Not Less Than Gods (19 page)

“We saw no one enter or leave, sir.”

“Bah. We’ll need more information. Here’s a possibility . . .” Ludbridge picked up the photograph showing the building front, and pointed at the
vacant house next door. “That looks like a proper lock with a keyhole to me. Are you very tired, Bell-Fairfax?”

“No, sir.”

“Then let’s go for a little walk, shall we?” Ludbridge went to his trunk and, opening it, removed a few items and slipped them into his pockets.

The Cadde-i Kebir slept, but for one or two coffee houses spilling yellow lamplight into the street. They crossed to the opposite curbs passing them, keeping to the shadows. Without speaking, Ludbridge drew a brandy flask from his coat and passed it to Bell-Fairfax. Bell-Fairfax had a mouthful of brandy and passed it back. Ludbridge drank too and dabbed a little on his lapels for good measure. They encountered no night watchmen who might take them for an innocent pair of inebriates, however, and quickly reached the side street opposite the Corsican’s bar.

At the end of the block were the houses in question, three in a row with vacant black windows. Ludbridge spotted the blue door of the midmost house, and grunted in disapproval. There were indeed no hinges visible, nor even a doorknob.

Next door, however . . .

He drew a small cylinder from his waistcoat pocket and twisted it. The tiny vacuum lamp in the end lit up, for which Ludbridge was grateful; this particular field apparatus tended to be temperamental. It flickered slightly, even so, as he surveyed the door’s hinges and then its lock in rapid succession.

“Bugger,” Ludbridge whispered. He reached out, grabbed Bell-Fairfax’s hand and stuck the lamp in it, and was pleased to note that the younger man understood to keep the dim pool of light hovering over the lock. Ludbridge next drew a vial of penetrating oil from his pocket, as well as a tiny apparatus with a nozzle and plunger. Deftly screwing it into the vial, he sprayed oil into the keyhole, and all around the knob and lock bolt where it met the striker plate. At last he thoroughly oiled
the hinges. Slipping the vial back in his pocket, he drew out a slender case of lock picks.

A moment’s work opened the lock. The door opened with a satisfying lack of noise. They slipped inside, into ammoniac darkness and silence.

“This place is infested with rats,” whispered Bell-Fairfax, sounding pained. He lifted the little lamp and swung its beam about, but it failed to show them anything beyond a three-foot radius. This was enough to let them glimpse the filthy entryway, littered with fallen plaster-flakes and the evidence of rats, in which they stood. A black doorway yawned to their right; before them a staircase ascended into blackness.

Muttering something uncomplimentary about de la Rue, Ludbridge took the lamp and started up the stairs, as slowly and silently as could be managed. Thanks, perhaps, to the dank atmosphere, the staircase creaked little, though its timbers were alarmingly spongy. Ludbridge, reaching the first landing, held the lamp out as far as he might and saw nothing but more steps ascending, more dust, more fallen debris and black mold. Deciding that they had climbed far enough, he handed the lamp to Bell-Fairfax once again and took out the last of the objects he had brought with him. It was a tiny tin case, no bigger than a snuffbox.

Bell-Fairfax, watching as he opened it, glimpsed a number of small black cylinders of metal lined up on a card. They were identical to the miniature crossbow bolt presently lodged in the window frame of the Russian Embassy. Ludbridge selected one, briefly checked the number engraved on its side and, lifting it between finger and thumb, looked up at the wall adjoining the apartments next door. He waved to indicate that Bell-Fairfax ought to hold up the lamp. A moment’s cursory search by its light located what he wanted: a hole left by a nail or screw, where once a lamp bracket had hung. He wedged the bolt in, twisting it to fit securely into the crumbling plaster.

“Done,” he murmured, closing the case and slipping it back into his pocket. He wiped his hands and they went back down the stairs, as slowly as they had entered. Ludbridge took back the lamp at the
door, shut it off and thrust it into the depths of his coat, and they crept out.

As they climbed the hotel stairs to their room they spotted Hobson, climbing slowly and deliberately ahead of them.

“Hello,” said Ludbridge, with a scowl. “Lingered over your sandwich, did you?”

“Took forever to wake the foreign bugger up,” said Hobson. “Sorry.”

Nothing more was said until they were well inside their room, when Ludbridge went to the table where his sketch was still laid out. Grabbing up his pencil, he jotted something on a scrap of paper and handed it to Hobson.

