His Royal Highness, Prince Richard, Duke of Normandy, seated on the edge of his bed in the Ducal Palace at Rouen, had taken off one boot and started on the other when a discreet rap came at the door.
"Yes? What is it?" There was the sound of both weariness and irritation in his voice.
"Sir Leonard, Highness. I'm afraid it's important."
Sir Leonard was the Duke's private secretary and general factotum. If he said something was important, it was. Nevertheless
"Come in, then, but damn it, man, it's five o'clock in the morning! I've had a hard day and no sleep."
Sir Leonard knew all that, so he ignored it. He came through the door and stopped. "There is a Commander Dhuglas downstairs, Highness, with a letter from His Majesty. It is marked Most Urgent."
"Oh. Well, let's see it."
"The Commander was instructed to deliver it into your hands only, Highness."
"Bother," said His Highness without rancor, and put his boot back on.
By the time he got downstairs to the room where Commander Dhuglas was waiting, Prince Richard no longer looked either tired or disheveled. He was every inch a tall, blond, handsome Plantagenet, member of a proud family that had ruled the Anglo-French Empire for over eight centuries.
Commander Dhuglas, a spare man with graying hair, bowed when the Duke entered. "Your Highness."
"Good morning, Commander. I understand you have a letter from His Majesty."
"I do, Your Highness." The Naval officer handed over a large ornately-sealed envelope. "I am to wait for an answer, Your Highness."
His Highness took the letter and waved toward a nearby chair. "Sit down, Commander, while I see what this is all about."
He himself took another chair, broke the seal on the envelope and took out the letter.
At the top was the embossed seal of the Royal Arms, and, below that:
My dear Richard,
There has been a slight change in plans. Due to unforeseen events at this end, the package you have prepared for export must go by sea instead of overland. The bearer of this letter, Commander Edwy Dhuglas, will take it and your courier to their destination aboard the vessel he commands, the White Dolphin. She's the fastest ship in the Navy, and will make the trip in plenty of time.
All my best,
Your loving brother,
John
Prince Richard stared at the words. The "package" to which His Majesty referred was a freshly-negotiated and signed Naval treaty between Kyril, the Emperor at Constantinople, and King John. If the treaty could be gotten to Athens in time, Kyril would take steps immediately to close the Sea of Marmara against certain Polish "merchant" vesselsactually disguised light cruiserswhich King Casimir's Navy was building in Odessa.
If those ships got out, Casimir of Poland would have Naval forces in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic for the first time in forty years. There were three of the disguised cruisers in the Black Sea now; once they got past the Dardanelles, it would be too late. They had to be trapped in the Sea of Marmara, and that meant the treaty had to be in Athens within days.
Plans had been laid, timetables set and mathematically calculated to get that treaty there with all possible haste.
And now, His Imperial Majesty, John IV, by the Grace of God King of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland; Emperor of the Romans and Germans; Premier Chief of the Moqtessumid Clan; Son of the Sun; Lord and Protector of the Western Continents of New England and New France; Defender of the Faith, had changed those plans. He had every right to do so, of course; there was no question of that. But
Prince Richard looked at his wristwatch and then at Commander Dhuglas. "I am afraid this message from the King my brother is a little late, Commander. The item to which he refers should be leaving Paris on the Napoli Express in five minutes."
The long, bright red cars of the Napoli Express seemed almost eager to get into motion; the two ten-inch-wide stripes along their lengthone white and one bluealmost gave the impression that they were already in motion. Far down the track ahead, nearly outside the South Paris Station, the huge engine steamed with a distant hissing.
As usual, the Express was loaded nearly full. She only made the run from Paris to Naples twice a week, and she usually had all the passengers she could handleplus a standby waiting list.
The trouble with being a standby is that when a reservation is cancelled at the last moment, the standbys, in order of precedence, have to take the accommodations offered or give them up to the next in line.
The poshest compartments on the Napoli Express are the eight double compartments on the last car of the train, the Observation Car, which is separated from the rest of the train by the dining car. All sixteen places had been reserved, but three of them had been cancelled at the last moment. Two of them had been filled by standbys who rather reluctantly parted with the extra fare required, but the sixteenth place remained empty. None of the other standbys could afford it.
The passengers were filing aboard. One of thema short, stout, dark-haired, well-dressed Irishman carrying a symbol-decorated carpetbag in one hand and a suitcase in the other, and bearing papers which identified him as Seamus Kilpadraeg, Master Sorcererwatched the other passengers carefully without seeming to do so. The man just ahead of him in line was a wide-shouldered, thick-set man with graying hair who announced himself as Sir Stanley Galbraith. He climbed aboard and did not look back as Master Seamus identified himself, put down his suitcase, surrendered his ticket and took back his stub.
The man behind him, the last in line, was a tall, lean gentleman with brown hair and a full, bushy brown beard. Master Seamus had previously watched him hurrying across the station toward the train. He carried a suitcase in one hand and a silver-headed walking stick in the other, and walked with a slight limp. The sorcerer heard him give his name to the ticket officer as Goodman John Peabody.
Master Seamus knew that the limp was phony and that the walking stick concealed a sword, but he said nothing and did not look back as he picked up his suitcase and boarded the train.
The small lounge at the rear of the car already contained some five or six passengers. The rest were presumably in their compartments. His own compartment, according to his ticket, was Number Two, toward the front of the car. He headed toward it, suitcase in one hand, carpetbag in the other. He looked again at the ticket: Number Two Upper. The lower bed was now a day couch, the upper had been folded up into the wall and locked into place, but there were two lockers under the lower bed marked "Upper" and "Lower." The one marked "Upper" still had a key in its lock; the other did not, which meant that the man who shared his compartment had already put his luggage in, locked it and taken the key. Master Seamus stowed his own gear away, locked the locker and pocketed the key. Having nothing better to do, he went back to the lounge.
The bushy-bearded man named Peabody was seated by himself over in one corner reading the Paris Standard. After one glance, the sorcerer ignored him, found himself a seat, and looked casually around at the others.
They seemed a mixed lot, some tall, some short, some middle-aged, some not much over thirty. The youngest-appearing was a blond, pink-faced fellow who was standing by the bar as if impatiently awaiting a drink, although he must have known that liquor would not be served until the train was well under way.
The oldest-appearing was a white-haired gentleman in priest's garb; he had a small white mustache and beard, and smooth-shaven cheeks. He was quietly reading his breviary through a pair of gold-rimmed half-glasses.
Between those two, there seemed to be a sampling of every decade. There were only nine men in the lounge, including the sorcerer. Five others, for one reason or another, remained in their compartments. The last one almost didn't make it.
He was a plump mannot really fat, but definitely overweightwho came puffing up just as the ticket officer was about to close the door. He clutched his suitcase in one hand and his hat in the other. His sandy hair had been tousled by the warm spring wind.
"Quinte," he gasped. "Jason Quinte." He handed over his ticket, retaining the stub.
The ticket officer said, "Glad you made it, sir. That's all, then." And he closed the door.
Two minutes later, the train began to move.
Five minutes out of the station, a man in a bright red-and-blue uniform came into the car and asked those who were in their staterooms to please assemble in the after lounge. "The Trainmaster will be here in a moment," he informed everyone.
In due time, the Trainmaster made his appearance in the lounge. He was a man of medium height, with a fierce-looking black mustache, and when he doffed his hat, he revealed a vast expanse of bald head fringed by black hair. His red-and-blue uniform was distinguished from the other by four broad white stripes on each sleeve.
"Gentlemen," he said with a slight bow, "I am Edmund Norton, your Trainmaster. I see by the passenger manifest that all of you are going straight through to Napoli. The timetable is printed on the little cards inside the doors of your compartments, and another one" he gestured "is posted over there behind the bar. Our first stop will be Lyon, where we will arrive at 12:15 this afternoon, and there will be an hour stopover. There is an excellent restaurant at the station for your lunch. We arrive at Marsaille at 6:24 and will leave at 7:20. There will be a light supper served in the dining car at nine.
"At approximately half an hour after midnight, we will cross the border from the Duchy of Provence to the Duchy of Liguria. The train will stop for ten minutes, but you need not bother yourselves with that, as no one will be allowed either on or off the train. We will arrive at Genova at 3:31 in the morning, and leave at 4:30. Breakfast will be served from 8 to 9 in the morning, and we arrive in Rome at four minutes before noon. We leave Rome at one o'clock, which will give you an hour for lunch. And we arrive at Napoli at 3:26 in the afternoon. The total time for the trip will be 34 hours and 14 minutes.
"For your convenience, the dining car will be open this morning at six. It is the next car ahead, toward the front of the train.
"Goodman Fred will take care of all of your needs, but feel free to call on me for anything at any time." Goodman Fred made a short bow.
"I must remind you, gentlemen, that smoking is not permitted in the compartments, in the corridor or in the lounge. Those of you who wish to smoke may use the observation platform at the rear of the car.
"If there are any questions, I will be glad to answer them at this time."
There were no questions. The Trainmaster bowed again. "Thank you, gentlemen. I hope you will all enjoy your trip." He replaced his hat, turned and left.
There were four tables reserved in the rear of the dining car for the occupants of the observation car. Master Sorcerer Seamus Kilpadraeg got into the dining car early, and one by one, three other men sat down with him at the table.
The tall, husky man with the receding white hair and the white, clipped, military mustache introduced himself first.
"Name's Martyn Boothroyd. Looks like we're going to be on the train together for a while, eh?" His attention was all on the sorcerer.
"So it would seem, Goodman Martyn," the stout little Irish sorcerer said affably. "Seamus Kilpadraeg I am, and pleased to meet you."
The blocky-faced man with the two-inch scar on his right cheek was Gavin Tailleur; the blond man with the big nose was Sidney Charpentier.
The waiter came, took orders, and went.
Charpentier rubbed a forefinger against the side of his imposing nose. "Pardon me, Goodman Seamus," he said in his deep, rumbling voice, "but when you came aboard, didn't I see you carrying a magician's bag?"
"You did, sir," said the sorcerer pleasantly.
Charpentier grinned, showing strong white teeth. "Thought so. Journeyman? Or should I have called you 'Master Seamus'?"
The Irishman smiled back. "Master it is, sir."
All of them were speaking rather loudly, and around them others were doing the same, trying to adjust their voice levels to compensate for the roar and rumble of the Napoli Express as she sped southwards toward Lyon.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Master Seamus," Charpentier said. "I've always been interested in the field of magic. Sometimes wish I'd gone into it, myself. Never have made Master, though; math's way over my head."
"Oh? You've a touch of the Talent, then?" the sorcerer asked.
"A little. I've got my ticket as a Lay Healer."
The sorcerer nodded. A Lay Healer's License was good for first aid and emergency work or for assisting a qualified Healer.
The blocky-faced Tailleur tapped the scar on his cheek with his right forefinger and said, in a somewhat gravelly voice: "This would've been a damn sight worse than it is if it hadn't been for old Sharpy, here."
Boothroyd said suddenly: "There's a question I've always wanted to askoops, here's breakfast." While the waiter put plates of hot food on the table, Boothroyd began again. "There's a question I've always wanted to ask. I've noticed that Healers use only their hands, with perhaps a little oil or water, but sorcerers use all kinds of paraphernaliawands, amulets, thuribles, that sort of thing. Why is that?"
"Well, sir, for one thing, they're slightly different uses of the Talent," the sorcerer said. "A Healer is assisting in a process that naturally tends in the direction he wants it to go. The body itself has a strong tendency to heal. Furthermore, the patient wants it to heal, except in certain cases of severe aberration, which a Healer can take care of in other ways."
"In other words," Charpentier said, "the Healer has the cooperation of both the body and the mind of the patient."
"Exactly so," the sorcerer agreed. "The Healer just greases the skids, so to speak."
"And how does that differ from what a sorcerer does?" Boothroyd asked.
"Well, most of a sorcerer's work is done with inanimate objects. No cooperation at all, d'ye see. So he has to use tools that a Healer doesn't need.
"I'll give you an analogy. Suppose you have two friends who weigh fourteen stone apiece. Suppose they're both very drunk and want to go home. But they are so drunk that they can't get home by themselves. You, who are perfectly sober, can take 'em both by the arm and lead 'em both home at the same time. It may be a bit o' trouble; it may require all your skill at handling 'em. But you can do it without help because, in the long run, they're cooperating with you. They want to get home.
"But suppose you had the same weight in two sandbags, and you want to get them to the same place at the same time. You'll get no cooperation from three hundred and ninety-two pounds of sand. So you have to use a tool to assist you. You have a great many tools, but you must pick the right one for the job. In this case, you'd use a wheelbarrow, not a screwdriver or a hammer."
"Oh, I see," said Boothroyd, "you'd say a healer's job was easier, then?"
"Not easier. Just different. Some men who could wheel twenty-eight stone of sand a mile in fifteen minutes might not be able to handle a couple of drunks at all without using physical force. It's a different approach, you see."
Master Seamus had let his eyes wander over the other men in the rear of the dining car as he talked. There were only fourteen men at breakfast. The white-haired priest was listening to two rather foppish-looking men discourse earnestly on church architecture at the next table. He couldn't hear any of the others because of the noise of the train. Only one man was missing. Apparently the bushy-bearded Goodman John Peabody had not wanted any breakfast.
The saba game started early.
An imposing man with a hawk nose and a full beard, completely white except for two narrow streaks of dark brown beginning at the corners of his mouth, came over to where Master Seamus was sitting in the lounge.
"Master Seamus, I'm Gwiliam Hauser. A few of us are getting up a little game and thought maybe you'd like to join us."
"I thank you for the offer, Goodman Gwiliam," the sorcerer said, "but I'm afraid I'm not much of a gambling man."
"Hardly gambling, sir. Twelfth-bit ante. Just a friendly game to pass the time."
"No, not even a friendly game of saba. But, again, I thank you."
Hauser's eyes narrowed. "May I ask why not?"
"Ah, that you may, sir, and I'll tell you. If a sorcerer gets in a saba game with men who don't have the Talent, he can only lose."
"And why is that?"
"Because if he wins, sir, there's sure to be someone at the table who will accuse him of using his Talent to cheat. Now you should see a saba game played among sorcerers, sir. That's something to watch, though likely you'd not see most of what was going on."
Hauser's eyes cleared, and a chuckle came from somewhere inside the heavy beard. "I see. Hadn't thought of it that way. Boothroyd said you might like to play, so I asked. I'll pass on your bit of wisdom to him."
Actually, it would never occur to most folk to distrust a magician, much less accuse one of cheating at cards. But a heavy loser, especially if he's been drinking, will quite often say things he regrets later. Sorcerers rarely gamble with un-Talented people unless they are close friends.
Eventually Hauser, Boothroyd, Charpentier, the plump, nearly late Jason Quinte, and one of the two fopsthe tall one with the hairline mustache, who looked as though he had been pressed into his clothesended up at a comer table with a deck of cards and a round of drinks. The saba game was on.
The sorcerer watched the game for a while from across the room, then opened the copy of the Journal of the Royal Thaumaturgical Society and began to read.
