CHAPTER THREE
His heart still brimming with the glory and tragedy of his Western, Maijstral glided down the balcony to join the others in the drawing room. Before making his entrance, he absently patted one of the hidden pockets in his jacket to make certain the stacked deck of cards was in its nesting place.
He had also prepared his ground by having Roman bribe one of the footmen serving dinner tonight. It was nothing, he reflected, that Houdini hadn’t done.
Maijstral stepped into the drawing room. The Prince’s string quartet played Haydn in one corner—among them Maijstral recognized Will, the Bubber, who puffed out his cheeks as he sawed away on his cello and stared intently at the music. The regular cellist, he observed, was standing out, absently fingering his own instrument in a corner of the room.
Standing with her back toward Maijstral was Roberta, the Duchess of Benn. She was speaking to an elderly Khosalikh female who stood shorter than Maijstral, which made her a miniature by Khosalikh standards. Roberta’s gown was cut quite low in back and Maijstral approached slowly, the better able to appreciate the curve of Roberta’s supple spine, the play of shadows beneath her scapulae.
“Your grace,” he said, speaking in Khosali Standard.
Roberta gave a start, a larger one than Maijstral’s usual silent approaches generally warranted. Maijstral confirmed an old suspicion that her grace of Benn was perhaps a bit too tightly wound.
“You startled me,” she gasped, which was, Maijstral reflected, not only a fairly redundant remark for someone who’s just jumped half a foot, but was what people always said in these situations.
“My apologies,” Maijstral said. “I’m light-footed by profession, and sometimes I forget that I should shuffle a bit or clear my throat.” Which is, more or less, what he always said in these situations.
Maijstral offered three fingers in handclasp—having once stolen her jewelry permitted him a certain intimacy—and was given three in return. They approached one another and sniffed one another’s ears, and then Maijstral sniffed Roberta’s wrist. The odor of Roberta’s perfume sent a shimmer of pleasure up Maijstral’s spine, something that caused him to reflect that the custom of shaking hands—recently revived by the Constellation Practices Authority as a “natural, human custom” to replace the refined ear-sniffing of the Khosali Empire—had a long way to travel before it could replace the voluptuous pleasure of approaching a beautiful woman’s pulsing throat and taking a glorious whiff.
“It’s an unexpected pleasure to see you,” Maijstral said. “I ran into your Mr. Kuusinen, who informed me you were here.”
“Allow me to introduce my Aunt Bathsheba,” Roberta said. “She’s my favorite member of the family. We call her Batty.”
“Your servant,” Maijstral said. Aunt Batty’s soft dark fur was thinned with age, and she’d perched a pair of spectacles on her muzzle. Lace hung from her pointed ears.
Maijstral was too familiar with the genealogies of aristocratic Imperial families, with their sibs-by-adoption and cousins-german and morganatic marriages and fostering-patterns, to wonder how a human duchess managed to have a Khosali aunt. He sniffed Aunt Batty’s ears and offered her two fingers in handclasp, and she returned him three.
“Forgive the intimacy,” she said, “but I feel as if I know you quite well. I’m writing a multivolume work about you, you see.”
Maijstral blinked. He didn’t know whether to believe this remark, or, if believed, to take it seriously.
“Are you indeed?” he managed.
“Two volumes so far. The first was rather twee, I think in retrospect, but the style of the second settled down nicely, so I have hopes for the third.”
Maijstral sighed. Any number of hack biographies had appeared since he’d been ranked first in the burglar standings, and most were filled with a glittering scintillation of errors, some of which he’d cheerfully supplied himself.
“I hardly think myself worthy of the attention,” he said.
“On the contrary,” Batty said. “I’ve found you quite an interesting character, well worth the study. Of course I’ve had to make a few guesses concerning things not on the public record. And now that I’ve met you, I’ll be most interested to discover whether my surmises are anywhere near the mark.”
Maijstral laughed uncomfortably. “I hope I won’t disappoint you.”
“I’m sure you won’t, however it turns out. Unlike so many of my species, I’m almost never disappointed in humans—even when someone does something that I can’t entirely approve of, it’s always for the most interesting reasons.”
