were, in their accustomed constellationsI was looking at Cygnus in particularand the next moment the sky was black all over. Everywhere. All at once."
"I see," said Lord Darcy.
"Well, I couldn't," the priest said, flashing a smile. "It was black as the Pit. For a second or two, I confess, I was almost panicky. It's a weird feeling when the stars go out."
"I dare say," Lord Darcy murmured.
"But," the Father continued, "as a Sensitive, I knew that there was no threat close by, and, after a minute, I got my bearings again. I could have come back to the church, but I decided to wait for a while, just to find out what would happen next. I don't know how long I stood there. It seemed like an hour, but it was probably less than fifteen minutes. Then the stars came back on the same way they'd gone outall at once, all over the sky."
"No dimming out?" Lord Darcy asked. "No slow brightening back on?"
"None, my lord. Blink: off. Blink: on."
"Not a sea fog, then."
"Impossible. No sea fog could move that fast."
Lord Darcy focused his eyes on a foot-high statue of St. Matthew that stood in a niche in the wall and stared at the Apostle without actually seeing him.
After a minute, Lord Darcy said: "I left Master Sean in Caen to make a final check of the body. He should be here within the hour. I'll talk to him, but . . ." His voice trailed off.
Father Art nodded. "Our speculation certainly needs to be confirmed, my lord, but I think we're on the right track. Now, how else can I help?"
"Oh, yes. That." Lord Darcy grinned. "Your revelation of the extinguished stars almost made me forget why I came to talk to you in the first place. What I'd like you to do, Father, is talk to the people that were at the Green Seagull on the afternoon and late evening of the fifth. I'm a stranger, and I probably wouldn't get much out of themcertainly not as much as you can. I want to know the whole pattern of comings and goings. I don't have to tell an old Armsman like yourself what to look for. Will you do it?"
Father Art's smile came back. "With pleasure, my lord."
"There's one other thing. Can you put up Master Sean and myself for a few days? There is, alas, no room at the inn."
Father Art's peal of laughter seemed to rock the bell tower.
Master Sean O Lochlainn had always been partial to mules. "The mule," he was fond of saying, "is as much smarter than a horse as a raven is smarter than a falcon. Neither a raven nor a mule will go charging into combat just because some human tells him to." Thus it was that the sorcerer came riding toward St.-Matthew's-Church, clad in plain brown, seated in a rather worn saddle, on the back of a very fine mule. He looked quite pleased with himself.
The River Road had plenty of traffic on it; half the population of the duchy seemed to be converging on the little coastal village of St.-Matthew's-Church. So Master Sean was mildly surprised to see someone headed toward him, but that feeling vanished when he saw that the approaching horseman was Lord Darcy.
"Not headed back to Caen, are you, me lord?" he asked when Lord Darcy came within speaking distance.
"Not at all, my dear Sean; I rode out to meet you. Let's take the cutoff road to the west; it's a shortcut that bypasses the village and takes us to the Old Shore Road, near where the body was found." He wheeled his horse around and rode beside Master Sean's mule. Together, they cantered briskly toward the Old Shore Road.
"Now," Lord Darcy said, "what did you find out at Caen?"
"Conflicting evidence, me lord; conflicting evidence. At least as far as the suicide theory is concerned. There was evidence at the cliff edge that he had fallen or been pushed over and tumbled down along the face of the cliff. But he was found twenty-five feet from the base of the cliff. He had two broken ribs and a badly sprained right wristto say nothing of several bad bruises. All of these had been inflicted some hours before death."
Lord Darcy gave a rather bitter chuckle. "Which leaves us with two possibilities. Primus: Goodman Standish stands on the edge of the cliff, shoots himself through the head, tumbles to the sand below, crawls twenty-five feet, and takes some hours to die of a wound that was obviously instantly fatal. Or, secundus: He falls off the cliff, crawls the twenty-five feet, does nothing for a few hours, then decides to shoot himself. I find the second hypothesis only slightly more likely than the first. That his right wrist was sprained badly is a fact that tops it all off. Not suicide, no, not suicide." Lord Darcy grinned. "That leaves accident or murder. Which hypothesis do you prefer, my dear Sean?"
Master Sean frowned deeply, as if he were in the awful throes of concentration. Then his face brightened as if revelation had come. "I have it, me lord! He was accidentally murdered!"
Lord Darcy laughed. "Excellent! Now, having cleared that up, there is further evidence that I have not given you yet."
He told Master Sean about Father Art's singular experience with the vanishing stars.
When he had finished, the two rode in silence for a minute or two. Then Master Sean said softly: "So that's what it is."
There was an Armsman standing off the road at the site of the death, and another seated, who stood up as Lord Darcy and Master Sean approached. The two riders dismounted and walked their mounts up to where the Armsmen were standing.
"I am sorry, gentlemen," said the first Armsman with an air of authority, "but this area is off bounds, by order of His Royal Highness the Duke of Normandy."
"Very good; I am happy to hear it," said his lordship, taking out his identification. "I am Lord Darcy; this is Master Sorcerer Sean O Lochlainn."
"Yes, my lord," said the Armsman. "Sorry I didn't recognize you."
"No problem. This is where the body was found?"
"Yes, my lord. Just below this cliff, here. Would you like to take a look, my lord?"
"Indeed I would. Thank you."
Lord Darcy, under the respectful eyes of the two Armsmen, minutely examined the area around the cliff edge. Master Sean stayed with him, trying to see everything his lordship saw.
"Everything's a week old," Lord Darcy muttered bitterly. "Look at that grass, there. A week ago, I could have told you how many men were scuffing it up; today, I only know that it was more than two. I don't suppose there's any way of reconstructing it, my dear Sean?"
"No, me lord. I am a magician, not a miracle worker."
"Thought not. Look at the edge of this cliff. He fell, certainly. But was he pushed? Or thrown? No way of telling. Wind and weather have done their work too well. To quote my cousin de London: 'Pfui!' "
"Yes, me lord."
"Well, let's go down to the beach and take a look from below." That operation entailed walking fifty yards or so down the cliff edge to a steep draw which they could clamber down, then back again to where Standish had died.
There was a pleasant breeze from landward that brought the smell of growing crops. A dozen yards away, three gulls squabbled raucously over the remains of some dead sea-thing.
Lord Darcy was still in a bitter mood. "Nothing, damn it. Nothing. Footprints all washed away long ago. Or blown away by the wind. Damn, damn, damn! All we have to go by is the testimony of eyewitnesses, which is notoriously unreliable."
"You don't believe 'em, me lord?" Master Sean asked.
Lord Darcy was silent for several seconds. Then, in a calmer voice, he said: "Yes. Oddly enough, I do. I think the testimony of those farmers was absolutely accurate. They saw what they saw, and they reported what they saw. But they did notthey could not have seen everything!"
One of the Armsmen on the cliff above said: "That's the spot, right there, my lord. Near that flat rock." He pointed.
