The Power Cube Affair - Phillifent John T.. Страница 5

"Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin, sir."

Miss Thompson's room had been filing cabinets, a desk and a long window expanse. This room carried on the window along the whole of one wall, but the other three walls were solid with maps. From behind a cluttered desk with four telephones, each a different color, Barnett rose and stood, unfriendly. He was tall, broad shouldered, giving the impression of having been tailored to fit his uniform. And handsome enough to assure him a living as a toothpaste model if ever the navy decided to dispense with his services. As soon as the door was safely shut he barked:

"Very well, what is this all in aid of?"

Solo shrugged, not liking the tone at all. By way of reply he stepped up to the desk, pulled the newspaper out of his pocket and spread it out for Barnett to stare at. There was no need for speech, yet. Barnett looked down, stiffened, and the fresh color drained from his face. He sat, groping for the chair, picked up the newspaper with a shaking hand, and read it carefully.

"My God!" he breathed. "That's—but it can't be! At Hastings? In a delinquent mob? There must be some mistake."

"No mistake," Solo assured him. "That is who you think it is. And she didn't die at Hastings, but somewhere else. She talked, just a little, before the end. Enough to identify."

I'm curious," Kuryakin said, in a deceptively mild tone. "Naval Intelligence, and you can't get as far as the front page of this morning's newspaper without help?"

"She never told you that!" Barnett was suddenly savage.

"She never said anything like that," Solo admitted. "We deduced it. Wrongly, maybe. But she gave us a message to pass on to you."

Barnett had control of himself now, his face gray but calm.

"Very well. Deliver it. No, just a moment!" He rose suddenly, almost ran to the door to open it and call, "Louise, dear, lay on some coffee, would you? Better get it yourself, you know how slack they are in the canteen." He came back, walking heavily. "All ears and tongue, that girl. Now, that message, if you please. And you do understand, I hope, that I can't do any explaining. At all. I could be up to the neck in trouble as it is just by having you two here."

"I was hoping for explanations. In fact I intend to have them. I want to know what kind of brainless setup let her in for what she got—before I deliver any message, to you or anyone else. You say you're not in Intelligence?"

"I am not. This is my job, right here." Barnett flung out an arm to embrace the walls full of maps. "Home and Mediterranean Fleet disposal. Nothing else. My relationship with—her—is—was—something utterly private. Nothing to do with this. Or you."

"You're not the big man," Kuryakin said, with sudden insight. Barnett stared at him. The Russian agent went on deliberately. "You're just a cog, or a link in some chain. If we gave you this message, you'd pass it along to somebody else."

Solo listened approvingly. Barnett's face gave away the accuracy of Illya's guessing. "We want to meet the man who tells you what to do, the man to whom you'd pass this message. Or we don't deliver."

"That's telling him, Illya. Look, mister, a very good friend of ours is on his back in the hospital right now because he stepped in to help—her. We are making this our business, and we deal with the head man, or nothing."

Barnett sagged, reached for his chair again and slumped into it. His handsome face was wet with perspiration. "You don't know what you're asking. I can't make that kind of decision!"

"You don't have to. Just talk to him. Tell him what we've said."

Barnett shook his head, not as a negative but like a man recovering from a solid punch. "I don't know. This is so— damnable! Mary! I can't take it in yet." The outer door clicked open and the gorgeous Miss Thompson came in pushing a tea cart. Barnett rose urgently, came around his desk at a trot and swerved to pass Miss Thompson.

"Look after them, dear," he muttered. "Give them anything they want. I won't be long!"

"Well!" She stared wide eyed, then busied herself with the ceremony of pouring, a process involving a degree of stooping and wriggling that Solo couldn't bear to watch. "Milk and sugar for both of you?"

"Please!" Solo said, then before he could help himself he added, "The view is certainly something, up here!"

"Yes, isn't it?" she cooed. "It's a pity, really, that not many people get this far, to see it properly." She finished pouring, took a cup herself, and hitched herself recklessly onto the edge of the desk, perching one foot on Barnett's chair. "I wonder why Roger ran off like that."

"Went to phone someone," Solo answered, then looked at the colored array on the desk and frowned. To cover the gaffe he ventured, "Just you and Captain Barnett up here alone all day?"

"It's dreadfully dull," she confessed. "After all, you can get fed up with just looking, can't you?"

Solo smiled uneasily, eased the collar from his neck and turned away to look out of the window. The click of the door saved him from trying to go on with the impossible conversation. Miss Thompson slid leggily down from the desk and departed. Barnett shut the door firmly after her, his face set.

"You're in," he said forcefully, "and don't blame me if you find yourself something a lot bigger and nastier than you imagine. You have a last chance to deliver that message to me and forget all about it—"

"Nothing doing!"

"All right. On your own heads. By eight o'clock tonight you're to find your own way to a place called Ferrier's. It's a club, of a sort, not hard to find. There'll be a table for you. The headwaiter's name is Mario Scarabella. You'll be met."

"Cloak and dagger stuff," Kuryakin snorted, from his stance by the big window. "Should we give some password or other?"

"You'll be met," Barnett repeated between his teeth. "And you'll be judged. On trial. All right?"

"Fair enough," Solo admitted. "We'll be there."

Miss Thompson gave them a beaming smile as they left.

Outside, they managed to hail a taxi and told him where to go.

"And what do you make of all that, Illya?" Solo murmured.

"Chiefly, that we have been fed a lot of myths, what with the Royal Navy being all stern and seaworthy, and the British being a law abiding people, according to you."

"You can do your funny act later. Right now it looks as if somebody doesn't want us in on whatever is going on."

"That much, at any rate, is familiar. What is puzzling me just a bit is what I saw in Miss Thompson's office."

"What?" Solo was mildly curious. He hadn't been able to notice anything beyond the gorgeous Miss Thompson herself.

"On her window ledge. The biggest pair of binoculars I ever saw!"

"Hah!" Solo snorted in disgust. "According to Barnett she's all ears and tongue. According to you she has big binoculars. What's wrong with everybody all of a sudden?" The taxi purred on in silence for a while, then Solo gave tongue again. "Hold it, driver, we'll get off here!"

"What now?" Kuryakin queried as the cab slid away.

"We can walk to the hotel, it's not far. I want a paper, see if there's anything more about the girl, if they've identified her yet."

They hadn't, and the midday account was patently a blowup of the few details in the first edition. The two men strolled the rest of the way, and thus came to the side road leading to their destination in time to see a remarkable incident. Just ahead of them a taxi pulled in to the curb to discharge two men, and whirled away again. The two turned to go down the same lane that Solo and Kuryakin were heading for.