Maijstral was at a loss for a response to this. He couldn’t tell whether she disapproved of him already, or planned to disapprove in the future, or if the remark wasn’t directed to him at all, but rather to the general run of her biographical victims. . . . So he said the only thing available to him, which was, “Ah.”
“And there are so many people here who have known you,” Batty went on, “Roberta, of course, and the Prince, who knew you at school. And Mr. Kuusinen—well, he’s a first-class observer, and I’ve already spoken to him.”
Maijstral felt a chill of alarm at the mention of Kuusinen’s name. The man was far too first-class an observer. There were certain things he hoped Kuusinen never guessed at—there was a little service he’d done the Empire, for one, that could get him killed if certain parties in the Human Constellation ever discovered it.
“Perhaps I could answer some of your questions,” he said, “and spare you the trouble of researching me through acquaintances.”
“That’s very kind,” Batty said, “but it’s not my method. I do all the research first, then speak to the subject last.”
Speak to the subject, Maijstral thought. He wondered if corner the victim might be more appropriate.
The Haydn quartet drew to a close, the Bubber sawing away with evident enjoyment. There was scattered applause, and then the sound of the dinner gong. With relief, Maijstral bowed toward Roberta.
“May I take you in to dinner?”
“I believe Will is taking me in,” Roberta smiled. “But you may take in Aunt Batty, if you like.”
“A pleasure,” Maijstral said, and felt rather like the condemned man taking a stroll with his executioner.
Loud hosannas began to sound as Maijstral and Batty entered the dining room. Startled, Maijstral looked up to discover a music loft above the door, with an entire choir singing away.
“I’d no idea we were going to be so honored,” Maijstral said. “A chorus and a quartet.”
“Oh,” Batty said, a bit offhand, “we hear this every night. His highness supports a full complement of musicians and singers.”
That, Maijstral reflected, was where adroit politics would get you. Joseph Bob’s family had gained their initial wealth and tide through energetic support of the Khosali Empire; and their riches and renown had only increased in the last few generations, since they’d been early and distinguished supporters of the Great Rebellion.
Once Maijstral’s family had commanded wealth and station nearly equal to that of the Princes of Tejas. Unfortunately Maijstral’s grandfather had been a far more fanatic supporter of the Khosali Empire even than most Khosali, and the family fortune had waned along with the fortunes of the Empire. Until a few years ago Maijstral had spent his life scurrying from one hideaway to another, the bill collectors just behind.
Fortunately burglary, once you reached Maijstral’s level, paid well. And now that Maijstral had signed a number of endorsement contracts, it looked as if he’d never lack for funds again.
Maijstral helped Aunt Batty to her chair and sat in his own, between Batty and Roberta, half-expecting at any second to hear the crash of doors and the tramp of jackboots as Colonel-General Vandergilt marched in with a warrant for his arrest for some crime he had neither committed nor even heard of. But nothing happened, so he turned to the Bubber, seated on the other side of Roberta, and said, “Perhaps, in thanks for your music, I might offer a little amusement of my own. Perhaps you could send a footman for a deck of cards.”
*
Card tricks alternated with supper courses. Maijstral thought he performed well, though the sight of Roberta’s bare shoulders next to him was a constant, if perfectly agreeable, distraction.
Maijstral squared his cards and paused in his patter while the dessert course was brought in—Tuscan-style leaping clouds, light and frothy, with warm jugs of coffee liqueur sauce. The Bubber poured sauce on his dessert and picked up his spoon.
“If you’ll pardon me, your grace,” Maijstral said, rose in his chair, and reached across Roberta’s plate to plunge his fingers into the Bubber’s dessert. Princess Arlette gasped. The Bubber seemed at a loss for a response. “Would this be your card?” Maijstral asked, and raised the three of crowns from the Bubber’s plate. Little dessert-cloudlets rained from the card, but it was perfectly recognizable.
“Yes!” the Bubber gasped.
“Another dessert, if you please,” Maijstral told the footman. “And another deck of cards—this one is soiled.” He showed the card to the others, and there was a round of applause, feet tapping the floor in the pattern for “surprise and appreciation.”