But Lord Darcy did not even look at the indicated spot. He had looked up when the Armsman spoke, and was staring at something on the cliff face about two feet below the Armsman's boot toes.
Master Sean followed his lordship's gaze and spotted the area immediately. "Looks like someone's been carving his initials, me lord."
"Indeed. How do you make them out?"
"Looks like S . . . S . . . O. Who do we know with the initials SSO?"
"Nobody connected with this case so far. The letters may have been up there for some time. But . . ."
"Aye, me lord," said Master Sean. "I see what you mean. I'll do a time check on them. Do you want 'em preserved?"
"Unless they're more than a week old, yes. By the by, did Standish have a knife on him when he was found?"
"Not so far as I know, me lord. Wasn't mentioned in the reports."
"Hmmm." Lord Darcy began prowling around the whole area, reminding Master Sean of nothing so much as a leopard in search of his evening meal. He finally ended up at the base of the cliff, just below where the glyphs had been carved into the clay wall. He went down on his knees and began digging.
"It has to be here somewhere," he murmured.
"Might I ask what you're looking for, me lord?"
"A piece of steel, my dear Sean; a piece of steel."
Master Sean put his carpetbag on the sand and opened it, taking out a thin, dark, metallic-blue wand just as Lord Darcy said: "Aaha!"
Master Sean, wand still in hand, said: "What is it, me lord?"
"As you see," Lord Darcy said, standing up and displaying the object in the palm of his hand. "Behold and observe, old friend: A man's pocketknife."
Master Sean smiled broadly. "Aye. I presume you'll be wanting a relationship test, me lord? Carving, cutter, and corpse?"
"Of course. No, don't put away your wand. That's your generalized metal detector, is it not?"
"Aye, me lord. It's been similarized to all things metallic."
"Good. Put this knife away for analysis, then let's go over to where the body was found. We'll see if there isn't something else to be dug up."
The Master Sorcerer pointed the wand in his right hand at the sand and moved back and forth across the area, his eyes almost closed, his left hand held above his head, fingers spread. Every time he stopped, Lord Darcy would dig into the soft sand and come up with a bit of metala rusty nail, a corroded brass belt-buckle, a copper twelfth-bit, a bronze farthing, and even a silver half-sovereignall of which showed evidence of having been there for some time.
Only one of the objects was of interest to Lord Darcy: a small lump of lead. He dropped it into a waistcoat pocket and went on digging.
At last, Master Sean, having covered an area of some eight by twelve feet, said: "That's it, me lord."
Lord Darcy stood up, brushed the sand from his hands and trousers, and looked at the collection of junk he had put on the big flat rock. "Too bad we couldn't have found a sixth-bit. We'd be an even solidus ahead. No gold in the lot, either."
Master Sean chuckled. "You can't expect to find a complete set of samples from the Imperial Mint, me lord."
"I suppose not. But here" he took the small lump of lead from his waistcoat pocket, "is what I expected to find. Unless I am very much mistaken, this bullet came from the .36 Heron that the late Standish carried, and is the same bullet which passed through his head. Here; check on it, will you, my good Sean?"
Master Sean put the bullet in one of the carefully insulated pockets of his capacious carpetbag, and the two men trudged back across the sand, up the slope to the top of the cliff again.
Master Sean spread himself prone and looked over the edge of the cliff. After a minute inspection of the carving in the sandy clay of the cliff face, he got up, took some equipment from his carpetbag, and lay down again to go to work. A simple cohesion spell sufficed to set the clay so that it would not crumble. Then, he deftly began to cut out the brick of hardened clay defined by the spell.
In the meantime, Lord Darcy had called the senior of the two Armsmen to one side and had asked him a question.
"No, my lord, we ain't had any trouble," the Armsman said. "We been runnin' three eight-hour shifts out here ever since the body was found, and hardly nobody's come by. The local folk all know better. Wouldn't come near it, anyway, till the whole matter's been cleared up and the site's been blessed by a priest. Course, there was that thing this morning."
"This morning?" Lord Darcy lifted an eyebrow.
"Yes, my lord." He glanced at his wristwatch. "Just after we come on duty. Just on six hours agoeight-twelve."
"And what happened?" his lordship asked with seemingly infinite patience.
"Well, these two folk come along the beach from the east. Romany, they was. Whole tribe of 'em come into St.-Matthew's-Church fairground early this morning. These twoman and a woman, they wascome along arm in arm. Danthat's Armsman Danel, over therewarned 'em off, but they just smiled and waved and kept coming. So Dan went down to the beach fast and blocked 'em off. They pretended they didn't speak no Anglo-French; you know how these Romany are. But Dan made it clear they wasn't to come no farther, so off they went. No trouble."
"They went back without any argument, eh?"
"Yes, my lord, they did."
"Well, no harm done there, then. Carry on, Armsman."
"Yes, my lord."
Master Sean came back from the cliff edge with a chunk of thaumaturgically-hardened clay further loading his symbol-decorated carpetbag. "Anything else, me lord?"
"I think not. Let's get some lunch."
In a tent near the fairgrounds, an agent of Serka, Mission Commander for this particular operation, was opening what looked on the outside like a battered, scuffed, worn, old leather suitcase. The inside was new and in the best condition, and the contents were startlingly similar to those of Master Sean's symbol-decorated carpetbag.
Out came two small wands, scarcely six inches long, of ruby-red crystal wound with oddly-spaced helices of silver wire that took exactly five turns around the ruby core. Each wand was a mirror image of the other; one helix wound to the right, the other to the left. Out came two small glass flacons, one containing a white, coarsely-ground substance, the other an amber-yellow mass of small granules. These were followed by a curiously-wrought golden candlestick some four inches high, an inch-thick candle, and a small brazier.
Like any competent sorcerer, the Commander had hands that were strong and yet capable of delicate work. The beeswax candle was being fitted into the candlestick by those hands when there came a scratching at the closed tent flap.
The Commander froze. "Yes?"
"One-three-seven comes," said a whispered voice.
The Commander relaxed. "Very well; send him in."
Seconds later, the tent flap opened, and another Serka agent ducked into the tent. He glanced at the thaumaturgical equipment on the table as he sat down on a stool. "It's come to that, eh?" he said.
"I'm not certain yet," said the Commander. "It may. I don't want it to. I want to avoid any entanglement with Master Sean O Lochlainn. A man with his ability and power is a man to avoid when he's on the other side."
"Your pardon, Mission Commander, but just how certain are you that the man you saw on the mule this morning was actually Master Sean?"
"Quite certain. I heard him lecture many times at the University at Buda-Pest when I was an undergraduate there in 'sixty-eight, 'sixty-nine, and 'seventy. He was taking his Th.D. in theoretics and analog math. His King paid for it from the Privy Purse, but he supplemented his income by giving undergrad lectures."
"Would he recognize you?"
"Highly unlikely. Who pays any attention to undergraduate students at a large university?"