At eight-fifteen, the Irish magician finished the article on "The Subjective Algebra of Kinetic Processes" and put the Journal down. He was tired, not having had enough sleep, and the swaying motion of the train made it difficult to keep his eyes focused on the lines of print. He closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.
"Beg y'pardon, Master Seamus. Mind if I join you?"
The sorcerer opened his eyes and looked up.
"Not at all. Pray sit down."
The man had reddish hair, a bulbous nose, and sagging features that hung loosely on his facial bones. His smile was pleasant and his eyes sleepy-looking. "Zeisler's my name, Master Seamus. Maurice Zeisler." He extended his right hand; his left held a large glass of ouiskie and waterheavy on the ouiskie.
The two shook hands, and Zeisler eased himself into the chair to the sorcerer's left. He gestured toward the saba table.
"Damn silly game, saba. Have to remember all those cards. Miss one, play wrong, and you're down the drain for a sovereign at least. Remember 'em all, have all the luck, bluff all the others out, and you're four sovereigns ahead. I never get the luck, and I can't keep the cards straight. Vandepole can, every time. So I stand 'em all a round of drinks and let 'em play. Lose less that way."
"Very wise," murmured the sorcerer.
"Buy you a drink?"
"No, thank you, sir. It's a bit early for me. Later, perhaps."
"Certainly. Be a pleasure." He took a hefty swig from his glass and then leaned confidentially toward the sorcerer. "What I would really like to know is, is Vandepole cheating? He's the well-dressed chap with the hairline mustache. Is he using the Talent to influence the fall of the cards?"
The sorcerer didn't even glance at the saba table. "Are you consulting me professionally, sir?" he asked in a mild voice.
Zeisler blinked. "Well, I"
"Because, if you are," Master Seamus continued relentlessly, "I must warn you that a Master's fees come quite high. I would suggest you consult a Journeyman Sorcerer for that sort of thing; his fees would be much lower than mine, and he'd give you the same information."
"Oh. Well. Thank you. I may do that. Thank you." He took another long pull at his drink. "Uhby the by, do you happen to know a Master Sorcerer named Sean O Lochlainn?"
The sorcerer nodded slowly. "I've met him," he said carefully.
"Fortunate. Never met him, myself, but I've heard a great deal about him. Forensic sorcerer, you know. Interesting work. Like to meet him sometime." His eyes had wandered away from the sorcerer as he spoke, and he was gazing out the window at the French countryside flowing by.
"You're interested in magic, then?" the Irishman asked.
Zeisler's eyes came back. "Magic? Oh, no. Got no Talent at all. No, what I'm interested in is investigative work. Criminal investigation." He blinked and frowned as though trying to remember something. Then his eyes brightened and he said: "Reason I brought up Master Sean was that I met the man he works for, Lord Darcy, who's the Chief Investigator for His Royal Highness, the Duke of Normandy." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. The ouiskie was strong on his breath. "Were you at the Healers and Sorcerers Convention in London some years back, when a sorcerer named Zwinge got murdered at the Royal Steward Hotel?"
"I was there," the sorcerer said. "I remember it well."
"I imagine so, yes. Well, I was attached to the Admiralty offices at the time. Met Darcy there." He winked an eye solemnly. "Helped him crack the case, actually, but I can't say anything more about it than that." His gaze went back out the window again. "Great investigator. Absolute genius in his field. Nobody else could crack that case, but he solved it in no time. Absolute genius. Wish I had his brains." He drained his glass. "Yes, sir, I wish I had his brains." He looked at his empty glass and stood up. "Time for a refill. Get you one?"
"Not yet. Later, perhaps."
"Be right back." Zeisler headed for the bar.
He did not come back. He got into a conversation with Fred, the attendant who was mixing drinks, and forgot about Master Seamus completely, for which the stout little Irish sorcerer was extremely grateful.
He noticed John Peabody, he of the full and bushy beard, was sitting alone at the far end of the long couch, apparently still reading his newspaper, and seemingly so thoroughly engrossed in it that it would be boorish for anyone to speak to him. But the sorcerer knew that the man was keeping at least a part of his attention on the long hallway that ran forward, past the compartments.
Master Seamus looked back at the saba game. The foppishly dressed man with the hairline mustache was raking in sizeable winnings.
If Vandepole were cheating, he was doing it without the aid of the Talent, either latent or conscious; such usage of the Talent would have been easy for the sorcerer to pick up at this short range. It was possible, of course, that the man had a touch of the precognitive Talent, but that was something which the science of magic had, as yet, little data and no theory on. Someone, some day, might solve the problem of the asymmetry of time, but no one had done it yet, and even the relatively new mathematics of the subjective algebrae offered no clue.
The sorcerer shrugged and picked up his Journal again. What the hell, it was no business of his.
"Lyon, Gentlemen!" came Goodman Fred's voice across the lounge, fighting successfully against the noise of the train. "Lyon in fifteen minutes! The bar will close in five minutes! Lunch will be served in the station restaurant, and we will leave at one-fifteen! It is now twelve noon!"
Fred had everyone's attention now, so he repeated the message.
Not everyone was in the lounge. After the bar was closedZeisler had managed to get two more during the five minutesFred went forward along the passageway and knocked on each compartment door. "Lyon in ten minutes! Lunch will be served in the station restaurant. We will leave for Marsaille at 1:15."
The stout little Irish sorcerer turned in his couch to look out the window at the outskirts of Lyon. It was a pleasant place, he thought. The Rhone valley was famous for its viniculture, but now the grape arbors were giving way to cottages more and more densely packed, and finally the train was in the city itself. The houses were old, most of them, but neat and well-tended. Technically, the County of Lyonnais was a part of the Duchy of Burgundy, but the folk never thought of themselves as Burgundians. The Count de Lyonnais commanded their respect far more than the Duke of Burgundy did. His Grace respected those feelings, and allowed My Lord Count as free a hand as the King's Law would permit. From the looks of the countryside, it appeared My Lord Count did a pretty good job.
"Excuse me, Master Sorcerer," said a soft, pleasant voice.
He turned away from the window. It was the elderly-looking gentleman in clerical garb. "How may I help you, Father?"
"Allow me to introduce myself; I am the Reverend Father Armand Brun. I noticed you sitting here by yourself, and I wondered if you would care to join me and some other gentlemen for lunch."
"Master Seamus Kilpadraeg at your service, Reverend Sir. I'd be most happy to join you for lunch. We have an hour, it seems."
The "other gentlemen" were standing near the bar, and were introduced in that quiet, smooth voice. Simon Lamar had thinning dark hair that one could see his scalp through, a long face and lips that were drawn into a thin line. His voice was flat, with just a touch of Yorkshire in it as he said: "I'm pleased to meet you, Master Seamus."
Arthur Mac Kay's accent was both Oxford and Oxfordshire, and was smooth and well-modulated, like an actor's. He was the other foppishly dressed manimmaculate, as though his clothes had been pressed seconds before. He had dark, thick, slightly wavy hair, luminous brown eyes surrounded by long, dark lashes, and a handsome face that matched. He was almost too pretty.
Valentine Herrick had flaming red hair, an excessively toothy smile, and a body that seemed to radiate health and strength as he shook the sorcerer's hand. "Hate to see a man eat alone, by S'n George! A meal's not a meal without company, is it?"
"Not really," the sorcerer agreed.
"Especially at these train station restaurants," said Lamar in his flat voice. "Company keeps your mind off the tasteless food."
Mac Kay smiled angelically. "Oh, come; it's not as bad as all that. Come along; you'll see."
The Heart of Lyon restaurant was a fairly comfortable-looking place, not more than fifty years old, but designed in the King Gwiliam IV style of the late Eighteenth Century to give it an air of stability. The decor, however, reflected a mild pun on the restaurant's namewhich had probably been carefully chosen for just that reason. Over the door, three-quarters life size, legs braced apart, right hand on the pommel of a great naked sword whose point touched the lintel, left arm holding a shield bearing the lions of England, stood the helmed, mail-clad figure of King Richard the Lion-Hearted in polychromed bas-relief. The interior, too, was decorated with knights and ladies of the time of Richard I.
"Interesting motif for the decorations," Father Armand said as the waiter led the five men to a table. "And very well done, too."
"Not period, though," Lamar said flatly. "Too realistic."
"Oh, true, true," Father Armand said agreeably. "Not early Thirteenth Century style at all." He seated himself as the waiter pulled out a chair for him. "It's the painstakingly detailed realism of the late Seventeenth, which fits in very well with the style of the rest of the interior. It must have been expensive; there are very few artists nowadays who can or will do that sort of work."
"Agreed, Father," said Lamar. "Workmanship in general isn't what it used to be."
Father Armand chose to ignore that remark. "Now, you take a look up there, at Gwiliam the Marshalat least I presume it's he; he's wearing the Marshal arms on his surcoat. I'll wager that if you climbed up there on a stepladder and looked closely, you could see the tiny rivets in every link of his mail."
Lamar raised a finger. "And that's not period, either."
Father Armand looked astonished. "Riveted link mail not period for the Thirteenth Century? Surely, sir"
"No, no," Lamar interrupted hastily. "I meant the surcoat with the Marshal arms. Armorial bearings of that sort didn't come in till about a century later."
"You know," said Arthur Mac Kay suddenly, "I've always wondered what I'd look like in one of those outfits. Rather dashing, I think." His actor's voice contrasted strongly with Lamar's flat tones.
Valentine Herrick looked at him, smiling toothily. "Hey! Wouldn't that be great? Imagine! Charging into combat with a broadsword like that! Or rescuing a fair princess! Or slaying a dragon! Or a wicked magician!" He stopped suddenly and actually blushed. "Oops. Sorry, Master Sorcerer."
"That's all right," said Master Seamus mildly. "You may slay all the wicked magicians you like. Just don't make any mistakes."
That got a chuckle from everyone, even Herrick.
They looked over their menus, chose and ordered. The food, which the sorcerer thought quite good, came very quickly. Father Armand said grace, and more small talk ensued. Lamar said little about the food, but the wine was not to his exact taste.
"It's a Delacey '69, from just south of Givors. Not a bad year for the reds, but it can't compare with the Monet '69, from a lovely little place a few miles southeast of Beaune."
Mac Kay lifted his glass and seemed to address his remarks to it. "You know, I have always contended that the true connoisseur is to be pitied, for he has trained his taste to such perfection that he enjoys almost nothing. It is, I believe, a corollary of Acipenser's Law, or perhaps a theorem derived therefrom."
Herrick blinked bright blue eyes at him. "What? I don't know what you're talking about, but, by S'n George, I think it's damn good wine." He emphasized his point by draining his glass and refilling it from the carafe.
Almost as if he had heard the pouring as a summons, Maurice Zeisler came wandering over to the table. He did not stagger, but there was a controlled precision about his walking and about his speech that indicated a necessity to concentrate in order to do either one properly. He did not sit down.
"Hullo, fellows," he said very carefully. "Did you see who's over in the corner?" There were, of course, four corners to the big room, but a slight motion of his head indicated which one he meant.
It was bushy-bearded John Peabody, eating by himself, his suitcase on the floor beside his chair.
"What about him?" asked Lamar sourly.
"Know him?"
"No. Kept pretty much to himself. Why?"
"I dunno. Seems familiar, somehow. Like I ought to know him. Can't exactly place him, though. Oh, well." And he wandered off again, back toward the bar, whence he had come.
"Condition he's in, he wouldn't recognize his own mother," muttered Lamar. "Pass the wine, please."
The Napoli Express crossed the Rhone at Lyon and headed southwards through the Duchy of Dauphine, toward the Duchy of Provence, following the river valley. At Avignon, it would angle away from the river, southeast toward Marsaille, but that wouldn't be until nearly five o'clock.
The Napoli Express was not a high-speed train; it was too long and too heavy. But it made up for that by making only four stops between Paris and Napoli. Five, if you counted the very short stop at the Provence-Liguria border.
In order to avoid having to cross the Maritime Alps, the train ran along the coast of the Mediterranean after leaving Marsaille, past Toulon, Canne, Nice, and Monaco to the Ligurian coast. It looped around the Gulf of Genova to the city of Genova, then stayed with the seacoast all the way to the Tiber, where it turned east to make the short side trip to Rome. There, it crossed the Tiber and headed back toward the sea, staying with the coast all the way to arrive at last at Napoli.
But that would be tomorrow afternoon. There were hundreds of miles and hours of time ahead of her yet.
Master Seamus sat on one of the chairs on the observation deck at the rear of the car and watched the Rhone Valley retreat into the distance. There were four seats on the semicircular observation deck, two on each side of the central door that led into the lounge. The two on the starboard side were occupied by the plump, sandy-haired man who had almost missed the trainJason Quinteand the blond, pink-faced young man whose name the sorcerer did not know. Both were smoking cigars and talking in voices that could be heard but not understood above the rush of the wind and the rumble of the wheels over the steel tracks.
Master Seamus had taken the outer of the two remaining chairs, and Father Armand, who was trying valiantly to light his pipe in the gusts that eddied about him, had taken the other. When at last the pipe was burning properly, Father Armand leaned back and relaxed.
The door slid open and a fifth man came out, thumbing tobacco into his own pipe, a stubby briar. It was Sir Stanley Galbraith, the wide-shouldered, muscular, graying man who had preceded the sorcerer aboard the train. He ignored the others and went to the high railing that surrounded the observation deck and looked into the distance. Having packed his pipe to his satisfaction, he put away his tobacco pouch and then proceeded to search himself. Finally, he turned around, scowling. The scowl vanished when he saw Father Armand's pipe.
"Ah. Begging your pardon, Reverend Sir, but could I borrow your pipe lighter? Seem to have left my own in my compartment."
"Certainly." Father Armand proffered his lighter, which Sir Stanley promptly made use of. He succeeded in an astonishingly short time and handed the lighter back. "Thank you. My name's Galbraith, Sir Stanley Galbraith."
"Father Armand Brun. I am pleased to meet you, Sir Stanley. This is Master Sorcerer Seamus Kilpadraeg."
"A pleasure, gentlemen, a pleasure." He puffed vigorously at his pipe. "There. She'll stay lit now. Good thing it isn't raining; left my weather pipe at home."
"If you need one, Sir Stanley, let me know." It was the plump Jason Quinte. He and the pink-faced youngster had stopped talking when Sir Stanley had appeared and had been listening. Sir Stanley's voice was not overly loud, but it carried well. "I have a couple of them," Quinte went on. "One of 'em never used. Glad to make you a present of it if you want it."
"No, no. Thanks all the same, but there's no bad weather predicted between here and Napoli." He looked at the sorcerer. "Isn't that right, Master Seamus?"
The sorcerer grinned. "That's what the report said, Sir Stanley, but I couldn't tell you of my own knowledge. Weather magic isn't my field."
"Oh. Sorry. You chaps do all specialize, don't you? What is your specialty, if I may ask?"
"I teach forensic sorcery."
"Ah, I see. Interesting field, no doubt." He shifted his attention as a whiff of cigar smoke came his way. "Jamieson."
The pink-faced youth took the cigar from his mouth and looked alert "Sir?"
