The Hollow Crown Affair - McDaniel David - Страница 24

Illya spoke up. "Arranging for substitute lecturers? Are we planning on leaving unexpectedly?"

"No, Mr. Kuryakin. Nor immediately, nor suddenly. But possibly as soon as this evening."

"Golly, Dr. Fraser," said Lyn. "Is there going to be more trouble?"

"Not if we leave this evening," said Baldwin. "You need not concern yourself with it—but I will wish you to continue coming into the office daily and keeping my correspondence in order. I expect to be back well within the fortnight specified."

"I'd be glad to come in every day for the whole semester."

"You needn't. If I have not returned by Monday the fourteenth you are to tender my most sincere apologies to Drs. Berg and Carter, order all my papers and the contents of my desk, and send them to Mr. Alexander Waverly at an address which I shall give you."

Illya elbowed Napoleon and muttered, "In answer to your last question, I would not only say it was another code message, I'd even go so far as to say it told him to get ready to go tonight."

Solo nodded, and a few moments later, as Baldwin bent over some papers and Lyn dialed the telephone, he slipped quietly out. Morning classes were already in session, and sweatered students, some in rubber lab aprons, hurried up and down the hall. From one direction equipment hummed intermittently; from another lecturing voices droned through the steam-heated air of the corridors. He found a corner where he could sit and talk to his pen without attracting undue attention, and called New York.

Waverly stalled him for nearly a minute while recovering the data on floral interpretation from Section Four. "Hem," he said finally. "I think you have divined the meaning adequately already. You expect, of course, taking into account what you've heard from Mrs. Reynolds, that Irene will be coming sometime this evening to pick up Baldwin and convey him to a place of hiding."

"The flowers say all that?"

"If you know how to read them. Sweetpeas mean departure, Mr. Solo. The meaning of the white rose is said to be, quote, I am worthy of you. How many sweetpeas did you say?"

"Nineteen, sir."

"An odd number. I would suggest you expect hostilities to commence near seven o'clock this evening."

"Nineteen hundred hours, in other words."

"Precisely, Mr. Solo. If nothing happens until the nineteenth of October, I shall be very surprised."

"Especially since Baldwin expects to be back before then. I'll get in touch with you when I know a little more. Solo out."

* * *

After his three o'clock class, Baldwin gave Lyn the rest of the afternoon off—she seemed worried and wished him good luck—and returned to the Bomb Shop with his team of bodyguards. There he busied himself packing a few personal items while Solo and Kuryakin sat in the front room and fidgeted.

At five thirty he re-entered the comfortable sitting room and said, "Irene may arrive shortly; would you do me the favor of meeting her at the office? I have only a few more things to do here. And would you please carry this bag there for me? Thank you."

Solo took the small Gladstone and started for the door; Illya didn't rise. "You can handle that by yourself," he said as Baldwin left the room and the door closed solidly behind him. "Besides, I wonder if he might not be trying to split us up again. Mr. Waverly said nineteen hundred hours was the most likely time, and it's only half past seventeen."

"Well, let's check his marker," Napoleon suggested, hefting the bag. "It'll only take a minute."

The lock surrendered to a few seconds' work with one of Illya's patented pocket tools and the bag opened. On top of a blue-and-white striped flannel nightshirt with matching nightcap was an antique-gold-framed portrait of Irene. Napoleon looked at Illya and closed the bag. "He wouldn't leave this," he said. "Not with her picture in it."

"And not where anyone could find that nightshirt," said Illya. "You go ahead—I'll stick around here in case anything comes up prematurely."

Napoleon had been gone less than ten minutes when Baldwin came back into the sitting room. "Mr. Kuryakin, I've found I neglected to give Mr. Solo the key to my office, and Miss Stier will surely have gone home by this time. I have only a few minutes work left here, and shall follow you directly."

Illya rose reluctantly. "I shouldn't leave you alone if there's likely to be trouble, sir!" he said.

"Nonsense! I've been taking quite adequate care of myself for almost twice the length of your life. Here, take the key. The longer you delay the more likely Mr. Solo is to come back and you'll miss him in transit. I have no wish to spend the next two hours playing end man in an inane sequence from some French period farce."

"Look," said Illya, "sir. I'll leave my communicator with you. If anything happens you can call Napoleon; if I'm with him I'll hear the call." He slipped the little device out of his shirt pocket. "You turn the top like this to open the antenna, and push this little..."

"Mr. Kuryakin, I am intimately familiar with the operation of your transceivers. Very well—if it will ease your mind I shall keep it with me until I am able to join you." He accepted the communicator and clipped it somewhere inside his vest. Then he re-extended the key to Illya. "Now will you please take this key to Mr. Solo?"

Illya gave his heels a smart click. "Directly, sir," he said, wheeled crisply and marched out the door. Baldwin looked after him a moment, shaking his head slowly.

* * *

The mutter of muffled motors behind the Bomb Shop came faintly to Baldwin's ears less than an hour after he had dispatched Mr. Kuryakin. Twice in that interval he had answered inquiring calls from the two UNCLE agents; the second time he had said, "Mr. Solo, is there any way by which this unit may effectively be left off the hook? I have few things left to do, truly, but with your calling every five minutes to enquire after my health, it is taking me twice as long as it should. Please believe that I will call should any difficulties arise, and practice the virtue of patience." He slapped the little aerial back into its socket and resumed his time-killing perusal of a technical journal which was scheduled to be thrown out.

Now he looked up at the distant sound of heavy engines starting, and saw that two small lights on a wall panel were flickering inconspicuously. He rose, collected his stick, his overcoat and his hat, and picked up his smaller briefcase. Judging from the racket and the vibration he could feel clearly through the cement floor slab, they had brought in air-hammers to get through the back wall. He smiled. They would find there was a reason for its double protection. Two other lights on the panel flashed brightly and a muffled explosion shook the inner door as Baldwin closed the outer and stepped into a clear frosty evening.

A tarpaulin was draped loosely over his electric cart beside the door; he twitched it aside and got painfully in. A great hue and cry was going up around the rear of the Bomb Shop as he hummed quietly away into the gathering dusk, and flames were beginning to lick up through clouds of dense gray smoke. The noise had drawn away the men detailed to guard the front, and the damage to his laboratory should be minimal; the area that had exploded was shielded by steel and stone from his research facilities, and even before he hummed around the next corner out of sight he could see the flames shrinking amid clouds of steam as the automatic sprinkler system did its work.