The Commander waved an impatient hand. "Let's hear your report."
"Yes, Mission Commander," Agent 137 said briskly. "I followed the man on muleback, as you ordered. He met another man, ahorse, coming from the village. He was tall, lean but muscular, with handsome, rather English-looking features. He was dressed as a merchant, but I suspected . . ."
The Commander nodded. "Lord Darcy. Obviously. Continue."
"You said they'd go to the site of the death, and when they took the left-hand bypass I was sure of it. I left off following and galloped on to the village, where Number 202 was waiting with the boat. We had a good westerly breeze, so we made it to the cove before them. We anchored and lay some two hundred yards off-shore. Number 202 did some fishing while I watched through field glasses.
"They talked to the Armsmen atop the cliff for a while, then went down to the beach. One of the Armsmen pointed to where the body had been. Darcy went on talking to him for a while. Then Darcy walked around, looking at things. He went over to the base of the cliff and began digging. He found something; I couldn't see what.
"Master Sean put it in his bag, then, for ten minutes or so, he quartered the area where the body'd been, using one of those long, blue-black metal wandsyou know"
"A metal detector," said the Commander. "Yes. Go on."
"Yes. Lord Darcy dug every time O Lochlainn pointed something out. Dug up an awful lot of stuff. But he found something interesting. Don't know what it was; couldn't see it. But he stuck it in his pocket and gave it to the sorcerer later."
"I know what it was," said the Commander in a hard voice. "Was that the only thing that seemed to interest him?"
"Yes, as far as I could tell," said 137.
"Then what happened?"
137 shrugged. "They went back topside. Darcy talked to one of the Armsmen; the other watched the sorcerer dig a hole in the cliff face."
The Mission Commander frowned. "Dig a hole? A hole?"
"That's right. Lay flat on his belly, reached down a couple of feet over the edge, and dug something out. Couldn't see what it was. Left a hole about the size of a man's two fistsmaybe a bit bigger."
"Damn! Why couldn't you have watched more carefully?"
Agent 137's face stiffened. "It was very difficult to see well, Mission Commander. Any closer than two hundred yards, and we would have drawn attention. Did you ever try to focus six-by field glasses from a light boat bobbing up and down on the sea?"
"Calm down. I'm not angry with you. You did well. I just wish we had better information." The Commander looked thoughtful. "That tells us something. We can forget about the beach. Order the men to stay away; they are not to go there again for any reason.
"The Phial is not there now, if it ever was. If Master Sean did not find it, it wasn't there. If he did find it, it is gone now, and he and Lord Darcy know where it is. And that is a problem I must consider. Now get out of here and let me think."
Agent 137 got out.
The public room at the Green Seagull, as far as population went, looked like a London railway car at the rush hour.
Amidst all the hubbub, wine and beer crossed the bar in one direction, while copper and silver crossed it in the other, making everyone happy on both sides.
In the club bar, it was somewhat quieter, but the noise from the public bar was distinctly audible. The innkeeper himself was taking care of the customers in the club bar; he took a great deal of pride in his work. Besides, the tips were larger and the work easier.
"Would dere be anyting else for dee?" he asked as he set two pints of beer on one of the tables. "Someting to munch on, mayhap?"
"Not just now, Goodman Dreyque," said Father Art. "This will do us for a while."
"Very good, Fahder. Tank dee." He went quietly away.
Lord Darcy took a deep draught of his beer and sighed. "Cool beer is a great refresher on a midsummer evening. The Green Seagull keeps an excellent cellar. Food's good, too; Master Sean and I ate here this afternoon."
"Where is Master Sean now?" the priest asked.
"In the rooms you assigned us in the Rectory, amidst his apparatus, doing lab work on some evidence we dug up." His voice became soft. "Did you find out what happened here that night?"
"Pretty much," Father Art replied in the same low tones. "There are a few things which are still a little hazy, but I think we can fill in most of those areas."
Standish's quarry had arrived at the Green Seagull late in the afternoon of the fifth, giving the name "Richard Bourke." He was carrying only an attaché case, but since he had a horse and saddle and saddlebags, they were considered surety against indebtedness.
There were only six rooms for hire in the inn, all on the upper floor of the two-storied building. Two of these were already occupied. At two-ten, the man Danglars had come in and registered for himself and his mistress, Jizelle de Ville.
"Bourke," said Father Art, "came in at five-fifteen. Nobody else at all checked in during that evening. And nobody saw a young man wearing evening clothes." He paused and smiled brightly. "Howev-er . . ."
"Ahhh. I knew I could depend on you, my dear Arthur. What was it?"
Still smiling seraphically, the good father raised a finger and said: "The Case of the Sexton's Cloak."
"You fascinate me. Pray elucidate."
"My sexton," said Father Art, "has an old cloak, originally made from a couple of used horse blankets, so it wasn't exactly beautiful when new. But it is warm. He uses it when he has to work outside in winter. In summer, he hangs it in the stable behind the church. Claims it keeps the moths outthe smell, I mean.
"On the morning of sixth June, one of the men who works here in the inn brought it over to the church, asked my sexton if it were his. It was. Want to take a wild, silly guess where it was found?" Father Art asked.
"Does the room used by Bourke face the front or the rear?"
"The rear."
"Then it was found on the cobblestones at the rear of the building."
Smiling even more broadly, Father Art gently clapped his hands together once. "Precisely, my lord."
Lord Darcy smiled back. "Let's reconstruct. Bourke went to his room before five-thirty. Right?"
"Right. One of the maids went with him, let him in, and gave him the key."
"Was he ever seen again?"
"Only once. He ordered a light meal, and it was brought up about six. That's the last time he was seen."
"Were either of the other guests in the house at the time?"
"No. The man Danglars had left about four-thirty, and hadn't returned. No one saw Mistress Jizelle leave, but the girl who turns down the beds says that both rooms were empty at six. Bourke was still there at the time."
"Hmmmm."
Lord Darcy looked into the depths of his beer. After half a minute, he said: "Reverend Father, was a stranger in an old horse-blanket cloak actually seen in this inn, or are we speculating in insubstantial mist?"
Father Art's mouth twisted in a small grimace. "Not totally insubstantial, my lord, but not strong, either. The barmaid who was on duty that night says she remembers a couple of strangers who came in, but she doesn't remember anything about them. She's not terribly bright."
Lord Darcy chuckled. "All right, then. Let's assume that Standish actually came in here in a stolenand uncomfortably warmcloak. How did that come about, and what happened afterwards?"
Father Art fired up his old briar and took another sip from his seidel of beer. "Well, let's see. Standish comes into the village an hour after Bourkeperhaps a little more. But he doesn't come in directly; he circles round behind the church. Why? Not to steal the cloak. How would he know it was there?" He took two puffs from his pipe, then his eyes brightened. "Of course. To tether his horse. He didn't want it seen in the public square, and knew it would be safe in the church stable." Two more puffs.