"What the devil is that you're smoking?"
Jamieson looked down at the cigar in his hand as though he were wondering where the thing had come from and how it had got there. "A Hashtpar, sir."
"Persian tobacco; I thought so." A smile came over his tanned face. "Good Persian is very good; bad Persianwhich that iswill probably rot your lungs, my boy. That particular type is cured with some sort of perfume or incense. Reminds me of a whorehouse in Abadan."
There was a sudden awkward pause as it came to the minds of all of them that there was a man of the cloth present
"Toss it overboard, Jamie," Quinte said in a rather too-loud voice. "Here, have one of mine."
Jamieson looked at the three-quarters-smoked cigar again, then flipped it over the rail. "No, thanks, Jason. I was through with it anyway. Just thought I'd try one." He looked up at Sir Stanley with a rather sheepish grin. "They were expensive, sir, so I bought one. Just to try it, you see. But you're rightthey do smell like the inside of auhDaoist temple."
Sir Stanley chuckled. "Some of the worst habits are the most expensive, son. But, then, so are some of the best."
"What are you smoking, Sir Stanley?" Father Armand asked quietly.
"This? It's a blend of Balik and Robertian."
"I favor a similar blend, myself. I find Balik the best of Turkish. I alternate with another blend: Balik and Couban."
Sir Stanley shook his head slowly. "Tobacco from the Duchy of Couba is much better suited for cigars, Reverend Sir. The Duchy of Robertia produces the finer pipe tobacco, I find. Of course, I'll admit it's all a matter of taste."
"Never seen Couba," said Quinte, "but I've seen the tobacco fields in Robertia. Don't know if you've ever seen the stuff grow, Father?" It was only half a question.
"Tell me about it," said Father Armand.
Robertia was a duchy on the southern coast of the northern continent of the Western Hemisphere, New England, with a seacoast on the Gulf of Mechicoe. It had been named after Robert II, since it had been founded during his reign in the early Eighteenth Century.
"It grows about so high," Quinte said, holding his hand about thirty inches off the deck. "Big, wide leaves. I don't know how it's cured; I only saw it in the fields."
He may have been going to say more, but the door leading into the lounge slid open and Trainmaster Edmund Norton stepped out, his red-and-blue uniform gleaming in the afternoon sun.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said with a smile. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
"Oh, no," said Sir Stanley. "Not at all. Just chit-chat."
"I hope you gentlemen have all been comfortable, enjoying the trip, eh?"
"No complaints at all, Trainmaster. Eh, Father?"
"Oh, none at all, none at all," said Father Armand. "A very enjoyable trip so far. You run an excellent train, Trainmaster."
"Thank you, Reverend Sir." The Trainmaster cleared his throat. "Gentlemen, it is my custom at this hour to invite all my special passengers to join me in a drinkof whatever kind you prefer. Will you join me, gentlemen?"
There could, of course, be no argument with an invitation like that. The five passengers followed the Trainmaster into the lounge.
"One thing I'll say," Father Armand murmured to the sorcerer, "it's certainly quieter in here than out there."
The Trainmaster went quietly over to the table where the saba game had resumed after lunch. He had judged his time accurately.
Vandepole raked in his winnings with one hand, while he ran the forefinger of the other across his hairline mustache.
The Trainmaster said a few words, which the sorcerer did not hear over the rumble of the train. It was quieter in here, yes, but not exactly silent.
Then Trainmaster Edmund went over to the bar, where Goodman Fred stood waiting, turned to the passengers and said in a loud voice: "Gentlemen, step up and order your pleasure. Fred, I'll see what the gentlemen at the saba table will have."
A few minutes later, the Irish sorcerer was seated at the bar watching the foam on a glass of beer slosh gently from side to side with the swaying of the train. Maurice Zeisler, he thought, was going to hate himself later. The scar-faced Gavin Tailleur had gone back to his compartment to tell him that the Trainmaster was treating, but had been unable to rouse him from hisernap.
Master Seamus was seated at the end of the bar, near the passageway. The Trainmaster came over and stood at the end of the bar after making sure everyone who wanted one had been served a drink.
"I'll have a beer, Fred," he said to the attendant.
"Comin' right up, Trainmaster."
"I see beer's your tipple, too, Master Sorcerer," Trainmaster Edmund said as Fred put a foaming brew before him.
"Aye, Trainmaster, that it is. Wine's good with a meal, and a brandy for special occasions is fine, but for casual or even serious drinkin', I'll take beer every time."
"Well spoken. Do you like this particular brew?"
"Very much," said the sorcerer. "Norman, isn't it?"
"Yes. There's a little area in the Duchy of Normandy, up in the highlands where the Orne, the Sarthe, the Eure, the Risle, and the Mayenne all have their sources, that has the best water in all of France. There's good beer comes from Ireland, and there are those who prefer English beer, but to my taste, Norman is the best, which is why I always order it for my train."
Master Seamus, who did prefer English beer, but by the merest hair, merely said: "It's very fine stuff. Very fine, indeed." He suspected that the Trainmaster's preference might be shaded just a little by the fact that Norman beer was cheaper in Paris than English beer.
"Have you been getting along well with your compartment mate?" the Trainmaster asked.
"I haven't been informed who my compartment mate is," the sorcerer replied.
"Oh? Sorry. It's Father Armand Brun."
By half past four that afternoon, Master Seamus Kilpadraeg was dozing on the rearward couch, leaning back in the corner, his arms folded across his chest and his chin nearly touching his sternum. Since he did not snore, he offended no one. Father Armand had gone back to Compartment Number Two at a quarter after three, and, suspecting that the gentleman was tired, the sorcerer had decided to let him have the day couch there to himself.
The train and the saba game went on. Jason Quinte had dropped out of the game, but his place had been taken by the red-haired Valentine Herrick. Gavin Tailleur had taken Sidney Charpentier's place, and now Charpentier was sitting on the forward couch, his large nose buried in a book entitled The Infernal Device, an adventure novel. Sir Stanley Galbraith and Arthur Mac Kay were at the bar with a dice cup, playing for drinks.
Quinte and young Jamieson were back out on the observation deck with more cigarspresumably not Hashtpars this time.
Zeisler was still snoozing, and Lamar had apparently retired to his own compartment.
At Avignon, the train crossed the bridge that spanned the River Durance and curved away from the Rhone toward Marsaille.
Master Seamus was roused from his doze by the sound of Simon Lamar's flat voice, but he neither opened his eyes nor lifted his head.
"Sidney," he said to Charpentier, "I need your Healing Talent."
"What's the matter? Got a headache?"
"I don't mean I need it. Maurice does. He's got one hell of a hangover. I've ordered some caffe from Fred, but I'd like your help. He hasn't eaten all day, and he has a headache."
"Right. I'll come along. We'll have to get some food in him at Marsaille." He rose and left with Lamar.
The sorcerer dozed off again.
When the Napoli Express pulled into Marsaille at twenty-four minutes after six that evening, Master Seamus had already decided that he needed exercise before he needed food. He got off the train, went through the depot, and out into the street beyond. A brisk fifteen-minute walk got his blood going again, made him feel less drowsy, and whetted his appetite. The tangy air of the Duchy of Provence, given a touch of piquancy by the breeze from the Mediterranean, was an aperitif in itself.
The Cannebiere restaurantwhich was nowhere near the street of the same namewas crowded by the time the sorcerer got back. With apologies to both sides, the waiter seated him at a table with a middle-aged couple named Duprey. Since he was not carrying his symbol-decorated carpetbag, there was no way for them to know that he was a magician, and he saw no reason to enlighten them.
He ordered the specialty of the house, which turned out to be a delicious thick whitefish stew with lots of garlic. It went fine with a dry white wine of rather pronounced character.
The Dupreys, as the conversation brought out, were the owners of a small leather-goods shop in Versaille who had carefully saved their money to make a trip to Rome, where they would spend a week, leaving the business in the hands of their two sons, each of whom was married to a delightful wife, and one of them had two daughters and the other a son, and . . .
And so on.
The sorcerer was not bored. He liked people, and the Dupreys were a very pleasant couple. He didn't have to talk much, and they asked him no questions. Not, that is, until the caffe was served. Then: "Tell me, Goodman Seamus," said the man, "why is it that we must stop at the Ligurian border tonight?"
"To check the bill-of-lading for the freight cars, I believe," the sorcerer said. "Some Italian law about certain imports."
"You see, John-Paul," said the woman, "it is as I told you."
"Yes, Martine, but I do not see why it should be. We are not stopped at the border of Champagne or Burgundy or Dauphine or Provence. Why Liguria?" He looked back at the magician. "Are we not all a part of the same Empire?"
"Well, yesand no," Master Seamus said thoughtfully.
"What can you mean by that, sir?" John-Paul said, looking puzzled.
"Well, the Duchies of Italy, like the Duchies of Germany, are a part of the Holy Roman Empire, d'ye see, which was established in A.D. 862, and King John IV is Emperor. But they are not a part of what is unofficially called the Anglo-French Empire, which technically includes only France, England, Scotland, and Ireland."
"But we all have the same Emperor, don't we?" Martine asked.
"Yes, but His Majesty's duties are different, d'ye see. The Italian States have their own Parliament, which meets in Rome, and the laws they have passed are slightly different than those of the Anglo-French Empire. Its acts are ratified, not by the Emperor directly, but by the Imperial Viceroy, Prince Roberto VII. In Italy, the Emperor reigns, but does not rule, d'ye see."
"II think so," John-Paul said hesitantly. "Is it the same in the Germanies? I mean, they're part of the Empire, too."
"Not quite the same. They're not as unified as the Duchies of Italy. Some of them take the title of Prince, and some would like to take the title of King, though that's forbidden by the Concordat of Magdeburg. But the general idea's the same. You might say that we're all different states, but with the same goals, under the same Emperor. We all want individual freedom, peace, prosperity, and happy homes. And the Emperor is the living symbol of those goals for all of us."
After a moment's silence, Martine said: "Goodness! That's very poetic, Goodman Seamus!"
"It still seems silly," John-Paul said doggedly, "to have to stop a train at the border between two Imperial Duchies."
Master Seamus sighed. "You should try visiting the Polesor even the Magyars," he said. "The delay might be as much as two hours. You would have to have a passport. The train would be searched. Your luggage would be searched. Even you might be searched. And the Poles do that even when their own people are crossing their own internal borders."
"Well!" said Martine, "I certainly shan't ever go there!"
"No need to worry about that," said John-Paul. "Will you have more caffe, my dear?"
Master Seamus went back to the train feeling very relaxed, thankful that two very ordinary people had taken his mind off his troubles. He never saw nor heard of either of them again.
By eight o'clock that evening, the Napoli Express was nearly twenty-five miles out of Marsaille, headed for a rendezvous with the Ligurian border.
The saba game was in full swing again, and Master Seamus had the private feeling that, if it weren't for the fact that no one was permitted in the lounge while the train was in the station, three or four of the die-hards would never have bothered to eat.
By that time, the sorcerer found his eyelids getting heavy again. Since Father Armand was in deep conversation with two other passengers, Master Seamus decided he might as well go back to the compartment and take his turn on the day couch. He dropped off to sleep almost immediately.
The sorcerer's inward clock told him that it was ten minutes of nine when a rap sounded at the door.
"Yes? Who is it?"
"Fred, sir. Time to make up the bed, sir."
Wake up, it's time to go to sleep, the sorcerer thought glumly as he got his feet on the floor. "Certainly, Fred; come in."
"Sorry, sir, but the beds have to be made before I go off at nine. The night man doesn't have the keys, you see."
"Certainly, that's all right. I had me little nap, and I feel much better. I'll go on out to the lounge and let you work; there's hardly room in here for two of us."
"That's true, sir; thank you, sir."
There was a new man on behind the bar. As the sorcerer sat down, he put down the glass he was polishing and came over.
"May I serve you, sir?"
"Indeed you may, me lad. A beer, if you please."
"One beer; yes, sir." He took a pint mug, filled it, and served it.
There was no one else at the bar. The saba game, like the constellations in the sky, seemed unchanged. Master Seamus entertained a brief fantasy of taking this same trip a hundred years hence and seeing nothing remarkably different about that saba game. (Young Jamieson had replaced Boothroyd, but Hauser, Tailleur, Herrick and Vandepole were still at it.) Master Seamus drank his beer slowly and looked around the lounge.
Sir Stanley Galbraith and Father Armand were seated on the rearward couch, not talking to each other, but reading newspapers which they had evidently picked up in Marsaille.
Apparently, Charpentier had managed to cure Zeisler's hangover and get some food in him, for the two of them were sitting at the near table with Boothroyd and Lamar, talking in low tones. Zeisler was drinking caffe.
Mac Kay, Quinte, and Peabody were nowhere in sight.
Then Peabody, with his silver-handled stick, limped in from the passageway. He ordered ouiskie-and-splash and took it to the forward couch to sit by himself. He, too, had a newspaper, and began reading it with his touch-me-not attitude.
The sorcerer finished his beer and ordered another.
After a few minutes, Fred came back from his final duties for the day and said to the night man: "It's all yours, Tonio. Take over." And promptly left.
"No, no; I can get it. I'm closer." It was Zeisler's voice, raised just high enough for the sorcerer to hear it. His chair was nearest the bar. He got up, caffe cup in hand, and brought it over to the bar. "Another cup of caffe, Tonio."
"Yes, sir."
Zeisler smiled and nodded at Master Seamus, but said nothing. The sorcerer returned the greeting.
And then pretended not to notice what Tonio was doing. He set the cup down behind the bar, carefully poured in a good ounce of ouiskie, then filled the cup from the carafe that sat over a small alcohol lamp. It was done in such a way that the men at the table could not possibly have told that there was anything but caffe in the cup.
Zeisler had obviously tipped him well for that bit of legerdemain long before Master Seamus had come into the lounge.
Mentally, the sorcerer allowed himself a sad chuckle. Boothroyd, Lamar, and Charpentier thought they were dutifully keeping Zeisler sober, and here he was getting blotto before their very eyes. Ah, well.
Peabody put down his newspaper and came over to the bar, glass in hand. "Another ouiskie-and-splash, if you please," he said in a very low voice.
It was brought, and he returned to his seat and his newspaper. Tonio went back to polishing glasses.
Master Seamus was well into his third beer when the Trainmaster showed up. He went around and nodded and spoke to everyone, including the sorcerer. He went back to the observation deck, and Master Seamus concluded that Quinte and Mac Kay must be back there.
Trainmaster Edmund came back to the bar, took off his hat, and wiped his balding head with a handkerchief. "Warm evening. Tonio, how are your supplies holding out?"
"We'll have plenty for the rest of the evening, Trainmaster."
"Good; good. But I just checked the utility room, and we're short of towels. These men will be wanting to bathe in the morning, and we're way short. Run up to supply and get a full set. I'll watch the bar for you."
"Right away, Trainmaster." Tonio hurried without seeming to.
The Trainmaster left his cap off and stood behind the bar. He did not polish any glasses. "Another beer, Master Sorcerer?" he asked.
