19 - The Power Cube Affair (11 page)

"It's all right," Solo told her. "Nothing more to worry about. All over. We're friends." Her mumble grew fainter but was still there. Solo scowled, shook his head. "I'm not getting through. Miss Thompson!"

"Louise!" Kuryakin reached out to touch her hand gently, took hold of it. "No one is going to hurt you now. You're safe." It may have been his touch or the casual way in which he sat himself beside her on the bed, but all at once something seemed to snap in her and she turned to him blindly, reaching out to cling to him like a small child. As his arm went around her shoulders she thrust her face against his chest and began to shake. Solo sat and stared, then caught the chill gleam in his partner's blue eyes and nodded silently.

"That's all very well," Kuryakin muttered, "but what do we do now?"

EIGHT

IT WAS a good question, Solo considered it.

"We can't blow headquarters for help," he stated. "We've no transmitters—no clothes, come to that, although they will be about somewhere—and I hope they aren't awash with alcohol. But in any case we are not officially on a job, and they wouldn't be at all pleased with this mess."

"Putting it very mildly. Nor can we call up friend Charles, either, seeing that we never bothered to let Miss Perrell know what we were up to."

"True. And I am quite certain the police would take a very poor view indeed of a couple of—well, there are three dead bodies to account for!"

"Right!" Kuryakin murmured, gently stroking the soft shoulder that lay in his palm. "So there's only one thing left."

"That is?" Solo raised a brow. "Excuse me, I must have missed it. What?"

"We use Green's story. Plus a few twists of our own. That is, if we can persuade Louise here into a bit of cooperation."

Solo frowned, sniffed strongly, and rose to his feet. "Before anything else," he declared, "I'm going to stick my head under the tap and get rid of the perfume of hooch."

On the way back from the kitchen he located a bundled pile of clothing and grabbed it under his arm. Kuryakin was still sitting just as he had been before, but Miss Thompson had lifted her head and was staring at him.

"You say they are all dead?" she demanded, in a little girl voice quite different from her affected flute like tones. "Those three horrible men? Dead?"

"Right. We had no choice, Louise. It was them or us. You understand that, don't you?"

"That's absolutely true." Solo came to stand by the bed. "That was the whole plan, start to finish." Her eyes were enormous as she peered up at him. He sat gently. Kuryakin released her, patted her shoulder.

"Napoleon will look after you while I go and get this stuff washed off. And then we must work out what to do."

She watched him go out, then swept the room with a stare as if she had never seen it before. The missing door puzzled her.

"It got broken in the struggle," Solo explained. "I'm afraid your nice home is pretty well wrecked, Louise. Green succeeded in that much, at any rate."

"He meant you to be killed," she whispered. "He used me to get you here, so that he could kill you. He used me!"

"Shouldn't let it bother you. He's a very smart man. You wouldn't be the first one he's used. And you're luckier than most. You're still alive. There was another girl—" He saw the glistening tears start into her eyes and put out a helpless band to pat her. Once more she gave way to her feelings, but this time she was sobbing, harsh and wrenching sobs. There was nothing for him to do but wait for the storm to subside. And try to figure out what Illya had in mind. After a while coherent words began to come through her sobbing.

"I'm glad they are dead," she said. "If it's wicked of me, I don't care, I'm glad!" Kuryakin came back, shaking his wet hair. Solo looked at him resignedly, then asked:

"About this plan, Illya?"

"Yes. Louise, do you think you could help us now?"

"You want me to help you?" The enormity of the idea shocked her into forgetting her tears. "Me? But you must hate and despise me, after what I've done!"

"Don't be silly," Kuryakin told her kindly. "Green is a killer, and so is his chief. They are the ones we're after, not you. You believed you were doing something right and good. You didn't mean any harm!"

"Oh!" she wailed. "I've been such a fool! I thought we were going to have such a nice time together. I was so looking forward to it, and now—"

"Steady!" Solo checked an incipient outburst of further tears. "It's all right now, all over and done with. The thing now is to figure out some way to square everything up. You want to help, don't you?"

"I'll do anything!" she said fiercely. "Anything!"