"Hmmm. He sees the cloak on the stable wall and realizes that it will serve as a disguise, covering his evening dress. He borrows it and comes here to the inn. He makes sure that Bourke is firmly in place, then goes back to his horse and hightails it for Caen to send word to Sir James. Then he comes back here to the Green Seagull. He waits until nobody's looking, then sneaks up the stairs to Bourke's room."
The priest stopped, scowled, and took a good, healthy drink from his seidel. "Some time later, he went out the window to the courtyard below, losing the cloak in the process." He shook his head. "But what happened between the time he went upstairs and the time he dropped the cloak, and what happened between then and his death, I haven't the foggiest conjecture."
"I have several," Lord Darcy said, "but they are all very, very foggy. We need more data. I have several questions." He ticked them off on his fingers. "One: Where is Bourke? Two: Who shot Standish? Three: Why was he shot? Four: What happened here at the inn? Five: What happened on the beach? And, finally: Where is the Ipswich Phial?"
Father Art lifted his seidel, drained its contents on one extended draught, set it firmly on the table, and said: "I don't know. God does."
Lord Darcy nodded. "Indeed; and one of His greatest attributes is that if you ask Him the right question in the right way, He will always give you an answer."
"You intend to pray for answers to those questions, my lord?"
"That, yes. But I have found that the best way to ask God about questions like these is to go out and dig up the data yourself."
Father Art smiled. "Dominus vobiscum."
"Et cum spiritu tuo," Lord Darcy responded.
"Excavemus!" said the priest.
In his room in the Rectory, Master Sean had carefully set up his apparatus on the table. Noel Standish's .36 Heron was clamped securely into a padded vise which stood at one end of the table. Three feet in front of the muzzle, the bullet which Lord Darcy had dug from the sand had been carefully placed on a small pedestal, so that it was at exactly the same height as the muzzle. He was using certain instruments to make sure that the axis of the bullet was accurately aligned with the axis of the Heron's barrel when a rhythmic code knock came at the door. The sorcerer went over to the door, unbolted it, opened it, and said: "Come in, me lord."
"I hope I didn't interrupt anything," Lord Darcy said.
"Not at all, me lord." Master Sean carefully closed and bolted the door again. "I was just getting ready for the ballistics test. The similarity relationship tests have already assured me that the slug was the one that killed Standish. There's only to see if it came from his own gun. Have you found any further clues?"
"None," Lord Darcy admitted. "I managed to get a good look at the guest rooms in the Green Seagull. Nothing. Flat nothing. I have several ideas, but no evidence." Then he gestured at the handgun. "Pray proceed with your work, I will be most happy to wait."
"It'll only be a minute or so," Master Sean said apologetically. He went back to the table and continued his preparations while Lord Darcy watched in silence. His lordship was well aware of the principle involved; he had seen the test innumerable times. He recalled a lecture that Master Sean had once given on the subject.
"You see," the sorcerer had said, "the Principle of Relevance is important here. Most of the wear on a gun is purely mechanical. It doesn't matter who pulls the trigger, you see; the erosion caused by the gases produced in the chamber, and the wear caused by the bullet's passing through the barrel will be the same. It's not relevant to the gun who pulled the trigger or what it was fired at. But, to the bullet it is relevant which gun it was fired from and what it hit. All this can be determined by the proper spells."
In spite of having seen it many times, Lord Darcy always liked to watch the test because it was rather spectacular when the test was positive. Master Sean sprinkled a small amount of previously charged powder on both the bullet and the gun. Then he raised his wand and said an incantation under his breath.
At the last syllable of the incantation, there was a sound as if someone had sharply struck a cracked bell as the bullet vanished. The .36 Heron shivered in its vise.
Master Sean let out his breath. "Just like a homing pigeon, me lord. Gun and bullet match."
"I've often wondered why the bullet does that," Lord Darcy said.
Master Sean chuckled. "Call it an induced return-to-the-womb fixation, me lord. Was there something you wanted?"
"A couple of things." Lord Darcy walked over to his suitcase, opened it, and took out a holstered handgun. It was a precision-made .40 caliber MacGregora heavy man-stopper.
While he checked out the MacGregor itself, he said: "This is one. The other is a question. How long before his body was found did Standish die?"
Master Sean rubbed the side of his nose with a thick finger. "Well, the investigative sorcerer at Caen, a good journeyman, placed the time as not more than fifteen minutes before the body was discovered. My own tests showed not more than twenty-five minutes, but not even the best preservative spell can keep something like that from blurring after a week has passed."
Lord Darcy slid the MacGregor into its snugly-fitted holster and adjusted his jacket to cover it. "In other words, there's the usual hazy area. The bruises and fractures were definitely inflicted before death?"
"Definitely, my lord. About three hours before, give or take that same fifteen minutes."
"I see. Interesting. Very interesting." He looked in the wall mirror and adjusted his neckpiece. "Have you further work to do?"
"Only the analysis on the knife," Master Sean said.
Lord Darcy turned from the mirror. "Will you fix me up with a tracer? I'm going out to stroll about the village and possibly to the fairgrounds and the tent city. I anticipate no danger, but I don't want to get lost, either."
"Very well, me lord," the sorcerer said with resignation. He opened his symbol-decorated carpetbag and took out a little wooden box. It held what looked remarkably like one-inch toothpicks, except that they were evenly cylindrical, not tapered, and they were made of ash instead of pine. He selected one and put the box back in his bag. He handed the little cylinder to Lord Darcy, who took it between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.
Then the Master Sorcerer took a little scented oil on his right thumb from a special golden oil stock and rubbed it along the sliver of ash, from Lord Darcy's thumb to the other end. Then he grasped that end in his own right thumb and forefinger.
A quick motion of both wrists, and the ashen splinter snapped.
But, psychically and symbolically, the halves were still part of an unbroken whole. As long as each man carried his half, the two of them were specially linked.
"Thank you, my dear Sean," Lord Darcy said. "And now I shall be off to enjoy the nightlife of the teeming metropolis surrounding us."
With that, he was gone, and Master Sean returned to his work.
The sun was a fat, squashed-looking, red-orange ellipsoid seated neatly on the horizon when Lord Darcy stepped out of the gate of the churchyard. It would be gone in a few minutes. The long shadow of the church spire reached out across the village and into the fields. The colors of the flags and banners and bunting around the village were altered in value by the reddish light. The weather had been beautiful and clear all day, and would continue to be, according to the Weather Bureau predictors. It would be a fine night.
"Please, my lordare you Lord Darcy?"
Lord Darcy had noticed the woman come out of the church, but the village square was full of people, and he had paid little attention. Now he turned his full attention on her and was pleasantly surprised. She was quite the loveliest creature he had seen in a long time.
"I am, Damoselle," he said with a smile. "But I fear you have the advantage of me."
Her own smile was timid, almost frightened. "I am named Sharolta."