"No, thanks, Trainmaster. I've had me limit for a while. I think I'll stretch me legs." He got up off the barchair and turned toward the observation deck.
"How about you, sir?" the Trainmaster called to Peabody, a few feet away, in the forward couch.
Peabody nodded, got up, and brought his glass over.
As Master Seamus passed the table where Zeisler and the other three were sitting, he heard Zeisler say: "You chaps know who that bearded chap at the bar is? I do."
"Morrie, will you shut up?" said Boothroyd coldly.
Zeisler said no more.
"What is going on out there? A convention?" came the voice of the sorcerer's companion from the lower berth. It was a rhetorical question, so the Master Sorcerer didn't bother to answer.
It is not the loudness of a noise, nor even its unexpectedness, that wakes one up. It is the unusual noise that does that. And when the noise becomes interesting, it is difficult to go back to sleep.
The rumble and roar of the train as it moved toward Italy was actually soothing, once one got used to it. If it had only drowned out these other noises, all would have been well. But it didn't; it merely muffled them somewhat.
The sorcerer had been one of the last few to retire; only Boothroyd and Charpentier had still been in the lounge when he left to go to his compartment.
The hooded lamp had been burning low, and the gentle snores from the lower berth told him that his compartment-mate was already asleep.
He had prepared for bed and climbed in, only to find that the other man had left his newspaper on the other berth. It had been folded so that one article was uppermost, but in the dim light all he could read was the headline: NICHOLAS JOURDAN RITES TO BE HELD IN NAPOLI. It was an obituary notice.
He put the paper on the nearby shelf and began to doze off.
Then he heard a door open and close, and footsteps moving down the passageway. Someone going to the toilet, he thought drowsily. No, for the footsteps went right by his own door to Compartment Number One. He heard a light rap. Hell of a time of night to go visiting, he thought. Actually, it wasn't all that lateonly a little after ten. But everyone aboard had been up since at least four that morning, some even longer. Oh, well; no business of his.
But there were other footsteps, farther down the corridor, other doors opening and closing.
He tried to get to sleep and couldn't. Things would get quiet for a minute or two, then they would start up again. From Compartment Three, he could hear voices, but only because the partition was next to his berth. There was only the sound; he couldn't distinguish any words. Being a curious man, he shamelessly put his ear to the wall, but could still make out no words.
He tried very hard to go to sleep, but the intermittent noises continued. Footsteps. Every five minutes or so, they would go to Number One or return from there, and, of course, these were the loudest. But there were others, up and down the passageway.
There was little he could do about it. He couldn't really say they were noisy. Just irritating.
He lay there, dozing intermittently, coming up out of it every time he heard something, drifting off each time there was a lull.
After what seemed like hours, he decided there was something he could do about it. He could at least get up and see what was going on.
That was when his companion had said: "What's going on out there? A convention?"
The sorcerer made no reply, but climbed down the short ladder and grabbed his dressing gown. "I feel the call of nature," he said abruptly. He went out.
There was no one in the passageway. He walked slowly down to the toilet. No one appeared. No one stuck his head out of a door. No one even opened it a crack to peek. Nothing.
He took his time in the toilet. Five minutes. Ten.
He went back to his compartment. His slippers on the floor had been almost inaudible, and he'd been very careful about making any noise. They couldn't have heard him.
He reported what he had found to his compartment-mate.
"Well, whatever they were up to," said the other, "I am thoroughly awake now. I think I'll have a pipe before I go back to bed. Care to join me?"
When they came into the lounge, Tonio was seated on a stool behind the bar. He looked up. "Good evening, Father; good evening, Master Sorcerer. May I help you?"
"No, we're just going out for a smoke," said the sorcerer. "But I guess you've had a pretty busy evening, eh?"
"Me? Oh, no, sir. Nobody been in here for an hour and a half."
The two men went on out to the observation deck. Their conversation was interrupted a few minutes later by Tonio, who slid open the door and said: "Are you sure there's nothing I can get you gentlemen? I have to go forward to the supply car to fetch a few things for tomorrow, but I wouldn't want you to be needing anything."
"No, thanks. That'll be all right. As soon as the good Father finishes his pipe, we'll be goin' back to bed."
Twenty minutes later, they did just that, and fell asleep immediately. It was twenty minutes after midnight.
At 12:25, Tonio returned with his first load. During the daytime, when people were awake, it was permissible to use a handcart to trundle things through the aisles of the long train. But a sudden lurch of the train could upset a handcart and wake people up. Besides, there was much less to carry at night.
He carefully put his load of stuff away in the cabinets behind the bar, then went back to check the observation deck to see if his two gentlemen were still there. They were not. Good; everyone was asleep.
About time, too, he thought as he headed back uptrain for his second and last load. The gentlemen had certainly been having themselves some sort of party, going from one compartment to another like that. Though they hadn't made much noise, of course.
Tonio Bracelli was not a curious young man by nature, and if his gentlemen and ladies gave him no problems on the night run, he was content to leave them alone.
The train began to slow, and at thirty minutes after midnight, it came to an easy stop at the check station on the Ligurian border. The stop was only a formality, really. The Ligurian authorities had to check the bills of lading for the cargo in the freight cars at the front of the train, but there was no search or actual checking of the cargo itself. It was all bookkeeping.
Tonio picked out what he needed for the second load, and then stood talking to the Supply Master while the train was stopped. The locomotive braked easily enough to a smooth stop, but getting started again was sometimes a little jerky, and Tonio didn't want to be walking with his arms full when that happened. He'd wait until the train picked up speed.
He reached the rearmost car at 12:50, took his load of goods to the bar and stashed them as before. Then he went to do his last duty until the morning: cleaning out the bathroom.
It was a touchy jobnot because it was hard work, or even unpleasant, but because one had to be so infernally quiet! The day man could bang around all he liked, but if the night man did so, the gentlefolk in Four and Five, on each side of the bathroom, might complain.
He went up to the utility compartment, just forward of Number One, got his equipment, went back to the bathroom, and went to work.
When he was finished, he took a final look around to make sure. All looked fine until he came to the last check.
He looked at the floor.
Strange. What were those red stains?
He had just mopped down the floor. It was still damp, but . . .
He stepped to one side and looked down.
The stains were coming from his right boot.
He sat down on the necessary, lifted his right foot, and looked at the bootsole. Red stains, almost gone, now.
Where the devil had they come from?
Tonio Bracelli, if not curious, was conscientious. After wiping the stains from his boot and checking the other to make sure there were none, he wiped the floor and went out to track down the source of those stains.
"Track" was certainly the word. He had left footprints of the stuff, whatever it was, up and down on the tan floor of the passageway. The darker tracks led uptrain. He followed them.
When he found their source, he lost his composure.
A great pool of what was obviously blood had seeped out from beneath the door of Compartment Number One.
The Irish sorcerer was brought out of his sleep by a banging that almost slammed him awake, and a voice that was screaming: "Sir! Sir! Open the door! Sir! Are you all right? Sir!"
Both of the men in Compartment Number Two were on their feet and at the door within two seconds.
But the banging was not at their door, but at the one to their rightNumber One. The two men grabbed their robes and went out.
Tonio was pounding his fists on the door of Number One and shoutingalmost screamingat the top of his voice. Down the passageway, other doors were opening.
An arm reached out and a hand grabbed Tonio's shoulder. "Now, calm down, my son! What's the trouble?"
Tonio suddenly gasped and looked at the man who had laid such a firm hand on his shoulder. "Oh, Father! Look! Look at this!" He stepped back and pointed at the blood at his feet. "He doesn't answer! What should I do, Father?"
"The first thing to do, my son, is go get the Trainmaster. You don't have the key to this door, do you? No. Then go fetch Trainmaster Edmund immediately. But mind! No noise, no shouting. Don't alarm the passengers in the other cars. This is for the Trainmaster only. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Father. Certainly." His voice was much calmer.
"Very well. Now, quickly." Then, and only then, did that strong hand release the young man's shoulder. Tonio lefthurriedly, but now obviously under control.
"Now, Master Seamus, Sir Stanley, we must be careful not to crowd round here any more than necessary."
Sir Stanley, who had come boiling out of Number Eight only half a second later than the sorcerer and his companion had come out of Number Two, turned to block the passageway.
His voice seemed to fill the car. "All right, now. Stand away, all of you! You men get back to your quarters! Move!"
Within half a minute, the passageway was empty, except for three men. Then Sir Stanley said: "What's happened here, Father?"
"I know no more than you do, Sir Stanley. We must wait for the Trainmaster."
"I think we ought to" Whatever it was that Sir Stanley thought they ought to do was cut off forever by the appearance of Trainmaster Edmund, who came running in from the dining car ahead, followed by Tonio, and asked almost the same question.
"What's happened here?"
The magician stepped forward. "We don't know, Trainmaster, but that looks like blood, and I suggest you open that door."
"Certainly, certainly." The Trainmaster keyed back the bolt of Number One.
On Lower One, Goodman John Peabody lay with his smashed head hanging over the edge, his scalp a mass of clotted blood. He was very obviously quite dead.
"I wouldn't go in there if I were you, Trainmaster," said the sorcerer, putting an arm in front of Trainmaster Edmund as he started to enter.
"What? On my own train? Why not?" He sounded indignant.
"With all due apologies, Trainmaster, have you ever had a murder on your train before?"
"Well, no, but"
"Have you ever been involved in a murder investigation?"
"No, but"
"Well, again with apologies, Trainmaster, I have. I'm a trained forensic sorcerer. The investigators aren't going to like it if we go tramping in there, destroying clues. Do you have a chirurgeon on board?"
"Yes; the train chirurgeon, Dr. Vonner. But how do you know it's murder?"
"It's not suicide," the sorcerer said flatly. "His head was beaten repeatedly by that heavy, silver-headed walking-stick there on the floor. A man doesn't kill himself that way, and he doesn't do it accidentally. Send Tonio for the chirurgeon."
Dr. Vonner, it turned out, had had some experience with legal cases and knew what to doand, more important, what not to do. He said, after examination, that not only was Peabody dead but, in his opinion, had been dead for at least an hour. Then he said that if he was needed no further, he was going back to bed. The Trainmaster let him go.
"It's nearly two hours yet to Genova," the sorcerer said. "We won't be able to notify the authorities until then. But that's all right; nobody can get off the train while it's at speed, and I can put a preservative spell over the body and an avoidance spell on the compartment."
A voice from behind the sorcerer said: "Should I not give the poor fellow the Last Rites of Holy Mother Church?"
The Irishman turned and shook his head. "No, Father. He's quite dead now, and that can wait. If there's any Black Magic involved in this killing, your work could dissipate all trace of it, destroying what might be a valuable clue."
"I see. Very well. Shall I fetch you your bag?"
"If you would be so good, Reverend Sir."
The bag was brought, and the sorcerer went about his work. The preservative spell, cast with a night-black wand, was quickly done; the body would remain in stasis until the authorities finished their investigation. The sorcerer noted down the time carefully, checking his wristwatch against that of the Trainmaster.
The avoidance spell was somewhat more involved, requiring the use of a smoking thurible and two wands, but when it was finished, no one would enter that room, or even look into it of his own free will. "You'd best relock that door, Trainmaster," said the Irish sorcerer. He looked down at the floor. "As for that stain, Tonio has already walked through it, but we'd best not have any more people do so. Would you be so good as to tell the others to stay away from this area until we get to Genova, Sir Stanley?"
"Certainly, Master Sorcerer."
"Thank you. I'll put me bag away now."
The sorcerer put his symbol-decorated carpetbag down on the floor while his compartment-mate closed the door behind them.
"Now that's what I call stayin' in character, me lord," said Sean O Lochlainn, Chief Forensic Sorcerer for His Royal Highness, the Duke of Normandy.
"What? Oh, you mean offering to perform the Last Rites?" Lord Darcy, the Duke's Chief Investigator, smiled. "It's what any real priest would have done, and I knew you'd get me off the hook." When he did come up out of character, he looked much younger, in spite of the disguising white hair and beard.
"Well, I did what I could, me lord. Now I suppose there's nothing for us to do but wait until we get to Genova, where the Italian authorities can straighten this out."
His lordship frowned. "I am afraid we shall have to do more than that, my dear Sean. Time is precious. We absolutely must get that Naval treaty to Athens in time. That means we have to be in Brindisi by ten o'clock tonight. And that means we have to catch that Napoli-Brindisi local, which leaves fifteen minutes after the Napoli Express gets into the station. I don't know what the Genovese authorities will do, but if they don't hold us up in Genova, they most certainly will when we reach Rome. They'll cut the car off and hold the whole lot of us until they do solve it. Even if we were to go through all the proper channels and prove who we are and what we're up to, it would take so long that we'd miss that train."
Now Master Sean looked worried. "What do we do if it isn't solved by then, in spite of everything we do?"
Lord Darcy's face became impassive. "In that case, I shall be forced to leave you. 'Father Armand Brun' would perforce disappear, evading the Roman Armsmen and becoming a fugitiveundoubtedly accused of the murder of one John Peabody. I would have to get to Brindisi by myself, under cover. It would be difficult in the extreme, for the Italians are very sharp indeed at that sort of work."
"I would be with you, me lord," Master Sean said stoutly.
Lord Darcy shook his head. "No. What would be difficult for one man would be impossible for twoespecially two who had been known to have escaped together. 'Master Seamus Kilpadraeg' is a bona fide sorcerer, with bona fide papers from the Duke of Normandy and, ultimately, from the King himself. 'Father Armand' is a total phony. You can stick it out, I can't. Unless, of course, I want to explode our whole mission."
"Then me lord, we must solve the case," the magician said simply. "Where do we start?"
His lordship smiled, sighed, and sat down on the lower bed. "Now, that's more like it, my dear Sean. We start with everything we know about Peabody. When did you first notice him?"
"As I came aboard the train, me lord. I saw the walking-stick he carried. On an ordinary stick there is a decorative silver ring about two inches down from the handle. The ring on his stick was a good four inches below the silver head, the perfect length for the hilt on a sword stick. Just above the ring is an inconspicuous black stud that you press with your thumb to release the hilt from the scabbard."
Lord Darcy nodded silently. He had noticed the weapon.
"Then there was his limp," Master Sean continued. "A man with a real limp walks with the same limp all the time. He doesn't exaggerate it when he's walking slowly, then practically lose it when he's in a hurry."
"Ah! I hadn't noticed that," his lordship admitted. "It is difficult to judge the quality of a man's limp when he is trying to move about on a lurching train car, and I observed him at no other time. Very good! And what did you deduce from that?"
"That the limp was an excuse to carry the stick."
"And I dare say you are right. That he needed that stick as a weapon, or thought he would, and was not used to carrying it."
Master Sean frowned. "How so, me lord?"
"Otherwise, he would either have perfected his limp or not used a limp at all." Lord Darcy paused, then: "Anything else?"
"Only that he carried his small suitcase to lunch with him, and that he always sat in the lounge on the first couch, where he could watch the door of his compartment," Master Sean said. "I think he was afraid someone would steal his suitcase, me lord."
"Or something in it," Lord Darcy amended.