“There. Tune to that frequency tomorrow, and listen closely. Make a note of every blessed thing you hear and write it down.”

“But I don’t speak Russian,” said Hobson.

“You won’t be listening for Russian. You’ll be listening for signs of life. Footsteps, yawns, snores, anything. Note them all, with the times you hear them and whether they sound close or distant, and whether it sounds as though one or two persons are there. And if you do overhear voices, whether they’re speaking Russian or Greek, switch over to London and tell them immediately.”

“How long am I to listen?”

“All day.”

“That’ll be a bit of a bore, won’t it? What, just sit there doing nothing else all day?”

“You’d damned well better,” said Ludbridge, without raising his voice. “That’s an order, in case I hadn’t made myself sufficiently clear.”

“It is a bit hard on old Johnny, you know,” said Pengrove the next day, as he propped the talbotype camera on its teetering legs and removed the lens cap. He backed up a pace or two to be sure it was actually pointed at Hagia Sophia—they had mended the camera as best they could, but the
brass lens tube was still canted at a slightly eccentric angle—and, turning, took an unobtrusive shot with his hat-camera. “I mean, here we are, seeing the sights, enjoying ourselves, wine and roses, olive-skinned charmers and whatnot, gorgeous vistas of Mount Olympus, et cetera, and he has to sit in a room and listen to a machine buzzing.”

“He’s got it dead easy,” said Ludbridge. “There are a number of less pleasant things he might be obliged to do.”

“That’s probably true,” said Pengrove, turning to get a few inconspicuous shots of the ships in the harbor. “But so far he’s been out for a walk once, and sat in a bar and behaved like an imbecile. Whereas Bell-Fairfax and I have behaved like imbeciles in all sorts of wonderfully scenic places. Haven’t we, Bell-Fairfax?”

“We have,” said Bell-Fairfax, who was busy setting up the developing tent.

“Such as places where there are dancing girls. And it really might cheer Hobson up a great deal if we could take him for a jolly night out. There was this girl who could flip over an entire row of half-crowns using only the muscles of her—”

“A man ought to be able to do his job whether or not he’s bored,” said Ludbridge, with an air of finality. Bell-Fairfax caught Pengrove’s eye and, just perceptibly, shook his head. Pengrove sighed. He checked his watch and, slipping it back in its pocket, replaced the lens cap. Wrestling the camera into the tent, he set to work developing the plate, and presently the sounds of splashes and coughing drifted forth.

Ludbridge and Bell-Fairfax lounged outside the tent, passing a flask between them and pretending to drink. As they loitered there, Ludbridge lowered the flask suddenly and stared at a group of tourists approaching.

“Hallo! Pengrove, here’s your Americans again.”

The four men were walking backward to get a better view of Hagia Sophia, and the older one in the shovel hat was pointing and talking.

“. . . disgrace and a reproach to the Christian world. I’ll grant you the Byzantines were a lot of decadent Greeks, but that’s no excuse for the rest of us. The Russians at least . . .”

“I shouldn’t wonder if that is the Reverend Amasa Breedlove,” said Ludbridge under his breath. “And his Bible students, I expect.”

“Odd sort of Americans,” said Bell-Fairfax, watching them sidelong.

“What’d you expect them to look like?”

Bell-Fairfax shrugged. “We put in at New York once. There were all sorts, just as you might see in London. Rather more slipshod and rough, I suppose. Their accent was different.”

“Well, perhaps Tennesseans and New Yorkeans speak in different accents,” said Ludbridge. “And you couldn’t call these fellows slipshod. Something military in their bearing, don’t you think?”

Bell-Fairfax nodded. The Americans kept backing toward them.

“. . . the duty of the white race to see to it that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. Now, I’ll tell you what: a nation that wasn’t being run by a lot of fools and cowards could come in here with a fleet of warships and set things to rights in two minutes flat,” announced the reverend in the shovel hat.

“Ah,” said Ludbridge. Pengrove emerged from the tent, waving his negative print of Hagia Sophia, staggering from the fumes.

“Look here, chaps, this one turned out rather well—,” he croaked, holding out the negative just as one of the Americans collided with him. The man turned sharply.

“Watch yourself, sir!” he said. He swept Pengrove with a glance and contempt came into his gray eyes.

“Oh, watch your own dashed self,” cried Pengrove. “Look at that, look, you’ve made me drop my Hagia Sophia, what? I mean, really!”