Her name, her slight accent, and her clothing all proclaimed her Romany. Her long, softly dark hair and her dark eyes, her well-formed nose and her full, almost too-perfect lips, along with her magnificently lush body, accentuated by the Romany costume, proclaimed her beautiful.
"May I be of help to you, Damoselle Sharolta?"
She shook her head. "No, no. I ask nothing. But perhaps I can be of help to you." Her smile seemed to quaver. "Can we go somewhere to talk?"
"Where, for instance?" Lord Darcy asked carefully.
"Anywhere you say, my lord. Anywhere, so long as it is private." Then she finished. "II mean, not too much private. I mean, where we can talk. You know."
"Of course. It is not yet time for Vespers; I suggest that we go into the church," Lord Darcy said.
"Yes, yes. That would be fine." She smiled. "There were not many folk in there. It should be fine."
The interior of the Church of St. Matthew was darkened, but far from being gloomy. The flickering clusters of candles around the statues and icons were like twinkling, multicolored star clusters.
Lord Darcy and the Damoselle Sharolta sat down in one of the rear pews. Most of the dozen or so people who were in the church were farther up toward the altar, praying; there was no one within earshot of the place Lord Darcy had chosen.
Lord Darcy waited in silence for the girl to speak. The Romany become silent under pressure; create a vacuum for them to fill, and the words come tumbling over each other in eloquent eagerness.
"You are the great Lord Darcy, the great Investigator," she began suddenly. "You are looking into the death of the poor Goodman Standish who was found on the beach a week ago. Is all this not so?"
Lord Darcy nodded silently.
"Well, then, there must be something wrong about that man's death, or you would not be here. So I must tell you what I know.
"A week ago, there came to our tribe a group of five men. They said they were from the tribe of Chanrothe Swordwhich is in the area of Buda-Pest. Their leader, who calls himself Suvthe Needleasked our chief for aid and sanctuary, as it is their right, and it was granted. But they are very secretive among themselves. They behave very well, mind you; I don't mean they are rude or boorish, or anything like that. But there ishow do I say it?there is a wrongness about them.
"This morning, for instance. I must tell you of that. The man who calls himself Suv wanted me to walk along the beach with him. I did not want to, for I do not find him an attractive man you understand?"
Again his lordship nodded. "Of course."
"But he said he meant nothing like that. He said he wanted to walk along the sea, but he did not want to walk alone. He said he would show me all the shore lifethe birds, the things in the pools, the plants. I was interested, and I thought there would be no harm, so I went.
"He was true to his word. He did not try to make love to me. It was nice for a while. He showed me the tide pools and pointed out the different kinds of things in them. One had a jellyfish." She looked up from her hands, and there was a frown on her face.
"Then we got near to that little cove where the body was found. I wanted to turn back, but he said, no, he wanted to look at it. I said I wouldn't and started back. Then he told me that if I didn't, he'd break my arm. So I went." She seemed to shiver a little under her bright dress. "When the Armsman showed up, he kept on going, pretending he didn't understand Anglo-French. Then we saw that there were two of them, the Armsmen, I mean, so we turned around and went back. Suv was very furious."
She stopped and said no more.
"My dear," he asked gently, "why does one of the Romany come to the authorities with a story like this? Do not the Romany take care of their own?"
"Yes, my lord. But these men are not Rom."
"Oh?"
"Their tent is next to mine. I have heard them talking when they think no one is listening. I do not understand it very well, but I know it when I hear it; they were speaking Burgdeutsch."
"I see," said Lord Darcy softly and thoughtfully. The German of Brandenburg was the court language of Poland, which suddenly made everything very interesting indeed.
"Do you suppose, Damoselle," he said, "that you could point out this Suv to me?"
She looked up at him with those great wonderful eyes and smiled. "I'm sure I could, my lord. Come; wrap your cloak about you and we shall walk through the village."
Outside the church, the darkness was relieved only by the regulation gaslamps of the various business places, and by the quarter moon hanging high in the sky, like a half-closed eye.
In the deeper darkness of the church porch, Lord Darcy, rather much to his surprise, took the girl in his arms and kissed her, with her warm cooperation. It was several wordless minutes before they went out to the street.
Master Sean woke to the six o'clock Angelus bell feeling vaguely uneasy. A quick mental focus on his half of the tracer told him that Lord Darcy was in no danger. Actually, if he had been, Sean would have wakened immediately.
But he still had that odd feeling when he went down to Mass at seven; he had trouble keeping in his mind his prayers for the intercession of St. Basil the Great, and couldn't really bring his mind to focus until the Sanctus.
After Mass, he went up to Father Art's small parlor in the rectory, where he had been asked to break his fast, and was mildly surprised to find Sir James le Lein with the priest.
"Good morning, Master Sean," Sir James said calmly. "Have you found the Phial yet?"
The sorcerer shook his head. "Not so far as I know."
Sir James munched a buttered biscuit and sipped hot black caffe. Despite his calm expression Master Sean could tell that he was worried.
"I am afraid," Sir James said carefully, "we've been outfoxed."
"How so?" Father Art asked.
"Well, either the Serka have got it, or they think we have it safely away from them. They seem to have given the whole thing over." He drank more caffe. "Just after midnight, every known Serka agent in the area eluded our men and vanished. They dropped out of sight, and we haven't spotted a single one in over eight hours. We have reason to believe that some of them went south, toward Caen; some went west, toward Cherbourg; others are heading east, toward Harfleur."
Master Sean frowned. "And you think"
"I think they found the Ipswich Phial and one of their men is carrying it to Krakowa. Or at least across the Polish border. I rode to Caen and made more teleson calls than I've ever made in so short a time in my life. There's a net out now, and we can only hope we can find the man with the Phial. Otherwise . . ." He closed his eyes. "Otherwise, we may be faced with an overland attack by the armies of His Slavonic Majesty, through one or more of the German states. God help us."
After what seemed like a terribly long time, Master Sean said: "Sir James, is there any likelihood that Noel Standish would have used a knife on the sealed Phial?"
"I don't know. Why do you ask?"
"We found a knife near where Standish's body was discovered. My tests show gold on the knife edge."
"May I see it?" Sir James asked.
"Certainly. I'll fetch it. Excuse me a minute."
He left the parlor and went down the rather narrow hallway of the rectory. From the nearby church came the soft chime of a small bell. The eight o'clock Mass was beginning.
Master Sean opened the door of his room . . .
. . . and stood stock still, staring, for a full fifteen seconds, while his eyes and other senses took in the room.
Then, without moving, he shouted: "Sir James! Father Art! Come here! Quickly!"
Both men came running. They stopped at the door. "What's the matter?" Sir James snapped.
"Somebody," said Master Sean in an angry rumble, "has been prowlin' about in me room! And a trick like that is likely to be after gettin' me Irish up!" Master Sean's brogue varied with his mood. When he was calmly lecturing or discussing, it became almost nonexistent. But when he became angry . . .