"What would that be, me lord?"
"If we knew that, my dear Sean, we'd be a great deal closer to solving this problem than we are at this moment. We" He stopped suddenly and put his finger to his lips. There were footsteps in the passageway again. Not as loud this time, for the men were wearing slippers instead of boots, but the doors could be heard opening and closing.
"I think the convention has started again," Lord Darcy said quietly. He walked over to the door. By the time he was easing it open, he had again donned the character of an elderly priest. He opened the door almost noiselessly.
Sir Stanley, facing down the car toward the lounge, had his back to Lord Darcy. Through the windows beyond him, the Ligurian countryside rushed by in the darkness.
"Standing guard, Sir Stanley?" Lord Darcy asked mildly.
Sir Stanley turned. "Guard? Oh, no, Father. The rest of us are going into the lounge to discuss this. Would you and Master Seamus join us?"
"I would be glad to. You, Master Sorcerer?"
Master Sean blinked, and, after a moment, said: "Certainly, Father."
"Are you absolutely certain it was murder?" Gwiliam Hauser's voice was harsh.
Master Sean O Lochlainn leaned back in the couch and narrowed his eyes at Hauser. "Absolutely certain? No, sir. Can you tell me, sir, how a man can have the whole front of his head smashed in while lying on a lower berth? Unless it is murder? If so, then I may reconsider my statement that I am reasonably certain that it was murder."
Hauser stroked his dark-streaked white beard. "I see. Thank you, Master Sorcerer." His sharp eyes looked round at the others in the lounge. "Did any of youany of yousee anything at all that looked suspicious last night?"
"Or hear anything?" Lord Darcy added.
Hauser gave him a quick glance. "Yes. Or hear anything."
The others all looked at each other. Nobody said a word.
Finally, the too-handsome Mac Kay leaned back in his chair at the table near the bar and said: "Uh, Father, you and the Master Sorcerer had the compartment next to Peabody's. Didn't either of you hear anything?"
"Why, yes, we did," Lord Darcy said mildly. "We both remarked upon it."
All eyes in the lounge were focused on him now, with the exception of Master Sean's. The sorcerer was watching the others.
"Beginning at about twenty minutes after ten last night," Lord Darcy continued in the same mild voice, "and continuing for about an hour and a half, there was an absolute parade of footsteps up and down that passageway. There was much conversation and soft rappings at doors. There were knockings on the door of Peabody's compartment more than a dozen times. Other than that, I heard nothing out of the usual."
The three-second silence was broken by Sir Stanley. "We were just walking around, talking. Visiting, you know."
Zeisler was over at the bar, drinking caffe. Master Sean hadn't seen it this time, but he was certain Tonio had spiked the cup again. "That's right," Zeisler said in a sudden voice. "Talking. I couldn't sleep, myself. Had a nap this afternoon. Went visiting. Seems nobody else could sleep, either."
Boothroyd nodded. "I couldn't sleep, either. Noisy damn train." At that point all the others joined inthe words were different, but the agreement was there.
"And Peabody couldn't sleep either?" Lord Darcy's voice was bland.
"No, he couldn't," said Sir Stanley gruffly.
"I didn't know any of you knew the gentleman." Lord Darcy's voice was soft, his eyes mild, his manner gentle. "I did notice none of you spoke to him during the day."
"I recognized him," Zeisler said. The ouiskie wasn't slowing his brain down much. "Chap I used to know. Didn't get his name, and didn't recognize him at first, what with the beard. Didn't used to wear a beard, you see. So I went to talk to himrenew old acquaintance, you know. Bit shy at first, but we got along. He wanted to talk to the other chaps, so" He gestured with one hand, leaving the sentence unfinished.
"I see." His lordship smiled benevolently. "Then which of you was the last to see him alive?"
Hauser looked at Jason Quinte. "Was that you, Quinte?"
"Me? No, I think it was Val."
"No, Mac talked to him after I did."
"But then Sharpie went back in, didn't you, Sharpie?"
"Yes, but I thought Simon"
And so it went. Lord Darcy listened with a sad but benevolent smile on his face. After five minutes, it was obvious that they could not agree on who had seen Peabody last, and that not one of them wanted to own up to it.
Finally, Gavin Tailleur stood up from his seat in the rearward couch. His face was paler than usual, making the scar more conspicuous. "I don't know about the rest of you, but it's obvious I am not going to get any more sleep tonight. I am tired of wandering about in my nightclothes. I'm going back and put some clothes on."
Valentine Herrick, his bright red hair looking badly mussed, said: "Well, I'd like to get some sleep, myself, but . . ."
Lord Darcy, in a voice that seemed soft but still carried, said: "It doesn't much matter what we do now; we won't get any sleep after we reach Genova, and we might as well be prepared for it."
Master Sean wanted to talk privately with Lord Darcy. For one thing, he wanted to know why his lordship had permitted all the passengers in the car to get together to compare stories when the proper procedure would be to get them alone and ask them questions separately. Granted, here in Italy Lord Darcy had no authority to question them, and, granted, he was playing the part of a priest, but damn it! he should have done something.
But no, he just sat there on the forward sofa, smiling, watching, listening, and saying very little, while the other passengers sat around and talked or drank or both.
There was quite a bit of caffe consumed, but the ouiskie, brandy, wine, and beer were not neglected, either. Master Sean and Lord Darcy stuck to caffe.
Tonio didn't seem to mind. He had to stay up all night, anyway, and at least he wasn't bored.
Just before the train reached Genova, the Trainmaster returned. He took off his hat and asked for the gentlemen's attention.
"Gentlemen, we are approaching Genova. Normally, if you happened to be awake, you could take advantage of the hour stopover to go to the restaurant or tavern, although most people sleep through this stop.
"I am afraid, however, that I shall have to insist that you all remain aboard until the authorities arrive. The doors will not be opened until they get here. I am sorry to inconvenience you in this way, but such is my duty."
There were some low mutterings among the men, but nobody said anything to contradict Trainmaster Edmund.
"Thank you, gentlemen," the Trainmaster said. "I shall do my best to see that the authorities get their work over with as promptly as possible." He returned his hat to his head and departed.
"Technically," Boothroyd said, "I suppose we're all under arrest."
"No," Hauser growled. "We are being detained for questioning. Not quite the same thing. We're only here as witnesses."
One of us isn't, Master Sean thought. And wondered how many others were thinking the same thing. But nobody said anything.
The Genovese Armsmen were surprisingly prompt. Within fifteen minutes after the train's brakes had made their last hissing sigh, a Master-at-Arms, two Sergeants-at-Arms, and four Armsmen had come aboard. All were in uniform.
This was merely the preliminary investigation. Names were taken and brief statements were written down by the Master and one of the Sergeants, apparently the only ones of the seven who spoke Anglo-French with any fluency. Master Sean and Lord Darcy both spoke Italian, but neither said anything about it. No need to volunteer information that wasn't asked for.
It was while the preliminary investigation was going on that the two Norman law officers found where each of the other twelve were billeted.
Compartment No. 3Maurice Zeisler; Sidney Charpentier
Compartment No. 4Martyn Boothroyd; Gavin Tailleur
Compartment No. 5Simon Lamar; Arthur Mac Kay
Compartment No. 6Valentine Herrick; Charles Jamieson
Compartment No. 7Jason Quinte; Lyman Vandepole
Compartment No. 8Sir Stanley Galbraith; Gwiliam Hauser
Number Two, of course, contained "Armand Brun" and "Seamus Kilpadraeg" and John Peabody had been alone in Number One.
The uniformed Master-at-Arms made a short, polite bow to Master Sean. Since he was armed by the sword at his side, he did not remove his hat. "Master Sorcerer, I believe it was you who so kindly put the avoidance spell and the preservation spell on the deceased one?"
"Aye, Master Armsman, I am."
"I must ask you to remove the avoidance spell, if you please. It is necessary that I inspect the body in order to determine that death has, indeed, taken place."
"Oh, certainly. Certainly. Me bag is in me compartment. Won't take but a minute."
As they went down the passageway, Master Sean saw Trainmaster Edmund standing patiently by the door of Number One, holding the key in his hand. The sorcerer knew what the Armsman's problem was. A death had been reported, but, so far, he hadn't seen any real evidence of it. Even if the Trainmaster had unlocked the door, the spell would have kept both men out, and, indeed, kept them from even looking into the compartment.
Master Sean got his symbol-decorated carpetbag out of Number Two, and told Trainmaster Edmund: "Unlock it, Trainmasterand then let me have a little room to work."
The Trainmaster unlocked the door, but did not open it. He and the Master-at-Arms stood well back, in front of Number Three. Master Sean noticed with approval that a Man-at-Arms was standing at the far end of the passageway, in front of Number Eight, facing the lounge, blocking the way.
Himself being immune to his own avoidance spell, Master Sean looked all around the compartment. Everything was as he had left it. He looked down at the body. The blood still looked fresh, so the preservative spell had been well castnot that the stout little Irish sorcerer had ever doubted it, but it was always best to check.
He looked down at the floor near his feet. The blood which had leaked out into the passageway was dark and dried. It had not, he noticed, been disturbed since Tonio had tromped through it. Good.
Master Sean placed his carpetbag carefully on the floor and took from it a small bronzen brazier with tripod legs. He put three lumps of willow charcoal in it, set it on the floor in the doorway, and carefully lit the charcoal. When it was hot and glowing, he took a pinch of powder from a small glass phial and dropped it on the coals. A spiral of aromatic smoke curled upwards. The magician's lips moved silently.
Then he took a four-by-four inch square of white paper from his bag and folded it in a curious and intricate manner. Murmuring softly, he dropped it on the coals, where it flared into orange flame and subsided into gray ash.
After a moment, he took a bronze lid from among his paraphernalia and fitted it to the brazier to smother the coals. He picked up the brazier by one leg and moved it aside. Then he stood up and looked at the Armsman. "There you are, Master Armsman; it's all yours." Then he gestured. "Watch the bloodstain, here, and watch that brazier. It's still hot."
The Master-at-Arms went in, looked at the remains of John Peabody and touched one wrist. He wrote in a notebook. Then he came out. "Lock it up again, Trainmaster. I can now state that a man identified as one John Peabody is dead, and that there is reason to believe that a felony has been committed."
Trainmaster Edmund looked surprised. "Is that all?"
"For now," the Armsmaster said. "Lock it up, and give me the key"
The Trainmaster locked the compartment, saying as he did so: "I can't give you a duplicate. We don't keep them around for security reasons. If a passenger loses one" He took the key from the lock. "we get a duplicate either from the Paris office or the Napoli office. I'll have to give you one of my master keys. And I'll want a receipt for it."
"Certainly. How many master keys do you have?"
"For this car? Two. This one, here, and one that's locked in my office forward for emergencies."
"See that it stays locked up. This key, then, is a master for this car only?"
"Oh, yes. Each car has separate lock sets. What are you doing, Master Sorcerer?" The Trainmaster looked puzzled.
Master Sean was kneeling by the door, the fingers of his right hand touching the lock, his eyes closed. "Just checking." The sorcerer stood up. "I noticed your lock spell on my own lock when I first used my key. Commercial, but very tight and well-knit. No wonder you don't keep duplicates aboard. Even an exact duplicate wouldn't work unless it was attuned to the spell. May I see that master key, Armsmaster? Thank you. Mmmmm. Yes. Thank you again." He handed the key back.
"What were you checking just now?" the Trainmaster asked.
"I wanted to see if the spell had been tampered with," Master Sean explained. "It hasn't been."
"Thank you, Master Sorcerer," the Master-at-Arms said, making a note in his notebook. "And thank you, Trainmaster. That will be all for now."
The three of them went on back to the lounge.
There was an empty space on the sofa next to Lord Darcywho was still playing "Father Armand" to the hiltso Master Sean walked over and sat beside him.
"How are things going, Father?" he asked in a low, conversational tone. In the relative quiet of the stationary car, it was easier to talk in soft voices without seeming to whisper.
"Interestingly," Lord Darcy murmured. "I haven't heard everything, of course, but I've been listening. They seem to be finished now."
At that moment, one of the Sergeants-at-Arms said, in Italian: "Master Armsman, here comes the Praefect."
Master Sean, like the Armsmaster, turned his head to look out the window. Then he looked quickly away.
"Our goose is cooked," he said very softly to Lord Darcy. "Look who's coming."
"I did. I don't know him."
"I do. It's Cesare Sarto. And he knows me."
The Roman Praefecture of Police has no exact counterpart in any other unit of the Empire. As elsewhere, every Duchy in Italy has its own organization of Armsmen which enforces the law within the boundaries of that Duchy. The Roman Praefecture is an instrumentality of the Italian Parliament to coordinate the efforts of these organizations.
The Praefects' powers are limited. Even in the Principality of Latium, where Rome is located, they have no police powers unless they have been called in by the local authorities. (Although a "citizen's arrest" by a Roman Praefect carries a great deal more weight than such an arrest by an ordinary civilian.)
They wear no uniforms; their only official identification is a card and a small golden shield with the letters SPQR above a bas-relief of the Capitoline Wolf, with a serial number and the words Praefecture of Police below her.
Their record for cases solved and convictions obtained is high, their record for violence low. These facts, plus the always gentlemanly or ladylike behavior of every Praefect, has made the Roman Praefecture of Police one of the most prestigious and honored bodies of criminal investigators on the face of the Earth.
In the gaslight of the train platform, Cesare Sarto waited as the Master-at-Arms came out of the car to greet him. Master Sean kept his face averted, but Lord Darcy watched carefully.
Sarto was a man of medium height with dark hair and eyes and a neatly-trimmed mustache. He was of average build, but carried himself like an athlete. There was power and speed in that well-muscled body. His face, while not exactly handsome, was strong and showed character and intelligence.
After a few minutes, he came into the car. He had a suitcase in one hand and a notebook in the other. He put the suitcase on the floor and looked around at the fourteen passengers assembled in the lounge. They all watched him, waiting.
His eyes betrayed no flicker of recognition as they passed over Master Sean's face.
Then he said: "Gentlemen, I am Cesare Sarto, an agent of the Roman Praefecture of Police. The Chief Master-at-Arms of the city of Genova has asked me to take charge of this caseat least until we get to Rome." His Anglo-French was almost without accent.
"Technically," he continued, "this is the only way it can be handled. John Peabody was apparently murdered, but we do not yet know whether he was killed in Provence or in Liguria, and until we do, we won't know who has jurisdiction over the case.
"As of now, we must act on the assumption that Peabody died after this train crossed the Italian border. Therefore, this train will proceed to Rome. If we have not determined exactly what happened by then, this car will be detached and the investigation will continue. Those of you who can be exonerated beyond doubt will be allowed to go on to Napoli. The others, I fear, will have to be detained."
"Do you mean," Sir Stanley interrupted, "that you suspect one of us?"
"No one of you individually, sir. Not yet. But all of you collectively, yes. It surely must be obvious, sir, that since Peabody was killed in this car, someone in this car must have killed him. May I ask your name, sir?"
"Sir Stanley Galbraith," the gray-haired man said rather curtly.