Maijstral wiped his fingers and the card with his napkin and left the card face-up on the table, a reminder of his prowess. He always possessed a certain sense of wonder himself at how the simplest effects produced the greatest reaction—the others assumed he’d performed some master sleight right in front of the Bubber’s nose, whereas in fact he’d merely had Roman bribe the footman to put a prearranged card in the Bubber’s dessert. Any actual skill lay in getting the Bubber to choose the three of crowns in the first place, but that was a fairly elementary “force,” as the jargon had it, and hardly a challenge.
He’d worked for years on much more sophisticated tricks that never made such an impression.
He turned to Roberta. “My apologies, once more, your grace, for reaching across you so rudely.”
“You are entirely forgiven,” Roberta said. There was a glow in her violet eyes.
“Still, by way of apology, I’d like to offer to perform a trick where you, not I, are in command. As soon as they clear away the last course.”
She smiled. “One dessert on top of another, it would seem. I’ll strive not to bolt the first so as to get to the other quicker.”
“Let the first add savor to the second, your grace.”
Roberta gave him a graceful nod. “You are a master saucier, Maijstral. I shall trust your taste in dessert courses.”
After the last of the dishes were cleared away, Maijstral broke the seal on the new deck and shuffled it. It was a matter of little moment to switch the new deck for the deck of identical pattern that he’d been carrying in his pocket.
“Your grace,” Maijstral said, “I would like, by way of example, to deal each of us a hand of court-imago.”
“I thought you said I was to be in charge,” Roberta said.
“But I want you to know why you shall be in charge, and to that end—six cards, so.”
The cards sped across the table. Joseph Bob and Arlette leaned forward in their chairs to peer at the action. Kuusinen watched with an expressionless face and an intense narrowing of the eyes.
Roberta picked up her hand and sorted the cards.
“Is it a passable hand, your grace?”
“I would wager on it, were I playing court-imago.”
“Please lay it down.” It was a Little Prough. Maijstral turned his own cards over, showing a Big Prough.
“I win,” he said. “But it was unfair, was it not?”.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you dealt the cards, and you are a card manipulator.”
“True. Therefore, it would give you more of a chance if I were to shuffle, and you were to cut the cards, yes?”
Roberta considered this. “I suppose,” she said.
Maijstral reinserted the used cards into the deck, seemingly at random (but not randomly at all), and shuffled the deck with a theatrical flourish that served artfully to disguise the fact that the order of the cards was not altered in any way whatever. He placed the cards on the table.
“Cut, if you please.”
The Duchess obliged. Maijstral dealt her four tens and himself four princesses.
“Was that fair?” he asked.
“I think not.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . .” Her eyes narrowed as she considered the possibilities, “you could have nullified the cut in some way. Or somehow forced me to cut where you wanted me to.”
Maijstral smiled. “Very good, your grace. I could have done both, had I wanted.” He swept up the cards and put them in his deck. “This time I will shuffle the cards, and then you will shuffle the cards. I will deal a hand to everyone here, and you may choose the best of them to go up against my hand.”
The cards were shuffled and dealt. The others at the table compared hands, and Arlette’s crown stairway was chosen as the best. “I’m afraid that isn’t good enough,” Maijstral said, and turned over his own hand, six major powers in a row, a full council.
Roberta’s ears flattened. “You promised that I would be in charge, Maijstral. All I have been doing is following your lead.”
“That is true,” Maijstral said. “I’ve been most unfair—because it was I who dealt the cards, and I’m a card manipulator and might have arranged somehow to have the best hand.” He pushed the deck toward Roberta. “Therefore, this time, you shuffle, you deal a hand to everyone here, you choose which of the other hands to match against mine. And we shall see what occurs.”
Roberta smiled at the challenge, and reached for the cards. She shuffled and dealt. This time a pair of princesses was the best anyone could manage. Roberts gave Maijstral an apologetic look.
“Not very good, I’m afraid.”
“No. I’m afraid not.” Maijstral turned over his own cards, a full court from the rover to the emperor of ships, the highest possible hand in court-imago.