“You should have watched where you were going,” said the American.

“Well, you oughtn’t to have been walking backward,” said Pengrove, catching his monocle as it fell out of his eye. Unhappily inspired by the Muse of Comedy, he went on: “But then I’ve always heard you Americans are a backward lot, eh? In fact.” He jabbed the American in the ribs. “In fact, you’re a nation of ‘backwardsmen’! D’y’get it? Like Natty Bumppo, what?”

The American stiffened. “You force me to call you to account for this, sir.”

Ludbridge and Bell-Fairfax stepped forward at once.

“Now, now, let’s not be hasty—,” said Ludbridge, waving his flask. He took a mouthful of brandy and exhaled on the American. “Young friend just having a bit of fun. Can’t hold his liquor.”

“You insulted the great nation of the United States,” said the American, glaring at Pengrove. “I demand satisfaction.”

“Fight a
duel
?” squeaked Pengrove, appalled. “I say, you must be joking! Haven’t got a pistol, and anyhow—” The American threw open his black coat to reveal a pistol in a holster.

“Here’s mine. Gentlemen, may we borrow the loan of one of yours?” His countrymen opened their coats as well, all but the clergyman. He stepped forward and laid his hand on the shoulder of the offended one.

“Jackson, I must ask you to let it be,” he said. “These men are clearly drunkards. Him that draws on creatures like these stains his honor.”

Bell-Fairfax started forward, but Ludbridge put out an arm and elbowed him in the chest. “That’s so, Vicar, that’s so, we’re a little the worse for drink. Charley will apologize to the chap, won’t you, Charley?”

“I’m most frightfully sorry!” said Pengrove, holding out his hand. “No intention of giving offense, old man!”

The American drew back his arm. “Dr. Breedlove, sir, I cannot let this pass.”

“You will,” said the clergyman, in a low and urgent voice. “He is not worth your time.”

“No, I certainly ain’t,” said Pengrove, hurriedly stepping behind Ludbridge. The American sneered at him.

“So you’re a coward? Well, Doctor, I guess you’re right. Honor’s satisfied.”

He turned his back on Ludbridge. As they walked away, Dr. Breedlove could be heard declaring: “. . . lesson to you why the degenerate and effete races of Europe have let things get into the state they’re in.”

“At least we’re not as bad as the French,” called Pengrove. They ignored him. He bent down and picked up his talbotype negative, which had gotten stepped on. “Oh, look at that! They trampled Holy Wisdom underfoot.”

“They almost trampled
you
underfoot,” said Ludbridge in exasperation. He rounded on Bell-Fairfax. “And if you haven’t better sense than to respond to a bully’s provocation, what bleeding use are you in this work?”

“There is such a thing as honor, however,” said Bell-Fairfax, watching the Americans go.

“Not for a man in our line of work,” said Ludbridge. “Too great a luxury. You’d have done better to wonder why a class of Bible students went so heavily armed.”

“Well, but they’re Americans,” said Pengrove.

“Indeed they are.” Ludbridge turned and watched them striding onward. “Armed Americans with the decided intent to change the world to suit themselves. Worrisome . . .”

Hobson was sitting upright and clear-eyed when they returned, though he had closed up the Aetheric Transmitter.

“You’re not at your post for a reason, I suppose?” said Ludbridge, scowling at him, but Hobson stood and offered three sheets of foolscap closely covered in writing.

“I’ve found out a great deal, sir. Your fellow
is
alone there, only heard one set of footsteps tramping about for the longest time. But then, company called on him! Must have been four or five other chaps. They brought him things—food and liquor and such.”

“Russians?”

“No, sir, Greeks. And then they all sat and jabbered away in Greek together for a good long time, and I alerted London just as you said, and they listened in too. It’s rather awful. The Sultan has a trick of slipping out the side entrance of mosques, after he’s been in to pray; leaves his guards and his marching bands and his pashas outside. Your Arvanitis chap thinks if they observe the Sultan’s movements often enough, they’ll be able to predict which mosque he’ll visit on a given day, and station someone with a pistol where they can get off a shot at him. The translator sent a report for you.” Hobson waved the foolscap up and down.

“Well done.” Ludbridge took the report and, sinking onto the edge of his bed, started to read through it. He looked up again. “You’ve earned yourself a good dinner. Bell-Fairfax, Pengrove, take him down and see that he eats.”