He strode into the room for a closer look at the table which he had been using for his thaumaturgical analyses. In the center was a heap of crumbled clay. "They've destroyed me evidence! Look at that!" Master Sean pointed to the heap of crumbled clay on the table.
"And what is it, if I may ask?"
Master Sean explained about the letters that had been cut in the cliff face, and how he had taken the chunk of clay out for further examination.
"And this knife was used to cut the letters." He gestured toward the knife on the table nearby. "I haven't been able to check it against Standish's body yet."
"That's the one with the gold traces on the blade?" Sir James asked.
"It is."
"Well, it's Standish's knife, all right. I've seen it many times. I could even tell you how he got that deep cut in the ivory hilt." He looked thoughtful. "S . . . S . . . O . . ." After a moment, he shook his head. "Means nothing to me. Can't think what it might have meant to Standish."
"Means nothing to me, either," Father Art admitted.
"Well, now," said the stout little Irish sorcerer, "Standish must have been at the top of the cliff when he wrote it. What would be right side up to him would be inverted to anyone standing below. How about OSS?"
Again Sir James thought. Again he shook his head. "Still nothing, Master Sean. Father?"
The priest shook his head. "Nothing, I'm afraid."
Sir James said: "This was obviously done by a Serka agent. But why? And how did he get in here without your knowing it?"
Master Sean scowled. "To a sorcerer, that's obvious. First, whoever did it is an accomplished sorcerer himself, or he'd never have made it past that avoidance spell, which is keyed only to meself and to his lordship. Second, he picked exactly the right timewhen I was at Mass and had me mind concentrated elsewhere so I wouldn't notice what he was up to. Were I doing it meself, I'd have started just as the Sanctus bell was rung. After thatno problem." He looked glum. "I just wasn't expecting it, that's all."
"I wish I could have seen that carving in the clay," Sir James said.
"Well, you can see the cast if they didn't" Master Sean pulled open a desk drawer. "No, they didn't." He pulled out a thick slab of plaster. "I made this with quick-setting plaster. It's reversed, of course, but you can look at it in the mirror, over there."
Sir James took the slab, but didn't look at it immediately. His eyes were still on the heap of clay. "Do you suppose that Standish might have buried the Ipswich Phial in that clay to keep it from being found?"
Master Sean's eyes widened. "Great Heaven! It could be! With an auric-stabilized psychic shield around it, I'd not have perceived it at all!"
Sir James groaned. "That answers the question, Why?doesn't it?"
"So it would seem," murmured Father Art.
Bleakly, Sir James held the plaster slab up to the mirror above the dresser. "SSO. No. Wait." He inverted it, and his lean face went pale. "Oh, no. God," he said softly. "Oh, please. No."
"What is it?" the priest asked. "Does OSS mean something?"
"Not OSS," Sir James said still more softly. "055. Number 055 of the Serka. Olga Polovski, the most beautiful and the most dangerous woman in Europe."
It was at that moment that the sun went out.
The Reverend Father Mac Kennalty had turned to the congregation and asked them to lift up their hearts to the Lord that they might properly assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, when a cloud seemed to pass over the sun, dimming the light that streamed in through the stained glass windows. Even the candles on the Altar seemed to dim a little.
He hardly noticed it; it was a common enough occurrence. Without a pause, he asked the people to give thanks to the Lord God, and continued with the Mass.
In the utter blackness of the room, three men stood for a moment in silence.
"Well, that tears it," said Sir James's voice in the darkness. There was a noticeable lack of surprise or panic in his voice.
"So you lied to his lordship," said Master Sean.
"He did indeed," said Father Art
"What do you mean?" Sir James asked testily.
"You said," Master Sean pointed out with more than a touch of acid in his voice, "that you didn't know what the Ipswich Phial is supposed to do."
"What makes you think I do?"
"In the first place, this darkness came as no surprise to you. In the second, you must have known what it was, because Noel Standish knew."
"I had my orders," Sir James le Lein said in a hard voice. "That's not the point now. The damned thing is being used. I"
"Listen!" Father Art's voice cut in sharply "Listen!"
In the blackness, all of them heard the sweet triple tone of the Sanctus bell.
Holy . . . Holy . . . Holy . . . Lord God Sabaoth . . .
"What?" Sir James's low voice was querulous.
"Don't you understand?" Father Art asked. "The field of suppression doesn't extend as far as the church. Father Mac Kennalty could go on with the Mass in the dark, from memory. But the congregation wouldn't be likely to. They certainly don't sound upset."
"You're right, Father," Master Sean said. "That gives us the range, doesn't it? Let's see if we can feel our way out of here, toward the church. His lordship may be in trouble."
"Follow me," said the priest. "I know this church like I know my own face. Take my hand and follow me."
Cautiously, the three men moved from the darkness toward the light. They were still heading for the stairway when the sun came on again.
Lord Darcy rode into the stableyard behind the Church of St. Matthew, where four men were waiting for him. The sexton took his horse as he dismounted, and led it away to the stable. The other three just waited, expectantly.
"I could do with a cup of caffe, heavily laced with brandy, and a plate of ham and eggs, if they're available," said Lord Darcy with a rather dreamy smile. "If not, I'll just have the caffe and brandy."
"What's happened?" Sir James blurted abruptly.
Lord Darcy patted the air with a hand. "All in good time, my dear James; all in good time. Nothing's amiss, I assure you."
"I think a breakfast such as that could be arranged," Father Art said with a smile. "Come along."
The caffe and brandy came immediately, served by Father Art in a large mug. "The ham and eggs should be along pretty quickly," the priest said.
"Excellent! You're the perfect host, Father." Lord Darcy took a bracing jolt from the mug, then fished in his waistcoat pocket with thumb and forefinger. "Oh, by the by, Sir James, here's your play-pretty." He held up a small golden tube.
Sir James took it and looked at it while Master Sean scowled at in a way that made him seem rather cross-eyed.
"The seal has been cut," Sir James said.
"Yes. By your man, Standish. I suggest you give the thing to Master Sean for resealing until you get it back to Ipswich."
Sir James gave the Phial to Master Sean. "How did you get it back from them?" the King's Agent asked.
"I didn't." Lord Darcy settled himself back in the big chair. "If you'll be patient, I'll explain. Last evening, I was approached by a young woman . . ."
His lordship repeated the entire conversation verbatim, and told them of her gestures and expressions while they were talking inside the church.
"And you went with her?" Sir James asked incredulously.
"Certainly. For two very good reasons. Primus: I had to find out what was behind her story. Secundus: I had fallen in love."
Sir James gawked. Master Sean's face became expressionless. Father Art cast his eyes toward Heaven.
Sir James found his voice first. "In love?" It was almost a squawk.
Lord Darcy nodded calmly. "In love. Deeply. Madly. Passionately."
Sir James shot to his feet. "Are you mad, Darcy? Don't you realize that that woman is a Serka agent?"