The Bubber, baffled, looked through his cards, then took the deck and fingered his way through it.
“It seems,” Roberta said, “that I haven’t been in charge at all.”
Maijstral fingered his diamond ring. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “My character, alas, is fatally flawed—I’m a liar. And a cheat. And, of course,” he added, with an apologetic smile, “I steal.”
Roberta gave a smile. “I believe I am personally acquainted with that last facet of your character, somewhat to my cost.”
The Bubber took Maijstral’s cards and looked at them in hopes of finding some clue to the mystery. “Maijstral,” he said, “how did you do it?”
Maijstral’s eyes gleamed beneath their lazy lids. “With great skill and a mischievous if refined sense of diablerie,” he said. He reached for his glass of wine. “Perhaps we should let the servants clear the table.”
The company adjourned for brandy, coffee, and tobacco to the Colt Drawing Room, named after the antique firearms that Joseph Bob collected, and which were displayed in artistic array on the wall. One weapon, however, was under glass in a display case. “The first Colt revolving chugger,” Joseph Bob said.
“The wood pattern seems an odd design choice,” Kuusinen observed.
“That isn’t ornamentation,” Joseph Bob said. “The pistol’s actually made of wood. It’s a model that Colt carved on a sea voyage. Once he returned, he built a working chugger out of metal and patented his process.”
“They built pistols out of metal?” Roberta said. “That seems as outlandish as a pistol of wood. Why would Mr. Colt use metal?”
“It wouldn’t do to admit this in certain political circles,” Joseph Bob said, “but here among friends, I believe I might observe that human technology was not always as advanced as it is at present.”
Roberta briefly touched her tongue to the corner of her mouth, a simulacrum of Khosali mirth. Maijstral had noticed that the human residents of the Empire, where the Khosali were in the majority, more often used Khosali gestures than humans of the constellation.
“Here are a pair of chuggers you might recognize, Maijstral,” Joseph Bob said, and indicated a matched pair of pistols on the wall.
Cold trickled up Maijstral’s spine as he looked at the weapons. Years ago, when he was sixteen, he’d fought a duel with those pistols, and the horror he’d felt at the time had never left him.
“Oh yes,” Maijstral said unenthusiastically. “I recognize them perfectly well.”
“Back in our Academy days,” Joseph Bob told the others, “Maijstral fought a duel with those pistols. I wasn’t there—the seconds wouldn’t allow witnesses—but everyone said Maijstral was the coolest fellow imaginable.”
Maijstral looked at the assembled company and felt sweat gathering at his nape. What others mistook for coolness had been, in fact, a pure, horrified paralysis.
“I’m sure the others exaggerated,” Maijstral said.
Joseph Bob put a hearty hand on Maijstral’s shoulder. “Quite a feat, though, fighting a duel at that age—what were we? Sixteen? Seventeen?”
“Too young,” Maijstral said.
“I’ve always envied you the experience. Here I am, a crack pistol shot and an exemplary swordsman, and I’ve never once had an encounter! I’ve always wanted a chance, but everyone’s always been so polite to me.”
Arlette looked a little nonplussed at this evidence of her husband’s bloodthirstiness. Maijstral raised a thin smile. His ears pricked forward. “If I ever have another fight,” he said, “you can substitute for me if you like.”
Joseph Bob gave a hearty laugh. “Oh,” he said, “I wish I could!”
“We youngsters were jealous of you,” the Bubber offered. “And that girl of yours who was the cause of it all—we were jealous of her, too. Quite a pippin, that Zoe.”
“Maijstral started quite a fad,” Joseph Bob added. “There must have been a dozen challenges among the underclassmen before the term was out. We seniors had to suppress them all, of course.”
Maijstral sincerely wished someone would act to suppress this topic of conversation. He didn’t care for his youthful follies being the subject of quite this much speculation. He observed that Kuusinen was watching him with interest, and Maijstral liked neither the intrigued tilt to Aunt Batty’s head nor the glitter in her eye. Probably she was planning on adding another note to her three-volume biography.