Praefect Cesare looked at his notebook. "Ah, yes. Thank you, Sir Stanley." He looked around at the others. "I have here a list of your names as procured by the Master-at-Arms. In order that I may know you better, I will ask that each of you raise his hand when his name is called."
As he called off the names, it was obvious that each man's name and face were linked permanently in his memory when the hand was raised.
When he came to "Seamus Kilpadraeg," he looked the sorcerer over exactly as he had the others, then went on to the next name.
When he had finished, he said: "Now, gentlemen, I will ask you to go to your compartments and remain there until I call for you. The train will be leaving for Rome in" He glanced at his wristwatch. "eighteen minutes. Thank you."
Master Sean and Lord Darcy dutifully returned to their compartment.
"Praefect Cesare," Lord Darcy said, "is not only highly intelligent, but very quick-minded."
"How do you deduce that, me lord?"
"You said he knew you, and yet he showed no sign of it. Obviously, he perceived that if you were traveling under an alias, you must have a good reason for it. And, you being who you are, that the reason was probably a legitimate one. Rather than betray you in public, he decided to wait until he could talk to you privately. When he does, tell him that Father Armand is your confidant and close friend. Vouch for me, but don't reveal my identity."
"I expect him to be here within minutes."
There came a knock on the door.
Master Sean slid it open to reveal Praefect Cesare Sarto. "Come in, Praefect," the sorcerer said. "We've been expecting you."
"Oh?" Sarto raised an eyebrow. "I would like to talk to you privately, Master Seamus."
Master Sean lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "Come in, Cesare. Father Armand knows who I am."
The Praefect came in, and Master Sean slid the door shut. "Sean O Lochlainn at your service, Praefect Cesare," he said with a grin.
"Sean!" the Praefect grabbed him by both shoulders. "It's been a long time! You should write more often." He turned to Lord Darcy. "Pardon me, Padre, but I haven't seen my friend here since we took a course together at the University of Milano, five years ago. 'The Admissibility of Certain Magically Derived Evidence in Criminal Jurisprudence' it was."
"That's all right," Lord Darcy said. "I'm glad for both of you."
The Praefect looked for a moment at the slack-shouldered, white-haired, white-bearded man who peered benignly at him over gold-rimmed half-glasses. Then he looked back at Master Sean. "You say you know the Padre?"
"Intimately, for many years," Master Sean said. "Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of Father Armand in perfect confidence. You can trust him as you trust me."
"I didn't mean" Sarto cut himself off and turned to Lord Darcy. "Reverend Sir, I did not intend to imply that one of the Sacred Clergy was not to be trusted. But this is a murder case, and they're touchy to handle. Do you know anything about criminology?"
"I have worked with criminals, and I have heard their confessions many times," Lord Darcy said with a straight face. "I think I can say I have some insight into the criminal mind."
Master Sean, with an equally straight face, said: "I think I can safely say that there are several cases that Lord Darcy might not have solved without the aid of this man here."
Praefect Cesare relaxed. "Well! That's fine, then. Sean, is it any of my business why you're traveling under an alias?"
"I'm doing a little errand for Prince Richard. It has nothing whatever to do with John Peabody, so, strictly speaking, it is none of your business. I imagine, though, that if you really had to know, His Highness would give me permission to tell you before any case came to trial."
"All right; let that rest for now. There are some other questions I must ask you."
The questions elicited the facts that neither Master Sean nor "Father Armand" had ever seen or heard of Peabody before, that neither had ever spoken to him, and that each could account for his time during the night. On being put the direct question, each gave his solemn word that he had not killed Peabody.
"Very well," the Praefect said at last, "I'll accept it as a working hypothesis that you two are innocent. Now, I have a little problem I want you to help me with."
"The murder, you mean?" Master Sean asked.
"In a way, yes. You see, it's like this: I have never handled a murder case before. My field is fraud and embezzlement. I'm an accountant, not, strictly speaking, an Armsman at all. I just happened to be in Genova, finishing up another case. I was going to go back to Rome on this train, anyway. So I got a teleson call from Rome, telling me to take over until we get there. Rome doesn't expect me to solve the case; Rome just wants me as a caretaker until the experts can take over."
He was silent for a moment, then, suddenly, a white-toothed, almost impish grin came over his face. "But the minute I recognized you, an idea occurred to me. With your experience, we just might be able to clear this up before we get to Rome! It would look good on my record if I succeed, but no black mark if I don't. I can't lose, you see. The head of the homicide division, Angelo Ratti, will be waiting for us at the station in Rome, and I'd give half a year's pay to see the look on his face if I could hand him the killer when I step off."
Master Sean gawped. Then he found words. "You mean you want us to help you nail the murderer before we get to Rome?"
"Exactly."
"I think that's a capital idea," said Lord Darcy.
The Napoli Express moved toward Rapello, on its way to Rome. In a little over an hour, it would be dawn. At four minutes of noon, the train would arrive in Rome.
First on the agenda was a search of the body and the compartment in which it lay. Peabody's suitcase was in the locker reserved for Lower One, but the key was in the lock, so there was no trouble getting it. It contained nothing extraordinaryonly clothes and toilet articles. Peabody himself had been carrying nothing unusual, eitherif one excepted the sword-stick. He had some loose change, a gold sovereign, two silver sovereigns, and five gold-sovereign notes. He carried some keys that probably fit his home locks or office locks. A card identified him as Commander John Wycliffe Peabody, Imperial Navy, Retired.
"I see nothing of interest there," Praefect Cesare commented.
"It's what isn't there that's of interest," Lord Darcy said.
The Praefect nodded. "Exactly. Where is the key to his compartment?"
"It appears to me," Lord Darcy said, "that the killer went in, killed Peabody, took the key, and locked the compartment so that the body wouldn't be found for a while."
"I agree," Cesare said.
"Then the murderer might still have the key on him," Master Sean said.
"It's possible." Praefect Cesare looked glum. "But it's far more likely that it's on or near the railroad tracks somewhere between here and Provence."
"That would certainly be the intelligent thing to do," Lord Darcy said. "Should we search for it anyway?"
"Not just yet, I think. If he kept it, he won't throw it away now. If not, we won't find it."
Lord Darcy was rather pleased with the Praefect's answer. It was the one he would have given, had he been in charge. It was rather irksome not to be in charge of the case, but at least Cesare Sarto knew what he was doing.
"The killer," the Praefect went on, "had no way of knowing that the blood from Peabody's scalp would run under the door and into the passageway. Let's assume it hadn't. When would the body have been discovered?"
"Probably not until ten o'clock this morning," Master Sean said firmly. "I've taken this train before, though not with the same crew. The day manthat's Fred, this tripcomes on at nine. He makes up the beds of those who are already awake, but he doesn't start waking people up until about ten. It might have been as late as half past ten before Peabody was found."
"I see," said Praefect Cesare. "I don't see that that gets us any forwarder just yet, but we'll keep it in mind. Now, we cannot do an autopsy on the body, of course, but I'd like a little more information on those blows and the weapon."
"I think I can oblige you, Praefect," said Master Sean.
The sorcerer carefully inspected the walking-stick with its concealed blade. "We'll do this first; it's the easier job and may give us some clue that will tell us what to do next."
From his bag, he took a neatly-folded white cerecloth and spread it over the small nearby table. "First time I've done this on a train," he muttered, half to himself. "Have to watch me balance."
The other two said nothing.
He took out a thin, three-inch, slightly concave golden disk, a pair of tweezers, a small insufflator, and an eight-inch, metallic-looking, blue-gray wand with crystalline sapphire tips.
With the tweezers, he selected two hairs, one from the dead man and one from the silver head of the stick. He carefully laid them parallel, an inch and a half apart, on the cerecloth. Then he touched each with the wand, murmuring solemn spondees of power under his breath. Then he stood up, well away from the hairs, not breathing.
Slowly, like two tiny logs rolling toward each other, the hairs came together, still parallel.
"His hair on the stick, all right," Master Sean said. "We'll see about the blood."
The only sound in the room except the rumbling of the train was the almost inaudible movement of Sarto's pen on his notebook.
A similar incantation, this time using the little golden saucer, showed the blood to be the same.
"This one's a little more complex," Master Sean said. "Since the wounds are mostly on the forward part of the head, I'll have to turn him over and put him flat on his back. Will that be all right?" He directed the question to the Praefect.
"Certainly," Praefect Cesare said. "I have all the notes and sketches of the body's position when found. Here, I'll give you a hand."
Moving a two-hundred-pound dead body is not easy in the confines of a small compartment, but it would have been much more difficult if Master Sean's preservative spell had not prevented rigor mortis from setting in.
"There; that'll do. Thank you," the stout little sorcerer said. "Would either of you care to check the wounds visually?"
They would. Master Sean's powerful magnifying glass was passed from hand to hand.
"Bashed in right proper," Sarto muttered.
"Thorough job," Lord Darcy agreed. "But not efficient. Only two or three of those blows were hard enough to kill, and there must be a dozen of them. Peculiar."
"Now gentlemen," the sorcerer said, "we'll see if that stick actually was the murder weapon."
It was a crucial test. Hair and blood had been planted before on innocent weapons. The thaumaturgical science would tell them whether or not it had happened this time.
Master Sean used the insufflator to blow a cloud of powder over both the area of the wounds and the silver knob on the stick. There was very little of the powder, and it was so fine that the excess floated away like smoke.
"Now, if you'll turn that lamp down . . ."
In the dim yellow glow of the turned-down wall lamp, almost no details could be seen. All was in shadow. Only the glittering tips of Master Sean's rapidly moving wand could be seen, glowing with a blue light of their own.
Then, abruptly, there seemed to be thousands of tiny white fireflies moving over the upper part of the dead man's faceand over the knob of the stick. There were several thin, twinkling threads of the minute sparks between face and knob.
After several seconds, Master Sean gave his wand a final snap with his wrist, and the tiny sparks vanished.
"That's it. Turn up the lights, if you please. The stick was definitely the murder weapon."
Praefect Cesare Sarto nodded slowly, looking thoughtful. "Very well. What's our next step?" He paused. "What would Lord Darcy do next?"
His lordship was standing behind and a little to the left of the Italian, and, as Master Sean looked at both of them, Darcy traced an interrogation point in the air with a forefinger.
"Why, me lord's next step," said the sorcerer as if he had known all along, "would be to question the suspects again. More thoroughly, this time." Lord Darcy held up the forefinger, and Master Sean added: "One at a time, of course."
"That sounds sensible," Sarto agreed. "And I can get away with having you two present by saying that you are Acting Forensic Sorcerer on this case and that you, Reverend Sir, are amicus curia as a representative of Holy Mother Church. By the way, are you a Sensitive, Father?"
"No, unfortunately, I am not."
"Pity. Well, we needn't tell them that. Let them worry. Now, what sort of questions do we ask? Give me a case of tax fraud, and I have an impressive roster of questions to ask the people involved, but I'm a little out of my element here."
"Why, as to that," Lord Darcy began . . .
"They are lying," Praefect Cesare said flatly, three hours later. "Each and severally, every single one of the bastards is lying."
"And not very well, either," added Master Sean.
"Well, let us see what we have here," Lord Darcy said, picking up his notes.
They were seated at the rear table in the lounge; there was no one else in the car. Segregation of the suspects had not been difficult; the Trainmaster had opened up the dining car early, and the Genovese Master-at-Arms that Sarto had brought with him was watching over it. The men had been taken from their compartments one at a time, questioned, then taken back to the dining car. That kept them from discussing the questioning with those who hadn't been questioned yet.
Tonio, the night man, had been questioned first, then told to get out of the car and stay out. He didn't mind; he knew there would be no business and no tips that morning.
The Trainmaster had arranged for caffe to be served early in the rear of the dining car, and Lord Darcy had prepared the three interrogators a pot from behind the bar.
At eight o'clock, the stewards had begun serving breakfast in the dining car. It was now nearly nine.
Rome was some three hours away.
Lord Darcy was looking over his transcript of the questioning when the Roman Praefect said: "Do you see the odd thing about this group? That they know each other?"
"Well, some of 'em know each other," Master Sean said.
"No, the Praefect is perfectly right," Lord Darcy said without looking up. "They all know each otherand well."
"And yet," Cesare Sarto continued, "they seem anxious that we should not know that. They are together for a purpose, and yet they say nothing about that purpose."
"Master Sean," Lord Darcy said, "obviously you did not read the Marsaille newspaper I left on your berth last night."
"No, Father. I was tired. Come to think of it, I still am. You refer to the obituary?"
"I do." Lord Darcy looked at Sarto. "Perhaps it was in the Genova papers. The funeral of a certain Nicholas Jourdan is to be held in Napoli on the morrow."
"I heard of it," Praefect Cesare said. "And I got more from the talk of my fellow officers than was in the paper. Captain Nicholas Jourdan, Imperial Navy, Retired, was supposed to have died of food poisoning, but there's evidence that it was a very cleverly arranged suicide. If it was suicide, it was probably dropped by the Neapolitan officials. We don't like to push that sort of thing if there's no crime involved because there's such a fuss afterwards about the funeral. As you well know."
"Hmm," said Lord Darcy. "I didn't know the suicide angle. Is there evidence that he was depressed?"
"I heard there was, but nobody mentioned any reason for it. Health reasons, perhaps."
"I know of another reason," Lord Darcy said. "Or, at least, a possible reason. About three years ago, Captain Jourdan retired from the Navy. It was an early retirement; he was still a young man for a Captain. Health reasons were given.
"Actually, he had a choice between forced retirement or a rather nasty court-martial.
"Apparently, he had been having a rather torrid love affair with a young Sicilian woman from Messina, and was keeping her in an apartment in Napoli. Normally, that sort of thing doesn't bother the Navy too much, but this particular young person turned out to be an agent of His Slavonic Majesty, Casimir of Poland."
"Ahha! Espionage rears its ugly head," the Praefect said.
"Precisely. At the time, Captain Jourdan was commanding H.I.M.S. Helgoland Bay and was a very popular commander, both with his officers and his men. Obviously, the Admiralty thought well of him, too, or they shouldn't have put him in command of one of the most important battleships of the line.
"But the discovery that his mistress was a spy cast a different light on things. It turned out that they could not prove he knew she was a spy, nor that he had ever told her any Naval secrets. But the suspicion remained. He was given his choice.
"A court-martial would have ruined his career with the Navy forever, of course. They'd have found him innocent, then shipped him off to some cold little island off the southern coast of New France and left him there with nothing to do but count penguins. So, naturally, he retired.
"If, as you suggest, it was suicide, it might have been three years of despondency that accounted for it."
Praefect Cesare nodded slowly, a look of satisfaction on his face. "I should have seen it. The way these twelve men deport themselves, the way certain of them show deference to certain others . . . They are some of the officers of the Helgoland Bay. And so, obviously, was Peabody."
"I should say so, yes," Lord Darcy agreed.
"The trouble is," Sarto said, "we still have no motive. What we have to do is get one of them to crack. Both of you know them better than I do; which would you suggest?"
Master Sean said: "I would suggest young Jamieson. Father?"