"You won't have to do very much," Kuryakin assured her. "Green isn't the only one who can contrive things. Look, I'll draw the picture for you. Let's assume that you were here all alone. A quiet evening watching TV or listening to records, or just reading, whatever you prefer. Then, all at once, you hear a clatter as if someone is breaking in by the back door. So what do you do?"

"Eh?" She seemed baffled for a moment, then, "Oh! You mean—? I would be scared stiff. But then—I might just go as far as the kitchen door to look."

"Good! You do that. You open the door. You see two maybe three, big, rough men, breaking in. What do you do?"

"Scream like mad and run!"

"Good again. You run into here, this bedroom. You bolt the door. You're scared stiff. You hear somebody try the door, and you scream some more, but no one hears. Right? So the men abandon the door for the moment and start upsetting the place. They find the drink and start on it. They get rowdy and bust the place up. Then they remember you again and come for the door in earnest this time. They break it down, halfway. You scream as hard as you can. Then something puts them off. A noise, something. You don't know what. But they go away. All of them pile out by the back door, get into their car and drive off. You wait long enough to be sure they've gone; then you telephone the police. Now, do you understand all that?"

"Why, yes!" she said. "Of course. That's exactly what I would do."

"Fine. And that's the story you'll tell the police when they come. Just that. You didn't see the car, so you can't describe it, but you heard it. You can, and will, describe the men. Not Green, just the three seamen."

"You are indeed a very crafty Russian, Illya," put in Solo. "Green won't know a thing. He said himself he would be out of touch. One will get you ten he'll be aboard that yacht of his. It's the best alibi he could possibly have."

"And it gives us a week to catch up with him, Napoleon. If we can't nail him by then we don't deserve our reputations."

"What are you two?" she asked, swiveling her eyes from one to the other in wide interest. "Secret agents or something?"

"Certainly not!" Kuryakin contradicted. "We're foreign spies!" He grinned at her. For a moment her mouth gaped; then she caught it and laughed. It was a beautiful sound, but it went on a little bit too long. Solo lifted a palm warningly.

"No hysterics now, Louise. You've done very well so far."

She made an effort, calmed herself. "You're very clever, anyway," she decided, "and I want to do something to help. Anything!"

"Let's all start by getting some clothes on," Solo suggested, and she shrieked as she realized she was completely nude. She flushed rosy pink all over. The two men turned tactfully away and hurriedly sorted out their clothes, pointedly taking care not to turn again until they were dressed. But she was still naked.

"I don't care!" she said defiantly. "After what I did, luring you two here to your deaths—and then you saved my life— it doesn't seem to matter very much, does it? I mean—" and she went pink again. "I've always been a bit vain about my shape."

"Here in your own home," said Kuryakin, "it is entirely your own business whether you wear anything or not. But you'd better put something on your feet. There's a lot of broken glass about. Napoleon, you'd better take your handkerchief and wipe anywhere we might have left fingerprints. I'm going to break in the back door, from the outside."

She followed them around, watching and listening as they cleared up the odds and ends. She carefully refrained from looking at the bodies as they were hauled out the back way into the car. The two men came together amid the wreckage for a final check, and then something went click in Solo's mind as he turned to Louise for one last assurance that she knew her part.

"Just a minute," he breathed. "What was all that Green said, about you not going to the ball? What ball? You were being taken by his chief, I think he said, didn't he?"

"That's right!" she nodded her coppery head. "Mr. Green got me a lovely dress for it. Would you like to see it?" Before they could say anything she was away into the bed room and groping in a wardrobe there. Seconds later she came out putting the last touches to a jeweled clasp on her left shoulder. The material was something sheer that looked like spun gold foam, like an intangible shimmer between them and her. It swooped from either shoulder and met under her thrusting bosom, then molded itself and clung like metallic haze down to the ground.

"Do you like it?" she asked uncertainly. "Do you think it's just a wee bit too revealing? Mr. Green said it would be just right for this one evening, as it's a rather special affair. He said the topless fashion is the 'in' thing with private parties now."