And Roberta, he noted, was looking at him with an admiration that made him thoroughly uneasy. On Silverside Station she had served as his second on a duel that, fortunately for him, had not actually come off. He didn’t want to leave anyone with the impression he was a fire-eater happy to swashbuckle his way through life in search of deadly encounters. A reputation like that could attract more danger than it would keep away—just look at the career of Pearl Woman or Etienne, to name two among the Three Hundred who were constantly having to hack their way out of one lethal situation or another.
Perhaps, Maijstral considered, it was time for a bit of misdirection. “Say,” he said, turning to an intriguing-looking shoulder weapon with Troxan markings, “what is that used for? Is that a harpoon of some sort?”
Annoyance flared in Maijstral as Joseph Bob clung to his reminiscence. “D’you know, Maijstral,” he said, “after I got the pistols back, I couldn’t hit a blessed thing with either one of ’em. Turned out the sights were out of true.”
Maijstral suppressed a jolt of alarm, and instead said, “Perhaps the seconds were careless in handling them afterward. Asad and Zah were pretty excited by the whole business.”
“I wonder—d’you suppose it was one of the masters bent on avoiding bloodshed?” Joseph Bob fingered his chin analytically. “Perhaps if word of the duel got out, one of our housemasters could have got into my room with his passkey and twitched the sights out of alignment.”
It had been Maijstral, of course, far gone in the depths of terror, who had crept into Joseph Bob’s room and tweaked the foresights with a handy pair of pliers. It had been his first successful breaking and entering, one of those painful, involuntary milestones on his path to the present. How many other people, one could well ask, have discovered their own utter cowardice and the silent joys of burglary at the same time?
Maijstral affected to consider Joseph Bob’s theory. It occurred to him that the notion was far too close to the truth, and probably ought to be discredited altogether. “I think your theory probably gives the masters too much credit,” he said. “It was never my impression that they knew anything we were doing, let alone anything we were trying to hide from them.” His lazy lids closed over his eyes, leaving only slits. “I’m inclined to suspect it was just careless handling by the seconds. Julian and I held the pistols only for a moment or. two, just long enough to shoot, but the seconds probably had them for hours.”
“Mm,” Joseph Bob conceded. “Very likely.”
“Now what is this—harpoon sort of thing?” Maijstral asked, once more attempting his diversion.
As Joseph Bob went on to explain that the harpoon gun was intended to anchor the wandering, homicidal trees that lurched about one of the Troxan homeworlds, Maijstral viewed the other guests from beneath his slitted lids. Arlette, the Bubber, and Roberta seemed perfectly willing to be diverted by the harpoon gun. Kuusinen’s polite expression, as ever, revealed little. But Aunt Batty’s lace-covered ears were cocked forward, and her tongue lolled in a smug little smile—as if, Maijstral concluded, some pet theory of hers had just been confirmed.
He wondered if there were some way he could read this biography.
Perhaps, it occurred to him, he could steal it.
*
The string quartet’s rendition of a Frayng piece echoed up the hall as the company made their way to their rooms.
“I say—Maijstral?”
“Yes, Bubber?”
“Oh, call me Will, won’t you? I don’t care much for meaningless titles, and I guess you don’t, either, considering you don’t use yours.”
“Will. Yes. You may call me Drake, if you like. How may I help you?”
“I was wondering if we might do a trade. I’d be most happy to teach you to ride a horse tomorrow, and—well, what I want is—I, ah—could you teach me magic?”
A pause. “Well.” Another pause. “I would be happy to teach you a few things, of course. But I won’t be spending that much time here in Tejas, and I won’t be able to give you anything but a few fundamentals.”
“Oh, that would be fine. I understand your time is limited. But I’d like to find out if magic is something I could really master—you know, I’ve always lived with J.B., and he’s a perfectly splendid person, but he’s so good at everything. A better shot than me, a better fencer, a better rider . . . and probably a better lord, if it comes to that. And I can play the cello pretty well, but I’m not as good as the fellow who’s normally got the job . . . so anyway, I thought if I could master something that J.B. isn’t good at, then . . . well, I’d like to give it a try, anyway.”