"I agree, Master Sean. He admitted that he went back to talk to Peabody, but I had the feeling that he didn't want to, that he didn't like Peabody. Perhaps you could put some pressure on him, my dear Praefect."
Blond, pink-faced young Charles Jamieson was called in forthwith. He sat down nervously. It is not easy for a young man to be other than nervous when faced by three older, stern-faced mena priest, a powerful sorcerer, and an agent of the dread Roman Praefecture of Police. It is worse when one is involved in a murder case.
Cesare Sarto looked grim, his mouth hard, his eyes cold. The man he had been named for, Caius Iulius, must have looked similar when faced by some badly erring young centurion more than two millennia before.
"Young man, are you aware that impeding the investigation of a major felony by lying to the investigating officer is not only punishable by civilian law, but that I can have you court-martialed by the Imperial Navy, and that you may possibly lose your commission in disgrace?"
Jamieson's pink face turned almost white. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.
"I am aware," the Praefect continued remorselessly, "that one or more of your superiors now in the dining car may have given you orders to do what you have done, but such orders are unlawful, and, in themselves, constitute a court-martial offense."
The young man was still trying to find his voice when kindly old Father Armand broke in. "Now, Praefect, let us not be too hard on the lad. I am sure that he now sees the seriousness of his crime. Why don't you tell us all about it, my son? I'm sure the Praefect will not press charges if you help us now."
Sarto nodded slowly, but his face didn't change, as though he were yielding the point reluctantly.
"Now, my son, let's begin again. Tell us your name and rank, and about what you and your fellow officers did last night."
Jamieson's color had come back. He took a breath. "Charles James Jamieson, Lieutenant, Imperial Navy, British Royal Fleet, at present Third Supply Officer aboard His Imperial Majesty's Ship Helgoland Bay, sir! Uhthat is, Father." He had almost saluted.
"Relax, my son; I am not a Naval Officer. Go on. Begin with why you and the others are aboard this train and not at your stations."
"Well, sir, the Hellbay is in drydock just now, and we were all more or less on leave, you see, but we had to stay around Portsmouth. Then, a week ago, we got the news that our old Captain, who retired three years ago, had died and was being buried in Napoli, so we all got together and decided to form a party to go pay our respects. That's all there is to it, really, Father."
"Was Commander John Peabody one of your group?" the Praefect asked sharply.
"No, sir. He retired shortly after our old Captain did. Until yesterday, none of us had seen him for three years."
"Your old Captain was, I believe, the late Nicholas Jourdan?" Sarto asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Why did you dislike Commander Peabody?" the Praefect snapped.
Jamieson's face became suddenly pinker. "No particular reason, sir. I didn't like him, true, but it was just one of those things. Some people rub each other the wrong way."
"You hated him enough to kill him," Praefect Cesare said flatly.
It was as though Jamieson were prepared for that. He didn't turn a hair. "No, sir. I didn't like him, that's true. But I didn't kill him." It was as though he had rehearsed the answer.
"Who did, then?"
"It is my belief, sir, that some unknown person got aboard the train during the ten minutes we were at the Italian border, came in, killed the Commander, and left." That answer, too, sounded rehearsed.
"Very well," the Praefect said, "that's all for now. Go to your compartment and stay there until you are called."
Jamieson obeyed.
"Well, what do you think, Father?" Cesare Sarto asked.
"The same as you. He gave us some of the truth, but he's still lying." He thought for a moment. "Let's try a different tactic. We can get"
He stopped. A man in red-and-blue uniform was coming toward them from the passageway. It was Goodman Fred, the day man.
He stopped at the table. "Excuse me, gentlemen. I have heard about the investigation, of course. The Trainmaster told me to report to you before I went on duty." He looked a little baffled. "I'm not sure what my duties would be, in the circumstances."
Before Sarto could speak, Lord Darcy said: "What would they normally be?"
"Tend the bar, and make up the beds."
"Well, there will be no need to tend bar as yet, but you may as well make up the beds."
Fred brightened. "Thank you, Father, Praefect " He went back to the passageway.
"You were saying something about trying a different tactic," Praefect Cesare prompted.
"Aye, yes," said his lordship. And explained.
Maurice Zeisler did not look any the better for the time since he had had his last drink. He looked haggard and old.
Sidney Charpentier was in better shape, but even he looked tired.
The two men sat in the remaining empty chairs at the rear table, facing the three inquisitors.
Master Sean said: "Goodman Sidney Charpentier, I believe you told me you were a licensed Lay Healer. May I see your license, please." It was an order, not a question. It was a Master of the Guild speaking to an apprentice.
There was reluctance, but no hesitation. "Certainly, Master." Charpentier produced the card.
Master Sean looked it over carefully. "I see. Endorsed by My Lord Bishop of Wexford. I know his lordship well. Chaplain Admiral of the Imperial Navy. What is your rank, sir?"
Zeisler's baggy eyes looked suddenly alert, but he said nothing. Charpentier said: "Senior Lieutenant, Master Seamus."
The sorcerer looked at Zeisler. "And yours?"
Zeisler looked at Charpentier with a wry grin. "Not to worry, Sharpy. Young Jamie must've told 'em. Not your fault." Then he looked at Master Sean. "Lieutenant Commander Maurice Edwy Zeisler at your service, Master Seamus."
"And I at yours, Commander. Now, we might as well get all these ranks straight. Let's begin with Sir Stanley."
The list was impressive:
Captain Sir Stanley Galbraith
Commander Gwiliam Hauser
Lt. Commander Martyn Boothroyd
Lt. Commander Gavin Tailleur
Lt. Commander Maurice Zeisler
Sr. Lieutenant Sidney Charpentier
Sr. Lieutenant Simon Lamar
Sr. Lieutenant Arthur Mac Kay
Sr. Lieutenant Jason Quinte
Lieutenant Lyman Vandepole
Lieutenant Charles Jamieson
"I presume," Lord Darcy said carefully, "that if the Helgoland Bay were not in drydock at present, it would have been inconvenient to allow all you gentlemen to leave at one time, eh?"
Zeisler made a noise that was a blend of a cough and a laugh. "Inconvenient, Father? Impossible."
"Even so," Lord Darcy continued quietly, "is it not unusual for so many of you to be away from your ship at one time? What occasioned it?"
"Captain Jourdan died," Zeisler said in a cold voice.
"Many men die," Lord Darcy said. "What made his death so special?" His voice was as cold as Zeisler's.
Charpentier opened his mouth to say something, but Zeisler cut him off. "Because Captain Nicholas Jourdan was one of the finest Naval officers who ever lived."
Praefect Cesare said: "So all of you were going to the Jourdan funeralincluding the late Commander Peabody?"
"That's right, Praefect," Charpentier said. "But Peabody wasn't one of the original group. There were sixteen of us going; we wanted the car to ourselves, you see. But the other four couldn't make it; their leaves were suddenly cancelled. That's how Peabody, the good Father, here, and the Master Sorcerer got their berths."
"You had no idea Peabody was coming, then?"
"None. We'd none of us seen him for nearly three years," Charpentier said.
"Almost didn't recognize him," Zeisler put in. "That beard, you know. He'd grown that since we saw him last. But I recognized that sword-stick of his, and that made me look closer at the face. I recognized him. So did Commander Hauser." He chuckled. "Of course, old Hauser would."
"Why he more than anyone else?" the Praefect asked.
"He's head of Ship's Security. He used to be Peabody's immediate superior."
"Let's get back to that sword-stick," Lord Darcy said. "You say you recognized it. Did anyone else?"
Zeisler looked at Charpentier. "Did you?"
"I really didn't pay any attention until you pointed it out, Maury. Of course, we all knew he had it. Bought it in Lisbon four, five years ago. But I hadn't thought of it, or him, for three years."
"Tell us more about Peabody," Lord Darcy said. "What sort of man was he?"
Charpentier rubbed his big nose with a thick forefinger. "Decent sort. Reliable. Good officer. Wouldn't you say, Maury?"
"Oh, yes," Zeisler agreed. "Good chap to go partying with, too. I remember one time in a little Greek bar in Alexandria, we managed to put away more than a quart of ouzo in a couple of hours, and when a couple of Egyptian footpads tried to take us in the street, he mopped up on both of them while I was still trying to get up from their first rush. He could really hold his liquor in those days. I wonder what happened?"
"What do you mean?" Lord Darcy asked.
"Well, he only had a few drinks yesterday, but he was pretty well under the weather last night. Passed out while I was talking to him."
The Roman Praefect jumped on that. "Then you were the last to see him?"
Zeisler blinked. "I don't know. I think somebody else went in to see if he was all right. I don't remember who."
Praefect Cesare sighed. "Very well, gentlemen. Thank you. Go to your compartment. I will call for you later."
"Just one more question, if I may," Lord Darcy said mildly. "Commander Zeisler, you said that the late Peabody worked with Ship's Security. He was, I believe, the officer who reported Captain Jourdan'serliaison with a certain unsavory young woman from Messina, thereby ruining the Captain's career?" It was a shot in the dark, and Darcy knew it, but his intuition told him he was right.
Zeisler's lips firmed. He said nothing.
"Come, come, Commander; we can always check the records, you know."
"Yes," Zeisler said after a moment. "That's true."
"Thank you. That's all for now."
When they had gone, Praefect Cesare slumped down in his seat. "Well. It looks as though Praefect Angelo Ratti will have the honor of making the arrest, after all."
"You despair of solving the case already?" Lord Darcy asked.
"Oh, not at all. The case is already solved, Reverend Sir. But I cannot make an arrest."
"I'm afraid I don't follow you, my dear Praefect."
A rather sardonic twinkle came into the Italian's eyes. "Ah, then you have not seen the solution to our problem, yet? You do not see how Commander Peabody came to be the late Commander Peabody?"
"I'm not the investigating officer here," Lord Darcy pointed out "You are. What happened, in your view?"
"Well," Cesare said seriously, "what do we have here? We have twelve Naval officers going to the funeral of a beloved late Captain. Also, a thirteenththe man who betrayed that same Captain and brought him to disgrace. A Judas.
"We know they are lying when they tell us that their conversations with him last night were just casual. They could have spoken to him at any time during the day, yet none of them did. They waited until night. Then each of them, one at a time, goes to see him. Why? No reason is given. They claim it was for a casual chat. At that hour of night? After every one of them had been up since early morning? A casual chat! Do you believe that, Reverend Sir?"
Lord Darcy shook his head slowly. "No. We both know better. Every one of them wasand still islying."
"Very well, then. What are they lying about? What are they trying to cover up? Murder, of course."
"But, by which one of 'em?" Master Sean asked.
"Don't you see?" The Praefect's voice was low and tense. "Don't you see? It was all of them!"
"What?" Master Sean stared. "But"
"Hold, Master Sean," Lord Darcy said. "I think I see where he's going. Pray continue, Praefect Cesare."
"Certainly you see it, Father," the Praefect said. "Those men probably don't consider it murder. It was, to them, an execution after a drumhead court-martial. One of themwe don't know whotalked his way into Peabody's compartment. Then, when the opportunity presented itself, he struck. Peabody was knocked unconscious. Then, one at a time, each of the others went in and struck again. A dozen men, a dozen blows. The deed is done, and no single one of them did it. It was execution by a committeeor rather, by a jury.
"They claim they did not know Peabody was coming along. But does that hold water? Was he on this train, in this car, by coincidence? That stretches coincidence too far, I think."
"I agree," Lord Darcy said quietly. "It was no coincidence that put him on this train with the others. It was very carefully managed."
"Ah! You see, Master Sean?" Then a frown came over Sarto's face. "It is obvious what happened, but we have no solid proof. They stick to their story too well. We need proofand we have none."
"I don't think you'll get any of them to confess," Lord Darcy said. "Do you, Master Sean?"
"No," said the sorcerer. "Not a chance."
"What we need," Lord Darcy said, "is physical proof. And the only place we'll find that is in Compartment Number One."
"We've searched that," Praefect Cesare said.
"Then let us search it again."
Lord Darcy went over the body very carefully this time, his lean, strong fingers probing, feeling. He checked the lining of the jacket, his fingertips squeezing everywhere, searching for lumps or the crackle of paper. Nothing. He took off the wide belt, looking for hidden pockets. Nothing. He checked the boot heels. Nothing.
Finally he pulled off the calf-length boots themselves.
And, with a murmur of satisfaction, he withdrew an object from a flat interior pocket of the right one.
It was a flat, slightly curved silver badge engraved with the double-headed eagle of the Imperium. Set in it was what looked like a dull, translucent, grayish, cabochon-cut piece of glass. But all three men knew that if Peabody's living flesh had touched that gem, it would have glowed like a fire-ruby.
"A King's Messenger," the Praefect said softly.
No one else's touch would make that gem glow. The spell, invented by Master Sorcerer Sir Edward Elmer back in the Thirties, had never been solved, and no one knew what sorcerer at present had charge of that secret and made these badges for the King.
This particular badge would never glow again.
"Indeed," Lord Darcy said. "Now we know what Commander Peabody has been doing since he retired from the Navy, and how he managed to retire honorably at such an early age."
"I wonder if his shipmates know," Sarto said.
"Probably not," Lord Darcy said. "King's Messengers don't advertise the fact."
"No. But I don't see that identifying him as such gets us any further along."
"We haven't searched the rest of the room thoroughly yet."
Twenty minutes later, Praefect Cesare said: "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And we've searched everywhere. What are you looking for, anyway?"
"I'm not sure," Lord Darcy admitted, "but I know it exists. Still, it might have ended up on the track with the compartment key. Hmmm." With his keen eyes, he surveyed the room carefully. Then he stopped, looking at the area just above the bed where the body lay. "Of course," he said very softly. "The upper berth."
The upper berth was folded up against the wall and locked firmly in place, making a large compartment that held mattress and bedclothes safely out of the way.
"Get Fred," Lord Darcy said. "He has a key."
Fred, indeed, had a key, and he had been using it. The beds were all made in the other compartments, the lowers changed to sofas and the uppers folded up and locked.
He couldn't understand why the gentlemen wanted that upper berth unlocked, but he didn't argue. He reached up, inserted the key, turned, and lowered the shelf until it was horizontal, all the time doing his best to keep his eyes off the thing that lay in the lower berth.
"Ahh! What have we here?" There was pleasure in Lord Darcy's voice as he picked up the large leather case from where it lay in the upper berth. Then he looked at Fred. "That'll be all for now, Fred; we'll call you when it's time to lock up again."
"Certainly, Father." He went on about his business.
Not until then did his lordship turn the seventeen-by-twelve-by-three leather envelope over. It bore the Royal Emblem, stamped in gold, just beneath the latch.
"Uh-oh!" said Master Sean. "More here than we thought." He looked at Lord Darcy. "Did you expect a diplomatic pouch, Father?"
"Not really. An envelope of some kind. King's Messengers usually carry messages, and this one would probably not be verbal. But this is heavy. Must weigh five or six pounds. The latch has been unlocked and not relocked. I'll wager that means two keys on the railroad track." He opened it and lifted out a heavy manuscript. He leafed through it
"What is it?" Cesare Sarto asked.