"It would have to be a very special affair, for that," Kuryakin said. "Do you know where?"

"Let me guess," Solo interrupted. "The Danby place."

"How did you know that?" Her voice was shrill.

"Tricks in all trades, Louise. This chief of Green's, do you know him? Who he is, I mean?"

She shook her head. "No. Green just told me where to go. It's tomorrow evening, and I'm to go and meet the chief at his house. It's all arranged. At least, it was!" Her face fell.

"Wait!" Solo thought hard. "Green said he would be out of touch, that he wouldn't be able to inform his chief."

"Steady on, Napoleon. Remember what happened to Mary Chantry."

"I haven't forgotten. You're right, Illya. Once of that is enough. Forget all about it, Louise."

She turned and went back into the bedroom while they carried out their final checkup. Solo managed to find one unbroken bottle amid the wreckage and rescued it. "We can use this for atmosphere in the car," he decided. "I think that's just about everything." He turned to see her return, as naked as a baby and with a determined look on her face.

"It's not everything," she declared. "Please, you two, look at me. You were going to ask me to do something and then you stopped because it might be dangerous. And it's not fair. I told you I would do anything. I want to. Look at me!" She spread her arms wide and appealingly. "What would I be now, if you two hadn't saved me? Let me help!"

"You don't need to be told what kind of people we are dealing with."

"Of course I don't. I know. What do you want me to do?"

"There's nothing much to it," Solo said swiftly. "Just go through with the party arrangements as they were made, go to meet the chief man—where's that, incidentally?"

"It's a private estate, a house called Piedmont, about twenty miles the other side of Norwood. I'm to take a taxi from the station."

"All right. If you do that, carry on as planned, go to the Danby affair—we will be there too. Don't acknowledge us. Just give some kind of sign, a touch of the hand to your hair will do, so we can identify the chief. That's all! We just want to know who he is."

"Nothing more than that," Kuryakin stressed. "And you can still back out, if you want to. Just say."

"I certainly won't back out. The one bit I don't like is that you'll be there and I won't be able to speak to you. I suppose you'll be with some other girls? Beautiful ones?"

"Only one," Solo grinned. "And—yes, she's beautiful, but not in your class, Louise."

"I'm glad you think I'm beautiful. I never really cared before, but I'm glad now. I suppose"—she was suddenly wistful—"once you're done with this job I'll never see you again, either of you."

"Hard to tell," Kuryakin said.

"You'll always be welcome."

"Yes. Well now..." Solo cleared his throat. "You know what to do? As soon as you hear the car drive off, wait five minutes and then ring the law. You know what to tell them? Right. Until we meet again." He had half-turned to the door, but she came quickly to catch him, to pull his head down and kiss him. Then Kuryakin. Then she stood back.

"Until the next time," she said.

Solo settled himself behind the wheel. Ponti's body lay stretched on the floor by his feet. The other two were in the back. Kuryakin was keeping his feet on them.

Solo let the car purr out of the alleyway and into the road, then up the gradient. Villas slumbered on the left, secure behind their hedges. On the right the slope fell away steeply, with young saplings here and there to provide a semblance of a wood. They came to a sharp left hand curve.

"This will do, Illya. Get down there, see if the road is clear. I don't want to smash up some innocent bystander." He kept the engine purring while Kuryakin went slithering and skidding down the grassy slope to the road below. Out of the gloom, within a few seconds, came a shrill whistle, twice. Solo sighed, tilted the whiskey bottle liberally over the bodies, let in the clutch, steered the car at the slope, then threw the door open and fell out briskly, rolling over and over three times before he could seize a sapling to halt himself. In the gloom he saw the pale bulk of the car go rolling onward and down. In a moment he saw Kuryakin come back up the slope, using hands and feet and staring back over his shoulder. Then there came a most satisfying crash and jangle.

They regained the road and began to walk back, nodding a silent goodnight as they passed The Nest. Five minutes more brought them to the stone steps and down in an official manner to the main road below. An elderly couple waited dismally at a bus stop. The man eyed them.

"Been here ten minutes," he complained, "and not a sign. I reckon it's gone. The last one."