“I would be happy to teach you what I can.”
“Thank you. Er—Drake?”
“Yes, Will?”
“Did I just say something—you know—pathetic?”
“Not at all, Will.”
“Thank you.” A sigh. “I’m relieved.”
“Good night, Will.”
“Goodnight. And thank you.”
*
“Dear?” Strolling up the stairway a few moments later. “Did you really envy Maijstral his duel?”
“Oh, yes. Of course. It’s a chance to find out what you’re really made of, isn’t it?”
“Don’t you think you know what you’re made of, Joe?”
“Well.” A nervous laugh. “Not the way Maijstral does, I’m sure. I’ve done well, but then I startled out with so many advantages that I would have had to work hard at doing badly in order to make a failure of myself. I certainly haven’t been tested, not the way my grandfather was in the Great Rebellion, nor the way Maijstral was before he was twenty.”
“You got me all on your own, Joe.”
The sound of a kiss.
“Well,” reflectively, “perhaps I haven’t done so badly, after all.”
*
The same stair. Another pair.
“Do things progress, Kuusinen?”
“Indeed, your grace. The mechanics of smuggling an object as large as a coffin into the house without Maijstral’s knowledge presented some difficulties, but now that he’s decided to go riding tomorrow, I believe we can use the window of opportunity afforded by his absence.”
“And his servants?”
“His Highness’s butler has been instructed to divert them. They, and your servants as well, will be taken on a special picnic tomorrow morning.”
“Very good. Perhaps I will take exercise with Maijstral and make certain he’ll be gone for a sufficient length of time.”
“An admirable addition to the plan, your grace.”
“I don’t believe it will be any great sacrifice—it will be a perfectly pleasant morning, given good weather.”
“Of course, your grace.”
Another pause. “Is that Snail they’re performing?”
“Frayng, your grace.”
“Ah. I can never tell them apart.”
“Hardly anyone ever can. I believe that’s why they were provoked into their unfortunate duel—each thought the other was imitating him.”
“They fought with bassoons, did they not?”
“Yes. Bassoons, your grace. Not the most graceful of weapons, but then they both died, so perhaps there is some hidden martial quality to the instrument of which we are unaware.”
*
“Good grief!”
“Oh. Sorry, Mr. Maijstral. I really didn’t mean to startle you;”
Maijstral contemplated the jutting finlike pompadour sticking up above his rack of suits. “If you didn’t mean to startle me,” he said, “why did you hide in my closet?”
Conchita Sparrow’s genial face worked its way out from between a pair of jackets. “One of your servants was in here a minute ago, and I didn’t want him to see me, so I just nipped in for a second.” She fondled a shoulder seam. “Nice suit, this green one. I like the cut.”
“Thank you, Miss Sparrow. Would you care to step into the room now?”
“Only too.” Conchita left the closet, took a breath, and grinned. “It was stuffy in there.” She looked around the room. “Can you give me a drink or something?”
Maijstral, ignoring this last request, folded his arms and regarded the intruder. “The matter of your being in my closet is now explained, but we have yet to address the question of your being in my room in the first place. Have you dropped off another stolen art treasure?”
“Oh. No. I was just wondering if you’d had a chance to review my recordings.”
“You needn’t have come in person. You could have phoned. Or you could have knocked on the front door and asked for me.”
“Well, yes,” Conchita admitted. “But I wanted to show you how well I could neutralize the security in this place.” Her eyes widened. “Oh: The closet. One moment.”
She reached into the closet and removed the command override she’d placed on-the closet command systems. “Close the doors, please.”
“I have been interfered with.” The closet’s tone was sulky.
“Close the doors, please.”
The doors closed with a final grumble. Conchita turned to Maijstral and grinned.
“Your technical ability is without question,” Maijstral said. “But I already employ a tech. The only work I could offer you is perhaps an occasional contract, and that only rarely.”
Conchita’s face fell. “Oh, come on, Mr. Maijstral,” she said. “Your life would never be dull with me around!”