"So indeed I had surmised. Sit down, James; such outbursts are unseemly." Sir James sat down slowly. "Now pay attention," Lord Darcy continued. "Of course I knew she was a spy. If you had been listening closely when I quoted her words, you would have heard that she said I was investigating the death of Standish. And yet everyone here knows that the body was identified as Bourke. Obviously, she had recognized Standish and knew his name."
"Standish had recognized her, too," Sir James said. "Secret Agent Number 055, of Serka. Real name: Olga Polovski."
"Olga," Lord Darcy said, savoring the word. "That's a pretty name, isn't it?"
"Charming. Utterly enchanting. And in spite of the fact that she's a Polish agent, you love the wench?"
"I didn't say that, Sir James," said Lord Darcy. "I did not say I loved her; I said I was 'in love' with her. There is a fine distinction there, and I have had enough experience to be able to distinguish between the two states of mind. Your use of the word 'enchanting' is quite apropos, by the way. The emotion was artificially induced. The woman is a sorceress."
Master Sean suddenly snapped his fingers. "That's where I heard the name before! Olga Polovski! Six years ago, she was an undergraduate at the University in Buda-Pest. A good student, with high-grade Talent. No wonder you 'fell in love' with her."
Sir James narrowed his eyes. "I see. The purpose was to get information out of you. Did she succeed?"
"In a way." Lord Darcy chuckled. "I sang like a nightingale. Indeed, Darcy's Mendacious Cantata, sung forte e claro, may become one of the most acclaimed works of art of the twentieth century. Pardon me; I am euphoric."
"You have popped your parietals, my lord," Sir James said, with a slight edge to his voice. "What was the result of this baritone solo?"
"Actually, it was a duet. We alternated on the versicles and responses. The theme of my song was simply that I was a criminal investigator and nothing more. That I hadn't more than a vague notion of what His Imperial Majesty's Secret Service was up to. That, for some reason, the apprehension of this murderer was most important to the Secret Service, so their agents were hanging around to help me. That they were more hindrance than help." He paused to take another swallow of laced caffe, then continued: "Andoh, yesthat they must be going to England for more men, because, four days ago, a heavily armed group of four men took a Navy cutter from Harfleur for London."
Sir James frowned for a second, then his face lit up. "Ah, yes. You implied that we had already found the Phial and that it was safely in England."
"Precisely. And since she had not heard of that oh-so-secret departure, she was certain that it could not be a bluff. As a result, she scrubbed the entire mission. Around midnight, she excused herself for a moment and spoke to someoneI presume it was the second in command, the much-maligned Suv. Her men took off to three of the four winds."
"And she didn't?"
"Of course not. Why arouse my suspicions? Better to keep me under observation while her men made good their escape. I left her shortly after dawn, and"
"You were there from sunset till dawn? What took you so long?"
Lord Darcy looked pained. "My dear James, surely you don't think I could simply hand her all that misinformation in half an hour without her becoming suspicious. I had to allow her to draw it from me, bit by bit. I had to allow her to give me more information than she intended to give in order to get the story out of me. And, of course, she had to be very careful in order not to arouse my suspicions. It was, I assure you, a very delicate and time-consuming series of negotiations."
Sir James did his best not to leer. "I can well imagine."
Father Art looked out the window, solemnly puffing his pipe as though he were in deep meditation and could hear nothing.
Rather hurriedly, Master Sean said: "Then it was you who broke the clay brick I dug out of the cliff, me lord."
"It was; I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but you were at Mass, and I was in somewhat of a hurry. You see, there were only two places where the Phial could possibly be, and I looked in the less likely place firstin that lump of clay. Standish could have hidden it there, but I thought it unlikely. Still, I had to look. It wasn't there.
"So I got my horse and rode out to where the body was found. You see, Standish had to have had it with him. He opened it to get away from his pursuers. I presume Master Sean knows how the thing works, but all I know is that it renders everyone blind for a radius of about a mile and a half."
Master Sean cleared his throat. "It's akin to what's called hysterical blindness. Nothing wrong with the eyes, ye see, but the mind blocks off the visual centers of the brain. The Phial contains a charged rod attached to the stopper. When you open it and expose the rod everything goes black. That's the reason for the auric-stabilized psychic shield which forms the Phial itself."
"Things don't go black for the person holding it," said Lord Darcy. "Everything becomes a colorless gray, but you can still see."
"That's the built-in safety spell in the stopper," said the little Irish sorcerer.
"Well, where was the blasted thing?" Sir James asked.
"Buried in the sand, almost under that big rock where his body was found. I just had to dig till I found it." Lord Darcy looked somber. "I fear my analytical powers are deserting me; otherwise, Master Sean and I would have found it yesterday. But I relied on his metal detector to find it. And yet, Master Sean clearly told me that a psychic shield renders anything psychically invisible. He was talking about Standish, of course, but I should have seen that the same logic applied to the Ipswich Phial as well."
"If ye'd told me what ye were looking for, me lord . . ." Master Sean said gently.
Lord Darcy chuckled mirthlessly. "After all our years together, my dear Sean, we still tend to overestimate each other. I assumed you had deduced what we were looking for, though you are no detective, you assumed I knew about psychic shielding, though I am no thaumaturge."
"I still can't quite see the entire chain of events," Father Art said "Could you clarify it for us? What was Standish doing out on that beach, anyway?"
"Well, let's go back to the night before he was killed. He had been following the mysterious Bourke. When Bourke was firmly ensconced in the Green Seagull, Standish rode for Caen, notified you via teleson, then rode back. He borrowed the sexton's cloak and went over to the inn. When he saw his chance, he dodged upstairs fast and went to Bourke's room presumably to get the Phial.
"Now, you must keep in mind that all this is conjecture. I can't prove it, and I know of no way to prove it. I do not have, and cannot get, all the evidence I would need for proof. But all the data I do have leads inescapably to one line of action.
"Master Sean claims I have a touch of the Talentthe ability to leap from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion. That may be so. At any rate, I know what happened.
"Very well, then. Standish went into Bourke's room to arrest him. He knew Bourke was in that room because he was psychically locked on to Bourke.
"But when he broke into the room he was confronted by a womana woman he knew. The woman was just as surprised to see Standish.
"I don't know which of them recovered first, but I strongly suspect it was the woman. Number 055 is very quick on the uptake, believe me.
"But Standish was stronger. He sustained a few good bruises in the next several seconds, but he knocked her unconscious. I saw the bruise on her neck last night.
"He searched the room and found the Phial. Unfortunately, the noise had attracted two, possibly three, of her fellow Serka agents. He had to go out the window, losing his cloak in the process. The men followed him.
"He ran for the beach, and"
"Wait a minute," Sir James interrupted. "You mean Bourke was actually Olga Polovski in disguise?"
"Certainly. She's a consummate actress. The idea was for Bourke to vanish completely. She knew the Secret Service would be after her, and she wanted to leave no trace. But she didn't realize that Standish was so close behind her because he was psychically invisible. That's why she was shocked when he came into her room.