"A treaty. In Greek, Latin, and Anglo-French. Between Roumeleia and the Empire." There was a jerkiness in his voice.
Master Sean opened his mouth to say something and then clamped it shut.
Lord Darcy slid the manuscript back into the big leather envelope and clicked the latch shut. "This is not for our eyes, gentlemen. But now we have our evidence. I can tell you exactly how John Peabody died and prove it. You can make your arrest very soon, Praefect."
There were seventeen men in the observation car of the Napoli Express as she rumbled southeast, along the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, toward the mouth of the Tiber.
Besides the twelve Naval officers, Praefect Cesare, Master Sean, and Lord Darcy, there were also Fred, the day attendant, and Trainmaster Edmund Norton, who had been asked to attend because it was, after all, his train, and therefore his responsibility.
Praefect Cesare Sarto stood near the closed door to the observation deck at the rear of the car, looking at sixteen pairs of eyes, all focused on him. Like an actor taking his stage, the Praefect knew, not only the plot, but his lines and blocking.
Father Armand was at his left, seated at the end of the couch. Fred was behind the bar. The Trainmaster was seated at the passageway end of the bar. Master Sean was standing at the entrance to the passageway. The Navy men were all seated. The stage was set.
"Gentlemen," he began, "we have spent many hours trying to discover and sift the facts pertaining to the death of your former shipmate, Commander John Peabody. Oh, yes, Captain Sir Stanley, I know who you all are. You and your fellow officers have consistently lied to me and evaded the truth, thus delaying our solution of this deadly puzzle. But we know, now.
"First, we know that the late Commander was an official Messenger for His Imperial Majesty, John of England. Second, we know that he was the man who reported to higher authority what he knew about the late Captain Nicholas Jourdan's inamorata, certain facts which his own investigations, as a Ship's Security officer, had brought out. These facts resulted in Captain Jourdan's forced retirement, and, possibly, in his ultimate demise."
His eyes searched their faces. They were all waiting, and there was an undercurrent of hostility in their expressions.
"Third, we know how John Peabody was killed, and we know by whom it was done. Your cover-up was futile, gentlemen. Shall I tell you what happened last night?"
They waited, looking steadily at him.
"John Peabody was a man with enormous resistance to the effects of alcohol, and yet he passed out last night. Not because of the alcohol, but because someone drugged one of his drinks. Even that, he was able to fight off longer than was expected.
"Then, when Peabody was unconscious, a man carefully let himself into Peabody's compartment. He had no intent to kill; he wasn't even armed. He wanted to steal some very important papers which, as a King's Messenger, Peabody was carrying.
"But something went wrong. Peabody came out of his drugged stupor enough to realize what was going on. He made a grab for his silver-headed stick. The intruder got it first.
"Peabody was a strong man and a skillful fighter, even when drunk, as most of you know. In the struggle that ensued, the intruder used that stick as a club, striking Peabody again and again. Drugged and battered, that tough, brave man kept fighting.
"Neither of them yelled or screamed: Peabody because it was not in his nature to call for help; the intruder because he wanted no alarm.
"At last, the blows took their final toll. Peabody collapsed, his head smashed in. He was dying.
"The intruder listened. No alarm had been given. He still had time. He found the heavy diplomatic pouch in which those important documents were carried. But what could he do with them? He couldn't stop to read them there, for Tonio, the night man, might be back very soon. Also, he could not carry them away, because the pouch was far too large to conceal on his person, and if Tonio saw it, he would report it when the body was found.
"So he concealed it in the upper berth of Peabody's compartment, thinking to retrieve it later. Then he took Peabody's key, locked the compartment, tossed the key off the train, and went on about his business. He hoped he would have plenty of time, because the body should not have been found until about an hour ago.
"But Peabody, though dying, was not dead yet. Scalp wounds have a tendency to bleed profusely, and in this case, they certainly did. The blood pooled on the floor and ran out under the door.
"Tonio found the bloodand the rest you know.
"No, gentlemen, this was not a vengeance killing as we thought at first. This was done by a man whom we believe to be an agent of, or in the pay of, the Serkathe Polish Secret Service."
They were no longer looking at Cesare Sarto, they were looking at each other.
Sarto shook his head. "No; wrong again, gentlemen. Only one man had the key to that upper berth last night!" He lifted his eyes and looked at the bar.
"Trainmaster Edmund Norton," he said coldly, "you are under arrest!"
The Trainmaster was already on his feet, and he turned to run up the passageway. If he could get to the door and lock these men in
But stout little Master Sean O Lochlainn was blocking his way.
Norton was bigger and heavier than the sorcerer, but Norton had only seconds, no time for a fight. From somewhere, he produced a six-inch knife and made an underhand thrust.
Master Sean's right hand made a single complex gesture. Norton froze, immobile for a long second.
Then, like a large red-and-blue sack of wet oatmeal, he collapsed to the deck. Master Sean took the knife from his nerveless fingers as he fell.
"I didn't want him to fall on the knife and hurt himself," he explained, almost apologetically. "He'll come around all right when I take that spell off."
The Navy men were all on their feet, facing Master Sean.
Commander Hauser fingered his streaked beard. "I didn't know a sorcerer could do anything like that," he said in a hushed, almost frightened voice.
"It can't be done at all unless a sorcerer is attacked," Master Sean explained. "All my spell did was turn his own psychic energy back on itself. Gave his nervous system a devil of a shock when the flow was forcibly reversed. It's similar to certain forms of unarmed combat, where the opponent's own force is used against him. If he doesn't attack you, there's not much you can do."
The Roman Praefect walked over to where the Trainmaster lay, took out a pair of handcuffs, and locked Norton's wrists behind his back. "Fred, you had best go get the Assistant Trainmaster; he'll have to take over now. And tell the Master-at-Arms who is waiting at the far end of the passageway to come on in. I want him to take charge of the prisoner now. Captain Sir Stanley, Commander Hauser, do you mind if I borrow Compartment Eight until we get to Rome? Good. Help me get him in there."
The Assistant Trainmaster came back with Fred, and the Praefect explained things to him. He looked rather dazed, but he took charge competently enough.
Behind the bar, Fred still looked shocked. "Here, Fred," the Praefect said, "you need some work to do. Give a drink to anyone who wants one, and have a good stiff one, yourself."
"How did you know it wasn't me who unlocked that upper berth last night?" Fred whispered.
"For the same reason I knew no one in the other cars on this train did it," Cesare whispered back. "The dining car was locked, and you do not have a key. Tonio did, but he had no key to the berth. Only the Trainmaster has all the keys to this train. Now make those drinks."
There were sixteen drinks to serve; Fred went about his work.
Boothroyd smoothed down his white hair. "Just when did the Trainmaster drug Peabody's drink, anyway?"
Master Sean took the question. "Last night, after we left Marsaille, when Norton sent Tonio off on an errand. He told Tonio to get some towels, but those towels wouldn't be needed until this morning. Tonio would have had plenty of time to get them after we retired. But Peabody was drinking, and Norton wanted to have the chance to drug him. I've seen how easy it is for a barman to slip something into a drink unnoticed." He did not look at Zeisler.
Sir Stanley cleared his throat. "You said we were all lying, Praefect, that our cover-up was futile. What did you mean by that?"
Lord Darcy had already told Sarto to take credit for everything because "it would be unseemly for a man of the cloth to be involved in such things." So Cesare Sarto wisely did not mention whose deductions he was expounding.
"You know perfectly well what I mean, Captain. You and your men did not go into Peabody's compartment, one at a time, for a 'friendly chat.' You each had something specific to say to the man who turned in Captain Jourdan. Want to tell me what it was?"
"Might as well, eh? Very well. We were pretty certain he'd been avoiding us because he thought we hated him. We didn't. Not his fault, you see. He did his duty when he reported what he knew about that Sicilian woman. Any one of us would have done the same. Right, Commander?"
"Damn right," said Commander Hauser. "Would've done it myself. Some of us older officers told the Captain she was no good for him from the start, but he wouldn't listen. If he was brokenhearted, it was mostly because she'd made a proper fool of him, and no mistake."
Captain Sir Stanley took up the story again. "So that's what we went in there for, one at a time. To tell him we didn't hold it against him. Even Lieutenant Jamieson, eh, my boy?"
"Aye, sir. I didn't like him, but it wasn't for that reason."
The Praefect nodded. "I believe you. But that's where the cover-up came in. Each and every one of you was afraid that one of your group had killed Peabody!"
There was silence. The silence of tacit assent.
"I watched you, listened to you," the Praefect went on. "Each of you considered the other eleven one by one, and came up with a verdict of 'Innocent' every time. But that doubt remained. And you were afraid that I would find a motive in what Peabody did three years ago. So you told me nothing. I must confess that, because of that evasion, that lying, I was suspicious at one time of all of you."
"By S'n George! Then what made you begin to suspect that Norton was guilty, sir?" asked Lieutenant Valentine Herrick.
"When it was reported to me that the Trainmaster showed up within half a minute after he had been sent for, right after Tonio found the blood. Norton had been awake since three o'clock yesterday morning: what was he still doing up, in full uniform at nearly one o'clock this morning? Why hadn't he turned things over to the Assistant Trainmaster, as usual, and gone to sleep long before? That's when I began to wonder."
Lieutenant Lyman Vandepole ran a finger over his hairline mustache. "But until you found that pouch, you couldn't be sure, could you, sir?"
"Not certain, no. But if one of you had gone in there with deliberate murder on his mind, he'd most likely have brought his own weapon. Or, if he intended to use that sword-stick, he would have used the blade, since every one of you knew it was a sword-stick. But Norton didn't, you see."
Senior Lieutenant Simon Lamar looked at "Father Armand." "With all that fighting going on next door, I'm surprised it didn't wake you up, Reverend Sir."
"I'm sure it would have," Lord Darcy said. "That is how we were able to pinpoint when it happened. Tonio left the car to go forward about midnight. At that time, Master Seamus and I were out on the rear platform. I was having a smoke, and he was keeping me company. We went back to our compartment at twenty after twelve. Norton didn't know we were out there, of course, but the killing must have taken place during that twenty minutes. Which means that the murder took place before we reached the Italian border, and Norton will have to be extradited to Provence."
Fred began serving the drinks he had mixed, but before anyone could taste his, Captain Sir Stanley Galbraith said: "A moment, gentlemen, if you please. I would like to propose a toast. Remember, we will have another funeral to attend after the one in Napoli."
When Fred had finished serving, he stood respectfully to one side, his own drink in his hand. The others rose.
"Gentlemen," said the Captain, "I give you Commander John Wycliffe Peabody, who did his duty as he saw it and died honorably in the service of his King." They drank in silence.
By twenty minutes after one that afternoon, the Napoli Express was twelve miles out of Rome, moving on the last leg of her journey to Napoli.
Lord Darcy and Master Sean were in their compartment, quietly relaxing after an excellent lunch.
"Me lord," said the sorcerer, "are you sure it was right to turn those copies of the treaty over to the Praefecture of Police for delivery to Imperial Naval Intelligence?"
"It was perfectly safe."
"Well, what's the use of our carrying our copies all the way to Athens, then?"
"My dear Sean, the stuff Peabody was carrying was a sham. I looked it over carefully. One of the provisions, for instance, is that a joint Anglo-French-Greek Naval base shall be established at 29° 51' North, 12° 10' East."
"What's wrong with that, me lord?"
"Nothing, except that it is in the middle of the Sahara Desert."
"Oh."
"Kyril's signature was a forgery. It was signed in Latin characters, and the Basileus reads and writes only Greek. The Greek and Latin texts do not agree with each other, nor with the Anglo-French. In one place in the Greek text, the city of Constantinople is referred to as the capital of England, while Paris is given as the capital of Greece. I could go on. The whole thing is a farrago of nonsense."
"ButWhy?"
"One can only conjecture, of course. I believe he was a decoy. Think about it. Sixteen men all about to go to a funeral, and, at the last minute, four of them have their leaves canceled. Why? I feel the Royal touch of His Majesty's hand in there. I think it was to make certain Peabody got aboard that train with his fellow officers. It would look like a cover, as though he, too, were going to Jourdan's funeral.
"I think what happened was this: His Majesty found that the Serka had somehow gotten wind of our Naval treaty with Roumeleia. But they didn't know it was being signed by Prince Richard as proxy in Rouen, so they started tracing it in London. So His Majesty had this utterly nonsensical pseudo-treaty drawn up and sent it with Peabody. He was a decoy."
"Did Peabody know that?" Master Sean asked.
"Highly unlikely. If a man knows he is a decoy, he tends to act like a decoy, which ruins the illusion. No, he didn't know. Would he have fought to the death to preserve a phony document? Of course, being an honorable officer, once that pouch was locked, he would not have opened it, so he did not know its contents."
"But, me lord! If he was supposed to be a decoy, if he was supposed to lead Serka agents off on a wild goose chase somewhere else while you and I got the real thing safely to Athenswhy was the decoy dumped practically in our laps?"
"I think," said his lordship with care, "that we missed connections somewhere. Other transportation may havemust havebeen provided for us. But something must have gone awry.
"Nonetheless, my dear Sean, all will work out for the best. A murder aboard the Napoli Express will certainly hit the news services, but the story will be so confused that Serka won't be able to figure out what happened until too late."
"It would have been even worse confused if Cesare had come out with his conspiracy theory," the magician said. "He's a good man at his job, but he doesn't know people."
"His problem," Lord Darcy said, "is that he happens to be a master at paper work. On paper, he can spot a conspiracy two leagues away. But sentences on paper do not convey the nuances of thought that spoken words do. A conspiracy is easy to concoct if it involves only paper work, and it takes an expert to find it. But you, as a sorcerer, and I, as a criminal investigator, know that a group of human beings simply can't hold a conspiracy together that long."
"Aye, me lord," the stout little Irishman agreed. "I'm glad you stopped me. I almost told Cesare to his face that his theory was all foolishness. Why, that bunch would have given it away before they finished the job. Can you imagine Zeisler tryin' to keep his mouth shut about somethin' like that? Or young Jamieson not breaking down?"
Lord Darcy shook his head. "The whole group couldn't even hide the fact that they were doing something perfectly innocent like assuring an old comrade that they did not think ill of him. Even more ridiculous than that is the notion that any such group would pick a train to commit their murder on, a place where, to all intents and purposes, they would be trapped for hours. Those men are not stupid; they're trained Naval officers. They'd either have killed Peabody in Paris or waited until they got to Napoli. They still couldn't have held their conspiracy together, but they would have thought they had a better chance."
"Still and all," Master Sean said staunchly, "Cesare Sarto is a good investigator."
"I must agree with you there," said Lord Darcy. "He has the knack of finding answers even when you don't want him to."
"How do you mean, me lord?"
"As he and Praefect Angelo were taking Norton away, he offered his hand and thanked me. I said the usual things. I said I hoped I'd see him again. He shook his head. 'I am afraid,' he said, 'that I shall never see Father Armand Brun again. But I hope to meet Lord Darcy some day.' "
Master Sean nodded silently.
The train moved on toward Napoli.