This, Maijstral considered, was becoming all too plain. “Perhaps that’s so,” he said, “but I can’t fire a perfectly good employee just to relieve the tedium.” At that point there was a knock at the door.
He and Conchita looked at each other for a moment, and then Conchita turned to the closet. “Open, please,” she said.
“I won’t,” the closet said. “You interfered with my mechanisms.”
“Open, closet,” Maijstral said.
“Well,” the closet said, “for you.”
The closet opened and Conchita ducked inside, jabbing her command override into the closet’s systems as she did so. The doors shut smoothly, and Maijstral went to answer the knock.
Kuusinen’s head was cocked slightly in an inquiring manner. “I hope I do not interrupt, sir,” he said.
Maijstral unconsciously straightened his jacket. “Oh. Not at all. Would you come in?”
“Thank you, no. I had only a single question to ask you,” Kuusinen said. “I hope you won’t consider it impertinent, but I’m afraid I’m compulsive in certain ways, and I won’t be able to sleep unless I know the answer.”
“I will do my utmost to assume you rest, Mr. Kuusinen.”
“What do you call the technique you used in the trick where the cards were hidden under the creamer? The one where you substituted one card on the very top of the deck for another?”
Maijstral blinked. “I must have performed the trick very poorly for you to have noticed.”
“On the contrary,” Kuusinen said, “your working of the trick was excellent, and I noticed nothing at the time. But, in thinking about the trick afterward, I realized how it had to be done, and—I apologize again—I was consumed with a desire for the information.”
“I’d be obliged if you refrained from sharing your line of reasoning with the others.”
“I won’t, I assure you. This is purely for my own satisfaction.”
“The technique is called a top change.”
Kuusinen closed his eyes and absorbed the bit of jargon with an expression akin to bliss. His eyes fluttered open. “Thank you, sir.”
“I hope you sleep well.”
“I’m sure I shall.”
Maijstral closed the door and was on his way to the closet when he was interrupted by a gentle chime from the phone. He answered, and the visage of the Duchess of Benn appeared on the screen.
“If you’re looking for Mr. Kuusinen,” Maijstral said, “he just left.”
“I wasn’t, actually,” Roberta said. “I was hoping that I might invite myself along on your riding trip tomorrow.”
“You’re most welcome,” Maijstral said, “but I’m afraid I won’t be a very challenging companion. I’ve never been on a horse in my life.”
“Neither have I. We shall learn together.”
“I shall look forward.”
“Good night, Maijstral.”
“Good night, your grace.”
Maijstral turned from the phone to see the closet door gliding open. Conchita appeared. “Was that the Duchess of Benn?” she asked.
“It was.”
“That’s fingo all right!”
Maijstral raised, his eyebrows at this piece of cant. “Sorry?” he said.
“I mean, I’m impressed. You stole the Eltdown Shard from her and she not only still speaks to you, she looks for ways to ride off into the sunset with you.”
Maijstral blinked. There was a lot more to the Eltdown Shard story than ever reached the public, and he intended it stay that way. “I believe you were leaving,” he said.
“Well.” Conchita shrugged. “I suppose I was.”
“Shall I open a window for you?”
“No thanks, I got in through the ventilation.”
She popped a grill off the wall, floated up off the floor, entered feet-first, and paused to give a wave before she disappeared into the ventilator shaft. Maijstral walked to the service plate and touched it.
“Roman. Would you come in here, if you please?”
It was Drexler’s voice that answered. “Sorry, Mr. Maijstral. Roman left before dinner and hasn’t returned. May I be of service?”
Maijstral paused. It was most unlike Roman to be absent at this hour, when he; was usually required to unlace Maijstral from his jacket and trousers. Maijstral would have to summon a robot to do the job.
“Did Roman say where he was going?”
“No, sir. May I help you?”
First things first, Maijstral thought. “Yes,” he said.
“Miss Sparrow has returned. I don’t know if she left anything behind, but if she did, I want it found.”
“I’ll take care of that right away, sir.”
“Thank you, Drexler.”
Another long search of his own quarters, Maijstral thought wearily.
He hoped he wouldn’t have to get used to this.