"At any rate, he ran for the beach. There was no place else to go at that time of night, except for the church, and they'd have him trapped there.
"I must admit I'm very fuzzy about what happened during that chase, but remember he had ridden for two days without much rest, and he was battered a little by the blows Olga had landed. At any rate, he eventually found himself at the edge of that cliff, with Serka closing in around him. Remember, it was a moonless night, and there were only stars for him to see by. But at least one of the Polish agents had a lantern.
"Standish was trapped on the edge of a cliff, and he had no way to see how far down it went, nor what was at the bottom. He lay flat and kept quiet, but the others were getting close. He decided to get rid of the Phial. Better to lose it than have it fall into King Casimir's hands. He took out his knife and carved the '055' in the side of the cliff, to mark the spot and to make sure that someone else would see it if he were killed. I'm sure he intended to dig a hole and bury it there. I don't believe he was thinking too clearly by then.
"The Serka men were getting too close for comfort. He might be seen at any moment. So he cut the seal of the Phial and opened it. Blackout.
"Since he could see his pursuershowever dimlyand they couldn't see him, he decided to try to get past them, back to the village. If he had a time advantage, he could find a place to hide.
"He stood up.
"But as he turned, he made a misstep and fell twenty feet to the sand below." Lord Darcy paused.
Father Art, looking thoughtful, said: "He had a gun. Why didn't he use it?"
"Because they had guns, too, and he was outnumbered. He didn't want to betray his position by the muzzle flash unless he had to," Lord Darcy said. "To continue: The fall is what broke those ribs and sprained that wrist. It also very likely knocked him out for a few minutes. Not long. When he came to, he must have realized he had an advantage greater than he had thought at first. The Serka couldn't see the muzzle flash from his handgun. Badly hurt as he was, he waited for them."
"Admirable," said Father Art. "It's fantastic that he didn't lose the two parts of the Phial when he fell. Must have hung on for dear life."
"Standish would," said Sir James grimly. "Go on, my lord."
"Well, at that point, the Serka lads must have realized the same thing. They had no way of knowing how badly Standish was hurt, nor exactly where he was. He could be sneaking up on them, for all they knew. They got out of there. Slowly, of course, since they had to feel their way, but once they reached the Old Shore Road, they made better time.
"But by that time, Standish was close to passing out again. He still had to hide the Phial, so he buried it in the sand where I found it."
"Me lord," said Master Sean, "I still don't understand who killed Standish and why."
"Oh, that. Why that was patently obvious from the first. Wasn't it, Father Art?"
The good father stared at Lord Darcy. "Begging your pardon, my lord, but not to me it wasn't."
Lord Darcy turned his head. "Sir James?"
"No."
"Oh, dear. Well, I suppose I shall have to back up a bit, then. Consider: The Damoselle Olga, to cover her tracks, has to get rid of 'Bourke.' But if 'Bourke' disappears into nowhere, and someone else appears from nowhere, even a moron might suspect that the two were the same. So a cover must be arranged. Someone else, not connected in any way with 'Bourke,' must appear at the Green Seagull before 'Bourke' shows up.
"So, what happened? A coachman named Danglars shows up; a servant who registers for himself and his mistress, Jizelle de Ville. (Danglars and Suv were almost certainly the same man, by the way.) But who sees Mistress Jizelle? Nobody. She is only a name in a register book until the next morning!
"The original plan was to have Mistress Jizelle show up in the evening, then have Bourke show up again, and so on. The idea was to firmly establish that the two people were separate and not at all connected. The arrival and intrusion of Standish changed all that, but things worked out fairly well, nonetheless.
"It had to be 'Mistress Jizelle' who killed him. Look at the evidence. Standish diedcorrect me if I'm wrong, Master Seanwithin plus or minus fifteen minutes of the time Standish was found."
Master Sean nodded.
"Naturally," his lordship continued, "we always assume a minus time. How could the person be killed after the body was found?
"But there was no one else around who could have killed him! A farmer and his two sons were close enough to the road during that time to see anyone who came along unless that someone had walked along the beach. But there were no footprints in that damp sand except those of 'Mistress Jizelle'!
"Picture this, if you will: Number 055, still a little groggy, and suffering from a sore neck, is told by her returning henchmen that they have lost Standish. But she is clever enough to see what must have happened. As soon as possible, she puts on her 'Mistress Jizelle' persona and has her lieutenant drive her out to that section of the beach. She walks down to take a look. She sees Standish.
"Standish, meanwhile, has regained his senses. He opens his eyes and sees Olga Polovski. His gun is still in his hand. He tries to level it at her. She jumps him, in fear of her life. A struggle. The gun goes off. Finis."
"Wouldn't the farmers have heard the shot?" Master Sean asked.
"At that distance, with a brisk wind blowing, the sea pounding, and a cliff to baffle the sound, it would be hard to hear a pistol shot. That one was further muffled by the fact that the muzzle was against Standish's head. No, it wouldn't have been heard."
"Why did her footprints only come up to some five yards from the body?" Sir James asked. "There were no prints in the dry sand."
"Partly because she smoothed her prints out, partly because of the wind, which blew enough to cover them. She was shaken and worried, but she did take time to search the body for the Phial. Naturally, she didn't want any evidence of that search around. She went back to consult Danglars-Suv about what to do next. When she saw the farmers, there was nothing she could do but bluff it through. Which, I must say, she did magnificently."
"Indeed." Sir James le Lein looked both cold and grim. "Where is she now?"
"By now, she has taken horse and departed."
"Riding sidesaddle, no doubt." His voice was as cold as his expression. "So you let her get away. Why didn't you arrest her?"
"On what evidence? Don't be a fool, Sir James. What would you charge her with? Could you swear in His Majesty's Court of High Justice that 'Mistress Jizelle' was actually Olga Polovski? If I had tried to arrest her, I would have been a corpse by now in that Romany camp, even if I'd had the evidence. Since I did not and do not have that evidence, there would be no point.
"I would not call it a satisfactory case, no. But you have the Phial, which was what you wanted. I'm afraid the death of Noel Standish will have to be written off as enemy action during the course of a war. It was not first degree murder; it was, as Master Sean put it yesterday, a case of accidental murder."
"But"
Lord Darcy leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. "Drop it, Sir James. You'll get her eventually."
Then, very quietly, he began to snore.
"I'll be damned!" said Sir James. "I worked all night on my feet and found nothing. He spends all night in bed with the most beautiful woman in Europe and gets all the answers."
"It all depends on your method of approach," Master Sean said. He opened his symbol-decorated carpetbag and took out a large, heavy book.
"Oh, certainly," said Sir James bitterly. "Some work vertically, some horizontally."
Father Arthur Lyon continued to stare out the window, hearing nothing he didn't mean to hear.
"What are you looking up there, in that grimoire?" he asked Master Sean after a moment.
"Spells, infatuation; removal of," said Master Sean calmly.